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For 70-year-old grandmother Marji Mansfield, every pre-dawn hour between 5 and 7 a.m. brings a wave of crippling fear. Like dozens of other pro-Palestine activists across the United Kingdom, she waits for the knock that British counterterrorism police could leave on her door at any moment, a routine dawn raid that has already upended the lives of nearly 20 peers, many of them elderly.

“It’s been really, really quite scary not knowing when there’s going to be the knock at the door,” Mansfield told independent outlet Middle East Eye in an interview. “This isn’t the Britain that I thought I grew up in at all. We’ve been scared enough to go and sleep elsewhere.” That anxiety spikes whenever her seven grandchildren stay overnight, turning the usually quiet early morning hours into a period of relentless dread.

Mansfield’s ordeal is rooted in a crackdown on Palestine Action, a direct action advocacy group that the UK government formally banned as a proscribed terrorist organization in July 2025. In the months following the proscription, more than 3,000 people have been arrested under the UK Terrorism Act simply for participating in silent vigils held in solidarity with the group. In June of that same year, the Court of Appeal upheld the legality of the ban, overturning an earlier High Court ruling that had questioned the proscription.

Following that ruling, Defend Our Juries (DOJ), the grassroots organization leading the campaign to reverse the ban, called for an escalation of peaceful protest action. The new action encouraged activists to explicitly invite others to support Palestine Action, rather than only voicing personal backing for the group. Under Section 12 of the UK Terrorism Act, this act of invitation can carry a maximum 14-year prison sentence, a far harsher penalty than the Section 13 charge most prior arrestees have faced.

Mansfield was one of roughly 100 activists who answered DOJ’s call, uploading a public video to social media that declared: “Saving lives is not terrorism, I support Palestine Action, and I think you should too.” In the weeks since, 19 of those video uploaders have already been targeted by counterterrorism dawn raids spanning the entire country, from London and the West Midlands to Wales, Scotland, Cornwall and Somerset. Many of those raided are retired seniors.

Activists who have endured the raids describe invasive searches that go far beyond legitimate counterterrorism work. Officers confiscate all personal digital devices, any items bearing Palestinian symbols, and even rifled through private personal diaries. Two activists were handcuffed during their raids, despite official police policy that only permits restraints when officers have objective reason to believe a suspect will attempt escape or cause harm to themselves or others.

For those who have not yet been raided, like Mansfield, the uncertainty of waiting has devastated daily life. Many report persistent insomnia, and activists with ill partners say they avoid leaving their homes out of fear police will raid while they are away. “It really impacts people’s lives. It causes great fear and anxiety,” Mansfield said. Middle East Eye requested comment from UK Counter Terrorism Police ahead of publication, but received no response.

One of those who experienced a raid firsthand is 53-year-old Asghar Ahmad, a former UK government IT worker from Telford, Shropshire. On a late July morning just after 7:30 a.m., he opened his front door to find roughly a dozen officers, one police van, and four police cars parked outside his home.

“I wasn’t challenging anything because I knew what they were going to do. They were going to go through the whole house,” Ahmad recalled. When he asked to put on clothes beyond the shorts he was wearing, an officer followed him upstairs and stayed with him the entire time before he was handcuffed and transported to the local police station. While he was in custody, remaining officers searched every room of his home, seizing all digital devices, old notebooks, and every item connected to Palestine, from flags to wristbands. He was interviewed with his solicitor present and released by 5 p.m. without any charges filed.

Now retired and doing community volunteer work, Ahmad said he spent 38 years focused on his career and building his family, and only felt free to speak out on political issues once he left government service. “I’ve got nothing to hide,” he said. “If they want to put pensioners in prison, it will not go down well.”

Sixty-four-year-old Paul Gravesbrown, a semi-retired archaeologist living in Powys, described a similarly invasive experience that left him deeply disturbed. Some 20 officers searched his home for six and a half hours, even going through his wife’s teenage diary, leaving it out on top of her belongings to make clear they had read its private contents. “They left the diary on the top, highlighting the fact that they’ve been looking through a teenage girl’s diary, which is a bit creepy,” he said.

Gravesbrown was held for eight hours at a local police station and released without charge. The trauma of the raid has lingered, he said, echoing the violation people feel after a home burglary — an experience he and his wife already endured just before the COVID-19 lockdown. “Being raided is quite traumatic, it’s one of those things which hangs around in your mind,” he said. “Our house was burgled just before the first lockdown, so it’s a similar sort of experience – total strangers wandering around your house.”

Even younger activists face deep lasting harm from the crackdown. Thirty-year-old Staffordshire bartender Allie, who spoke to MEE under a pseudonym for privacy, was arrested shortly after returning home from a late work shift. She was woken at 1 a.m. by loud banging on her front door. “I opened the door and I think the first thing I said was, ‘Oh my God, you actually came,’” she recalled.

