Biden's Middle East trip: Following in Trump's footsteps
WATCH: Biden looks poised to betray his campaign promise to sideline Saudi Arabia. Does this really serve America's interests?
Responsible Statecraft
Responsible Statecraft is a publication of analysis, opinion, and news that seeks to promote a positive vision of U.S. foreign policy based on humility, diplomatic engagement, and military restraint. RS also critiques the ideas — and the ideologies and interests behind them — that have mired the United States in counterproductive and endless wars and made the world less secure.
Top image credit: https://www.youtube.com/@HouseForeignGOP
House Dem busts lobbyist on undeclared foreign contracts
November 21, 2025
At a congressional hearing Thursday, Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) did something that members of Congress rarely do; he called out a conflict of interest from an “expert” witness.
“I think it’s fair to consider whether there are conflicts of interest being presented here today,” said Castro.
Castro’s comments were directed towards Carlos Trujillo, who testified during a hearing on election integrity in Honduras and allegations that the center-left incumbent LIBRE party is trying to steal the November 30 presidential election.
“If they do steal the election and go down that road…it has to end without any credible democratic actor recognizing the legitimacy of the regime,” Trujillo warned the lawmakers on the House Foreign Affairs Western Hemisphere Subcommittee.
Trujillo, a former U.S. ambassador to the Organization of American States, told Congress that Hondurans' “hope for saving their democracy” is “vested in a hearing like this,” pointing to the U.S.’s ability to impose sanctions on the government.
However, what Trujillo failed to mention is that his lobbying firm, Continental Strategy LLC, worked for at least four clients tied to Honduras this year, including financial institutions owned by some of the country’s richest men, a port company, and Honduras Próspera, a controversial private charter city in Honduras backed by Silicon Valley billionaires. Altogether, these Honduran clients paid Trujillo’s firm at least $670,000 this year alone, and many of the entities that it represents have a clear stake in ousting the LIBRE party in favor of a more business-friendly administration.
This would have gone undisclosed, if Castro — the committee's ranking member — had not raised the question about Trujillo’s status as a paid lobbyist for Honduran business interests opposed to the LIBRE party. That revelation led to a tense exchange during Thursday’s hearing.
CASTRO: You and your firm have significant corporate clients in Honduras who are actively working against the sitting government, is that correct?
TRUJILLO: That is not correct.
CASTRO: You have clients in Honduras.
TRUJILLO: I do have clients in Honduras.
When Castro asked whether Trujillo had spoken with his clients about the hearing, the subcommittee’s chairwoman, Florida Republican Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.), interrupted:
SALAZAR: Ambassador Trujillo may have many clients in Honduras but that does not mean that he does not want the best outcome on November 30th, so I think we should just concentrate on finding out what’s really happening right now and how we can preserve the integrity of those elections.
CASTRO: Chairwoman, I never interrupted your time and you’ve never interrupted my time and these are fair questions about a witness especially when the witness talked about conflicts of interest of others in Honduras. I think it’s fair to consider whether there are conflicts of interest being presented to us today and so that's why I asked him about the clients that he represented, including Prospera which was very controversial in Honduras, which was fighting with the government there, involved in litigation and later arbitration.
Watch the full exchange:
Trujillo’s clients, of course, do have interests of their own. In particular, they have close ties to former right-wing President Juan Orlando Hernández, who, after being reelected in 2017 in a process declared fraudulent by the OAS, among other observers, pursued a set of pro-business policies benefiting Trujillo’s clients. As the U.S. ambassador to the OAS, Trujillo met with and praised Hernández — who is now serving a 45-year federal prison sentence for facilitating and profiting from drug trafficking to the U.S. — for his cooperation with Washington in the fight against organized crime.
One of Trujillo’s clients, Grupo Ficohsa, a company led by one of the country’s richest men, Camilo Atala Faraj, has paid Trujillo’s firm $120,000 so far this year. Atala Faraj maintained close ties — and his bank lent millions of dollars — to the former president, whose economic policies favored large conglomerates like Ficohsa. Another of Trujillo’s clients, Banco Atlántida, is a bank whose founding president, Gilberto Goldstein Rubenstein, was a long-time leader of Hernández’s National Party. The firm has paid Trujillo $415,000 thus far in 2025.
Trujillo’s clients have long opposed the ruling LIBRE party of President Xiomara Castro.
Honduras Próspera, which gave Trujillo’s firm $105,000 since October 2024 before the contract was terminated last July, is currently embroiled in a multi-billion dollar dispute with the Castro administration over its policies to rein in unregulated special economic development zones (ZEDEs) that had been greenlit by Hernández.
