Daleep Singh and Peter Harrell for the Center for a New American Security: The uncertain results of President Trump’s June 12 summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, and history of unmet expectations from past efforts, bring home the fact that the United States needs to keep developing tools to intensify the “maximum pressure” campaign that helped bring North Korea to the negotiating table.
If North Korea proves unwilling to denuclearize and diplomacy breaks down once again, the Trump administration will need game-changing options in its sanctions arsenal, both to demonstrate resolve and, above all, to avoid stumbling into a nuclear-tipped military showdown under the mistaken belief that viable alternatives do not exist. Transformative options using sanctions are available. But pursuing them will require direct action against China, which has long served as North Korea’s economic lifeline and, even before the Trump-Kim meeting, appeared to be resuming trade with Pyongyang.
Indeed, a truly “maximum pressure” campaign on North Korea would require the United States to change China’s strategic calculus. Since early 2017, Trump and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley have skillfully convinced China to support multiple rounds of U.N. Security Council sanctions on Pyongyang. Trump has also shown a willingness to impose sanctions on Chinese companies that engage in commerce with North Korea despite the U.N. measures, including imposing U.S. sanctions on a mid-size Chinese bank and sanctioning Chinese companies that bought North Korean commodity exports and sold goods to North Korea.
These actions have convinced China to ramp up border inspections and to significantly reduce trade and financial ties with Pyongyang. But none of the sanctions actions last year motivated Chinese President Xi Jinping to fully cut off North Korea’s crude oil supply or block North Korea’s remaining exports, as China aims to balance its interest in complying with sanctions against its interest in maintaining long-standing ties to North Korea. At a minimum, the United States should make clear that it will maintain the current sanctions.
Moreover, should North Korea again demonstrate bad faith and this latest effort collapse, effective new pressure will be needed, and this time will require the credible threat of targeted sanctions against China itself.
Principals are principal
Roxanne Garza for New America: A recent survey by the National Center for Education Statistics finds that teachers who are satisfied with how things are run at their school are also more likely to be satisfied with their salaries. And the person “running things”? The school principal — a player who has largely been missing from the broader conversation on improving teacher workplace satisfaction, despite the fact that the principal, in many ways, holds the keys to teacher success.
School leaders are crucial to the progress of a school: Research commissioned by the Wallace Foundation in 2010 didn’t find “a single case of a school improving its student achievement record in the absence of talented leadership.” Likewise, other research has found that the quality of school leadership is one of the most important factors in whether a teacher decides to stay or leave a school. And yet, for years policymakers have primarily focused their time and resources on how to improve and assess teacher quality, with less focus on the leaders who create the conditions necessary for teachers to thrive.
Principals have a big job, with several implications for teachers. Most people think of principals’ roles as setting the school’s vision, interpreting and implementing education policy, and managing schedules, budgets, community and family relationships, student safety, and a slew of other organizational tasks. But while that’s true, increasingly principals are also expected to excel as “instructional leaders” by doing things like providing feedback and coaching teachers, and connecting instructional approaches and curricular resources to state standards. On top of that, they are expected to use student learning data to inform professional learning for teachers.
Soda taxes fizz out
Alec Fornwalt and Nicole Kaeding for the Tax Foundation: An independent panel advising the World Health Organization defied expectations. Instead of recommending that nations across the globe tax sugary drinks, the panel stopped just short, because of pressure from the United States.
The WHO Independent High-Level Commission on Noncommunicable Diseases was charged with providing suggestions on how to reduce premature deaths from diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease, and obesity. One such idea, pushed by many countries and the WHO itself, was a tax on sugary drinks, following the models created by Mexico, France, and Britain.
However, the Trump administration argued against recommending the tax, as the research has demonstrated that these type of taxes are ineffective.
We at the Tax Foundation have written often about the flaws of taxing sugary beverages. As it turns out, while sugary drinks can have negative health benefits if you drink too many, so can a lot of other things. A study done in 2010 by Yale economist Jordan Fletcher showed that young people (for whom money is more of a factor) do in fact switch away from soda when soda is taxed, but they replace it with other potentially unhealthy options.
• Compiled by Joseph Lawler from research by the various think tanks.