Both Allie and Ahmad said officers demanded their device passcodes to unlock their personal electronics, a request that requires formal written notice under Section 49 of the UK Investigatory Powers Act. As she was handcuffed, Allie remarked that the response was excessive for her alleged offense, and officers asked her to sign a formal statement noting her comment. She was held for eight to nine hours at a Birmingham-area police station before being released without charges.

For Allie, the harm of the raid extends far beyond the day of arrest. “I think the worst thing for me is that it really shatters any sense of personal safety,” she said. “You go through life with a belief in the systems that are there to protect you. This is such a heinous overreach and abuse of those systems. I don’t think that I’ll ever be able to fully reconcile myself with it. It’s like having to reconstruct a new reality.”

When Andy Burnham took office as United Kingdom Prime Minister, political observers immediately anticipated a shift in the nation’s approach to Middle East foreign policy. For weeks, that shift has only been visible in subtle shifts in ministerial rhetoric, with no concrete policy changes laid out for the public. That veil of secrecy is set to lift, however, when UK Parliament returns from its summer recess, multiple senior sources across Whitehall and British civil society have confirmed to independent outlet Middle East Eye.

At the top of the slate of proposed policy changes is a long-debated ban on goods imported from illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. According to reporting from MEE, Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband has emerged as a leading advocate for stricter measures against settlements, holding ongoing consultations with a broad cross-section of civil society organizations to refine the proposal. Senior Foreign Office discussions are currently weighing whether to extend the measures to include legal penalties for UK companies and organizations that maintain business or operational ties to settlements in the occupied territories.

The push for new regulations comes as the Charity Commission, the UK’s independent charity regulator, is already investigating multiple British charities accused of funneling funds to Israeli settlements. Former Prime Minister Keir Starmer stated publicly in June that no UK charity should provide support to settlements, but he refused to commit the government to an official ban on charitable donations to the entities. The Burnham administration, by contrast, is actively exploring a full ban on such donations, insiders confirm.

Beyond trade and charity regulations, the Foreign Office is also evaluating new targeted sanctions against individuals and organizations tied to the aggressive Israeli settler movement in the occupied West Bank. The UK previously imposed sanctions on far-right Israeli cabinet ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich last year, and internal discussions are now centered on expanding that sanctions list to include additional Israeli political figures.

Another high-stakes policy under review is the UK’s controversial arms sales regime to Israel. In September 2024, shortly after taking office, the Starmer government suspended approximately 30 direct export licenses for UK-made military hardware, after an official assessment found a “clear risk” the equipment could be used in Gaza to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law. That suspension included direct exports of UK-manufactured components for F-35 fighter jets, but the Starmer administration carved out a critical exemption for components sent to the global F-35 spare parts pool, even though those parts can ultimately end up in Israeli aircraft. UK-made components account for 15% of every F-35, a advanced fighter jet Israel has deployed heavily throughout its military campaign in Gaza, as well as in strikes on Lebanon and Iran.

The Starmer government defended the exemption, arguing that a full unilateral halt on UK component exports would disrupt the entire global F-35 fleet and threaten broader international security. Starmer also approved $169 million in new military exports to Israel during his tenure, including more than 8,600 separate munitions shipments categorized as “bombs, grenades, torpedoes, mines, missiles and other similar munitions.” Senior sources confirm that a full ban on these military exports is now active under discussion within the Burnham government, though no final decision has been reached.

In a statement provided to Middle East Eye on Wednesday, a Foreign Office spokesperson reaffirmed the UK’s long-standing legal position: “Settlements are illegal under international law, undermine the viability of a two-state solution and fuel insecurity for both Palestinians and Israelis. We have given clear advice to UK businesses that they should not engage in economic activity in illegal settlements and warn them of the reputational and potentially legal consequences of any such activities.”

Months before he assumed the premiership in July, Burnham set the stage for this policy shift by issuing a public apology for the Starmer-led Labour Party’s early support for Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and its refusal to back an immediate ceasefire in 2023 and early 2024. Since taking office, he has faced mounting pressure from Labour Party backbenchers to follow through on campaign-adjacent promises by banning trade with illegal settlements and adopting a firmer stance on Middle East issues.

MEE first reported in November last year that senior Foreign Office ministers had already privately concluded a ban on settlement goods was a desirable policy. Initial discussions on how to implement such a ban actually began in the final months of Starmer’s premiership, and in early July, then-Middle East Minister Hamish Falconer publicly confirmed that UK officials were working through the technical challenges of implementing a ban and coordinating with European Union allies on the issue. Several EU member states, including the Netherlands and Spain, have already implemented their own national bans on settlement goods, with Ireland currently in the process of rolling out its own restrictions.

