Foreign Policy In Focus

The Trump administration concluded a recent mineral deal with Kazakhstan that, not surprisingly, enriches not only Trump’s own family but that of his secretary of commerce, Howard Lutnick. Trump’s two eldest sons, part owners of Dominari Securities, are set to profit from the Kazakh tungsten deal. So is Cantor Fitzgerald, the investment firm run by Lutnick’s two sons.

When the Pentagon made Palantir’s Maven Smart System a formal “program of record” in March, it did more than approve software. It gave long-term status to a platform that analyzes data from satellites, drones, radars, sensors, and intelligence reports to identify potential targets. Maven supported almost all of the 13,500 U.S. strikes in Iran. The designation is meant to secure funding and extend its use across the military.

I have watched every FIFA soccer World Cup since 1982, when a skinny, curly-haired Diego Armando Maradona made his World Cup debut in Spain.

Three years ago, Washington bet that restricting China’s access to advanced semiconductors would preserve American technological dominance. That bet is not paying off the way its architects imagined. A February 2026 analysis in American Affairs Journal found that China’s semiconductor manufacturing equipment sector has reached a level of maturity that would have seemed implausible just a few years ago.

The global tech landscape no longer resembles a global village; it is a fractured theater of war. Data sovereignty laws are carving the Internet into digital fiefdoms—a reality underscored by President Donald Trump’s explosive threat to slap 100 percent retaliatory tariffs on European nations daring to levy digital services taxes on American tech giants.

While El Salvador’s government promotes its countries’ beaches, volcanoes, and safe streets in gentrified neighborhoods, thousands of Salvadoran families are denouncing arbitrary detentions and seeking justice for relatives imprisoned under President Nayib Bukele’s extended state of emergency. The contrast is stark: the country welcomes tourists with open arms while ruthlessly imprisoning its own people, drawing widespread international criticism for human rights abuses.

Today, Okinawa remains one of the most militarized places on the planet. Its landscape is dominated by the current bases—thirty-one US and fifty-seven Japanese Self-Defense Force (SDF) facilities—alongside hundreds of memorials and museums to World War II. Threaded through this geography runs a vibrant river of resistance in the form of demonstrations, sit-ins, and teach-ins that embody how persistent, nonviolent resistance can bend the will of even the most powerful governments.

What keeps the Gulf running is not aircraft carriers or air defense systems or generals talking about “maritime security” in policy briefings and strategic forums. What keeps the Gulf running is people. A welder from Tamil Nadu, India works 12-hour shifts on an offshore platform. A Filipino cook works in a kitchen of a tanker transiting through the Strait of Hormuz. An Indian chief engineer performs engine diagnostics at 3 in the morning to ensure that cargo reaches Dubai on schedule.

The Iranian national football team will play its final group stage match of the World Cup this Friday in Seattle at Lumen Field. Under restrictions that have remained in place despite an interim ceasefire agreement, Iran’s players and coaching staff are permitted to enter the United States only one day before each match and must return to their base in Tijuana, Mexico, on the same night the game ends.

Donald Trump has always considered himself exceptional—that is, an exception to the rules. As a tycoon, he has demonstrated that multiple bankruptcies and an utter contempt for business associates have not hindered his accumulation of wealth. As a politician, he has shown that the same outrageous statements and scandals that have sunk other careers have only made him stronger, at least according to his base.