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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American presidents have long criticized intelligence assessments. Lyndon B. Johnson derided pessimistic analysis of the Vietnam War. Bill Clinton challenged reports that Iraq wanted to rebuild weapons of mass destruction. And Barack Obama dinged the intelligence community for failing to connect the dots after the failed 2009 Christmas Day bombing. These criticisms were usually shared privately or in the form of constructive feedback.

But President Donald Trump and his administration’s pattern of publicly denigrating and undermining intelligence assessments is different, deeply disturbing, and portends profound consequences for national security. The manner and tone by which the commander in chief communicates feedback to intelligence professionals matter. Constructive criticism—asking hard questions, directing after-action reviews—can strengthen analysis and result in more useful insights for policymakers. By contrast, disparaging comments or insults inhibit honest analysis, undermine morale, and cause lasting damage to the intelligence community.

The last month has laid bare the Trump administration’s disdain for intelligence that contradicts its policy preferences. Last week, following the leak of a preliminary Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report that contravened the president’s claim that U.S. strikes has “obliterated” Iranian nuclear facilities, the White House press secretary said the report was “flat-out wrong” and “a clear attempt to demean” the president.

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Commenting on U.S. President Donald Trump’s successful brokering of a cease-fire between Israel and Iran on June 24, a Ukrainian pundit observed: “Donald Trump has demonstrated to Donald Trump how to negotiate an end to a conflict from a position of strength.” But does Trump’s Middle East success suggest a more fundamental new approach—perhaps an emerging doctrine—for his conduct of foreign and security policy going forward?

Given that Trump’s foreign-policy views are often instinctive, situational, transactional, and unpredictable, the idea of his administration pursuing a consistent doctrine may seem far-fetched. Yet above all, Trump values success, and his experience intervening in the Middle East could give momentum to a more muscular foreign policy in the coming months.

In three successive presidential campaigns, Trump tried to straddle the wide gulf in his electoral coalition between traditional national security conservatives and MAGA isolationists by supporting significant increases in defense spending while emphasizing his reluctance to use force that might entangle Washington in “forever wars.” The Reagan-era slogan “peace through strength” was Trump’s means of keeping both parts of his coalition contented. In the Middle East, geopolitical realities may have led him to conclude that peace does not always come from strength alone, but from the strategic application of that strength.

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In the days before the surprise U.S. attack on Iran, Politico reported that one man in the Defense Department was having an outsized say on Washington’s Iran strategy: Erik Kurilla, the hawkish U.S. Central Command leader known as “The Gorilla.” “He’s a big dude, he’s jacked, he’s exactly this ‘lethality’ look they’re going for,” said an anonymous former official. So long as military advisors “come across as tough and warfighters,” the source added, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “is easily persuaded to their point of view.”

Kurilla’s influence illustrates a broader truth about Washington’s current priorities: In President Donald Trump’s second term, hypermasculinity has become the governing logic of U.S. foreign policy. Masculinity in itself—associated with traits such as leadership, strength, and courage—is not harmful. But a brand of traditional masculinity defined by aggression, lack of emotional regulation, and poor impulse control is, and it has become a driving force in an administration that favors preemptive attacks in pursuit of national self-interest over U.S. values.

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U.S. President Donald Trump is trying to bully Harvard University into submission. Under the guise of promoting “viewpoint diversity,” his administration has canceled all of the university’s federal grants and attempted to bar it from hosting international students.

Trump’s version of “viewpoint diversity” is a call to erode diversity efforts and censor those who challenge his policies and beliefs. Harvard’s administrators have shown commendable resolve in resisting his attacks, scoring tactical victories in court that have kept some of his authoritarian measures at bay. But recent reporting by the New York Times raises a troubling prospect: The university may at least partially capitulate to president’s demands.

If Harvard is to remain committed to its principles, it cannot yield to the Trump administration. The university must be prepared to face the costs that such courage entails.

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It’s tempting to think that the joint U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran has dealt with the problem posed by Iran’s nuclear program. The Trump administration and Washington’s hawks are certainly trying their best to treat it that way. But the truth is we’ve entered an even more unstable era.