Over the past three years, Honduras Prospera has lobbied D.C. lawmakers in an effort to portray the project as a bulwark against socialism in Latin America. Many of these lawmakers have since called for sanctions if President Castro continues to oppose the ZEDEs legislation, while others have inserted language ratcheting up the pressure into the annual State Department funding bills.
Banco Atlántida, which had been granted concessions for 14 major hydroelectric projects under Hernández’s administration — only to be taken away soon after by Castro’s in response to popular protests by nearby communities — has since been implicated in the creation of a new, explicitly anti-LIBRE media outlet, ICN Digital, which regularly gives the bank free publicity.
After the 2009 military coup in Honduras that ousted Castro’s husband and LIBRE party leader Manuel Zelaya as president, Grupo Ficohsa paid lobbyist Lanny Davis to help legitimize the provisional government of Roberto Micheletti in Washington. More recently, it hired lobbyists to oppose legislation supported by the LIBRE party that would have conditioned U.S. military aid and international loans to the country on investigations into grave human rights violations carried out by Hernández’s security forces.
Thursday’s hearing underscored concerns about the U.S. intentionally tipping the scale of Honduras’ upcoming elections one way or the other through the purportedly independent expertise provided by witnesses called to testify before the subcommittee.
“I think it’s fair to consider whether there are conflicts of interests being presented to us here today, so that’s why I asked him about the clients he represented,” Castro said, defending his comments. ”I think folks need to know that, I think that’s important.”
When non-governmental witnesses testify before Congress, they are required to fill out a disclosure document designed to reveal conflicts of interest, known as a “Truth in Testimony” form. However, there is no question on the form that requires witnesses to disclose organizational funding from private companies that may have a vested interest in the committee’s deliberations, leaving Congress in the dark on conflicts of interest simply because they didn’t ask.
Many witnesses also choose to exploit a loophole that allows them to testify in a “personal capacity.” In other words, even if they happen to work as a lobbyist and represent foreign government or corporate clients, they are not required to disclose that information.
When Trujillo testified on Thursday, he did so in a “personal capacity” and did not disclose any of his foreign clients.
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Top image credit: A Ukrainian serviceman observes an area from a hospital damaged by Russian military strikes in the frontline town of Orikhiv, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, November 13, 2025. REUTERS/Stringer
Critics of Ukraine peace deal must answer: What's the alternative?
November 21, 2025
Efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine war have followed a dizzying course over the last few months. After an optimistic period around the August Trump-Putin summit in Alaska, the Trump administration, frustrated by the inability to gain an immediate ceasefire, turned back to intensified sanctions and military threats.
Now the U.S. has advanced a new 28-point peace plan and accompanying security guarantees for Ukraine from the U.S. and Europe. Although Russia has not explicitly endorsed the draft, the fact that Russian negotiator Kirill Dimitriev leaked its contents to American media suggests a high degree of Russian acquiescence to the plan. If accepted by Ukraine as well, the plan would pave the way to an immediate ceasefire and long-term settlement of the conflict.
The U.S. move to craft a detailed peace plan recognizes a core reality of the situation, which is the indispensable role of U.S. diplomatic initiative and leadership in ending the war. The Ukraine war represents a multi-domain security conflict between the U.S.-led West and Russia. Thus, many of the security drivers of the conflict cannot be addressed by Ukraine alone. Given that the Russians have the upper hand on the battlefield, they were never likely to agree to a cease-fire without assurances that their core security needs would be addressed along with those of Ukraine.
Not only does this plan do that, it represents the use of U.S. diplomatic leverage to extract major concessions from Russia that support lasting Ukrainian security and independence. Indeed — although it is hardly likely to be described this way in most of the U.S. and European press — it would be fair to describe this plan as a U.S.-mediated victory for Ukraine and for global stability in this long and brutal war. A successful implementation would create a secure and firmly Western-aligned Ukraine on some 80 percent of its 1991 territory.
Russian concessions begin with the core issue that triggered the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in 2014, namely Ukrainian accession to the European Union. The plan specifies that Ukraine is eligible for EU membership and will receive preferential access to European markets while under consideration. This conclusively signals Ukraine’s political and economic alignment with the West, while still respecting Russian security concerns about NATO. It was precisely the dispute over this issue that triggered the 2014 Maidan uprising, and Russia has now conceded it.
