Category: Academic Reportage

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Wil Burns, Professor of Research in Environmental Policy, American University School of International Service

Innovators who are working on ways to pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to fight climate change are having a tough time lately.

Their biggest supporter, Microsoft, recently began telling partners that it is pausing its carbon removal purchases. To get a sense of how big of a deal this is, look at the numbers: The tech company alone has purchased approximately 80% of the contracted cumulative volume of carbon removals to date. Its retrenchment is viewed as potentially a major blow to the sector.

However, there may be a bright spot for this industry, and it comes from an unexpected source: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency quietly decided in March to grant a research permit under the Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act to a Houston-based carbon removal startup.

The company, Carboniferous, aims to assess the potential to durably lock up greenhouse gases by harvesting plants that took in carbon dioxide on land and sinking them to the bottom of the ocean.

This approach is often called “ocean biomass sinking,” or marine anoxic carbon storage.

Ocean biomass sinking is one of several carbon removal approaches involving the ocean known as “marine carbon dioxide removal.” Other marine approaches include adding alkaline materials that react with seawater to increase the uptake of carbon dioxide, seeding oceans with iron to stimulate the growth of phytoplankton that can take up carbon dioxide, and farming seaweed to also take up carbon dioxide and sink it.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which compiles research on climate change from scientists around the world, calls carbon dioxide removal “unavoidable” if the world hopes to keep rising temperatures in check and achieving the targets of the Paris climate agreement.

But is sinking biomass in the ocean the answer?

I am the co-founding director of the Institute for Responsible Carbon Removal at American University, and I have reviewed several of these projects. I see both pros and cons to ocean carbon removal techniques.

How ocean biomass sinking works

Carboniferous plans to carry out its field experiment in the Orca Basin off the coast of Louisiana. The basin is anoxic, meaning devoid of oxygen, and has a higher concentration of salt that most seawater. The EPA permit lets the company sink 20 burlap sacks containing sugarcane residue and monitoring equipment to the bottom of the sea there to study what happens.

Globally, land vegetation, including trees and crops, sequesters approximately 60 billion tons of carbon per year. However, a large portion of this carbon is quickly released back into the atmosphere – often within months to years – when the vegetation dies and decomposes, or is burned.

Ocean biomass sinking aims to lock up that carbon on the ocean floor in low-oxygen areas, where decomposition is much slower. Anaerobic processes, such as fermentation, may leave the biomass largely intact for centuries or millennia. Colder water environments can also slow the rate of biomass decay.

The concerns

Two questions that arise are whether this approach would be effective at the scale needed and what risks it might pose to ocean ecosystems.

Recent studies have estimated that ocean biomass storage projects could durably store somewhere between 0.1 and 1 gigatons of carbon dioxide annually. That sounds like a lot, but humanity may need to remove 7 to 9 gigatons of carbon dioxide each year from the atmosphere by the middle of the century and up to 20 gigatons per year by 2100 to meet global climate goals and avoid dangerously high temperatures.

A bigger concern is that substantially increasing organic matter in deep ocean environments might stimulate the growth of anaerobic bacteria, which can produce methane, a potent greenhouse gas that could offset much of the benefits of this approach.

Proponents of ocean biomass storage counter that the absence of vertical mixing among the water layers in ocean ecosystems would prevent any additional methane releases from ultimately escaping to the atmosphere. Further research is clearly required to know the risks.

Ocean biomass storage might also pose environmental and economic risks. As biomass descends in the water column, it has the potential to release particulates or organic matter, which could alter the activities of microbes as well as the food supply and oxygen in the ocean mesopelagic zone. The zone is a busy region of high productivity and home to a million undescribed species. The result could harm commercial fisheries and other species.

It’s also unclear how seafloor communities, such as bacteria, other microbes and fungi, might respond to the introduction of massive amounts of biomass.

And the introduction of large amounts of additional biomass in deep-ocean regions might attract species that feed on dead plant material, or their predators, which could alter species interactions in ecosystems that scientists know very little about. Those effects could be further exacerbated by decaying biomass reducing oxygen in seafloor environments and potentially increasing the release of hydrogen sulfide, methane, nitrous oxide and nitrogen and phosphorus compounds.

