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Trump’s New Africa Policy Focuses on Deals… and China

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Chinese engagement in Africa is an increasingly popular topic in Washington these days amid heightened expectations that the Biden administration is going to make the continent more of a U.S. foreign policy priority. On the legislative side, one of the key players pushing the White House to ...

The U.S. Congress Wants to Know More About What the Chinese Are Doing in Africa

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Analysis from Cobus van Staden

BRICS Announces Numerous New Initiatives

The BRICS group wrapped up its two-day leaders’ summit in Rio de Janeiro on Monday. The summit’s final communique is a 16,000-word doorstop that covers numerous issues from economics to education.
The communique avoids any direct mention of the United States, and references to “unilateralism” and other coded criticism are also relatively scarce. Rather, the communique keeps the focus on the BRICS’ vision of the strengthening and reform of the global multilateral system ...

Hopefully, Biden and Blinken Won’t Take Advice From the State Department’s “Old Guard”

Although the sentiments expressed by one of Washington, D.C.'s most experienced and well-regarded former diplomats, Herman Cohen, are widely held in the U.S. capital, they're nonetheless ill-informed: 1) As has been noted repeatedly by scholars at 

Excuse Me. Who Exactly is Mike Pompeo Referring to When He Talks About “The Free World?”

I'm afraid I've devolved into the kind of person who checks Twitter before even putting on my glasses in the morning. On good days it jolts me out of my lockdown torpor at least long enough to make coffee. On bad days it makes me want to ...