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| Hi everyone, this is Elliot Waldman, WPR’s editor-in-chief. Welcome back to our Weekly Review, where we recap the highlights from our coverage this week and preview what’s on deck. | You are subscribed to the limited, free version of our weekly email, but this week you’re receiving the full, premium version instead. If you like what you see and want to try a premium subscription, you can get a 12-week trial for just $12 right now. | If you have any comments or feedback, just hit reply to send them along. | Top Stories | Here are some of the week’s major developments that we covered in our Daily Review newsletter. (If you don’t already receive the Daily Review, you can adjust your settings here.): | | | | | A World Cup Marred by Visa Issues and Apathy: Ahead of the opening of the FIFA World Cup earlier this week across the U.S., Mexico and Canada, President Donald Trump’s administration refused an entry visa to Omar Artan, a soccer referee from Somalia who was scheduled to officiate matches in the tournament. U.S. immigration officials blamed the refusal on “vetting concerns,” but it’s hard to escape the suspicion that Artan’s nationality played a role, given how often Trump and his aides have publicly expressed racist views of Somalis. | The move came days after the U.S. belatedly issued visas to Iran’s national team, but under strict conditions that would require the team to travel to its U.S.-based matches and return to its training camp in Mexico on the day of each match. The U.S. also refused entry to multiple members of the Iranian team’s technical staff. (Read more here.) |
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| | | | | Anti-Immigrant Riots Inflame Belfast: Violent riots took place in Belfast earlier this week, mainly targeting neighborhoods with high concentrations of immigrants. Homes were invaded, families (including one with a baby) were evacuated under police escort, and cars were set on fire, in what one official characterized as “outright thuggery” and another as a “race-based pogrom.” A resident likened the scene to a “war zone.” | The organized violence was spearheaded by far-right gangs with connections to sectarian militias associated with Northern Ireland’s 30-yearlong conflict known as the Troubles. It was encouraged by local and outside agitators, including far-right firebrand Tommy Robinson, in response to a brutal stabbing attack in Belfast. (Read more here.) |
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| | | | | The EU Toughens Up on China: China has canceled two high-level meetings with the European Union scheduled for later this month in Beijing, according to the Financial Times. The move, which comes ahead of an EU leaders’ summit next week where proposals for toughening the bloc’s approach to China are on the agenda, is the latest sign of tensions between the two global trade behemoths. | The primary source of contention is an intractable trade imbalance. China currently exports roughly $1.15 billion more per day than it imports from the EU, with significant impacts on European manufacturers, particularly in the automobile and green tech sectors. Where those two sectors overlap, in the form of electric vehicles, cheap Chinese models have flooded the European market, squeezing out the significantly more expensive alternatives from European companies. | More broadly, the current standoff is the product of three colliding trends, two external to Europe and one internal. (Read more here.) |
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| | Take control of your chaotic inbox | | Spam. Promotions. Phishing links. A messy inbox is more than annoying. It’s risky. | Proton Mail shields your inbox from invasive tracking and junk clutter by default. No creepy ad sorting. No surveillance. Just clean, simple organization designed to protect your focus. | You shouldn’t have to fight your email to find what matters. Proton Mail keeps your inbox safe, private, and easy to manage — so you can stay productive, not distracted. | Take control of your inbox | | This Week’s Highlights |  | Workers assemble robot leg components at the LY iTech Beijing Super Factory for Embodied Artificial Intelligence on the outskirts of Beijing, May 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Andy Wong) |
| Can China Afford to De-Risk From the U.S.? On Tuesday, Mary Gallagher looked at the dilemma faced by China as it seeks to balance national security, technological leadership and economic expansion. | China has learned much from the United States as the two rivals have sought to limit each other's access to critical mineral supply chains and technologies. Last year, Beijing responded to Trump's tariffs by drastically tightening export controls on rare earth elements. More recently, Chinese authorities have reportedly considered curbs on exports of solar panel manufacturing equipment, blocked Meta’s acquisition of the AI startup Manus and put travel restrictions on some AI engineers. These steps underscore how much Chinese policymakers have learned from past U.S. efforts to reduce their economic exposure to China—a process often called “decoupling,” but might be more accurately referred to as “de-risking.” Both countries will struggle to achieve a full decoupling, but even partial de-risking will have important consequences, not all of which can be easily foreseen. When it comes to the prospect of a military conflict, will a reduction in economic linkages reduce tensions by giving each country a greater sense of self-reliance? Or will attempts at self-reliance make conflict more likely, with each side having less to lose? De-risking can also be self-defeating. China’s bid for autonomy undermines its ability to curry favor with trading partners, and as well as its aspiration to supplant the U.S. not by force, but by driving global development. When he traveled to Beijing to meet with Xi, Trump brought along more than a dozen American CEOs with gripes about China's restrictive regulatory environment. Elon Musk hoped Beijing would greenlight Tesla's $2.9 billion purchase of solar equipment from Suzhou Maxwell Technologies to increase U.S. solar capacity. A decade ago, Beijing would have seen the deal as a no-brainer. But national security concerns now dominate supply chain discussions. China fears that exporting its leading solar technology to an American firm will allow Tesla to reverse-engineer it, giving the U.S. an edge in moving energy production to space. Europe will be the testing ground for how China threads the needle between national security, technological leadership and economic expansion. While Tesla may be shut out, Spain and Portugal are becoming new hubs for China's clean energy giants, and Chinese automotive firms are rapidly expanding in Europe's EV market. These deals present Beijing with a choice: prioritize the economic success of its leading firms, or preserve technological advantage by blocking deals and risk long-term economic vitality. If it overprioritizes national security, it may find itself falling behind the U.S. economically.