Other ways to store carbon in the oceans

Carboniferous is not the only company focused on ocean biomass storage. Israel-based Rewind is currently experimenting with burying waste plant matter from farms and cities in an anoxic Black Sea region off the coast of Romania, as well as beneath seabed sediments in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Haifa in Israel. The company believes that it could sink 1 million tons of biomass residue annually by 2030.

Another Israeli company, BlueGreen Water Technologies, takes a very different approach. Instead of collecting biomass from terrestrial sources, it uses a solution of hydrogen peroxide to kill, and ultimately sink, toxic harmful algal blooms made up of cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae. This approach may also eliminate blooms that can devastate aquatic environments by creating low-oxygen dead zones. And because algae sequester substantial amounts of carbon, the company claims that this approach could also remove billions of tons of carbon from the atmosphere in ocean and freshwater ecosystems.

The world’s oceans are by far Earth’s largest carbon sink, storing roughly 50 times more carbon than the atmosphere and 20 times more than terrestrial forests and soils combined. This provides a compelling case to explore marine carbon removal options.

However, as is the case with all marine-based approaches, ocean biomass storage raises an array of questions that need to be resolved before the world can consider deploying it on a large scale. Carboniferous’ research program is one piece of this puzzle.

Wil Burns does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. A deep-ocean climate plan wins rare EPA approval, but is sinking plants in the sea the answer? – https://theconversation.com/a-deep-ocean-climate-plan-wins-rare-epa-approval-but-is-sinking-plants-in-the-sea-the-answer-282361

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Amanda Moniz, David M. Rubenstein Curator of Philanthropy, Smithsonian Institution

John Hancock did something revolutionary 250 years ago when the Massachusetts merchant signed the Declaration of Independence, announcing to the world that 13 English colonies were freeing themselves from Great Britain and from monarchy.

About a decade later, he signed up as a member of a charity aiding drowning strangers.

That endeavor was revolutionary, too.

As I explain in my 2016 book, “From Empire to Humanity,” the American Revolution transformed how Americans, and also Britons, engaged in giving. Many Americans turned to philanthropy after gaining independence to pursue their ideals of life, liberty and happiness for the new nation.

And while curating the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History’s “Giving in America” exhibition, for which I collect objects telling stories about Americans’ volunteering, donating and working to aid others, I’m often reminded that Americans still pursue these ideals through their everyday philanthropy.

Charity in North American colonies

Hancock, who was born in Braintree, Massachusetts, on Jan. 23, 1737, grew up in a world where men like his uncle Thomas Hancock dominated charitable activity. Thomas Hancock had made a fortune in business ventures, including the slave trade and military contracting. When he died, he left an array of charitable bequests, including one used for Communion silver for his church.

By having Thomas Hancock’s name engraved on the silver plates, the church leaders highlighted what colonial Americans knew: Leadership in philanthropy, as in society at large, was in the hands of elite white men.

That uncle raised John after his father’s death, educating him so he would be prepared for business and civic leadership.

When colonists fell on hard times, they might be eligible for an early form of governmental benefits, known as “poor relief.” They could also turn to their churches, to one another or to a small number of ethnic aid societies, such as Boston’s Scots Society, for support.

In the mid-1700s, Americans founded a number of new welfare and educational institutions, including colleges and charity schools. Benjamin Franklin, a leading philanthropic innovator, helped establish the Pennsylvania Hospital with mixed public and private funding. That funding model would later become common for charitable institutions.

The Revolutionary War interrupted these developments. After independence was won in 1783, the number of charitable organizations and institutions would soon soar.

Humane societies to protect people

U.S. charitable institutions began to rapidly change in the 1780s, as Americans sought to reform society by establishing organizations to support people in need.

One of those groups was the charity dedicated to rescuing drowning victims and aiding shipwrecked sailors that John Hancock joined, along with Paul Revere. It was known as the Humane Society of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and, like other similar groups, offered rewards or honors to motivate people to undertake the risky work of saving people from watery graves.

