South Korean President Moon Jae-in isn’t taking any chances ahead of his historic meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Friday. Officials from President Moon’s office have met with their counterparts from across the border three times to coordinate everything from security measures to media coverage. Even the timing of the handshake between the two leaders has been planned in excruciating detail – not to mention their symbol-laden dinner menu, featuring Pyongyang’s trademark noodles and an elaborate mousse with a map of the Korean peninsula. 

Much will be on the line during the meeting on the South Korean side of Panmunjom, a so-called truce village that straddles the border. Not only will it be the first time leaders of the two Koreas have met since 2007; it will also be the first time a supreme leader from the North sets foot in the South. The two men are expected to discuss the North’s nuclear weapons and missile programs and an official end to the Korean War, which ended in a stalemate in 1953 after three years of fighting.

For Moon, the summit presents the biggest test yet of his pro-engagement strategy toward North Korea. While progressives in South Korea widely support his approach, many conservatives remain deeply skeptical of where it will lead. The challenge Moon faces is to convince them – and Washington – that engagement doesn’t mean appeasement, a waste of time, or, worse yet, a gift of time to further bolster the North’s nuclear arsenal.

“We are standing at a crossroad to denuclearization not by military measures but through peaceful means and permanent peace," Moon said during a meeting with his top aides in Seoul on Monday. “The entire world is watching and the entire world is hoping for its success.”

The overarching goal of the summit on Friday is to lay the groundwork for Mr. Kim’s meeting with President Trump in late May or early June. To do that, Moon will need to convince Kim to keep denuclearization on the table, in hopes of aid or a security guarantee down the line. If Moon succeeds, the Korean Peninsula could be one step closer to lasting peace. If he fails, the risk of war on the peninsula could become greater than ever.

“Moon is taking a huge risk by trying to bring Kim and Trump together,” says Scott Snyder, a senior fellow for Korea Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. “It’s clear that the North Koreans are willing to have a dialogue, but it’s unclear if that dialogue will lead to full denuclearization,” the outcome that Mr. Trump has emphasized.

Apart from denuclearization, there are two other key issues on Friday’s agenda: a peace treaty to formally end the Korean War, and improving inter-Korean relations. Yet analysts don’t expect the summit to produce any major breakthroughs in and of itself, and say that any joint statement from Moon and Kim is likely to be short on specifics. Instead, many view the summit as simply a step toward the more substantial negotiations between Kim and Trump.

The stakes couldn’t be much higher. Last year, North Korea tested its sixth and most powerful nuclear device and three intercontinental ballistic missiles that experts warn could reach the US mainland. In response to the tests, the United Nations passed its harshest sanctions ever against North Korea. Meanwhile, fears of a US military strike on the North started to grow as Trump threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea, and said trying to negotiate with Kim was a waste of time.

Ahn Young-joon/AP

Members of a South Korean women's peace group stage a rally at the Imjingak Pavilion in Paju, near the border with North Korea, on April 26, 2018, to support the upcoming summit between South and North Korea. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in will plant a commemorative tree and inspect an honor guard together after Kim walks across the border Friday for their historic summit, Seoul officials said.

Despite the rising tensions – including the threats and insults Trump and Kim flung at one another – Moon maintained his commitment to peace through dialogue. He made his position clear in a speech he delivered in Berlin last July, two days after Pyongyang’s first intercontinental ballistic missile test, while asserting that Seoul must “sit in the driver’s seat” to manage the precarious situation on the Korean Peninsula.

“President Moon deserves a great deal of credit,” says Bong Young-shik, a research fellow at the Institute for North Korean Studies at Yonsei University in Seoul. “He has walked a very fine line.”

Moon’s focus on engagement with North Korea stands in stark contrast to the hardline approach taken by his predecessor, Park Geun-hye. His strategy more closely resembles the “sunshine policy” pursued by Presidents Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun, two liberals who held power from 1998 to 2008.

