分类： politics

On Wednesday, foreign policy analysts and peace activists welcomed a long-awaited breakthrough: the Trump administration has publicly released the text of a new memorandum of understanding (MOU) reached with Iranian negotiators, bringing the unprovoked US-Israeli war on Iran closer to a permanent end than at any point since hostilities began. While the deal marks a historic de-escalation of tensions, it has also ignited fierce partisan debate in Washington, with critics questioning the heavy human cost that preceded the agreement and supporters framing it as a long-overdue correction of failed maximalist policy.

Observers across the political spectrum have already noted one stark, unmissable detail embedded in both the MOU text and President Donald Trump’s recent remarks at the G7 Summit in France: the agreement implicitly acknowledges what war opponents have argued from the start – that the conflict was entirely unnecessary. To date, the war has claimed more than 3,400 Iranian lives, along with thousands of additional civilian and combatant casualties across the Middle East. In Lebanon alone, where Israeli forces have operated since early March, more than 3,600 people have been killed, according to on-the-ground counts.

The core terms of the 14-point MOU lay out a clear path toward peace. First and foremost, the document codifies the immediate and permanent end of all military operations across every front, including hostilities in Lebanon, with both sides committing to respect Lebanese territorial integrity and sovereignty and renounce future threats of force against one another. A 60-day negotiation window is set to finalize a permanent, binding peace deal, extendable only by mutual consent of both parties. Iran has agreed to maintain the current status quo of its nuclear program, a commitment consistent with long-standing Iranian assertions that its nuclear activities are entirely peaceful and never intended for military development. The MOU also includes two key US concessions: no new sanctions will be imposed on Iran during negotiations, and no additional US military forces will be deployed to the region ahead of a final deal.

Other critical provisions lay out a structured timeline for de-escalation and economic recovery. Within 30 days of the MOU’s signing, the US will fully lift its naval blockade of Iran, and will withdraw all remaining US forces from areas near Iran’s borders following the completion of a final deal. Iran has committed to ensuring safe, toll-free passage for commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz for the 60-day negotiation period, and will work with Oman and other Gulf littoral states to establish a long-term maritime governance framework aligned with international law and sovereign coastal state rights. A $300 billion regional reconstruction fund, backed by the US and its partner nations, is planned to help rebuild Iran’s infrastructure, which US and Israeli attacks have left heavily damaged: more than 100,000 housing units, along with countless schools, hospitals, bridges and other critical public assets have been destroyed or rendered unusable. The MOU also confirms that all US and multilateral sanctions on Iran will be lifted on an agreed schedule as part of the final deal, that all frozen Iranian assets will be unfrozen and made fully accessible, and that immediate waivers will be issued to allow Iranian crude oil and liquefied natural gas exports to resume immediately.

On the nuclear front, the framework addresses the core stated objective of the US-led war: Iran has reaffirmed its permanent commitment not to develop or acquire nuclear weapons, and both sides have agreed to develop a mutually agreed mechanism to manage existing enriched uranium stockpiles, most likely requiring down-blending under international Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) supervision. Broader negotiations on Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear enrichment will be finalized as part of the permanent deal.

The agreement has drawn sharp criticism from some Democratic lawmakers and Trump opponents in Washington, who have framed the MOU as a US surrender and taken particular issue with the $300 billion reconstruction fund. But Ryan Costello, policy director at the National Iranian American Council, pushed back against these criticisms in a detailed public statement, arguing that the deal’s core terms deliver mutual benefits for both nations even as they upend long-held Washington policy assumptions. “Time will tell if this memorandum can survive the caustic politics in Washington and Tehran that have accompanied any lessening of tensions between the US and Iran, and ultimately deliver relief that is sorely needed,” Costello wrote. “Yet, what has been started is not a threat to American security, it is a threat to the Washington mindset that any US-Iran outcome is ultimately zero-sum and that Iran’s gain is an American loss. The US will benefit if our nation moves off the path of war with Iran. That will be accomplished by the memorandum and the steps that it entails.”

Speaking to reporters at the G7 summit, Trump addressed ongoing questions about the MOU’s nuclear provisions, the core goal the White House has repeatedly cited to justify the war. While he retained a tough public posture, threatening to “bomb them” if Iran violates its commitments not to build nuclear weapons, Trump also echoed a position long championed by war opponents and independent foreign policy experts. “It is a little hard though, when you say that somebody wants it [nuclear energy], other people have it, other adjoining states have it, and you’re not letting them have it for purposes of electricity and things like that,” he said, referring to Iran’s civilian nuclear program. He also echoed Iran’s long-standing position that, as neighboring regional powers possess ballistic missiles, Iran should be permitted to maintain its own missile arsenal for national security.

Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy, summed up a common critique of the administration’s delayed policy shift: those are “things it would’ve been great to figure out before you started a war over them.” Danny Citrinowicz, a prominent Middle East policy expert, noted that while the conflict has been extraordinarily costly in lives and resources, the shift to a pragmatic diplomatic approach is still a welcome development. “It may have taken a long, costly, and complicated conflict, but the United States appears to have arrived at a conclusion that should have been evident from the start: Iran’s missile program is not negotiable because it sits at the very core of the regime’s security doctrine,” Citrinowicz said. “Reasonable people can ask whether such a prolonged conflict was necessary to reach this conclusion. Yet it is better to recognize strategic realities late than never at all. Before events spiraled completely out of control, the US administration stepped back from maximalist objectives and returned to a more measured and realistic approach.”

