Tag United States

Asia Pacific, Energy & Environment

IMAGE—Evaporation ponds for lithium bicarbonate extraction in the Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia. Coordenação-Geral de Observação da Terra/INPE. Flickr (https://www.flickr.com/photos/153282474@N02/43000042851/)

Unearthing Influence: China’s Global Strategy for Transition Minerals

November 18, 2025

The emergence of China as an international lender has changed the landscape of global development finance. Since the early 2000s, the Chinese government and its state-owned banks have provided record amounts of loans to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), making…

Policy & Politics, South America

IMAGE - Indian Economic Diplomacy Portal. iStock-922562056.

Triangular Economic Cooperation Key to Combatting Mexico’s Illicit Drug Economy

November 5, 2025

Upon his inauguration, President Donald Trump signed an executive order labelling Mexican cartels as ‘foreign terrorist organizations’ (FTOs) and confirmed a twenty-five percent tariff against Mexico as part of a strategic response to tackle the fentanyl crisis.1,2 This follows a…

Europe, Security & Conflict

Russia’s Imperial Ambitions – A Wounded Bear Stumbles on a Path of Slow Decline

October 29, 2025

Imperialism is a contentious word. It raises painful memories of sprawling and predatory European colonies in the Global South. In more recent times, critics of the US-led international order condemned Washington’s imperial intrusions in Latin America during the Cold War,…

Europe, Security & Conflict

Balkans Breakthrough for Ukraine: Bring Serbia into NATO & the Kosovo Model into the Donbas

October 12, 2025

By Edward P. Joseph, Lecturer & Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Institute; Merrill Center for Strategic Studies, Johns Hopkins SAIS. In less than a year in office, President Trump has shifted no less than a half-dozen times1 on the war in…

Energy & Environment, North America, South America

The Pitfalls of All-the-above Environmental Policy: Analyzing the Role of Right-Wing and Left-Wing Populism in Recent Brazil and U.S. Politics

October 30, 2024

Climate change is one of the most defining issues of our century. Changes in overall human behavior are necessary for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. These changes should come from everyone, including individuals, corporations, and governments. Politicians are leading…

Civil Society, Governance & Law, North America

To Defeat Populism, Bring Back the Fireside Chats

October 11, 2024

The world is facing a new generation of challenges that are of a different kind, degree, and dimension than those of the past. Many are borderless, including some that present existential risks to humanity. Many are interrelated, multiplying and magnifying…

Asia Pacific, Economics, Policy & Politics

In Hindsight: Evaluating the Complex Legacy of China’s WTO Accession

March 8, 2024

In the 1980s, a growing amicability in US-China economic relations began to emerge despite ongoing political tensions. Policymakers in both countries concentrated their efforts on formalizing trade relations, with the declaration of China’s Most Favored Nation status in the 1990s…

Asia Pacific, Book Reviews, North America, Security & Conflict

Cold Rivals: The New Era of US-China Strategic Competition edited by Evan S. Medeiros

November 8, 2023

Evan S. Medeiros offers a useful collection of essays that examine US-China relations from the 1970s towards our more recent, turbulent days. The defining characterization of US-China relations throughout the book is one of “strategic competition” among rivals. This is…

Europe, North America, Policy & Politics

How U.S. History Can Save North Macedonia and Defeat Putinism in the Balkans

October 2, 2023

Given the spectacular killing of Yevgeny Prigozhin and the less-than-spectacular Ukrainian counter-offensive, it’s looking a lot tougher to defeat Russian President Vladimir Putin. Fortunately, the United States has a rare opportunity to defeat Putinism in the Balkans. To score this…

Asia Pacific, Europe, Security & Conflict

A World Historical Perspective on the War in Ukraine and the China-Taiwan Standoff

September 10, 2023

As the world faces a protracted war in Ukraine with no clear end in sight and a tense standoff in the Taiwan Strait with potential for catastrophic escalation, the time is ripe for a world historical perspective on these conflicts,…

Asia Pacific, Economics, Governance & Law, North America, Policy & Politics

How China’s Political System Discourages Innovation and Encourages IP Theft

July 31, 2023

U.S. observers have long complained that Chinese firms steal intellectual property (IP) from American companies, universities, and research institutions.¹ Most of these complaints stress that the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) directs this theft. Other analysts focus…

Governance & Law, North America, Policy & Politics

Unmoored from the UN: The Struggle to Ratify UNCLOS in the United States

June 26, 2023

On July 9, 1982, after three series of multilateral conferences spanning decades of rigorous negotiations, President Ronald Reagan formally announced that the United States would not sign the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), on the…