Diplomacy & Crisis News

The federal indictment of Donald Trump is of significance in multiple ways.

For one, it is a matter of accountability for the willful, flagrant violation of the law and sustained attempts to obstruct efforts by authorities to enforce the law. In short, the concern is with the rule of law and the consistent application of it.

At another level, the importance of secrecy of the documents that Trump so cavalierly mishandled—and the possible damage to national security from such mishandling—must be considered. Despite discussions about overclassification that often arise in the wake of major leaks or other compromises of classified information, there is a good reason for why the type of materials described in the indictment are kept classified. Exposure would make U.S. plans, capabilities, and sources of vital information vulnerable to hostile foreign powers. It may be hard for individual citizens to see how any of this relates to their daily lives, but it is integral to the security of anyone living in the United States. Harmful exposure could result from the sheer carelessness of Trump’s handling of the documents, or from anything Trump himself might do with them, given his own foreign connections.

More broadly, as David Rothkopf elaborates, the case is but one of the most recently and thoroughly documented facets of the larger danger that Trump has posed to the nation in the past and will do so again in the future if he is put in a position to do so. That danger has included—as in the subject of his second impeachment—no less than the attempted overthrow, including through incitement of violence, of the American democratic system of choosing leaders through free elections and respecting the results of those elections.

An even broader level extends beyond Trump himself and includes reactions to the indictment from many of his supporters or those attempting to appeal to his base of support. Those reactions reflect how many citizens of this country do not identify their interests with the United States of America but rather with a narrower, largely party-based, subset of America. Such sentiment does not uphold the national interest and is often contrary to the national interest. The bluntest way to describe this pattern is in terms of loyalties—of having primary loyalty not to the United States but rather to a party or to some demographic group—although speaking of someone’s loyalties risks sounding like some kind of latter-day McCarthyism.

A safer terminology is that of nationalism—in the non-pejorative sense of strong identification with, and love for, one’s nation. Trump has called himself a nationalist, and in doing so was endeavoring to ride a wave of nationalist sentiment that in recent years has extended to many other countries besides the United States. But in his highly divisive rhetoric and entire political approach, Trump is anything but an American nationalist. He is appealing to only one part of America while fomenting hatred toward other parts. Many of his supporters exhibit an extreme form of political sectarianism, in which Americans of other political persuasions are regarded as enemies every bit as much as foreign adversaries are. Differences across party lines are perceived less as differences of opinion over the best way to pursue a national interest than as a fundamental conflict between adversaries who are not part of the same community of interests.

In interpreting reactions to the case at hand, consider that even before the recent indictment was unsealed, enough was publicly known about Trump’s actions and the Mar-a-Lago documents for legal experts to opine that prosecutors would have a very strong case. Now with the indictment—replete with details of Trump’s own words and actions, his aides’ shuffling of boxes between bathrooms and storerooms and ballroom stages, and duped lawyers being set up to make false statements about the documents—the case is one where, as one former Bush administration official and federal prosecutor put it, “If this were a normal person and a normal case, you’d be talking to your client about pleading guilty.” This prosecution, and seeing it through to a full administration of justice, is unquestionably in the U.S. national interest. It would have been a dereliction of duty by the Department of Justice to have done otherwise.

And yet some politicians, especially concentrated among Republicans in the House of Representatives, are voicing reactions to the indictment, calling it a “brazen weaponization of power” (Speaker Kevin McCarthy), “a sham indictment” (Majority Leader Steve Scalise), and “We have now reached a war phase. Eye for an eye” (Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona). One hears nothing in any of this caustic rhetoric about the nature of Trump’s actions or of the implications for the rule of law and for national security if law enforcement officials did not do their duty and instead gave this sort of conduct a pass.

Nor is there, among all the accusations about supposed weaponization and political persecution, the slightest shred of evidence that federal investigators and prosecutors have acted on this case out of anything other than a sense of duty to enforce the law. If one were to speculate about the innermost thoughts of Special Counsel Jack Smith, they probably would be—beyond a strong sense of duty in doing his current job—that his life would have been much simpler and less unpleasant if he had remained at The Hague prosecuting Balkan war criminals, where he would not be subject to the months of partisan abuse that he now will have to endure.

In the weakening or outright absence of a sense of national interest that is part of extreme political sectarianism, the sectarians have no place for the concept of nonpolitical civil servants whose job is to serve that interest. This exclusion underlies the often-heard nonsense about a “deep state.” It is not clear to what extent politicians who employ such rhetoric really believe that there is no such thing as an apolitical public servant, or if this is merely part of their attempt to appeal to what they see as their constituency. Either way, the willingness to cripple and discredit essential national functions of security and law enforcement—all just to try to shield their party’s man from the consequences of his own misconduct—shows the extent to which some Americans, including powerful members of Congress, have abandoned whatever dedication they may have once had in serving the national interest. The unfounded accusations about the motives of dedicated and honest public servants constitute a new form of McCarthyism.

The damage extends beyond FBI agents and Department of Justice prosecutors. Trump tried to destroy the entire upper reaches of the federal civil service with his “Schedule F” scheme. He certainly would try again if returned to office, and other Republican presidential aspirants are also attracted to the idea as a campaign plank. If such destruction were to occur, the consequences would be severe. Internationally, the United States would present a fractured, inconsistent, and ineffective face to the rest of the world, with no one speaking on behalf of all Americans. Domestically, it would bring the United States a couple of steps closer to a Hobbesian state of nature in which the nasty and brutish aspects would flow from government no longer being populated with officials working in the interests of the entire nation, but only with partisan warriors.

Paul Pillar retired in 2005 from a twenty-eight-year career in the U.S. intelligence community, in which his last position was as a National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia. Earlier he served in a variety of analytical and managerial positions, including as chief of analytic units at the CIA covering portions of the Near East, the Persian Gulf, and South Asia. Professor Pillar also served in the National Intelligence Council as one of the original members of its Analytic Group. He is also a contributing editor for this publication.

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Late last month, Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva held a summit for the leaders of twelve South American countries with the view of pushing regional integration. The meeting was well-attended with presidents from every country except Peru, whose leader was unable to attend for legal reasons pertaining to an investigation. While the effort to promote greater economic integration was generally appreciated, the Brazilian president’s warm embrace of Venezuela’s authoritarian President Nicolás Maduro one day before the summit set an ideological tone for the event. Indeed, Lula’s efforts to restart some type of South American unity left more questions than answers.

