When Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022, then-Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida warned that the war and its outcome would be a harbinger of Asia’s future. His message was clear: Just as Europe faced Russian territorial expansionism, Asia was confronting the challenge of China’s growing assertiveness—each with potentially profound consequences for the respective continent.

Three years later, Kishida’s warning has acquired a more ominous meaning. U.S. President Donald Trump is pressing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to cede territory in exchange for peace of an uncertain duration, while demanding that European allies fall in line. For Asia, Trump’s high-handed diplomacy raises troubling questions about whether America will remain a reliable security guarantor in the Indo-Pacific.

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The initial meetings are over. Now the meetings about the meetings have begun. 

Nearly three dozen leaders met virtually on Tuesday, hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and a delegation of European leaders met with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., to discuss the outcome of the meetings in Washington and coordinate next steps. Those next steps could involve a bilateral meeting between Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin—and/or a trilateral meeting that would see Trump also attend.

The call was convened by what has been dubbed the “coalition of the willing,” a group of 31 countries that are committed to defending Ukraine against Russia. The group is led by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron, both of whom were among the seven European leaders backing Zelensky up in Washington on Monday.

According to a statement from Starmer’s office, the virtual meeting focused heavily on plans to provide “robust” U.S. and European security guarantees for Ukraine as part of any future peace deal with Russia, which could include “the deployment of a reassurance force if the hostilities ended.” They also “discussed how further pressure – including through sanctions – could be placed on Putin until he showed he was ready to take serious action to end his illegal invasion.”

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After a strange, made-for-television summit in Washington on Monday meant to bring Russia’s escalating war on Ukraine closer to the conclusion that U.S. President Donald Trump vowed to achieve even before taking office, nearly all the big questions remain unanswered. Here are just a few of the major issues that the United States, Ukraine, its European backers, and Russia will be grappling with in days and weeks to come.

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Remember when U.S. President Donald Trump declared that Russia would face “severe consequences” if it didn’t agree to a cease-fire in Ukraine? When he threatened to impose draconian sanctions if Russian President Vladimir Putin didn’t agree to peace? When he told Fox News that he wouldn’t “be happy” if Putin didn’t stop the fighting?

All these things happened just before the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska on Aug. 15. Then, the U.S. media was full of feverish reports on Trump’s supposed vexation with Putin and alleged shift toward Ukraine. Since the U.S.-Russia mutual admiration event last week, all that has vanished down the memory hole, melted away like the snows of yesteryear. As many of the same reporters once again gush about the positive vibes emerging from Trump’s meetings with Zelensky and other European leaders at the White House yesterday, let’s keep their previous mistakes in mind.

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If nothing else, Donald Trump doesn’t shy away from high stakes meetings. Always supremely confident in his own abilities to bend others to his will, the U.S. president spent the past few days engaging with leaders on both sides of the war between Russia and Ukraine to try to end the most destructive war in Europe since 1945.

For all his efforts, however, the prospect of finding a resolution to the conflict remains as distant today as it was before Trump threw the diplomatic effort into full gear a couple of weeks ago. The fundamental reality confronting Trump is that Russia and Ukraine are pursuing irreconcilable objectives. Ukraine wants to be secure, sovereign, and independent. Russia wants to subjugate Ukraine and control its destiny.

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky—backed by an extraordinary delegation of seven European leaders—traveled to the White House on Monday to discuss possible terms for a Russia-Ukraine peace deal with U.S. President Donald Trump, following Trump’s meeting in Alaska last week with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Several notable conditions for ending the yearslong war were discussed. Among those, all nine leaders in attendance stressed the importance of holding a trilateral summit with Zelensky, Trump, and Putin, though French President Emmanuel Macron added that a quadrilateral meeting that also included the Europeans would likely be necessary as a follow-up.

Trump also expressed an openness to potentially providing Ukraine with U.S. security guarantees as part of a final peace deal, which Trump said Putin had agreed to during their summit in Alaska last week. It is unclear what these guarantees may look like; however, several European leaders referred to them as “Article 5” in style (in reference to NATO’s mutual defense clause). When asked if he would be willing to send U.S. troops to help provide security for Ukraine, Trump did not rule it out.

But in a statement on Monday, Moscow vehemently condemned the idea of NATO troops in Ukraine.

Such a concession is just one of many points of contention between Trump and team Europe. Zelensky and his European allies remain adamant that a cease-fire must first be secured before peace talks can be held. However, Putin has insisted that negotiations can occur without a truce deal—and Trump appears convinced. “I don’t think you need a cease-fire,” Trump said on Monday. “I’d like them to stop [fighting], but strategically, that could be a disadvantage for one side or the other.”

Read more in today’s World Brief: Trump, Zelensky Strike Optimistic Tone at White House Talks.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington on Monday alongside a large cohort of European leaders. This comes after Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday as part of an ongoing push for a deal to end the war in Ukraine.

After the Alaska summit, Trump has been accused of aligning with Putin by abandoning previous calls for a cease-fire. Trump over the weekend said that instead of pursuing a “mere ceasefire,” the warring parties should “go directly” to a peace agreement.

In Alaska, Putin also reportedly demanded that Ukraine cede Donetsk and Luhansk, the two territories that constitute the industrial eastern Donbas region, as a condition to end the war—and offered to freeze the conflict along the rest of the front line.

Trump is apparently supportive of this proposal and is raising pressure on Zelensky. In a Truth Social post on Sunday, Trump said Zelensky could end the war “almost immediately, if he wants to” and suggested that doing so will require Zelensky to accept that Ukraine will never regain Crimea (which Russia illegally seized in 2014) or join NATO. Zelensky has repeatedly stated that he will not give up territory as part of a peace agreement. But as Ukrainian forces continue to face myriad challenges along the roughly 600-mile front line, Zelensky is in a tough position.

To get a clearer picture of what’s being asked of Kyiv, here’s a quick breakdown of where things currently stand on the battlefield in Ukraine.

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The scene was familiar—U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sitting in the Oval Office, with U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the couch to Trump’s left. But unlike the last time this particular scene unfolded, there was no shouting match and even a few moments of levity.

Here’s what you need to know.

Less fireworks

Zelensky headed off one particular flashpoint from February’s meeting even before a word was said, by wearing a suit this time. He even had a good-natured exchange with Brian Glenn, a correspondent with right-wing news outlet Real America’s Voice whose question about the Ukrainian leader’s more casual attire back in February further stoked an already contentious argument. “You look fabulous in that suit,” Glenn quipped on Monday, before apologizing to Zelensky for his previous attack. “You are in the same suit,” Zelensky shot back, to laughter from Trump and others in the room.

Zelensky also thanked Trump for his continued support on multiple instances, blunting the other infamous attack by Vance that kick-started their disagreement during the last meeting.

Trump also appeared to be in a more gracious mood this time around. “We’re going to have a meeting. I think if everything works out well today, we’re going to have a trilat,” he said, referring to a proposed trilateral meeting with Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin. “And I think there will be a reasonable chance of ending the war when we do that.”

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Did the highly anticipated meeting in Alaska alter the trajectory of the war in Ukraine? Or was it just pageantry? As the dust settles on the summit, and as Kyiv, Brussels, and other interested parties react, FP’s Ravi Agrawal assesses the meeting with Andrea Kendall-Taylor, a former CIA analyst focused on Russia.

U.S. President Donald Trump, fresh off his Alaska meeting last week with Russian President Vladimir Putin, seems to have cooled on the idea of pressuring Moscow to end the war it started in Ukraine, despite Trump’s recent threats of “severe consequences” if Putin didn’t agree to a cease-fire.

Late Sunday, Trump appeared to revert to his default position of blaming Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, for getting invaded by its larger avaricious neighbor. “President Zelenskyy of Ukraine can end the war with Russia almost immediately, if he wants to, or he can continue to fight,” Trump said on his social media network. 

But Europe has plenty of cards to play in this conflict even if the Trump administration has opted for appeasement. The supporting cast joining Zelensky in the White House Monday includes the heads of NATO and the European Union, the Finnish Trump-whisperer-in-chief, and four of the most prominent national leaders in Europe. That raises the prospect that Ukraine and its biggest backers could inject some backbone into the United States’ approach, if not show some spine itself.

“I think the United States and Europe have all the cards. They are just not willing to play them, and that is nowhere more evident than in the realm of economic warfare,” said Tom Keatinge, the director for finance and security at the Royal United Services Institute in the United Kingdom.

“From the start, the G-7 allies have talked a tough game but have never gone all in on sanctions. We have, at every step of the way, fallen short of what we would need” to inflict sufficient economic pain on Russia to force Putin to recalibrate, he said.