The “sunshine policy” emphasized diplomatic and economic engagement with the North, but it failed to secure any concrete gains and clashed with the more aggressive policies favored by President George W. Bush. In light of the policy’s shortcomings, analysts say, Moon has embraced dialogue with the North while still supporting the economic sanctions championed by the US.

“Moon knows that he has to keep the United States on his side,” Mr. Bong says. “He has not wavered in keeping maximum economic pressure on the North.”

At the same time, Moon has made sure to keep the door open for diplomatic engagement, a strategy that faced criticism during much of 2017 as Pyongyang ramped up its weapons testing. Moon’s first breakthrough came when North Korea accepted his invitation to participate in the Winter Olympics. The Games were widely hailed as a success, and they set in motion the series of events that led to this week’s summit.

“Moon has done a great job in reversing the course and turning conflict into dialogue,” say Shin Gi-wook, the director of the Korea Program at Stanford University. “He has been a good facilitator between North Korea and the United States.”

But facilitating will only get Moon so far before Trump needs to step in. “It’s like a relay race,” Dr. Shin says. “South Korea has got a good start, but the United States needs to finish.”

Now that talks are under way, Moon can only hope that Kim and Trump keep them going. The US president welcomed Kim’s announcement last week that North Korea no longer needed missile and nuclear tests, and would close a key nuclear facility – a mountain test site which reportedly has partially collapsed and is unsafe for further use. While many experts remain skeptical of Kim’s commitment, Trump has so far spoken positively about the prospect of negotiations. On Tuesday, he praised the North Korean leader as “very open and I think very honorable.”

Still, there is a large gap between what Kim has pledged and what the White House has demanded: full denuclearization. Whether Moon can find a way to help narrow that gap will go a long way in determining the chances of the US and North Korea reaching any agreement. Failure to do so could spell the end of his engagement strategy by pushing officials in Seoul and Washington to endorse a more hard-line approach. Alternatively, Moon could decide to risk South Korea's partnership with the US and continue bilateral negotiations with North Korea.

“If the meetings fall apart, then conservatives in South Korea will blame Moon,” Shin says. “They will say that we were deceived by North Korea once again.”

But some analysts question how much influence Moon will have over the US-North Korea summit. Jenny Town, assistant director of the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, says that while the US will take what comes out of Friday’s meeting into consideration, it will also pursue its own agenda, which could include stricter terms about denuclearization.

“The Moon administration has portrayed this as a lead-in to the next summit, as if it’s almost guaranteed that whatever they come up with the US will rubber stamp,” she says. “I don’t know if that’s really the case.”

For the next 24 hours, however, all eyes will be on Panmunjom, and whether the two Korean leaders’ talks will clear a path for a US-Pyongyang summit in the first place.

“Moon’s job is to make a good volley,” says Mr. Snyder of the Council on Foreign Relations, “and then we’ll wait and see if Trump can spike the ball."

Matt Orlando/The Christian Science Monitor

Kevin Hassett, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, speaks at a Monitor Breakfast on April 26, 2018, in Washington.

Ty Davenport is a man on a mission. As economic development director for Fairfield County in South Carolina, he’s traveling to places like Colorado and Germany trying to bring jobs back to a place that very much needs them.

Even though the national unemployment rate is down to 4.1 percent, pockets of the country – including his area – still face high joblessness, such as Fairfield County’s 9.5 percent. Often that's coupled with a high number of working-age people who have become disengaged from the labor force for reasons that range from discouragement and drug addiction to skills that don’t match today’s jobs.

In South Carolina, only 58.6 percent of working-age adults are in the labor force, well below both the national level (62.7 percent) and prior levels (in 2000 it stood at 67 percent nationally and similarly in the state).

It’s a hint of the job-market challenges that linger in America, even after a long recovery from recession. Will there be enough jobs, in an era of ever-rising automation? Will less-educated workers be able to make a living wage? These questions have retained their salience for both political parties despite a plunging official US jobless rate.

