In an online talk with Washington Post opinion writer Jonathon Capehart today, Senator Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) gave an update on the status of his Defending Ukraine Sovereignty Act of 2022, or as he's calling it, the “Mother of All Sanctions” bill.
His bill would place broad sanctions on Russian banks, state-owned enterprises, energy firms, and the Nord Stream 2 pipeline if the Biden administration deems that Russia is engaged in a significant escalation of hostilities in Ukraine. Menendez who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, says the Senate is still in the middle of “intensive negotiations,” and that “there are a few items that we are trying to meet the challenge of finding a pathway forward to reconcile different views.”
But he was blunt about the goal of the measure, which he distinguished from previous sanctions bills: “they would be devastating to the Russian economy,” adding that “every Russian would feel it at the end of the day.”
Last week, the Biden administration announced that it would no longer use the word “imminent” when describing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Menendez didn’t seem as convinced, though he chose his words wisely: “When you see the back-up resources that Putin has amassed along the Ukrainian border…all indications would suggest that he can invade and would be ready to do so.”
Menendez also shared that he had dinner with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz last night, along with several key senators, and is “convinced that the German chancellor is in lockstep with the United States.” However, Scholz himself has not been as explicit, specifically skirting the Nord Stream 2 pipeline issue, which the Ukraine lobby — led by the Ukraine Federation of the Employers of the Oil and Gas Industry — has tied directly to Ukrainian security. To date, Scholz has refused to publicly declare the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline dead if Russia invades Ukraine.
Nick Cleveland-Stout is a Research Associate in the Democratizing Foreign Policy program at the Quincy Institute. Previously, Nick conducted research on U.S.-Brazil relations as a 2023 Fulbright fellow at the Federal University of Santa Catarina.
President Trump’s new National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM) on Cuba, announced on June 30, reaffirms the policy of sanctions and hostility he articulated at the start of his first term in office. In fact, the new NSPM is almost identical to the old one.
The policy’s stated purpose is to “improve human rights, encourage the rule of law, foster free markets and free enterprise, and promote democracy” by restricting financial flows to the Cuban government. It reaffirms Trump’s support for the 1996 Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act, which explicitly requires regime change — that Cuba become a multiparty democracy with a free market economy (among other conditions) before the U.S. embargo will be lifted.
The policy outlined in the NSPM has yet to be translated into legally binding regulations, so it’s too early to tell if restrictions on U.S. trade or travel to Cuba will tighten. But the bottom line is that Trump’s new Cuba policy is not “new” at all. It’s just the latest variation on the embargo imposed on Cuba in 1962. For the next 63 years, Washington has tried to bend the Cuban government to its will by crippling the Cuban economy, all to no avail. Cuba today is no closer to being a capitalist multiparty democracy than it was in 1962 or 1996.
As we argue in a recent Quincy Institute brief, U.S. policy toward Cuba needs a major reset, a shift toward a policy of pragmatic engagement — not as a favor to the Cuban government, but because engagement better serves the interests of the United States and the Cuban people.
Advancing U.S. interests sometimes requires setting aside old animosities and engaging with former adversaries, as President Trump has done with Syria, Russia, China, and others. The president defines his “America First” foreign policy as one that champions “core American interests” and “puts America and its interests first.” U.S. policy toward Cuba in recent years has failed that test. Sanctions have increased the risks to U.S. national security on issues that the president has identified as U.S. priorities for the Western Hemisphere: migration, narcotics trafficking, access to strategic minerals, and the rising influence of China and Russia.
Conditions in Cuba today are far different than when President Trump issued his first NSPM in 2017, so U.S. Cuba policy needs to be reconsidered. Cuba is experiencing an unprecedented economic and social crisis rooted in the government’s mismanagement of the economy, the impact of the COVID pandemic, and crippling U.S. economic sanctions. Cubans are enduring shortages of all basic necessities, deteriorating government services, and repeated electrical blackouts.
As a result. the crisis has produced the largest emigration in Cuban history—nearly a million people in the past three years, 75% of whom have come to the United States.
Cuban society is also undergoing profound social change. The legalization of private enterprises has given rise to a dynamic private sector despite restrictive government regulations. The expansion of internet access and social media has led to a more robust civil society despite government censure and intimidation.
Cuba’s crisis is rapidly raising the costs to the United States of sanctions policy by stimulating migration, opening the door to geopolitical rivals China and Russia, blocking U.S. access to Cuba’s strategic minerals, hurting U.S. relations with allies, and threatening cooperation with Cuba on issues of mutual interest, including counter-narcotics cooperation.