Insiders note that Burnham has intentionally prioritized rolling out domestic policy initiatives during his first weeks in Downing Street, but last month he publicly confirmed his government is evaluating “further measures to deter unacceptable violence” in the occupied West Bank.

The push for new restrictions has faced pushback from within the Labour Party itself. Labour Friends of Israel (LFI), a prominent pro-Israel parliamentary lobby group that counts more than 70 sitting MPs as members, published a report earlier this month that pushed back against a full ban, arguing that some illegal settlement activity is justified and urging the government to abandon the proposal. The LFI report claimed a full trade boycott of all settlements is “practically and politically impossible” and would harm all Israeli businesses operating in major settlement blocs, as well as areas of East Jerusalem and the Old City.

This position stands in stark contrast to the Labour Party’s own stance when it was in opposition. Back in June 2020, then-shadow Foreign Secretary Lisa Nandy publicly called for a ban on settlement goods imports, saying the move required “courage that so far ministers have not been willing to show.” The pressure for action also reflects overwhelming grassroots support within the party: polling conducted earlier this year found that 87% of rank-and-file Labour members support a ban on trade with Israeli settlements, with only 6% opposing the measure.

Weeks after Iranian and American negotiators finalized a historic Memorandum of Understanding to put an end to months of escalating cross-border hostilities in late June, Iran’s top security body, the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), publicly threw its weight behind the breakthrough agreement in an official statement. The statement carried the signature of Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, a former hardline general from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) who stepped into his role after the killing of prominent moderate Ali Larijani. Larijani, a vocal backer of a diplomatic deal with Washington, was killed in a joint US-Israeli airstrike on March 17.

In Iran’s political structure, the SNSC secretary – a role appointed by the sitting president – holds no voting power on the council. But Zolghadr had simultaneously been named as supreme leader Ali Khamenei’s personal representative to the body, a post that grants full voting authority, putting him in a unique position to formally back the deal.

Zolghadr’s public endorsement of the agreement caught Iran’s ultraconservative principlist faction completely off guard. Unprepared for the turn of events, the hardline bloc launched a sustained smear campaign against Zolghadr, even circulating unsubstantiated claims that his son resides in Austria to discredit him.

Days after the SNSC released its statement, Iran’s new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei released his own public remarks, revealing that he held “in principle” opposition to the agreement while placing full responsibility for the deal squarely on the negotiating team. Political analysts say the statement effectively abandoned negotiators to backlash, emboldening ultraconservatives to ramp up their attacks against the agreement, the reformist-leaning government led by President Masoud Pezeshkian, the negotiating team, and Zolghadr personally.

According to two anonymous sources within Iran’s conservative camp, Zolghadr penned a direct letter to Khamenei following the supreme leader’s statement, voicing clear dissatisfaction with the move. Zolghadr argued that Khamenei had already been fully briefed on all details of the agreement prior to its public announcement, and submitted his formal resignation from his posts on the council.

Citing insider accounts, the sources confirm Khamenei accepted Zolghadr’s resignation nearly immediately. The departure marks a highly unusual moment in Iranian politics: it is rare for a senior government official to resign in explicit protest of a direct decision from the supreme leader.

Principlist lawmakers and allies have publicly framed Zolghadr’s exit as a removal, arguing he was ousted for aligning with President Pezeshkian and backing the deal instead of opposing it. But reporting from Middle East Eye, speaking to multiple conservative sources with direct knowledge of the episode, directly contradicts that narrative.

The sources confirm that President Pezeshkian lobbied heavily to convince Khamenei to reject the resignation and keep Zolghadr in his role as SNSC secretary, noting Zolghadr’s broad alignment with the government’s goal of securing a diplomatic deal with the United States. Pezeshkian’s efforts ultimately fell short, however.

In Zolghadr’s place, Khamenei appointed former IRGC commander Mohsen Rezaei as his new representative to the SNSC. The appointment effectively forced President Pezeshkian to name Rezaei as SNSC secretary, despite the president’s initial resistance to the pick, which he only signed off on at the eleventh hour.

At 71 years old, Rezaei has been a core figure in the Islamic Republic’s military, security, and political establishment for nearly 50 years. In the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, he helped build the IRGC’s intelligence apparatus, and became the IRGC’s commander at just 27 years old. He held the top IRGC post for 16 years, leading the force through the entirety of the 1980s Iran-Iraq War.