Changes in Brazilian Foreign Policy under Lula

Since his return to office in January 2023, Lula has shifted Brazil’s foreign policy from a generally pro-U.S. stance under right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro (2019–2022) to a return to nonalignment—broadly defined as a preference for a multipolar world—which allows Latin America’s largest country to pursue its own path, reduce the role of the United States (and the West), and work through global South organizations, such as the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). Another plank in this policy is for Brazil to lead in continental unity, which would give Latin America greater leverage in global affairs.

Lula’s nonaligned policy also means leaning toward Moscow in the Russo-Ukrainian War and maintaining close economic relations with China. The national interest dimension is evident in that Russia is important as it is a major supplier of fertilizer for Brazil’s agricultural exports, while China is the South American country’s primary export market and has invested $66 billion in its economy between 2007 and 2020, according to the Brazil-China Business Council. As Oliver Stuenkel, professor of international relations at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation in Sao Paulo observed: “Non-alignment is seen as a safe bet in a world where great power competition will increase. From the Brazilian point of view, the rise of China and re-emergence of Russia is not actually bad…that is why Brasilia has no interest in joining a western coalition against Russia.”

The Beijing and Moscow tilt is reflected in Lula sending a delegation to Chinese and Russian ally Venezuela in March, refusing to send weapons to Ukraine, and hosting Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov in April. In April, at the BRICS summit, the Brazilian leader also called upon BRICS to come up with an alternative to replace the U.S. dollar in foreign trade. In addition to these China and Russia-related developments, Brazil refused to sign a UN resolution condemning Nicaragua’s human rights abuses; Managua has devolved into a pro-Russia and Chinese leftist dictatorship. Brazil allowed Iranian warships to dock in Rio de Janeiro, despite pressure from Washington to bar them.

The Venezuela Factor

Considering the “nonaligned” stance of Brazil’s foreign policy, the May 2023 Brasilia summit sought to promote the creation of a regional trade currency to challenge the hegemony of the U.S. dollar and to pull Latin American countries closer together under the flag of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR). The single currency would initially apply to the Mercosur trade bloc (composed of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay). In his opening address, the Brazilian president proposed to “strengthen the South American identity in monetary policy, through better compensation mechanisms and the creation of a shared unit of transaction for trading”, instead of being dependent on external currencies, in particular the U.S. dollar.

This idea has kicked around since the early 1990s, but has never gained much support and is likely to go anywhere. There are considerable differences in monetary policy across the region; it is questionable that South America’s major trade partners would be willing to trade in a Mercosur currency (like Argentina’s volatile peso), and any such development would require a broader regional economic foundation based on customs unions and a common market (as done in the European Union over several decades). No doubt the idea was greeted with polite applause, but in the aftermath of the summit there is no rush of willing participants.

What made a bigger splash at the summit was Lula’s embrace of Maduro. Thematically, the meeting of Lula and Maduro prior to the summit was meant to set the tone of conciliation and integration. Lula, however, was strident that the charges against Maduro of human and civil rights abuses were part of a political “narrative” by the West and he condemned U.S. sanctions on the Venezuelan government as “worse than war.” He also noted that it was “absurd” for some governments not to recognize Maduro as the duly elected leader.

The reaction to Lula’s “welcome back, Maduro” stance is seen in two ways. On the pragmatic side, warmer Brazilian-Venezuelan relations reflect the failure of the West’s efforts to dislodge Maduro, and, like it or not, the Venezuelan strongman is here to stay. In that respect, other Latin American leaders like Colombia’s Gustavo Petro and Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador recognize this and want to move on. Even the Biden administration has softened its stance on Venezuela (though with little to show for its efforts). Another point of consideration for Lula’s determination to mend relations with Venezuela, severed by his predecessor, right-wing Jair Bolsonaro (2019–2022) made it much more difficult to address issues related to a shared border, climate change, and the need to deal with Venezuelan refugees.

The other reaction is more negative and related to human rights. Lula worked with Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chávez in the creation of UNASUR in 2008, which the Venezuelan leader started to counteract U.S. influence in South America. Perhaps some nostalgia for that era remains very much in Lula’s thinking on bringing Maduro in from the diplomatic cold and returning him to the international fold through a regional organization.

But the Brazilian leader’s intentional blind eye to the gross human rights abuses in Venezuela made some of the other South American leaders uncomfortable. While most made no comment, Chile’s center-left President Gabriel Boric stated, “We are glad that Venezuela is returning to multilateral bodies…This, however, cannot mean sweeping under the rug principles that are important to us. The human rights situation is not a narrative construction, it is a serious reality.” According to Uruguay’s center-right President Luis Lacalle Pou, “the worst thing we can do” is pretend there are no significant human rights problems in Venezuela.

Winners and Losers

Looking ahead, the biggest winner from Lula’s South American summit was Venezuela’s Maduro. The summit raised his profile and helped launder him as a national leader deserving of respect, despite his presiding over the largest migration crisis in the Western Hemisphere, the creation of a narco-state, and a disregard for democratic rule and human rights. Consequently, the summit was given an ideological stamp (a willingness to accept dictators), which is likely to complicate any future efforts for deeper economic integration, especially considering that elections could result in political shifts. Currently, South America is dominated by center-left governments, but that could change over the medium term. Argentina’s elections are scheduled for October this year.

While Lula got his summit, asserted Brazil’s growing importance as part of the Global South, and brought in a political pariah from the cold, little is likely to come from it in terms of concrete policies. If nothing else, it comes across as so much background noise from a region that cannot yet exert major leverage on global affairs. Lula and his cadre of foreign policy advisors are right that for Latin America to carry more weight in international affairs it needs greater unity. However, more summits like May’s are not going to do the trick, as ideological indulgences for dictators do not make for economic integration. The European Union was able to proceed on the path to economic integration, but has worked hard to keep its membership a democratic club, something Brazil’s president should have given greater thought to.