As internal processes of change evolve in Cuba, disengagement leaves the United States on the sidelines, unable to exercise any positive influence on the trajectory of that change.
The United States needs to take the initiative to reset U.S.-Cuban relations to safeguard U.S. interests and ease the suffering of the Cuban people. The immediate goals of a new policy should be to:
Relieve migration pressures by making immediate regulatory changes that would aid the recovery of the Cuban economy and encourage the growth of the Cuban private sector, which is among the NSPM’s stated aims. The Cuban private sector is real and growing, forming the cornerstone of a revitalized economy and civil society despite operating in an increasingly hostile business environment.
Its success is critical to the Cuban people and the Cuban economy. U.S. sanctions add another layer of obstacles for it to overcome. Tangible support requires relaxing, not tightening, restrictions on U.S. trade, investment, and financial transactions, especially with the private sector. Taken together, these measures would significantly reduce migration pressures.
Expand commercial and cultural engagement to compete with the influence of China and Russia. The United States is a natural economic partner for Cuba — a potential source of trade, tourism, and investment far beyond what Russia or China can offer. Moreover, a robust economic relationship with the United States would give Cuba an incentive to limit its military and intelligence cooperation with U.S. adversaries.
In addition, Cubans have far greater cultural affinity with the United States than with Russia or China, a comparative advantage that should be built upon by loosening, not tightening, restrictions on cultural and educational exchanges, and travel.
Reengage with the Cuban government diplomatically to advance cooperation on issues of mutual interest, reduce bilateral tensions, and address human rights and property issues. Engagement facilitates cooperation and opens diplomatic channels in hopes of finding common ground. Making unilateral demands of Cuba on contentious issues has never produced results, whereas engagement has led to successful cooperation on counter-narcotics operations, migration, and environmental protection, among other issues.
The United States should continue to voice its support for basic human rights and condemn the Cuban government when it violates them. However, demanding Cuban concessions on human rights as a precondition for improving bilateral relations has never worked. No U.S. policy can force the Cuban government to adhere to high standards of human rights, but engagement creates incentives for the Cuban government to be responsive to Washington’s concerns.
***
A policy of engagement needs to be grounded in realistic expectations. It will not erase the fundamental differences between the United States and Cuba, and it is not an alternative path to regime change.
The pace and extent of this engagement ultimately depend on the Cuban government’s interest in improving relations. But the initial steps recommended here are ones the United States can and should take unilaterally, because they advance U.S. policy interests and offer the opportunity to set U.S.-Cuban relations on a better path for the future.
keep readingShow less
Top Photo: Lars Klingbeil (l-r, SPD), Federal Minister of Finance, Vice-Chancellor and SPD Federal Chairman, and Bärbel Bas (SPD), Federal Minister of Labor and Social Affairs and SPD Party Chairwoman, bid farewell to the members of the previous Federal Cabinet Olaf Scholz (SPD), former Federal Chancellor, Nancy Faeser, Saskia Esken, SPD Federal Chairwoman, Karl Lauterbach, Svenja Schulze and Hubertus Heil at the SPD Federal Party Conference. At the party conference, the SPD intends to elect a new executive committee and initiate a program process. Kay Nietfeld/dpa via Reuters Connect
Surfacing a long-dormant intra-party conflict, the Friedenskreise (peace circles) within the Social Democratic Party of Germany has published a “Manifesto on Securing Peace in Europe” in a stark challenge to the rearmament line taken by the SPD leaders governing in coalition with the conservative CDU-CSU under Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
Although the Manifesto clearly does not have broad support in the SPD, the party’s leader, Deputy Chancellor and Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil, won only 64% support from the June 28-29 party conference for his performance so far, a much weaker endorsement than anticipated. The views of the party’s peace camp may be part of the explanation.
Why it matters
The release of the Manifesto poses a challenge to the party’s leadership that could weaken the governing coalition. Polls indicate that Germany’s Social Democratic Party commands only about 15% of public support. It remains, however, indispensable to the parliamentary majority government headed by Friedrich Merz and the CDU-CSU parties (Christian Democratic Union of Germany and Christian Social Union in Bavaria). The new leadership of SPD wants to turn the page on the Olaf Scholz era and sees its role in the Merz government as an opportunity to rebuild its electoral fortunes after its miserable 16% showing in the February elections.
To date, accommodation of CDU-CSU on a range of issues has not helped SPD’s standing with voters.
Unfortunately for Merz, his own hold on power requires the SPD not to lose much more ground. After the resounding defeat of SPD Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the much younger Klingbeil rose to party leadership and, as Deputy Chancellor and Finance Minister, supports Merz’s stance on Ukraine and the defense buildup. Important backing comes from the SPD Defense Minister Boris Pistorius.
