A Spend in the Road

Question: Who would have guessed that America’s decision to simultaneously reduce international spending and global decency would quickly backfire, provide an opening for our adversaries to fill the void, and leave us scrambling to fix a mess of our own making? Answer: Pretty much everyone other than the handful of people running our executive branch. And even they’re figuring it out. “The Trump administration is preparing to ramp up funding by hundreds of millions of dollars for programs designed to counter China’s growing influence around the world, after it had put a halt to many of those initiatives last year during a flurry of budget and personnel cuts.” AP: US looks to boost anti-China spending worldwide by hundreds of millions. (Refilling the coffers will be a lot easier than rebuilding the trust and goodwill.)