Text of Interview: Secretary of State Marco Rubio with Hashem Ahelbarra of Al Jazeera

 

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 On 30 March 2026 Secretary of State was interviewed by Al Jazeera's Hashem Ahelbarra: Secretary of State Marco Rubio with Hashem Ahelbarra of Al Jazeera, the full text of which follows below. Al Jazeera's website describes Mr. Ahelbarra this way:

"Hashem Ahelbarra is a roving Middle East correspondent for Al Jazeera English. He regularly reports from Afghanistan, Yemen and across the Gulf region. Hashem has covered many of the biggest international news stories in recent years and secured exclusive interviews with many of the major names in world news, including late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Afghan president Hamid Karzai and former Liberian president Charles Taylor."

The interview provided an opportunity to meet with a representative of a press organ that  does not have a reputation for uncritical coverage of the Trump Administration, and which projects in important ways into the MENA regions in ways that Western legacy press organs and their instruments cannot do with the same trustworthiness. The transcript of that interview was also projected (in English and Chinese) into China through the US Embassy in Beijing. The English version was complete; the Chinese version was curated to foreground very specific elements of that interview  (马尔科·卢比奥国务卿接受半岛电视台哈希姆·阿赫勒巴拉的采访[摘译] focusing on the Straits of Hormuz, NATO and the possible widening of operations by regional actors within the affected MENA region). The Chinese transcript also follows below. 

 The interview is interesting not just for its focus on the operations against Iran, but also on the nature of the US Israel joint operations (and their relative coordinated autonomy, and the situation in Venezuela and Cuba. Of particular interest ought to be the very very careful language about NATO and its future.

QUESTION:  Do you believe the EU and NATO countries betrayed the U.S. at this crucial moment?

SECRETARY RUBIO:  I think it was very disappointing.  You have this – and again, look, the President and our country will have to reexamine all of this after this operation is over.  But one of the reasons why NATO is beneficial to the United States is it gives us basing rights for contingencies.  It allows us to station troops and aircraft and weapons in parts of the world that we wouldn’t normally have bases, and that includes in much of Europe.  And to see that in a time of need – the United States has identified a grave risk to our national security and our national interest, and we needed to conduct this operation, and we have countries like Spain, a NATO member that we are pledged to defend, denying us the use of their airspace and bragging about it, denying us the use of our – of their bases.  And there are other countries that have done that as well. 

And so you ask yourself, “Well, what is in it for the United States?”  And I’ve been a big supporter of NATO and one of the reasons why I’ve been a supporter of NATO is because I believe that these basing rights give us leverage and give us flexibility in operational capability all over the world.  But if NATO is just about us defending Europe if they’re attacked but then denying us basing rights when we need them, that’s not a very good arrangement.  That’s a hard one to stay engaged in and say this is good for the United States.  So all of that is going to have to be reexamined.  All of it’s going to have to be reexamined.

  

段 威 善于通过科学立法解决新问题 [Duan Wei Adeptly Resolving New Issues By Means of Scientific Legislation]

 

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Duan Wei (段 威), Dean and Professor, School of Law, Minzu University of China [中央民族大学法学院院长、教授] has published an interesting essay in  Qiushi [《求是》], Issue 4, 2026. It is entitled 善于通过科学立法解决新问题 [ Adeptly Resolving New Issues By Means of Scientific Legislation]. It is a reminder that the spirit of the 3rd Plenum's development and refinement of the concept of socialist modernization in the New Era of China's historical development has permeated deeply into virtually all aspects of institutional and collective life. That spirit focuses modernization on innovation and high quality production. Though its central focus may be in economic production, it is clear that the spirit of innovation and high quality production is meant to touch on all aspects of collective activity--including the production of legislation. 