Even with the breakthrough, uncertainty remains about the final outcome. Trump acknowledged that the planned official signing of the permanent deal, scheduled for this Friday, could still fall through, and he threatened to resume military bombing campaigns if Iranian officials do not comply with the terms of the MOU. In a characteristic political aside, the president added that he will claim full credit for the agreement if it holds, but will blame Vice President JD Vance for any failure. If completed, the final deal will be formally endorsed by a binding United Nations Security Council resolution to cement its international legitimacy.

In a sworn declaration filed in a Mississippi federal court, the top digital and artificial intelligence official for the U.S. Department of Defense has publicly confirmed for the first time that U.S. military forces leveraged a government-adapted version of Elon Musk’s Grok AI to carry out more than 2,000 targeting strikes over a 96-hour window during the joint U.S.-Israel military campaign against Iran. The revelation, which marks the Trump administration’s first direct acknowledgment of Grok AI’s combat use in the conflict, emerged as part of a high-stakes intervention by the federal government into a civil environmental lawsuit against Musk’s xAI firm.

The lawsuit, filed in April 2026 by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), accuses xAI and its subsidiary MZX Tech of operating 27 unpermitted methane-powered gas turbines at a facility in Southaven, Mississippi. The turbines are used to power xAI’s Colossus 2 supercomputer in nearby South Memphis, Tennessee, which the company relies on to train and update all Grok AI models – including the government-specific variant used by the Pentagon.

The NAACP argues that the unregulated turbines violate the U.S. Clean Air Act, releasing toxic nitrogen oxide pollution that drives dangerous ozone formation. The organization notes that nearby Black communities in the Gulf South bear the disproportionate health burden of these emissions, which are linked to asthma attacks, chronic lung function decline, and increased risk of premature death. The legal complaint asks the court to order xAI to halt operations at the unpermitted facility, install modern pollution control technology, and pay financial penalties for every day of noncompliance with federal environmental law.

Cameron Stanley, who has served as the Pentagon’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer since January 2026, submitted the declaration on behalf of the Trump administration to support its intervention in the case on xAI’s side. Stanley, who previously led defense sector projects at Amazon Web Services before taking his current Pentagon role, outlined how the department uses the Grok Gov Model – a customized derivative of xAI’s commercial Grok AI – integrated into the military’s Maven Smart Systems (MSS) to core national security functions, including target identification, intelligence analysis, military readiness planning, and recruitment.

In his testimony, Stanley detailed that MSS workflows powered by Grok Gov allowed U.S. forces to deploy 2,000 munitions in just four days during what the military calls Operation Epic Fury. The filing does not specify the exact dates of this operation, leaving unconfirmed whether the strikes coincided with February 28, 2026 – the first day of the war, when a U.S. strike on a school killed 156 civilians, including 120 children. To date, Iran’s Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans has recorded nearly 3,500 total fatalities from U.S.-Israeli attacks across Iran since the conflict began.

Stanley characterized the 2,000-strike operation as clear proof of the massive operational efficiency gains delivered by the Grok Gov Model. He went on to warn that if the court rules against xAI and forces a shutdown of the Colossus 2 supercomputer by cutting off its Southaven power supply, the Pentagon’s ability to carry out critical national security missions and maintain technological advantage over U.S. adversaries would be severely undermined. In times of armed conflict or national emergency, Stanley argued, demand for AI processing capacity from Grok Gov Models surges dramatically, and Colossus 2 is uniquely positioned to provide the extra surge capacity needed to sustain ongoing military operations.

In an argument that redefines commercial AI infrastructure as a core national security asset, Stanley wrote that modern data center capacity is just as foundational to U.S. defense posture as traditional munitions production. “In the modern theater of operations, data center processing capacity must be recognized not merely as commercial infrastructure, but as a long-term strategic tool vital to maintaining our technological advantage against adversaries,” he stated in the filing.

The U.S. Department of Justice has backed the Pentagon’s position, urging the federal judge hearing the case in the Northern District of Mississippi to dismiss the NAACP’s lawsuit outright on national security grounds. “The Department of Justice will not sit idly by while private organizations use environmental laws to undermine our national security,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson of the department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the G-7 Summit in Evian, France on Wednesday, former U.S. President Donald Trump laid out contradictory stances on his administration’s newly announced 60-day ceasefire agreement with Iran, blending aggressive military threats against Tehran with key concessions that have already drawn fierce criticism from hardline pro-Israel allies in his own Republican Party.

The core of the agreement is a temporary memorandum of understanding (MOU) that keeps the strategic Strait of Hormuz, a vital global chokepoint for oil and maritime trade, toll-free for the next two months. Under the terms of the deal, Iran will negotiate the future governance of the strait alongside Oman and other Persian Gulf littoral states in line with international law, leaving open the possibility of navigation fees being imposed after the ceasefire period ends. The White House has framed the ceasefire extension, announced publicly this past Sunday, as a first step toward reaching a permanent end to the ongoing conflict that has roiled global energy markets.

In unusually candid remarks, Trump acknowledged his biggest political risk tied to the conflict: economic fallout that could sink his presidency, echoing the political fate of Republican President Herbert Hoover, who left office in disgrace after the 1929 stock market crash and the onset of the Great Depression. “The one president I did not want to be was the late, great, Herbert Hoover,” Trump said, noting that stock markets have shifted directly in response to signals about whether the conflict would end or escalate. “The stock market is more brilliant than anybody there is, including the people on this stage, other than me, of course.”

The president went on to stress that Tehran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz had inflicted enough economic damage globally to push his administration to agree to the ceasefire extension. Even so, he adopted a belligerent tone when discussing enforcement of the MOU, repeating multiple times that he would resume large-scale military bombing of Iran if he disapproved of Tehran’s compliance. “It’s a memorandum of understanding. And if I don’t like it, we’ll go back to shooting at them, dropping bombs on their head,” Trump said. “If I don’t like it, if they don’t behave, we’ll go right back to dropping bombs right smack in the middle of their head, OK?”