Russian concessions continue in the area of Ukrainian security. During the 2022 Istanbul negotiations in the opening phases of the war, Russia demanded that the Ukrainian military be limited to some 80,000 troops — a number far inadequate to defend against Russian aggression. In those same negotiations Ukraine itself called for a standing army of a quarter of a million troops. Now, the current 28 point plan permits Ukraine a standing army of 600,000 troops, more than twice the level Ukraine itself asked for in the 2022 negotiations and almost eight times the Russian demand.
While this is below the current wartime size of the Ukrainian active duty military, which is over 700,000 troops, that level is almost certainly not sustainable in peacetime. A Ukrainian army of 600,000 troops would be by far the largest military in Europe (outside of Russia). Indeed, it would be larger than the British, French, and German armies combined. Ukraine’s military power would be further bolstered by a separate security guarantee of U.S. and European intervention and support in the event of a Russian attack.
The areas of the agreement most likely to be described as Ukrainian concessions are those that address territory. However, even the territorial provisions contain significant Russian concessions as compared to Russia’s recent demands and certainly compared to Russia’s initial war goal of taking political control of the major areas of Ukraine.
In late 2022, Russia claimed formal annexations of four Ukrainian oblasts in addition to Crimea. In this agreement, it drops demands for Ukrainian withdrawal from unconquered territories in two of these oblasts. Instead, Ukraine would withdraw from so far unconquered territory in only one oblast, Donetsk, territory amounting to about 1% of Ukraine’s 1991 borders. But crucially, in a major concession as compared to Russian positions only a few months ago, Russia will not occupy this region — instead it will be maintained as a demilitarized zone.
Obviously the territorial provisions here would not restore Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders. But this demand has been proven unattainable over four years of bloody war. Leaving territories conquered by the Russians in Russian hands, and the provision for de facto recognition of these territories as Russian, will without question be a bitter pill for Ukraine to swallow. But given that Russia has lost millions of casualties in the war for these territories it was unrealistic to reverse this outcome.
These are far from the only Russian concessions in the document. For example, Russia grants $100 billion in frozen Russian assets to be used toward the rebuilding of Ukraine. Even many provisions that reflect claimed Russian goals, such as religious tolerance (presumably toward the Russian Orthodox Church), tolerance of ethnic minorities, and rejection of Nazi ideology, simply align the values of a Western-aligned Ukraine with broader European Union standards.
The document also creates a road map to a more peaceful and stable Europe, an outcome clearly in U.S. interests. The European security architecture is stabilized through Russian promises of non-aggression, Russian re-entry into the G-8, a U.S.-Russia security working group, and the gradual lifting of economic sanctions on Russia conditional on compliance with core elements of the agreement. A crucial provision states that the U.S. and Russia will “extend treaties on the non-proliferation and control of nuclear weapons.” The details of this conceptual agreement remain to be worked out but it opens the door to broader cooperation on nuclear disarmament.
For all the positive elements of this document, it is unlikely to initially be presented in such a light by many in the mainstream media. With millions of casualties in Europe’s largest war since World War II, a war that began with a Russian invasion of sovereign Ukrainian territory, there is tremendous bitterness toward Russia and tremendous and justified sympathy for Ukraine’s suffering. The reality of Russian gains in territory and the agreement that Ukraine will not join NATO may be allowed to obscure the reality of major Russian concessions and the ways in which the agreement would benefit both Ukrainian and U.S. interests. Those who have for years insisted on maximalist demands for complete reconquest of Ukraine’s territory and even a long war for regime change in Russia will find it difficult to support an agreement they regard as imperfect.
But the alternatives are much worse — especially for Ukraine, which is roiled by internal crises, teetering on the brink of economic collapse, and facing a grim battlefield situation in the Donbas and parts of the southeast. A secure and firmly Western-aligned Ukraine on 80% of its pre-war territory is a far better outcome than the terms on which this war will likely end if it grinds into 2026 or beyond.
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Top photo credit: President Trump and Nicolas Maduro (miss.cabul/Shutterstock)
Ask Americans — they don't want a war on Venezuela
November 21, 2025
The White House is ready for war.
As the Trump administration’s made-for-Hollywood strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats have dominated the news, the Pentagon has been positioning military assets in the Caribbean and Latin America and reactivating bases in the region. More recently, The Washington Post reported that high-level meetings were held about a possible imminent attack on Venezuela and The New York Times has learned that the president gave authorization for CIA operations there.
There is one problem: Americans don’t seem to be very enthusiastic.