| Trump’s Aid Deal With Zambia and the Limits of Transactional Diplomacy. Also on Tuesday, Marisa Lourenço examined the complex set of historical and political factors weighing on Zambia’s negotiations with the Trump administration about restoring U.S. humanitarian aid. | After the Trump administration made draconian cuts to U.S. development assistance, including eliminating USAID, it began negotiating bilateral deals to replace some of the discontinued funding. Zambia is one of only a handful of African countries that has yet to sign one, and much commentary has focused on whether the terms amount to coercive diplomacy. Controversially, the proposed agreement linked roughly $325 million in U.S. health funding for 2026—part of a $1 billion package over five years—to concessions on migration, data-sharing and greater U.S. access to Zambia's critical minerals. But the framing of the deal as coercive misses a more interesting question: Why has Zambia only delayed the deal rather than reject it outright? The truth is that President Hakainde Hichilema's administration is not put off by Trump's nakedly transactional approach. In fact, it wants a deal, and a revised agreement will likely be signed later this year, as the country remains heavily reliant on external health support. A major point of contention, however, is a provision requiring Zambia to accept third-country deportees from the United States. Washington assumed Zambia's need for aid would incentivize a deal, but Hichilema's government has shown that a transactional approach cannot always overcome political and economic constraints. Two factors stand out: the August election and China's deeply entrenched role in the economy. Hichilema is running for a second term and remains the clear favorite, but cannot afford too many political risks. Civil society groups have raised concern about two sensitive issues: critical minerals and public health. Popular demands are rising for greater national control over natural resources, and attitudes toward Western-backed health initiatives are complex. Meanwhile, China has become deeply embedded in the economy, stretching back to the 1960s, when Kenneth Kaunda turned to Beijing to finance the TAZARA railway. The extent of that influence became apparent during Zambia's debt restructuring following its 2020 default, which dragged on largely because Chinese commercial lenders were reluctant to participate under the same terms as other creditors. The Hichilema administration thus must factor in Beijing's likely reaction when granting mineral rights to the U.S. The lessons extend beyond Zambia. The Trump administration has faced similar limitations with the Democratic Republic of Congo, with which it signed an early security-for-minerals pact. President Félix Tshisekedi had offered to help dislodge China from the mining sector, but constraints proved difficult to overcome, and Chinese firms remain deeply embedded across Congo's supply chain. Transactional diplomacy may bestow leverage, but it cannot eliminate domestic constraints or wash away decades of history. African governments are neither passive recipients of aid nor hapless victims of U.S. policy.
| This Week’s Most-Read Story |  | Argentine President Javier Milei speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Oxon Hill, Maryland, Feb. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana) |
| Milei Wants to Unleash AI Chaos in Argentina. And in this week’s top story by page views, James Bosworth argues that Javier Milei’s plan to make Argentina a haven for lighly regulated artificial intelligence could trigger a race to the bottom in AI governance. | [O]ne major challenge with global governance of any sector, including weapons of mass destruction and artificial intelligence, is the potential for any country to play the role of a spoiler. Any treaty regime based on voluntary restraint is only as strong as its least willing participant. It’s a classic collective action problem: Most countries and companies might agree to some basic controls of a technology, but while it would serve their collective best interest for all parties to cooperate, they must also consider the possibility that at least one other actor would defect. That scenario incentivizes other actors to also pre-emptively withdraw from any responsible governance regime because they don’t want to be left behind by the spoiler Enter Argentina. … |
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| What’s On Tap | And coming up next week, we’ve got: | Theresa Lou on Xi Jinping’s visit to North Korea. Emil Avdaliani on India’s efforts to bolster its ties with the Gulf. Sylvia Colombo on a scandal that’s rocking the Bolsonaro family ahead of elections in Brazil.
| That’s it for now. Until next week, | —Elliot Waldman | | This Week On WPR | Africa | | | Americas | | | Asia-Pacific | | | Europe |  | | The EU Toughens Up on China | Beijing’s cancellation of two high-level meetings ahead of an EU leaders’ summit is the latest sign of tensions. |
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| | | | Middle East & North Africa | | | | Global |  | | The Problem With ‘AI Arms Control’ | Anthropic is calling for joint efforts to slow the development of AI, using arms control agreements as a model. But that’s a flawed analogy. |
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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.