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When U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in Anchorage, Alaska, on Aug. 15, Putin was greeted by a flyover of an American B-2 strategic bomber. Such flyovers can be a show of respect for a visiting statesperson, but Putin’s reptilian brain likely also registered fear as the stealthy aircraft roared overhead. He knows better than anyone that the world’s most advanced nuclear bomber could end his life within seconds.

This show of nuclear force followed closely on the heels of Trump’s order to reposition nuclear submarines to the “appropriate regions” in response to threats against the United States made by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

Some analysts have criticized Trump’s nuclear saber-rattling as dangerous. But in fact, Trump can and should ramp up nuclear threats as part of a successful negotiation strategy to bring Russia’s war in Ukraine to an end.

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When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrives in Washington on Aug. 18 for pivotal talks over the future of Russia’s war in Ukraine, he will be backed by several of his European allies. 

That may be because when Zelensky was last in town for talks in February, a highly watched diplomatic meeting—which was supposed to draw Kyiv and Washington closer together—rapidly devolved into an explosive shouting match with U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance. 

It’s a reflection of the two leaders’ tumultuous and shifting relationship as the Russia-Ukraine war stretches past its third year and Trump vacillates between Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

Their stormy history goes all the way back to Trump’s first term in office, when the U.S. leader withheld nearly $400 million in military aid from Ukraine and then urged Zelensky to investigate Trump’s then-political rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter—ultimately leading to his first impeachment. 

But since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and since Trump made quickly ending the war a central goal of his second presidency, his relationship with Zelensky has become even more important.  

Here is a brief timeline of some of the two leaders’ most turbulent moments since Trump returned to office. 

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is coming back to the White House, and this time, he has a phalanx of European leaders backing him up. 

Finnish President Alexander Stubb, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz all announced that they would accompany Zelensky when he meets with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington on Monday. 

The first three names on that list will be particularly important when it comes to making a case for Ukraine’s best interests to Trump, whose emphasis on interpersonal relationships drives much of his decision-making.

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U.S. President Donald Trump’s stated goal in meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska was to secure a Russia-Ukraine cease-fire. Putin stiffed him on a cease-fire and got him to instead accept an “understanding” that strikingly advantages Russia. It would require Kyiv to pay with land just to start negotiations of an overall settlement and leave Russian forces far better positioned if talks broke down.

The more we learn about this meeting, the more disastrous it sounds.

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U.S. President Donald Trump drew a lot of flak for inviting Russian President Vladimir Putin onto U.S. soil for the first time in a decade, complete with a red carpet, a bright “Alaska 2025” sign, and a joint news conference. That was despite getting little from the Russian leader beforehand, save a pledge to continue killing Ukrainians and seizing their territory if the summit didn’t go precisely his way.

And as quickly became clear at the news conference the two leaders held Friday, Trump came away with less than the minimum he had hoped for, which was a temporary cease-fire. Despite Putin’s gracious words to Trump—and Trump’s description of him as a “fantastic” partner—the Russian appeared to give no ground whatsoever on his fundamental position that Ukraine is Russian territory and that he will not compromise.

Trump put his best spin on it all nonetheless. “We didn’t get there, but we have a very good chance of getting there,” Trump said, declaring that the talks were “extremely productive” and that “many points were agreed to.” But he acknowledged there was no progress on one that was “probably the most significant,” which may have been a cease-fire in Ukraine. The two walked out of the news conference without taking questions.

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All eyes were on Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday as U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin met for pivotal talks over the future of the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine—without their Ukrainian counterpart at the table.

In the days leading up to the summit, Trump appeared to downplay expectations for the talks and any potential diplomatic breakthroughs. But he struck a tougher tone hours ahead of the talks, telling reporters aboard Air Force One: “I want to see a cease-fire rapidly. I don’t know if it’s going to be today, but I’m not going to be happy if it’s not today.” 

Once in Anchorage, the two leaders appeared cozy, with Trump literally rolling out a red carpet for the Russian leader and even allowing him to ride in Trump’s presidential limousine, known as the “Beast.” The warm reception stood in sharp contrast to the fiery and hostile exchange that occurred when Trump hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House in February. 

While Trump and Putin were initially expected to meet for one-on-one talks, the two leaders were ultimately accompanied by several top advisors in a last-minute change of plans. Trump was joined by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House envoy Steve Witkoff, while Putin brought Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Kremlin advisor Yuri Ushakov. The group met for 2 hours and 45 minutes, according to the Kremlin. 

But even after a press conference with both leaders afterward, it’s not entirely clear what the two leaders agreed to, if anything. “There’s no deal until there’s a deal,” Trump said, later adding: “We didn’t get there, but we have a very good chance of getting there.”

Below is the full rush transcript of Trump and Putin’s press conference.

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U.S. President Donald Trump rolled out the red carpet (literally) for Russian President Vladimir Putin when the two men arrived in Alaska on Friday for their closely watched summit on the Ukraine war. Between Trump’s warm welcome to his Russian counterpart and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s notable absence from the talks, it is unclear just how much progress will be made toward securing a peace deal.

Trump and his lineup of top U.S. officials hosted Putin and his own senior delegation at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. Upon landing in Anchorage, Trump gave Putin a first-class greeting: ordering a military flyover, applauding Putin as he approached, and even sharing the presidential limousine (known as the “Beast”) to ride through the U.S. military base. This was starkly different treatment from the open hostility that Trump expressed toward Zelensky during their White House summit in February.

Ahead of the meeting, the White House also announced an eleventh-hour change of plans. Trump and Putin were initially supposed to speak one-on-one without additional advisors present beyond their respective translators. But ahead of their arrival, the Trump administration notified reporters that the meeting format had been changed to a three-on-three, with Trump being joined by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and White House special envoy Steve Witkoff and Putin being accompanied by Lavrov and Kremlin advisor Yuri Ushakov. No explanation for the format change was given.

This is the first in-person Trump-Putin summit since the former began his second term in January, and it is the first time in a decade that the Russian leader has stepped onto U.S. soil. At the time of writing, the two world leaders—along with their last-minute additions—had entered hour three of talks.

Read more in today’s World Brief: Trump Rolls Out the Red Carpet for Putin in Alaska.

The Russian government is many things, but subtle is not one of them. Ahead of a highly anticipated summit on the Russia-Ukraine war in Alaska on Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov engaged in some blatant trolling.

Lavrov arrived in Alaska wearing a CCCP sweatshirt. Those are the Russian initials for “USSR,” which stands for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (aka the Soviet Union). Experts say that Lavrov, who has been Russia’s top diplomat for roughly two decades, knew exactly what he was doing by wearing that sweatshirt. “He wouldn’t do this just by chance,” former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt said of Lavrov’s sweatshirt via X.

The war in Ukraine—a former Soviet republic—is widely viewed as a product of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s nostalgia for the Soviet Union and imperialistic ambitions.

A post on X by the Wall Street Journal’s Yaroslav Trofimov includes a video that shows Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov walking from a car into a building wearing a CCCP shirt.X screengrab

Putin once referred to the collapse of the USSR as the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” And, after ordering the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, he compared himself to Peter the Great—effectively portraying himself as a righteous conqueror who’s fighting to restore control over what he views as Russian lands (much of Ukraine was also previously part of the Russian Empire).

The Russian president, a former KGB officer, has also repeatedly suggested that Ukrainians and Russians are “one people” and said in June that “the whole of Ukraine is ours.” Putin has falsely claimed that Ukraine, which gained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, isn’t a real country and was created by Russia.

Along these lines, Lavrov’s choice of attire garnered a fair amount of attention in terms of the message it appeared to send about Russia’s mentality heading into the Alaska summit between Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump.

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U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are both arriving at their summit in Alaska accompanied by sizable delegations.

Trump’s delegation, shared by the White House on Friday morning, includes some expected names—Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. Also traveling with Trump is his special envoy Steve Witkoff, whose meeting with Putin in Moscow last week set the stage for the Alaska summit. 

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will travel to Alaska separately, the Defense Department confirmed, accompanied by Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, the supreme allied commander for U.S. forces in Europe and the head of U.S. European command, is also reportedly attending the summit.

There are also a couple of inclusions that appear surprising, considering that the main goal of the meeting is purportedly to negotiate an end to the Russia-Ukraine war. U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will also be traveling with Trump, opening up the possibility that trade concessions or sanctions relief could be put on the table as part of discussions with Putin. Trump noted that several Russian businessmen are accompanying Putin, as well, but the U.S. leader downplayed suggestions of any economic discussions at the outset. “I noticed he’s bringing a lot of business people from Russia,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on the way to Alaska. “And that’s good, I like that, because they want to do business, but they’re not doing business until we get the war settled.” 