While voters returned Donald Trump to office in 2024 based on a host of campaign promises, his faithful took his long-voiced complaints about spending on foreign aid and entanglement in overseas wars as vows to focus on the homeland. A range of Americans are in sync with his past statements about avoiding war; opposition to military intervention abroad is common for the left and right. Simply put, the public is not interested in going to war. Indeed, one recent poll found that just 15% of American adults support invading Venezuela.
Some see Trump's Venezuela moves as an attempt to distract from domestic policy failures or the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, but his actions can't be dismissed as wagging the dog. Trump has shown himself willing to engage with militarism. It's not just "drug boats," and it's not just Venezuela. He has spent 2025 belying the myth, which has persisted over his three campaigns for president, that he is averse to war-making.
What polls say about Venezuela
The public has mixed views on some of the Trump administration's specific actions toward Venezuela. Asked in a recent YouGov poll about the U.S. Navy's presence in Caribbean waters, for example, the percentage who approve (30%) was not much lower than the percentage who disapprove (37%).
Framing its actions against the South American nation as narcotics enforcement seems to have benefited the administration: A Harvard/CAPS poll in early October found 71% of registered voters in favor of "the US destroying boats bringing drugs into the United States from South America." Different wording — and perhaps media coverage of the continued boat strikes raising issues of their necessity, legality, and effect — could help explain why a Reuters/Ipsos poll in mid-November found only 29% answered yes to the question, "Should the U.S. government kill suspected drug traffickers abroad without judicial process?"
Importantly, however, in YouGov's survey, roughly two-thirds of American adults said they oppose an invasion of Venezuela and, as noted above, only 15% support one. Over half oppose the U.S. using the military to overthrow the country's president, Nicolás Maduro.
A 2023 survey found a souring of views of military intervention more broadly, with growing numbers believing that intervention by the U.S. tends to "worsen situations." Respondents seem to have based this on more recent examples, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Syrian and Yemeni civil wars. None of these interventions were seen by the majority of those polled as "successful" uses of U.S. forces abroad.
A cost-benefit analysis
Overall, Americans do not want to get, to use Trump's own words, "bogged down" in foreign wars. Public opinion on intervention appears driven by a cost-benefit analysis as John Mueller, Professor of Political Science Emeritus at Ohio State University describes it. This may be why some Americans are more willing to accept action in the form of targeted strikes such as the boat bombings and limited displays of military might.
Since the Cold War and especially the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. has become increasingly militarized. One measure of this, of course, is government spending. The Costs of War project at The Watson School of International and Public Affairs estimates that the U.S. has spent $8 trillion as a result of the post-9/11 wars. The $22 billion in support for Israel’s war in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023 is one of the latest and most egregious instances of the U.S.’s support for a military first approach.
Unfortunately, the official end of the post-9/11 wars was not the end of their financial costs to ordinary Americans. The percent of the discretionary federal budget devoted to the military continues to rise and at the expense of domestic programs. Pentagon spending alone in 2026 will jump to well over $1 trillion. Though many of the economic costs of war are hidden and/or deferred to an indeterminate future — especially when they are funded through deficit spending — Americans still rightly worry about getting involved in costly conflicts like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Can public opinion halt Trump's militarism?
Many have taken note of how Congress's passage of the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force has helped concentrate power in the executive, enabling swifter, unilateral military deployment by the commander-in-chief. With the AUMF, Congress relinquished its constitutionally assigned war powers and ceded to the president its duty to decide whether, when, and where to use the military to combat terrorism. Since then, the executive branch has conducted counterterrorism activities in an astounding 78 countries.
Despite Americans' low trust in Congress, they nonetheless want the president to seek congressional approval before going to war. Feeding their mistrust, Congress has failed to respond to them on this crucial issue.
Look at how a compliant Congress has abdicated responsibility for oversight of the bombings in the Caribbean — which have now killed more than 83 people — as the Pentagon arrays warships, missiles, drones, and jet fighters in the region. Senate Republicans voted down legislation that would have required Trump to get their approval for any attacks on Venezuela, blatantly ignoring the disapproval of a public they are meant to represent.
So the bombings and the build-up continue, with Trump matter-of-factly telling a journalist, "We’re just going to kill people" without seeking congressional approval.
In the end, Trump may not attack Venezuela, but it likely won't be because the people are against it. He is in the process of commandeering all armed capacities of the U.S. government, military, and law enforcement to serve his purposes foreign and domestic. Reasserting the rights of the people, including the right to peace, requires Congress to aggressively reassert its constitutional duty and the citizenry to demand its will be met.
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