Rezaei was already involved in behind-the-scenes diplomacy with the United States as early as the mid-1980s, during the Iran-Contra affair, a scandal that saw the US secretly sell weapons to Iran to fund anti-government Contra rebels in Nicaragua. Former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani once told local media that his nephew Ali Hashemi, a key go-between for contacts with Ronald Reagan’s White House, briefed both him and Rezaei on meetings with US officials.

Per Rafsanjani’s account, Rezaei encouraged the backchannel talks, telling him “Keep going. We need weapons.” Rafsanjani also recalled that Rezaei instructed him to hand off his contacts to allies Rezaei named to keep the process moving forward, and confirmed after a second round of negotiations that Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, was fully aware of the secret talks. As the contacts progressed, Rafsanjani and two IRGC officials even traveled to Washington for closed-door negotiations.

In the 1990s, Rezaei’s eldest son relocated to the United States, where he sought asylum and became a public critic of the Islamic Republic. He eventually returned to Iran, but died years later under suspicious circumstances in a Dubai hotel.

By the end of the 1990s, Rezaei sought to transition from his military career to a more prominent political and policy role. He enrolled in economics studies at the University of Tehran, completed a doctorate, and increasingly focused his work at the Expediency Discernment Council on macroeconomics, national development planning, and broad institutional policy priorities. He has launched multiple campaigns for the Iranian presidency, but never secured victory. In September 2021, the late President Ebrahim Raisi appointed Rezaei as vice president for economic affairs and secretary of the Supreme Economic Coordination Council of the Heads of the Three Branches of Government. Rezaei stepped down from the vice presidency in June 2023, but retained his post as secretary of the economic coordination council at Raisi’s request.

In comments on April 6, Rezaei argued that the US naval blockade of Iran was “vulnerable” and amounted to little more than psychological warfare, saying it would not shift Iran’s negotiating position. “I do not personally support extending the ceasefire. It should happen only if a final agreement is reached and our rights are secured,” he stated. He also added that Washington has no coherent strategy to end the ongoing conflict, noting that the US tests one approach, fails, and then pivots to another. He laid out two possible outcomes: that the US is coming to terms with its defeat, or that former US President Donald Trump would so severely damage US global standing that he would eventually be removed from office.

On July 7, just days after the MoU was finalized, Rezaei said: “Those opposed to negotiations should wait. The Americans themselves will derail these talks.”

Despite Rezaei’s increasingly harsh public rhetoric against the current negotiations, a senior Iranian political source familiar with his thinking told Middle East Eye that Rezaei is personally a pragmatist who has long favored restoring diplomatic relations with the US and ending the long-running conflict. The source added, however, that Rezaei’s long-standing political calculations and his commitment to retaining his place in Iran’s power structure have consistently led him to “go with the flow,” shifting his public positions to align with changing political tides. The source described this adaptability as one of the defining traits of Rezaei’s decades-long political career. The source added that it will soon become clear whether Rezaei’s hardline rhetoric reflects genuine opposition to the ongoing negotiations, or is simply a political tactic to undermine the current negotiating team because he was excluded from the core of the current process.

Middle East Eye provides independent, in-depth coverage and analysis of the Middle East, North Africa, and surrounding regions.

Three years ago, the sight of Turkish ruling coalition lawmakers posing alongside pro-Kurdish and other opposition legislators after passing a partial clemency bill for Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) members would have been unthinkable. Yet this extraordinary scene became reality this week, following a landmark parliamentary vote that marks the first formal government effort in modern Turkish history to end nearly 40 years of armed conflict with the PKK.

The PKK launched its guerrilla campaign against the Turkish state in the early 1980s, a conflict that has claimed the lives of thousands of civilians and security force personnel. Initially organized to demand full Kurdish independence, the group has in recent decades shifted its goals to push for greater political and cultural autonomy for Turkey’s Kurdish population. After two years of quiet negotiations with imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its nationalist coalition partner, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), moved forward with the peace legislation. What makes the process even more remarkable is that it was initiated by MHP leader Devlet Bahceli, a long-time hardline opponent of the PKK who once repeatedly called for Ocalan’s execution, in an October 2024 speech where he unexpectedly positioned himself as a champion of negotiations.

Following months of deliberations by a special parliamentary committee focused on the Kurdish question, and extended talks involving Ocalan, PKK commanders based in northern Iraq’s Qandil Mountains, and exiled PKK leaders based in Europe, the draft legislation was tabled last week and ratified by parliament on Monday.