To that end, Dean Duan Wei  invokes the concept of 通过科学 (scientific legislation). This is a term that is meant to convey both the spirit of innovation and the high quality production of legislative products to serve their highest purposes--to resolve new issues and in that way effectively contribute to the overall efforts of the nation  toward all around scientific modernization. That, in turn, may help reshape the notion and character of law making, and certainly its crafting--away from politics (the core function of the vanguard Communist Party rather than the legislative organs that are meant to realize or operationalize political decisions conforming to the fundamental political line). This focus on  通过科学 (scientific legislation), then, refocuses legislation from an autonomous activity to one deeply interconnected with all other aspects of socialist modernization, and an important element to ensure its appropriate fulfillment through a facilitating cage of regulation. 

Law, in this sense, assumes its fundamental character as a factor in the production of modernization. In that sense it is both an object and the closing of process that is meant to be efficient wile conforming to the normative parameters within value is assessed and understood. This shows up in four ways in the essay. The first is with respect to the inventory of legislation: "Through scientific legislation, we can resolve the thorny issues inherent in reform. We must uphold the dialectical unity of "breaking" and "establishing": actively and proactively enacting laws where needed, while—on the basis of established laws—timely dismantling outdated provisions where necessary." [通过科学立法破解改革难题。坚持破与立的辩证统一，该立的积极主动立起来，该破的在立的基础上及时破，在破立统一中推动实现改革发展蹄疾步稳。]. This invokes the ancient spirit of Guiguzi's (鬼谷子) rhetoric.

The second shows up as an interconnection between the Chinese Five Year plans (especially that of the 2025 4th Plenum) and its legislative architecture. In that sense  scientific legislation is meant as a means for aligning legislative projects with the general or principal contradiction of the New Era-- The contradiction between the people's growing needs for a better life and the unbalanced and inadequate development [人民日益增长的美好生活需要和不平衡不充分的发展之间的矛盾]."Through scientific legislation, we can resolve the "bottlenecks" and "chokepoints" hindering high-quality development. Currently, issues such as local protectionism and market fragmentation, "involuted" competition, and disparities in the business environment have emerged as pressing challenges that demand immediate attention." [通过科学立法解决高质量发展的堵点卡点问题。当前，地方保护和市场分割、“内卷式”竞争、营商环境存在差距等，已成为亟须回应的难题。].

The third aligns scientific legislation with the mass line. 群众路线是党的根本路线，这是由我们党的全心全意为人民服务的宗旨所决定的。["The Mass Line is the Party's fundamental guiding principle—a truth dictated by our Party's core purpose: to serve the people wholeheartedly. "]. "Through scientifically grounded legislation, we can effectively respond to the evolving demands of the public. By maintaining a problem-oriented and goal-oriented approach, we can drive the legislative process to extend from the macro level down to the micro level, thereby addressing the public's specific concerns with precision." [通过科学立法回应人民群众新诉求。坚持问题导向、目标导向，推动立法从宏观向微观延伸，精准回应群众关切。例如，针对医疗服务、养老服务、噪声污染防治等具体问题，通过“小切口”立法，精细化解决群众的实际困扰。]

The fourth is manifested in the utilization of law in ways that aligns with socialist development projected abroad. In that sense it is the production and deployment of objects and expectations that align with the  four main pillars of the overall policy initiative to fashion a "community with a shared future for mankind" [人类命运共同体]—Global Development (GDI), Security (GSI), Civilization (GCI), and Governance (GGI). "We will accelerate the development of a legal system applicable extraterritorially, clearly defining its scope, conditions, procedures, and enforcement mechanisms, to ensure that our law enforcement and judicial authorities have a legal basis upon which to act when addressing issues such as cross-border torts, economic and trade disputes, national security, and the protection of overseas interests," [加快推进域外适用的法律体系建设，明确适用的范围、条件、程序和实施机制，使我国执法司法机关在处理跨境侵权、经贸摩擦、国家安全、海外利益保护等问题时有法可依。]. It is this last one that will likely interest foreigners most bit it is also the manifestation that is least comprehensible without a deeper understanding of the first three.

