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71. Anchoring Ukraine’s postwar recovery with a US-Ukraine free trade agreement

Author:
Robert Z. Lawrence
Publication Date:
03-2026
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE)
Abstract:
An FTA with the United States would help Ukraine achieve stronger investor protections, regulatory transparency, and anticorruption and dispute settlement mechanisms that anchor private investment needed to support reconstruction and sustain long-term growth. For the United States, Ukraine offers a strategically valuable production platform: a large, skilled workforce; a legacy industrial base; and significant reserves of critical minerals, metals, and agricultural inputs needed for energy transition, defense, and supply chain resilience. Passage of a US-Ukraine FTA in Congress could be controversial because it would bundle together some of the most contentious issues in US trade politics—agriculture, investor protection, government procurement, digital rules, and market access—into one high-salience vote. Policymakers could start by advancing more limited agreements as precursors to a comprehensive FTA. Accession to the European Union will be the core of Ukraine’s reconstruction strategy, implying that a US-Ukraine FTA should be designed to complement, rather than compete with, EU integration. Body Ukraine’s reconstruction is often framed as a financing challenge, but the bigger challenge is institutional: Ukraine must credibly reassure domestic and foreign investors that market-oriented rules, transparent regulation, private property protection, and contract enforcement will prevail and that its territorial integrity will be secure. A free trade agreement with the United States can help Ukraine provide this assurance.
Topic:
Economic Growth, Trade Policy, Russia-Ukraine War, and Free Trade Agreements
Political Geography:
Europe, Ukraine, North America, and United States of America

72. The America First investment pledges: How are they structured and are they realistic?

Author:
Gregory Auclair and Adnan Mazarei
Publication Date:
01-2026
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE)
Abstract:
In pursuit of President Donald J. Trump's "America First" agenda, the administration has pressured allies and partners to invest in US industrial and infrastructure projects. The White House has announced commitments by the European Union, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, several Gulf Cooperation Council countries, and others, to import specific amounts of goods and services from the United States and to make sizable investments on US soil. These agreements resulted from a more coercive US foreign policy than in the past. Because the administration is helping select the targets of foreign investment, it is embarking on a major expansion of US industrial policy—one paid for by allied countries. This Policy Brief shows that much about investment pledges, worth more than $5 trillion, remains unclear or aspirational.
Topic:
Politics, Foreign Direct Investment, Trade Policy, and America First
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

73. The COVID era inflation surge: Causes, consequences, and policy lessons

Author:
Karen Dynan and David Wilcox
Publication Date:
01-2026
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE)
Abstract:
The COVID era inflation surge was shaped by an unusual confluence of shocks and policy responses. It nonetheless raises enduring questions about the interaction of demand, supply, expectations, and policy frameworks that decision-makers are likely to confront again. In this Policy Brief, Dynan and Wilcox distill lessons from a broad body of work produced as part of the Peterson Institute for International Economics' Understanding the COVID Era Inflation project, which brought together an extensive group of experts to examine the different facets of the inflation surge. Dynan and Wilcox synthesize the group's insights to recount the origin of the surge, evaluate the key causes and consequences, discuss the limits and strengths of policy tools, and offer lessons for policymakers to deal with future undesirable increases in inflation.
Topic:
Monetary Policy, Economy, Inflation, Fiscal Policy, COVID-19, Labor Market, and Supply Chains
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

74. As US food aid retreats, can BRICS+ and biotechnology fill the world’s food security gap?

Author:
Cullen S. Hendrix
Publication Date:
01-2026
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE)
Abstract:
Cuts to agricultural development assistance and food aid by the United States and other advanced economies are creating a global vacuum just as climate change and conflict drive global hunger up. Many food-insecure developing economies with significant hunger lack the resources to self-finance agricultural research and development (R&D) and have had to depend increasingly on themselves—and one another—to meet rising food needs. Hendrix argues that the BRICS+ economies—Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, and Indonesia—are well positioned to fill the world’s food security gap.
Topic:
Agriculture, Markets, Foreign Aid, BRICS, Food Assistance, and Biotechnology
Political Geography:
North America, Global Focus, and United States of America

75. Can Trump keep his tariffs if the Supreme Court invalidates them?

Author:
Alan Wm. Wolff
Publication Date:
02-2026
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE)
Abstract:
The Trump administration’s trade team has vowed to employ alternative legal strategies to keep its high tariff wall in place if the Supreme Court invalidates President Trump’s sweeping “reciprocal tariffs” by striking down his use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose them. Wolff reviews the four possible tariff statutes that could be invoked— Sections 122, 338, 301, and 232—but they have major limitations. Each is either narrow, temporary, or specific, compared with IEEPA, and cannot be used to recreate Trump’s across-the-board tariff wall.
Topic:
Politics, Supreme Court, Tariffs, Trade Policy, and Protectionism
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

76. Shifting Grounds: Public Opinion and the Future of Trilateral Cooperation in the United States, South Korea, and Japan