The new law outlines a clear path toward disarmament and reconciliation: it grants pardons to former PKK members who have never been convicted of violent offenses such as premeditated murder, and allows the immediate release of prisoners jailed for non-violent PKK-related activities. Before any repatriation or pardons can take effect, the PKK must fully lay down its arms, verify its compliance to Turkish authorities, and end all illegal activities including counterfeit and drug smuggling. Repatriation of eligible non-violent PKK members is scheduled to begin in September, with a six-month implementation window; those who fail to apply within this period will lose their eligibility for the clemency program. Turkish intelligence services will oversee the disarmament process, and a formal compliance report will be submitted to Turkey’s National Security Council to trigger the next phase of the process. The law applies to PKK members across all locations, including those based in Europe, and automatically cancels any pending sentences based solely on PKK membership once the organization formally dissolves, clearing the way for former members to resume civilian life in Turkey.

What has stunned observers most is not the passage of the bill itself, but the unprecedented breadth of cross-party support it garnered. Beyond the ruling AKP and MHP, the legislation won backing from the main secular opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), small right-wing and Islamist groups including the New Welfare Party (Yeniden Refah) and Felicity Party (Saadet), the liberal Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA), and even Huda Par, an Islamist Kurdish party that has long opposed the PKK. Left-wing groups including the socialist Workers’ Party of Turkey (TIP) and multiple smaller left-wing parties also supported the measure. Prominent opposition figures including imprisoned Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu and Ozgur Ozel, leader of the New Party and a former CHP dissident who now leads the main opposition bloc inside parliament, also publicly endorsed the bill.

While supporting parties bring a range of differing perspectives and private reservations to the process — Ozel allowed New Party lawmakers a free vote, and many ultimately opposed the legislation — the final tally reflected overwhelming parliamentary backing: 468 of the 600-seat body’s 592 sitting members voted in favor. In his parliamentary address, Ozel emphasized that despite deep disagreements with the Erdogan government over its ongoing crackdown on opposition mayors and its efforts to remove him from his former CHP leadership role, his party would not stand in the way of peace. “We have every right to reject this law, but we will not put that right before the future of this nation,” Ozel told lawmakers. “We will pave the way for peace so that no other mother has to embrace her son’s coffin.”

Even for Ocalan, the legislation does not grant an official formal role in the reconciliation process, but Turkish officials expect his conditions of imprisonment on Imrali Island to be eased substantially once implementation begins. Changes could include upgraded living quarters and expanded access to journalists and public figures, allowing him to communicate more openly with the Turkish public as the process moves forward. It also remains unclear how many PKK members across the organization’s global network — from the Qandil Mountains leadership to branches in Iraq, Syria, and Europe — will choose to take advantage of the clemency terms. Some long-term prisoners who have already served 25 years of their sentences may also qualify for early release under the new law.

In his address, Ozel also raised a key political question hanging over the peace process: a resolution to the Kurdish conflict could clear the way for a new political alliance between Erdogan’s AKP and the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM), potentially opening the door for Erdogan to run for a third presidential term in 2028. Erdogan is currently serving his second constitutionally limited term, but a parliamentary vote to call early elections would reset the term count, allowing him to stand again. With backing from DEM and smaller aligned parties, the AKP could secure the parliamentary majority needed to authorize that early vote.

Weeks after the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding fell apart, both Washington and Tehran have been shoring up their strategic positions ahead of any potential resumption of negotiations. The two sides have adopted starkly different posturing: the U.S., led by President Donald Trump, has issued open threats and floated the possibility of expanded bombing strikes against key Iranian infrastructure, while Iran has deliberately cut maritime traffic to a trickle through the strategically critical Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has repeatedly proven it can close at will.

Official statements from both capitals remain deeply contradictory. Trump has repeatedly claimed Iran is desperate to restart talks, but Iranian officials have consistently denied any active negotiations are underway. Even amid this dissonance, both sides acknowledge that any future agreement will revolve entirely around control and access to the strait, which borders Iran and Oman. The two adjacent countries have floated a series of framework proposals for managing traffic through the waterway, and while no final deal has been reached, it is already clear Iran will hold far more sway over shipping than it did before the U.S. preventive war began in February.

A core sticking point in ongoing discussions over a regional framework is whether Iran will be permitted to charge tolls or fees for commercial vessels passing through the strait. The Trump administration has taken an uncompromising stance against any such arrangement, arguing that it would deliver much-needed new revenue to Tehran and serve as undeniable public proof that its preventive war was a catastrophic strategic error. Secretary of State Marco Rubio reiterated this position in July, warning that allowing a nation-state to unilaterally control an international waterway and charge passage fees would set a dangerous global precedent that could be replicated in other strategic waterways around the world.

Before the outbreak of war, the strait operated as a free, open international shipping route, with 120 to 150 commercial vessels traversing the waterway daily to move energy and goods to global markets. The U.S. has pushed for a full return to this pre-war status quo, but Iran has zero interest in rolling back its new leverage—a reality that reflects the shifting power dynamics created by the war itself. Trump’s decision to launch conflict gave Tehran a unique opportunity to leverage its geographic position, and Iranian leaders moved quickly to capitalize on it.