Americans in several cities, along with their peers in the British Isles, the Caribbean and Europe, worked together by publicizing resuscitation techniques, sharing information on effective methods and offering each other moral support.

“Humane” was a popular word in the names of charities dedicated to an array of causes in this era, long before it became associated with the protection of animal welfare.

Philanthropy’s meaning at the time

Throughout the 1700s and much of the 1800s, the word “philanthropy” referred to a sentiment – the love of humanity. That reflected the word’s origins: It’s derived from the Greek words for “love” – “philos” – and “anthropos” – “man.”

For Americans of the founding generation, philanthropy meant, above all else, aiding strangers – people outside their local, religious or ethnic community. Spurred by African Americans’ advocacy, some prominent white Americans, such as Alexander Hamilton, joined antislavery societies, while Northern states gradually began passing antislavery laws.

Making maritime travel safer for people of all backgrounds and nationalities was another way to uphold this value of universal benevolence. Humane societies’ rescuers and rescued people alike included African Americans and foreign mariners, including some from Asia and the Spanish empire. African Americans received awards from anti-drowning groups using the same criteria applied to white people.

In 1794, one of the highest honors went to Dolphin Garler, a Black man in Plymouth, Massachusetts, who had risked his life to rescue a young boy from drowning. Many Americans at this time saw benevolence as a criteria for citizenship. By lauding Garler, the leaders of the Massachusetts Humane Society were challenging other white Americans to recognize Black Americans’ humanity.

Like humane societies, other charities innovated by giving aid across ethnic or denominational lines as Americans built bonds in the new nation. Among them was New York Hospital, which had “charity to all” as its motto and had a diverse patient population. Many were British, Irish and German, with small numbers of people, probably mariners, from places like Portugal and South Asia. The hospital also treated African Americans in segregated wards.

Another new charity embracing this new more universal approach was the Society for the Relief of Poor Widows with Small Children, established in New York City in 1797. It supported poor widows with small children and helped the widows find jobs. While the organization excluded African American women, it innovated by aiding white women without regard to their ethnic or religious background.

New leaders with new causes

The Widows Society, as it was known, was notable for another reason. It was one of the first charities founded and led by women in the new United States.

Before the late 1780s, women made charitable donations to institutions run by men and gave personal alms, but women didn’t lead organizations.

In New York, Scottish immigrant Isabella Graham and other women challenged traditional roles by founding the Widows Society in 1797. That they came together from various Protestant backgrounds was notable at the time.

Within a few years, Eliza Hamilton, Alexander Hamilton’s wife, would join and help lead the Orphan Asylum Society of the City of New York, which grew out of the Widows Society.

And yes, that’s the orphanage Eliza Hamilton sings about in “Hamilton,” Lin-Manuel Miranda’s award-winning musical.

Black Americans likewise broke ground by creating charities and independent churches in the founding era. Black men like Richard Allen and Absalom Jones, for example, created the Free African Society, a mutual aid organization, in 1787 in Philadelphia.

In addition to supporting members of the Black community at times of need, the Free African Society led to the creation of independent Black churches as African Americans struggled for inclusion.

Revolutionizing charity management

Founding charities was one thing. Running them was another.

Americans applied managerial skills acquired from operating business, churches and households to caring for people in distress. They also became pros at the business of fundraising: cultivating donors, hosting fundraising events and publishing annual reports, including names of donors.

In short, Americans developed the critical skills to make philanthropy work.

Philadelphia doctor and signer of the Declaration of Independence Benjamin Rush was one of the most skilled philanthropic communicators. As he undertook one humanitarian endeavor after another, Rush collaborated with philanthropic leaders like Isabella Graham and Richard Allen.

Like others of his generation, Rush devoted himself to reforming the country and world. Medical philanthropy, education, antislavery, prison reform – he was engaged in all of them.

He routinely placed excerpts of his letters with other humanitarian leaders in newspapers. Publicity documents, he knew, helped build momentum for humanitarian causes.

Many others shared his belief in the power of philanthropy to help make the world anew.