Dr. Scott B. MacDonald is the Chief Economist for Smith’s Research & Gradings, a Fellow with the Caribbean Policy Consortium, and a Research fellow with Global Americans. Prior to those positions, he worked for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Credit Suisse, Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette, KWR International, and Mitsubishi Corporation. His most recent book is The New Cold War, China and the Caribbean (Palgrave Macmillan 2022).

Image: Unsplash.

The unfortunate narrative that has defined Lebanon for much of its existence is one of corruption and conflict, culminating in the country’s current (and worst) economic and political crisis. France’s May 16 decision to issue an arrest warrant, followed by a similar May 23 German arrest warrant, for the embattled Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh and two associates offers no exception to this dynamic—hitting the small eastern Mediterranean country’s former financial paragon with money laundering and fraud charges just months before he steps down after nearly thirty years at the helm of the Banque Du Liban.

Yet Paris and Berlin’s decision is hardly the end of the road for Salameh or Beirut’s deeply rooted corruption problem. Rather, the move represents an ever-growing skepticism amongst the international community of Lebanon’s elites and its capacity to govern in a technocratic and effective manner.

France and Germany are only two of many other states currently investigating the central bank chief. Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and Luxembourg are also investigating Salameh for similar concerns related to money laundering and fraud. Each case focuses on some or all aspects of roughly $300 million in transfers to European banks from Lebanon via the central bank, which was used to buy various properties and other assets. Investigators and other anti-corruption experts assert the funds likely belong to the Lebanese people. In line with these investigations, France, Germany, and Luxembourg seized assets worth $130 million in early March 2022. Swiss media has reported up to $300 to $500 million in assets embezzled into twelve Swiss banks.

Lebanon is also actively investigating Salameh in spite of strong political resistance from the country’s thoroughly co-opted judicial system. Led for some time by Judge Ghada Aoun—who has become renowned within anti-corruption circles for her brave attempts to hold Lebanon’s banking sector accountable—charged Salameh with illicit enrichment in early 2022. Following a year of back-and-forth questioning and obstruction, the Lebanese judiciary’s disciplinary council removed Aoun from office. She is currently appealing the decision, allowing her to remain in office today.

Salameh continues to deny all charges against him, both in Lebanon and abroad. His brother Raja and a former assistant also deny charges that they aided the governor in efforts to transfer and hide funds in Europe. While all three of these individuals have attended rounds of questioning in Europe and Lebanon with investigators, they have actively delayed the investigation numerous times with the help of Lebanese officials. For example, Lebanon’s Court of Cassation granted Salameh and every central bank employee sweeping legal immunities in September 2022, protecting them from Lebanon’s already poorly enforced banking regulations.

Salameh and associates have also regularly cited health problems or violations of Lebanese sovereignty to avoid hearings and depositions, culminating in his refusal to attend a May 15 hearing or recognize the rights of the investigators that led to the French and German arrest warrants. Rather than cooperate with the Interpol red notice released, however, Lebanese officials instituted a travel ban on Salameh.

Lebanese prime minister Najib Mikati has previously defended the bank chief, recently arguing alongside Salameh that he will complete his term that ends in July, given there is no serious replacement. It should be noted that Mikati and his brother, Taha, have deep ties to Lebanon’s banking system and connections to specific bank transfers facilitated by Raja Salameh between Lebanon and Europe—a point of investigation by the government of Monaco. That said, others in Lebanon—such as Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah—have openly called for his resignation. Critically, Lebanese law makes it illegal to extradite Lebanese citizens.

Thus, Salameh finds himself in a bind but is still largely protected by Lebanon’s ruling class. For figures like Nasrallah, the central bank governor represents low-hanging fruit and is easy to criticize publicly—especially to distract from Hezbollah’s corrupt actions and participation in a government that is increasingly understood to sit at the core of the country’s rot. Other politicians may increasingly concur that Salameh represents an easy target and scapegoat. The question is whether this effectively distracts from the Beirut government’s broader failures inside the country, especially as the international community already understands the country’s elites to be the root cause of Lebanon’s slow collapse.

While unlikely, it would be a mistake for the international community to view Salameh as the sole source of Lebanon’s corruption problem or an easy win to push addressing root issues to the future. While he likely is a key architect of Beirut’s currency exchange Ponzi scheme, his removal from the central bank will not cure the country’s vast corruption problems as he is simply one actor amongst many robbing the Lebanese people. Ultimately, broader political issues—namely banking secrecy, capital controls, and judicial independence reforms—will play a much more transformative role in solving Lebanon’s long-running issues. That being said, accountability measures must be implemented in parallel with such reforms.

For this reason, Salameh can and should be made an example of Lebanon’s near-term future—namely, one that holds corrupt officials to account for crimes that plunder the country at the expense of the average Lebanese citizen. But Salameh cannot be the beginning and end of such efforts. World leaders can support such efforts if they give the Lebanon file a higher priority. This includes supporting the International Monetary Fund’s reform plan through a combination of carrots and sticks that entice Beirut’s leaders and empower the independent opposition. More important, although less realistic anytime soon, should be a broader effort to combat the international kleptocracy that has come to define the neoliberal order and bolstered corrupt actors across the globe.

Alexander Langlois is a foreign policy analyst focused on the Middle East and North Africa. He holds an M.A. in International Affairs from American University’s School of International Service. Follow him at @langloisajl.

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Since the United States decided to go all-in with a focus on the great power competitions, terms such as irregular warfare, counterinsurgency, and small wars have lost vogue. However, while military theorists would like to return to a more conventional mindset, it is important to understand that a new era of “dirty wars” is on the horizon. This is relatively intuitive for those who understand the causes of unrest leading to instability and insurgency, but it is not clear that the geopolitical or military strategists who could make a difference see it coming.

The majority of insurgencies over the past century were rooted in societal discord in countries that were unable to effectively evolve from the agrarian age to the industrial age. The next such evolution is ongoing—and this one promises more of the same—but much faster and wider.

The metaverse, block chain, artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing, machine learning, augmented/virtual reality, and quantum, cloud, edge, and spatial computing are foundational elements of the emergent global world order. The possibilities are limitless, but not all are positive. With one foot in the industrial age and one in the virtual age, the risks are daunting. There is much debate about the risks of technologies such as AI eventually outsmarting and overtaking humans, but the risk addressed herein is more comparable to concerns during the Cold War that nuclear weapons would take the world back to the “stone ages.”