Initially, Iran’s decision to restrict strait access was designed to raise the cost of the war for the U.S. and push regional U.S. partners to pressure Washington into ending hostilities. Over time, however, control over the strait evolved into a far more valuable strategic asset: a bargaining chip Iran can deploy whenever the U.S. threatens to escalate military operations. Today, reopening the strait to full traffic is a higher priority for the U.S. than containing Iran’s nuclear program, but Washington has yet to find a viable path to achieve that goal.

Trump first turned to military force to break the impasse, betting that heavy U.S. airstrikes would degrade the IRGC’s capacity to target shipping and force Tehran to back down. That strategy failed on two counts: it overestimated the ability of U.S. military power to force a change in Iran’s core strategic calculations, and it drastically underestimated Iran’s capacity to mass-produce and deploy low-cost drones and missiles against shipping. Every U.S. strike only reinforced Tehran’s belief that the war threatened the existence of the Iranian state, and instead of capitulating, Iran escalated: it targeted vessels using the alternative route along Oman’s southern coast and made clear that expanded U.S. bombing would trigger wider attacks on Gulf energy infrastructure.

All U.S. military efforts to restore the pre-war status quo have failed, and there is little reason to expect future attempts to succeed. Foreign policy analyst Daniel R. DePetris argues that if the Trump administration wants to extract itself from an open-ended unwinnable conflict, its best available option is to accept an Iranian toll and fee structure for strait passage.

Admittedly, this would face fierce domestic pushback: Capitol Hill hawks would almost certainly condemn the move, and many of Trump’s own political allies would struggle to justify the concession to voters. But when framed as a choice between accepting passage fees or remaining mired in endless conflict, accepting fees is the far more pragmatic option. The Trump administration’s original decision to launch war created the current crisis, and bad policy choices inevitably generate unforeseen negative outcomes that must be managed.

Critics who warn that an Iranian fee structure would be unprecedented are mistaken. There is already a working model for this kind of arrangement at another critical global trade chokepoint: the Strait of Malacca in Southeast Asia, where shipping companies contribute to a voluntary fund managed by Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore that covers navigational support, maritime safety, environmental protection, and search and rescue operations. A similar voluntary system in the Strait of Hormuz would not break new ground, and in fact, shipping firms and their insurance providers may even view predictable fees as a net benefit, if they reduce the risk of far costlier disruptions or attacks.

It would be disingenuous to ignore the downsides of such a deal: U.S. acceptance of Iranian tolls would be an embarrassing acknowledgment that Tehran is now the primary power broker for the strait, and reports that Iran is demanding fees equal to 7% of a vessel’s cargo value mean Tehran would gain substantial new revenue it did not control before the war. Even so, this scenario is far less catastrophic than many U.S. policymakers claim. Over time, Iran’s new leverage will gradually erode, as Gulf Arab states have already begun adapting to the new status quo by expanding alternative energy export routes that bypass the strait entirely, reducing their vulnerability to Iranian pressure.

Saudi Arabia has ramped up crude exports through its cross-country east-west pipeline, which delivers oil to Red Sea ports for global shipment. While this route remains vulnerable to attacks from the Iran-aligned Houthi movement in Yemen and cannot fully replace the volume of traffic that previously moved through the Strait of Hormuz, it has still allowed Saudi Arabia to avoid a full shutdown of oil production. The United Arab Emirates has followed a similar path, increasing exports through the Fujairah terminal located outside the strait; by July, Fujairah accounted for 66% of all UAE crude exports, up from 51% just one month earlier. Iran’s aggressive actions during the war have only accelerated these diversification efforts, which will over time reduce Tehran’s ability to disrupt global energy flows by holding the strait hostage.

Negotiations over the future of the Strait of Hormuz remain ongoing. If an agreement requiring passage fees becomes unavoidable, DePetris argues U.S. policymakers should set aside political posturing and accept the deal. Ceding ground on the fee question is the most efficient way for the U.S. to exit a foolish, unnecessary conflict at the lowest possible long-term cost.

This analysis is by Daniel R. DePetris, a fellow at Defense Priorities, a Washington D.C.-based think tank that promotes realism and restraint in U.S. foreign policy, and a columnist for multiple major U.S. publications. It was originally published by Responsible Statecraft and republished with permission.

