Historic Documents of 2018

When he campaigned for president, Trump frequently promised his supporters that he would address illegal immigration, specifically at the U.S.–Mexico border. This included building a wall along the southern perimeter. Throughout 2017 and 2018, President Trump asked Congress for billions of dollars to fund a wall along nearly 1,400 miles of border that did not currently have a barrier in place. Democrats and Republicans could not reach a consensus on providing the money, and as a result, the government shut down twice in 2018—once in January for three days and again from December into January for thirty-five days. No border wall funding was included in the temporary stop-gap measure to end the thirty-five day shutdown, and the final omnibus included only a small fraction of what the president requested. As a result, President Trump declared a national emergency to gain access to additional construction funds.

While Trump continued to push for a wall, the administration enacted policies to address illegal immigration. In April, President Trump signed two memoranda, one that directed the secretary of defense and Department of Homeland Security to secure the southern border and provided permission to utilize the National Guard if needed. The second addressed the existing “catch and release” immigration policy that allows certain migrants to be released into the United States while awaiting immigration hearings. The memorandum did not end catch and release but instead instructed federal agencies to report to the president on the resources and measures necessary to end the practice.

Also in April, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the Department of Justice was implementing a zero-tolerance policy for those attempting to enter the country illegally. As part of that policy, in May, Sessions said that the United States would refer all illegal border crossers for prosecution. This included any migrant who failed to enter the United States at an official port of entry, even those seeking asylum. He admitted that, based on the administration’s interpretation of the 1997 Flores Settlement Agreement, [Page xxxix]minors may be separated from their parents and placed in different detention facilities. Media outlets were quickly flooded with pictures of dark facilities where children, including infants, were being held, sometimes in what appeared to be cages. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Trump administration held that they did not have a policy of separating families but were required to enforce existing immigration laws that necessitated such separation. On June 20, President Trump signed an executive order ending family separation at the border, and a federal judge subsequently ordered all separated children to be reunited with their parents.

In November, facing a caravan of migrants from Central America that numbered somewhere between 3,500 and more than 8,000, the president issued a proclamation to deny asylum to any migrant attempting to enter the United States illegally, thus forcing those seeking asylum to enter through a designated port of entry. Civil rights groups quickly filed suit, and a federal judge in California blocked the proclamation from going into effect. The administration sought relief from the Ninth Circuit and also asked the Supreme Court for a stay of the initial ruling in order to allow the asylum ban to go into effect while the administration’s case was being tried before the Ninth Circuit; the Supreme Court denied that request. Shortly before the close of 2018, DHS announced that it would return all migrants seeking asylum to Mexico while they awaited a court hearing, instead of allowing them to wait in the United States. DHS said the policy would likely reduce the number of asylum seekers and alleviate the burden on immigration courts. Immigration groups promised to challenge the decision in court.

In May 2017, the Department of Justice appointed former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director Robert Mueller as special counsel to investigate any coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russian government related to the 2016 presidential election. The president frequently referred to the investigation as a “witch hunt” and alleged that there was significant Democratic bias among those conducting the probe. By the close of 2018, Mueller’s team had indicted or gained guilty pleas from at least thirty-two individuals and three companies, including Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort and the president’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen.

Manafort, along with his business associate Rick Gates, was the first charged in the Mueller investigation. Charges against Manafort and Gates included money laundering, false statements to the Justice Department, failure to register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agent Registration Act, failure to file reports regarding foreign bank and financial accounts, and acts of conspiracy against the United States. Many of the charges stemmed from Manafort’s work lobbying on behalf of a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine. Gates agreed to a plea bargain in February 2018, but Manafort went to trial. In July, of the eighteen criminal counts against him, Manafort was found guilty on eight, and the jury deadlocked on the remaining ten charges. Manafort faced a second trial in September but reached a deal with the government that required him to cooperate with investigators. In November, the Mueller team noted in court documents that Manafort violated that agreement by lying to the special counsel’s office and the FBI.