通过科学 (scientific legislation), then, serves as an important signifier, connecting the production of legislation--as object, process, and manifestation of the fundamental line as elaborated in the 3rd and 4th Plenum of the 20th Congress--to socialist modernization, and with that to the fundamental task of Party of State in moving in the right direction along the Socialist Path.   Or, reversing the polarities of that last statement: the 3rd and 4th Plenum objectives will be signified through the intertwining of action and its cage of regulation, to those ends  the concept of  通过科学 (scientific legislation) signifies both. The full text of the essay ion the original Chinese and in an English translation follows below.  

 

Pix credit here (1976; "With Class Struggle as the Key Link, Set Off a New High Tide in Revolutionary Production)

President Trump's Civil War Messaging for Contemporary Battles: "America 250: Presidential Message on the Anniversary of the Surrender at Appomattox"

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 Commemorations of past events sometimes tell one more about the present than the past.  That is certainly evident in recent messages from President Trump. One of the President's key policy and discursive focus is on peace: peace through strength, negotiated peace, peace as a cessation of hostilities, and peace as a transactional device necessary to build ether relationships or solidarity r just a platform for engagement (economic, social, cultural or political). On 9 April, and as part of the America at 250 campaign, the President circulated America 250: Presidential Message on the Anniversary of the Surrender at Appomattox. 

Key themes are well worn--the preservation of the Union, even at the price of war; and the possibility of solidarity in the aftermath of conflict. Perhaps its key text was this:

General Grant understood that rebuilding a united America depended on the terms of surrender. Rather than demanding harsh punishment for General Lee’s men, he offered a unifying message: “The war is over. The Rebels are our countrymen again.” At last, the war-torn Union began the course for reconstruction and the path to fulfilling the founding principles that first breathed life into our Republic 250 years ago. To this day, the surrender at Appomattox stands as an enduring testament to the resilience of a divided Nation, the strength and resolve of the American people, and the sacred ideals at the heart of our national identity. Today, we recommit to the eternal truth that the United States of America is blessed from on high; bound together by justice; and was, is, and will forever be one Nation under God. (Ibid.) 

Its key elements are meant to be (1) "strength and resolve" (of the people, their national identity as a paramount force, (2) as its expression as justice, and (3)  exogenously tied to religious principle frame the core of the Trump Administration's discursive (re)construction of the Republic. It is a reconstruction aligned with the core element of the present fundamental political line the return to the American golden age (the US version of the Chinese great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation" (实现中华民族伟大复兴的中国梦)) in the current era of historical development. It is one that can be achieved from out the the most violent fracture and assumes that what was ripped apart can be put together where solidarity is privileged over retribution.

But it has another element, one that the President brought out about a year earlier in another Memorandum:  Presidential Message on the 162nd Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. There the message was also clear--it is necessary to assert strength to bring the opponent to the negotiating table--not to obliterate them, but to draw them to a realistic negotiation of peace in the then current circumstances of the parties. "Emboldened by a string of recent Confederate victories, General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia launched an invasion of the North with a set of clear goals: push the fighting from war-torn Virginia past the Mason-Dixon line, defeat the Union troops on their own soil, and force President Abraham Lincoln into peace negotiations." Indeed, that was what both sides sought through strength and resolve. It was not that the strategy was bad; indeed the opposite was true. It was an excellent strategy--unless you lose. In that case one will come to the negotiating table, but with little to negotiate but surrender. Thus both the strategy and its caution--something that ought to be kept in mind in the context of the current conflict between US/Israel and Iran/allies/proxies. Having committed to peace through strength and resolve, it is something of a disaster to lose either one's resolve or to fail to assert strength fully--where the4 object is the negotiating table and peace. That will determine the role of the parties in  the "Appomattox" turn at the end of the US-Iranian conflict.

The full text of the Message follows.