Technology is changing (virtually) everything. The traditional constraints of human labor are no longer a limiting factor in the global market. Corporations and governments are the benefactors of cost-cutting and labor-reducing innovations. Rapid technological advances will continue to reduce the demand for jobs. Thousands of people are losing their jobs every week—not because they failed to perform—but because the skills they developed through education, training, and experience are no longer relevant. Labor statistics are not just numbers—they are “hearts and minds.”

These dynamics will force even “skilled” workers down the economic ladder and will disproportionately impact labor markets at the lower end of the skills (and economic) spectrum. With this trend toward large-scale joblessness comes increased economic inequality. As we have seen throughout history, when the divide between the (relatively few) “haves” and the (relatively many) “have nots” is in a perpetual state of growth, a breaking point is inevitably reached. Perhaps more unsettling is that such divides are currently developing, simultaneously within national societies and on a global basis with nation-states landing on either end of the spectrum. This is a domestic and global national security issue.

The Unites States’ recent misadventures in Iraq demonstrated how a people deprived of their economic well-being and social identities will take up rudimentary arms against the world’s most technologically-advanced military force. And while this was more so a case of one nation imposing its will over another, it demonstrated how people react when they are being left behind. As was the experience after the “haves” transitioned into the industrial age, the transition to the virtual age is likely to leave the most needy in the world behind, in much greater numbers.

Fiction becomes fact. As the world pushes faster and further into the virtual age, those being left behind will eventually “rise against the machines.” Then we will see how the relatively small number of “haves” with their keyboards and virtual reality headsets as weapon systems, fare when the masses of “have nots” arm themselves with the weapons of their age—the only ones they have ever known.

Aden Magee is a career intelligence professional. He has performed as a senior advisor in support of the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Energy, and the FBI. He has most recently performed as an advisor to USCYBERCOM, and USSOCOM. He is a retired U.S. Army officer and a veteran of foreign wars. His most recent book is titled The Cold War Wilderness of Mirrors: Counterintelligence and the U.S. and Soviet Military Liaison Missions 1947–1990.

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Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency proved to be an unmitigated disaster for Brazil. During his four-year term, Bolsonaro pushed competent ministers to resign, likely to shield family members from corruption investigations. He mismanaged the Covid-19 pandemic, replacing health ministers at an alarming pace, toyed with his authoritarian inclinations, and neglected Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, allowing it to burn. He fomented fake news of electoral fraud during the electoral campaign and, after losing to his opponent, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, he incited his supporters to storm Brazil’s presidential palace, Congress, and the Supreme Court in Brasilia. These seditious riots mirror the events that led to Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial, solidifying Bolsonaro’s reputation as an even more idiosyncratic version of Trump, earning him the nickname “Tropical Trump.”

Brazil was in dire need of change, and Lula delivered that change when he was elected president in October 2022. Understandably, U.S. president Joe Biden embraced the newly elected Lula as Brazil’s anti-Trump, believing him to be a more reliable strategic partner. 

However, the question remains: is Lula truly a dependable ally? The two presidents may align on climate change; diversity, equity, and inclusion; and a commitment to nipping the forces of right-wing populism in the bud. But when it comes to the great power competition in the region, Lula is not a friend. He is the proverbial cure that kills the patient. 

Since taking office in January, Lula, who was president from 2003 to 2010 and spent time in jail on corruption charges before being released (but not acquitted) on a technicality, has articulated a foreign policy that corresponds with the visions of China, Russia, and other authoritarians—a multipolar world aimed at challenging American dominance. Rather than confront Washington’s adversaries, which do not uphold environmental standards or champion the rights of marginalized communities, Lula appears inclined to align with them. While a democrat at home, on the world stage, there is no tyrant he will not call his friend.

The discrepancy between Biden’s friendliness and Lula’s commitment to policies antithetical to U.S. interests emerged as early as the two leaders’ first meeting in Washington this past February, barely weeks after Lula was sworn in. 

In their joint statement, Biden and Lula “underscored that strengthening democracy, promoting respect for human rights, and addressing the climate crisis remains at the center of their common agenda.” They identified areas of mutual concern and promised cooperation that included “social inclusion and labor rights, gender equality, racial equity and justice, and the protection of the rights of LGBTQI+ persons,” fighting hate speech and disinformation, and empowering “marginalized racial, ethnic and indigenous communities.” 

However, Lula is at odds with Washington on China. He views China as a check on American power. He believes that a multipolar world is a good thing. It’s not just about trade: it’s about eroding America’s leverage.

Shortly after meeting Biden, Lula traveled to China along with a large business delegation to deepen commercial ties with Beijing (during his Washington visit, no trade delegation accompanied him). The trip yielded multi-billion-dollar agreements in strategic areas, including cyber and semiconductor technology. Lula was explicit that it was his intention to expand Chinese investment in sensitive areas: during his visit to a Huawei factory, he described it as “a demonstration that we want to tell the world we don’t have prejudices in our relations with the Chinese.”

Blunting China’s aggressive purchase of agricultural commodities and across-the-board strategic investments in Brazil is not on his agenda. Opening up to China to balance American influence is.

While in Shanghai, Lula attended the swearing-in of his protege, Dilma Rousseff, as the president of the New Development Bank. One of the bank’s explicit objectives is to promote the de-dollarization of South-to-South trade, directly challenging U.S. dominance. Lula stated publicly, “I ask myself why all countries have to base their trade on the dollar.” 

Following his trip,  Lula endorsed trade denominated in the Chinese yuan between Brazil and China. Furthermore, he has thrown his political weight behind the establishment of a common Latin American currency and a currency for the BRICS nations, aiming to challenge the supremacy of the dollar in global trade. This move extends beyond expanding bilateral trade; as Lula stated, by strengthening Brazil’s partnership with China, he wants “to balance geopolitics,” i.e., weaken U.S. leadership, even if it means Brazil becomes more dependent on China.