Cohen was drawn into the Mueller probe in April 2018 when the FBI raided his office and hotel room. In August, he surrendered to the FBI and was charged in federal court with tax evasion, making false statements to a bank, unlawful corporate contributions, [Page xl]and an excessive campaign contribution. The latter two charges were tied to alleged hush money payments made to an adult film star and a Playboy model to stop the pair from discussing their relationships with Trump that might discredit his campaign. In November, Cohen was subject to an additional charge for lying to Congress. Cohen accepted plea agreements on all nine charges and was sentenced to more than three years in prison.

The Mueller team also investigated Russian intelligence operatives, and in February, the Department of Justice indicted twenty-five Russians and three companies for hacking and spreading misinformation during the 2016 campaign. According to the indictments, the Russians specifically acted to discredit Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton while bolstering Trump. However, there was no indication that their efforts impacted election results or that any Trump campaign officials were involved. The indictment was issued just days before President Trump was set to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The president promised to confront the Russian leader about the allegations.

Political jockeying in Congress over the president’s priorities came to a head on November 6, when voters across the country went to the polls to choose their members of Congress, governors, and thousands of state and local leaders. Democrats had significant momentum headed into the vote, given high dissatisfaction with the current administration, an anti-incumbent sentiment, and enthusiasm for a record number of women running for office. In the House, where all 435 seats were up for reelection, Democrats won 235 seats to the Republicans’ 199. In the Senate, where Democrats were defending 26 of the 35 seats up for reelection, the path to victory was less clear, and Republicans were able to expand their majority to 53 seats.

The races garnered extensive media attention for their historic firsts. In one of the most talked-about races, twenty-nine-year-old political newcomer Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeated ten-term incumbent and Democratic Caucus Chair Joe Crowley in the primary in New York’s 14th Congressional District and went on to win the general election, becoming the youngest woman ever elected to Congress. The incoming Congress would include a record 131 women, the average age of the House and Senate decreased by a decade to forty-seven, and a growing number of people of color were elected. The 116th Congress would also include the first two Native American women and the first two Muslim women to serve.

In the states, voters signaled that they were becoming increasingly entrenched in their partisan views. Both Democrats and Republicans did well with their bases and where they already held a majority. Democrats gained seven governorships and six legislative chambers, but Republicans continued to hold a majority of the governorships and nearly two-thirds of all state legislative chambers. A number of races resulted in lawsuits and recounts related to voter disenfranchisement. This included the Georgia governor’s race, where 3,000 voters were incorrectly flagged as noncitizens and tens of thousands of voter registrations were improperly put on hold. Both instances disproportionately impacted African Americans.

The Trump administration made headway on its foreign policy agenda in 2018. Among the most closely watched activities was a historic meeting between President Trump and [Page xli]North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The face-to-face summit in Singapore in June marked the first instance of a sitting U.S. president meeting with a North Korean leader. The talks resulted in a joint statement declaring the intent of the two nations to work toward improving their relationship. While Trump hailed the summit as a major victory, he faced criticism at home and abroad for not reaching more concrete steps with the North Korean leader on denuclearization.

On Iran, another nuclear-armed nation, the president followed through on a campaign promise and announced that he was removing the United States as party to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a 2015 multilateral deal in which Iran agreed to restrictions on its nuclear program in return for a lifting of sanctions. The president had frequently criticized the deal for not doing enough to outright prohibit Iran from developing nuclear weapons. The move to leave the JCPOA and reimpose U.S. sanctions on Iran drew quick criticism from the other nations included in the deal, all of which maintained their commitment to continuing work with Iran toward denuclearization.

Elsewhere in the Middle East, the Trump administration better defined its intent with regards to U.S. troops deployed in Syria in the ongoing fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). In January, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announced that the United States would maintain a troop presence in Syria to ensure that neither Iran nor the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad could retake portions of the country that had been liberated. Tillerson cautioned that the deployment was not indefinite but that troops would remain so long as the conditions necessary to maintain stability were warranted. In December, Trump shocked his advisers, U.S. lawmakers, and coalition partners by announcing his intent to withdraw American troops from Syria, explaining that ISIL had been defeated and U.S. troop involvement was no longer necessary in the region. The announcement led to the resignations of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Brett McGurk, special presidential envoy to the coalition fighting ISIL. Despite urgings from presidential advisers, who publicly expressed concern that leaving could further destabilize the region and allow ISIL to regain its foothold, the U.S. began withdrawing military equipment in January 2019.

