Damien Cave
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damiencave.bsky.social
Damien Cave
@damiencave.bsky.social
520 followers 92 following 13 posts
NY Times reporter based Vietnam. Dad. Philosophy: “We must cultivate our garden.”
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Trust is hard to build and easy to destroy -- it's a truism of psychology. Now we're seeing it in how US allies are responding to Trump. Short-term, you get negotiations. Long-term, a less influential America and a more diversified (and nuclear) world. My analysis: www.nytimes.com/2025/03/31/w...
How Trump Supercharged Distrust, Driving U.S. Allies Away
Trust is very hard to build and easy to destroy. America and its partners are caught in a spiral of distrust.
www.nytimes.com
Reposted by Damien Cave
In our podcast about international trade, we discuss Trump's view of the world as a zero-sum one, harking back to the mercantilists of old. This is an excellent article by @damiencave.bsky.social via @nytimes.com that links to this. #EconSky www.nytimes.com/2025/03/01/w...
Sometimes history is defined by a way of looking at the world. Are we in an age of zero-sum thinking? I've been mulling this piece for a while, maybe since childhood. Where have you seen zero-sum thinking in your life? And how are you managing its impacts? www.nytimes.com/2025/03/01/w...
Welcome to the Zero Sum Era. Now How Do We Get Out?
Zero-sum thinking has spread like a mind virus, from geopolitics to pop culture.
www.nytimes.com
Reposted by Damien Cave
We are grateful that @ucpress.bsky.social allowed us to publish the interview without a paywall, so all readers could access this material, and we are appreciative of NYT’s Vietnam bureau chief @damiencave.bsky.social for sharing Huy Đức’s story in this form. Below:

www.nytimes.com/2025/02/28/w...
Vietnamese Journalist Gets 2 ½ Years in Prison for Facebook Posts
The sentence for Truong Huy San, an influential reporter, was the latest crackdown on speech by Vietnam, a rising regional power.
www.nytimes.com
Lot of talk these days about toxic this and toxic that. Here's the real thing, its impact, and what happens when the U.S. stops taking care of messes it created in other parts of the world -- where it wants and needs friends. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/17/w...
Trump’s USAID Cuts Halt Agent Orange Victims Program in Vietnam
Fifty years after the Vietnam War ended, President Trump’s gutting of foreign aid has halted American efforts to address its toxic legacy and build a strategic partnership.
www.nytimes.com
“The streets are Vietnam’s coliseum. Especially in cities, they are the forum where society’s biggest conflicts — between government control and personal freedom, between the elites seeking harmony and strivers seeking income — have long played out.”

www.nytimes.com/2025/01/28/w...
Caution Ahead! Vietnam’s Drivers Are Suddenly Following the Rules.
Steep new fines — more than many people make in a month — have made the streets of Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi less freewheeling than they used to be.
www.nytimes.com
Australia isn’t perfect but after my many years there, I still wish Americans would pay attention and learn from Oz. Pragmatism and sacrifice for public good makes for a healthier nation, and fires are just one example www.nytimes.com/2025/01/25/o...
Opinion | California, We Feel Your Pain Here in Australia
In California’s fire-stoked debate over how aggressively to manage both nature and urban sprawl, Australia can share both empathy and insight.
www.nytimes.com
The Gilded Age is one touchpoint; a related thought I’ve had: America is becoming more like Guatemala when I covered it a decade ago; lots of vigilantism and private security for the rich. Tolerance for extreme inequality leads to private security, public insecurity.
I made a stop in My Lai out of respect; I left with a dispatch that taught me a lot about Vietnam and what Americans might learn if they paid closer attention to non-American perspectives www.nytimes.com/2024/11/17/w...
‘No Use for Hatred’: A Village Seeks to Move On From a U.S. Massacre
The hamlet of My Lai is infamous for American war crimes, but now it holds lessons in resilience and how to let go of anger.
www.nytimes.com
New to this place. I’m an NYT reporter, opening a new bureau in Vietnam, roaming around the world, and a dad who often writes about that too. I was a big digital media booster for most of my career. Now, less so. Not convinced virtual anything is good for us anymore but I’m here to try again.