President Donald Trump’s Iran strikes were: almost certainly illegal, most likely unsuccessful, and undeniably unpopular. Democrats and other anti-war leaders should be leaning in hard on all these points. Only by doing so can they help create a political climate where diplomacy has a chance to succeed. So long as Trump believes his problems can be solved by just pressing the “BOMB” button, he will almost certainly do so whenever he becomes frustrated in future talks. This means that instead of negotiated limits on Iran’s nuclear program, Washington will be signing up for a future of continuous war.

On June 21, eight days after Israel launched a massive surprise attack against Iran, the United States joined the war. B-2 stealth bombers dropped 14 of the United States’ most powerful non-nuclear bombs, the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, on targets at Fordow and Natanz. Around the same time, a U.S. submarine launched more than two dozen cruise missiles against a nuclear facility in Esfahan. Then on Monday afternoon, after a symbolic retaliatory Iranian missile attack against a U.S. base in Qatar, Trump announced a cease-fire, partially brokered by Qatar.

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As the dust continues to settle after the U.S. airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, which were meant to destroy Tehran’s ability to build nuclear weapons but did not apparently succeed entirely, one question looms above all: What did the United States gain from walking away from the nuclear deal with Iran seven years ago?

The Trump administration insists that the strikes, including 14 massive “bunker-buster” bombs dropped on three key installations, completely destroyed Iran’s nuclear program. Yet a preliminary assessment by the U.S. intelligence community concluded that the attacks did little lasting damage to the Iranian facilities and set the nuclear program back by only a few months. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has reiterated the “flawless” nature of the unprecedented operation and reaffirmed that the attacks rendered inoperable Iran’s main underground nuclear facility at Fordow. CIA Director John Ratcliffe, like some Israeli sources, also stressed that fresh assessments of the attack indicate that Iran’s nuclear program has been set back by years.

But the Trump administration has acknowledged that it does not know where Iran’s large stockpile of almost half a metric ton of highly enriched uranium is—reports and satellite imagery suggest that Iran may have moved the cache before last weekend’s airstrikes. That pile of uranium is enriched to 60 percent purity, which in enrichment terms is very close to the 90 percent purity referred to as weapons-grade. The administration, like the rest of the international community, is also in the dark about how many advanced centrifuges Iran has or where they are or how many additional ones Tehran can build. All the building blocks, in other words, for an Iranian bomb appear to remain in place, but now Iran has more reason than ever to scramble to put those pieces together. 

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Satellite imagery often yields intriguing findings. After Israel’s surprise attack against Iran on June 13, Iranian oil firms rushed to export as much oil as possible—lifting the country’s output to a likely seven-year high of 3.5 million barrels per day. If Iranian oil firms rushed to pump crude in preparation for a possible tightening of U.S. sanctions, then they were in for a treat: On June 24, U.S. President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that China could “now continue to purchase oil from Iran,” leaving experts guessing whether he had reversed Washington’s long-standing policy of putting maximum pressure on Tehran through the imposition of secondary sanctions on buyers of Iranian crude. No one knows what, if anything, Trump’s social media post meant. Yet if he did lift sanctions on Tehran’s oil exports, the ripple effects of his U-turn could be felt far beyond Iran—in China, Russia, and even the United States.

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Even for news hounds, keeping track of the fast-moving U.S.-Israel-Iran conflict in the last two weeks has been a big challenge, never mind making sense of it.

Still, one moment stands out as a potential key for understanding what is playing out among the three countries. On Monday, after U.S. B-2 bombers dropped bunker-busting munitions on Iran’s nuclear enrichment infrastructure over the weekend, President Donald Trump declared that the United States had achieved the “[o]bliteration” of the sites and taunted Iran for its “very weak” reprisal attack against a U.S. air base in Qatar.

Analysts have widely understood Iran’s retaliatory attack as a way to show its domestic audience that despite being pummeled for days by Israel, and then by a 30,000-pound weapon unique to the U.S. arsenal, the Islamic Republic was still able to fight back.

