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Undated photo posted by Jack Teixeira\'s mother on Veterans Day Nov 11, 2021 on her Facebook page.
What We're Watching: Pentagon leaker suspect arrested, Gershkovich swap chatter, Uruguay’s free trade ambitions
And the suspected leaker is ...
On Thursday afternoon, the FBI arrested a suspect in the most damaging US intel leak in a decade, identifying him as Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard. Teixeira was reportedly the leader of an online gaming chat group, where he had been allegedly sharing classified files for three years. If convicted of violating the US Espionage Act, he could spend the rest of his life behind bars. Teixeira will appear in a Boston court on Friday.
We know that the chat group was made up of mostly male twentysomethings that loved guns, racist online memes, and, of course, video games. We don’t know what motivated the leaks, what other classified material the leaker had, or whether any of the docs were divulged to a foreign intelligence agency.
Arresting a suspect, though, is just the beginning of damage control for the Pentagon and the Biden administration. Although the content of the leaks surprised few within the broader intel community, many might not have realized the extent to which the US spies on its allies.
Uncle Sam obviously would’ve preferred to have intercepted the message this scandal sends to America’s enemies: US intel is not 100% secure.
Russia is maybe considering swap for Evan Gershkovich
A top Russian diplomat suggested Thursday that Moscow could explore a prisoner swap with the US in order to release American journalist Evan Gershkovich, whom Russian authorities jailed earlier this month on espionage charges.
But first, said Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, the trial against Gershkovich will have to play out in full. That could take as long as a year.
What might Russia want in exchange? Hard to say. Last year, the Kremlin swapped WNBA star Brittney Griner, convicted of a drug offense while traveling in Russia, for notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout. At the time, the Kremlin also reportedly sought the release of a Russian assassin from a German prison, but that swap broke down when the Kremlin refused to also release Paul Whelan, an American currently serving an espionage sentence in Russia.
A year from now, the world, and the Ukraine war, might look very different. But expect the Kremlin to throw the book at Gershkovich to maximize their leverage ahead of any talks about his release.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in Russia’s prison system, opposition leader Alexei Navalny — currently in solitary confinement — has suffered a fresh health crisis that his spokeswoman says is another attempt to poison him.
For context, see our recent interview with Daniel Roher, director of the Oscar-winning documentary Navalny.
Uruguay’s FTA dream
Uruguay's Foreign Minister Francisco Bustillo will soon meet with Chinese officials to take steps toward establishing a Free Trade Agreement between the two countries. Uruguay has wanted an FTA for three decades, and the timing might finally be right as China seeks to increase its influence in South America.
Getting an FTA with China has been a priority for Uruguay’s President Luis Lacalle Pou's administration. The meeting will come on the heels of trade talks between Brazil and China, countries that saw their two-way trade hit a record $171.5 billion in 2022. Uruguay wants in on the action.
China has deepened its trade relationships in Latin America throughout the 21st century, beating out the US as the region's largest trading partner. Beijing benefits politically from these partnerships, gaining votes at the UN and support for Chinese appointees to multinational institutions, as well as the ability to implement technology standards into regional infrastructure.
But not all of Uruguay's neighbors are comfortable with China's swelling influence in the region, or with Uruguay flying solo. Uruguay is facing resistance from other Mercosur countries that favor negotiating regional trade deals as a bloc. Paraguay, which still recognizes Taipei in lieu of the government in Beijing, is leading the pushback – a conflict that could test one of the bloc’s few rules: a restriction on making preferential agreements with third countries.
Ukraine & Moldova are on the path to EU membership
Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden, shares his perspective from Hostomel Airport, just outside of Kyiv.
What's going to be the impact of the EU decision to grant Ukraine and Moldova the status of candidate countries?