 

CfP and Brief Reflections: "Repositioning Criminal Justice: Critical Reimaginings"

 

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The ancient contests over the goals and methods of criminal justice remains as contested as ever (see, e.g, here). The traditional binary--criminal justice as punitive and as rehabilitative has been enriched by  its ingestion of theory: natural law, critical theoretics, and identity lens (gender, race, nationality, ethnicity), over which frameworks grounded in battles over the meaning and character of foundational ordering principles (justice, privilege, bias, etc.) have added not just nuance to the micro-issue (justice and the individual) but also macro-issues (the structure and power relationships within social an political collectives through a variety of cognitive bases (gender, race, migratory status, etc.), to seek to "reposition" criminal justice, then, requires a deeper engagement in the now complex theoretical and functional (on the ground realities) foundations and structures that infuse debates around shifting from punitive, incarceration-focused models to systems prioritizing community investment, safety, and equity--and vice versa. The further complication, of course is that each of these terms are historically contingent, contextually variable, and the product of values based signification that produces states of discourse in which words  are invested with different meanings, values, and locations in normative systems that measure meaning against their own yardsticks. 

At one position in the spectrum, one might encounter critical reforms that can include abolishing cash bail, reducing pretrial detention, implementing restorative justice, and investing in community resources like mental health services. This approach is conceptualized within cognitive cages that start with the assumption of corrupting forces (race, gender, ethnicity, class (though this one tends to draw far more anemic interest), religion and the like) that embed apparently neutral systems with bias that must be systematically confronted and dismantled. In that context criminal reform is consequential rather than primary--the evidence if dismantling which remains the primary general object. The discourse tends to revolve around its effects in carcereal ecologies: mass incarceration, transitioning towards a system that supports rehabilitation, reentry, and addressing the root causes of crime. At the opposite end of the spectrum one might encounter criminal reforms that are grounded in the moral virtues of punishment and of the protection of society against the systemicity  of abuses of process and the moral force of the criminal law to effectively serve the collective. Rather than hold society accountable for incarceration, this lens inverts the analysis, starting from the premise that public safety ought to be foregrounded and that individuals ought to be held accountable for their behavior--especially those which the society, through law, has sought to suppress. The focus is on social stability and the avoidance of chaos. On the ground these are manifested in the obsession with crime statistics but from an perspective that may be the opposite (or at least discursively incomprehensible or anathema) to those applying a critical lens: public safety in criminal reform focusing on upholding justice, deterrence of future crimes, and ensuring incapacitation of dangerous individuals (as judged by society through its laws). Collective equality tends to be its driver in functional terms--proportional sentencing (with furious debate over and against what one measures proportionality), the value of incarceration as a tool for enhancing collective public safety through incarceration, and the moral value of a public facing (and internalized) embrace of retributive principles. While critical approaches focus on reforming systems (that are corrupted), moral/justice approaches focus on reforming or punishing the individual (who is corrupted). Depending on the starting point, then, the elaboration of analysis, judgment and proposals for assessment and reform will necessarily take very different pathways. 

It is with that in mind that I am delighted pleased to share a call for papers for an upcoming edited collection, Repositioning Criminal Justice: Critical Reimaginings.

This collection explores how criminal justice systems construct and respond to gender—particularly the ways women are othered, criminalised, and shaped by legal and institutional frameworks. We welcome contributions that engage critically with gendered issues in criminal justice from a range of theoretical perspectives, including (but not limited to) Marxist, post/decolonial, socio-legal, critical race, psychoanalytic, and critical legal studies approaches .

Submission details:Abstract (150–200 words) due: 15 May 2026
Full chapter (8,000–9,000 words) due: 26 February 2027

If you are interested in contributing, please send a draft title, abstract, and affiliation to m.beatrice@deakin.edu.au.

CfP follows below. 

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Collaboration in Partnership with the African Telecommunications Union: Africa Technology Policy Tracker

 

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The  Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Collaboration in Partnership with the African Telecommunications Union have created the Africa Technology Policy Tracker.  This is described as the "first ever continent-wide aggregate of digital economy laws, policies and regulations in Africa" (here).

