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Don't let US-China trade disputes turn into a shooting war

Don't let US-China trade disputes turn into a shooting war

Video: Washington hawks may be taking things to extreme, at what cost?

Analysis | Video Section



The U.S. and China are in a fierce competition over who dominates the global economy. While Washington has rightly zeroed in on the need for supply chain independence, China's unfair trade practices, and intellectual property theft, hawkish voices have blurred the lines between economic and security concerns, and the Biden administration's economic "fixes" have tended to be to impose exclusionary measures that end up pushing Beijing even further into a defensive crouch.

In this video, the Quincy Institute's Jake Werner talks about how this is putting the two powerful nations into an escalatory spiral.


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Analysis | Video Section
Trump Mohammed bin Salman
Top image credit: U.S. President Donald Trump holds a chart of military hardware sales as he welcomes Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, U.S., March 20, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

New Trump order slashes red tape for foreign weapons deals

Military Industrial Complex

President Trump is working on delivering what could be a big win for U.S. arms contractors. Politico Pro reported on Thursday that the White House is currently “drafting an executive order aimed at streamlining the federal government’s process of selling weapons overseas.”

The text of the executive order has not yet been released, but a source familiar with the order confirmed it will boost arms contractor interests and reduce congressional oversight by stripping down parts of the Arms Export Control Act (AECA), the law that governs the arms export process.

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Trump houthis yemen air strikes
Top photo credit: UNITED STATES - MARCH 17: President Donald Trump is seen on a monitor watching footage of military strikes on Yemen’s Houthi rebels, as Karoline Leavitt, White House press secretary, conducts a press briefing on Monday, March 17, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Sipa USA)

Does the US military even know why it's bombing Yemen?

QiOSK

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told Fox News last weekend that the U.S. military had launched operations against the Houthis in Yemen because "ships haven't been able to go through for over a year without being shot at." He then said that in December-ish (not giving a specific date) that "we sent a ship through, it was shot at 17 times."

Military sources who spoke to Military.com are puzzled because there were two attacks they know of in December against a merchant vessel and U.S. warships but "the munitions used didn't appear to add up to 17." Then nothing after that, until of course, March 16, when Houthis launched missiles and a drone against the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier in the Red Sea in response to the U.S. airstrikes on March 15. They were intercepted.

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Rodrigo Duterte
Top photo credit: March 19 2016, Angeles City, Philippines. Rodrigo Duterte campaigning in presidential elections. (shutterstock/Simon roughneen)

How the US bankrolled Duterte's alleged crimes against humanity

Asia-Pacific

Last Tuesday, former president of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte was arrested in Manila and taken to the Hague, where he will be tried for crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court.

From 2016-2022, Duterte’s government carried out a campaign of mass killings of suspected drug users. It’s estimated that 27,000 people, most of them poor and indigent, were executed without trial by police officers and vigilantes at his behest. Children were also routinely killed during Duterte’s drug raids- both as collateral victims and as targets.

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Trump transition

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