In partnership with
GLOBAL NEWS
US
(Sara Fischer – Axios) Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) has asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate whether plans by Truth Social’s parent company to sell Wall Street firms real-time access to President Trump’s posts could violate federal securities laws, according to a copy of the letter obtained by Axios. The letter escalates scrutiny of Trump Media & Technology Group’s plan to monetize faster access for institutional investors to President Trump’s market-moving social posts. TMTG’s new Truth API product, which is slated to debut Aug. 1, will provide real-time access to publicly available posts from the platform’s top 10 trending accounts, Axios reported last week. – Scoop: Lawmaker asks SEC to investigate Truth Social’s plan to monetize access to its data
Global Hunger
(UN News) Global hunger declined for a third consecutive year in 2025 showing that progress is possible, but gains remain fragile and far too slow to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the 2030 deadline. The warning comes in the latest edition of The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report issued on Tuesday by five United Nations agencies. Estimates show that 7.8 per cent of the global population, or roughly 645 million people, faced hunger in 2025. This is down from 8.1 per cent in 2024 and 8.6 per cent in 2022, or nearly 14 million fewer people than in 2024 and 43 million fewer compared to 2022. – Global hunger declines again but progress remains uneven across regions | UN News
Migrants and Refugees
(UN News) The UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR) reports that 144 migrants attempting to reach Europe are dead or missing due to a series of “tragic maritime incidents” off the coast of Mauritania last week. The migrants, many of whom were refugees, spent 25 days stranded on a boat from The Gambia headed for Spain’s Canary Islands, highlighting the dangerous nature of this sea route. Between 14 and 18 July, UNHCR, national authorities and humanitarian partners were present at three disembarkations which brought 387 people safely ashore. Rescue efforts culminated in an operation on 18 July where teams found 38 survivors and 143 dead or missing. Among the survivors that day were two children who lost their entire families at sea. – UN refugee agency reports 144 migrants dead or missing off Mauritanian coast | UN News
ANALYSES FROM GLOBAL THINK TANKS
China
(Jonah Reisboard – The Jamestown Foundation) The Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), sanctioned by the United States since 2020, is making overt appeals for international investment. This is likely a result of positive incentives and economic opportunities rather than a response to external sanctions. The ease with which the XPCC can identify foreign patrons and the candor of its calls for international investment suggest that the efficacy of U.S. sanctions is limited. Outreach, platformed by trade expos and elevated by the One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative, appears to have achieved both political and financial successes, with foreign politicians giving speeches at these events and investment deals inked since 2025 reportedly totaling over $1.5 billion. – Xinjiang Dealmaking Overcomes Sanctions Deterrent – Jamestown
India – UK
(Viraj Solanki – IISS) The entry into force of the landmark India-UK Free Trade Agreement (FTA) on 15 July 2026, represents a significant moment for the India-UK economic and trade relationship, and the wider India-UK bilateral relationship. The India-UK CETA is India’s first comprehensive trade agreement with a major Western country. The FTA, formally known as a Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), enters into force less than a year after it was signed on 24 July 2025. Negotiations for the agreement took over three years, starting in January 2022. It is one of eight trade deals that India has signed since 2021, and the sixth FTA that has entered into force since 2021 – following deals with Mauritius, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a limited deal with Australia, the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) – consisting of Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland, and Oman. – The Importance of the India-UK Free Trade Agreement
Libya – US
(Tim Eaton – Chatham House) In recent weeks, Massad Boulos – President Trump’s senior adviser on Arab and African affairs – has stepped up efforts to break through Libya’s political deadlock. The country is split between two rival administrations: the UN-recognized Government of National Unity (GNU) in Tripoli – controlled by the Dabaiba family – and the Benghazi-based Government of National Stability (GNS), aligned with Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan Arab Armed Forced (LAAF). The US plan is to bring the Haftars and the Dabaibas together with other key constituencies and form a unified government. In June, LAAF deputy commander Saddam Haftar travelled to Washington to meet with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, as Boulos seeks the Haftar family’s agreement on power-sharing. The Dabaiba family did not travel to Washington but Boulos still hopes to convince them to support the deal. For the deal’s opponents – and there are many – it looks like the return of family rule and a way to legitimize the two rival families. It also appears to be more of the same for ordinary Libyans as the deal focuses on power-sharing between elites rather than how the state can deliver for its citizens. – Why US plans for power-sharing in Libya will not work | Chatham House – International Affairs Think Tank
Russia – Armenia
(Vali Kaleji – The Jamestown Foundation) Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan visited Russia for the first time since winning Armenia’s June 7 parliamentary elections on July 6. High-level Russian officials, however, have not recognized Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s parliamentary election victory while criticizing Armenia’s elections. Yerevan’s continued pursuit of peace with Baku, normalization with Türkiye, and closer ties with the European Union, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and the United States could erode Russia’s remaining military, political, and economic leverage in the region. Moscow is likely to rely on controlled political, media, and economic pressure—including energy leverage and support for opposition forces—rather than broad sanctions on Armenia, seeking to preserve influence while discouraging Armenia’s further integration with the West. – Russia Uses Controlled Pressure on Armenia Following Elections – Jamestown
US – Brazil – China