The deal has already come under intense fire from Iran hawks and pro-Israel voices in the U.S., who have pushed for a full rollback of Iran’s nuclear program, ballistic missile arsenal, and regional military influence. Trump acknowledged that the terms of the MOU would amplify this criticism: the agreement does not address Iran’s nuclear program in any detail, leaving that critical issue for future negotiations during the 60-day ceasefire period.

Pushing back against demands that the U.S. seize Iran’s existing enriched uranium stockpiles, Trump argued that the material is buried deep in underground facilities that only the U.S. and China have the technical capacity to access, adding that international cameras are already in place to monitor suspect sites. He also rejected longstanding Israeli demands that Iran be barred from any enrichment activity entirely, noting that neighboring countries in the region maintain their own nuclear energy programs. “It’s a little hard when other people have it, other adjoining states have it, and you’re not letting them have it for purposes of electricity and things like that. You have to use a little common sense,” he said.

This stance marks a clear shift from Trump’s 2017 decision to unilaterally withdraw from the Obama-era Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the multilateral nuclear agreement that placed strict limits on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. Trump has framed his new framework as different from the JCPOA, arguing that the threat of ongoing U.S. military force prevents Iran from ever acquiring a nuclear weapon. “Whoever sells them a nuclear weapon would get nuked themselves,” he claimed, though the JCPOA already explicitly barred Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapons program.

Trump also dismissed demands from hawks and Israel that Iran be forced to completely eliminate its ballistic missile program, which he previously cited as a core justification for launching U.S. strikes against Iran. Arguing that it is unreasonable to bar Tehran from possessing any missiles when neighboring Gulf states like Saudi Arabia maintain their own arsenals, Trump claimed that U.S. strikes have already destroyed roughly 80 percent of Iran’s existing missile capacity. “Doesn’t work that way,” he said of demands for full disarmament.

On economic policy, Trump confirmed that the U.S. will not directly invest in Iran to help rebuild the country, which he estimated has sustained around $2 trillion in damages from U.S. and Israeli strikes. He added that Washington will not block neighboring Arab Gulf states from investing in Iran if a final peace deal is reached, a stance that is already fueling speculation that states including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar will move to normalize economic ties with Tehran in the coming months.

The president also drew backlash from hawks by confirming that he is open to returning billions of dollars in Iranian assets that have been frozen by Western sanctions, stating that the assets “is not our money” and will eventually need to be returned. The move is certain to please Tehran while hardening opposition from pro-Israel lawmakers in Washington.

Trump’s remarks swung between sharp criticism of Iran and faint praise for the country’s leadership. He referred to Iran as having a “primitive culture” while also acknowledging that Iran’s leaders “love their country.” He also openly boasted about U.S. strikes on Iranian civilian infrastructure, specifically highlighting the April 1 bombing of the Karaj B1 bridge, which he compared to New York’s George Washington Bridge.

In a surprising acknowledgment, Trump thanked both Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin for maintaining neutrality during the conflict, noting that both countries could have made the military campaign far more difficult for the U.S. Multiple independent outlets have previously reported that China and Russia provided Iran with arms and intelligence support during the fighting. “I just want to thank them because they made it a lot better,” Trump said. “I want to thank China, President Xi. I was with him, and he stayed neutral, totally neutral, and I appreciate it. And I want to thank Vladimir Putin; he was very neutral. They could have made it much more difficult for us.”

Trump also confirmed that the United Arab Emirates participated directly in offensive airstrikes against Iran during the conflict, saying he was caught off guard by the scale of the UAE’s military involvement. “He was dropping bombs last week, I said, ‘who the hell’s dropping all those bombs?’ It was the UAE. He’s a good fighter,” Trump said of UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed. The comments were made during a wide-ranging, rambling press conference flanked by top senior administration officials including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

The ongoing conflict over Iran has sent shockwaves through global energy markets, driving home a urgent lesson for the European Union: the bloc must urgently diversify its supply chains and build alternative trade and energy corridors that bypass the strategic Strait of Hormuz, through which nearly a fifth of global oil supplies pass daily. In the wake of volatile price swings and heightened supply risk, Brussels has turned its focus to two major infrastructure initiatives and deeper energy partnerships with Gulf states and India to shore up long-term energy security and advance the bloc’s strategic autonomy.

At the top of Brussels’ policy agenda is the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), a sweeping transcontinental infrastructure project that has gained renewed momentum amid the current energy crisis. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen highlighted the initiative during this year’s G7 summit, framing it as a core example of the resilient, diversified supply routes the bloc is pursuing to insulate itself from future geopolitical shocks. For the EU, IMEC is far more than a trade project: backers say it would deliver three core benefits — greater economic resilience, diversified supply chains, and strengthened energy security — all of which have grown more urgent as Russia’s aggression in Ukraine continues and the transatlantic strategic relationship faces growing friction.

While the EU as a whole has signed a memorandum of understanding backing IMEC, only a small number of the bloc’s 27 member states have formalized their participation. However, a senior anonymous EU diplomat involved in high-level planning for the initiative told the Associated Press that behind-the-scenes political commitment to the project runs far deeper than public participation suggests. Right now, work is focused on turning the broad vision for IMEC into tangible, on-the-ground implementation across the corridor’s three core pillars: transport and trade connectivity, energy integration, and digital infrastructure. The project could include new cross-border oil and gas pipelines, as well as high-capacity electricity transmission cables, among other major infrastructure assets. The EU’s press office has declined to share a detailed public timeline for IMEC’s rollout.

