A return to a version of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is “in sight,” which means that the typical chorus of opponents to the deal are launching a last-ditch effort to prevent an agreement. A letter sent to President Biden by Sen. Ted Cruz and 32 other senators claimed they will use “the full range of options and leverage available” to prevent a deal from being reached. With this context in mind, Sen. Chris Murphy made a blistering speech on the Senate floor on Wednesday making the case for the JCPOA. Murphy aimed at answering one simple question: What is the alternative?
Fortunately, we know the alternative is. Murphy made clear that the policy supported by opponents to a nuclear deal has been tried and tested; “To the extent that there was any silver lining of President Trump’s decision, it’s that it allowed us for four years to test the theory of the opponents…because president Trump implemented the strategy that the critics of the JCPOA wanted President Obama to employ.” Murphy then closely compared the policies of the previous two administrations.
First, on the nuclear issue, Murphy noted that Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium gas is currently roughly 11 times what it was during the full implementation of the agreement. Iran also went from a “breakout time” — the time it would take to acquire enough enriched uranium for one bomb — under the agreement of more than a year to two months today, and has restarted its nuclear research program to the point that it is “stronger than it was prior to the JCPOA in some ways.” Rather than “restoring deterrence,” as some have claimed, Murphy said that the “maximum pressure” campaign was a “spectacular failure” on all accounts.
But it isn’t just on the nuclear issue. Murphy also noted that none of Iran’s other malevolent activities in the region have abated either; “Iran continues to support proxy armies in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, in fact their connection with Hezbollah in Lebanon and with the Houthis in Yemen is probably stronger today than it was during the JCPOA.” Murphy also pointed to the fact that Iran even restarted attacks on U.S. troops after President Trump tore up the JCPOA. By all accounts, Iran hasn’t been deterred, but rather emboldened.
Murphy hammered home that diplomacy may not always be perfect, but it is far better than the alternative of maximum pressure. “Newsflash,” he said, ”occasionally there are diplomatic agreements that are in the best interests of the United States and the JCPOA was inarguably one of them.”
With the Biden administration’s time window shortening, Murphy showed that the opposition to a nuclear agreement is pure political theatrics. Diplomacy can work, and the lessons of the past decade demonstrate that.
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.
Top image credit: U.S. President Donald Trump meets with China's President Xi Jinping at the start of their bilateral meeting at the G20 leaders summit in Osaka, Japan, June 29, 2019. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that Trump is considering a significant reduction of the extraordinarily high tariffs on China that followed a dizzying tit-for-tat spiral between the two countries in early April.
China was the only country to immediately retaliate against Trump’s draconian “liberation day” tariffs, and Trump’s intolerance for that self-assertion led to 145% tariffs on the U.S. side and 125% tariffs on the Chinese side — tantamount to severing economic relations overnight between the world’s two most important economic powers.
Trump’s public softening is a hopeful sign because the tariff confrontation could all too easily tip over into an irreparable break between the United States and China, ultimately developing into large-scale violence. Yet significant obstacles stand in the way, and both sides have already taken damaging steps that undermine the possibility for de-escalation. Regardless of what happens with the tariff rate, if the Trump administration successfully pushes major third countries to exclude China from their economies, conflict is likely to spin out of control.
Commentators have been slow to focus on the danger of U.S.–China conflict. Many have grown complacent as the conflict became familiar and seemingly contained to small-scale antagonistic measures and empty diplomatic discussions. Trump’s conflicts with allies, his tariff campaign against the whole world, and his attacks on liberal institutions at home have drawn all the attention.
Yet we now stand in a moment of acute danger. Against a years-long background of growing economic, military, and philosophical tensions, the trade war threatens to unleash a series of escalatory dynamics across all realms in the U.S.–China relationship.
Already under the first Trump and Biden administrations, the gradual formation of adversarial geopolitical blocs was underway. Biden’s consolidation and systematization of Trump 1’s exclusionary policies toward China had convinced the Chinese leadership of immovable American hostility to China’s interests. Then, Trump stacked his administration with a fractious national security and international economic team whose only point of agreement was the need for confrontation with China.
Trump himself, however, offered hope of escaping a devastating international conflict. His enthusiasm for dealmaking, his admiration of Xi Jinping, and his hostility to the dogmas of American primacy that animated the Biden administration all created an opening to move the relationship off its trajectory toward permanent hostility. Beijing recognized the possibilities and from the moment of Trump’s election victory began informally floating ideas on what China could offer to Trump’s priorities, seeking a reliable connection in Trump’s notoriously fluid inner circle, and inquiring into how a negotiation process could be structured.