Author:
Je Heon (James) Kim
Publication Date:
04-2026
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Korea Economic Institute of America (KEI)
Abstract:
The August 2023 trilateral summit at Camp David marked a historic milestone in U.S.-South Korea-Japan relations, establishing new frameworks for crisis consultation, information-sharing, military exercises, and cooperation on critical supply chains. Two years on, the durability of that achievement is being tested by a turbulent second Donald Trump administration, rising Chinese assertiveness, an entrenched North Korean nuclear program, and unresolved historical tensions between South Korea and Japan. Whether the Camp David framework endures will depend not only on the decisions of leaders but on the publics whose support sustains them. This report presents findings from comprehensive public opinion surveys conducted in the United States, South Korea, and Japan in August 2025. It examines where the three countries’ publics converge, where they diverge, and what those patterns mean for the future of trilateral cooperation.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, International Cooperation, Public Opinion, and Trilateral Relations
Political Geography:
Japan, Asia, South Korea, North America, and United States of America

77. Trilateralism Through Transition: Reflections on U.S.-South Korea-Japan Cooperation From Experts and Emerging Leaders

Author:
Korea Economic Institute of America
Publication Date:
02-2026
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Korea Economic Institute of America (KEI)
Abstract:
Two years after the Camp David summit among the United States, South Korea, and Japan institutionalized trilateral cooperation, the partnership faces new challenges amid leadership transitions in all three capitals. To assess the stakes, the Korea Economic Institute of America (KEI) and The Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation convened a public panel with Zack Cooper (CSIS), Shihoko Goto (Mansfield Foundation), and Eun A Jo (William & Mary). Drawing on insights from these experts, 15 competitively selected emerging leaders joined a private roundtable to develop blue-sky ideas for the future of trilateral cooperation. This report offers timely perspectives for the policy community on how the three partners can sustain momentum amidst uncertainty.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, International Cooperation, Partnerships, Leadership, and Trilateral Relations
Political Geography:
Japan, Asia, South Korea, North America, and United States of America

78. Promote the antidote: Reducing the risk from toxins

Author:
Bipartison Commission on Biodefense at Atlantic Council
Publication Date:
05-2026
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
While toxins occur naturally, contaminating food and feed with sometimes deadly consequences, malevolent actors have weaponized toxins for assassination and mass-casualty terror. Nation-states, terrorists, and lone actors continue to produce and weaponize these agents. The February 2026 confirmation by European governments that Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was assassinated using epibatidine (a lethal neurotoxin derived from a South American poison dart frog) underscores the twenty-first century reality of state-sponsored toxin warfare. Yet, national and international defenses remain fractionated. Efforts to address toxin threats span the agriculture, defense, law enforcement, and public health sectors, which often operate in silos. The policymaking community is not fully aware of the expansion of the threat from toxins, instead focusing on contagious biological threats arising from viruses and bacteria. Significant and systemic governmental policy gaps persist despite a clear history of accidental contamination, criminal use, and the continued development of toxins in foreign offensive biological weapons programs. The United States cannot afford to ignore these vulnerabilities. It must identify and bridge these policy gaps immediately, as any biological event involving toxins will have profound implications for national and global security.
Topic:
Security, Biodefense, Defense Technology, and Toxins
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