President Trump tweets persistently about “jobs, jobs, jobs!” and his annual economic report in February featured a chapter largely about how to boost labor-force participation. This week came a report that Sen. Bernie Sanders, who sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, will soon pitch the idea of a guaranteed job for everyone who wants or needs one.

“I think the Sanders people are right to recognize that that’s an important objective for policy,” Kevin Hassett, chairman of Mr. Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers, said Thursday, referring to the goal of a more inclusive job market.

“I’m hopeful that by the time we write the economic report of the president and release it next February, that we’ll have a significantly more optimistic forecast for labor-force participation than we had in this report,” added Mr. Hassett, speaking to reporters at a breakfast hosted by The Christian Science Monitor.

The bipartisan aspiration may sound ho-hum; who’s not for more jobs? Yet the shared focus is notable given that some economists see the job market essentially already at “full employment,” where the unemployment rate can’t fall much further without fueling inflation and risking an overheated economy.

Hassett is among economists who have opined that a still-lower unemployment is achievable. At a conference last week he said joblessness below 4 percent may be equivalent to full employment now. “I think it could be in the 3’s now,” he said, according to a Bloomberg report.

David McNew/AP/File

A woman filled out a job application during a job fair for the homeless at the Los Angeles Mission in the Skid Row area of Los Angeles in June 2015. A strong economy in the past few years has had some success drawing sidelined people back into the job market, and White House economist Kevin Hassett sees room for progress to continue. The official unemployment rate is 4.1 percent, but fewer people of prime working age are participating in the labor force (working or seeking work) than a generation ago.

Not surprisingly, the two major political parties differ on how to boost job-market opportunity and inclusion. Where Democrats emphasize the role that public spending can play, Hassett, Trump, and other Republicans see a key role for unleashing private investment and expanding individual incentives to work.

Yet there’s also common ground: Some on both sides have voiced concern about the role that drug addiction, prison records, and inadequate education and training have played in sidelining potential workers. Ditto for the need to address localized challenges like those in Fairfield County.

“One of the big divides is not so much on what we need to do but on how we pay for it,” says Isabel Sawhill, a Brookings Institution economist who’s involved in an effort among conservative and liberal experts to find common ground on work-related policy proposals.

Participation headed back up?

Hassett, at the Monitor Breakfast, said a positive shift in workforce participation may already be under way thanks to the strong economy.

“If you look at the chart, it was basically headed straight down” in the new millennium, and particularly since the Great Recession, he said. “Now it’s actually maybe even heading up, and the chart is really quite striking. I think that’s because … the tight labor market and increasing wage growth are attracting people back into the labor force.”

Since 2015, the share of civilians age 25 to 54 who are in the labor force has risen by nearly two full percentage points, according to Labor Department data.

Speaking to people who got discouraged in the past and felt the emotional strain of rejected job applications, Hassett said, “You should try it again right now. There’s been an enormous amount of success for people reattaching to the labor force.”

Ms. Sawhill echoes the idea that a strong economy is one of the best antidotes to weak participation in the workforce.

“[But] there are some risks to stepping on the gas too hard right now, because we don't want to have a credit bubble that creates another financial crisis,” she says.

Going for growth, not debt-reduction

Economists see the Trump tax cuts, coupled with a spending hike recently signed by the president, as a stimulus to the economy in the short run, but also as adding to a national debt burden – possibly harming long-term growth and leaving the nation in a poorer position to fight the next recession.

While Hassett agreed that deficits need to be tackled, right now neither party seems focused on fiscal discipline. As Republicans champion what they see as the growth-inducing power of tax cuts, some leading Democrats are touting economic plans that would boost spending.

Sen. Cory Booker (D) of New Jersey recently said he plans to introduce legislation for a model federal job-guarantee program in 15 high-unemployment communities and regions, as a step toward possibly going nationwide with the idea.

