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Foreign Policy

  • Supreme Court strikes down tariffs

    2026-02-20

    The Supreme Court struck down U.S. President Donald Trump’s expansive and unprecedented use of Carter-era legislation to levy tariffs on the whole world. The court found that the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) does not grant the executive branch the authority to arrogate the powers of taxation from Congress.

  • Will America strike Iran?

    2026-02-20

    The U.S. has been sending aircraft carriers and support equipment to the Gulf, not expeditionary ground forces for an invasion. The United States would likely target top leaders in Iran along with the regime's repressive apparatuses. Iran could then expect more Western sanctions, which would intensify societal immiseration.

  • Four years of war in Ukraine

    2026-02-20

    The war against Ukraine has become a global geopolitical turning point, writes Andrew Kuchins. Russia is expanding production of drones and missiles while reorganizing its economy for sustained conflict, he says. Despite widespread portrayals as tiny and defenseless, the Baltic states are not passive, he writes.

  • Trump’s Tariff Fight Isn’t Over Yet

    2026-02-20

    The European Union has announced that lawmakers will convene an emergency meeting on Monday. Police reinforcements will be deployed to Lyon for this weekend’s planned rally for killed far-right activist Quentin Deranque. British police searched the home of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor on Friday.

  • Trump’s Economy, One Year Later

    2026-02-20

    Next week, U.S. President Donald Trump will deliver the first State of the Union speech of his second term. Did economists accurately predict the effects of his tariffs? Could the Trump administration's corruption impair the economy?

  • Can Europe Ever Thrive Again?

    2026-02-20

    The fate of Europe has recently turned into something of a Rorschach test for Americans. For the Trump administration and its allies, the continent represents a bastion of liberal decadence in terminal decline. For many Americans, Brussels represents the world’s last hope for steady and rules-based global leadership.

  • China’s Afghan Gold Rush Is Turning Deadly

    2026-02-20

    Chinese nationals have been increasingly targeted by militants. Five Chinese miners and workers have been killed in Tajikistan. China has tried to rein in Chinese mining operations. China will not likely directly intervene to protect their nationals' interests.

  • A Blockbuster Captures Japan’s Identity Crisis

    2026-02-20

    Kokuho is a stunning period drama set in the world of Kabuki theater, based on a 2018 novel by Shuichi Yoshida. It follows Kikuo, heir to a Nagasaki yakuza clan, who loses everything after his father’s murder. ‘Left-Handed Girl’ offers a multifaceted view of women learning to live beyond shame.

  • What a Gripping BBC Drama Gets Wrong About Tehran Prison Life

    2026-02-20

    Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British Iranian mother held hostage in Iran for six years, pushes back against the cruel mind games of her captors. At the beginning of the four-part series, she is anguished and afraid, but now her eyes flash with steely resolve. Prisoner 951 is well-acted and thoughtfully shot.

  • What Is Trump’s China Policy?

    2026-02-20

    Kurt Campbell ran Asia policy for the Biden administration and served as deputy secretary of state. He argues that Trump’s approach to China was “full of contradictions” Campbell: “We haven’t seen a chief executive in the United States that, frankly, has this much latitude to make decisions about China”

  • The ‘Discombobulator’ Arms Race Has Begun

    2026-02-20

    The White House and the Pentagon have been boasting about an exotic arsenal of directed-energy weapons. The weapons could signal a new era of lethality in warfare. They follow the success of U.S. forces on Jan. 3 in penetrating Venezuelan air defenses.

  • Epstein Links Threaten Norway’s Global Image

    2026-02-20

    Crown Princess Mette-Marit is married to Crown Prince Haakon. She met Epstein some time in 2011, three years after he was convicted of soliciting prostitution. The exchanges are mortifying for the Norwegian royal family and for Norway as a whole.

  • European-Scale Taxation, New York-Scale Dysfunction

    2026-02-20

    Zohran Mamdani ran on a promise to make New York City affordable. This week, he unveiled a budget that is, in a word, unaffordable. New York has been fiscally profligate for so long that the headline number is little shock. Fareed Zakaria: Blue cities are out of control, promising more, spending more, delivering less. He says New York does not need more soaring rhetoric. It needs more homes, he says. The city should make it easy to build abundant market-rate housing.

  • Marco Rubio’s Munich Speech Is More Dangerous Than You Think

    2026-02-20

    Peter Bergen: Rubio strained to assert the survival of a common project between Europe and the U.S. Ruben Navarrette: Rubio was wrong on almost all the particulars of his speech in Munich. Howard W. French: Trump's view that Europe should erect high barriers to immigration conveys the opposite of self-confidence.