The absence of Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, is notable on paper but perhaps less surprising for Trumpworld observers. Kellogg has repeatedly been sidelined by Trump in his engagements with Putin, with most of those duties falling to Witkoff.

The first meeting of the summit, originally expected to be just the two leaders with their translators, is now set to be a three-on-three. Trump will be joined by Witkoff and Rubio, while Putin will reportedly have alongside him Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Yuri Ushakov, a former diplomat and key government advisor.

The U.S. trio will reportedly be joined after that meeting by Hegseth, Bessent, Lutnick, and Wiles for a broader working lunch.

Update, Aug. 15, 2025: This post was updated to reflect the latest news.

Last month, the U.S. State Department carried out its largest single-day layoffs ever—more than 1,300 employees gone overnight in a sweeping shake-up. Diplomats, consular officers, and foreign affairs specialists woke up one morning ready to serve and found themselves locked out of their emails by day’s end. The Trump administration said the dismissals were part of a “comprehensive reorganization plan.” But those familiar with the institution and its mission know that the White House’s moves are a dangerous mistake.

In a recent Foreign Policy piece, columnist Matthew Kroenig argued that the State Department cuts were a smart, long-overdue streamlining that would make the department more focused, agile, and strategically relevant. After 37 years in the U.S. Foreign Service and now as president of the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA), I can state emphatically that the reality looks very different.

AFSA is a professional association and union representing members of the Foreign Service from six foreign affairs agencies, including the State Department. While AFSA has long worked productively with both Republican and Democratic administrations, never has it experienced such a complete disregard for the expertise and perspective of those who know the U.S. diplomatic workforce best.

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The Israeli cabinet’s recent approval of a plan to take military control over all of Gaza left many observers puzzled because it made so little sense. The Israeli government claims that it needs to go in and “finish the job” of dismantling Hamas and freeing Israeli hostages. But even its most ardent defenders are struggling to explain how and why a group that has been decimated by 22 months of bombing and ground operations still poses a strategic threat to Israel, how an ideology and political movement can ever be eliminated with force, and why a further invasion and occupation is not more likely to lead to the hostages being killed—either by Hamas or the operation itself—than freed.

Even more puzzling is that the Israeli government is making the case for a further invasion of Gaza despite the likely monumental costs of such an operation. Sending large numbers of Israeli forces into Gaza City and beyond will almost certainly lead to many more months of conflict, kill and displace many more Palestinian civilians, and aggravate an already intolerable humanitarian situation. It will mean more suffering and deaths among the remaining Israeli hostages, cause further casualties among Israeli soldiers, require more costly call-ups of overworked reserve forces, exacerbate Israel’s image as a pariah state in the eyes of much of the world, further undermine Israeli relations with its Arab neighbors, and jeopardize the strategic relationship with the United States, where support for Israel is cratering.

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When the United States purchased the territory of Alaska from the Russian Empire in 1867, newspaper editorials mockingly referred to it as “Seward’s Folly” and “Walrussia.” But when U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin meet in Alaska on Aug. 15, for their first summit since 2016, the symbolism will be clear: a U.S. territory—and later a state—purchased and transferred peaceably in negotiations, now hosting talks focused on territorial boundaries in Ukraine.

Editorials today might as well refer to the summit as “Trump’s folly.” Indeed, many commentators have expressed open distaste for the idea of talking to Russia at all. And it’s certainly true that the summit could be pointless—or even actively detrimental to resolving Russia-Ukraine war. But it doesn’t have to be. There are scenarios in which this summit could yield small results that enable further talks over time.

U.S. President Ronald Reagan, in a 1986 radio address to the people of the Soviet Union, talked about the arduous process of finding common ground. “The United States,” he said, “stands ready to support all serious efforts to find peaceful solutions to regional conflicts. And we’re ready to work with the Soviet Union and any other country to that end. There are many complex issues to be discussed between the United States and the Soviet Union. Resolving them will not be easy, but the things most worth doing seldom are.”

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U.S. President Donald Trump’s seeming change of tune on Russia and Ukraine has perplexed his critics, myself included. Throughout his time in power, Trump offered little but praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin, often defending him in the face of domestic political furor. In contrast, Ukraine and President Volodymyr Zelensky have drawn only scorn from Trump, which culminated in an abrupt end to their meeting at the White House in February.

That posture appeared to shift last month after a phone call with Putin that, in Trump’s telling, left him “disappointed.” Referring to Russia’s continued assault on Ukraine, Trump said, “I’m just saying I don’t think [Putin’s] looking to stop, and that’s too bad.”

The weeks following that phone call had the feeling of a liberal internationalist fever dream. The White House reversed the Defense Department’s decision to halt weapons transfers to Ukraine. Trump, sitting beside the NATO secretary-general in the Oval Office, pledged to send weapons worth billions of dollars to Ukraine. He even vowed to impose sweeping tariffs and sanctions on Russia unless it ended the war—a demand that he first framed as a 50-day ultimatum but then shortened to less than two weeks.

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U.S. President Donald Trump has an unsurpassed talent for pulling surprises on the weary world. But even by Trump’s rigorous standards, the announcement last week of his forthcoming summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin has dumbfounded audiences worldwide. The last time that anyone was so perplexed, horrified, or excited about any summit was when former U.S. President Richard Nixon visited communist China.

“This was a week that changed the world,” Nixon said of his 1972 trip. For better or worse, this week could also change the world.

It sometimes seems that summitry with bloodthirsty dictators is Trump’s distinct contribution to U.S. diplomacy. But this isn’t totally unprecedented. At different times, different American presidents shook hands and struck deals with some of the world’s most murderous tyrants. Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman, for example, parleyed with “Uncle Joe” Stalin. Presidents Nixon and Gerald Ford met with Mao Zedong, who was not only responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of Chinese citizens but also, through his involvement in the Korean War, tens of thousands of Americans.

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U.S. President Donald Trump’s “America’s AI Action Plan” breaks from AI policies of the past. The goal is AI acceleration by any means possible to beat America’s nemesis: China. The White House claims that the plan was immediately hailed across the technology industry. If so, the industry needs to take a closer look. Considered in the context of the Trump administration’s broader policy mix, the AI Action Plan represents a strategy at war with itself. The plan’s ends are unclear. With deregulation, tariffs, and immigration restrictions further undermining the means to those unclear ends, the plan promises to force on the world a bundled American AI stack—a bundle developed guardrails-free and politicized in a way that, oddly, mimics China’s state-driven controls. To add to the noise, Trump last week announced a staggering 100 percent tariff on a critical component of AI—semiconductors—unless the companies producing them are “building in the U.S.,” but he hasn’t clarified the extent of “building” required to escape the levy and whether it is the semiconductor or the end product containing it that will be taxed. Even the plan’s laudable features, like accelerating AI innovation and infrastructure and promoting open models, are systematically undermined by other features.

Consider, first, the plan’s stated intention. Trump wants to ensure that children aren’t condemned to a planet controlled by “algorithms of the adversaries.” As our experience with social media has demonstrated, American children need not fear the algorithms of adversaries; there is no dearth of homegrown algorithm-makers in the United States capable of contributing to body image crises, cyberbullying, online predation, misinformation, and an epidemic of teenage depression and anxiety. Unlike a race to complete the world’s tallest building, or more complex rationales such as mutually assured destruction in a nuclear standoff, the goals of an “AI race” are unclear. AI has applications in national security, no doubt, which provides a solid rationale for national competitiveness, but its widest and most profitable uses will be in numerous other areas that benefit from varied innovations, talent, and datasets crossing borders.

In order to “lead the world” in AI, the plan assures freedom from federal regulations. To ensure that American AI developers are also freed from pesky restraints from the states, AI-related federal funding would be steered away from states with AI regulations deemed burdensome.

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Israel is likely to launch another war with Iran before December—perhaps even as early as late August.

Iran is expecting and preparing for the attack. It played the long game in the first war, pacing its missile attacks as it anticipated a protracted conflict. In the next round, however, Iran is likely to strike decisively from the outset, aiming to dispel any notion that it can be subdued under Israeli military dominance.

As a result, the coming war will likely be far bloodier than the first. If U.S. President Donald Trump caves to Israeli pressure again and joins the fight, the United States could face a full-blown war with Iran that will make Iraq look easy by comparison.

Israel’s June war was never solely about Iran’s nuclear program. Rather, it was about shifting the balance of power in the Middle East, with Iranian nuclear capabilities being an important but not decisive factor. For more than two decades, Israel has pushed the United States to take military action against Iran to weaken it and restore a favorable regional balance—one that Israel cannot achieve on its own.