The Humane Society of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ “provision made for Ship-wrecked Marriners is also highly estimable in the view of every philanthropic mind,” George Washington said in 1788. “These works of charity & goodwill towards men … presage an æra of still farther improvements.”

This goodwill could go global. Cooperating across the Atlantic in this cause and others helped Americans and Britons reaffirm and reimagine their bonds.

Bedrock of the American experiment

It was only when rich Americans like steel magnate Andrew Carnegie and oil baron John D. Rockefeller began to make massive donations and set up their own foundations in the late 1800s and early 1900s that the word philanthropy would come to be associated with giving on a massive scale.

As Americans celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, I believe it’s worth remembering that the founding generation embraced civic engagement, organizational innovation and generosity as essential pillars in the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness.

For that generation, philanthropy – love of humanity – was the bedrock of the American experiment in republican government.

Amanda Moniz has received funding from the William L. Clements Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan, for research on Isabella Graham.

– ref. How America’s independence from England revolutionized US philanthropy – https://theconversation.com/how-americas-independence-from-england-revolutionized-us-philanthropy-279504

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Cristina Bodea, Professor of Political Science, Michigan State University

Kevin Warsh is now likely to secure Senate approval as the next Federal Reserve chair – and become arguably the most powerful central banker in the world. But when Warsh appeared before the Senate Banking Committee for his confirmation hearing in April, one punchy question underscored the dilemma that Warsh, lawmakers and the Fed all face:

“Are you going to be the president’s human sock puppet?” asked Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana.

On one level, the question reflects President Donald Trump’s intense pressure on the central bank to cut rates, with current Chair Jerome Powell often the target of his ire. But it also points to Warsh’s own inconsistency on inflation.

Earlier in his career, he was a “hawk,” pushing for interest rate hikes to curb inflation and opposing the novel crisis management authorities that the Fed took on after the 2008 financial meltdown. Now, Warsh supports the interest rate cuts that Trump has exhorted as a way to juice growth.

Warsh has also come under fire for his deep ties to the financial sector, where he once worked. Lawmakers such as Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts have cited the potential conflict of interest posed by his undisclosed assets, even though in theory they’ll be divested as part of Warsh’s arrangements with the government’s ethics watchdogs if he becomes chair.

As scholars who study central banks and the politics of finance, we understand why concerns about Warsh’s credibility have persisted. But perhaps counterintuitively, we also believe that once he’s confirmed, his finance background could reinforce his prior hawkish leanings, leading to more independence from Trump on inflation and interest rates.

Is past prologue?

If confirmed as chair, as expected, Warsh and his colleagues on the Fed’s policy-setting committee would wield enormous power. Not only does the central bank set the benchmark rate that determines short-term lending, but the Fed also oversees a US$6.7 trillion balance sheet, mostly in government bonds, that partially affects longer-term borrowing costs. Guided by its mandate to control inflation, the Fed’s decisions impact everything from grocery prices to mortgage rates.

Along with Warsh’s prior stints in government and on the Fed’s policymaking board as a governor, he worked for the investment firm Morgan Stanley and the hedge fund Duquesne Capital. In those positions, Warsh advanced his career in an industry that has long preferred hawkish Fed policies, even at the cost of job growth: Wall Street is generally “conservative” in that it favors lower inflation and higher interest rates on grounds that those policies can support bigger bank profits and higher prices for bank shares, while reducing the risks brought by disinflation policies.

While serving as a Fed governor in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, Warsh’s comments reflected this outlook. He talked extensively about inflation being a “choice” – that is, the result of poor policy decisions, rather than broader structural forces.

He also questioned the Fed’s massive bond purchases, which were meant to stimulate the economy and reduce high unemployment by pushing long-term borrowing rates lower. The Fed revived those bond buys during the pandemic recession, while waiting too long, in the eyes of many economists, to hike rates once inflation began rising in 2021.