  • In India, Lula Puts Middle-Power Diplomacy on Display

    2026-02-20

    Brazil and India are hedging against instability and great-power competition. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is leading one of the largest-ever delegations to India. Future of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement will likely not be clear until at least July.

Politico

LRT

  • Lithuania’s Micevičius to skip Paralympics opening ceremony

    2026-02-20

    Lithuanian snowboarder Rapolas Micevičius will not attend the opening ceremony of the Milan-Cortina Paralympics. He joins other athletes boycotting the event over a decision to allow Russian and Belarusian competitors to take part under their national flags. The opening ceremony is scheduled for March 6.

  • Vilnius tech firm NTLAB in legal battle with government over national security ruling

    2026-02-20

    Vilnius-based technology company NTLAB has launched a legal challenge against the Lithuanian government after being declared a threat to national security. Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania on February 11 upheld the company’s complaint, overturning a November 2025 decision by the Regional Administrative Court which had rejected the case.

  • Lithuanian MP proposes social media ban for kids under 16

    2026-02-20

    Conservative MP Daiva Ulbinaitė says 97% of minors use the internet daily. Nearly half of 13–17-year-olds check their phones constantly, she says. Under proposed law, platforms would be required to implement reliable, technology-based age-verification systems.

  • Lithuanian interior minister bans rapper Gio Pika from entering country

    2026-02-20

    Gio Pika, real name Georgy Dzhioev, will be banned from entering Lithuania until February 19, 2031. The decision follows a recommendation from the Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys and information provided by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The rapper will be added to the public blacklist on Friday.

  • Do foreign firms get a smoother ride than local businesses in Lithuania?

    2026-02-20

    Business leaders and investors say the previous government’s efforts to reduce bureaucracy have fallen short. Concerns persist that foreign investors enjoy more favourable conditions than domestic companies. Deputy Minister of the Economy and Innovation Valdemaras Urban says the aim now is to level the playing field.

  • Lithuanian military intelligence warns of hostile state recruitment on social media

    2026-02-20

    Lithuanian military intelligence warns hostile states are recruiting via social media. Recruiters offer payment in return for spreading messages that incite ethnic hatred. In one recent case, a person was asked to distribute leaflets bearing the foreign-language slogan “Vilnius is ours’.

  • LRT English Newsletter: Happy fasting

    2026-02-20

    Lithuanian Prime Minister Inga Ruginienė said she would boycott the upcoming Milan-Cortina Paralympic Games in protest of a decision to allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete under their national flags. The United States’ inconsistent messaging is also sowing divisions among Lithuanian Americans. Russian and Belarusian athletes were barred from competing under their national flags at the Olympic and Paralympic Games. However, the IOC lifted that ban this year despite the ongoing war. There are concerns that the IOC could take similar steps ahead of the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

📊 VoxEU

  • Creating high-opportunity neighbourhoods: Evidence from the HOPE VI programme

    2026-02-21

    Children raised in high-opportunity neighbourhoods are more likely to attend college and earn more as adults. The HOPE VI programme invested $17 billion between 1993 and 2010 to replace 262 high-poverty public housing developments across the US.

  • Repenser les régimes fiscaux existants pour les dons politiques et caritatifs

    2026-02-21

    Au-delà du prix fiscal lui-même, la forme des incitations fiscales a également son importance. Cette conclusion relativise la littérature sur les programmes de remboursement par rapport aux programmes d'abondement. Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Liège. Assistant Professor in Applied Microeconomics at the same university. Postdoctoral researcher at the HEC liège - School of Management.

✍ Blogs

Paul Krugman

  • IEEPA! IEEPA! IEEPA!

    2026-02-20

    The Supreme Court ruled that Donald Trump's use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act was a usurpation of taxation authority that belongs to Congress. The ruling was in fact scathing and said clearly that Trump’s use of IEEPA was a blatant violation of the Constitution. Trump announced he would immediately use another little-known legal route — Section 122 — to impose immediate 10 percent tariffs across the board.

  • The Ultra-Rich Are Different from You and Me

    2026-02-20

    On Wednesday the Wall Street Journal published an article with the headline “Billionaires’ low taxes are becoming a problem for the economy.” The article didn’t make a very compelling case for its ostensible point, that the growing concentration of wealth at the very top may lead to economic instability. On average, the ultra-rich pay a total tax rate of only 24 percent. That’s less than the average for the whole population, around 30 percent. Most of their success at tax-dodging presumably reflects tax avoidance rather than tax evasion.

Šeši Nuliai

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