“Both Martin Luther King Jr. and President Franklin Roosevelt believed that every American had the right to a job, and that right has only become more important in this age of increasing income inequality, labor market concentration, and continued employment discrimination,” he said in a statement announcing his plans.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, another possible contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, is supporting similar ideas.

Federal job creation under such plans could focus on areas such as infrastructure and education, where investment could arguably help boost America’s future prosperity as well as provide current jobs. But critics say the job-guarantee programs would be very costly and could disrupt private-sector job markets.

Work requirements for a safety net?

Republicans, meanwhile, are stirring controversy with their own ideas to embed more work requirements into safety net programs like food stamps. The idea has the potential to appeal across ideological lines, depending on how the work requirements are designed. But coming after tax cuts that benefit the rich, a GOP proposal attaching work requirements to food stamps is drawing fierce opposition from Democrats in Congress.

The stakes surrounding the issue go beyond mere dollars in the economy.

“Work provides self-respect and a sense of well-being and makes for healthier communities,” Sawhill says. “Work is a core activity and a core value in our society. [Often] when people aren't working other things fall apart – families, marriages, relationships with children.”

In his work for Fairfield County, Mr. Davenport is hoping that new job opportunities will arrive as a tight national job market helps him make the case to employers who are looking for a place to expand.

After the closure of a Caterpillar plant and a tire-industry factory, and cancellation of a nuclear-plant expansion, “a lot of those [unemployed] folks are still talented and educated and trained and still living in the area,” Davenport says.

He hopes new tax incentives will also help make the case. The Trump tax cuts call for the creation of “opportunity zones” where investors can gain tax relief by creating jobs – and Fairfield County expects to be a beneficiary.

“We've really ramped up our marketing efforts,” he says, while awaiting a meeting in Denver with a firm that he hopes will become a South Carolina job creator.

It looks like the typical “color revolution.”

Pro-democracy crowds take to the streets in the capital of some post-Soviet republic to peacefully protest the political manipulations of their Moscow-friendly ruling elite and demand sweeping reforms to the corrupt, oligarchic economic system they've grown to despise.

That's what's happening right now in Armenia. For over two weeks, huge, mostly youthful crowds have been holding rolling demonstrations in the center of Yerevan and other Armenian cities, reacting to an attempt by two-term President Serzh Sargsyan to extend his grip on power. Most previous “color revolutions” in the former Soviet Union have been similarly triggered by fraudulent elections or other duplicitous abuses of power.

But unlike those previous cases, the massive popular upsurge in Armenia went almost unnoticed in Western capitals for 10 days, until Mr. Sargsyan suddenly bowed to the street and stepped aside last Monday. Moreover, Russia, which is home to more than 2 million Armenians and has been obsessed with the supposedly dire threat of “color revolutions” for years, was more alert but surprisingly calm.

Things are still up in the air on the streets of Yerevan, and the tense drama may well end up striking a major blow for democracy and the power of civil society. But there are few, if any, geopolitical stakes in Armenia. While the government might become more democratic, Armenia's reliance on Russia for trade and security will not change. And that is the main reason for the almost disinterested shrugs on all sides.

“We may await wide-scale changes in domestic policies. New people may come to the top, with a whole new attitude,” says Alexander Iskandaryan, director of the independent Caucasus Institute in Yerevan. “But this revolution has an entirely internal genesis. Foreign policy isn't even a subject for discussion.”

'Russia will not intervene'

The tiny, landlocked republic of Armenia is a traditional Russian ally, a member of the Moscow-led Eurasian Economic Union and military Collective Security Treaty Organization, and wedged between its long-standing enemies Turkey and Azerbaijan. So, it depends heavily on Russia for its national security.