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Once it became clear that U.S. President Donald Trump was planning to drop bunker-busting bombs on Iran, some legislators in both parties expressed concerns that he would engage in an act of war without consulting Capitol Hill. After U.S. warplanes dropped the bombs, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth rejected accusations that Congress had been left out of the loop: “They were notified after the planes were safely out.”

“This is not Constitutional,” Republican Rep. Thomas Massie wrote on X. Massie has teamed up with Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna to push a bipartisan resolution limiting Trump’s hand in Iran. “Stopping Iran from having a nuclear bomb is a top priority, but dragging the U.S. into another Middle East war is not the solution,” Khanna warned in a statement. “Trump’s strikes are unconstitutional and put Americans, especially our troops, at risk.”

Many legal scholars agree with the lawmakers. “This is, in my view, illegal under both international law and U.S. domestic law,” noted Oona Hathaway, a professor of international law at Yale Law School.

Given Trump’s willingness to violate formal and informal guardrails and that most congressional Republicans will support almost anything he wants, Massie and Khanna’s prospects for succeeding in reforming the warmaking process in the short term are minimal at best.

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U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to deploy U.S. Marines and National Guard troops to Los Angeles against the will of local officials has prompted new fears of how far he is willing to go in exercising executive power.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom accused Trump of behaving like a dictator and said on X, “This is an unmistakable step toward authoritarianism.”

The president’s justification for his actions under Title 10 of the U.S. Code is currently being challenged in the courts. But he has also floated the use of an even more formidable tool at his disposal: the Insurrection Act. The law gives the president even broader authority to use federal troops for domestic policing based on claims that there is an insurrection, invasion, or domestic disorder that states can’t handle themselves. This rare presidential power for suppressing rebellion could be a dangerous tool in the hands of an unrestrained executive such as Trump.

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For five months, U.S. President Donald Trump seemed clearly to want a negotiated settlement to Iran’s nuclear program. Since the start of his second term in January, he sent U.S. negotiators to meet with their Iranian counterparts in either Oman or Italy five times toward this end. Yes, he had given Iran a 60-day deadline in April. But journalists and analysts mostly ignored it, placing it in the category of Trump bombast much like his tariff timelines, which seemed to change daily. The conventional wisdom was and remained that Trump wanted a deal.

The U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan undermined this conventional wisdom—and likely closed off the possibility of negotiations. So what changed? And why now?

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Iran’s nuclear program has posed one of the greatest challenges to U.S. and global security for more than two decades. Now, according to U.S. President Donald Trump, that program no longer exists. This may be the United States’ biggest foreign-policy victory since the end of the Cold War.

Since late 2011, I have been publicly arguing that U.S. military strikes on Iran’s key nuclear facilities were the only way to keep Tehran from the bomb. I took a lot of heat from academic and think tank colleagues for holding this view, but events to this point have proved me right and the critics wrong.

Some argued that the world could live with a nuclear-armed Iran and that the only thing worse than Iran with the bomb was bombing Iran. But every U.S. president disagreed, declaring a nuclear-armed Iran to be unacceptable. Trump was crystal clear in his repeated declarations that “Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.”

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For all its destructiveness, U.S. involvement in Israel’s war on Iran so far has been limited. U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Saturday that the United States had bombed several nuclear sites across the country, with the main target being Fordow, the underground facility that houses—or perhaps housed—many of the most important components of Iran’s nuclear program. Trump stated that the goal of the strikes was the “destruction of Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity.” The attack complements Israel’s destruction of many other, less hardened nuclear sites in Iran and its assassination campaign against Iranian military leaders and nuclear scientists.

While the president basks in the apparent success of the strikes, it is important to anticipate—and guard against—how the war could go south.

Given the limited U.S. role so far, the first area of concern is that the current U.S. and Israeli strikes simply do not do enough damage to Iran’s nuclear program to make the war worth it—with all its attendant cost, destruction, and risk. Trump claims that Iran’s program was “completely and totally obliterated,” and post-strike battle damage assessments may soon confirm this. However, more lasting destruction may require additional strikes at Fordow or other sites.