China was not the only area of disagreement. In January 2023, in an unprecedented visit designed to boost Iran’s outreach to Latin America, Brazil was preparing to welcome Iranian warships. Under U.S. pressure, Lula’s government postponed the visit—but later allowed the ships to dock after his meeting with Biden. In his first stint as president, Lula attempted to involve himself in nuclear negotiations with Iran and aimed to broker a nuclear deal. However, his efforts did not yield any significant progress. Now that he is back in office, he is once again opening the door to Iran, this time through the BRICS framework. Iran, known for advocating a form of multilateralism that seeks to reduce America’s global influence, is already taking advantage of this opportunity.

On Russia too, Lula has made choices that have led to strained relations with the White House. Last March, he secretly dispatched his closest diplomatic advisor, Celso Amorim, to Moscow to meet with Vladimir Putin (but not to Kiyv), with the intention of positioning himself as a peace mediator between Russia and Ukraine. Such a move was far from being a credible step toward fair mediation. It took a deluge of criticism against Brazil’s one-sided approach for Lula to send Amorim to meet Ukraine’s President Volodymir Zelenskyy a month later—but not before Brazil welcomed Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, on a state visit that gave Russia a podium to spread the kind of disinformation Lula and Biden jointly agreed to fight at their February meeting.

Subsequent Brazilian stances on Russia and Ukraine have only solidified Lula’s pro-Russian posture. He urged Ukraine to give up Crimea for the sake of “world tranquility,” claimed there was no point in determining who was in the right, accused Washington of “incentivizing conflict” by supporting Kyiv, and blamed Russia and Ukraine equally for the war. His advisor, Amorim, added that Russia’s “legitimate” concerns should be considered so as to avoid Russia’s total defeat.

Lula’s flirting with Russia—which includes Brazil’s refusal to transfer German-made weapons to Ukraine and the rejection of sanctions against Moscow—is not his only challenge to Washington’s sponsored global order. 

Last week, Brazil hosted a summit of South American leaders, providing an opportunity for Lula to whitewash Nicolas Maduro’s Venezuelan regime. By then, Lula had already re-established diplomatic relations with Maduro and permitted Conviasa, the U.S.-sanctioned Venezuela airline, to restart direct flights between Brazil and Venezuela. During the summit, Lula warmly welcomed Maduro, pushed back against U.S. sanctions, downplayed criticism of Maduro’s dictatorship as a mere “narrative problem” that led to misrepresentation and misunderstanding of Venezuela, and supported Venezuela’s bid to join the BRICS. He further declined to put Maduro on the spot for large-scale human rights violations, corruption, and ecocide, despite strong pushback from Chile’s president, Gabriel Boric. and Uruguay’s president, Luis Lacalle Pou. But his broader point was clear: the West had no right to interfere in Venezuela’s internal affairs, a position that China, Russia, and Iran share. As a gloating Maduro told the press, unity among South American nations should be based “on a new multipolar world.” i.e., one where American influence is blunted in favor of other rising powers, whose authoritarian inclinations leave Lula unfazed.

The progressive agenda that Biden is prioritizing for Latin America is finding favor among the political allies of America’s strategic adversaries in the region. Rest assured, those in Latin America, like Lula, most inclined to embrace Biden’s priorities—noble as they may be—are also the least likely to act as a bulwark against Chinese, Iranian, and Russian penetration. In fact, as Lula’s case shows, they will welcome it. To keep the Biden White House on side, all they need to do is go along with its green transition and its diversity, equity, and inclusion agenda. 

In the meantime, China will continue to invest in agricultural commodities, mining concessions, public surveillance equipment contracts, equipment supplies to local police forces, and infrastructure projects, gaining heightened influence all along. Russia will keep backing authoritarian regimes in the region and benefiting from their nostalgia for a socialist counterweight to the gringos. And other authoritarian states, like Iran, will piggyback on this sentiment, while America is occupied elsewhere with its humanitarian and ecological agendas.

When the dust settles, the consequences of Lula’s approach will serve neither American interests nor Brazil’s. It will be China, and Russia, hardly the defenders of minorities and the patrons of the environment, who reap the benefits of America’s power eclipse.

Emanuele Ottolenghi is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a non-partisan research foundation based in Washington DC. Follow him on Twitter @eottolenghi.

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U.S. leaders must take responsibility for past nuclear atrocities.

Washington missed the boat to shape the global maritime order. Beijing is stepping in.

Such a facility could enable Beijing to monitor emails, phone calls, satellite transmissions, and shipping traffic along the southeastern United States.

Sixty years ago, in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis, President John F. Kennedy gave probably the greatest speech on nuclear arms ever given by an American President. Speaking only months after the crisis, Kennedy could have lashed out at the Soviet Union’s reckless behavior in putting missiles in Cuba. Or he could have taken a triumphal tone, highlighting his success in forcing the Soviets to pull the missiles out (with the public then in the dark on his secret promise to pull similar U.S. missiles out of Turkey).

Instead, in a June 10 commencement address at American University, Kennedy made the case that the horrors of a potential nuclear holocaust made it urgent to find a path to peace and that doing so required both sides of the Cold War to change. He announced that the United States would unilaterally stop testing its nuclear weapons until a treaty banning such tests could be reached. “Some say that it is useless to speak of peace,” Kennedy noted, “until the leaders of the Soviet Union adopt a more enlightened attitude. I hope they do. I believe we can help them do it.”

World response was immediate. The NATO allies hailed the speech. The Manchester Guardian ranked it “among the great state papers of American history.” The Soviets turned off their giant radio jammers so that Soviet citizens could hear the speech on Voice of America, and they printed the full text in both Pravda and Izvestia. (The Soviets had some warning: Kennedy’s team had consulted with them informally before he gave his speech.)

Although the Soviets made no formal announcement of a testing halt, they, too, paused nuclear testing. Less than ten days after Kennedy’s speech, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to the creation of a “hotline” between the two governments. In a month and a half, the Limited Test Ban Treaty had been completed, putting an end to the constant explosions that were spewing radiation across the world, contaminating even mothers’ milk. Kennedy called the treaty “a victory for mankind,” and said that even if the journey to peace was a thousand miles, “let history record that we, in this land, at this time, took the first step.” Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev hailed the treaty in similar terms.