Though chronically poor by Western standards, over half of Armenians have post-secondary education. Large numbers go abroad for permanent or temporary employment. There are huge Armenian diasporas in Russia, North America, and Europe, and contacts are intense. The country of around 3 million people has enjoyed about 7 percent annual growth in recent years, but its GDP of around 11 billion is modest and heavily dependent on around $500 million in annual remittances from Armenians working abroad, mostly in Russia.

The recent street revolt came in response to Sargsyan's attempt to “pull a Putin” by changing the constitution to vest the lion's share of authority in the parliament, then getting his ruling Republican party to name him prime minister. Though his party did appoint him prime minister, he only lasted six days before resigning under popular pressure.

The largely spontaneous eruption ended up with Nikol Pashinyan, whose Civil Contract party holds just 8 percent of the seats in the parliament, as its leading symbol and most likely beneficiary. He is demanding that the parliament choose a “people's candidate” who is not from the ruling Republican Party when it meets to decide on a new prime minister on May 1. Beyond that, he demands new elections and sweeping political reforms.

He hasn't suggested any changes to Armenia's complex relations with Russia. “I had a meeting with an official from Moscow and got reassurance that Russia would not intervene in Armenia's internal affairs,” Mr. Pashinyan told a rally in central Yerevan earlier this week.

That's a marked break from the Russian reaction to similar events which unfolded over the past decade and a half in Georgia, twice in Ukraine, and even twice in distant Kyrgyzstan. But in this case, the Kremlin has indeed repeatedly insisted that there is no cause for alarm. The fiery Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, even took to her Facebook page to declare “Armenia, Russia always stands with you!”

But in fact, Russia has not shown much interest in blocking Armenia's dalliances with democracy, including those with the European Union. In 2017, without any apparent objection from Moscow, Armenia signed a revised Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement with the EU, and announced its intentions to keep developing its relations with both Russia and the EU, even though its main trading partner is Russia.

Armenia needs Russia

That boils down in large part, analysts say, to the immutability of Armenia's security needs – even if it becomes more democratic.

“Armenia is in a complicated geopolitical situation, but the bottom line is that it doesn't have many alternatives,” says Vladimir Zharikhin, deputy director of the Institute for the Commonwealth of Independent States, part of the Russian Academy of Sciences. “It is very connected with its diaspora around the world, who are very influential. It always has maintained good relations with both Russia and the West. But, given that it is locked in [a frozen] war with Azerbaijan over [the Armenian-populated territory of] Nagorno-Karabakh, and has NATO member Turkey on its other border, it needs Russia and is not likely to change its geopolitical position no matter who comes to power.”

As a sharp example of a post-Soviet country whose population chafes at Russian-style “managed democracy” and corrupt crony-oriented economic policies, Armenia's pro-democracy revolt seems another in a familiar series rocking the Putin-era ex-Soviet region. But as a Moscow vassal tearing itself free and rushing into the West's embrace, not so much.

“It bears all the hallmarks of a 'colored revolution,' but it's completely driven by domestic politics,” says Sergei Strokan, foreign affairs columnist for the Moscow business daily Kommersant. “Armenia's agreement with the EU is mostly symbolic, since it remains highly dependent on Russian loans, arms, and trade. Indeed, there's very little the West could offer Armenia, even if there was a Ukrainian-style mood to change sides on the streets in Yerevan today. But there isn't. And I doubt the events in Armenia even register very much on US or European agendas at all as these very dramatic events unfold.”

Jose Cabezas/Reuters

People participate in a protest against police violence and the government of Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega in Managua, Nicaragua, on April 25, 2018.

On a grassy embankment in Managua, dozens of metal crosses with black flags honoring the dead and disappeared stand as a coda to more than a week of anti-government unrest. Beside the makeshift memorial, protesters dressed in black chant, “They weren’t criminals, they were students!”

Amid a cacophony of clanging cymbals and honking klaxons, Maria, a chef in her late 50s, stands in front of one of the crosses. She laments her silence during the long and increasingly repressive rule of President Daniel Ortega, a Socialist revolutionary who joined the fight to oust a US-backed dictator in 1979.