IMEC’s planned route runs through Israel, which has been a vocal supporter of the project from its early stages. Last year, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed he had discussed advancing IMEC with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, calling the initiative “a very revolutionary and transformative development that we want to bring into place.” But the project faces a major political hurdle: experts say it cannot reach its full potential without the participation of Saudi Arabia, a key regional energy and logistics hub, which requires normalization of diplomatic relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia first. Lianne Pollak-David, co-founder of the Israel-based Coalition for Regional Security, noted that U.S. diplomatic leadership will be critical to brokering that normalization, a necessary precondition for IMEC’s success. “Without normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia, IMEC cannot be truly realized,” she said. Currently, Saudi Arabia has stated it will only agree to normalize ties with Israel if there is a clear, binding pathway to a Palestinian state — a condition Netanyahu has repeatedly rejected. It remains unclear how the ongoing Iran war, which has already inflicted economic damage on Gulf Arab states, will shift Riyadh’s position on both normalization and IMEC; Saudi officials declined to comment on their stance regarding the project when contacted by the AP.

Beyond IMEC, the EU has made it a top priority to develop new energy infrastructure that bypasses geopolitical hotspots like the Strait of Hormuz entirely. Von der Leyen has confirmed that in just the first 54 days of the Iran conflict, the EU spent an extra €25 billion ($29 billion) on oil and gas imports, and the bloc now faces the risk of a prolonged jet fuel shortage that could disrupt travel and industry across the continent. During an April EU leaders’ summit, von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa stressed that the bloc stands ready to partner with Gulf Cooperation Council states to build new energy infrastructure that avoids conflict-prone chokepoints.

The value of these alternative routes has already been proven by Saudi Arabia’s East-West Pipeline, which connects the kingdom’s major eastern oil fields to export terminals on the Red Sea, bypassing the Strait of Hormuz entirely. Shortly after the Iran war began, state oil giant Aramco ramped up flows through the pipeline to its full maximum capacity of 7 million barrels of crude oil per day to avoid supply disruptions. French Foreign Ministry spokesperson Pascal Confavreux told the AP that G7 leaders are currently exploring mechanisms to finance and build new infrastructure that “will be able to go outside of the track of the Strait of Hormuz.”

While Brussels has not released detailed plans for specific EU-backed projects, many of which could ultimately be integrated into the broader IMEC framework, a senior anonymous EU official told the AP that the bloc will encourage European energy firms to invest in renewable energy projects across the Gulf that can then export power to the EU to meet the bloc’s domestic demand. Gabriel Mitchell, an energy analyst at the German Marshall Fund think tank, noted that building collaborative infrastructure projects with Gulf states will take years to complete. In the near term, the most viable projects are likely to be new oil and gas pipelines, which have the shortest construction timelines, as well as funding repairs for Gulf energy facilities that have been targeted by Iranian forces during the ongoing conflict. Mitchell added that all new projects will have to align with the EU’s ambitious climate targets, meaning any new pipelines will likely be designed with “dual-use” capabilities to carry both natural gas and clean hydrogen in the future, supporting the bloc’s net-zero transition.

A second major, EU-backed initiative already in development is the Great Seas Interconnector (GSI), a 1,208-kilometer undersea electricity transmission cable designed to link the power grids of continental Europe with EU member Cyprus and ultimately Israel. The GSI has been slowed by extensive bureaucratic delays and disputes over project financing, but its backers say it has transformative potential: it would end the long-standing energy isolation of both Cyprus and Israel, create a new energy link to South Asia via existing and planned infrastructure, and could also be integrated into the broader IMEC network. Gallia Lindenstrauss, a senior fellow at the Israel-based Institute for National Security Studies, called the GSI “a very pragmatic solution for the modern energy needs” that lays critical groundwork for the global transition to renewable energy. “As energy security and grid backup move to the forefront of the global agenda, this project provides a flexible platform,” Lindenstrauss said. The U.S. has also thrown its support behind the project and broader Eastern Mediterranean energy integration: U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright announced last week the inauguration of the new Eastern Mediterranean Energy Center at Rice University in Houston, which aims to boost cooperation on natural gas development, U.S. liquefied natural gas infrastructure, and cross-border energy transportation networks across the region. Wright noted that the U.S. views the Eastern Mediterranean as “an increasingly important region for global energy development” as it works to support European energy security.

WASHINGTON — Amid intensifying military pressure from Beijing on the self-governing island of Taiwan, the island’s highest-ranking diplomatic representative in the United States has emphasized that Taipei urgently needs to procure U.S.-manufactured weaponry to bolster its self-defense capabilities. Alexander Yui Tah-ray, who leads the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office — Washington’s de facto embassy for Taiwan, which the U.S. does not formally recognize as a sovereign state — also confirmed he has detected no shift in longstanding U.S. policy toward the island, which China claims as an inalienable part of its territory.

The $14 billion arms package, which won approval from senior U.S. congressional leaders earlier this year, has remained in gridlock ever since President Donald Trump returned from a state visit to Beijing in May, where he discussed the proposed sale at length with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The delay has stoked widespread anxiety across Taiwan and drawn sharp concern from members of Congress on Capitol Hill.

In an exclusive interview with the Associated Press in Washington on Wednesday, Yui made clear the necessity of the requested arms for defensive ends. “We need those arms for defensive purposes. We’re trying to increase our defense expenditure. We try to increase our ability to defend ourselves better and survive times of crisis,” he said.

Unlike many global powers, the U.S. does not maintain official diplomatic recognition of Taiwan, in line with Beijing’s requirement that all nations with formal ties to China cut off official relations with Taipei. Even so, Washington has remained the island’s most powerful informal ally and its largest supplier of defensive military hardware. Under longstanding U.S. domestic law, the U.S. is required to provide Taiwan with enough military equipment to deter any potential aggressive action from Beijing, which has repeatedly vowed to take control of the island by force if necessary to achieve unification. Beijing has consistently opposed all U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, which has operated outside of Chinese Communist Party control since 1949.