The biggest obstacle was not Trump’s team, which he has cowed into obedience, but his desire to cow China, too.
Rather than responding to Beijing’s outreach, Trump hit China with an initial 10%t tariff increase in early February, claiming it was punishment for China’s indirect involvement in the fentanyl trade. Media coverage focused on even larger punitive tariffs directed at Canada and México, but these were quickly withdrawn while those on China remained. Trump repeated the same routine in early March, again sparing Canada and México while raising tariffs on China another 10%.
China responded with considerable restraint to both rounds, still seeking to preserve space for negotiation. Already under Biden, China had begun cooperation on limiting fentanyl inputs, so Chinese leaders were skeptical that this was the real issue. With increasing urgency, Beijing sought to determine what Trump actually wanted. But no response was forthcoming.
Then came the “liberation day” tariffs, with a 34% increase applied to China, and Beijing fundamentally changed its approach. China’s leaders seem to have concluded that Trump simply wants to demonstrate his own power by debasing China, as he has done to countries ranging from Canada to Colombia to Ukraine. This is clear in China’s repeated condition for talks: they “must proceed in a manner of sovereign equality on a foundation of mutual respect.”
The Chinese Communist Party’s entire foreign policy legitimacy and ideology are built on the claim that it remade China so that it could finally stand up against the depredations of foreign powers. Chinese diplomats’ emphasis on respectful treatment, often expressed through a preoccupation with diplomatic protocol and a sharp antipathy toward U.S. attempts to discredit China, grows from this foundation.
Even as he mulls the possibility of reducing the crippling tariff rates he imposed, Trump continues to say that China will have to be the one to request it. “China wants to make a deal. They just don’t know how quite to go about it,” Trump said shortly after tossing away the chance for talks and breaking the economic relationship. “You know, it’s one of those things they don’t know quite — they’re proud people.”
Over the last two weeks, he and close advisers like Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent have repeatedly expressed such sentiments. In response, China has shown openness to talks but insists it will not negotiate at the point of a gun. China is also looking for a clear process in the talks and some sense of an agenda from the United States. Most recently, China’s Commerce Ministry suggested that Trump could resolve the impasse by removing all “unilateral tariff measures.”
As the two trade accusations in public, in the background both are moving in the most dangerous direction possible: to force the rest of the world to choose one or the other. In its talks with other countries that were targeted on “liberation day,” the Trump administration is demanding that they sever economic ties with China. China responded by arguing that other countries would be short-sighted to make deals with a bully and promising “equivalent countermeasures” against any country that sacrifices Chinese interests as the price for access to the United States.
We are now stuck in the absurd spectacle of the world’s two most powerful leaders acting like children who want to make up but who insist that the other take the first step. The longer this impasse lasts, the less likely we will avoid cascading escalation into conflict.
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Top image credit: Fabrizio Maffei / Shutterstock.com
No Pope had ever kissed the feet of leaders, begging them to bring peace to their country. But in April 2019, Pope Francis surprised South Sudan and the entire world when he did just that to President Salva Kiir, Vice President Riek Machar, James Wani Igga, Taban Deng Gai, and Rebecca Nyandeng De Mabior; a gesture that clearly expressed his belief that the Pontiff of the Catholic Church must be a committed and unwavering peacemaker.
Pope Francis spoke about peace until his very last breath. In his brief message before the Urbi et Orbi blessing on April 20, Easter Sunday, he mentioned peace 10 times, remembering the Holy Land and the gift of all Christians celebrating Easter on the same day, in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Ukraine, the Southern Caucasus, the Balkans, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan and South Sudan, the Sahel, the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes region, and also Myanmar.
His memory of specific countries and regions was accompanied by his concern for freedom of religion, freedom of thought, freedom of expression, and respect for the views of others. He stressed that no peace is possible without true disarmament. The call was “to care for one another, to increase our mutual solidarity, and to work for the integral development of each human person.”
These were not only his last words. These were the words of an entire life and of an entire pontificate. Even the name chosen, “Francis,” was a sign of his commitment to peace and the poor. No Pope before him had used that name, the name of a poor friar from Assisi who, in 1219, was bold enough to counter the Crusaders and meet Sultan Malik al-Kamil in Damietta, Egypt.
