Hal Brands, Columnist

Big Winners of the Shutdown: China and Russia

A symbolic boon for authoritarianism in its battle against liberal democracy.

January 16, 2019 at 5:00 PM UTC

Hal Brands is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and the Henry Kissinger Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

U.S. rivals are still open.
Photographer: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images

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As the partial government shutdown drags on, the political cost is mounting for the White House, and the domestic consequences — from uninspected food to long airport security lines — are accumulating. There is also a widely overlooked problem: The shutdown is taking a toll on U.S. foreign policy.

With global concerns about the stability of the U.S. government rising and liberal democracy being challenged by capitalist authoritarianism, the shutdown is one more sign of a political dysfunction that America can little afford.