AfTech is a research and policy tool that advances evidence-based policymaking in Africa’s rapidly evolving digital economy by providing a one-stop repository of national and continental technology frameworks. By cataloging policies across key pillars like digital infrastructure, platforms, skills, and innovation, AfTech makes it easy to explore, compare, and analyze policy actions shaping the continent’s digital future. AfTech offers valuable insights into the diverse approaches countries are taking toward digital governance. Our aim is to enhance visibility on the burgeoning digital policy environment in Africa and for AfTech to become an essential resource that informs decisionmaking, fosters cross-border collaboration, and helps guide the continent toward a more integrated and resilient digital economy. (here).

The focus is on development. This aligns both with the Chinese focus on socialist modernization with atonality characteristics organized around its global programs (the genesis of which was the Belt & Road Initiative) and the America First focus on development through bilateral transactions in markets that expand both production and capacity n home and host states. 

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 The spreadsheet of laws and regulations may be download HERE. 

Jane Munga has also prepared an accompanying policy brief: Africa’s Digital Infrastructure Imperative. The Introduction and "Key Takeaways" follows below.

Changing the Narrative Parameters of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Projects Through Government Procurement, President Trump Issues Executive Order: "Addressing DEI Discrimination by Federal Contractors"

 

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President Trump campaigned against, and made good on that campaign theme very early in his 2nd Administration by issuing his executive order,  Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity (Executive Order 14173 of January 21, 2025; 90 FR 8633). It was grounded in a counter-narrative of discrimination and restorative programs designed, one would hope in all cases, to enhance  solidarity among all people in a political community wit respect, at least, to engagement, opportunity, and public spaces. It was one that saw in the evolution of the narratives of solidarity with origins in the 20th century (in contemporary form) a wrong turn that required correction. 

Longstanding Federal civil-rights laws protect individual Americans from discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. These civil-rights protections serve as a bedrock supporting equality of opportunity for all Americans. As President, I have a solemn duty to ensure that these laws are enforced for the benefit of all Americans. Yet today, roughly 60 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, critical and influential institutions of American society, including the Federal Government, major corporations, financial institutions, the medical industry, large commercial airlines, law enforcement agencies, and institutions of higher education have adopted and actively use dangerous, demeaning, and immoral race- and sex-based preferences under the guise of so-called “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) or “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility” (DEIA) that can violate the civil-rights laws of this Nation. Illegal DEI and DEIA policies not only violate the text and spirit of our longstanding Federal civil-rights laws, they also undermine our national unity,* * * (90 FR 8633 §1)

This counter narrative was viewed as a threat, actually an offensive anathema, and a fundamental betrayal by those invested in the orthodox narrative. It still is. But the holders of that counter narrative, for the first time in a long time, are no longer in power. And the power of narrative is, at least within the political society of this Republic, to some extent a function of popular will expressed, as this society has determined to be best and most in accord with its norms, traditions, and expectations, through elections. Yet even that is no longer entirely true--narrative and its compulsory effect on law and expectation is now as much a creature of the hermeneutics of the courts as it is a creature of the exercise of discretionary choices by elected and representative officials. None of this is either good or bad as such; nonetheless it does illustrate the power and passion of the concept of DEI and the contests over its meaning by those with the power to influence and manage communal meaning making and the constructs of pathways to decisions and structures built on those meanings. 

The object of that Executive Order was meant to start the process of detaching the practices of the State from the operationalization of DEI within its structures and from policy initiatives that were meant to project those structures  outward to the social sphere. But mostly it continued a conversation better known for its heat and the rigidity of positions (as well as for the social and economic consequences of taking sides, or failing to do so) than for engagement and discourse. 

Still, there is nothing like policy to spice up conversations o of this kind.  That insight, drawn as much from the action of the Biden Administration as the Trump Administration (though to different ends), has now produced an addition to the 2025 EO,  "Addressing DEI Discrimination by Federal Contractors" on targeting more specifically the federal procurement process.  