Indeed, Pope Francis spoke about peace, invited peace, and worked for peace even and especially when few did so — much like his chosen namesake. He was the first Pope to visit the Arabian Peninsula and Iraq, the first to develop a personal friendship with the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmed Al-Tayyeb, the same way he was friends with Rabbi Abraham Skorka in Argentina. He expressed the same personal touch through his frequent calls to the only Catholic church in the Gaza Strip.
Yet, his ministry was not only about personal relationships and feelings. It was made of bold steps for the world such as the “Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together,” the first document to be signed by both a Catholic Pope and a Grand Imam of Al-Azhar. It was signed 800 years after St. Francis visited Sultan Malik al-Kamil and marked a dramatic turn in the relationship between Muslims and Christians.
It was also bold to declare, as he did in Nagasaki, Japan, that “the use of atomic energy for purposes of war is immoral, just as the possession of nuclear weapons is immoral.” The opposition of the Catholic Church and prior Pontiffs to nuclear weapons had been clear but Pope Francis’ statement went beyond; we must imagine a world without nuclear weapons, we must imagine a world in peace.
And he was equally bold when he denounced the arms trade, repeatedly condemning those who profit from war in his address to the United States Congress in September 2015, saying, “why are deadly weapons being sold to those who plan to inflict untold suffering on individuals and society? Sadly, the answer, as we all know, is simply for money; money that is drenched in blood, often innocent blood.”
For his boldness and love of peace, Pope Francis was openly criticized, even mocked. This was especially true when he tried to open a path to peace in Ukraine by sending Cardinal Matteo Zuppi to Kyiv, Moskow, Washington, and Beijing. In that context, peace was and has been a dirty word, but in his words and actions, Francis insisted that peace remain central, underlining the value of the human person, of peoples, over and against the destructive power of violence.
Similar resistance emerged against his stance in favor of the dejected, migrants, and prisoners. Pope Francis was caring. He was aware of the trials and tribulations of many, and, aware, he cared for them and invited others to do the same.
He made himself a pilgrim of peace, travelling the globe, witnessing to peace and spreading the invitation widely. He traveled to many countries where the Catholic population was a minority and was always welcomed with great warmth and appreciation. He made the world smaller, weaving it together in a time of further distances and higher walls.
He went from South Sudan, where he told the leaders, “future generations will either venerate your names or cancel their memory, based on what you now do,” and then to Iraq, where he met Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Najaf saying, “peace does not demand winners or losers, but brothers and sisters who, despite misunderstandings and past wounds, choose the path of dialogue.”
Francis was undetered, and worked tirelessly and repeatedly. In May 2014, then-Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met with him in the Vatican and recently, after one year of Israeli offensive in Gaza, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and former Palestinian Minister for Foreign Affairs Nasser Al-Kidwa presented Pope Francis with their proposal to end the war devastating their nations. Throughout the conflict, Pope Francis, as in Ukraine, centered the lives of the suffering, choosing to call the only Catholic church in Gaza personally every day, demonstrating, in a most concrete way, his care and concern.
Many are mourning after his death. He was mourning with many while he was alive.
When he visited the Community of Sant’Egidio in Rome in 2014, he coined 3 Ps to capture its charisms — prayer, the poor, and peace. In this synthesis was both a description and invitation; an invitation to many to make these the pillars of their life.
Pope Francis made peace through prayer and care for the poor. He did so until the very end of his earthly journey and continues to invite all to do the same.
The Bunker appears originally at the Project on Government Oversight and is republished here with permission.
Arming the heavens
The U.S. Space Force has issued a blueprint(PDF) detailing just what “space warfighting” will mean for the U.S. military battling for the ultimate high ground far above our heads. The 22-page “landmark document underscores the critical importance” for “space superiority,” the command said April 17. More importantly, five years after the creation of the Space Force (during President Trump’s first term), its top brass no longer dance around the touchy issue of waging war on high. Instead of gauzy words like “protecting” and “defending” space, they’re making clear they’re getting ready to attack and destroy up there.
“We have a new administration that has us very focused on this,” Space Force’s Lieutenant General Shawn Bratton said. “We’ve got a secretary of defense who’s very interested in warfighting ethos and lethality, and we naturally progress to the point where we’re moving past ‘protect and defend’ and yeah, we’re going to talk about offensive capabilities in space.” (Back in the 1980s, The Bunker recalls the U.S. military sprinkling the radar-eluding “stealth” label like procurement pixie dust on its new wonder weapons. It has been replaced in the Trump administration by “lethal,” which dates back to when a caveman first clubbed his neighbor.)
