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Thomas L. Friedman

Tuesday 31st of March 2026

2020 Presidential election But if we re-elect him, knowing what a norm-destroying, divisive, corrupt liar he is, then the world will not treat the last four years as an aberration. It will treat them as an affirmation that w've changed. The world will not just look at America differently, but at Americans  differently. And with good reason. Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times, October 29, 2020 © 2019 Kwiple.com
China China will never realize its full potential — in a hyper-connected, digitized, deep,  dual-use, semiconductor-powered world — unless it understands that establishing and maintaining trust is now the single most important competitive advantage any country or company can have. And Beijing is failing in that endeavor. Thomas Friedman, New York Times, April 14, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
The Cold War In the Cold War it was relatively easy to say that this fighter jet is a weapon and that that phone is a tool. But when we install the ability to sense, digitize, connect, process, learn, share and act into more and more things — from your GPS-enabled phone to your car to your toaster to your favorite app — they all become dual use, either weapons or  tools depending on who controls the software running them and who owns the data that they spin off. Today, it’s just a few lines of code that separate autonomous cars from autonomous weapons. Thomas Friedman, New York Times, Apr. 14, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Foreign relations Americans and Chinese remind me of Israelis and Palestinians in one respect: They are both expert at aggravating the other's deepest insecurities. Thomas Friedman, New York Times, April 14, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Infrastructure … some 900 cities and towns in China are now served by high-speed rail, which makes travel to even remote communities incredibly cheap, easy and comfortable. In the last 23 years America has built exactly one sort-of-high-speed rail line, the Acela, serving 15 stops between Washington, D.C., and Boston. Think about that: 900 to 15. Thomas Friedman, New York Times, April 14, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Journalism I just returned from visiting China for the first time since Covid struck. Being back in Beijing was a reminder of my first rule of journalism: If you don't go, you don't know. Thomas Friedman, New York Times, April 14, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Snapshot Mike Pompeo: Last in his class at West Point on ethics in leadership. Mike Pompeo portrayed by Thomas L. Friedman, after it was revealed that Pompeo, as Secretary of State, participated in a smear campaign to remove Marie Yovanovitch, ambassador to Ukraine, because she would block Trump's attempt to bribe Ukraine's president © 2019 Kwiple.com
Snapshot Donald Trump is a “legal alien.” That's right, the man who has spent the last year railing against those dastardly “illegal aliens” supposedly wreaking havoc on our country turns out to be a legal alien – someone born in America but whose values are completely alien to all that has made this country great. Donald Trump portrayed by Thomas L. Friedman New York Times, October 26, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
Snapshot [E]ither Trump's real estate empire has taken large amounts of money from shady oligarchs linked to the Kremlin – so much that they literally own him; or rumors are true that he engaged in sexual misbehavior while he was in Mos- cow running the Miss Universe contest, which Russian intelligence has on tape and he doesn't want released; or Trump actually believes Russian President Vladimir Putin when he says he is innocent of intervening in our elections over the explicit findings of Trump's own C.I.A., N.S.A. and F.B.I. chiefs. Donald Trump portrayed by Thomas Friedman © 2018 Kwiple.com
Snapshot Trump is a chump. Donald Trump portrayed by Thomas Friedman, referring to his laughable deal-making © 2017 Kwiple.com
State of the union Our democracy is in serious danger. President Trump is either totally compromised by the Russians or is a towering fool, or both, but either way he has shown himself unwilling or unable to defend America against a Russian campaign to divide and undermine our democracy. Thomas Friedman, New York Times, February 18, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
State of the union This is code red. The biggest threat to the integrity of our democracy today is in the Oval Office. Thomas Friedman, New York Times, February 18, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Trumpism The fact that Trump's party and his net- work always look for ways to excuse him has been hugely liberating for Trump. He can actually deny he said things that were recorded – like his trashing of the British prime minister. He can take one side of any issue (like trashing key NATO allies to satisfy his base), and, when he gets blowback, take the other side (claim to love the Atlantic alliance). And he can declare that he really meant to ask why “wouldn't” Russia be the one hacking us instead of why “would” it, as he did say. Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times, July 18, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Trust The new, new thing has a lot to do with the increasingly important role that trust, and its absence, plays in international relations, now that so many goods and services that the United States and China sell to one another are digital, and therefore dual use — meaning they can be both a weapon and a tool.  Just when trust has become more important than ever between the U.S. and China, it also has become scarcer than ever. Bad trend. Thomas Friedman, New York Times, April 14,2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Trust What America essentially told … rising Chinese high-tech firms, was this: “When Chinese companies were just selling us shallow goods [single-use products like “shoes, socks, shirts and solar panels”], we didn’t care if your political system was authoritarian, libertarian or vegetarian; we were just buying your shallow goods. But when you want to sell us ‘deep goods’— goods that are dual use and will go deep into our homes, bedrooms, industries, chatbots  and urban infrastructure — we don't have enough trust to buy them. So, we are going to ban Huawei and instead pay more to buy our 5G telecom systems from Scandinavian companies we do trust: Ericsson and Nokia.”  Thomas Friedman, New York Times, Apr. 14, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Trust Whatever trust that China had built up with the West since the late 1970s  evaporated at the exact moment in history when trust, and shared values, became more important than ever in a world of deep, dual-use products driven by software, connectivity and microchips. Thomas Friedman, New York Times, April 14, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Ukraine War I will venture only one prediction about Putin: Vladimir, the first day of this war was the best day of the rest of your life. … I wish that I could blithely predict that Ukraine will be Putin’s Waterloo — and his alone. But I can't, because in our wired world, what happens in Waterloo doesn’t stay in Waterloo. Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times, February 25, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
 
Ukraine War Welcome to World War Wired — the first war in a totally interconnected world. This will be the Cossacks meet the World Wide Web. Like I said, you haven't been here before. Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times, February 25, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com