Well, it is a momentous decision because it opens the door for EU membership, something that quite a number of the EU member states have been reluctant to discuss previously, because they considered rightly to be such an enormous undertaking for the future, that it would be sort of too much for the European Union to be able to do in the years ahead. But now that decision will be taken, and that is something that will shape policies for quite some time to come. There's no guarantee. Things can go wrong in the meantime. Turkey is an example of that. And it's a long slog ahead to align with all of the policies and the practices of the European Union in the years ahead. Part of that has already been done with the free trade agreement, the DCFTA, that was after some controversy, to put it very mildly, signed in 2014, but now the door will be open and the road to EU membership will begin. But before that, need to say, the war that was begun here at this very spot, will have to be won. And we are very far from that as of yet.
US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi meets Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv.
What We're Watching: Pelosi in Kyiv, Indian scorcher, Modi tours Europe
Pelosi visits Ukraine — will Biden go next?
Over the weekend, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi became the highest-level US official to visit Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion. Pelosi met with President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday amid growing pressure from Kyiv for President Joe Biden to travel to the country, which Zelensky feels would be a symbolic show of US support for Ukraine. Biden has so far been non-committal, but Pelosi's trip is arguably more significant at this time, given that Biden wants the US Congress to approve $33 billion in additional aid for Ukraine. Meanwhile, a long-awaited operation was underway to evacuate 100,000 people trapped in a steel plant in Mariupol, the only part of the besieged Ukrainian port city not yet occupied by the Russians. The UN is coordinating safe passage with the Red Cross for the evacuees to reach Zaporizhzhia.
India on fire
For weeks, vast swaths of northwest India — along with parts of neighboring Bangladesh and Pakistan — have been suffering a record-breaking "heat dome" that pushed surface temperatures beyond a blistering 60 C (140 F) on Saturday. On top of putting hundreds of millions at risk of death from extreme heat and fires, the prolonged scorcher has worsened an already acute shortage of coal due to high global prices and the war in Ukraine. This is a big problem because most Indian cities rely on coal-burning plants to generate electricity, which could mean power cuts for hospitals, offices, and factories. What's more, the heatwave has forced farmers to harvest crops early, throwing a wrench into India's plans to export more wheat to make up for the shortfall in production from Russia and Ukraine. So, what'll PM Narendra Modi do about it? Keep reading ...
Modi goes to Europe
On Monday, Narendra Modi is kicking off visits to Germany, Denmark, and France, where he will meet with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron. The main agenda item? Making progress on a proposed EU-India free trade agreement, one of several FTAs that Modi wants to secure to attract foreign investment to help the Indian economy recover from the pandemic. But the elephant in the room will be India's neutrality on the Russian war in Ukraine and recent moves to buy cheap Russian oil despite sanctions – policies at odds with EU unity against Russia and long-term plans to wean the continent off Russian energy. Still, don’t expect the Europeans to put too much pressure on the Indians on such a prickly issue.
A Belarusian soldier during a shooting exercise.
What We’re Watching: War spillovers, Biden bolstering allies, Modi’s free-trade rethink, Russian defection
Ukraine war spillover
As President Joe Biden meets with EU and NATO leaders this week, they’ll be talking about how best to prevent the war in Ukraine from spilling across borders. But Russia’s President Vladimir Putin will have much to say about that, particularly as he tries to punish Ukraine’s Western backers for making the Russian military’s job in Ukraine much tougher and for waging war on Russia’s economy via sanctions. On Wednesday, Putin announced that “unfriendly countries” that want to buy Russian natural gas must pay for it in rubles. That would force Europeans hungry for Russian energy to boost Russia’s sagging currency, which would help Putin finance his war in Ukraine. There is already much behind-the-scenes discussion in Europe on how to avoid that problem.