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U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Saturday that the United States had launched a “very successful attack” on three Iranian nuclear sites: Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan.

The attack was the first time that the United States has become directly involved in the Israel-Iran conflict, which began when Israel launched a massive bombardment targeting Iran’s nuclear and military infrastructure on June 13. It is unclear how much damage the U.S. strikes caused to the three Iranian facilities or how Tehran might respond.

During a nationwide address from the White House at 10 p.m. on Saturday, Trump warned Iran that it would face future attacks from the United States if it did not make peace with Israel. “There will be either peace, or there will be tragedy for Iran far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days,” Trump said while standing alongside U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Read the U.S. president’s full remarks below:

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U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Saturday that the United States had launched a “very successful” attack on three of Iran’s nuclear facilities. This marks the first direct U.S. military involvement in the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran that began on June 13.

“We have completed our very successful attack on the three Nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan. All planes are now outside of Iran air space. A full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow. All planes are safely on their way home,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

In a potential sign that Trump may seek to limit U.S. involvement in the conflict to these strikes and is still hopeful for a diplomatic resolution, he added, “NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE!”

Trump in a brief address to the nation on Saturday night said all of Iran’s key nuclear facilities had been “completely and totally obliterated.” The president also kept the door open for future strikes on Iran, offering Tehran a choice between “peace” and “tragedy.”

“Remember, there are many targets left,” Trump said. “If peace does not come quickly, we will go after those other targets with precision, speed, and skill.”

In one of Iran’s first public statements after the U.S. attack, the country’s Atomic Energy Organization said it would not stop nuclear development and decried the strikes as a violation of international law.

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To that end, and to cater to U.S. President Donald Trump’s aversion to long meetings, the heads of state and government will meet for only a single, two-and-a-half-hour session on June 25, rather than the usual multiple events over two or more days. With the United States and Europe increasingly divergent in their view of Russia and its war in Ukraine, those topics may be largely avoided as well. And allies are expected to hand Trump a coveted win: a pledge to spend at least 5 percent of GDP on defense and defense-relevant infrastructure, a key White House demand for the bloc.

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When Ukrainian and Russian officials met for a second round of cease-fire discussions in Istanbul on June 2, it was obvious that there would be no serious negotiation. Ukraine, eager to satisfy the Trump administration’s desire for a settlement, was represented by a high-level delegation headed by its defense minister. Russia, however, only sent low-level diplomats. With the exception of opening the door to a new prisoner exchange, the meeting brought no breakthroughs. Instead, the Kremlin presented the terms—unchanged for three years—for Ukraine’s submission, including recognition of Russian dominion over five occupied Ukrainian regions, the cession of additional territory by Ukraine, Ukrainian neutrality, and the de facto de-militarization of its armed forces.

While European representatives came to Istanbul in a demonstration of support for the peace process, the United States was noted for its absence, evidence that it has been sidelined from playing a principal role in the negotiations. This is a far cry from the heightened expectations for the peace process and a clear step away from the hopes that attended the initial meetings in May, when U.S. President Donald Trump indicated that he was ready to come to Istanbul if Russian President Vladimir Putin also showed up.

Trump has long touted his special relationship with Putin and made peace in Ukraine a major foreign-policy aim, but Washington’s absence was stark evidence of the failure of the administration’s diplomacy and overall approach to the Russia-Ukraine war. This failure is the product of incompetent negotiations, a lack of understanding of Russia’s true ambitions, and a misreading of Putin’s signals. The failure ultimately rests on Trump’s shoulders, but it has been seriously exacerbated by the influence of his main emissary to the Kremlin, the amateur diplomat Steve Witkoff.