 My Administration has made significant progress in ending racial discrimination in American society, including so-called “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) activities in which employees, applicants, or contracting parties are treated differently, separated, or singled out based on their race or ethnicity, rather than treated equally and objectively based on their merit and without regard to their immutable characteristics. Despite this progress, some entities continue to engage in DEI activities and often attempt to conceal their efforts to do so. * * * DEI activities also create unnecessary costs by reducing the pool of available labor by artificially limiting companies to hiring or promoting certain individuals, suppliers, or intermediaries based on their race or ethnicity. These costs are inevitably passed on to the Federal Government when it contracts with companies who engage in racially discriminatory DEI activities, or who use subcontractors who do so. ("Addressing DEI Discrimination by Federal Contractors" §1)

The tonic for this trouble, as the DEI narrative has it, requires the same medicine as the Biden Administration administered, though in the opposite direction--compliance and administrative oversight built into procurement contracts ("Addressing DEI Discrimination by Federal Contractors" §3). This one has teeth: Section 4 provides that "Contracting agencies shall: (i)   cancel, terminate, suspend, or cause to be cancelled, terminated, or suspended, any contract or contract-like instrument, or any portion or portions thereof, for failure of the contractor or subcontractor to comply with the clause described in section 3 of this order* * *. For a useful discussion of both EO's see HERE. 

This contest of cognitive structures around social and collective equity is far form over. It is clear, though, that neither side can take for granted the orthodoxy of their position, and both have work to do to embed their on the national collective--at least as a matter of official cognitive frameworks. 

The text of the Executive Orders follows.

 

Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) Event: "Dark Nets, Illicit Labor—Confronting China’s IUU Fishing and Seafood Supply Chain"

 

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 The Congressional-Executive Commission on China was created by the U.S. Congress in 2000 "with the legislative mandate to monitor human rights and the development of the rule of law in China, and to submit an annual report to the President and the Congress. The Commission consists of nine Senators, nine Members of the House of Representatives, and five senior Administration officials appointed by the President." (CECC About). The CECC FAQs provide useful information about the CECC. See CECC Frequently Asked Questions. They have developed positions on a number of issues.

CECC tends to serve as an excellent barometer of the thinking of political and academic elites in the United States about issues touching on China and the official American line developed in connection with those issues. As such it is an important source of information about the way official and academic sectors think about China. As one can imagine many of the positions of the CECC are critical of current Chinese policies and institutions (for some analysis see CECC).

CECC periodically organizes events that are meant to foreground issues and relationship areas with China that are of greater importance. To those ends, CECC has announced a hearing on fishing dual purpose fishing fleets and their projection of  the power of resource exploitation in and around the territorial waters of foreign states. It is entitled:  "Dark Nets, Illicit Labor—Confronting China’s IUU Fishing and Seafood Supply Chain." It is particularly interesting for the way ion which the hearing is meant to suggest fishing as a point of intersection of environmental, sovereignty, and human rights issuers. It is also meant to spotlight the way that the US will respond under the policy premises of America First. CECC has described the hearing this way:

Thursday, April 16, 2026 10:00 am
562 Dirksen Senate Office Building

Event Type: Hearing

The PRC has expanded its use of subsidized and aggressive illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing practices, threatening maritime security globally, distorting seafood markets, harming U.S. economic interests, and enabling serious human rights abuses in the seafood supply chain. This hearing will examine the economic, human rights, and strategic implications of the Chinese Communist Party’s role in IUU fishing and illicit labor in the seafood sector, including the use of Uyghur and North Korean forced labor in processing facilities and on distant-water fishing vessels.

This hearing will focus on (1) use of forced labor in China’s fishing fleets and the enforcement of existing laws on forced labor imports and Withhold Release Orders targeting those fleets; (2) the strategic and economic implications of the PRC’s IUU fishing practices and the current U.S. response; (3) U.S. efforts to support allies and partners in combating IUU fishing and strengthening enforcement on the high seas, and (4) the transfer and exploitation of Uyghur and North Korean labor in China-based seafood production and on PRC-linked fishing vessels. The hearing will also explore policy options to strengthen U.S. enforcement capacity, protect American markets from illegal seafood, and advance bipartisan legislative initiatives such as the FISH Act.