“With this government, we’ve been quiet,” she says. “We thought that these people who have power now were saints. They aren’t saints, they’re criminals.”

Over the past nine days, protests have rocked this tiny nation, often viewed as an island of stability in Central America. Hundreds of people took to the streets to oppose social-security reforms that would require workers to pay more and receive fewer benefits. Protesters and analysts here say that the reform – since reversed by Mr. Ortega – simply ignited the flame of anger and frustration that’s been smoldering for the past decade, as Ortega has centralized power, curbed media freedoms, and made his wife the vice president.

The government’s violent response to what started off as small-scale student protests has led to nationwide calls for new elections, raising doubts over the survival of Ortega and his Sandinista movement.

“The Sandinistas stopped being a revolutionary party long ago. It has forgotten its ethical principles and created an elite,” says Cirilo Otero, a sociologist and columnist for national newspaper La Prensa. “The social security was just the trigger, and then this is the spontaneous combustion.”

Another factor: Venezuela, an aligned leftist regional power, is pulling back aid and falling into its own political tailspin, making Nicaraguans think twice about going down the same path.

'I can't just cross my arms'

On Wednesday afternoon, students gathered in front of a police line guarding El Chipote prison to call for the release of scores of young protesters who have been detained without criminal charges over the past week.

Human rights groups say over 30 people have been killed, an unknown number are disappeared, and hundreds more have been detained during the unrest, while those in custody have reportedly been abused. Unarmed street protesters were beaten by police and pro-government militias, which Ortega claimed was the work of provocateurs trying to undermine him.

“For me, it’s simple. People have let history repeat itself,” says Sophia Paz, a college student waiting in front of the prison. She says the curbs on political rights under Ortega echo the dictatorship the Sandinistas overthrew in 1979, a struggle that her own parents joined.

“I have in my mind that there’s a chance I won’t return home, but if I don’t [protest] what is going to happen – let them take advantage of us more?” she asks. “Our parents stood up and fought and now we need to. I can’t just cross my arms.”

Students have been at the heart of the protests, in large part because their parents and older generations had been afraid of speaking out against the government. Nicaraguans under the age of 35 make up nearly two-thirds of the population of 6 million, and their frustration over their educational and job opportunities has been building for years. Young Nicaraguans are also more likely to be digitally connected, and to follow global political news. This is partly Ortega’s doing: Public parks now offer free internet access.  

For Lilly Arellano, a middle-aged doctor turned protester, Nicaraguans’ quiescence has long been grounded in fear, a spell that appears to have been broken. “They’ve always threatened people’s livelihood if they go against the government and repressed protest with these paramilitaries that they support. We had responsibilities, so we kept our mouths shut.”

A role for church mediators

As political tensions have risen, the Catholic Church agreed Tuesday to mediate negotiations between the government, students, and other private sectors, including COSEP, the powerful business chamber that has largely stood by Ortega. Students initially refused to participate in the talks, but agreed late Wednesday to join if the government meets certain conditions, like investigating protester murders. They say they will continue their demonstrations.

A 2016 survey by Vanderbilt University shows that Nicaraguans have become more cautious about expressing their political opinions, even among friends. Kenneth Coleman, who helped gather data for the survey in 2014, says this speaks to the hollowing out of democratic institutions and freedom of expression under Ortega. “Everyone is using veiled language” when criticizing his weakening of the judiciary and other checks on power, including COSEP, an unlikely capitalist ally for Ortega’s socialist regime.

That Ortega leans on Nicaragua’s business class may yet be his Achilles’ heel. Last Friday, COSEP issued a supportive statement for the students taking to the streets. In an interview, the president of COSEP said that the government needed to change course if it wanted to avoid inciting further unrest.

“What’s been happening since Wednesday is a bit of a surprise for us – especially how the security forces are repressing” citizens, says José Adán Aguerri. “If they don’t create a base of change and respond to the people, we are going to end up in the same spot again.”