Zhu Rongji, the transformative former premier of China whose bold economic reforms reshaped the nation’s trajectory and cemented its place as a global manufacturing powerhouse, has passed away at the age of 97. Holding China’s second-highest government office from 1998 to 2003, Zhu leaves behind a legacy of sweeping change that laid the groundwork for decades of explosive economic expansion.\n\nBorn in 1928 in central China’s Hunan Province, Zhu earned an electrical engineering degree before entering civil service and joining the Communist Party of China in 1949. His early political career was marked by extraordinary hardship: he was twice purged from the party, first in the 1950s after labeling Mao Zedong’s economic policies “irrational” and being branded a rightist, and again during the 1966–1976 Cultural Revolution. Following Mao’s death, Zhu was rehabilitated and steadily rose through the ranks, becoming vice-premier overseeing economic policy in 1991 before taking the post of premier seven years later.\n\nAs premier, Zhu spearheaded the sweeping structural reforms that remade China’s economy. He led grueling, years-long negotiations that ultimately secured China’s accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001, opening Chinese manufacturing to the global market, unlocking massive inflows of foreign direct investment, and integrating China into the rules-based global trading system. Domestically, he overhauled China’s fiscal system by shifting local taxation authority to the central government, restructured or privatized thousands of underperforming, debt-ridden state-owned enterprises, and rolled out policies that expanded home ownership across the country. His tenure also brought a blunt, unflinching approach to systemic problems: in a 1998 address, he openly acknowledged that China faced “many potential crises that could erupt at any time,” calling out public discontent over official corruption, the widening gap between rich and poor, and the authoritarian behavior of some local officials. Famously, he labeled unethical rogue bankers “half-wits” and famously described shoddily built Yangtze River flood dikes as “flimsy and porous as tofu dregs,” a stark rebuke of corner-cutting infrastructure construction.\n\nUnder Zhu’s leadership, China’s economy achieved sustained double-digit growth, pulled hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, and transitioned from a largely closed, centrally planned system to a global manufacturing hub. Widely remembered by the Chinese public as a tough, pragmatic leader unafraid to speak plainly about systemic problems, Zhu was also a staunch and vocal opponent of official corruption, prioritizing anti-graft efforts during his time in office.\n\nHis reforms were not without controversy, however. The restructuring of state-owned enterprises led to roughly 30 million layoffs over five years, and the rapid economic expansion he spurred exacerbated income inequality, issues that remain persistent challenges for China today.\n\nOfficial Chinese state media has honored Zhu’s legacy in his obituary, describing his life as one of “revolution, struggle and brilliance,” and praising him as “an outstanding member of the Communist Party of China and a loyal Communist fighter, an outstanding leader of the Party and state.”’

Over the course of mid-2025 to 2026, the Trump administration has rolled out a sweeping set of policy and investment measures designed to reshore and diversify U.S. defense critical mineral supply chains, with the explicit goal of breaking China’s long-held dominance over global production and processing of key industrial and defense materials including scandium, tungsten, and rare earth elements.

The coordinated push kicked off on July 20, when President Donald Trump signed a landmark executive order tightening restrictions on the Department of Defense’s ability to grant waivers for critical materials sourced from countries classified as U.S. adversaries: China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran. The order mandates that all such waivers will expire permanently on January 1, 2027, unless a contractor holds a formally approved plan to phase out materials from the four listed nations, while actively encouraging defense contractors to qualify new mineral suppliers based in the U.S. and allied partner countries.

Ten days later, on July 30, Trump issued a formal presidential determination under Section 101 of the Defense Production Act. This designation classified recoverable critical minerals, including tungsten scrap and spent battery material known as “black mass,” as scarce and essential to U.S. national defense, and directed the Secretary of Commerce to implement new restrictions on the export of these materials to preserve domestic supplies.

The most high-profile step of the initiative came on August 7, during a roundtable meeting with U.S. mining industry leaders. At the event, the administration announced more than $2 billion in new targeted investments to scale up domestic and allied-nation critical mineral production, while the U.S. Treasury formally welcomed the launch of new S&P Global reference prices for six key critical minerals: gallium, germanium, tungsten, antimony, neodymium, and praseodymium. The pricing framework is intended to underpin a broader critical minerals trade agreement with allied partners including Japan, Mexico, and the European Union, which will establish phased, mineral-specific price floors to support diversified, market-aligned supply chains.

Breaking down the $2 billion investment package, the single largest award is a $1.4 billion Department of Defense grant to California-based battery manufacturer Sila Nanotechnologies. The funding will support the expansion of the company’s silicon-carbon anode production capacity, as well as the construction of a new lithium-ion cell facility dedicated to supplying defense sectors, including satellites, drones, and munitions. The second-largest allocation, $400 million, will go to Australia’s Sunrise Energy Metals to develop the world’s first primary scandium mine. The project will secure a stable supply of high-heat aluminum alloys critical for manufacturing fighter jets and spacecraft components. Additional funding includes $150 million for Minnesota-based Niron Magnetics, a firm developing rare earth-free permanent magnets that eliminate reliance on Chinese processed rare earths, and $85 million for Standard Bauxite to produce refractory-grade bauxite for high-temperature defense components. Smaller grants have been allocated to projects focused on graphite, tantalum, niobium, and boron, alongside $180 million earmarked for mining education programs at U.S. academic institutions to build a skilled domestic workforce.