The hearing will be livestreamed on the CECC’s YouTube channel. Witnesses:

Ian Urbina, Director and Founder of The Outlaw Ocean Project; RADM Scott Clendenin (Ret), Owner, Dog Zebra Solutions, LLC.

For those unable to attend, the hearing will be livestreamed via the CECC’s YouTube Channel.

Pix Credit The Guardian

 

Posting Discussion Draft: "The Conceptual Architecture of America First—Ideological Transactionalism and the Case of Cuba"

 

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But here’s what this really means. It means that like millions and millions of Americans, President Trump loves this country and wants to see it do well in the world – not at the expense of others, but to the benefit of our people, and by extension, the nations that share our values and our strategic goals. It’s really that simple. If there is a natural law of foreign policy, this is it. And while he wishes every country enjoyed the freedoms we enjoy here, he has no aspiration to use force to spread the American model. You can see it in the administration’s record of its using force. I can prove it to you. And so – and so importantly − he believes America is exceptional – a place and history apart from normal human experience, the ones that our Founders spoke about. President Trump believes it is right – indeed more than right – for America to unashamedly advance policy that serves our interests and reflects American ideals. (Applause.) Certainly, our course of action in this administration reflects a gut-level – a gut-level – for love of country. But taking the pursuit of America’s interests up a notch is not just honorable; it’s urgent in this new era of great power competition. (Michael P. Pompeo, "A Foreign Policy From the Founding," Speech delivered at the Claremont Institute 40th Anniversary Gala , Beverly Wilshire Hotel, Beverly Hills, California, May 11, 2019)

I am happy to share with those interested the roughed out discussion draft of an article: The Conceptual Architecture of America First—Ideological Transactionalism and the Case of Cuba. The question considered goes to the ordering premises within which it is possible to rationalize and order our social and political systems--something that had been more or less stable since the middle of the last century:

How does one reboot the now traditional discursive tropes of sovereignty and the state system, one deeply embedded in the culture of States and memorialized initially in the Montevideo Convention of 1933, and one grounded in the protection of the internal affairs by states by others, sovereign equality, territorial integrity, and self-determination; how does one engage in this sort of reboot in a context where the discursive tropes of sovereignty, have been dissipated by globalization--everyone, multinational enterprises (economic and societal, Apple Inc., and Amnesty Int'l), perhaps now have varying "rights" to auto-determination, if not territory; how does one do that rebooting where those old discursive tropes may now be perhaps dispositively displaced by the discourse of the transformation of the ordering premises of the global from one foregrounding institutions, management, and bureaucratic ordering within hierarchically arranged systems, to one embedded within an ethos of transactional discourse and the values that discourse represents?

These are, indeed, a longish set of questions. They are perhaps also better understood as a challenge (for states and others) as the primary contradiction of international relations shifts from one grounded in the perfection of States, their system and their language/values (through Rule of Law infused tropes, to one in which merchants rather than bureaucrats might be more comfortable. It is made more difficult because even the old terms acquire ambiguity in the contemporary Cuban context (auto-determination including the Cuban diaspora?; for example).

Here is the abstract:

Since 2016 the conceptual basis of the foreign relations architecture of the United States has experienced a profound dialectic. On the one side is the contemporary product of a long evolution of conceptual premises that are grounded in the orienting conception of an institutional state overseen by an expert techno bureaucracy in the service of institutions around which political, economic, social, and cultural life is organized both domestically and in relations with other similarly organized institutions in the public and private sphere. This had produced both the deeply institutionally integrated systems of international organizations and of economic globalization around which the rules based legal order operated. On the other side were forces of opposition to this vision that emerged in a dominant form with the election of President Trump in 2016 and again in 2024. This oppositional vision was grounded in a rejection of centering the organization of collective life around and through institutions. It did not reject institutions as such; it sought to refocus the driving force of social organization from institutions to the transactions that with respect to which institutions and other actors. While this possible cognitive shift appears at first blush to be one of emphasis, its consequences can be significant. This essay has two objectives. The first is to sketch out the current framework of conceptual transactionalism around which America First is evolving. The second is to consider its application in the case of the Cuban crisis of 2026.