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U.S. President Donald Trump has reportedly approved military plans to attack Iran but is giving himself two weeks to make a final decision. “I may do it, I may not do it,” he said, as Israel’s war with Iran was about to enter its second week. The United States could help ensure that Iran’s nuclear program is devastated and add to existing pressure on Tehran to come to the table on terms that are favorable to Israelis and Americans. But the risks to both U.S. personnel and other foreign-policy objectives are considerable, and the United States must be clear-eyed about the potential costs.

Here are four questions that Trump should ask himself to determine whether military intervention against Iran is a smart move for the United States.

What Is the Goal of the U.S. Operation?

The United States could attack Iran with discreet, limited goals in mind or pursue expansive objectives. The most obvious and important goal in the short term involves destroying, or at least severely setting back, Iran’s nuclear program. Although Israel has done significant damage to  Natanz, Iran’s main and largest uranium enrichment facility, Fordow—another central site—is largely untouched, and several other locations have not suffered much damage. Fordow is a particularly hard target as it was built inside a mountain to guard Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities and other infrastructure against exactly the sort of operations that Israel is doing now. Washington could use specially designed bunker-buster bombs to crack Fordow and otherwise help finish the job the Israelis started.

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U.S. President Donald Trump refused to say on Wednesday whether he will order direct U.S. military action against Iran to assist Israel’s offensive against the country’s nuclear program. “I may do it. I may not do it. Nobody knows what I’m going to do,” Trump said. However, the likelihood of U.S. involvement appears to be growing, with the U.S. Embassy in Israel working to help evacuate Americans citizens who wish to leave.

On Tuesday, Trump called for an “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER” by Iran before meeting with his national security team to discuss the situation. And on Wednesday, he appeared to imply that the United States had approved Israel’s initial operation, saying he gave Tehran 60 days to negotiate a nuclear deal, “and then on day 61, I said, ‘Let’s go.’”

But in a rare address on Wednesday, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rejected Trump’s demand for surrender and warned of all-out war if Washington becomes directly involved. “Americans should know that any military involvement by the U.S. will undoubtedly result in irreparable damage to them,” Khamenei said in a televised speech.

Asked by a reporter on Wednesday what his response was to Khamenei’s refusal to surrender, Trump was blunt: “I say, ‘Good luck.’” Trump also said Iran had reached out to propose coming to the White House for talks. “They want to negotiate. And I said, ‘Why didn’t you negotiate with me before?’” The Iranian mission to the United Nations disputed Trump’s statement.

Read more in today’s World Brief: Trump Weighs Direct U.S. Military Involvement Against Iran.

As Israeli airstrikes continue to pummel Iran, all eyes are on U.S. President Donald Trump, who is reportedly considering whether to join the Israeli effort and take direct U.S. military action against Iran.

Trump has warned for months that Tehran could face military action if it doesn’t make a deal with the United States to end its nuclear program, but as recently as last week, the U.S. president maintained that he would prefer to solve the issue diplomatically and said he believed that such a deal was “close.”

However, that was before Israel unilaterally launched its military campaign against Iran on Friday, targeting the country’s nuclear facilities, military infrastructure, and senior leadership, which upended nuclear negotiations. Now, five days into that campaign and with no signs that Israel intends to stop its attacks, it seems that Trump’s calculation may be changing.

On Monday, Trump posted on Truth Social to warn Tehran’s 9.7 million residents to flee the city immediately. He also abruptly left the G-7 summit in Canada a day early, saying he was returning to Washington to discuss the conflict with his national security team. On Tuesday, he told reporters that he wants “a real end” to Iran’s nuclear program, and he called for Iran’s “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!” on Truth Social.

He also seemed to suggest that the United States might consider assassinating Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei at some point in the future. “We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding,” Trump wrote. “He is an easy target, but is safe there – We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now.”

Read more in today’s World Brief: Trump Calls for Iran’s ‘Unconditional Surrender’.

Last week, California Gov. Gavin Newsom accused U.S. President Donald Trump of behaving like a dictator after he deployed federal troops to Los Angeles to quell protests against immigration raids. Trump has raged against Newsom for opposing the deployment and expressed support for arresting him—without pointing to any specific crimes committed.