In the months that followed, the two sides each announced unilateral cutbacks in the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons; reductions in their military spending; and modest pullbacks of troops from the front lines in Central Europe. None of these initiatives were negotiated in detail ahead of time, or verified, though there were informal consultations on each one before they were announced. Khrushchev called it “a policy of reciprocal example in the matter of reducing the armaments race.”

At the UN, the sides also managed to reach an agreement on the Outer Space Treaty, banning nuclear weapons in orbit. The atmosphere of heated Cold War confrontation changed markedly, paving the way for the start of negotiations of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and then strategic arms talks.

Kennedy’s initiative—sometimes called “the Kennedy Experiment”—drew on the ideas of psychologist Charles E. Osgood, who had published a paper on a strategy he called “Graduated Reciprocation in Tension-Reduction,” or GRIT. The concept was that with two sides in a high state of tension, one side could unilaterally take a tension-reducing step—large enough to be noticed, but small enough not to endanger its security—and challenge the other side to take a step of its own. Osgood argued that the challenge should not be a specific demand, because, in such a state of high tension, the other side would likely see a specific demand as asking too much. Osgood proposed that the first step be accompanied by an unambiguous statement of a new, peaceful policy—exactly what Kennedy did in his American University address.

Osgood went further and argued that even if the other side did not reciprocate—perhaps not fully accepting that its adversary was genuinely trying to reduce the temperature—the side trying to reduce tension should continue with additional small steps, to make the changed approach impossible to deny. It is that idea of continuing even without any positive response that most justifies the GRIT acronym. If the other side did reciprocate, then the initiating side could take a somewhat larger step and see if that was also reciprocated. Osgood hoped to “run the arms race in reverse.”

Osgood suggested that if the opponent makes a warlike move, there should be a “measured response”: enough to show the opponent that the new strategy did not indicate weakness, but not so much as to close the door to further progress.

Decades after Kennedy’s initiative, this approach worked again. In 1991, as the Soviet Union hurtled toward collapse, President George H.W. Bush announced a dramatic set of unilateral initiatives, pulling back U.S. tactical nuclear weapons from around the world (except for a small force that remained in Europe) and destroying most of them; eliminating nuclear weapons from surface ships; and taking strategic bombers off alert. The Soviet Union, and then Russia, reciprocated with similarly sweeping (though not identical) reductions. These “Presidential Nuclear Initiatives” resulted in the fastest nuclear arms reductions that have ever taken place.

Today, tensions between Washington and Moscow are higher than they have been since Kennedy spoke, after Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine and repeated nuclear threats. Hostility between the United States and China is growing—and North Korea’s dictator keeps up a relentless pace of missile testing and reckless nuclear rhetoric. These tensions between nuclear-armed states matter: the more hostile two states are, the more likely it is that a crisis will occur, that the crisis will escalate to conflict, and that conflict will escalate to the use of nuclear weapons. Hence, in each of these cases, it is time for new action to bring down the temperature.

President Joe Biden has taken a few small initial steps. The Biden team announced that the United States would unilaterally pledge not to conduct direct-ascent antisatellite (ASAT) weapon tests that would create showers of space debris, endangering other satellites. And they put forward a set of political commitments on “responsible” military use of artificial intelligence—including a commitment that the decision to use nuclear weapons would always be made by a human, not a machine. Scores of other countries have signed on to the ASAT initiative—though not, so far, Russia or China.

Unfortunately, Biden faces obstacles to doing more that President Kennedy did not. In particular, Kennedy spoke when the Cuban Missile Crisis was over: the Soviets had withdrawn their missiles. Today, Russia’s war on Ukraine continues, with new violations of the laws of war almost every day.

Nevertheless, the need for reducing tensions is urgent, and there is more Biden could do. He could announce that a portion of U.S. nuclear missiles would be taken off alert: surely not all of them need to be ready for immediate launch. He could commit that the United States would never use nuclear weapons first unless the very survival of our country or one of our treaty allies was at stake. He could commit that the United States would never deploy its missiles where they could reach Moscow or Beijing in just a few minutes. He could offer to let Chinese or Russian experts monitor U.S. weapons-maintenance experiments to confirm American compliance with the nuclear test ban. He could commit that all U.S. nuclear enrichment and plutonium reprocessing activities would be available for international inspection to confirm they were not being used to make new material for nuclear weapons.

None of those steps would endanger U.S. security. If reciprocated, each of them would improve security significantly. They might be a first step toward new arms restraints that could take the place of New START—the last remaining treaty limiting U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear force numbers—when it expires in early 2026.

The world today is very different from the world of six decades ago. But the need to manage hostility among nuclear-armed states is no less. Biden should draw on Kennedy’s example and pursue new steps to reduce nuclear dangers.

Matthew Bunn is the James R. Schlesinger Professor of the Practice of Energy, National Security, and Foreign Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and Co-Principal Investigator for the Project on Managing the Atom at the Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

Image: Courtesy of the JFK Library.

Earlier this year, on March 19, the Montenegrin electorate went to the polls to elect a new president. The people delivered a seismic political upset by finally dislodging long-time President Milo Đukanović from the seat of power he held for thirty-three years. During that time, by constantly switching between the offices of prime minister and president, he built a system where he effectively became the state itself.

But that system was riddled with corruption and the influence of organized crime to such an extent that criminality had become all but legitimized. The tiny NATO member state has served as a backdoor into Europe for smugglers and money launderers for the past three decades. Western security and intelligence agencies spend billions of dollars countering the drugs and dirty cash that flow into Europe through the Adriatic statelet. A corrupt political class enables this by helping criminals avoid prosecution in exchange for bribes and other favors. So when Đukanović finally fell in March, Montenegro was presented with a historic opportunity for change.

But deposing “Milo” is only the first step in a long reform process. The system he created will outlast him unless the new government aggressively uproots it. This means the upcoming parliamentary elections on June 11 will serve as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to overhaul the country’s political system. For this reason, the eyes of the world—and specifically the U.S.—should be fixed upon events in Montenegro.