The U.S. push for supply chain independence comes in the wake of steadily tightening Chinese export controls on critical minerals over the past 18 months. After China first banned gallium, germanium, and antimony exports to the U.S. in December 2024, it expanded broader rare earth export restrictions throughout 2025, before extending dual-use technology controls to Japan in early 2026. Trade data shows the impact of these measures has been significant: in the first half of 2026, Chinese rare earth exports to Japan plummeted 51% year-on-year, with an 81% drop in June alone, and shipments of key heavy rare earths including dysprosium and terbium fell to zero. Over the same period, Chinese rare earth exports to the U.S. declined 28% year-on-year.

Chinese analysts and state-affiliated commentators have widely pushed back on the Trump administration’s timeline, arguing that the goal of fully decoupling U.S. defense supply chains from Chinese critical minerals by 2027 is unfeasible in the near term. In a commentary published by Guancha.cn, analysts noted that U.S. mining and processing firms have not yet built out sufficient capacity to replace Chinese supplies, pointing out that it is impossible for U.S. defense contractors to eliminate purchases of rare earths, tungsten, molybdenum, and tantalum from adversary nations in the lead-up to the 2027 deadline. The commentary added that the complexity of mineral refining has slowed progress on U.S. projects, leaving the foundations of Washington’s effort to challenge China’s rare earth supply chain dominance still underdeveloped, citing examples including a scaling challenge for rare earth refining startup ReElement Technologies and ongoing intellectual property litigation between two major U.S. rare earth firms, USA Rare Earth and MP Materials.

Tianjin-based political commentator Zui Qingfeng expanded on this criticism, noting that China built its dominant position in critical mineral processing over more than two decades, and the U.S. cannot replicate that entire industrial system in just a few years. China currently controls roughly 90% of global rare earth refining capacity, a position built on decades of investment in industrial infrastructure, and the U.S. has outsourced the polluting, long-cycle smelting and processing segment of the supply chain over the past 30 years, leaving gaps in technology, industrial capacity, and skilled labor. Zui Qingfeng estimated that rebuilding a complete, stable domestic supply chain would take the U.S. at least five years, and that American firms cannot avoid relying on Chinese rare earth supplies in the short term.

In recent weeks, China has also implemented new border control measures to protect its critical mineral technical expertise, with new exit and entry rules set to take effect on September 15 that will restrict travel for Chinese rare earth technicians with access to core technical knowledge, to prevent intellectual property leakage to foreign firms. Chinese commentator Big Octopus documented multiple past cases of foreign actors attempting to recruit Chinese rare earth experts to obtain restricted technical information, including a case where a Singaporean-linked headhunter offered a senior Ganzhou-based rare earth engineer a $300,000 annual salary and family green cards to elicit confidential production details, a 2025 incident where a Cayman Islands-registered firm attempted to obtain the restricted chemical mixing ratio for a common rare earth extraction agent from Inner Mongolian technical staff, and a cracked case involving a U.S.-funded Shenzhen headhunting firm that built a database of more than 1,000 Chinese rare earth and solar engineers to screen for potential recruitment.

Current U.S. Geological Survey data shows that while the U.S. remains heavily import-reliant for many critical minerals, its dependence on China is often overstated for key materials. For example, only 19% of U.S. gallium consumption comes from China, with the remainder sourced from Japan and other allied partners; 30% of U.S. yttrium imports come from non-Chinese suppliers including Germany, Austria, and South Korea; and most U.S. germanium imports are sourced from Belgium and Canada. Only heavy rare earths such as dysprosium and terbium remain overwhelmingly dominated by Chinese processing, a gap the U.S. already targeted with a $400 million investment in MP Materials in 2025. Overall, while the U.S. imports 80% of its rare earth supplies, only 56% of those imports come from China, meaning most can already be sourced from allied nations if needed. A March 2026 report from the U.S. National Association of Manufacturers underscored the scope of the challenge, finding that the U.S. is at least 50% import-reliant for 33 of the 58 minerals classified as critical to domestic manufacturing, with 13 of those minerals entirely supplied by foreign sources. The report called for a combined strategy of domestic capacity building and allied supply chain diversification to protect U.S. economic and national security.