Yui, who holds the de facto role of Taiwan’s ambassador to Washington, stressed that Taiwan does not plan to rely solely on U.S. military intervention in the event of a crisis. “This is our responsibility, so we will not wait and depend for the U.S. cavalry to come and save us,” he said. “That’s why we’re willing to acquire, to buy U.S. equipment and arms to make ourselves stronger.”

The envoy added that the scale of the requested arms sale must match the severity of the threat Taiwan faces from mainland China, a threat he described as “actually pretty high.” He pushed back against Beijing’s framing of cross-strait tensions, noting, “First and foremost, we’re not the aggressors. It is the People’s Republic of China who is sending all the planes and ships. They’re the ones huffing and puffing. They are the ones who’s trying to annihilate our freedom and democracy in Taiwan.”

In recent years, the People’s Liberation Army has deployed warships and military aircraft near Taiwan on an almost daily basis, and has carried out multiple large-scale military exercises in the waters and airspace surrounding the island. Beijing views control of Taiwan as a non-negotiable core interest, and blames pro-independence forces on the island and their international supporters for rising instability across the Taiwan Strait.

Reaffirming his assessment of U.S. policy, Yui said he had seen no adjustments to Washington’s longstanding position on Taiwan, and added that the Taipei government is willing to respect the timeline the second Trump administration chooses to move forward with the announcement.

The proposed arms sale enjoys broad bipartisan support in Congress, and lawmakers raised their concerns over the delay to Secretary of State Marco Rubio during a public hearing earlier this month. Rubio confirmed that U.S. policy toward Taiwan remains unchanged, and stated that Washington does not negotiate or consult with Beijing on U.S. arms sales to the island. “We’re aware of their position. They talk about it all the time. They are not negotiated, and they are not consulted,” Rubio said.

Rubio clarified that the proposal has not been intentionally held up, but is still undergoing interagency review, with multiple factors being weighed by the administration. “It includes the availability of the stocks in the short term,” he said, referencing U.S. military stockpiles that have been significantly depleted amid ongoing operations in the Iran war. “We have to balance that with our own procurement process.”

The Trump administration did greenlight a separate $11 billion arms package for Taiwan back in December, which included advanced High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and conventional howitzers. Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te said his administration maintains close, regular contact with U.S. officials, and added, “We hope the arms purchase from the U.S. can be approved as soon as possible.”

In response to the push from Taipei, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian reiterated Beijing’s longstanding opposition, stating that any attempt by the Taiwanese government to seek independence through reliance on U.S. support and military buildup is “a dead end.” “China’s opposition to American arms sales to Taiwan is consistent and clear,” he said.

Yui, who took up his post in Washington in late 2023 during the final months of the Joe Biden administration, is now navigating a second Trump presidency marked by shifting tones toward Beijing. Biden repeatedly stated during his time in office that he would deploy U.S. troops to defend Taiwan if China launched an attack. By contrast, the second Trump administration has taken a more conciliatory approach to Beijing after a first term defined by an intense tit-for-tat trade war.

Trump has raised concerns among observers by appearing to break with a longstanding Reagan-era pledge not to hold prior consultations with Beijing on arms sales to Taiwan, but he has also broken decades of protocol by suggesting he could directly call Taiwanese President Lai, a step no sitting U.S. president has ever taken.

In its 2025 National Defense Strategy published in January, the Pentagon outlined its approach to countering China, stating that it seeks to deter Beijing through military strength rather than open confrontation. The strategy document notes that the U.S. will “build, posture, and sustain a strong denial defense” along a chain of strategic Pacific islands that includes Taiwan, to block Chinese expansion into the broader Pacific Ocean.

Yui attributed the administration’s seemingly mixed signals to Trump’s unconventional, outside-the-box governing style, and expressed long-term confidence in the U.S.-Taiwan partnership. “It’s important to look at the actions, what is happening, not just the rhetoric,” he said. “The big stick is still there.”

Associated Press writer Simina Mistreanu contributed reporting from Taipei, Taiwan.

China and the United States have continued to make consistent, steady progress in cross-border anti-narcotics cooperation, expanding practical collaboration across multiple high-priority areas, a senior Chinese narcotics control official announced Wednesday. The announcement came as China rolls out new strengthened measures for domestic drug governance and chemical regulation, adding 16 extra non-medical narcotic and psychotropic substances to its official controlled substances roster.

Wei Xiaojun, executive deputy director of the Office of China National Narcotics Control Commission and director of the Ministry of Public Security’s narcotics control bureau, outlined that bilateral cooperation between the two countries has deepened across a wide range of critical domains: substance scheduling regulation, precursor chemical control, intelligence sharing, transnational joint investigations, illegal online drug content cleanup, repatriation of drug-related fugitives, anti-money laundering initiatives, and advances in drug testing technology.

Wei confirmed that China has maintained regular, structured communication with relevant U.S. government agencies, including the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, to share updates on ongoing operations and align collective strategic priorities. Chinese law enforcement bodies have also partnered on joint casework and fugitive repatriation with multiple U.S. law enforcement agencies, including the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he added.

A recent example of this cooperative work was highlighted: In February 2026, Tianjin police apprehended a drug suspect surnamed Gong using intelligence provided by U.S. law enforcement. Prior to the Chinese arrest, U.S. authorities in Georgia had already taken into custody a U.S. citizen linked to the same transnational drug ring.