President Trump also spent much of the year focused on what he believed to be unfair trade practices. The president imposed an escalating number of import tariffs on a variety of goods, most notably steel and aluminum. The intent was to discourage Americans from buying cheaper imported goods and shift their purchases to American-made products to benefit domestic manufacturers while also addressing trade imbalance. Impacted nations quickly imposed retaliatory tariffs. The tariffs threatened to derail the year-long renegotiation of NAFTA, but on November 30, the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) was signed by Trump and his Mexican and Canadian counterparts. To go into effect, the USMCA, which would, among other things, expand access for Mexican and Canadian producers to American markets and incentivize the purchase of vehicles produced by workers making a living wage, required the ratification by each nation’s legislature before it could go into effect.

After a halting start to talks in 2017, European Union and United Kingdom negotiators began to make progress in setting the terms of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, commonly referred to as Brexit. Negotiators resolved several key issues early in 2018, such as establishing a transition period for the UK to exit the EU’s single market, determining the lump sum the UK would pay to the EU for continued access to the single market during the transition period, and agreeing on the rights of expatriate citizens to continue living and working in their adoptive countries.

Despite this progress, the status of the UK’s post-Brexit border with the EU in Northern Ireland remained a sticking point in negotiations for much of the rest of the year. Prime Minister Theresa May’s government chose not to remain in the EU’s single market or customs union and had ruled out the possibility of making a separate arrangement between Northern Ireland and the EU, meaning that border controls would likely be required. However, this would be a violation of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that ended decades of violence in Northern Ireland and requires the UK to guarantee the free flow of goods and people in Ireland.

In October, negotiators developed a proposed solution known as the “backstop.” The arrangement called for the EU and UK to work on a free-trade agreement during the Brexit transition period that would preserve the free movement of people and goods in Ireland. If an agreement was not reached by the end of the transition period, the entire UK would temporarily remain in the EU customs union until a solution could be found. The backstop soon became an issue for parliament’s Brexit supporters, who argued that without a prescribed timeframe, the UK’s temporary continuation in the customs union could be extended indefinitely.

With support in parliament waning, May postponed a planned December vote on the agreement until January 2019 in hopes of securing clearer backstop commitments from the EU. However, the EU declined to make a binding commitment, leading to an overwhelming rejection of the Brexit agreement by members of parliament. May’s government survived a subsequent no-confidence vote, but significant concern and uncertainty remained about the UK’s path forward.

On April 27, South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un came together for a historic meeting in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating the two countries, signaling the potential for a major change in their hostile relationship. The meeting was preceded by a shift in Kim’s rhetoric toward South Korea that, while still highly critical of the Moon administration, called for the peninsula’s independent reunification. Moon had also been more open to working with North Korea than his predecessors, as evidenced by his assistance in coordinating a summit between Kim and President Trump in June 2018. In another diplomatic breakthrough, athletes from the two Koreas competed alongside each other under a unified flag at the 2018 Olympic Games, hosted in February in the South Korean city of PyeongChang. It was at the Games that Kim’s sister, Kim Yo-jong, met with Moon and extended an invitation to a summit in Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital. Additionally, North Korea announced a halt to its nuclear weapons tests, which largely remained in effect through the end of the year.

Moon and Kim’s April meeting resulted in the Panmunjom Declaration on Peace, Prosperity, and Reunification of the Korean Peninsula. The declaration was primarily a broad-strokes agreement, with commitments including a resolution of humanitarian issues resulting from the peninsula’s division, the complete denuclearization of both nations, and an end to propaganda campaigns. The two governments agreed to pursue a peace treaty that would replace the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War. While broad in its terms, the declaration provided a foundation for subsequent meetings between Moon and Kim in May and September and the development of more concrete agreements, such as the dismantling of specific North Korean nuclear and missile facilities.

