Trump Administration | RCP Story Stream

Trump Must Find His Inner CEO in Scandal March 27, 2025

The supposedly pro-business Trump administration has distressed actual business leaders with its confusing, hostile trade policies and diplomatic flip flops: first favoring our allies and then our adversaries. Financial markets have crashed, consumer...

Donald Trump

Trump administration

The Real Scandal of the Signal Leak March 27, 2025

What’s the scandal when Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, is included in a Signal group chat of Trump administration officials discussing an attack on Yemen? For many observers, the outrageous thing is the breach of government se...

Signalgate

The Real Meaning of Signalgate March 26, 2025

It’s far from the only issue raised by the group chat seen ’round the world, but it is an extremely important one. President Donald Trump’s national-security team may have the most consequential splits on foreign policy of any Republican administrati...

Trump administration

The Attack Plans That Trump’s Advisers Shared on Signal March 26, 2025

On Monday, shortly after we published a story about a massive Trump-administration security breach, a reporter asked the secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, why he had shared plans about a forthcoming attack on Yemen on the Signal messaging app. He a...

Trump administration

Trump Attempts To Choke off China’s Access to u.s. Tech March 26, 2025

The Trump administration demonstrated that it wants tougher limits on China’s access to American technology than those introduced by the Biden administration, targeting Chinese companies including a server maker that buys Nvidia chips. ...

What Team Trump’s Group Chat Error Really Revealed March 25, 2025

Jeffrey Goldberg’s story in the Atlantic is so mind-blowing it’s hard to know what to say in response....

Trump administration

media

The Reverse Nixon/Kissinger… Finally March 24, 2025

For nearly 13 years, well before the Maidan/Crimea crisis and even Trump’s initial run for President, this author has argued for a “Reverse Nixon” or “Reverse Kissinger” tilt to Russia to balance China.In light of the recent dust-up with Ukrainian Pr...

Trump Puts the System on Trial March 24, 2025

President Trump’s supporters have denounced the federal judges seeking to stall or stop this administration’s government overhaul. But there is at least one person who, despite a show of outrage and condemnation, is neither surprised nor intimidated:...

Trump

judiciary

Politics

Department of Justice

Europe’s War in Ukraine March 24, 2025

Relations between the United States and its European allies have proved tempestuous during the first two months of the second Trump administration. ...

Ukraine

The Trump Admin Accidentally Texted Me War Plans March 24, 2025

The world found out shortly before 2 p.m. eastern time on March 15 that the United States was bombing Houthi targets across Yemen. ...

Trump administration

How the U.S. Can Limit China’s Arms Exports March 24, 2025

Russia’s full-scale assault on Ukraine has altered the global arms market in ways not seen since the end of the Cold War, creating challenges and opportunities for arms exporters and importers alike. Russian arms exports are down, global defense spen...

china

U.S.-South Africa Diplomatic Crisis Provides an Opportunity for a New Beginning March 22, 2025

U.S.-South Africa relations sank to a new low last week after the South African ambassador to Washington, Ebrahim Rasool, accused the Trump administration of “supremacy” on four occasions during an online lecture on U.S. foreign policy to a South Afr...

South Africa

Trump administration

foreign policy

The Quid Pro Quo for Peace in Ukraine March 22, 2025

President Trump promises a rapprochement with Russia to end the war in Ukraine. Before we dismiss this as a pipedream, we should understand the options that Trump has in dealing with President Putin. What will be the quid pro quo for peace in Ukraine...

America Should Talk to Hamas About Hostages March 21, 2025

Axios recently reported that Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer “lashed out” at U.S. hostage envoy Adam Boehler in a “tense” phone call for negotiating with terror group Hamas for the return of a kidnapped U.S. citizen.In February, the U....

Europe’s Fighting Talk Is No Substitute for Hard Power March 20, 2025

Instead of unconvincingly pumping out their chests, European leaders should engage with the Trump administration in constructive diplomacy with Russia. ...

United Kingdom

European Union

Ukraine

Trump Must Consider a Stronger Lithuanian Partnership March 20, 2025

As a first-generation American of Lithuanian descent, I have a strong connection to this Baltic country. My parents fled Lithuania in 1985, then under Soviet control, and arrived in America in 1986 for a shot at the American dream.Like millions of fa...

Congress Should Pass the Antisemitism Awareness Act March 17, 2025

Much ink has already been spilled on the antisemitism crisis plaguing the United States. As the new Trump administration seeks to crack down on antisemitism on university campuses, Congress should finally pass legislation which treats the subject wit...

It’s Time to Cut Romania Off March 14, 2025

Walking away from an expensive peripheral air base fits neatly with several of the Trump administration’s priorities. ...

Mineral Trade Did Not Cause Conflict in the Congo March 14, 2025

The surge in violence in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has some commentators blaming a familiar scapegoat: mineral trade and American technology companies whose products contain coltan and other “conflict minerals.” Eastern Congo is rich i...

U.S.-Saudi Cooperation Could Fortify Critical Mineral Supply Chains. March 13, 2025

President Trump returned to office facing a weakened defense industrial base, strained by the Ukraine war and threatened by China’s grip on critical inputs. Dependence on competitors like China for materials that power essential commercial and milita...

Russia Has a Big Choice To Make March 12, 2025

Secretary Marco Rubio’s announcement following the US-Ukraine negotiations in Saudi Arabia that Ukraine has agreed to accept a 30-day ceasefire and to enter into negotiations with Russia is a test of the Trump administration’s relations with Moscow g...

Russia

Trump Must Tread Lightly With Arab Leaders March 12, 2025

If the primary goal of the Trump administration is to quickly address issues in the Middle East and prevent further wars and instability, placing additional pressure on Arab countries might actually backfire. ...

Arab League

Donald Trump

Gaza

The U.S. Dividing Russia From China? Forget About It March 12, 2025

The Trump administration’s effort to divide Russia from China is doomed to fail. This means that the United States is destroying security relationships based on a delusion. ...

Russia

china

End ‘Pandemical Nervosity’ in Europe Over Trump February 27, 2025

This has been an eventful political week for Europe. The German Social Democratic Party (SPD), as expected, the party of Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt, and Gerhard Schroeder, has been thrown out of office with only a sixth of the total vote, its worst...

Europe

Trump administration

U.S. & Canada: A Common Defense in the Arctic February 27, 2025

At a minimum, Ottawa should fulfill its longstanding promise to spend two percent of GDP on the Canadian Armed Forces, laying out practical steps to demonstrate a new urgency on the matter. This alone would entail a big increase in spending from the ...

canada