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Remember the COVID-19-era shortages? Store shelves were stripped of toilet paper. Face masks were rationed. A global scarcity of semiconductors forced automakers and others to curtail production. Ford stashed unfinished Super Duty trucks in the Kentucky Speedway parking lot while waiting for crucial chips to arrive.

For a few months this year, it looked like Americans were in for another round of shortages, this time caused by U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff war. But it appears that most products will continue to be available, albeit at higher prices (and with a few serious exceptions, which I’ll get to). That’s a rare bit of good news in a sea of bad news surrounding Trump’s tariffs, which are fraying long-standing commercial ties between the United States and its closest allies.

The latest round of tariffs went into effect on Aug. 7. Including both new and old levies, the rates are 50 percent on Brazil, 35 percent on Canada, and 25 percent on Mexico. The current rate on China, which briefly reached 145 percent earlier this year, is a still-high 55 percent under a negotiated truce between the world’s biggest economies. The high tariffs will raise costs for American consumers and businesses, while squeezing the economies of the United States’ trading partners.

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In July, the Trump administration enacted the most sweeping reorganization of the U.S. State Department in a generation, and the reaction from the mainstream media was overwhelmingly negative. But the State Department was badly in need of reform. The reorganization is the first step toward reinvigorating the department to advance U.S. interests for a more contentious period of geopolitics.

There was a time when the State Department developed and implemented U.S. policy for its most important global challenges. The legendary policy planning teams under George Kennan and Paul Nitze, for example, were intellectual powerhouses often driving the United States’ Cold War strategy.

Over successive administrations, however, strategy and policy development and implementation have been absorbed by National Security Council (NSC) staff, relegating the State Department to managing foreign relations (literally interacting with foreign counterparts) and playing an undersized role in the formulation of strategy and policy. As one former policy planning director told me, “There is not a strategic bone in the entire department.”

Despite this reduction in responsibilities and importance, the size of the State Department has grown in recent decades.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin and White House envoy Steve Witkoff held “useful and constructive” talks in Moscow on Wednesday, according to Kremlin foreign-policy aide Yuri Ushakov. The roughly three-hour session aimed to secure a last-minute breakthrough to end the Russia-Ukraine war before threatened U.S. sanctions go into effect on Friday.

Still, officials suggest that Wednesday’s meeting was not enough to prevent U.S. President Donald Trump from imposing these measures on Moscow. “The Russians are eager to continue engaging with the United States,” a White House official said after the dialogue. But “the secondary sanctions are still expected to be implemented on Friday.”

Three weeks ago, Trump gave Russia 50 days to make progress toward securing a peace deal with Ukraine or else face further U.S. sanctions. But the U.S. president’s patience appears to be dwindling, and last week, he shortened that ultimatum to Aug. 8.

“It is extremely important that Moscow is beginning to feel the pressure of the world, the pressure from the United States, the threat of tougher sanctions for continuing the war,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky posted on X on Tuesday following a phone call with Trump, during which the two leaders discussed how U.S. sanctions could damage the Russian economy.

However, experts warn that Russia is unlikely to bow to U.S. threats when it feels that it is winning the war. Since Russia and Ukraine resumed direct peace talks in May, Moscow has conducted its heaviest air attacks yet, killing at least 72 people in Kyiv alone.

Read more in today’s World Brief: U.S. Sanctions on Russia Still Loom After Putin-Witkoff Meeting.

U.S. President Donald Trump has given Russian President Vladimir Putin a lot of rope over the past eight and a half years, but his patience now appears to be rapidly diminishing as he grows frustrated with Putin’s refusal to end Russia’s war in Ukraine. 

Trump cut short a 50-day deadline that he had given Russia to arrive at a deal to end the war or face additional sanctions—including secondary tariffs on countries such as India and possibly China that continue to purchase Russian oil—saying during a visit to Scotland last month that he would only give Russia 10 more days, or until Aug. 8. 

On Wednesday, two days before the deadline, Trump pulled the trigger on secondary tariffs aimed at India, issuing an executive order that would raise the U.S. tariff rate on India to 50 percent—25 percent for Trump’s trade ire and 25 percent for India’s reliance on Russian oil, with the latter increase beginning in 21 days.

In the first year of his second term in office, Trump has gone from shouting down Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office to promising him more Patriot missiles. Last week, Trump responded to a veiled threat from former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev by claiming to reposition two “nuclear” submarines closer to Russia (though it remains unclear whether Trump meant nuclear-armed or nuclear-powered submarines, as the United States has both). 

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In April 2024, U.S. President Donald Trump convened a group of oil and gas executives at Mar‑a‑Lago. According to multiple accounts, he offered them what he called “a deal”: donate $1 billion to his reelection campaign, and the second Trump administration would dismantle U.S. climate policy.

The fossil fuel industry delivered plenty of cash, although untraceable dark money makes a full accounting impossible. Since January, Trump has moved with startling speed to keep his side of the tainted bargain. The administration has launched an all‑out assault on climate action: repealing clean-energy tax incentives, freezing funding for renewable programs, dismantling America’s climate science capacity, unwinding clean air regulations, and even scrapping the legal foundations that enable future administrations to regulate greenhouse gases.

Internationally, Trump pulled the United States from the historic and widely supported Paris Agreement, cut off climate aid to developing nations, declined to send American diplomats to U.N. climate talks (even those outside the Paris Agreement), and shuttered the State Department’s climate office—firing all its professional staff in the process.

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As Eswatini becomes the second African country after South Sudan to accept third-country migrants deported by the United States, Nigeria is charting a sharply different course. Africa’s most populous nation has rejected Washington’s immigration policy, with Nigerian Foreign Minister Yusuf Tuggar bluntly stating in early July that the country has “enough problems of our own” and will not cave to U.S. pressure to take in deportees with no ties to Nigeria.

Nigeria’s stance is not just about immigration. It is a broader rejection of the transactional logic that has long shaped U.S.-Africa relations. Nigeria isn’t just defending borders—it is defending its sovereignty.

This quiet but consequential standoff comes as U.S. President Donald Trump revives his controversial policy of third-country deportations, which he introduced on a smaller scale in Latin America during his first term. Now, his administration is expanding those efforts and actively courting African nations—a shift signaled at Trump’s mini-summit with African leaders at the White House in July, where he alluded to progress on such deals without offering details.

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As Gaza’s humanitarian crisis escalates to famine-level warnings and foreign powers announce their intention to recognize a Palestinian state, U.S. President Donald Trump is struggling to balance preserving the close U.S.-Israel relationship with mounting public pressure to end the Israel-Hamas war.

“The fastest way to end the Humanitarian Crises in Gaza is for Hamas to SURRENDER AND RELEASE THE HOSTAGES!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Thursday, reiterating his administration’s past position. His post came shortly after White House envoy Steve Witkoff arrived in Israel to push Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to salvage cease-fire talks.

This week, dozens of ministers convened at the United Nations to revive the long-touted goal of a two-state solution. Namely, they drafted the New York Declaration, which states that Hamas “must end its rule in Gaza and hand over its weapons to the Palestinian Authority,” which governs parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. However, the conference’s efficacy was undermined by two key absences: Israel and the United States.

Both countries remain reluctant to give the Palestinian Authority governing control of Gaza. On Thursday, the U.S. State Department announced sanctions against the PA and the PLO, accusing them of “continuing to support terrorism” and undermining current peace efforts. It is unclear if the sanctions would bar Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas or other senior PA officials from traveling to the U.N. General Assembly in September, when France, the United Kingdom, and now Canada have said they intend to recognize an independent Palestine.

The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs has condemned these countries’ announcements, calling them a “reward for Hamas.” And on Thursday, Trump denounced Canada’s decision, warning that recognizing Palestine will make it more difficult for Washington and Ottawa to secure a new trade agreement to reduce a planned 35 percent tariff, to go into effect on Aug. 1.

The United States will impose a 25 percent tariff on India beginning Aug. 1, U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday. Despite five rounds of negotiations, India has so far been unable to secure a better deal. And with the new rate being a mere 1 percentage point less than the original amount threatened in April, Washington is demonstrating that it seeks an aggressive strategy to help curb the United States’ trade deficit with India.

“Remember, while India is our friend, we have, over the years, done relatively little business with them because their Tariffs are far too high, among the highest in the World, and they have the most strenuous and obnoxious non-monetary Trade Barriers of any Country,” Trump posted on Truth Social on Wednesday. In 2024, India was the United States’ 10th largest trading partner, and the U.S. trade deficit with the country was $45.7 billion.

