This week, President Trump raises the stakes on NAFTA renegotiations; French presidential candidates Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen head to a runoff on May 7; Somali pirates attack commercial ships again after five years of calm; and more.
South Korea has much to gain by taking on a leadership role on building a low-carbon future—and even more to lose by standing by and watching, writes Kate Gordon.
OIM
This week, Central American migrants seek asylum in Mexico in record numbers; tensions on the Korean Peninsula continue to mount; UK Prime Minister Theresa May calls for an early general election; and more.
U.S. State Department
This week, Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in Moscow; thousands of Venezuelans protest in the streets of Caracas for nearly two weeks; China orders a fleet of North Korean cargo ships carrying coal to return to North Korea because of that country’s repeated missile tests; and more.
U.S. defense planners must guard against warfare becoming so futuristic that the human role in it is dangerously diminished, writes Kiron Skinner.
The best option for the situation on the Korean Peninsula is a combination of further sanctions and intense, boring, frustrating diplomacy, not more tweeting or war, writes Nina Hachigian.
UN Photo
This week, the Assad regime carries out a chemical attack in a rebel-held Syrian province, leading to a U.S. military airstrike; an explosion in a subway in St. Petersburg kills 14 people; North Korea fires a ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan on the eve of first meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping; and more.
U.S. Navy
U.S. soft power recedes when the United States simply stands by as war crimes are committed, and it grows when the United States takes action in support of the victims of those crimes, writes Phil Seib.
This week, British Prime Minister Theresa May officially initiates the U.K.’s withdrawal from the European Union; Pakistan commences production on a 1,500-mile border fence with Afghanistan; impeached South Korean President Park Geun-hye is arrested on charges including bribery, extortion, and abuse of power; and more.
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker explains why the time is now to pass the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
