5 important things going unheard...

5 things Trump did this week while you weren't looking

Behind Trump's speeches, real policy change is happening in Washington.

By DANNY VINIK

Most of the news President Donald Trump generated this week was, as usual, about Donald Trump himself: He induced whiplash by delivering a sober address on Afghanistan Monday night and then, less than 24 hours later, pumping up the crowd at a fiery, off-the-leash campaign rally in Arizona. He also continued to accelerate his war of words with leaders of his own party, attacking Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan, as well as Sens. Bob Corker, Jeff Flake and John McCain.

And as usual, there wasn’t much policy behind all that noise: Even the new Afghanistan strategy includes only a modest bump in troops overseas. But in Washington, Trump’s appointees continued to push their own priorities on the government, rolling back Obama-era policies largely out of the public eye. Here’s how Trump’s White House changed policy this week:

1. The State Department turns up the heat on Egypt
When Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi visited the White House in April, Trump lavished the foreign leader with praise, saying he’s doing a “fantastic job in a very difficult situation” and that “we are very much behind President al-Sisi.” Those comments drew a sharp rebuke from human-rights groups that had been sharply critical of Sisi’s human rights record.

So, it came as some surprise this week when the State Department delayed $200 million in aid to Egypt and cut another $100 million in aid altogether. State officials said the move was a result of Egypt’s human rights record, including a new law that restricts the activities of nongovernmental organizations. But experts also suggested another motive: isolating North Korea. Egypt has historically had ties to North Korea, with North Korean pilots training Egyptian pilots in the 1970s. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert did not deny that North Korea was a reason for the cuts in aid, saying, “We have a deep and multifaceted relationship with the country of Egypt. We have a lot of areas of close cooperation.”

The move also created troubles for White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, who was scheduled to meet top Egyptian leaders, including Sisi, this week to talk about the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. A meeting between Kushner and Egypt’s foreign minister was canceled at the last minute, potentially a rebuke to State’s move, though it otherwise did not appear to significantly disrupt the trip.

2. Interior could shrink national monuments
In his final weeks in office, Barack Obama protected over 1.5 million acres of federal land from development by designating national monuments in the West, a final attempt to solidify his environmental legacy. Republican lawmakers, oil and gas interests and fishing and hunting groups blasted the move and appealed to Trump to review the designations. In April, they got their wish when Trump directed the Interior Department to review all monument designations larger than 100,000 acres all the way back to 1996.

On Thursday, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke delivered that review to the White House. He didn’t release it publicly, instead publishing a vague two-page fact sheet; in an interview with The Associated Press, Zinke said he was not recommending any monuments be rescinded but was suggesting a “handful” of changes. The New York Times later reported that Zinke recommended shrinking at least four monuments. It’s unclear whether—or when—the White House will accept the recommendations. But given Trump’s commitment to rolling back Obama’s environmental legacy, Zinke’s recommendations will likely find a favorable reception in the Oval Office. And if it does, it would be historic—no national monument has been shrunk by a president since 1963.

3. The White House changes American research priorities
Every year, the government funds billions of dollars in research, from large National Institutes of Health grants to small housing experiments. The sheer magnitude of money gives the government great influence over the direction of research across industries, a hidden lever for a sophisticated administration to guide the country well into the future.

This week, the Trump administration revealed that it intends to use that lever. The Office of Management and Budget, led by Director Mick Mulvaney, published a four-page memo—dated August 27—that lays out the administration’s research and development priorities for fiscal 2019, which includes a focus on military technologies, border security and treatments for drug addiction. In a break from the Obama administration’s efforts to combat climate change, there is almost no mention of environmental research, with the exception of one reference to renewable energy. The memo also directs agencies to focus on early stage research and, in a bolded section, strongly recommends the use of quantitative data to evaluate any R&D investments, terminating those in which “federal involvement is no longer needed or appropriate.”

The real-world effects of such a memo won’t be immediately apparent. Research projects generally operate on a multiyear time frame, so the White House can’t just shift the direction of federal R&D overnight. But these priorities can eventually have big policy implications as researchers focus on certain issues and ignore others. That assumes, of course, that there is actual R&D funding to disburse for research—and if Trump has his way, that may not be the case. The White House has proposed huge cuts to research programs, rolling back federal nondefense R&D by almost 20 percent. Republicans and Democrats alike have rejected those cuts, so they will not become law. While that may be disappointing to a fiscal conservative like Mulvaney, it does help the administration in one sense: More R&D money gives agencies greater influence over the direction of American research.

4. The Amazon-Whole Foods merger sails through
Trump’s disdain for Amazon and its CEO, Jeff Bezos, who owns The Washington Post, is well known. "Is Fake News Washington Post being used as a lobbyist weapon against Congress to keep Politicians from looking into Amazon no-tax monopoly?" Trump tweeted in July. Last week, he wrote, "Amazon is doing great damage to tax paying retailers."

Despite those attacks, Amazon had no problem receiving approval from regulators to acquire the grocery giant Whole Foods. Although the deal has alarmed some antitrust watchers, who worry that Amazon’s expansion is undermining competition in the long run by driving out competitors through its low prices, it barely hit a speed bump in Washington: The Federal Trade Commission released a short statement saying it had completed its investigation into the $13.7 billion deal, which was announced in June, and isn’t going to challenge it. The quick approval also assuaged concerns that Trump would attempt to interfere in the regulatory review for political reasons. The deal is set to close on Monday.

Amazon promptly announced that it will cut prices on a wide array of Whole Foods products, from avocados to tilapia, on Monday and intends to introduce benefits at Whole Foods stores for its Prime members.

5. Trump ratchets up sanctions
During his first few months in office, Trump attempted to woo Chinese President Xi Jinping, even saying he would relax his trade stance if China applied more pressure to North Korea. But those efforts have fizzled in the past few months, even as North Korea’s nuclear program has continued to advance.

This week, the administration took another unilateral step to stop Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions when the Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Chinese and Russian individuals and entities, an effort to reduce North Korea’s exports, which it uses to finance its nuclear program, and to choke off its access to the global financial system. The move is the second time in two months that Trump has sanctioned Chinese entities over North Korea. In addition, on Friday, the White House also announced new sanctions on Venezuela that attempt to cut financing to the country and its state-owned oil company.