Space war could be a spending supernova for defense contractors. This new “framework for planners” calls for developing offensive “orbital strike” weapons to obliterate enemy satellites, “space link interdiction” to degrade their communications, and “terrestrial strike” to destroy an enemy’s ground-based control centers and launch sites. Defensive desires include “escort” missions, “suppression of adversary counterspace targeting,” and “counterattack” (The Bunker has never had the smarts to separate offensive “attack” missions from defensive “counterattack” missions, which is why he doesn’t own a nice boat in Annapolis).
It’s important for a fledgling war-fighting command to cram as many buzzwords as possible into press releases explaining why its latest notion is key to the future of the U.S. That will help with already underway intramural Pentagon turfs wars, and sure-to-follow Capitol Hill funding fights. The Space Force pushed all those buttons in summing up its new owner’s manual for space: “Space Warfighting marks a significant step forward in solidifying the Space Force as a warfighting service and integral part of the Joint and Combined Force, highlighting the essential role of space superiority for national security.”
Sounds like the best thing since sliced dread.
Pentagon seeks nuclear microreactors for US bases
Speaking of buzzwords, the Air Force has gotten a lot of PR mileage — if not smart and efficient weapons — by replacing its long-standing quest for “air superiority” (PDF) with one seeking “air dominance.” So why shouldn’t Pentagon technocrats concerned with powering military bases insist on “energy dominance,” too?
On April 10, the Pentagon declared eight companies eligible to demonstrate their “nuclear microreactors” for possible use on stateside bases. (The term “microreactor” is undefined, and the solicitation is no longer publicly available.) “Projecting power abroad demands ensuring power at home and this program aims to deliver that, ensuring that our defense leaders can remain focused on lethality [there’s that word again!],” Andrew Higier of the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit said. “Microreactors on installations are a critical first step in delivering energy dominance to the force.” This is a pretty dubious notion. If the electrical grid powering the nation, and the U.S. military bases inside it, goes offline, independently electrified military bases won’t help much. Critics say the scheme is too costly and dangerous.
Just like fighting wars in space, harnessing nuclear power on the ground for military bases is part of a peculiar U.S. military obsession that confuses risk with reality. The recent disasters in Afghanistan and Iraq highlight an inability to win despite the world’s most sophisticated military technology. We would do well to recall the Battle of Lexington and Concord, 250 years ago this past weekend. That’s where the highly regarded British Redcoats were vanquished by a ragtag colonial militia. Today’s U.S. armed forces could learn something from their forebears.
A foe the US military can beat
The Pentagon, which tried and failed for 20 years to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan, was able to kill all of its diversity, equity, and inclusion jobs less than 100 days into President Trump’s second term. Of course, most of that work had already been done by Congress, which restricted Defense Department DEI efforts in its 2024 defense authorization bill.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth created(PDF) a task force in January that he said was vital to creating a “lethal” military focused on “lethality” (a two-fer!) by halting efforts to diversify its ranks. It reported March 1 “that the military services, the Joint Staff, and the other DOD components conducted evaluations and certified that there is no use of gender, race, or ethnicity-based goals for organizational composition, academic admissions, or career fields,” the Government Accountability Office said in an April 17 letter(PDF) to Congress. “Further, the report identified key actions the military services and DOD components took to ensure that no boards, councils, and working groups promote DEI and other related concepts.”
Given the Trump administration’s anti-DEI fetish — and the time, focus, and words they have dedicated to wiping it out — you’re forgiven if you think Pentagon hallways are now strewn with victims of this purge.
But under that 2024 law, the GAO reported(PDF) that only 32 DEI positions were eliminated among the Pentagon’s 950,000 civilian workers. The Defense Department has restricted 115 other jobs “to reduce or eliminate the positions’ DEI duties,” it added, also under that legislation. And the Pentagon, it noted, “did not widely use contractors to develop and implement DEI activities.”
So how many additional DEI slots did Trump’s January edict barring them from the Pentagon end up cutting?
Forty-one, including both civilian and military personnel. All those positions, the GAO said, have since been “abolished or restructured” to avoid DEI cooties.
The current zany state of the U.S. government should drive its allies to create a weapons-production conglomerate capable of developing and producing modern arms without the U.S., veteran Brit-born aerospace journalist Bill Sweetman wrote April 15 in The Strategist.
The April 16 explosion that destroyed a Northrop solid-rocket motor building in Utah won’t affect the over-budget and delayed Sentinel ICBM the company is building for the Pentagon’s nuclear triad, John Tirpak of Air & Space Forces Magazine reported April 17.
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