“Democracy is under assault right before our eyes—the moment we’ve feared has arrived,” Newsom said in a public address on June 10.

Newsom, a Democrat, has clashed with Trump several times before, including during the president’s first term, over issues like the climate crisis, COVID-19, and immigration. As someone widely seen as a possible 2028 presidential contender, there is certainly a political element to Newsom’s rhetoric, in which he frames his opposition to Trump’s actions as an act of resistance against the moves of a would-be authoritarian. His condemnation of Trump is already being viewed by many through the lens of the upcoming 2028 presidential race.

But Foreign Policy spoke with experts on democracy and authoritarianism, as well as a retired U.S. Army general, who echoed Newsom’s concerns. They pointed to unsettling parallels between authoritarian regimes elsewhere in the world and Trump’s recent behavior and rhetoric surrounding the situation in Los Angeles, among other steps he has taken since returning to office in January.

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On June 5, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office sent shockwaves through Washington by announcing that U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposed budget reconciliation bill—known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act—would increase the U.S. national debt by $2.4 trillion over the next decade. Many economists fear that these levels of debt will worsen inflation and could trigger a financial crisis.

The bill, which has been passed by the House of Representatives and now lies with the Senate, poses a dilemma for Republicans. The legislation’s proposed benefit cuts to programs such as Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program are unpopular with constituents, but they help offset the $4 trillion cost of extending Trump’s first-term tax cuts.

Most Republican lawmakers will likely decide that they would rather deal with the fallout of slashing constituent benefits than that of raising taxes. But it wasn’t always this way.

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The German high command learned a key lesson after losing World War I: Never fight a two-front war. That’s why Germany signed the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop pact with the Soviet Union, which stated that neither country would attack the other for a decade. But Adolf Hitler couldn’t count to 10, and Germany ended up in World War II—another two-front war that ended badly for Germany.

The same dictum goes for trade wars. It’s okay to fight a one-front war, but not a war with the whole world. As comedian Norm Macdonald joked on The Late Show in 2015, “In the early part of the previous century, Germany decided to go to war, and who did they go to war with? The world … Then about 30 years pass and Germany decides, again, to go to war. And, again, it chooses as its enemy the world!”

Now, U.S. President Donald Trump has decided to start a trade war, and who does he choose to attack? The world. On his so-called “Liberation Day” in April, Trump imposed tariffs on most countries, even islands with penguins and allies that run trade deficits with the United States.

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The feud between U.S. President Donald Trump and Elon Musk didn’t come as a total surprise. There were always those who doubted that the two mega-narcissists could co-exist for long in the same White House. On June 11, Musk issued a statement expressing regret for some of his social media posts about Trump, but one is inclined to doubt that his mea culpa will patch things up.

The spat between the two billionaires, however, has diverted the public’s attention from a more urgent matter. Two stories that appeared this week should draw fresh attention to a problem that should have been obvious to everyone from the very beginning of the Tesla CEO’s disastrous adventure at the head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk is not only the richest man in the world. He is also the biggest risk to the security of the government of the United States—which, in a government riddled with walking security risks, is saying something.

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It is not easy being a U.S. ally these days—particularly in Europe but also on the front lines of strategic competition in Asia. Like passengers traveling into outer space with Sigourney Weaver, these allies have had to endure inexplicable horrors erupting from Washington with little warning. Tariffs top the list, with Japan and South Korea currently under threat of a general 25 percent duty and Australia outraged at the specter of 50 percent tariffs on steel. Meanwhile, the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development and other instruments of American soft power like Radio Free Asia and the National Endowment for Democracy has left allies trying to fill gaps in Southeast Asia and the Pacific before Beijing fills them with Huawei telecommunications infrastructure and dual-use military bases for its People’s Liberation Army. And most recently, the U.S. Defense Department announced a review of the trilateral AUKUS agreement, under which Britain and Australia have already invested hundreds of millions of dollars to build nuclear-powered submarines alongside the United States.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s visible disdain for Ukraine and Europe is also raising questions about the reliability of U.S. security guarantees in Asia. These are questions that the White House is increasingly unable to answer after firing most of the highly qualified Asia experts it had initially hired to work on the National Security Council (NSC) staff.