But war spillover can move in multiple directions. In August 2020, Alexander Lukashenko secured a sixth term as president of Belarus by rigging an election. Fed-up protesters took to the streets, and a cycle of protest and repression plunged the country into turmoil until backing from Putin allowed Lukashenko to crush most dissent. Plenty of Belarusians, including tens of thousands who fled to Ukraine and other countries, would still love to send Lukashenko packing. Thanks to the Belarusian president’s willingness to allow Russia to use his country to launch attacks in Ukraine — and the possibility he would contribute troops to Russia’s effort — lots of Ukrainians want him gone too. If the war in Ukraine is fought to a stalemate, and if continuing flows of Western weapons allow Ukrainians to launch a sustainable military insurgency against Russian occupiers, it’s entirely possible that militancy will expand across the border into Belarus. That means Ukrainian and Belarusian fighters working in coordination, with arms flowing from Ukraine into Belarus. That would threaten Lukashenko’s pro-Russian government on a scale he has never faced.
Biden bolsters trade ties ahead of Europe talks
Ahead of President Joe Biden’s meetings in Europe today, the US announced a new trade accord with the UK. The deal will lift US tariffs on British steel and aluminum for “historically-based sustainable volumes,” and Brits will remove their own tariffs on American whiskey, motorcycles, and tobacco. It's the latest effort by the Biden administration to mend ties with US allies — and keep them united with Washington against Russia — by scrapping tariffs imposed by former President Donald Trump (although Canada still resents Biden-approved American subsidies for electric vehicles under the USMCA). The agreement will require UK steel companies that want to export to the US to audit possible influence by China and share their findings with American authorities. Why? To prevent cheap Chinese steel — which remains under Trump-era US tariffs that Biden has kept in place — from finding a backdoor into the American market without paying duties.
Modi’s trade policy U-turn
In another trade policy shift, India’s famously protectionist PM Narendra Modi has been quietly rekindling talks to sign free trade agreements with a handful of countries. After inking an FTA with the United Arab Emirates last month, Modi is now set to sign another trade deal with Australia in the coming weeks. Similar talks are in the pipeline with Canada, Israel, the UK, and the EU at a time when India is eager to attract foreign investment to help the economy recover from the pandemic. But India remains reticent to join big regional trade accords, such as the RCEP — mainly because it includes rival China — or the revamped TPP, which China also wants to join. Also, Modi will be wary of any trade negotiations that could hurt Indian agriculture — even more so after caving last year to widespread protests by repealing laws aimed at liberalizing the farming sector. Upshot: Modi is no longer as protectionist as he was when he came into office, but don't expect him to turn into a born-again free-trader.
What We’re Ignoring: Russia’s first elite defection
Anatoly Chubais was once one of the most powerful men in Russia. In the 1990s, he was a principal architect of the country’s post-Soviet transition to capitalism, with all the opportunity, chaos, wealth, and resentment it entailed. On Wednesday, Chubais, who was most recently serving as Vladimir Putin’s special envoy for “sustainability,” fled the country because of his opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Observers have rightly pointed out that Chubais is the highest-ranking official to defect over the war so far. But it’s not quite as big a deal as it seems. Chubais is part of an economy-minded, technocratic wing of the Russian elite that has almost zero influence over Putin’s war and peace decisions. So his departure will hardly alter the Kremlin’s calculus about Ukraine — that would only happen if people with epaulettes, judo uniforms, or telltale brooches start heading for the border. That said, Chubais’ fate will be watched closely by one group of people: others in Russia who may be considering defection and who want to see how he’s treated abroad. Will he be welcomed as a defector, or ostracized for having served Putin for so long?The Graphic Truth: Bracing for Brexit
The UK has benefited from EU trade pacts with more than 70 countries. But if Britain can't reach agreement with the EU on a new trade deal before it formally leaves the EU on January 1, it could lose its preferential access to those markets. In preparation for such a scenario, the UK has signed dozens of new trade agreements, allowing countries to boost trade with the UK even after its departure from the European Union is finalized. It has also tried to prepare ground for a trade deal with the US, a process that's become more difficult with the election of Joe Biden. Here's a look at which countries and blocs have signed deals with the UK and the total value of each trade relationship.
Asean leaders to sign China-backed RCEP trade deal amid US election uncertainty
The deal will be signed amidst doubts about the US's engagement in the region.