       

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CONTENTS:

 

I. Introduction: Situating Cuba and the Caribbean Within America First

 

2. The Cognitive and Analytical Age that is America First.

A. Cognitive Typologies Need Archetypes: The "Merchant" (商) and the "Bureaucrat" (士)

B. The Primary Sources

                  i. National Security Strategy of the United States for 2025 (November 2025) [NSS 2025].

                  ii. U.S. Department of State Agency Strategic Plan Fiscal Years 2026-2030 (January 2026)

                  iii. The 2026 National Defense Strategy

                  iv. Remarks of Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the Munich Security Conference.

C. The Parameters of Perception, Analysis and Policy.

i. Donald Trump, Presidential Memorandum: Withdrawing the United States from International Organizations.

ii. Marco Rubio, 100 Days of an America First State Department.

3. The Merchant/Transactional Approach to the problem of Cuba in 2026.

A. Prelude: The Merchant/Transactional Approach to the Cuban Problem Projected Back into History

B. The Template: Venezuela 2026.

C. Cuba Within the Transactional Institutional Lens.

 

4. Conclusions.

 The discussion draft may be accessed HERE: America_First_Cuba_Transition_2026.

The Introduction and Conclusion follow below. 

Pix credit here

 

Online Event: “To Dare Mighty Things: The U.S. Restless Defense Strategy Then and Now" Dr. Michael O'Hanlon in conversation with Dr. Klaus Larres

 

  Dr Klaus Larres, Richard M Krasno Distinguished Professor of History & International Affairs at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill, USA, and the Director of the Krasno Global Affairs & Business Council/Krasno Global Events Series has announced another in its Krasno Global Events Series at UNC-Chapel Hill. This time the event is organized as a conversation with Dr. Michael O'Hanlon, a foreign and defence policy expert from the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. It is scheduled to take place 9 April 2026 and is sure to be of interest to some. 

It is an online event only. 

 ZOOM LINK: https://zoom.us/j/98072415115 (no registration or RSVP necessary)

The topic of the conversation is "“To Dare Mighty Things: The U.S. Restless Defense Strategy Then and Now" and is crafted around his book, “To Dare Mighty Things: U.S. Defense Strategy Since the Revolution” which is scheduled for release on the 250th anniversary of the founding of the Republic. 

My own take on the current NDS strategy may be accessed here (Fleshing Out the America First Framework as Peace Through Strength Projections: Brief Reflections on the 2026 National Defense Strategy (US Department of War January 2026)); thoughts on the current NDS as an integral part of the America First project may be accessed here (The Conceptual Architecture of America First—Ideological Transactionalism and the Case of Cuba (discussion draft)).  

More information follows below.  

OMFIF Conference: The Americas transition finance summit

The Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF) is now circulating its quite interesting notice of  an upcoming event: The Americas transition finance summit. The Press Release described it like this:

2026 may prove to be a pivotal year for transition finance. As we approach 2030, it is clear that countries around the world must step up their commitments to limiting the impacts of climate change. The Americas transition finance summit, hosted by OMFIF and Bolsa Institucional de Valores, is a platform for advancing credible, investable pathways to net zero.  Taking place in Mexico City, the summit convenes leaders from asset management, private equity, public development banks, ministries of finance, central banks and corporatations from across the Americas to share expertise and find solutions to the challenges of the green transition. Through a series of panel discussions and keynote addresses, the summit examines the mindset of investors as they look for diversification, risk management considerations, policy and market architecture, and successful transition finance case studies in the region.

Registration may be accessed HERE.