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"Germany's elections, Trump and the U.N."

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January 25, 2025

Hi, everybody. I’m Judah Grunstein, WPR’s editor-in-chief, and this is a free preview of our Weekly Review newsletter, which recaps the highlights from our coverage this week and previews what we have planned for next week.

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Top Stories

This week, in our Daily Review newsletter, we took a look at the week’s major developments:

United States: President Donald Trump was sworn in for a second nonconsecutive term Monday, and soon after issued more than two dozen executive orders. Several of those orders seemed tailor-made to excite his supporters, but in addition to the symbolism, many have real foreign policy implications. Some will have an immediate impact, including orders that withdrew the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement and the World Health Organization. Others foreshadow more substantive foreign policy changes that Trump had promised, including reassessments of several trade relationships and a pause in U.S. foreign development assistance for 90 days. Finally, several orders—like the pardoning of those involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and a delay in the enforcement of a federal law banning TikTok—raise significant concerns about how Trump may degrade the rule of law during his second term. (Read more here.) West Bank: Israeli forces raided the city of Jenin on Tuesday, killing at least nine Palestinians in what Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said was the start of a “large-scale and significant military operation.” With the ceasefire in Gaza in effect, Israel has signaled that it will increase its military focus on the West Bank even more, after having already ramped up its military operations there in recent years. Unlike in Gaza, though, the violence there involves a wider range of actors, including the Islamic Jihad, Hamas’ armed wing and number of new armed groups, all of which the Palestinian Authority has attempted to crack down on as well, worsening its own crisis of legitimacy. Meanwhile, violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank has also ramped up in recent years in the form of pogroms and ethnic cleansing. (Read more here.) Afghanistan: The chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, said yesterday he was seeking arrest warrants for the head of the Taliban, Sheikh Haibatullah Akhundzada, and Afghanistan’s chief justice for their “unprecedented” persecution of Afghan women and girls, as well as the country’s LGBTQ+ community. The request marks the first time that an ICC case has been built specifically around gender persecution, although Khan did not use the “gender apartheid” language that many human rights activists have campaigned for. Still, Khan’s statement underscores the extreme lengths to which the Taliban have gone to exclude women and girls from public life since taking over in Afghanistan in 2021. It also highlights the ICC’s expanding geographic focus and ambitions. (Read more here.)

This Week’s Highlights

Ahead of Germany’s Elections, Big Ideas Are Missing in Action. On Wednesday, Ulrike Franke examined the way in which Germany’s political culture is inhibiting the formation of the bold vision needed to solve the country’s difficult problems.

“If you have visions, you should go see a doctor,” Uttered by then-Chancellor Helmut Schmidt back in the 1980s, is one the most repeated bon mots of German politics. It is used to convey the message that good politicians should not try to seduce voters with grand statements of lofty goals, but rather focus on the day-to-day challenges the country faces. Indeed, in the past three decades German political leadership has been reduced to administrative managerial work. The problem is that this approach is exactly the opposite of what Germany needs now. Upgrade to a paid subscription to get the full bulleted breakdown of the stories we highlight each week.

Trump Might Find Ways to Work With the U.N. After All. And on Thursday, Richard Gowan looked at how the new administration of U.S. President Donald Trump is likely to engage with the United Nations.

Trump is often described as unpredictable, but his administration’s early moves regarding the United Nations this week were easy to guess in advance. On his first day in office, Trump announced that the U.S. would withdraw from the U.N.-brokered Paris climate change agreement, as he did in 2017. He also pledged to pull out of the World Health Organization. Officials and diplomats at the United Nations were saddened but not surprised by these maneuvers, as they were telegraphed in advance. Upgrade to a paid subscription to get the full bulleted breakdown of the stories we highlight each week.

This Week’s Most-Read Story

Fear of a Great Power War Could Be Making One More Likely. And in this week’s top story by pageviews, monthly columnist Daniel W. Drezner explains why great power war is once again conceivable.

There are some disturbing parallels between how great powers are behaving today and how they started behaving in the late 1930s. In both eras, the proliferation of economic sanctions and embargoes caused great powers to fear that they would be cut off from critical resources. Their reaction to that threat, in turn, helped to escalate great power conflict. The question today is whether history will repeat itself, or only rhyme.

What’s On Tap

And coming up next week, we’ve got:

A column by James Bosworth on what Trump’s expansionist rhetoric means for Latin America. A briefing by Benoît Gomis on outgoing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s legacy on security policy. And a briefing by Jonathan Fenton-Harvey on the challenges facing Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030.

That’s it for this week. And if you have any comments or feedback, just hit reply to send them along, or contact me on BlueSky at @judah-grunstein.bksy.social.

—Judah Grunstein

This Week On WPR:

The Americas

Guatemala’s Democracy Still Has a Chance, but It Needs U.S. Support By Benjamin N. Gedan Arevalo could create a win-win scenario for the U.S. and Guatemala, but only if Trump avoids repeating his first-term mistakes.

Asia-Pacific

Singapore’s Next Elections Could Remake Its Political Landscape By Joshua Kurlantzick The PAP has dominated Singaporean politics since its founding. But in elections this year, it will face its biggest challenge yet.

Europe

Ahead of Germany’s Elections, Big Ideas Are Missing in Action By Ulrike Franke Ahead of elections, Germany’s main parties all suffer from the same affliction: a lack of vision for what the country’s future should look like.

Middle East & North Africa

The Gaza Ceasefire Was Overdue. That Doesn’t Mean It Will Last By Paul Poast The situation on the ground in Gaza was ripe for a ceasefire. That doesn’t mean it’s ripe for long-lasting peace between Israel and Hamas.

United States

Trump Will Need Foreign Investment to Create Jobs By Mary Gallagher Trump’s second term could rescue globalization by persuading the U.S. labor movement that liberalized trade can still work for them. Trump Might Find Ways to Work With the U.N. After All By Richard Gowan The confirmation hearing for Trump’s U.N. ambassador pick signaled that his second term might not be as disruptive for the organization as many feared.

Global

Fear of a Great Power War Could Be Making One More Likely By Daniel W. Drezner Elites in the U.S. and China are seriously contemplating what a great power war may look like. That is itself alarming. The Year of Elections Was Also a Year of Electoral Violence By Andrea Carboni Understanding the factors that drive electoral violence is key to identifying the threats facing democratic elections.

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