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“OUR DEAL WITH CHINA IS DONE,” U.S. President Donald Trump proclaimed on Wednesday in a post on Truth Social. After two days of marathon negotiations in London, Trump said the two superpowers were retreating from their latest trade standoff, with Beijing agreeing to supply rare-earth elements and magnets to the United States once again.

Hours after Trump’s statement, the Wall Street Journal reported that China would immediately approve rare-earth licenses for U.S. companies, citing people familiar with the deal, which has yet to be made public. If critical minerals do start flowing to U.S. ports again, the deal will be a significant reprieve for U.S. manufacturers that rely on Chinese supplies to build everything from cars to missiles.

However, rather than a final and complete deal, the agreement is only the first phase of a broader reckoning over the supply chain war that both countries have waged in recent years.

“I think we’re in the first inning of a new game. The rare earths have really changed the goalposts here in a big way,” said Paul Triolo, a partner at DGA-Albright Stonebridge Group, a global advisory firm.

The two countries arrived at this inflection point because Beijing dared to leverage its monopoly on rare earths—a powerful card that it has long held in its back pocket. In response to Trump’s barrage of tariffs, which briefly ratcheted U.S. duties on Chinese imports up to 145 percent, China announced a new licensing system in early April to restrict the export of seven rare-earth elements and related magnets, with the stated intention of limiting their military use.

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What started as small, mostly peaceful protests against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in Los Angeles have become nationwide demonstrations against U.S. President Donald Trump’s alleged abuse of executive power.

This week, the Trump administration deployed around 4,000 National Guards and about 700 Marines to Los Angeles without first consulting California Gov. Gavin Newsom. The White House maintains that its actions were vital to weaken the demonstrations, but local officials argue that they only fueled tensions and endangered residents.

“This brazen abuse of power by a sitting president inflamed a combustible situation, putting our people, our officers, and even our National Guard at risk,” Newsom said late Tuesday after imposing a nighttime curfew on roughly 1 square mile of Los Angeles’s downtown area. That curfew has since been lifted.

Even as protests appeared to dwindle in Los Angeles on Wednesday, anti-ICE marches have risen across the country. Authorities have recorded or anticipate protests in Atlanta; Austin, Texas; Chicago; Eugene, Oregon; Mission Viejo, California; New York City; Raleigh, North Carolina; Seattle; St. Louis; and Washington, D.C.; among others. On Wednesday, Texas Republican Greg Abbott became the first state governor to deploy the National Guard ahead of planned demonstrations in San Antonio and other parts of the state.

The Pentagon will deploy federal troops to other cities “if there are riots in places where law enforcement officers are threatened,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Senate lawmakers on Wednesday.

Read more in today’s World Brief: Trump Braces for Expanded Anti-ICE Protests Across the U.S.

Foreign-policy experts agree. Researchers from the Teaching, Research, and International Policy (TRIP) Project at the College of William & Mary’s Global Research Institute surveyed international relations (IR) scholars at U.S. colleges and universities on their views about Trump’s first 100 days. The results we report below are based on the responses of 726 experts surveyed between April 29 and May 8. (Read the full report to see the top-line results for all the questions.)

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Despite plenty of threats and ominous social media posts, the Trump administration has not taken an aggressive stance on sanctioning Russia yet. It has been more than three years into Russia’s war with Ukraine and more than three months since U.S. President Donald Trump first promised to end the war.

In contrast, Europe is stepping up, with its latest proposed sanctions targeting the financial sinews of Russia’s war machine, which complements its efforts to backstop Ukraine’s attempts to target the physical sinews.

On June 10, the European Union unveiled its 18th package of proposed sanctions that take aim at Moscow’s ability to fund the war through energy exports. There are plans to cut dozens of Russian banks completely out of the financial system; go after scores of tankers that ship illicit Russian crude; and to end, for good, Russia’s ability to hold Europe hostage through energy pipelines in Germany, as Trump seeks. There are also plans to limit the amount of money Russia can make by selling oil.

