Peter Certo

Peter Certo is the editorial manager of the Institute for Policy Studies and the editor of OtherWords.org.

Trump Loves Goods from China — As Long as they Make Him Richer

Trump rallied to save a major Chinese firm right in the middle of a trade war of his own making. Why?

Peter Certo
By Peter Certo

Donald Trump built no small part of his political brand railing against Chinese industry—so much so that The Huffington Post once published a supercut of the president sneering the word “China” dozens and dozens of times, for three full minutes. While Trump’s highly charged language about China “raping our country” showcased the president’s

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There Was Nothing Humanitarian About Our Strikes on Syria

We fired 105 missiles on April 14. That’s 10 times the number of Syrian refugees we’ve taken all year.

Peter Certo
By Peter Certo
In this image provided by the U.S. Navy, the guided-missile cruiser USS Monterey (CG 61) fires a Tomahawk land attack missile early Saturday, April 14, 2018, as part of the military response to Syria's use of chemical weapons on April 7. The United States, France and Britain launched military strikes in Syria to punish President Bashar Assad for an apparent chemical attack against civilians and to deter him from doing it again. (Lt. j.g. Matthew Daniels/U.S. Navy via AP)

Just after midnight on April 14, the U.S. and its allies bombed three Syrian regime targets. The reason, they said, was to punish Syria’s alleged use of chemical weapons in the town of Douma. Now, the Syrian regime’s brutality has been well documented. Maybe the allegations are true. But there’s a lot about this that’s simply fishy. Only days

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A U.S. Soldier Died In Niger. What On Earth Are We Doing There?

When our soldiers kill and die in wars we don’t know about and can’t end, we’re not a democracy anymore.

Peter Certo
By Peter Certo
These images provided by the U.S. Army show, from left, Staff Sgt. Bryan C. Black, 35, of Puyallup, Wash.; Staff Sgt. Jeremiah W. Johnson, 39, of Springboro, Ohio; Sgt. La David Johnson of Miami Gardens, Fla.; and Staff Sgt. Dustin M. Wright, 29, of Lyons, Ga. A senior U.S. defense official says the military suspects that American special forces were ambushed in Niger after someone in the village they visited told enemy fighters they were in the area. The Army Green Berets and about 30 Niger forces stopped in a village for an hour or two to get food and water after conducting an overnight reconnaissance mission. All four were killed in Niger, when a joint patrol of American and Niger forces was ambushed by militants believed linked to the Islamic State group. (U.S. Army via AP)

Opinion -- In our military-revering culture, it’s a strange thing for a president to start a war of words with the grieving families of slain soldiers. Strange, yes. But from Donald Trump’s campaign season feud with the parents of Humayun Khan, who died protecting fellow soldiers in Iraq, to his recent feud with the mourning widow of La David

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