A heretofore timid and cowed minority of SPD politicians hold onto the preference, deeply embedded in the strategic culture of post-World War II Germany, for conciliation over confrontation in resolving international crises. Unease about the prevailing stance on Ukraine may be part of the weak voter support for the SPD. Merz has played up the idea of a Russian threat to NATO as early as 2029 if Ukraine is defeated, and has built considerable public support for rearmament based on these forecasts.
The unyielding stance on the war in Ukraine draws together the parliamentary majority held by CDU-CSU and SPD, as well as the Greens, while the parliamentary opposition consists of the AfD and the Linke (left) party, both of which question continued support for Ukraine absent any diplomatic initiative. The German policy on Ukraine appears to hinge on the hope that a prolonged conflict will ultimately compel Russia to retreat from its war aims and accept a compromise acceptable to Ukraine’s leadership.
This stance, framed in moralistic and principled terms equating compromise with dishonorable appeasement, is highly resistant to any revision. The insistence on staying the course seems to be rooted also in optimism that a successor to President Trump will return the U.S. to its former role as guarantor of European security and reliable foe of Russian ambitions.
The Manifesto
The Manifesto marks a revival of the traditional foreign policy course set by Willy Brandt beginning in the late 1960s, credited in the minds of many SPD members and other Germans with producing the peaceful dissolution of the USSR and the reunification of Germany.
The two leaders of the peace camp who produced the Manifesto are Rolf Mützenich, leader of the party’s Bundestag faction until February, and Ralf Stegner, a member of the SPD Executive Committee until recently. The 100 signatories of the Manifesto include a former party chairman, several former ministers, and historian Peter Brandt, son of the former Chancellor.
The release of the Manifesto marks a departure for these signatories, most of whom supported Scholz’s Zeitenwende of 2022, which boosted aid to Ukraine and defense outlays more generally.
The authors charge that the party and the coalition are seeking peace and security by preparing for war rather than, as the authors advocate, pursuing the same aims along with, rather than against, Russia. They concede that Germany should build up its defense readiness (Verteidungsfähigkeit), but they invoke the Helsinki Final Act concept of collective security, which they say produced valuable arms control agreements and enabled the reunification of Germany.
They also call for de-escalation and mutual confidence building to accompany a carefully calibrated rearmament framed solely in a defensive mode and for supporting German and European industrial development.
The signers also endorse a European diplomatic strategy to end the war in Ukraine and oppose the stationing of U.S. medium-range missiles in Germany.
Reception of this action by SPD mainstream has been cold. The SPD defense minister, Boris Pistorius, by far the most popular SPD politician, accused the signatories of failing to face reality and exploiting the public’s desire for peace.
The disappointing showing for Klingbeil at the party conference may reflect misgivings within the party about his unreserved support for what many see as excessive bellicosity and fear-mongering on the part of Merz. The timing of the peace faction’s Manifesto release suggests they hoped to open a breach in the party ranks.
keep readingShow less
Top photo credit: Donald Trump (White House photo) and Vladimir Putin (Office of the Russian Federation President)
To a considerable degree, President Donald Trump won the presidency in 2024 because voters embraced his message of keeping America out of protracted conflicts and his promise to end the war in Ukraine.
The administration has made substantial operational headway, particularly in reopening stable channels for dialogue with Russia, but it has proven difficult to arrive at a framework for a negotiated settlement that enjoys buy-in from all the stakeholders — Ukraine, Russia, and Europe.
A sharp diversion of American resources and attention to the Middle-East threatens to make the goal of facilitating a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine more evasive still.
The Israel-Iran war stimulated an effusion of speculation, most of it unfounded, around Russia’s supposed interests in aiding its “ally” Iran. In point of fact, there is no tangible sense in which Russia is militarily allied to Iran. One has merely to read the text of the Russia-Iran Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, signed in January 2025, to discover that the parties’ only concrete security obligation toward one another if either one comes under attack is to “not provide any military or other assistance to the aggressor which would contribute to the continued aggression.”
Moscow's relationship with Tehran, though it is more than simply friendly and does reach quite far in the fields of economic and political cooperation, is part of a larger portfolio of Middle-Eastern interests that includes maintaining constructive relations with Israel and the Arab states. The idea that Russia had the slightest intention of allowing itself to be drawn into a military confrontation with Israel over Iran was based purely on the ideological framing, popular among certain subsets of the transatlantic foreign policy community but with little connection to reality, that Moscow is duty-bound to support Tehran by dint of shared autocratic affiliation.