Venezuela's gusher runs dry 

Ortega has long cultivated Venezuela’s socialist rulers as patrons. But after a decade of subsidized oil and cheap loans the gusher has gone largely dry as Venezuela’s economy has crashed. That’s made it tougher for Nicaragua to fund social programs that have long placated the country’s poor. It’s also painted a vivid picture of what Nicaragua could become if its leaders are allowed free reign to concentrate power and quash civil liberties, observers say.

“People are discontent. And now they look around and think, ‘If we stay on this path, we could end up like Venezuela, with a dictator who has concentrated power and made it disastrous to recuperate,” says Ricardo de Léon Borge, a political analyst in Managua.

Students are calling for Ortega, who has been president since 2007 and changed the constitution to allow him to stand again, to step down before the end of his current term in 2021. Even if Ortega agreed to early elections, there are no obvious opposition candidates at this point. Most students are disillusioned with political parties, saying they have no interest in running for office themselves, says Mr. de Léon Borge. “If Ortega is smart about it, he could call early elections and play those divisions to his political advantage.”

Arturo Cruz, who served as ambassador to the US and Canada under Ortega between 2007 and 2009 who now teaches at INCAE Business School in Costa Rica, says he would prefer that the president finish out his term before leaving office so that the transition can succeed. “History in Latin America shows that your legacy is determined not by how your rule, but by how you leave,” he says.  

AP Photo

A group of Germans take part in an April 15 workshop, led by Syrian migrants, to learn the traditional Arabic dance Dabke in Berlin, Germany.

One reason so many migrants try to reach Europe or the United States is that both guarantee free and open debate – about issues such as immigration. Democracy is alluring in its demand of citizens to listen to one another out of respect for equality. Such ideals are rare in much of Africa, Central America, and the Middle East, which are the main sources of today’s mass migrations.

On Friday, the topic of migration will be on the table during a “working visit” by German Chancellor Angela Merkel to the White House. Both Ms. Merkel and President Trump have defined their political identity on the issue. In 2015, she flung open Germany’s borders to more than 1 million refugees and migrants. On the opposite side of the political spectrum, Trump has tried to close America’s borders, mainly to those from the south and from Muslim countries.

Each has been forced to learn they went too far. Merkel admits she made a mistake in welcoming so many migrants so quickly. Now an anti-immigrant party is her lead opposition. For Mr. Trump, resistance from Congress and the courts has made him back down on many promises, such as insisting Mexico pay for a border wall.

In addition, both now recognize a greater need to stem the flow of migrants at its source. Germany is funding aid programs in Africa, while the US has tried to curb the flow of people from Syria with, for instance, missile strikes after the recent use of chemical weapons on Syrian civilians.

At a higher level, both the US and Germany (along with much of Europe) are in the midst of reshaping their collective identity via the push and pull of debate over immigration. Which values are at stake in allowing a more pluralistic society? Can new migrants keep their identity but coexist with a nation’s overarching identity? How should a country balance rule of law and sovereignty against a compassion for refugees or a need for workers?

Answering such questions takes more democracy, not less. In a speech this month, French President Emmanuel Macron decried the rise of anti-immigration parties in Europe, or what he called “selfish nationalism.” He said the political divide over values within the European Union is like a “civil war.” He called on EU leaders “to have a democratic, critical debate on what Europe is about” before the next election for a new European Parliament in 2019.

Would-be migrants to Europe or the US are attracted by such calls for a democratic way of resolving differences. In a new book titled “Suicide of the West,” American writer Jonah Goldberg writes, “Nearly all higher forms of social organization expand the definition of ‘us’ to permit large forms of cooperation.” Over centuries of history, smaller identities have been shed for more expansive ones.

The key in such debates is humility to listen as equals for the best solutions. In their respective countries, Merkel and Trump have had to listen to their opponents. Now they can also listen to each other.