Alongside a 25 percent tariff, Trump threatened on Wednesday to impose an additional “penalty” for India’s continued purchasing of Russian oil, energy, and military equipment. It is unclear what that penalty might be, but experts believe that it may consist of the 100 percent secondary tariff that the White House has threatened to place on some of Russia’s biggest trading partners, including China, India, and Brazil.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, Moscow has become India’s largest oil supplier. And between January and June of this year, Russia accounted for about 35 percent of India’s total oil supplies, according to Reuters data. As Trump’s efforts to end Russia’s war in Ukraine have failed and the U.S. president has begun to lose patience with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intransigence, there has been a growing appetite in Washington to cut off that vital source of revenue to pressure the Kremlin to get serious about peace.

But there have been a few deals—seven, to be exact (eight if you count a temporary detente with China on tariffs that the two sides continue to negotiate). South Korea was the latest to sign, with Trump announcing an agreement in a Truth Social post on July 30.

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President Donald Trump has spent two weeks struggling to dig himself out of the scandal that’s become known as the “Epstein files.” Allegations of a conspiracy involving high-ranking government officials, Democrats, and wealthy financiers to cover up how Jeffrey Epstein died—and to conceal a supposed list of the powerful clients who participated in his sex trafficking and pedophilia—have been a major theme in MAGA circles for years.

When Trump appeared to be blocking the release of the Epstein files, and even denied that there was anything substantive to reveal, significant portions of the MAGA world turned against him. Tensions have escalated to the point where Trump has called his own supporters “stupid” and “foolish.”

The story continues to unfold. For now, it appears Trump might survive the fallout through a series of political maneuvers and by pressuring enough Republicans on Capitol Hill to back him. Speaker Mike Johnson went so far as to start the August recess early, in July, to make sure that Democrats wouldn’t have an opportunity to propose legislation that would require the Department of Justice to release all of its information.

Whatever the outcome, the Epstein files controversy remains one of the most difficult internal political challenges that Trump has faced, and a stark reminder of the strength of right-wing conspiratorial politics within the Republican Party.

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The headlines covering his overhaul of the federal government have largely focused on a few earthquakes, such as the demise of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the dismantling of State Department bureaus dealing with human rights and refugees. But Trump’s cuts have also battered scores of civil society organizations and policy centers that received funding from the U.S. government.

These institutions—including the National Endowment for Democracy, the International Republican Institute, Freedom House, and refugee resettlement groups—have been shuttered, shriveled, or mired in existential legal challenges. Career professionals have had to abort projects, betray trusted global partners, abandon vulnerable populations, and seek new ways to make a living.

Many of those affected by Trump’s moves have gone through the stages of grief: denial, outrage, and efforts to bargain with legislators and courts, followed increasingly by depression. Now, they must move toward acceptance—not seeing the administration’s choices as justifiable but rather admitting that many are unstoppable and likely irreversible. In short, idealists need to become realists to ensure that the values they treasure survive to fight another day.

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Although U.S. President Donald Trump has said little or nothing in public about defending human rights and freedoms abroad, both of his administrations have taken steps to reform the way that the United States defines and upholds those rights. At the same time, cuts to foreign aid and other international outreach programs—as well as Trump’s attacks on constitutional governance and the rule of law—threaten to undermine the United States’ most effective means of promoting and defending basic rights and freedoms: its soft power and the power of example.

The first Trump administration denounced the United Nation’s hypocrisy on human rights, withdrawing from the U.N. Human Rights Council when the call for reforming its autocracy-heavy membership was rejected. The U.S. State Department defended basic freedoms by confronting China, Venezuela, Syria, and other countries about abuses; leading a major international push for religious freedom; and promoting women’s economic empowerment.

Then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo established a Commission on Unalienable Rights, charging it with “providing the U.S. government with advice on human rights grounded in our nation’s founding principles and the principles of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights” and creating a “serious debate about human rights that extends across party lines and national borders.” In announcing the project, Pompeo distinguished between fundamental rights enshrined by the country’s founders—including the famous right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”—and a subsequent proliferation of “ad hoc rights granted by governments,” especially since the end of the Cold War.

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Donald Trump “really gets it.” This is according to no less an authority than Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, who was commenting on the U.S. president’s understanding of AI and ways to maximize its potential.

Surely, the fact that Trump blocked time on his very first full day in office to line Altman up along with other tech luminaries in the White House’s Roosevelt Room to announce a half-a-trillion-dollar AI infrastructure project tells us that Trump gets AI’s national significance.

What about the president’s executive order facilitating AI’s energy needs by expanding America’s nuclear energy capacity, followed up by a presidential “AI and Energy Summit”? Don’t these actions show Trump gets which levers the U.S. government must pull to power the rapid build-out of AI infrastructure?

Or what about scuttling former President Joe Biden’s executive order calling for guardrails on AI in order to make way for new executive orders greenlighting acceleration of American AI? What does this show if not Trump understanding the urgency to advance AI innovation?

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Buckle your seat belts for the wild ride that Israelis, along with the Trump administration, are about to experience between now and year’s end as the prime minister, a man whose almost every move is tethered to his determination to remain in power, plans and plots his reelection bid, most likely for early 2026. As former U.S. House Speaker Tip O’Neill famously said, “All politics is local”—a truth that holds in Israel as well. Just look at the issue of ultra-Orthodox conscription, which has rocked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition of late.

But one element of Netanyahu’s bid for reelection isn’t local: Donald Trump. Indeed, the U.S. president may not be the only factor shaping Netanyahu’s political future, but he certainly is an important one. That gives Trump, whose relationship with Netanyahu has been rocky at times, significant leverage. He can either help or hurt Netanyahu’s bid to extend his domination of Israel’s political scene. So, how will Trump play his part, and will he continue his propensity to be more supportive of Netanyahu than not?

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Eight months after the fall of the Assad regime, Syria is still a source of instability in the heart of the Levant. The horrifying violence that took place in the southwestern Syrian province of Suwayda last week is the latest in a pattern of sectarian, ethnic, and tribal violence that has plagued the country since Bashar al-Assad’s flight to Moscow. It belies the feel-good stories and testaments of politicians and officials about self-anointed President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s professed desire to build a “Syria for all Syrians.” Bad habits die hard. Assad was once believed to be a reformer in the years before he presided over industrial-level slaughter in a bloody effort to save his regime.

No one knows how Sharaa, who led an extremist group and once had a U.S. bounty on his head, will govern, though healthy skepticism is in order. And no one has an answer to the divisions within society that actors in the Syrian drama have exploited violently in pursuit of power. These circumstances make it an inauspicious moment for the United States to wade into Syria. But there are things Washington could do that would increase the chances for Syrians to enjoy some modicum of peace both at home and along their borders.

To make that happen, President Donald Trump needs to leverage his unique standing with Middle Eastern leaders. He must set limits on Syria’s neighbors and incentivize them to provide Syria with a pathway for reconstruction, development, and reintegration in the region. This does not require an American commitment to transform Syria. That would be foolish given Washington’s abysmal record with international political and social engineering. Rather, it requires the judicious use of the extraordinary diplomatic and political capital Trump has accumulated with the region’s players. The idea of leverage is overblown, but if any president has ever had it, it is Trump, and he should use it in Syria.

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Last week, U.S. chip designer Nvidia announced that it would resume sales of one of its best-selling artificial intelligence chips to China after obtaining the go-ahead from the U.S. government. In April, the Trump administration had blocked exports of the chip, known as the H20, but after months of lobbying from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, it has reportedly agreed to lift the ban. Some Trump officials have described the move as a part of the recent trade truce between the United States and China, through which China agreed to resume exports of rare-earth minerals. Beijing has described it as a unilateral concession by Washington.

Whatever the true sequence of events, the move has huge implications for both the future of the Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) industry and the Trump administration’s ability to control advanced technology sales to China in the future. Right as powerful AI reasoning systems are emerging, the administration has chosen to allow companies to sell China the AI chips suited to running them. And by linking, at least rhetorically, chip sales to the trade talks—talks in which the United States has shown a striking desperation to reach a deal—U.S. officials have revealed to their Chinese counterparts that national security policies that were once off the table are now up for negotiation. In doing so, they may have hamstrung their ability to impose new chip export controls without reigniting a losing trade war.

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Recent shifts in U.S. President Donald Trump’s foreign and national security policy herald a more vigorous use of Washington’s military power and deeper engagement in the world. From the missile attacks on Yemen’s Houthis and the bombing of Iran’s nuclear production facilities to successful U.S. pressure on European NATO allies to prepare for the Russian military threat and this week’s decision to provide Kyiv with additional weapons—all this and more signal Trump’s increasing willingness to shape the global arena.