Addressing the principles of global anti-drug collaboration, Wei emphasized that cross-border narcotics control is a shared global responsibility that must be rooted in mutual respect and mutual trust between nations. “As long as China and the United States work in tandem, we can effectively tackle shared drug-related challenges, an outcome that will bring tangible benefits to both of our peoples and the entire global community,” he stated. He added that China remains fully committed to preserving the positive, hard-won momentum of Sino-U.S. anti-drug cooperation, which requires continuous, coordinated joint efforts from both sides to sustain.

Wei also noted that China has proactively addressed the growing global threat of unregulated nonscheduled chemicals being diverted into illegal drug manufacturing networks, particularly the diversion routes that feed illicit production in North America.

Coinciding with Wednesday’s announcement, China’s national drug regulatory body confirmed that starting July 1, 2026, the 16 newly added substances will be formally integrated into the country’s official catalogue of controlled nonmedical narcotic and psychotropic substances. Once the update takes effect, China will have regulatory control over 412 types of non-medicinal narcotic and psychotropic substances, along with full category-based controls for all fentanyl-related substances, synthetic cannabinoids, and nitazene-related compounds.

To proactively mitigate emerging regulatory risks ahead of the policy update, China issued two official public compliance warnings in November 2025 and May 2026, urging all industry actors to abide by existing national drug control laws. Chinese customs and postal inspection authorities have also already strengthened export oversight, upgraded risk analysis frameworks, and expanded inspection protocols for high-risk chemical shipments.

Nationwide, Chinese authorities have carried out large-scale crackdowns targeting illegal trafficking of precursor chemicals and new psychoactive substances, while also pushing for stronger industry self-regulation across chemical manufacturing and distribution sectors. Wei noted that strict upstream chemical regulation remains a core, foundational pillar of China’s national anti-drug strategy. In 2025 alone, Chinese law enforcement seized 550.6 metric tons of illicit drug-related precursor chemicals. The country has also published a landmark white paper focused specifically on fentanyl control and has continuously expanded its national regulatory system to close emerging gaps.

While Wei confirmed that China’s overall domestic drug situation remains stable, he warned that evolving trafficking patterns have created new regulatory challenges: modern drug networks are increasingly organized, available substances are more diversified, and the average age of drug users continues to fall. Unregulated gray-area compounds and exploitation of regulatory loopholes, alongside the constant emergence of new addictive synthetic substances, have added significant complexity to national control efforts.

The 2025 China Drug Situation Report, which was also released Wednesday, provided a full overview of last year’s anti-drug work. The data showed that Chinese authorities solved 27,000 drug-related criminal cases and arrested 34,000 suspects in 2025, representing year-on-year drops of 27.6 percent and 33 percent respectively. Total drug seizures reached 33.5 tons, a 25.4 percent increase from 2024, while authorities processed 134,000 drug users for treatment and supervision, a 30.3 percent year-on-year decrease.

The report also highlighted a key emerging trend: a sharp rise in abuse of unregulated nonscheduled addictive substances. In 2025, authorities seized nearly 1.27 million liters of nitrous oxide, an 84 percent year-on-year increase, and 9.3 tons of other unregulated addictive substances, which marked a more than 17-fold increase compared to 2024 figures.

In an exclusive sit-down interview with the BBC’s Tokyo correspondent from his Tokyo office, Japanese Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi has laid out the most dramatic reorientation of Japan’s national security posture since the end of World War II, arguing that the country must fundamentally strengthen its defence capabilities and re-examine the pacifist framework that has guided its foreign and military policy for 80 years.

Koizumi framed the sweeping policy changes as a core component of building multi-layered deterrence to prevent new conflict in the Indo-Pacific, a goal that relies on three interconnected pillars: boosting domestic defence capacity, reinforcing the long-standing security alliance with the United States, and expanding defence cooperation with other like-minded nations across the globe.

One of the most significant recent shifts has been the relaxation of Japan’s 50-year-old restrictions on arms exports, a change that opens new doors for Japanese defence manufacturers to sell and transfer defence equipment and lethal weaponry to 17 nations that have signed formal partnership agreements with Tokyo, including the United States and the United Kingdom. Koizumi detailed the early progress of this new policy, noting that Australia has already selected Japanese-built warships, active negotiations are ongoing with the Philippines to transfer used destroyers from Japan’s Maritime Self-Defence Force, deep discussions are underway with Indonesia, and New Zealand has formally expressed interest in acquiring Japanese destroyers. “This vision of trading equipment and assets throughout the Indo-Pacific is something we have never seen before,” Koizumi told the BBC.

Defence policy has jumped to the top of the policy agenda for Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s current administration, which took office in October 2025 and has already pushed through historic increases in defence spending, framing the reforms as an urgent response to growing instability across the region. Takaichi, a long-time advocate for stronger defence alliances and a hawkish approach to regional security, has made revising Japan’s iconic Article 9 a core policy priority. Enshrined in Japan’s post-WWII constitution, Article 9 formally renounces war as a sovereign right of the nation, bans the use of force as a tool to resolve international disputes, and prohibits the maintenance of formal land, sea, and air military forces.

Speaking as a member of parliament rather than in his official cabinet role, Koizumi confirmed his full support for amending Article 9, arguing that the dramatic shifts in the regional security environment over the past eight decades demand an update to the country’s founding legal framework. “Japan has not amended its Constitution even once since World War Two. Given how dramatically the security environment has changed, we need to adapt to those changes if Japan is to remain peaceful,” he said.