More recently, Warsh has focused his criticism on the central bank’s “bloated” balance sheet as well as its inflation record. Those legacies, along with the stimulative government spending under President Joe Biden, prompted Warsh to warn in February 2022 that “extraordinary excesses in monetary and fiscal policy caused the inflation dragon to resurface after 40 years of dormancy.”

Which Warsh will show up?

Given that long record, many Fed watchers looked at his turnaround in the second Trump administration with some skepticism. When he was a finalist for the nomination to chair the central bank in summer 2025, he told CNBC that the Fed’s hesitancy to cut rates – which was already drawing Trump’s wrath – was “quite a mark against them.”

“The specter of the miss they made on inflation, it has stuck with them,” he added. “So one of the reasons why the president … is right to be pushing the Fed publicly is we need regime change in the conduct of policy.”

Warsh’s rhetorical shift has led many to ask whether he can reconcile his responsibilities with political pressure. But the worsening inflation outlook for both the U.S. and world, driven by spiking oil prices, may force his hand regardless.

The spike in oil prices from the Iran war, in particular, has economists raising their inflation forecasts for the U.S. At his last Fed meeting as chair, Powell indicated that the central bank could be a long way off from lowering rates given inflation concerns. The Bank of England and the European Central Banks are also bracing for possible rate hikes if inflation doesn’t ease.

Trump ramp ups the pressure

For his part, Trump has used unprecedented means to bend the Fed since returning to office.

Those tactics include trying to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook and threatening to fire Powell – who just announced he will stay on as a governor on the Fed’s board after his chairmanship ends. Those kinds of pressure tactics – which effectively seek to restaff the Fed’s leadership with more members favoring interest rate cuts – are more often seen in countries like Turkey or Argentina.

So why do we believe that Warsh won’t be the “human sock puppet” some fear?

In our view, it’s his background in finance that leads us to think he’ll be able to resist political pressure once on the job. After all, when Powell was appointed by Trump during his first term, he had also worked in that sector – and he has demonstrated independence from both Trump and Biden.

This is not just a theory. Political scientist Chris Adolph has identified a pattern in which Wall Street is the “shadow principal” of the central bankers who shuffle in and out of the financial sector. Similarly, economist Adam Posen has described finance as the interest group with the most prominent lobbying role over monetary policy.

In practical terms, this means that Warsh has long been steeped in ideas about inflation that have traditionally held sway over the financial sector, and he may well be more open about these preferences once confirmed. Moreover, he’s likely to return to finance once his term at the Fed ends. Together, we believe these factors may give Warsh the intrinsic motivation and enough incentives to resist overt political pressure from the president.

Of course, being too beholden to Wall Street is also a risk, as pointed out by Warren and others. The Fed is meant to support Wall Street in times of crisis – and even more so since the 2010 Dodd-Frank reform. However, the Dodd-Frank Act also asked the Fed to monitor risks to the entire financial system by supervising and regulating financial institutions. That requirement requires the Fed to prevent crises, not just bail out Wall Street when a crisis hits.

As it happens, the Fed today is quietly but surely moving to water down the rules put in place after 2008 – a deregulatory shift that Warsh strongly supports.

Fed independence from government, as a matter of law and of norms, is deeply important for the health of the U.S. economy. And Warsh’s rhetorical shifts on monetary policy raise serious questions about its fate under his chairmanship. Senators have been right to push him as a nominee on this matter. However, the Fed also faces pressure from the finance industry, often pulling policy in the opposite direction. As such, we believe that Warsh’s professional history in finance may bolster his autonomy from Trump on rates once he’s confirmed.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Why Kevin Warsh might still prove to be an independent Federal Reserve chair – https://theconversation.com/why-kevin-warsh-might-still-prove-to-be-an-independent-federal-reserve-chair-281720

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Claire B. Wofford, Associate Professor of Political Science, College of Charleston

The outrage was swift and severe when the U.S. Supreme Court, by an ideologically divided 6-3 vote, recently struck down Louisiana’s majority Black congressional district as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Critics lambasted the court for gutting the Voting Rights Act, the federal law that had until recently garnered strong bipartisan support and had ensured Black political representation in the South for more than half a century.

Many analysts see Jim Crow-era disenfranchisement of Black voters on the horizon.