This is a far cry from the inward-looking tone of Trump’s presidential campaign, during which foreign affairs took a back seat to domestic issues such as inflation and immigration. Indeed, Trump’s focus before taking office was on criticizing what he characterized as a trigger-happy, out-of-touch foreign-policy establishment that had needlessly launched costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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Over the past two decades, a distinctive kind of color-coded map has become a staple of economic journalism. These maps were designed to show the leading commercial partner of countries around the world. Gradually at first, and then in an onrush of change, they filled up with a new color—usually red—as China surpassed the United States as the top bilateral trader with almost every nation on Earth.

As China became the globe’s dominant trade superpower, largely on the strength of its manufacturing prowess, leaders in the West and Asia wondered how much—and how quickly—Beijing would be able to convert its recent commercial strength into geopolitical advantage. That process has been much slower and more limited than many expected. It turns out that patterns established decades ago, when colonial rule was still widespread, are hard to displace.

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On July 7, U.S. President Donald Trump sent a letter to the Japanese government announcing a 25 percent tariff on all goods shipped to the United States beginning on Aug. 1. The reaction was swift. “The content is entirely unacceptable,” said Itsunori Onodera, a senior member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). “To notify a key ally with nothing more than a single letter is extremely disrespectful, and I feel a strong sense of indignation.”

In a country where speaking one’s mind so directly is generally frowned on, this statement amounted to a shout of outrage. The sense of betrayal is palpable in Japan these days. Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba thought that he had placated Trump’s more extreme demands by promising to invest an additional $1 trillion in the U.S. economy, eliciting praise from him at the time. The letter from Washington came as a correspondingly harsh surprise. A poll conducted in March and April found that 81 percent of Japanese felt “more uneasy than hopeful” about Trump’s second term in office; that number is now bound to be much higher.

Tokyo-watchers are now trying to figure out whether the perceived insult and broadside against the Japanese economy from the White House will hurt or help Ishiba in the upper house election on July 20. The vote comes at a time when popular discontent over inflation and rising unemployment is already spiking. And that’s not the only complicating factor: Tokyo is also struggling to formulate a response to rising Chinese military assertiveness in an already tense neighborhood. “Typhoon Trump is wreaking havoc with longstanding allies in Asia—Japan and South Korea—in ways that are undermining American power and influence in the region,” said Jeff Kingston, a professor at Temple University in Tokyo. “His erratic diplomacy is shredding trust in American reliability as an ally at a time when Tokyo is feeling vulnerable to Beijing’s hegemonic ambitions.”

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Behind Trump’s rhetoric lay a series of demands. He accused Panama of overcharging U.S. shippers. The Defense Department floated the idea of reviving U.S. military bases in the country, which had lapsed late last century alongside U.S. control of the canal. Washington also flagged northward migration through Panama as a concern.

But the real flash point was China. Trump falsely claimed that Beijing controlled the canal, while other officials zeroed in on nearby port facilities operated by a Hong Kong-based conglomerate. In February, on his first overseas trip as secretary of state, Marco Rubio pressed Panama to curb its economic and diplomatic ties with China.

At first, the pressure seemed to work. Facing U.S. threats of territorial takeover, Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino conceded to a slate of U.S. asks. Panama’s government agreed to detain people deported by the United States in a remote jungle camp and tighten controls on migration through the Darién Gap, a dense borderland with Colombia. Panama also cooled ties with China, becoming the first Latin American country to exit Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative. And despite Chinese protests, the Panamanian government placed lucrative port-management contracts under review, prompting a sale to U.S. investor BlackRock.

The Trump administration claimed a swift victory. But U.S. presidents have a history of overplaying their hand in Panama. Threats to canal sovereignty—only fully exercised by Panama since 1999—strike a raw nerve in the country, which until the late 1990s hosted thousands of U.S. troops and was invaded by the United States just a generation ago. As before, Washington’s heavy-handed approach risks provoking public backlash and undermining U.S. interests throughout the region.

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In the thorny debate over how to handle Syria, U.S. President Donald Trump has surprisingly emerged as a realist, a pragmatist, and a man of nuance. Since the December 2024 toppling of Syria’s Russian-backed dictator, Bashar al-Assad, the war-torn country is under radical Islamist leadership. In May, however, Trump took the lead in scrapping years-old sanctions, explaining that he wanted to offer Syrians a path to economic recovery.

Unfortunately, this pragmatic and stability-oriented policy is just half of the story. Trump’s legacy in Syria may be defined not by sanctions relief nor the reestablishment of diplomatic relations but a decision made much earlier that now reverberates through Syria’s humanitarian sector: the chaotic destruction of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

“I will be ordering the cessation of sanctions against Syria in order to give them a chance at greatness,” Trump told a surprised audience in Riyadh on May 13. He received standing ovations. Citing a personal appeal from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the president went on to shake the hand of Syria’s new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former al Qaeda commander. The meeting went well, and Trump seemed to take a genuine liking to Sharaa: “Tough guy, very strong past,” he said, later musing: “Are you gonna put a choir boy in that position? I don’t think so. … It’s a nasty neighborhood.”

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Since taking office a second time, U.S. President Donald Trump has embraced state capitalism to a stunning degree. 

He has taken a personal stake, not even a government stake, in a major U.S. steel company. He has dispatched the Defense Department to buy up part of a rare-earths mining company. He has made plans to remake U.S. shipbuilding through direct government investment, directed federal resources toward the promotion of resources such as coal, and picked winners and losers in all the emerging industries that will shape the global economy in the years to come.

“This is a Republican administration embracing state capitalism in a way we haven’t seen in a long time, while all the time decrying ‘socialism,’ so that is jarring,” said Sarah Bauerle Danzman, a professor at Indiana University Bloomington.

The return of dirigisme, or state capitalism, is not unique to Trump or the United States, of course. Every economy and economic bloc is trying to sort out the balance between the state and the market at a time of great flux in new industries, evolving supply chains, and fears over geopolitical and geoeconomic competition. Former U.S. President Joe Biden did much the same, and the European Union would too, if it didn’t have 27 member states bickering over just what to protect and what to promote—and had the money to underwrite it all.

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During his first term in 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump took bold action that many had considered unthinkable at the time: He approved the delivery of Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine, which was fighting a low-intensity war against Russian invaders and Russia-backed separatists, and Georgia, which was also under partial Russian occupation. Less than a year into his term, Trump thus did something that his predecessor, Barack Obama, had refused to do over the course of eight years. In the case of Ukraine, U.S. support shifted from non-lethal aid under Obama to actual weapons under Trump. The Javelins, sniper rifles, and rocket launchers delivered by Trump played an important role in repelling the Russian attack on Kyiv during the early days of the 2022 invasion.

At the time, many foreign-policy commentators struggled to reconcile these moves with Trump’s “America First” worldview. But the decision to arm Georgia and Ukraine in the shadow of Obama’s “reset” with Russian President Vladimir Putin—just like the killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Suleimani in the shadow of Obama’s Iran deal—were arguably America First actions. They placed support for the United States’ own allies and partners before hopelessly naive engagement with the country’s adversaries.

In his second term, however, Trump has struggled to define what his America First foreign policy means in the context of Ukraine, to the extent that his critics have accused him of taking Russia’s side. That may have started to change this week during a joint appearance in the Oval Office with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte. It was announced that several billion dollars’ worth of U.S.-made weapons will be delivered in the coming weeks. While most details of the plan remain undisclosed, officials confirmed that it will include several Patriot anti-missile batteries. Additional weapons systems, including long-range strike capabilities, are also reported to be under consideration. Furthermore, these new weapons will be entirely paid for by European countries and delivered to them to give to Ukraine. This allows Trump to walk a political tightrope with his base, many of whom are skeptical about more aid to Ukraine.

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Since the United States and Vietnam normalized relations in 1995, their partnership has gone from strength to strength. Across five presidential administrations, the two countries steadily deepened economic and commercial cooperation, became important maritime partners, and fostered connections between the American and Vietnamese people. Washington spent hundreds of millions of dollars helping Vietnam overcome the legacies of war, and by 2017, an incredible 84 percent of Vietnamese citizens viewed the United States favorably. In 2023, U.S. President Joe Biden traveled to Hanoi for a historic elevation of the relationship, now termed a comprehensive strategic partnership.

Coming on the heels of this 30-year journey, U.S. President Donald Trump’s April 2 decision to impose a stunning 46 percent tariff on Vietnam appeared to represent a significant reversal of fortunes for the two countries’ relationship. Trump’s July 2 announcement that Vietnam would eliminate all tariffs on U.S. goods, yet permanently face a 20 percent tariff itself, as well as a 40 percent tariff on transshipped goods, raised further questions about the future of U.S.-Vietnam ties. Though Vietnam had clearly not agreed to those terms, it decided to bite the bullet and welcome the supposed deal.