79. The WhatsApp World Order: Learning to Live with the New Global Political Economy

Author:
David Henig
Publication Date:
06-2026
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE)
Abstract:
An inter-connectivity and technology revolution transformed the world over the last 30 years – with AI being the latest instalment. Multiple, interlocking, instant networks now cover the world like an ever-expanding changing set of WhatsApp groups, affecting all countries and governments. Today’s trade is responsive, resilient, diverse, and above all global as a result. Modern globalisation has in turn proved resistant to the many claims of its demise. Yet clearly this is not creating a happy world. Politics has not kept pace with the changes. National control, stability, optimism and trust are as a result particularly in short supply. At a macro level, challenger economies – most notably China – are engaged in mutual suspicion with the former hegemons EU and US, not helped by issues around subsidies and access to markets. All the major powers are undermining existing global rules while simultaneously suggesting an impossible retreat into self-sufficient manufacturing as they seek to come to terms with today’s economy. They are not helped by political debate that largely misunderstands the moment. Meanwhile corporate concentration in global markets has entrenched dominant private actors who navigate diverse regulations but can undermine competitiveness and governments. Political turmoil is enhanced by demographic shifts to ageing populations, social media, and citizen dislocation in the face of intense societal change and financial insecurity. Government failure to deal with challenges they are wrongly assumed to have created is too often simply leading to a search for scapegoats. Matters may even get worse given that the major powers have weaponised trade to a degree in recent years. Many urge them to intensify planning for economic warfare. This is turning dependencies from an inevitable by-product of greater product availability to a dangerous weakness. Such approaches threaten peace and prosperity, reflecting frustration that public demand for control in an inter-connected world cannot be met. Better approaches need to be found, that start with accepting today’s technology-enabled world including a strong China and other emerging economies. Governments must recognise that adaptive institutions will be more effective than trying to second-guess complex supply chains or put in place extensive new national rule-sets, particularly given their diverse public policy objectives. They must then protect where they must, prioritise where they can including for national security, and guide the public through their choices based on the best information that they have. For Europe in particular, long-standing respect for and implementation of rules that balance societal interests is more important than protecting all old industries. Internationally, agreements among friendly countries can be helpful but will not be sufficient. What is required is all countries accepting and enhancing core trade principles which were specifically designed to prevent a 1930s style global descent into mutual suspicion. WTO rules should be modernised to reflect today’s inter-dependencies and the dangers of weaponisation, rebalancing commitments on the basis of a broad definition of reciprocity, and avoiding of concentration of supply when countries grow. This though can only happen satisfactorily when the largest powers understand the need to discipline their own behaviours. Challenges such as dealing with dominant companies and scarce raw materials will never be easily resolved. Improvements will require international cooperation similarly based on trust, and should draw upon global networks of expertise that have developed as another result of today’s inter-connected world. Economies do adjust to new circumstances. Governments must therefore stop decrying resilience as an easy but incorrect way to be seen doing something, and focus instead on rebuilding economies and societies that adjust to today’s emerging inter-connected global order.
Topic:
Globalization, European Union, Trade, Artificial Intelligence, and Connectivity
Political Geography:
China, Europe, Asia, and United States of America

80. Slipping Out of ‘Old Geopolitics’ Through TRIPP

Author:
Vasif Huseynov
Publication Date:
01-2026
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Baku Dialogues
Institution:
ADA University
Abstract:
For much of the post‑Cold War period, the South Caucasus was shaped by a distinct geopolitical logic in which unresolved conflicts functioned as instruments of external influence, connectivity was constrained, and stability was underpinned by interim security mechanisms and contested political arrangements, not by durable peace agreements. This old geopolitics did not seek resolution; it sought control. Frozen or semi‑frozen conflicts allowed external actors—above all Russia—to arbitrate outcomes, limit regional autonomy, and preserve leverage by keeping borders politically charged and economically inert. Order was produced not through integration or enforcement, but through managed ambiguity. The erosion of the old geopolitical order did not occur suddenly, nor has it unfolded uniformly across the region. It began in earnest in 2020, when Azerbaijan fundamentally altered the regional balance of power by liberating its internationally recognized territories that had been under Armenian occupation for nearly three decades. For the first time since the early 1990s, one of the central pillars of the South Caucasus’s old geopolitical order—territorial conflicts sustained by external oversight—was dismantled through local agency rather than external arbitration. This shift deepened in September 2023, when Azerbaijan brought an end to the Russia‑backed separatist entity in Karabakh, eliminating the last institutional remnant of the unresolved‑conflict paradigm in Armenia‑Azerbaijan relations. The withdrawal of Russian peacekeepers from Karabakh in May 2024 confirmed the strategic significance of this moment. This marked a turning point not only in the Armenia‑Azerbaijan conflict but in the wider regional balance of influence. Old geopolitics, however, has not disappeared entirely from the South Caucasus. The Georgia‑Russia conflict remains governed by old rules (i.e., military occupation, external veto power, and frozen political arrangements) and stands as one of the last strongholds of the former order in the region. It is against this backdrop that the qualitatively new character of the normalization process between Armenia and Azerbaijan must be understood. Freed from the constraints of frozen conflict management, the two states have increasingly prioritized peacebuilding, connectivity, and economic cooperation. This transformation reached a further milestone at the August 2025 White House summit of the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders, when the two countries reached an agreement on one of the most contested issues of the post‑war period: the Zangezur Corridor, a transport route intended to connect mainland Azerbaijan with its Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic through Armenia’s Syunik region. The corridor’s establishment was formalized under the framework of the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP), with the United States assuming a direct role in its infrastructural arrangements. By embedding regional connectivity within a U.S.‑backed infrastructural framework, the TRIPP agreement effectively shifted the role of external guarantor along the corridor through Armenian territory from Russia to the United States. The reactions of Russia and Iran to the TRIPP agreement demonstrated that the South Caucasus is not entering a post‑geopolitical era. However, developments between Armenia and Azerbaijan, together with the altered geopolitical context, indicate that the region is steadily, though slowly, moving away from the older order. The most consequential conflict in the region has been resolved, and the post‑war normalization process is increasingly managed through infrastructure, legal frameworks, and reciprocal commitments that reshape incentives on the ground. While old geopolitics persists in one part of the region (e.g., the Russia‑Georgia conflict), it no longer defines the dominant trajectory of regional order.
Topic:
Geopolitics, Normalization, and Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP)
Political Geography:
Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, South Caucasus, United States of America, and Nagorno-Karabakh