Whether Louisiana v. Callais will wreak this kind of havoc remains to be seen, although some Southern states have already begun to redraw their legislative districts, aiming to ensure Republican control. Several Black legislators – all Democrats – are expected to lose their seats in the upcoming midterm elections. Democrats are threatening to retaliate with their own redistricting plans.

Because of a 2019 decision by the court, such political gerrymanders, where a legislative district is crafted to ensure partisan control, cannot be challenged under federal law. Both parties had taken full advantage of that ruling.

Prior to the Callais ruling, however, legislators had to be sure that when they sought partisan control of a district, they did not excessively dilute the voting power of minority residents. Multiple lawsuits had challenged political gerrymanders on exactly these grounds.

After Callais, that guardrail is gone. Indeed, lest they provoke the same type of litigation faced by Louisiana, state legislators must now ignore the race of voters altogether. From here on out, gerrymandering is fine, but only if it’s race-neutral.

This does not mean, however, that the race-blind mapmaking process envisioned by the Supreme Court majority will manifest. Based on our recently published research, it may, in fact, be just the opposite.

Race, we found, is – at least in the South – a more reliable predictor of how someone will vote than their party identification. And that makes race, we believe, a potentially irresistible lure for those designing congressional districts.

Race a more reliable predictor

We are both political scientists – one of us an expert on Congress and national elections and the other a constitutional law and Supreme Court scholar. In Southern states, race and political party overlap significantly, with the vast majority of Black voters favoring Democrats and most white voters favoring Republicans. And in our study, we document that in this region, mapmakers actually have an incentive to take race into account when conducting a political gerrymander.

Political gerrymandering is the process of drawing electoral districts to favor one party over another. In most states, the responsibility for drawing districts rests with the state legislature. Thus, the party that controls state legislatures very often controls elections – at both the state and congressional level.

The goal of partisan redistricting is to maximize the chance that candidates from that political party will win elections. Our study shows that using both the race and party of voters to redraw districts, rather than just party alone, better ensures partisan advantage.

The research we conducted was motivated by a claim made by Justice Samuel Alito in another recent racial gerrymandering case decided by the Supreme Court, Alexander vs. South Carolina NAACP. He argued in the court’s majority opinion that when drawing districts to favor one party, mapmakers would need to look only at voters’ party affiliation – their race would be irrelevant to ensuring partisan control.

It is a straightforward, seemingly sensible claim. It is also wrong.

Our study uses an original dataset of precinct-level election results in South Carolina from 2010 to 2020 to explore how well a precinct’s racial and partisan composition before redistricting predicts how it votes over the following decade.

What we found reveals a more complicated picture than Alito – and the subsequent Callais decision – presumes.

A precinct’s Democratic and Republican vote share prior to redistricting was the strongest predictor of future election results. But there are two problems with relying on only such partisan data when gerrymandering a district.

First, our analysis showed that roughly a quarter of a precinct’s voters in the next election did not follow what the partisan data predicted – a sizable amount, given the supposed ease of gerrymandering by party.

Second, precinct election results are surprisingly volatile. Our analysis shows that the effect of preredistricting partisanship varies with election cycles, national conditions, gradual changes in party coalitions and other factors. A precinct that leaned Republican in the election before redistricting may vote very differently in a midterm wave year when the president is unpopular, precisely the type of election coming in November.

By comparison, the analysis shows that voters’ race is a more reliable predictor than their party of how they will vote in the next election. Consequently, it seems that, at least in Southern states, legislators have a genuine, data-driven incentive to use racial data when drawing partisan districts.

Will race still affect political gerrymanders?

Consider this redistricting scenario: South Carolina’s Republican-led legislature wants to flip the state’s lone Democratic congressional seat – long held by prominent African American U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn – for the 2026 midterms. A simple approach is to identify those who voted for Donald Trump in 2024 and then just redraw the district to add enough of those voters to ensure Republican control.

The plan backfires, however. Not only does Clyburn hold his seat, but a neighboring district also elects a Democrat. What went wrong?