Vietnam has an exceptional talent for managing its wayward friends. It will go to great lengths to preserve its many partnerships and mitigate the vulnerabilities that grow from overdependence on any one power—including in the latest trade negotiations, in which Vietnam decided to prioritize its overall relationship with the United States and its president, even though doing so required significant concessions. But though Vietnam’s decision can be seen as part of a broader, intentional strategy, what the United States gets out of this deal is much less clear. Trump’s tariffs will increase both countries’ dependence on China, forfeit Vietnam’s cooperation on urgent strategic priorities, and weaken any U.S. claim to global leadership.

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The day before U.S. President Donald Trump’s long-touted announcement of a shift in his policy toward Ukraine, he made a revealing comment to reporters at Andrews Air Force Base. Explaining that the United States would be sending weapons to the Ukrainians that European countries would pay for, he went on: “It will be business for us, and we will send them Patriots, which they desperately need, because Putin really surprised a lot of people.”

Really? Russian President Vladimir Putin “surprised a lot of people”? This is one of Trump’s favorite rhetorical tics—the conjuring up of a mythical community (“people are saying”) that agrees wholeheartedly with some highly questionable assertion. Who are these people who were surprised by Putin’s lies and obfuscations about the war? Very few of them were probably national security experts or professional Russia watchers; it would be very hard to find anyone in Ukraine, the former Soviet Union, or much of Europe who might have been caught off guard by Putin’s deft avoidance of any diplomatic commitments that might have constrained his prosecution of the war.

How could anyone, at this point, be “surprised” by Putin’s unwillingness to come to the negotiating table? The war in Ukraine, after all, is the very definition of a war of choice: Russia invaded Ukraine, not the other way around. By most accounts, Putin believes that he is winning and that time is on his side—which is why he continues to saturate the skies over Ukraine with missiles and drones. Why on earth would he want to bring the war that he started to a halt?

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Marco Rubio’s first visit to the Indo-Pacific as secretary of state last week was an entirely forgettable, regrettable affair. The original plan was for Rubio to travel to Japan and South Korea—key U.S. security allies—to shore up increasingly strained ties, not least due to President Donald Trump’s threat to impose paralyzing tariffs on Aug. 1 if the two countries do not agree to new bilateral trade agreements by then. Instead, because Rubio moonlights as acting national security advisor, he was forced to postpone these trips in order to remain at the White House for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit. That left Malaysia as the only country he still made it to on what was supposed to have been a regional tour.

Rubio may as well have stayed at home. He spent just 36 hours on the ground, prompting Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim to joke “can I take his passport away?” to get more time with him. On the bilateral front, Rubio and Malaysian Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan signed a memorandum of understanding for “strategic civil nuclear cooperation.” Though laudable, the two men did not issue a joint statement that could have addressed more serious areas of bilateral concern, including tariffs, China, and Malaysia’s support for Hamas since the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks on Israel. It is possible, however, that these conversations occurred and were consciously kept private, but that kind of tiptoeing would speak directly to the significant gap in U.S.-Malaysia ties.

The Trump administration also timed Rubio’s visit to coincide with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) foreign ministers’ meeting, which Malaysia hosted as the bloc’s chair for 2025. At this venue, Rubio also did not represent U.S. policies well. For instance, he referred to the Indo-Pacific as “a focal point” for Washington rather than “the” focal point, raising eyebrows on whether the administration still views the Indo-Pacific as its priority theater. He tried to alleviate concerns by arguing that “distraction is impossible” and “this century and the next, the story of the next 50 years will largely be written here in this region.” His counterparts will have noticed that the Trump administration recently joined Israel to attack Iran in the Middle East and seems increasingly preoccupied with Western Hemisphere policies.

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The United States is caught in a growing paradox. Just as artificial intelligence (AI) has become a key focus of U.S. President Donald Trump’s policy agenda, the administration’s efforts to create a leaner federal government have forced out hundreds of technology specialists, many of them uniquely skilled in AI policy, engineering, and design.

Among the most affected have been key innovation offices: The U.S. Digital Service and the General Service Administration’s 18F office have been effectively dismantled, while the Department of Homeland Security’s AI Corps, the U.S. Digital Corps, the Presidential Innovation Fellowship, and other programs have been significantly cut. This growing loss of talent undermines the very priorities that the Trump administration seeks to advance, including maintaining the United States’ lead in AI.

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Israel’s air war against Iran—“Operation Rising Lion”—may be over, but the controversy surrounding the attacks lives on. One key question is whether the U.S. strikes on the Iranian nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan, dubbed “Operation Midnight Hammer,” succeeded in obliterating the deeply buried Fordow site or merely incapacitated it for a few months. The extent of the damage to Iran’s nuclear program is, of course, important from an operational perspective. But the broader critique—that the 12-day air campaign was somehow foolhardy because it may not have permanently destroyed the Iranian nuclear program—misses the point.

Operation Rising Lion was a limited war fought with limited means for an even more limited period—all of which, in turn, means that the campaign’s objectives were also limited. The campaign, therefore, needs to be judged against the alternative strategies—engaging in a longer, more protracted campaign or doing nothing militarily and sticking with diplomatic options. And by that measure, the operation was a success.

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Yet Trump’s actions on Iran are not out of step with how he talks about and has typically pursued foreign policy. Circumscribed but forceful military action to advance U.S. interests—often described as “Jacksonian,” but perhaps better described as a modern kind of punitive expedition—is entirely consistent with this worldview. It’s just out of step with the last few decades of U.S. foreign-policy practice.

The term “Jacksonianism” comes from the scholar Walter Russell Mead, who argued that there are four broad schools of U.S. foreign-policy thought. Wilsonians—named after the president who gave us the League of Nations—believe in advancing liberal and democratic values around the world. Hamiltonians focus more on commercial affairs, pushing the United States to take an active lead in protecting international commerce, such as when then-President George H.W. Bush sought to protect international oil markets during the Gulf War. Jeffersonians, in Mead’s telling, tend to avoid foreign engagement and focus almost exclusively on domestic affairs; this tendency has been largely unrepresented among recent presidents.

Jacksonians focus inward, taking a profoundly nationalist approach that prioritizes domestic over foreign policy. But they are also perfectly happy to spend on the military and entirely willing to fight over issues that they perceive to be central to U.S. interests. As the historian Hal Brands describes it, “their aim in fighting [is] American victory, not the salvation of the world.”

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When the Taliban swept back into power in August 2021, Afghanistan’s elite special operations forces were among the last holdouts. These were the final defenders, holding ground against daily Taliban attacks while surviving 45 days of “just rice” and maintaining their positions in cities such as Mazar-i-Sharif long after other unit commanders had fled.

Four years later, the interpreters and special operations forces that faithfully served alongside U.S. troops face a different fight: a frenetic policy landscape that has left many in administrative limbo despite their documented service and compliance. Over the past six months, the Trump administration has tightened vetting, suspended humanitarian programs, and created new barriers to family reunification. These changes have already affected thousands of Afghan partners who have come to the United States and who have been described as “the most vetted immigrant population in our country’s history.”

On July 10, the State Department confirmed to staffers that it was eliminating the Coordinator for Afghan Relocation Efforts office (CARE). With this move, it destroyed not just the office but also the institutional knowledge and human networks that made Afghan resettlement possible.

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U.S. President Donald Trump’s second trade blitzkrieg this week, after resuscitating his plan to enact sweeping tariffs on much of the world, was to announce 50 percent import duties on copper, freaking out the market as well as every company that uses the third-most important industrial metal.

Trump casually remarked this week that his administration had concluded its Section 232 investigation into copper imports, which ostensibly pose a national security threat and will be addressed with steep tariffs starting Aug. 1. It was the first conclusion in several ongoing national security trade investigations. Trump also mooted the idea of 200 percent tariffs on pharmaceuticals, though those duties would come later, if they come at all. That Trump opted for hefty tariffs on copper, as he had previously on imports of steel and aluminum on the same national security grounds, suggests that the other sectors under investigation—including lumber, semiconductors, and jet engines—will face higher levies as well.

By raising taxes on U.S. businesses and consumers, the administration seeks to eventually drive investment into domestic copper mining, smelting, and other productive activities. But all that is guaranteed in the short run are higher prices, especially for businesses that rely on steel and copper. U.S. copper prices hit a record high after Trump’s tariff announcement.

“I think it’s economic vandalism,” said Veronique de Rugy, an economist at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center. “It’s economic vandalism in all the ways you can use ‘vandalism.’ It’s just not well thought through, and it’s counterproductive.”