Several significant elections and changes in power occurred around the world in 2018. In July, Zimbabwe held its first presidential election in which former leader Robert Mugabe was not a candidate. Mugabe presided over a dictatorial government for nearly forty years before resigning in November 2017 amid a bloodless takeover led by a segment of the Zimbabwe military. Mugabe was replaced by his former prime minister, Emmerson Mnangagwa, who served as interim president until the 2018 election. While the poll was conducted peacefully, a delay in announcing the presidential results prompted allegations of vote rigging and protests in the capital, where demonstrators clashed with the military. Mnangagwa was declared the winner on August 3, an outcome that was challenged by opponents in the Constitutional Court. However, the court ruled unanimously that allegations of election fraud were unsubstantiated and affirmed the results.

Sweden’s September 2018 general election left the country’s two traditional political blocs deadlocked in parliament and led to Prime Minster Stefan Löfven’s ouster after his government lost a no-confidence vote. Efforts to form a new government were complicated by the electoral success of the Sweden Democrats, a far-right, anti-immigrant party that won the third largest portion of seats in parliament following a campaign focused on issues of immigration, migrant integration, and welfare program sustainability. Most political parties were staunchly opposed to working with the Sweden Democrats, but center-right and center-left parties were also reluctant to forge cross-bloc alliances. For three and a half months, Speaker Andreas Norlén charged various party leaders with forming a new government, but each effort failed, leading to speculation that snap elections would be [Page xlv]necessary. Then in January 2019, an agreement between the Centre, Green, Liberal, and Social Democratic parties was announced that returned Löfven to the prime minister’s office and shepherded in a new government led by the Social Democratic and Green parties.

A different but similarly complex electoral scenario played out in Armenia, where a peaceful public revolution prompted a major power shift from the country’s long-dominant Republican Party. Protests began in response to the National Assembly’s appointment of outgoing president Serzh Sargsyan as prime minister, which many Armenians viewed as an attempt to cling to power, and were led by Nikol Pashinyan, a member of parliament and vocal critic of the government. Sargsyan resigned in April 2018, opening the door for the National Assembly to elect Pashinyan as the next prime minister in May. Pashinyan pledged to organize a new parliamentary election, saying the National Assembly no longer reflected the will of the voters. After facing some initial resistance from the Republican Party, Pashinyan resigned from office on October 16 to force a snap election. The National Assembly was dissolved the following month and the election held on December 9. The political bloc to which Pashinyan belonged won approximately 70 percent of the votes, securing roughly two-thirds of the seats in parliament and bringing Pashinyan back as prime minister, while the Republican Party suffered a major defeat.

Voters’ disillusionment with liberal leaders following a string of corruption scandals and economic stagnation was a major factor in Brazil’s general election in October 2018. Initially a minor candidate, far-right politician and longtime legislator Jair Bolsonaro effectively capitalized on voters’ discontent, attracting significant support by promising to crack down on crime and corruption despite his history of controversial remarks disparaging women, homosexuals, and other groups. Bolsonaro’s campaign was further bolstered by election officials’ rejection of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s candidacy. At the time, the highly popular former president was serving a prison sentence for corruption and money-laundering convictions. The court’s decision forced the leading Workers’ Party to put forward a lesser-known candidate, Fernando Haddad, who struggled to leverage da Silva’s legacy and name recognition while distancing himself from party scandals. Following a bitter campaign marked by violence—including an incident in which Bolsonaro was stabbed—and widespread misinformation, Bolsonaro and Haddad were the two top vote winners in the first-round poll held on October 7. Since neither candidate received 50 percent of the vote, a runoff was held on October 28. Bolsonaro emerged as the victor, receiving nearly 10 percent more votes than Haddad. While Bolsonaro’s supporters celebrated his win, many Brazilians remain concerned about the policies the new president may pursue, given his previous statements.