Simply put, the legislature failed to realize that past partisan returns are an imperfect predictor of future voting behavior.

A heavily Democratic area that is predominantly Black will vote Democratic far more consistently than a heavily Democratic area that is predominantly white. Two precincts that look identical on a partisan map can behave very differently at the ballot box. And a legislature that fails to take this into account has taken an unreliable route to partisan advantage.

If Republican legislators want to oust Democratic officials, the most reliable route is to oust from a district the minority Democratic voters who would have elected them.

This is not to suggest that legislators should use race in this way. It certainly smacks of racism and echoes the type of electoral machinations used during Jim Crow. But that analogy is not exactly on point. The approach we identified targets the power of Black voters not because they are Black, but because they are such reliable Democrats.

To many, that may be a difference that makes no difference. More litigation over gerrymanders is inevitable. If litigants can demonstrate that race was a “predominant” factor that “drove” redistricting, or that mapmakers purposefully attempted to diminish the power of Black voters because of their race, legal liability can still follow.

Voting rights advocates should be aware of the temptation legislators may have to let race affect their political gerrymanders.

Perhaps minority voters are as free from invidious discrimination as Alito’s majority opinion in the Callais case suggests. This does not mean, however, that those charged with ensuring all voters are fairly represented in American democracy will be colorblind. Our findings show that race could easily remain embedded in the political gerrymandering landscape, despite vehement claims to the contrary.

Jordan Ragusa has served as an expert witness in racial gerrymandering litigation, most notably in Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP. He also serves on the advisory board of Charleston Civil Rights and Civics (C3), an educational non-profit that fosters civic engagement and civil rights awareness among high school students

Claire B. Wofford does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Racial gerrymandering may be here to stay – https://theconversation.com/racial-gerrymandering-may-be-here-to-stay-282349

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Rana Mitter, Professor of U.S.-Asia Relations, Harvard Kennedy School

Meetings between Chinese and American leaders are not exactly routine, but few are historically groundbreaking.

The exceptions include the very first visit by a sitting U.S. president to China, when Richard Nixon met with Chairman Mao Zedong in Beijing in February 1972 – at a time when America did not even formally recognize the People’s Republic of China. Deng Xiaoping’s visit to the U.S. in 1979 generated a similarly iconic moment when the reformist Chinese leader donned a Stetson at a Texas rodeo, a sign that he would be willing to engage with America in a way that Mao contemplated only near the end of his life.

Donald Trump may harbor hopes that his upcoming visit, slated for May 14-15, 2026, could have similar historical significance to those moments half a century ago. It will, after all, be the first face-to-face meeting of U.S. and Chinese leaders in Beijing since Trump’s own visit nearly a decade ago in 2017.

Yet the outcomes of this Trump summit with Xi Jinping are likely to be vague because the goals for both leaders are also only partially evident. The visit is being driven by trade imperatives, but there are other issues that threaten U.S.-China relations in the longer term.

It will be extremely hard for the two sides to address these more deep-rooted divides. Indeed, as an analyst of U.S.-China relations, I believe the world’s two largest economies will have an essentially competitive relationship for years to come, and areas of plausible cooperation – whether on climate change or AI regulation – are increasingly hard to find.

Taiwan: A change in US position?

One area that has been a source of contention for quite some time is Taiwan. Xi has made it clear that the unification of the island with the mainland cannot be left to “another generation” but has left it vague – up to now – as to how that goal will be achieved.

The summit has been preceded by lots of chatter about U.S. preparedness to honor its somewhat ambiguous promise to defend Taiwan in the event of an invasion – with Chinese analysts concluding that the war in Iran has severely weakened Washington’s capabilities on this front.

However, there are plenty of signs that Xi would rather find peaceful means to unite with Taiwan that avoid all-out war, particularly as the examples of Russia in Ukraine and the U.S. in Iran show that the outcomes of wars are not predictable.

Instead, China has seemingly concentrated its efforts on influencing the upcoming January 2028 Taiwan presidential election. The leader of the island’s major opposition Kuomintang party, Cheng Li-wun, recently visited the mainland and had a photo op with Xi – a sign that she thinks dealmaking with China might just be acceptable to the Taiwan electorate despite its deep distrust of Beijing.

