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The Trump Administration Says It Wants a “Nuclear Renaissance.” These Actions Suggest Otherwise.
For nuclear advocates, it’s an open question whether the Trump administration’s energy officials recognize the scale of the effort that would be required to achieve their purported ambition for a nuclear revival. In fact, some of the actions the administration has taken, such as tariffs and a shake-up at the Tennessee Valley Authority, could be getting in the way of such revival.
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White House Proposal Could Gut Climate Modeling the World Depends On
Potential funding cuts for NOAA and its research partners threaten irreparable harm not only to climate research but to American safety, competitiveness, and national security.
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The U.S. Trade Deficit: How Much Does It Matter?
President Trump has made reducing U.S. trade deficits a priority, but economists disagree over how much they matter and what to do about them.
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Trump’s Obsession with Trade Deficits Has No Basis in Economics. And It’s a Bad Reason for Tariffs
President Donald Trump believes that if a country has a trade surplus with the U.S. it is somehow playing unfairly and needs to be dealt with. But anyone who understands the basics of international economics will recognize the fallacy in both of these beliefs. That the U.S. has a trade deficit is not a sign that the rest of the world is “ripping it off.” It is a reflection of an affluent society with relatively high wages buying products from countries that can produce them more cheaply. Trump’s tariffs will hurt Americans first – basic international economics is clear on that too.
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Texas May Study the Impact of Immigration Again, but Focus Only on Costs
The only time the state conducted such an assessment two decades ago, it found that undocumented Texans contributed more to the state’s economy than they cost the state.
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No Nation Is an Island: The Dangers of Modern U.S. Isolationism
The resurgence of isolationist sentiment in American politics is understandable but misguided. While the desire to refocus on domestic renewal is justified, retreating from the world will not bring the security, prosperity, or sovereignty that its proponents promise. On the contrary, it invites instability, diminishes U.S. influence, and erodes the democratic order the U.S. helped forge.
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Trump’s War on Measurement Means Losing Data on Drug Use, Maternal Mortality, Climate Change and More
By slashing teams that gather critical data, the administration has left the federal government with no way of understanding if policies are working — and created a black hole of information whose consequences could ripple out for decades.
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Trump Touts Manufacturing While Undercutting State Efforts to Help Factories
Tariffs, spending cuts and the winding down of state-based manufacturing aid could hurt small factories.
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What Happened to Putin’s Friends? How Europe’s Radical Right Navigated the Ukraine Crisis on Social Media
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine created a dilemma for European radical right parties: these parties had cultivated friendly ties with Vladimir Putin. An analysis of a decade of Facebook posts reveals how these parties strategically managed their communications to avoid the political fallout while maintaining their Eurosceptic agenda.
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Patriots’ Day: How Far-Right Groups Hijack History and Patriotic Symbols to Advance Their Cause, According to an Expert on Extremism
Extremist groups have attempted to change the meaning of freedom and liberty embedded in Patriots’ Day — a commemoration of the battles of Lexington and Concord – to serve their far-right rhetoric, recruitment, and radicalization. Understanding how patriotic symbols can be exploited offers important insights into how historical narratives may be manipulated, potentially leading to harmful consequences in American society.
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Trump Is Shifting Cybersecurity to the States, but Many Aren’t Prepared
President Donald Trump recently signed an executive order which substantially reduced the role of the federal government in securing elections, health care, and critical infrastructure against cyberattacks by state actors and cybercriminals. The responsibility of for protection has been shifyed to states and localities, but only 22 of 48 states in a Nationwide Cybersecurity Review met recommended security levels. Moreover, Trump’s funding cuts will make it more difficult for states to bolster their cyber defenses.
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White Supremacist Terrorgram Network Allegedly Inspired Teen Accused of Killing Parents and Plotting Trump Assassination
Court documents reveal that Nikita Casap’s alleged manifesto calling for Trump’s assassination cited multiple Terrorgram publications and urged people to read the writings of a network member who murdered two people outside an LGTBQ+ bar in 2022.
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The New Syrian Government’s Fight Against the Islamic State, Hezbollah, and Captagon
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s background as a former branch of ISIS and al-Qa`ida has raised concerns about its trustworthiness regarding the interests of the U.S. and its allies. But the group’s record is reassuring: The largest threats to outside countries in Syria remain the Islamic State, remnant Hezbollah networks, and the criminal captagon trade. When Hayat Tahrir al-Sham was controlling territory in northwest Syria for seven years prior to the fall of the regime, it actually took those challenges on, and has continued to do so since it took over most of Syria on 8 December 2024.
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Train Law Enforcement in Genocide Prevention
Rutgers Miller Center and UVA Center for Public Safety and Justice launch global initiative to train law enforcement in ethical leadership, community protection, and genocide prevention.
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Protecting Americans’ Sensitive Data from Foreign Adversaries
Last week DOJ took steps to move forward with implementing a program to prevent China, Russia, Iran, and other foreign adversaries from using commercial activities to access and exploit U.S. government-related data and Americans’ sensitive personal data to commit espionage and economic espionage, conduct surveillance and counterintelligence activities, and otherwise undermine our national security.
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The long view
Factories First: Winning the Drone War Before It Starts
Wars are won by factories before they are won on the battlefield,Martin C. Feldmann writes, noting that the United States lacks the manufacturing depth for the coming drone age. Rectifying this situation “will take far more than procurement tweaks,” Feldmann writes. “It demands a national-level, wartime-scale industrial mobilization.”
No Nation Is an Island: The Dangers of Modern U.S. Isolationism
The resurgence of isolationist sentiment in American politics is understandable but misguided. While the desire to refocus on domestic renewal is justified, retreating from the world will not bring the security, prosperity, or sovereignty that its proponents promise. On the contrary, it invites instability, diminishes U.S. influence, and erodes the democratic order the U.S. helped forge.
Fragmented by Design: USAID’s Dismantling and the Future of American Foreign Aid
The Trump administration launched an aggressive restructuring of U.S. foreign aid, effectively dismantling the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The humanitarian and geopolitical fallout of the demise of USAID includes shuttered clinics, destroyed food aid, and China’s growing influence in the global south. This new era of American soft power will determine how, and whether, the U.S. continues to lead in global development.
Water Wars: A Historic Agreement Between Mexico and US Is Ramping Up Border Tension
As climate change drives rising temperatures and changes in rainfall, Mexico and the US are in the middle of a conflict over water, putting an additional strain on their relationship. Partly due to constant droughts, Mexico has struggled to maintain its water deliveries for much of the last 25 years, deliveries to which it is obligated by a 1944 water-sharing agreement between the two countries.
How Disastrous Was the Trump-Putin Meeting?
In Alaska, Trump got played by Putin. Therefore, Steven Pifer writes, the European leaders and Zelensky have to “diplomatically offer suggestions to walk Trump back from a position that he does not appear to understand would be bad for Ukraine, bad for Europe, and bad for American interests. And they have to do so without setting off an explosion that could disrupt U.S.-Ukrainian and U.S.-European relations—all to the delight of Putin and the Kremlin.”
How Male Grievance Fuels Radicalization and Extremist Violence
Social extremism is evolving in reach and form. While traditional racial supremacy ideologies remain, contemporary movements are now often fueled by something more personal and emotionally resonant: male grievance.