Hello, everyone. Today at WPR, we’re covering U.S. President Donald Trump’s lack of a plan in the Western Hemisphere, and the absence of legal grounds for Trump’s boat-bombing campaign in the Caribbean. | But first, here’s our take on today’s top story: |  | New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani at a rally in Queens, Oct. 26, 2025 (AP photo by Heather Khalifa). |
| New York City’s voters have their last chance to make their voices heard today in a whirlwind mayoral election that has captured the attention of the world. A record 735,000 New Yorkers have voted early, fueled by outsized participation among younger people. That is likely a sign of enthusiasm for the frontrunner, 34-year-old state assemblymember Zohran Mamdani. | The November general election is ordinarily a formality in New York, where the victor of the Democratic Party’s primary over the summer tends to cruise to victory. This year, it has been more contested than usual. After Mamdani won the Democrats’ nomination, his opponent Andrew Cuomo, who resigned as governor of New York state in 2021 amid an impeachment investigation into sexual harassment allegations, mounted an independent campaign. (Cuomo denies the accusations against him.) | Mamdani is still heavily favored to win, with polls showing him ahead of Cuomo and the Republican candidate, Curtis Sliwa, by double digits. His likely victory would be historic in many ways: The youngest mayor of the city in modern times, as well as the first Muslim and the first self-described socialist. | His energetic campaign has won acclaim for a savvy social media strategy and for a policy platform that is laser focused on making New York City more affordable for its lower- and middle-income residents. The race has garnered an unusual degree of attention from around the world—even for a city that has long occupied a unique place in the global imagination. | Many people are familiar with the waves of mostly European immigrants who arrived through Ellis Island in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but New York’s bustling economy made it a magnet for immigrants long before that. In fact, its appeal to foreigners can be traced back to … Purchase a subscription now to get the paid edition of the Daily Review, which includes the full top story. | | This is the free edition of our Daily Newsletter. If you believe you are a paid subscriber and are receiving this edition by mistake, please reply to this email and we’ll make sure you receive the paid edition going forward. |
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|  | | Since returning to office in January, the Trump administration has issued a dizzying array of policies, initiatives and proclamations concerning the Western hemisphere. These moves have ranged from explicit desires for territorial annexation and direct uses of force to massive tariff hikes, offers of aid for friendly governments and pretty much ignoring small Caribbean states. While there are fierce debates about the merits of all these actions, there is consensus that an awful lot has gone down. But the key question is, Do Trump’s actions constitute a coherent strategy? Definitely not, WPR columnist Dan Drezner argues. | | | This week, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, Volker Turk, declared that the U.S. military has violated international law by killing at least 61 civilians thus far on 14 different boats in international waters in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific. The boats targeted by President Donald Trump are purportedly suspected of drug-running, with Trump claiming the U.S. is in a “war” against what he has characterized as narco-terrorists. But the U.N. rejected the claim that drug smuggling constitutes an armed attack against the United States, insisting instead that criminal suspects must be arrested and tried. Turk joins a chorus of voices that have expressed grave concerns about the Trump administration’s boat strikes, Charli Carpenter writes. | | | Today’s question: The average debt-to-GDP for countries in sub-Saharan Africa was 35 percent in 2013. By 2022, it had risen to what level? | | Find the answer in our weekly quiz, then read Lesley Anne Warner’s briefing on how Gen Z protests underscore a crisis of legitimacy in African democracies. |
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| | Merz Calls for Repatriating Syrian Refugees | German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has called for repatriating the estimated one million Syrians living in Germany to their home country, saying the grounds for their asylum in Germany disappeared with the fall of Bashar al-Assad and the end of Syria’s 14-year civil war. Beginning in 2015, at the height of the civil war, Germany under then-Chancellor Angela Merkel implemented an open-door policy, and more Syrian refugees sought and gained asylum in Germany than in any other country. But Merz’s conservatives are now moving to the right on immigration amid the rising popularity of the far right in Germany. | In WPR in January, Aaron Allen looked at history of Merkel’s consequential decision, and how the politics of Germany’s so-called Willkommenskultur—a culture of welcoming and inclusion—have evolved in the last decade. “Caught between the evolving situation in Syria and the heated political debate on immigration in Germany are the Syrian refugees themselves,” Allen wrote. “Their perspectives are far from uniform: Some have fully integrated into German society and wish to remain, while others are considering a return to a post-Assad Syria, despite its uncertainties.” |
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| | | On Fentanyl, China Tries ‘Working Group’ Tactic Again | In agreeing to roll back by half tariffs on China that they had imposed to incentivize Beijing to crack down on fentanyl trafficking, the Trump administration has agreed to develop a new bilateral “consensus” on the issue, to be developed through a new counternarcotics working group proposed by Beijing. In the past decade under the administrations of both Joe Biden and Trump, China has proposed such working groups at least three times, Reuters reports, and the remedy has been frequently derided by Republican lawmakers and others who see it as a way for China to mire the United States in further negotiations without taking decisive action. | In an in-depth article in WPR in May, Junyang Hu and Daniel Baldwin looked at Trump’s strategy of linking counternarcotics to trade, and how China has responded. While efforts at counternarcotics cooperation between the two countries have yielded some “tangible successes,” Hu and Baldwin wrote, they noted that China’s participation in such forums “reflects not acquiescence but deeper strategic calculation.” The working groups create “a status quo of calibrated minimal compliance, in which China maintains baseline engagement while signaling resistance through selective inaction,” they wrote. |
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Welcome to my geopolitics blog site. This is a Hawaii Island news site focusing on geopolitical news, analysis, information, and commentary. I will cite a variety of sources, ranging from all sides of the political spectrum.