(James Story and Ricardo Zúniga – Atlantic Council) US tariffs, sanctions, and terrorism designations are pushing Brazil economically and strategically away from Washington. Compliance risks from the US terrorism designations may encourage some Brazilian firms to look for Chinese alternatives. Increasingly strained relations are undermining opportunities for US-Brazil cooperation, including on critical mineral supply chains. – Washington is pushing Brazil toward China – Atlantic Council
US – China – South Korea
(Lami Kim, Lucie Béraud-Sudreau – IISS) When presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping met in Beijing on 13–15 May 2026, media attention focused on whether the summit would ease restrictions on critical raw-material trade flows caught up in the broader United States–China trade war. Since August 2023, Beijing has imposed increasingly extensive and stringent export controls on critical minerals, with wide-ranging implications not only for civilian industry but also for defence manufacturing. The White House readout of the summit stated that ‘China will address US concerns regarding supply chain shortages related to rare earths and other critical minerals’, but there was little detail on concrete actions and no comparable commitment appeared in China’s own summary. Instead, on 15 June 2026, China’s State Council Decree No. 839 implemented the Mineral Resources Law, authorising ‘countermeasures’ against ‘discriminatory’ foreign restrictions. Other states have become collateral damage in US–China competition, including South Korea. Its defence industry faces growing risks from potential supply disruptions and price surges in critical minerals. Although Seoul is taking steps to reduce its reliance on Chinese supplies and enhance international cooperation for supply-chain resilience, these measures will take time to bear fruit. – Collateral damage of US–China competition: South Korea’s defence industry
War in Iran – Middle East – Gulf
(Aniseh Bassiri Tabrizi – Chatham House) Nearly five months after the United States and Israel launched their military campaign against Iran, it is becoming increasingly difficult to escape one conclusion: the central objectives that underpinned Washington’s decision to go war have not materialized. Wars should ultimately be judged not by the number of targets destroyed or sorties flown, but by whether they achieve their political objectives. By that measure, the campaign against Iran deserves a sober reassessment. The expectation that military pressure would trigger regime collapse, force Tehran into political capitulation, or fundamentally degrade its strategic capabilities has, so far, not been borne out. At best, those expectations were overly optimistic. At worst, they reflected wishful thinking masquerading as strategy. First, regime change has not happened – and there is little evidence to suggest the war will bring it about anytime soon. Iran undoubtedly faces deep domestic dissatisfaction. Years of sanctions, inflation, corruption and political repression have generated repeated waves of unrest, culminating in the nationwide protests of late 2025 and early 2026, which were brutally suppressed by the security apparatus. The discontent which led to those protests is likely still brewing. But history repeatedly demonstrates that authoritarian regimes often prove far more resilient under external attack than anticipated. Foreign intervention often allows regimes to recast themselves as defenders of national sovereignty – blunting internal dissent in the process. Opposition movements can be reluctant to mobilize while the country is under attack. That appears to be precisely what has happened in Iran. Rather than imploding, the Islamic Republic has weathered what many in the US and Israel believed would become an existential crisis. Political fractures remain, and the economy continues to deteriorate: the rial touched record lows at the weekend. But the state retains the institutional cohesion, security capacity and elite discipline necessary to survive. The war may even have strengthened some of the very institutions it was intended to weaken. Second, the assumption that Iran’s military capability has been decisively degraded is difficult to sustain. Throughout the campaign, President Donald Trump repeatedly declared that Iran’s missile force had been ‘obliterated’ and that much of its launch infrastructure had been destroyed. Israeli officials similarly highlighted the destruction of launchers, production facilities and command-and-control nodes. Yet developments over the past five months suggest those assessments were, at minimum, premature. Iran has demonstrated a sustained ability to launch ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones across multiple theatres, from the Strait of Hormuz to countries hosting US military bases – including recent strikes on Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Iraq and Jordan. Whether acting directly or through its regional partners, Tehran has maintained a tempo of operations inconsistent with claims that its arsenal has been nearly exhausted. There is no reliable public estimate of Iran’s remaining missile stockpiles or production capacity. Definitive claims about its military depletion are difficult to sustain. – The wishful thinking behind the war with Iran | Chatham House – International Affairs Think Tank
(Elliott Abrams – Council on Foreign Relations) The conflict between the United States and Iran has illuminated a factor in U.S. policy that received too little attention until this year: the U.S. basing pattern in the Middle East. U.S. bases in the region are now the targets of Iranian attacks, leading to the deaths of at least seventeen U.S. service members, injuries to roughly five hundred others, and billions of dollars in equipment losses. This is a geography problem. Simply put, the United States has bases all over the Persian Gulf that are too close to Iran. The largest U.S. base in the Middle East is the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, where roughly ten thousand U.S. troops worked prior to the current war. It is also the forward headquarters of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) and the location of the Combined Air Operations Center that controls all U.S. air activity in the entire Middle East. The headquarters of the U.S. Fifth Fleet and U.S. Naval Forces Central Command are in Bahrain. There are significant U.S. bases as well in Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, and a U.S. presence in Oman and Saudi Arabia. All are within easy striking distance of Iran. – To Base or Not to Base: The Iran War Exposes Flaws of U.S. Basing in the Middle East | Council on Foreign Relations