Out with the Old Guard, In with the New

Đukanović’s replacement as president is the fresh-faced, thirty-six-year-old reformer Jakov Milatović. He previously served as the minister for economic development in the short-lived government of Zdravko Krivokapić between 2020 and 2022. Standing on a moderate, economy-focused platform, Milatović is a technocratic centrist who hopes to lead his country into the European Union. But, to achieve this, he must first tackle the corruption and organized crime that have embedded themselves within the Montenegrin state and act as the main barrier to EU membership. Following the upcoming vote, the country’s new prime minister and parliamentary makeup will greatly affect Milatović’s ability to pursue his agenda.

Although Đukanović’s career is likely over forever, political forces with ties to organized crime have not simply disappeared. Indeed, they are ready and waiting to fill the void left by Milo and perpetuate the crooked status quo. The former mayor of Budva, Milo Božović, though recently arrested on suspicion of drug trafficking and other crimes, is one example of a politician who could maintain the Đukanović nexus. While Božović is not running in June, he was considered a rising star before his arrest in April. Milojko “Mickey” Spajić, Milatović’s one-time ally, could be another such example.

Spajić is the co-founder of Evropa Sad (Europe Now): the party he and Milatović are members of. The pair served together in the 2020–22 government before jointly establishing their own party a year ago. Spajić currently serves as party president and was originally the party’s intended candidate for national president against Đukanović in March. But his candidacy was rejected by the State Electoral Commission after it found he lied about possessing Serbian citizenship.

As in many countries, Montenegro’s constitution bars dual citizens from running for elected office due to concerns about split loyalties. Serbian citizenship is also particularly problematic due to the historical influence of Montenegro’s larger neighbor over the country’s affairs. Both nations were part of socialist Yugoslavia and remained together after that federation fell apart. In a referendum held in 2006, Montenegro voted for independence. However, around a third of Montenegro’s population identifies as ethnically Serb. The Serbian Orthodox Church is a significant property owner in the country and continues to hold considerable sway in national politics.

This history means Spajić’s Serbian citizenship badly damaged his image. But his botched attempts to cover it up only poured further fuel on the fire. First, Spajić sidestepped questions regarding his dual citizenship. But then he backtracked and claimed he obtained a Serbian passport to travel to Japan without a visa. Later, it emerged that Spajić owned significant real estate in Serbia registered in the name of his Serbian partner. This, combined with his unedifying flip-flopping, made his candidacy unviable, forcing Milatović to step in and take his place as their party’s standard bearer.

Scandals and Cryptocurrencies

Milatović’s historic victory in March may have stolen the limelight, but that doesn’t mean Spajić has left the stage entirely. He is still a household name, and, more importantly, his ambitions remain undimmed: Spajić is angling for the premiership after the parliamentary election, in which Evropa Sad may emerge as the largest party.

The president ultimately appoints the prime minister and, as the president of Milatović’s party, Spajić can make a convincing argument that he is the “natural” choice for prime minister. But the Montenegrin constitution does not specify that the president and the premier must come from the same party nor that the largest party in parliament is entitled to the premiership.

Although there will be a degree of behind-the-scenes pressure for Milatović to appoint Spajić as premier, this is not inevitable. A rift has formed between the two following the citizenship scandal because Spajić is embittered that Milatović got to lead the party into victory over Milo. But there are also serious concerns about Spajić’s character.

There have been well-publicized reports in the Montenegrin press on Spajiić’s links to the Russian crypto-tycoon Vitalik Buterin, who founded the cryptocurrency platform Ethereum. This has drawn significant public attention since Ethereum is the second-most prominent cryptocurrency after Bitcoin. Then, on Tuesday, Spajić was also forced to deny his alleged links to the crypto fraudster, Do Kwon. Kwon claimed in a letter sent to the outgoing prime minister, Dritan Abazović, that he enjoyed close ties with Spajić and even helped finance his party’s recent local election and presidential campaigns.

A U.S. federal grand jury has charged Do Kwon with securities fraud, commodities fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy to defraud investors for his role in Terra/Luna, one of the most infamous crypto Ponzi schemes ever. The links between crypto, money laundering, and organized crime are well known, and it is also well known that Spajić holds a particular interest in digital currencies. According to news reports published last year, Spajić had invited a group of global crypto experts to visit Montenegro, believing they could contribute to developing the country’s economy by attracting investments and creating new, high-paying jobs.

Spajić’s political opponents fear that, should he become prime minister, the tech-savvy thirty-five-year-old could use crypto to help entrench criminality in the country even further.  The vast patronage networks and clientelism built during the Milo years haven’t been dismantled, which means that anybody with enough political influence and desire could simply step in and fill the shoes that Đukanović left behind. If this were to happen, change in Montenegro would be merely cosmetic, with new faces replacing the old ones in a system where the ethos remains largely the same.

The Future is Decided on Election Day

It is impossible to know which path Spajić would take if he became premier. Still, there is increasingly substantial circumstantial evidence to believe that the direction could be the wrong one. This places the new president in a peculiar situation where he might hope that votes drift towards other reform-minded parties with an appetite for change. A heterogenous parliament would allow alternative candidates to emerge and arrange the deck in such a way that would create the cover for Milatović to choose a less prominent figure from a smaller party as his prime minister and pinning the blame for sidelining Spajić on coalition-building parliamentary arithmetic to avoid a political confrontation.

This could be good for the country because it would place someone who appears to be a genuine reformer in a position of power. But it would also benefit the president by marginalizing a political rival with serious question marks hanging over his character. Several alternatives might be a better choice for this position: the aforementioned former prime minister, Dritan Abazović, is one. During his time in office, he made serious attempts to tackle organized crime like cigarette trafficking. Similarly, his election running mate, Aleksa Bečić—a long-standing political opponent of the Đukanović regime—is another. A more outsider option is Vladimir Leposavic, the leader of Pravda za sve (Justice for All.)

A U.S.-educated lawyer who served in the Ministry of Justice and Human and Minority Rights and also in the 2020–22 cabinet, Leposavic has a reputation for decency and honesty. Like Milatović, he is a new, technocratic face and a clean break from the Đukanović years.

Because the fact is that Đukanović’s defeat was a beginning, not an end. And that, by removing him, Montenegro simply gained an opportunity to change course. But this is the moment when that opportunity is at its most fragile, and the battle for change could be over before it even gets a chance to begin if results go the wrong way on June 11.

Aleks Eror is a freelance journalist whose works have been published by Politico, Foreign Policy, The Guardian, and other publications.

