Opinion Today: America still needs friends
Here’s what we’re focusing on.
Opinion Today
January 15, 2026
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Illustration by George Douglas; source photograph by Science & Society Picture Library/Getty Images

Notable

This is the thanks Denmark gets? “Bullying Denmark will make the United States weaker and perhaps even poorer. It’s not just wrong to turn on our friends; it’s stupid, and that stupidity is spreading across the length and breadth of American foreign policy.”

— David French, Opinion columnist

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Iran’s murderous regime is irredeemable. “The appropriate response from the rest of the world starts with a unified expression of solidarity with the protesters. The Khamenei regime is too depraved to be reformed.”

— Editorial Board

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Life, liberty and our unhappiness. “The United States does a fine job generating economic growth, but it lags at translating that G.D.P. growth into the things we most care about.”

— Nicholas Kristof, Opinion columnist

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Spotlight

A color collage shows workers in gray jumpsuits on scaffolds reassembling an enormous donkey, piece by piece.
Carolina Moscoso

Democrats Will Lose in 2028 Unless They Change Course

Despite the successes of 2025, the party still needs a radical shake-up, writes the political strategist David Plouffe.

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ICYMI

The biggest threat to world trade isn’t Trump’s tariffs. “Trade is fragmenting in ways that reduce the benefits, especially if countries begin emphasizing trade with their geopolitical allies and try to shut out rivals. The fragmentation will leave poorer economies, which are only now integrating into global trade, worse off.”

— Eswar Prasad, a professor of trade policy at Cornell University

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More in Opinion

David Wallace-Wells

ICE Is Waging War on Blue Cities

Will the agency’s brutality and capriciousness create blowback?

By David Wallace-Wells

In the foreground, four posters reading “Renee Nicole Good, American mom, murdered by ICE.” In the background is a city skyline.

Guest Essay

Renee Good’s Family Should Be Able to Sue the Officer Who Killed Her

An ICE killing in Minneapolis can be the impetus for finally closing a gaping hole in our constitutional protections.

By Erwin Chemerinsky and Burt Neuborne

A photo illustration featuring a torn map of South America, with President Trump’s face visible in the breach.

Guest Essay

The One Place Presidents Turn in Moments of Chaos and Uncertainty

For presidents of both parties, Latin America has served as a wellspring of perpetual reinvention and the source of much of their ideological creativity.

By Greg Grandin

Guest Essay

‘Bad, Bad News for the G.O.P. Over the Long Haul’: 2 Opinion Writers on the Trump Coalition

The general sense of the world being chaotic does not necessarily help Trump.

By Kristen Soltis Anderson, Nate Silver and John Guida

Guest Essay

We Are the Bystanders This Time

I used to think Americans were different from Germans.

By Shalom Auslander

A young woman dressed for winter sits looking at a makeshift memorial filled with candles and flowers, along with a sign reading “We are Renee Good.”

The Conversation

The Gaudy, Nasty Fictions of Donald J. Trump

This is neither law nor order, and the consequences can be deadly.

By Frank Bruni and Bret Stephens

In Your Words

Re: “Public Shame Is the Most Effective Tool for Battling Big Tech

Shame isn’t as powerful a tool as loss of market share, real or potential. The only way people can have influence in the marketplace is to have enough willpower to stop buying questionable products. — A comment posted by Dean from Fargo, N.D.

Read more comments on the story here and check out our Letters to the Editor.

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