Koizumi identified Beijing as Japan’s most significant strategic challenge, with China’s claims over self-governing Taiwan representing the latest flashpoint in a long-fraught bilateral relationship. The uninhabited Senkaku Islands, known as Diaoyu in China and claimed by both nations, sit in a strategically critical location along the First Island Chain, a geographic formation long described as a key strategic barrier between China’s coastal waters and the wider Pacific Ocean. Over the past year, Chinese aircraft carriers have conducted intermittent operational activities beyond the islands, a shift that has raised alarm in Tokyo. Japan’s Defence Ministry formally labeled China’s military activity the “greatest strategic challenge” in its most recent cabinet-submitted white paper, and is expected to reaffirm this assessment in its upcoming annual government report.

Last month, Koizumi pushed back against Beijing’s criticism that Japan’s defence shifts amount to a return of “new militarism”, arguing instead that China’s massive expanded weapons arsenal is the source of widespread global concern. Despite the rising tensions, Koizumi stressed that Japan remains committed to maintaining open lines of communication with Beijing. He noted that he met with his Chinese counterpart last November, and conveyed a clear desire to maintain ongoing dialogue despite the deep disagreements between the two nations. “Unfortunately, there have not been many opportunities for direct communication recently. However, as I stated at the Shangri-La Dialogue, Japan is always open to dialogue. We will continue sending that message and hope that opportunities for dialogue can be created whenever necessary,” he said.

Efforts to revise Japan’s post-war security framework are not new: Nobusuke Kishi first pushed for a more normalized military posture in the 1950s, Koizumi’s own father Junichiro Koizumi, who served as prime minister in the early 2000s, also backed constitutional revision including reforms to Article 9, and the late Shinzo Abe, Kishi’s grandson, made amending the pacifist clause a central priority during his time in office. But the pace of change has accelerated sharply under the Takaichi administration, a shift that has sparked some of the largest anti-war protests Japan has seen in decades.

Koizumi also emphasized the need to formalize the legal status of Japan’s Self-Defence Forces (SDF). While the SDF operates as a functional military in practice, Japanese law and political convention have long avoided labeling it as an official military force. “The SDF should be able to carry out its mission with pride and honour, and Japan must possess defence capabilities that remain steadfast even in today’s challenging security environment,” he added.

Critics of the proposed changes, however, argue that formal recognition and expansion of the SDF undermines the core pacifist principles of Article 9, and that the existing constitutional framework is already sufficient to meet Japan’s current defensive needs. “We don’t need to amend Article 9 for defensive operations against China. So it’s more a political agenda than something based on military rationality,” explained Hirohito Ogi, a senior research fellow at the Institute of Geoeconomics specializing in military strategy and defence policy. Ogi noted that even in the event of a threat to Japanese-controlled southern islands claimed by Beijing, or an attack on U.S. military bases located in Okinawa or Kyushu, the current constitution can already be interpreted to recognize such an attack as a direct act of aggression against Japan, justifying a full defensive response.

Koizumi acknowledged that while the ruling Liberal Democratic Party supports constitutional revision, the final decision will rest with the Japanese people. Under Japanese law, constitutional amendments require approval via national referendum, and Koizumi noted that “the timing and circumstances under which the public is asked to make that decision involve major political judgements.”

The evolving defence posture also requires Japan to balance its stance toward China while upholding its core alliance with the United States, which remains the cornerstone of Tokyo’s security policy. Established in the post-WWII era, the alliance hosts roughly 50,000 U.S. troops in Japan, the largest overseas U.S. military deployment in the world. In recent years, however, U.S. leaders – particularly President Donald Trump in his second term – have pushed for greater alliance burden-sharing, demanding that U.S. allies increase their own domestic defence spending. “The era of the United States subsidising the defence of wealthy nations is over,” U.S. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth declared last month during his keynote address at the Shangri-La Dialogue.

In response to this pressure, and driven by its own security priorities, the Takaichi administration has raised Japan’s defence spending to 2% of GDP, double the long-standing post-war benchmark. The expanded budget is earmarked for the development and deployment of new surface-to-ship missiles and unmanned drone systems for both land and underwater operations.

Defence analysts are divided on the implications of this shift: some argue that Japanese defence-related industries, including shipbuilding and advanced electronic systems, are well-positioned to become increasingly competitive in the global defence export market. The Center for Strategic and International Studies has noted that the emergence of dedicated, full-scale Japanese defence firms focused primarily on the sector will be critical to the success of this new export strategy. Other analysts argue that larger budgets and updated deterrence frameworks are not enough to address the challenge from China, and that Japan needs bolder structural reforms to make its military forces more nimble and adaptable to modern security threats.

Aligning with U.S. regional strategy, Koizumi argued that Japan is ready to take on a more prominent independent role in maintaining Indo-Pacific security, beyond its existing partnership with Washington. “Japan can make contributions to the region that are uniquely Japanese – not solely through our relationship with the US, but also in our own independent role,” he said. “It’s our country. We need to protect it.”

In late February, when US President Donald Trump ordered military strikes against Iran, Turkish leadership found itself unexpectedly sidelined from major decision-making. Ankara’s repeated diplomatic efforts to head off the conflict fell on deaf ears, with senior Turkish officials concluding that Trump prioritized advice from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over their own input. Just three months later, the geopolitical landscape shifted dramatically: Trump publicly named Turkey, alongside Pakistan and Qatar, as one of the key countries that helped broker a breakthrough memorandum of understanding with Iran, while adopting a sharply more confrontational stance toward Israel.

The 60-day ceasefire agreement reached between Tehran and Washington over the weekend comes with two core provisions: it extends the fragile pause in hostilities between the two nations and reopens the Strait of Hormuz, the critical global energy chokepoint that Iran had blocked after the US-Israeli military campaign began. Speaking to Middle East Eye this week, senior Turkish officials have struck a cautious tone about the deal, emphasizing that the memorandum represents only an initial step toward resolving the long-running US-Iran dispute and does little more than temporarily ease shipping pressure on the strait.