On May 17, Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro received a delegation group led by Lin Mingxiang, vice minister of the International Department of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee, and discussed ways to further strengthen the strategic partnership between the two countries.

Weeks before this happened, after Maduro met with Chinese ambassador Li Baorong, Bloomberg’s Patricia Laya and Fabiola Zerpa suggested that the two were “re-establishing connections after years of cooling ties, with government contacts resuming.”

While the authors are correct to note that the public nature of these meetings is partly a reaction to intensifying U.S.-China rivalry, calling it a “rapprochement” is far from true.

China’s collaboration with the Maduro regime has been persistent, even when not displayed on TV screens. This is not just because of China’s need for oil; it also has to do with minerals, a sector where Venezuela is quietly expanding—with Beijing’s backing.

According to Freedom House’s Gerardo Berthin in a video conference two years ago, “In this moment, Venezuela is the country in the western hemisphere with the most Chinese investment.” More strikingly, Berthin suggested that according to estimates put forward by civil society organizations, close to $68 billion in loans has been given to Venezuela by China since 2007, plus around 490 agreements have been signed in “diverse areas of investment.” Berthin added that of these known agreements, 65 percent of them contained deal terms that are not publicly known, while another 22 percent contained only partial information.

Considering the evident involvement of the Asian giant in the South American country, the vast natural resources in Venezuelan lands, and the nature of the Maduro regime, it certainly isn’t unfair to posit that China is making moves to secure some of Venezuela’s mineral wealth.

Venezuelan journalists and academics have echoed this belief by claiming that Chinese companies are behind massive investments in Venezuela’s Arco Minero—an area that, according to Venezuela’s former Minister for Ecological Mining Development Roberto Mirabal, has a potential mineral value of $2 trillion.

Moreover, my recent and personal experience confirms that something suspicious is happening. After spending a few weeks in Caracas, I traveled to the world’s tallest uninterrupted waterfall, the Angel Falls, located in the Venezuelan Amazon. Before my plane even touched the ground, one could already see the contrast between the tall trees at the shore of the Caroní River and the nearby artificial mountains of sand. Although initially confused by the phenomenon, from a conversation with a gifted raconteur and private pilot, I learned that those mountains and the radioactive green colors of the nearby waters were a result of the use of mercury in the gold extraction process.

Following this first conversation, I met F.C., who took me to breathtaking falls in a five-hour motorized curiara (the Pemón version of a canoe) ride via the blood-red waters of the Carrao River. Like the pilot, F.C., a proud member of the Pemón tribe, conversed with me about how mining is destroying the place he calls home and who he believes is behind it.

“Young men in Canaima have two options today: mining or tourism,” he explained. “I choose tourism because I love our nature, and I have seen how areas full of green have lost their color.” Still, he understands that mining, even with all of its dangers and abuses, seems like a more reliable source of income to some, as tourism comes in waves, unlike the demand for minerals. He added, “I’ve lost friends, I’ve lost cousins, I’ve lost neighbors who have left to the mines and have never come back. Why? Well, because they encounter nothing but death there.”

Aside from sharing very personal stories, he talked about the changing faces of commerce and tourism in the region, saying that more Chinese and Russian “tourists” started to come to Canaima in the last decades.

Similarly, the pilot claimed that it is not just illegal mining that is plaguing the Venezuelan Amazon. In fact, he suggested that the government and its international partners are behind it. He recounted a time in which he detoured while flying over Canaima. He explained that it was “one of the scariest moments of [his] life,” as his radio was intercepted by a foul-mouthed and aggressive man, demanding that he left the area immediately. “There is prohibited airspace near Canaima that exists to hide mining activity,” he explained, assuring me that “the generals are behind this.”

“Most do not understand how much is being invested in mining in Canaima and in the entire country,” the pilot added.

Although not many talk about mining in Venezuela, as the country is synonymous with oil, it is well known that the country possesses ample mineral wealth, and wishes to exploit it. In 2018, for instance, Venezuela inaugurated its first coltan concentration plant, which also became the largest one in Latin America. Additionally, in June 2019, Maduro announced a national mining plan based on partnerships with national and international companies dedicated to the exploration and exploitation of thirteen minerals. The exact companies the government has partnered up with are not publicly known.

Furthermore, according to Maduro, with the 2019 plan, “gold would reach the international legal certification of 2,236 tons, (about €94 billion), making the country the fifth largest reserve in the world and aspiring to first place.” Likewise, with other minerals like bauxite, the Venezuelan leader added that the country has 321,350,000 thousand tons in certified reserves. In terms of nickel, Maduro claimed that Venezuela has 28,027,980 certified tons, making it the country with the largest reserves in the world.

These details undoubtedly capture the attention of the CCP. It is for this reason that they have been making massive investments in the mining sector throughout the region, as critical minerals are essential in the technological and clean energy worlds, which China hopes to dominate.

Chinese involvement in Venezuela is no different from its broader regional involvement, and the lack of publicly available information should not make us think otherwise. Even more so, it is essential to consider the strings China pulls behind the curtain if we are to properly measure its strength. By presenting Venezuela just as a chaotic nation battling illegal mining, many journalists and academics avoid exploring the various government-led efforts, and others avoid questioning why the state would acquiesce when facing illegality in this sector. Still, the more one looks into it, the more one realizes that the question of legality is not relevant in a country where the rule of law is all but a distant memory.

A more concrete and constructive project is to better assess who benefits from Venezuelan mining, how they benefit, and how these developments affect U.S. national security interests. As Westwin Elements’ Gregory Wischer observes, in our so-called backyard, “the U.S. government has largely been absent, ceding the playing field—or in this case, mineral deposits—to China.” This reality presents a more immediate threat to the United States than ecological catastrophe or foreign corruption. As such, it is time for us to shift the conversation in this direction. China understands it well— to lead the world, you must control its resources. It is a simple equation, have we forgotten it?

Juan P. Villasmil “J.P. Ballard” is a commentator and analyst who often writes about American culture, foreign policy, and political philosophy. He has been featured in The American Spectator, The National Interest, The Wall Street Journal, International Policy Digest, Fox News, Telemundo, MSNBC, and others.

Image: Courtesy of Airpano.

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