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Ari Winkleman

What We’re Watching: NATO members’ defense budgets, Social Security as a political weapon, China’s support for Sri Lanka

NATO chief wants more defense spending

As Russian aggression in Ukraine enters year two, NATO members need to boost their defense spending. That was the message from NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg Wednesday after a summit with member states’ defense ministers. Back in 2014, around the time of Russia’s invasion of Crimea, NATO states committed to raising their respective defense spending to 2% of gross domestic product. (NATO’s direct budget is separate from national defense budgets.) Still, while many have increased their spending on military equipment and training, most NATO states – including Germany, France, Italy, and Canada – still fall short of the 2% threshold. The US, for its part, leads the pack, spending 3.47% of GDP on defense. (You’ll likely remember that former President Donald Trump made a habit of slamming NATO members, particularly Germany, for not paying their fair share. As war ravages Europe again and tensions with China soar, Stoltenberg says that the 2% target, which expires next year, should be the floor – not the ceiling. Finland and Sweden, both vying to join the bloc, respectively spend 2% and 1.3% of GDP on defense.

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Ian Explains: Debt Ceiling | GZERO World

Ian Explains: The debt ceiling

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen announced that her department had begun using extraordinary cash management measures to prevent a credit default until June 5th, but the clock is ticking. If Congress fails to increase the debt ceiling by the time the Treasury runs out of cash, then the US government could default on its loans for the first time in history, Ian Bremmer explains. Not only would this shake investor confidence in US bonds, raising the prospect of an American recession, but because US debt is the cornerstone of the world economy, it could also spark a global financial calamity.

So, what’s the holdup? Politics, of course. Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who handed the hard-right delegation of his party everything short of a kidney to secure his leadership role, is signaling that the only way Republicans will agree to increase the debt ceiling is if President Biden works with them on spending cuts in the federal budget—a budget that has grown nearly 30% over the last three years.

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Who Will Cave On Raising US Debt Ceiling (Again?) | GZERO World

Who will cave on raising US debt ceiling (again?)

In a development that will surprise exactly no one, there’s more than a little kicking and screaming going on these days in Washington over the debt ceiling debate. On GZERO World, Utah Senator Mitt Romney, a throwback from another era of US politics, has a message for the rabble-rousers on both sides: pipe down.

That means stop playing brinkmanship with a US debt default, Romney tells Ian Bremmer in the latest episode of GZERO World.

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Is The GOP Still a MAGA Party? Or Just Trump's Party? | GZERO World

Is the GOP still a MAGA party? Or just Trump's party?

There's a lot of hand-wringing going on right now within Republican ranks after the GOP's worse than expected midterm results.

The big question is: Is the Republican party still the party of Trump? NPR White House correspondent Tamara Keith tells Ian Bremmer that there may be no going back to what the party used to be.

"There's just a lot of people in the Republican party who don't see themselves going back to the nice, polite Mitch McConnell, Bob Dole Republican Party," Keith says in this week's episode of GZERO World.

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Paige Fusco

Democrats and Republicans unite! At least against China.

This week, the US Senate passed the so-called Endless Frontier Act, a $250 billion investment in development of artificial intelligence, quantum computing, the manufacture of semiconductors, and other tech-related sectors. The goal is to harness the combined power of America's public and private sectors to meet the tech challenges posed by China.

In its current form, this is the biggest diversion of public funds into the private sector to achieve strategic goals in many decades. The details of this package, and of the Senate vote, say a lot about US foreign-policy priorities and this bill's chances of becoming law.

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Partisan Wrangling Likely To Block Jan 6 Commission in Congress | US Politics In :60 | GZERO Media

Partisan wrangling likely to block January 6 commission in Congress

Get insights on the latest news in US politics from Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington:

What is the status of the proposed January 6 commission to investigate the Capitol assault?

The January 6 commission was an idea originally from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who proposed a commission modeled after the very successful 9/11 commission, which looked at intelligence failures leading up to the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers in Manhattan on September 11th, 2001. Pelosi wanted to form a bipartisan commission to look at the Capitol insurrection on January 6th. Why it happened, how it happened, what the security failures were that led to it happening, who's responsible, and how to prevent it from ever happening again? And initially, Republicans were fairly cold to this idea because Pelosi had proposed a commission that was stacked in favor of the Democrats, with more democratic members than Republicans. House Republican minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, empowered representative John Katko from New York to go ahead and negotiate the commission. And eventually he came up with a compromised proposal that would have been evenly balanced between Republicans and Democrats, had subpoena power, and been able to produce a report by the end of the year.

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What You Should Know About Elise Stefanik’s Rise in the GOP | US Politics In :60 | GZERO Media

What you should know about Elise Stefanik’s rise in the GOP

Get insights on the latest news in US politics from Jon Lieber, head of Eurasia Group's coverage of political and policy developments in Washington:

Who is Elise Stefanik and what does she mean for the Republican Party right now?

Elise Stefanik is a young member from Upstate New York. She had originally started her career as a staffer in the George W. Bush administration, but in recent years, has turned into one of the most outspoken defenders of President Donald Trump, particularly during the impeachment trial last year. She's relevant right now because it looks like she'll be replacing Liz Cheney, the Representative from Wyoming and also the daughter of the former Vice President, who has been outspoken in her criticism of President Trump since the January 6th insurrection, and probably more importantly, outspoken in her criticism of the direction of the Republican Party.

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Trump-backed insurgents are ready to do battle with establishment Republicans across the United States in coming years. How will this war be waged?

Gabriella Turrisi

Republican civil war

"There's no question, none — that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking" the January 6 Capitol building riot. That attack was the "foreseeable consequence of the crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories and reckless hyperbole, which the defeated president kept shouting into the largest megaphone on the Earth."

So said Kentucky's Mitch McConnell, US Senate Republican leader since 2006, just after voting last Saturday to acquit the president of high crimes and misdemeanors following Trump's Senate impeachment trial.

On Tuesday, Trump punched back. "Mitch is a dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack, and if Republican Senators are going to stay with him, they will not win again." On Thursday, the pro-Trump chairman of Kentucky's Republican Party called on McConnell to resign as Republican leader.

The battle is joined.

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