To further fuel the narrative of a seemingly inevitable path toward unification, it would be helpful for Xi to have signals that the U.S. is no longer committed to defending Taiwan.

China will push for a change from the official position that the U.S. “does not support Taiwan independence” to “the U.S. opposes Taiwan independence.” The latter change sounds minor but would have great significance, as it would essentially be an acknowledgment that the U.S. recognizes unification, by some means, as a legitimate goal in its own right.

Trump has kept his own position ambiguous: He has noted more than once that Taiwan is very close to China and very far from the U.S., but he has also authorized major arms sales to the island that have infuriated Beijing.

Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party does not specifically endorse independence, as it knows that’s a red line for Beijing, but it would regard this change in American language as a serious blow to its position. It’s unlikely that the U.S. would make such a major concession during Trump’s visit – but that won’t stop Beijing from asking for it.

AI: The battle for global leadership

A more tentative but increasingly important area for discussion during the Xi-Trump summit is technology in general and AI in particular.

Just three years ago, the attitude of the U.S. government was summed up in the phrase of then national security adviser Jake Sullivan: “small yard, high fence.”

In other words, there would be only a few restricted areas of technology, but they would be fiercely guarded.

In 2026, things have changed. In some areas, tech restrictions have just become looser; the U.S. government now permits the sale to China of some high-specification, American-manufactured chips that were previously restricted. That policy was probably driven by the sense that China was developing its own domestic alternatives anyway and that the U.S. was losing market share.

Yet there is growing concern both in the U.S. and China that AI developments are moving too fast for governments – or companies – to know fully what the technology is capable of doing, let alone being able to regulate it.

China and the U.S. both desire to dominate AI and set the global norms and standards surrounding it. But they are also aware that AI has the potential to cause immense damage.

There has been loose discussion of whether any joint form of supervision or regulation of AI between the U.S. and China might be possible. And that could well form part of the discussions during the leaders’ summit.

But realistically, both sides see themselves in fierce competition, and the likelihood that either American or Chinese companies would restrain themselves may be fanciful.

The trade elephant in the room

The most substantial achievements of the summit, however, are likely to be in the least glamorous area: remedying the trade deficit.

Trump’s tariffs aim to make the United States’ global trade partners pay a higher price for entry to the American market, and China’s persistent and massive trade surplus has been a prime target for the U.S. president.

While there are many American products that China would like to buy, most of them are not products that the U.S. government is willing to let them have, including high-tech equipment that could be used for military purposes.

Instead, the key products are likely to be agricultural, including U.S. soybeans and beef. Look out for concessions from China that would benefit farmers in key Republican states, such as Iowa.

The current tariff dispute between the U.S. and China has frozen into a standoff: The U.S. has agreed to allow China’s goods into its immense market at manageable tariff rates, and China has – mostly – agreed to allow critical minerals and rare earths to flow to U.S. manufacturers.

That truce lasts until October, but the summit may see it extended.

Neither side is keen to restart the trade war that marked the summer of 2025, when Trump announced tariffs of over 100% on China and the U.S. was in danger of having key mineral supplies cut off as a result.

Summit to talk about? Perhaps not

So how consequential will the Trump-Xi summit be? Well, don’t expect another “Nixon meets Mao” moment.

The circumstances more than a half-century on are also remarkably different. Today’s China, unlike in 1972, has an economy and military second only to the U.S. and a central position in global organizations, from the United Nations to the World Trade Organization, particularly as the U.S. retreats from such institutions.

Both the U.S. and Chinese sides know that they can expect limited cooperation at best from their opponent.

But after a period, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, when communication between the countries atrophied, it’s still important that they are talking at all.

Rana Mitter does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Trump-Xi summit will be no ‘Nixon in China’ moment – that they are talking is enough for now – https://theconversation.com/trump-xi-summit-will-be-no-nixon-in-china-moment-that-they-are-talking-is-enough-for-now-282295