Global Intelligence: Week of May 1, 2017

For all the White House's efforts to downplay the 100-day benchmark of the Trump presidency, which came April 29, the president himself appeared to have been the most preoccupied with the public referendum on his performance that the date invited. The week was jam-packed with statements emanating from the White House in an attempt to show a series of demonstrable wins. And yet again, the world was left to decipher what was theater and what was real policy. On the domestic front, Trump's attempt to force a congressional vote on health care reform and strong-arm spending on the border wall predictably flopped with lawmakers more concerned with averting a government shutdown for at least another week. On the foreign policy front, the fate of NAFTA and the evolving U.S. policy on North Korea dominated the stage....