“The 60-day window to negotiate a final agreement on the nuclear file and other outstanding disputes will be far more complex and challenging than any prior stage of negotiations,” one senior Turkish official said. “This will be the true test of whether this current calm can be sustained.” Many policy experts based in Ankara share concerns that Israel could take provocative action in the coming months to derail the fragile agreement. Even amid these lingering uncertainties, one outcome is already clear: Turkey has emerged from the US-Iran war largely unharmed, and in many respects, strategically strengthened.

When the conflict first erupted, Ankara harbored deep fears about the stability of the Iranian government and potential spillover that could threaten Turkish national security. To date, none of these worst-case scenarios have materialized. Turkish officials immediately activated pre-planned contingency measures along Turkey’s eastern border with Iran to prepare for a possible mass refugee influx, successfully keeping border crossings calm and avoiding a humanitarian crisis. A second major threat also emerged early on: Israeli officials pushed for a plan to arm Iranian Kurdish groups to lead an insurgency in western Iran.

Ankara viewed this proposal as a direct threat to its own domestic security, arguing that empowering Kurdish armed groups in western Iran could derail ongoing peace talks with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and drag Turkey into a scenario similar to the Syrian conflict, where Kurdish groups based along the border seized control of territory and posed a persistent security challenge. As US and Israeli strikes on Iranian targets intensified, hardline members of Netanyahu’s cabinet began openly stating that “Turkey is next after Iran,” amplifying Ankara’s fears that a collapse of Iranian state authority would spread chaos directly to its borders.

Despite these significant risks, Ankara managed to retain political influence and convince the Trump administration that a Kurdish insurgency in western Iran was not in US interests. Several external factors worked in Turkey’s favor: deep internal divisions within Iraqi Kurdistan over how to approach Iranian Kurdish groups, including public rifts between the powerful ruling Barzani and Talabani political dynasties, and the fact that very few Iranian Kurdish fighters had access to the heavy weaponry required to lead a large-scale insurgency. Top Trump administration officials, including CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, also openly expressed deep skepticism about the feasibility of the Israeli plan.

One unforeseen crisis that tested Ankara’s crisis management came when Iran fired four ballistic missiles into Turkish territory. The strike was part of a broader barrage targeting Gulf states and regional countries hosting US military forces, and analysts believe the missiles targeted the US-operated Incirlik Air Base and the Kurecik Radar Base, a critical installation used to track Iranian ballistic missile launches. The attack triggered fierce pushback from Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, who held multiple angry conversations with Iranian authorities to make clear that Ankara would not tolerate strikes on its territory, especially any that risked civilian casualties.

At the time, Ankara insiders widely expected that if the missiles had hit a populated area and caused civilian deaths, Turkey would have been forced to launch retaliatory strikes, creating a dangerous cycle of escalation that could have dragged the country directly into the war. By limiting the strikes to military installations hosting US assets and avoiding civilian casualties, Iran avoided a full rupture of bilateral ties with Ankara. Ironically, the missile attacks ultimately strengthened Turkey’s position within the NATO alliance: the US, Germany, and Italy all quickly deployed additional anti-ballistic missile systems to Turkey to support an ally under threat, warming previously strained ties between Ankara and these major Western powers.

Beyond strategic gains, Turkey has capitalized on the conflict to expand its economic and commercial influence across the Middle East. In the wake of Iranian long-range drone and missile strikes on Gulf states, many regional governments began seeking large-scale purchases of air defense systems, allowing Ankara to step in as a reliable new supplier. Turkey has already signed hundreds of millions of dollars worth of arms contracts with Gulf states including Qatar, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, establishing itself as a growing player in the global arms market. While Turkey still lacks domestic long-range anti-ballistic interceptor technology, it has an active domestic development program and has proposed joint investment partnerships that have drawn increasing interest from Gulf capitals.

At the same time that Turkey expanded arms sales to Gulf allies, it managed to preserve its longstanding diplomatic and economic ties with Iran, a relationship that proved critical during ceasefire negotiations. The Iranian missile strikes also shattered long-held assumptions that Gulf monarchies and their major financial centers were immune to regional attack, creating an opening for Ankara to position itself as an alternative regional investment hub for global businesses looking to de-risk their exposure. The project remains a long and difficult bet, requiring extensive domestic legal reforms and large-scale infrastructure investment, but the conflict has already helped boost Turkey’s reputation as a stable safe haven outside the range of direct Iranian strikes.

Of course, the conflict has not come without costs for Turkey. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz disrupted global shipping and pushed up global energy prices, exacerbating Turkey’s long-running battle with high inflation. A leading energy research think tank estimates that higher energy costs stemming from the strait closure will add nearly $14 billion to Turkey’s annual national energy bill. Inflationary pressures were already visible in April and May economic data, though the Turkish government has so far managed to mitigate the worst economic impacts of the price shock.

Even amid these economic headwinds, Ankara has turned the energy crisis into an opportunity to advance its long-term goal of becoming a central Eurasian energy and connectivity hub. Turkish officials have proposed a slate of new infrastructure projects that leverage the country’s unique geographic position, including reviving the historic Hejaz Railway, expanding the existing Iraq-Turkey oil pipeline to reach the southern Iraqi port of Basra, and building a new direct natural gas pipeline linking Qatar to Turkey.

Finally, domestic political analysis shows the conflict has produced a clear “rally-around-the-flag” effect for Turkish leadership. Recent independent polls reviewed by Middle East Eye indicate that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s domestic popularity has risen during the conflict, even after his government launched a widespread crackdown on the country’s main opposition party. “Turks are now experts on turning regional crisis into opportunities for themselves,” one senior European diplomat summed up the outcome.