No less wrongheaded is the notion that U.S. strikes against three Iranian nuclear facilities sent a “message” to Russia about American resolve, as it’s unclear what that message was supposed to be.
When it comes to potential aggression against NATO countries, there is no indication that the Kremlin doubted or wanted to test the deterrent credibility of American commitment to the alliance’s Article 5 collective defense provisions prior to the American bombing runs. On the issue of Ukraine, the U.S. has repeatedly demonstrated even under a previous administration which was vastly more invested in Kyiv’s victory that it will not fight Russia over Ukraine. It is neither credible nor advisable, considering White House officials’ consistent skepticism of the idea that core U.S. interests are on the line in Ukraine and their desire to deescalate tensions with Russia, to maintain any degree of strategic ambiguity on the prospect of entering direct hostilities with Russia.
Moreover,, the Iranian strikes were conducted in the context of American and Israeli escalation dominance, which made it possible for the U.S. to seize the diplomatic initiative and steer the conflict to its termination with a ceasefire between Israel and Iran after twelve days.
No such conditions exist between Russia and Ukraine, where it is Moscow that maintains the battlefield initiative and holds the capacity to intensify or de-escalate the war as it sees fit.
Yet the linkage between Russia and Iran is significant in other ways. One can easily see how Kremlin officials would fall upon the belief that the White House knew about Israel’s decision to attack Iran and used previous rounds of nuclear talks with Tehran to lull Iranian leadership into a false sense of security. This perception, if left unaddressed, can run a red pen through the work the administration has done to build bilateral trust with Russia and present itself as a good faith negotiator.
The best way to dispel this lingering sense of unease is to make an effort to reengage Iran in substantive negotiations. To the extent that Russia shares and is in a position to contribute to the U.S. goal of achieving a peaceful framework for an Iran without nuclear weapons, the administration should consider taking Putin up on his offer to support the Iran talks.
Russia is already deeply engaged in the region, reportedly including through secret negotiations with Israel over Iran and Syria. Leveraging the Moscow-Tehran-Jerusalem triangle as a vector for reviving the Iran nuclear talks not only advances American interests in the Middle-East but, insofar it establishes larger U.S.-Russia linkages, can generate positive diplomatic momentum toward a negotiated settlement over Ukraine.
The Iran-Israel war has also accentuated the hard limits of U.S. ability to sustain, whether directly or indirectly, multiple high-intensity conflicts.
Previously apportioned U.S. aid packages to Ukraine were slated to run their course by the end of summer. The Pentagon’s reported decision to terminate them prematurely evinces the stark tradeoffs, all too often lost on neoconservative observers, that the U.S. faces in funding foreign war efforts across the world while maintaining its own domestic stockpiles and defense posture.
As Elbridge Colby, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, keenly understands, there is not a bottomless reserve of interceptors and other munitions to sustain an attrition war that Ukraine is slowly losing in a theatre that is not vital to core U.S. security interests. Yet resource constraints, though no doubt real and deeply felt by this administration, are only one piece of this puzzle.
Administration officials repeatedly warned that the U.S. would “walk away” unless progress is made toward a negotiated settlement between Russia and Ukraine. It was always the case that the likeliest, most readily available path to walking away runs not through explosive proclamations of the kind that followed the disastrous February Oval Office confrontation between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but rather through a slow, deliberate, and initially subtle diversion of resources and attention away from Ukraine that becomes more pronounced as its cumulative effects compound over time.
The U.S. effort to help Ukraine since 2022, with all its multifarious security, diplomatic, and economic prongs, is the most ambitious aid program ever to be undertaken by a non-belligerent on behalf of a third country to which it has no formal commitments. Observers presciently warned that the all hands on deck strategy taken by the Biden administration was unsustainable given the challenges faced by the U.S. in other parts of the world, but anything less than singleminded focus on Ukraine was always bound to lead to the unraveling of the West’s maximum-pressure program against Russia and, with it, Kyiv’s ability to prosecute the war.
The aid decision is yet the latest reminder, as if any more were needed, that time is not on Ukraine’s side. Ukrainian and European efforts to get the White House to recommit to the Biden-era “as long as it takes” approach to this war will only expedite the administration’s divestment from it.
Still, American engagement in the peace process remains critical for both Ukraine and broader challenges surrounding European security. Kyiv and its European partners need, now more than ever, to repair to a viable set of initial war termination proposals that can secure U.S. buy-in and serve as a point of departure for getting U.S.-brokered peace talks between Russia and Ukraine back on track.
Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.