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One reason Americans like their military so much is that they don’t have to fear it. George Washington established this precedent, demonstrating moderation and deference to the law in responding to a real armed insurrection. For the next two centuries, presidents have only deployed the military legally and infrequently. Congress now has to make sure that the public can still trust the president and the military to follow Washington’s example.

Since 1878, it has been illegal for the American military to be used for domestic policing. Legislation known as the Posse Comitatus Act restricts domestic employment of the active-duty military to Congressionally or Constitutionally authorized circumstances, or when the president formally declares an invasion or insurrection to be occurring.

National Guard troops, though, can be used for domestic policing, either under the authority of governors or with congressional or gubernatorial consent for federal missions. In rare cases, they can be called into federal service without the consent of a state’s governor, specifically when state officials are preventing the enactment of federal law. President Dwight D. Eisenhower used this authority to federalize the Arkansas National Guard in 1957 to enforce the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education, and deployed active-duty troops alongside them to protect Black students. Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson both used the same authority to protect civil rights activists.

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U.S. President Donald Trump deployed an additional 2,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines to Los Angeles on Tuesday to help quell protests against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids.

Small, largely peaceful demonstrations began last Friday, only to grow over the weekend across parts of Los Angeles and the surrounding area, in some cases becoming violent. Local police responded to reports of burned cars and graffitied public property with force, using tear gas, flash grenades, and rubber bullets on protesters.

Much of Los Angeles, home to 4 million people within city limits, has not been affected. Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said he was confident in his department’s ability to handle the demonstrations, adding that the Marines’ arrival would create a “significant logistical and operational challenge.” And Newsom filed an emergency motion in federal court on Tuesday to block Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s deployment of the National Guard and Marines.

While testifying before the House Appropriations Committee on Tuesday, Hegseth defended Trump’s deployments, saying they were vital to “ensure that those rioters, looters, and thugs on the other side assaulting our police officers know that we’re not going anywhere.” The Marines’ sole purpose while in Los Angeles is to protect federal personnel and property, not arrest protesters, Marine Corps Gen. Eric Smith said.

According to a Defense Department official, the deployment of National Guard and Marine troops will likely last 60 days and cost around $134 million.

Read more in today’s World Brief: Trump Doubles Down on Federal Troop Deployments to Los Angeles.

Despite the institution’s formidable reputation, though, and for all of U.S. President Donald Trump’s fixation on bringing it to heel, the Harvard that the world thinks it knows is a surprisingly recent creation.

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California state officials on Monday announced plans to file a federal lawsuit against U.S. President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over the president’s decision to deploy the National Guard to Los Angeles without first consulting California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Tensions began on Friday, when small protests took place in Los Angeles against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids. Officers from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Los Angeles Police Department took action to disperse the demonstrators and arrested more than 100 people.

The next day, clashes broke out between protesters and law enforcement over rumors that another immigration raid was planned in the area. As the situation escalated, Trump issued a memo on Saturday evening ordering at least 2,000 members of the National Guard to Los Angeles to protect ICE officers and other federal officials as well as federal property. U.S. border czar Tom Homan warned California residents on Saturday that federal agents would arrest anyone who obstructs Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts, implying that the threat also included Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.

When demonstrations continued for a third day on Sunday, the Trump administration deployed around 300 National Guard members to protect the city’s federal buildings. However, Newsom maintains that “commandeering a state’s National Guard without consulting the governor of that state is illegal and immoral.” The California governor issued a letter on Sunday urging Trump to rescind his National Guard order. When Trump refused, Newsom and California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced their intention to file a lawsuit against the White House.

By the end of the day on Monday, 2,000 National Guard members were deployed to California to help quell the unrest, and an additional 700 Marines were ordered to support the troops.

Read more in today’s World Brief: California Sues Trump Over National Guard Deployment.