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Ever since the MAGA movement engulfed the U.S. Republican Party, it has harbored two competing foreign-policy tendencies—a muscular internationalism and a neo-isolationist reluctance to intervene. That tension has played out on a number of issues, and it surfaced again over how to navigate Cuba policy—whether to take a more hard-line approach that would aim to topple the regime or settle for a less aggressive set of punitive actions without dramatically escalating sanctions. Judging by a statement of policy that President Donald Trump issued at the end of June, he appears to be siding with the pragmatists who want to keep Cuba on the back burner for now.

Just before departing for the Florida Everglades to open “Alligator Alcatraz,” his new detention camp for undocumented immigrants, Trump unveiled the fifth National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM-5) of his second term—a comprehensive statement of his policy toward Cuba.

During his first few months in office, Trump took a number of piecemeal measures foreshadowing a hard line. On his first day in office, he reversed steps to relax sanctions that former President Joe Biden had taken just a few weeks earlier. Since then, the State Department has stepped up diplomatic pressure to force countries hosting Cuban doctors to close those programs. It stopped issuing visas for Cubans to visit family in the United States or participate in cultural and educational exchanges, and the Treasury Department began denying U.S. groups licenses to visit Cuba on those programs.

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The on-again, off-again feud between U.S. President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk is on again—and the world’s richest man has kicked things into overdrive. Musk announced over the weekend that he is forming a new political party to challenge both the Democrats and Trump’s Republican Party, seemingly based on an X poll Musk conducted that showed 65 percent of respondents wanted him to do so.

“When it comes to bankrupting our country with waste & graft, we live in a one-party system, not a democracy,” Musk wrote in a post on X. “Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom.” (It’s not clear whether Musk has taken any steps to actually form the party or get it on ballots.)

Musk supported Trump’s 2024 election campaign with tens of millions of dollars before joining his administration to slash federal spending under the unofficial Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). But the two men had a very public falling out that stemmed mainly from the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill that Republicans passed last week. The spending bill will add more than $3 trillion to the U.S. federal deficit over the next decade, which Musk has slammed as “debt slavery.”

Trump has largely been dismissive of Musk’s efforts even while railing against the billionaire, writing in a lengthy post on Truth Social that third parties “have never succeeded in the United States – The System seems not designed for them.” Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Trump said Musk “can have fun with it but I think it’s ridiculous.”

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On June 25, U.S. President Donald Trump held a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, during the NATO summit in The Hague. The meeting seemed to go well. Afterward, Zelensky said that he had pleaded for help defending against intensifying Russian air attacks on Ukrainian civilians. “Ukraine is ready to buy this equipment and support American arms manufacturers,” he said. Trump signaled openness: “They do want to have the antimissile missiles, as they call the Patriots, and we’re going to see if we can make some available.”

On July 1, the Pentagon shocked Ukraine and U.S. allies when it let it be known that it was halting all shipments of Patriot missiles to Ukraine—along with Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, artillery rounds, and Sparrow air-to-air missiles of the type used by F-16 fighters. Many of these weapons had already been delivered to forward depots in Poland, just waiting to be moved across the border. So much for Trump’s assurances.

Then, in yet another about-face, Trump suggested yesterday that some defensive weapons might still be sent. Can Ukraine rely on his word? According to media reports, Trump appeared unaware of the Defense Department’s decision to halt aid. So who, precisely, is running U.S. policy on Russia and Ukraine?

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U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s plan for overhauling the State Department’s 300-plus bureaus and offices has drawn howls of protest from the usual quarters. Critics contend that by restructuring Washington’s diplomatic bureaucracy, Rubio is pursuing an ideological agenda that will disembowel the department, undercut U.S. diplomacy, and impair the country’s reputation abroad.

But the critics are wrong. The State Department is in urgent need of reform. Over the past three decades, it has expanded its remit into countless functions and causes that are well outside its core mission. This is not just an inefficient use of taxpayer resources. It is a distraction from, and in some instances an active impediment to, what should be the department’s top focus: Wielding classic diplomacy and nurturing its underlying skill sets—negotiations and regional expertise—for an era of great-power competition.

The main reason the State Department has drifted so far from its raison d’etre is the greenhouse-like conditions that have existed since the Cold War. Without a peer competitor, the United States simply did not need diplomacy as it had been conducted throughout history: as a medium for building coalitions and reconciling conflicting interests with other powerful states. Washington’s vast power advantage created a predilection for responding to international problems through force or sanctions. The State Department’s role in foreign policy shrunk while those of the Defense Department and Treasury expanded apace.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu touched down in Washington on Monday to discuss U.S. diplomatic efforts in the Middle East, including Israel-Hamas cease-fire negotiations. The trip’s centerpiece will be an evening meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House.

The conversation is expected to focus on cementing a cease-fire and hostage release deal in Gaza. Under the latest U.S.-backed proposal, Israel and Hamas would abide by a 60-day truce, during which Israeli troops would partially withdraw from Gaza, Hamas would release 10 living and 18 deceased hostages in exchange for some number of Palestinian prisoners released by Israel, and Israel would allow more humanitarian aid into the territory.

Last Wednesday, Israel agreed to the proposal in principle, and on Friday, Hamas said it had responded to the deal in a “positive spirit.” However, several sticking points remain unresolved. Hamas has said that it wants the United Nations to oversee aid delivery into Gaza instead of the Israeli- and U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The group has also demanded that Israeli forces retreat to the boundaries established from before the last cease-fire collapsed in March and urged both sides to agree to a permanent end to the war. But Israel maintains its demand that some of its troops must remain in the territory, and it said that Israel would only agree to end the conflict if Hamas fully disarms and dismantles, which the militant group refuses to do.

U.S. officials are hoping to sweeten the deal by linking the end of the war to a broader set of agreements that would also see Saudi Arabia and potentially other countries in the region establish formal diplomatic ties with Israel, as well as a leadership overhaul within the Palestinian Authority.

Read more in today’s World Brief: Netanyahu’s Third White House Visit Brings Higher Stakes.

Lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives narrowly passed President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” on Thursday, ending a monthslong political fight and delivering a significant win for the White House. Despite Democrats issuing an eleventh-hour call to action and two Republicans breaking ranks, the $3.4 trillion tax and spending package passed in a 218-214 vote largely along party lines.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the 887-page bill will add around $3.4 trillion to the federal deficit over the next 10 years and pull health insurance from nearly 12 million U.S. residents.

Among its key elements are tax cuts, particularly for wealthy individuals and corporations. The bill will make tax breaks first imposed under Trump in 2017 permanent as well as increase the deduction limit for state and local taxes.

To pay for these tax breaks, the bill slashes up to 18 percent in Medicaid funding while adding new restrictions on eligibility and reenrollment; it also cuts funding for food benefits by up to 20 percent, including for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which more than 40 million low-income residents use. The bill also ends many student loan repayment plans and repeals several Biden-era clean energy benefits, such as tax credits for electric vehicles and clean energy production.

The bill prioritizes spending in other areas. It devotes around $175 billion to Trump’s immigration crackdown, with roughly $50 billion to support U.S. Customs and Border Protection and to finish constructing the border wall, $45 billion to expand capacity for detaining undocumented migrants, and $30 billion to bolster law enforcement. It also gives the U.S. military around $150 billion to help construct Trump’s proposed “Golden Dome” missile defense shield as well as aid in shipbuilding and munitions development.

Trump is expected to sign the bill into law on Friday.

Read more in today’s World Brief: U.S. House Narrowly Passes Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’.

The Trump-Netanyahu bromance is back and will be on full display when the Israeli prime minister visits the White House on Monday. Benjamin Netanyahu wants a celebratory high-five with U.S. President Donald Trump to commemorate the joint attacks against Iran that set back the Iranian nuclear program. Trump will be more than happy to host the festivities, provided the spotlight shines on him for his decision to bomb and “obliterate” the fortified Fordow enrichment facility. What could go wrong, an observer is left to wonder?

Indeed, there are indications of even more positive outcomes to celebrate, as secret Israeli-Syrian talks might yield an announcement about security coordination with the regime of Syria’s new leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa. To be sure, this would fall far short of normalization—an almost-impossible outcome to imagine in view of Israel’s determination to retain the Golan Heights in perpetuity—but it’s still a stunning achievement when talking about implacable foes who have fought repeated wars over the decades. In anticipation of progress on this front, Trump has already canceled some of the sanctions that the United States had imposed on Syria under the previous regime.

Trump has said that Netanyahu has accepted a 60-day cease-fire/hostage accord, which, if true, will only draw the Netanyahu and Trump relationship closer. This latest deal, if it moves forward, would not end the war in Gaza—which Netanyahu cannot do if he wants to keep his extreme right-wing coalition intact—but it would provide some respite to the daily killing and humanitarian distress.

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