In 2002, President George W. Bush tried to recite an old proverb: “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” What emerged instead was: “Fool me once, shame on… shame on you. Fool me… you can’t get fooled again” (see video).

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As Russian bombs continued to pound Ukraine, a different conflict has blown up over plans to end that almost four-year-long war. The Trump administration on Nov. 20, 2025, formally presented Ukraine with a 28-point proposal to end the war, and President Donald Trump announced the country had until Thanksgiving to sign it. But Ukraine and its European and U.S.

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The United States should not kid itself. It will not recover its manufacturing position from China in any foreseeable future.

According to World Bank data, in 2024 the US’s GDP of US$29.2 trillion was 60 percent larger than China’s US$18.7 trillion. But China’s manufacturing sector, worth US$4.7 trillion and representing 25 percent of the country’s GDP, was 60 percent larger than the US’s, worth US$2.9 trillion and representing 10 percent of GDP. Simply put, the economic calculus is daunting.

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The 2025 G20 Summit was held in Johannesburg on 22–23 November 2025. The United States (US) abstained from participating in the summit due to its diplomatic rift with the host, South Africa. President Xi Jinping also did not attend the summit, and Premier Li Qiang represented China. Russian President Vladimir Putin also did not participate in the summit. However, this did not dampen the spirit of the deliberations, and at the end of the summit, G20 members adopted the declaration by consensus.

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Deterring China from launching an attack on Taiwan is a central focus of U.S. and allied security planning. This planning encompasses creation and revision of military strategies, the establishment of partnerships with like-minded nations, and the gaming and simulation of conflict scenarios. Restrictive economic measures, such as sanctions, are also part of the deterrence toolkit. However, the timing, effectiveness, and desirability of these measures remain uncertain.

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As President Trump traveled to the Indo-Pacific in late October for his first summit with new Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae and the APEC Summit hosted by President Lee Jae-myung in South Korea, the U.S.

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The landmark critical minerals agreement between Australia and the United States is vital to both nations’ security and sovereignty. Like AUKUS, it is about competing with China.

But to enable it we now need also to look beyond building mines and processing. This is because the agreement signed carries an inherent vulnerability. The very partnership designed to reduce China’s coercive leverage is increasingly relying on Chinese technology to give effect to its objectives.

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Keeping the peace in the Cold War was a matter of MAD, or mutually assured destruction, with both the U.S. and Soviet Union racing to develop and amass ever more deadly weapons to keep the other at bay and maintain an uneasy status quo.

The problem, according to Benjamin Wilson, was the chief proponents of that early brand of arms control, an elite group of science advisers, “wore a progressive face” but ended up “protecting existing structures and domestic arrangements, foreclosing the possibility of more radical transformations.”

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President Donald Trump has again floated the idea of sending Americans $2,000 from tariff revenue, but a new analysis suggests the import taxes won’t bring in enough money to cover the checks.

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Fine points of the law are likely to dominate legal arguments in the case before the Supreme Court challenging the Trump administration’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose tariffs. Facts, however, matter and should play an important, even dominant, role.

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Engagement between Australia and the United States on critical minerals has matured from technical cooperation into a strategic partnership, aligning resource security with clean energy and defense priorities. Both governments recognize the urgency of diversifying supply chains as China entrenches its dominance across critical mineral extraction and processing. US policy has so far delivered strong domestic signals and backed its producers, but outcomes of its recent allied contributions remain to be seen.

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To borrow the words of my colleague, CFR Senior Fellow Heidi Crebo-Rediker, in the pages of Foreign Affairs, critical minerals today are “America’s most dangerous dependence.”

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