You’re reading the web version of Foreign Exchanges. If you’d like to get it delivered straight to your inbox, sign up today:
TODAY IN HISTORY
April 23, 1817: Under their leader Miloš Obrenović, a group of Serbian rebels in the village of Takovo declare independence from the Ottoman Empire, setting off the Second Serbian Uprising. After a conflict that lasted until late July 1817, the rebels were able to win de facto independence from the Ottomans, who recognized their autonomous state as the “Principality of Serbia.” The Serbs finally gained full independence at the Congress of Berlin in 1878.
April 23, 1985: In what is considered one of the most catastrophically bad business decisions of all time, the Coca-Cola Company introduces a new formula for its flagship beverage. Although the new formula had outperformed the old one in taste tests, the move was so overwhelmingly unpopular that the company revived the old formula a mere three months later, first as “Coca-Cola Classic” and later, after it had phased out the new formula, as just “Coca-Cola” again. The switch seemed so baffling that it spawned a plethora of conspiracy theories, ranging from a ploy to boost sales to a cover story to disguise changes in the original formula (a switch from sugar to high fructose corn syrup and/or the removal of its remaining coca elements).
MIDDLE EAST
LEBANON
Israeli and Lebanese emissaries held their second round of direct talks in Washington on Thursday, this time including an in-person appearance by Donald Trump himself. They must have been so excited. Afterward Trump announced that they had agreed to extend the ten day ceasefire that went into effect last Friday for at least another three weeks. He suggested via social media that he could host a meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun soon, perhaps within that three week window. At the very least these negotiations should begin to shift from preliminary to substantive, with a particular focus on convincing the Lebanese government to join Israel’s war against Hezbollah.
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
The Israeli military (IDF) killed at least four people in two airstrikes in Gaza on Thursday. Israeli officials claimed that one of the attacks, which killed one person and wounded several others in Khan Younis, targeted a group of “militants” but have said nothing about the other strike, which killed at least three people in the Maghazi displaced persons area. In the West Bank, meanwhile, IDF soldiers shot and killed a 15 year old during a raid in the city of Nablus.
KUWAIT
Kuwaiti authorities have released journalist Ahmed Shihab-Eldin after 52 days in detention for reporting on the war. He’d been arrested for “spreading false information, harming national security and misusing his mobile phone,” most likely because he posted a video of a US fighter crashing in Kuwait. He was apparently acquitted on all charges.
IRAN
In Iran-related news:
Air defenses may have activated in Tehran on Thursday, as Iranian media reported explosions above the city. Given that those reports came a short time after Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz declared during a security meeting that the IDF is just “awaiting a green light from the United States…to return Iran to the age of darkness and stone” I wouldn’t blame anybody for jumping to conclusions. However, at this point it doesn’t appear that there’s any definitive explanation for those explosions and certainly no indication that they were the result of any new Israeli and/or US attack.
The USS George H. W. Bush and its carrier group arrived in the region on Thursday, adding to the armada that the US military has amassed around Iran. The newly arrived vessels will likely be put to use maintaining the US naval blockade but also if the Trump administration were contemplating a resumption of the shooting war then the arrival of a third aircraft carrier to the war zone would be a significant development.
Donald Trump took to social media on Thursday to decree that the US Navy will “shoot and kill any boat” found to be laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz. He also claimed that US “mine ‘sweepers’ are clearing the Strait right now” though that seems unlikely unless he’s referring to small anti-mine drones or something along those lines. The US Navy does have mine countermeasures vessels in the area but whether it would be willing to risk putting them in the strait under the current tenuous ceasefire is an open question. The Trump administration later broadcast via Barak Ravid that the “Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) navy laid more mines in the Strait of Hormuz this week,” though whether that’s actually true or just a means to explain Trump’s post is unclear.
The New York Times reported on Thursday that Iran’s power structure has changed fundamentally in the transition from former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to his son and successor, Mojtaba Khamenei. Mojtaba, in this narrative, is relying heavily on a “collective of commanders in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps,” serving more as a “director of the board” than as a sole decision maker. To some degree this is a product of circumstance, as Mojtaba is in hiding and still physically compromised by the wounds he suffered in the airstrike that killed his father in late February. But it also reflects his longstanding relationship with senior IRGC figures and a dynamic in which he’s somewhat beholden to them for installing him in his position and maintaining him there. Those IRGC figures are likely to be less open to negotiation and compromise with the US than some of the senior civilian figures in the Iranian government, who had a stronger voice in deliberations under Ali Khamenei than they do now.
AFP tries to project the degree to which the US blockade is likely to squeeze the Iranian economy and the consensus seems to be that it’s not going to be enough to force Tehran to surrender to Trump’s demands. A lengthy blockade—two to three months or beyond—could do a lot of damage but probably not as much damage as it will do to the Gulf Cooperation Council states, whose tolerance for economic pain is demonstrably lower than Iran’s. A better bet may be that global economic strife causes the Chinese government to nudge Iran toward concessions but it’s debatable whether it would do so and whether the Iranians would respond positively to that sort of pressure.
The head of the United Nations Development Program, Alexander De Croo, warned on Thursday that the war’s disruptions to global fuel and fertilizer supplies could force some 30 million people into poverty. The UNDP is expecting a spike in food insecurity later this year, as the lack of proper fertilizer for this year’s planting season really starts to take effect. There’s nothing that can really be done to remedy that now.
ASIA
CAMBODIA
The US Treasury Department blacklisted Cambodian Senator Kok An on Thursday, accusing him of having ties to online scam operations based in that country. It also designated 28 people and entities that are allegedly part of his scam “network.”
INDONESIA
Indonesian Finance Minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa speculated at a symposium in Jakarta on Wednesday that it might be a neat idea to start charging tolls for ships traversing the Malacca Strait. It’s unclear if he was serious, kidding, or kidding on the square, but if it was either the first or third of those options it means that recent events involving the Strait of Hormuz have gotten people thinking about the potential for monetizing other major maritime chokepoints around the world. The revenues of such a tolling system, which would have to be split between Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, could be substantial given that the strait is the most direct route between the Indian and Pacific oceans.
NORTH KOREA
The Russian and North Korean governments are planning to construct a new road bridge spanning their border along the Tumen River, according to a report from North Korean state media on Thursday. This is the latest expression of their blossoming bilateral relationship and is a project that Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un discussed back in 2024, when Putin visited Pyongyang to conclude a “comprehensive partnership” agreement with Kim. The bridge will link the North Korean border city of Rason to Russia’s national highway network.
AFRICA
SUDAN
The Sudanese military (SAF) says that it “launched a series of coordinated air and ground operations” across multiple Sudanese states on Thursday, targeting Rapid Support Forces air defense positions and facilities. The states targeted have been Blue Nile; North and West Kordofan; and South, Central, and North Darfur.
BURKINA FASO
Amid a recent surge in pieces assessing the administration of Burkinabè junta leader Ibrahim Traoré, Alex Thurston offers some thoughts about why he’s proven so popular both domestically and abroad:
Here we might pause to ask why it is Traoré who electrifies people when several other leaders, including like-minded ones, also came to power in coups around the same time and have ruled with styles that partly overlap with his. Traoré stands out among this group for several reasons:
He came out of the middle ranks of the military, unlike Chad’s Mahamat Déby (whose father ruled that country from 1990-2021) and Niger’s Abdourahmane Tiani (who was head of the presidential guard at the time of the 2023 coup in Niger).
He has ruled in an assertive style, one that welcomes international attention, in contrast to the quieter, more domestically focused and conventional style of Guinea’s Mamady Doumbouya (who took power in 2021 and who has a far different relationship to France - among other things, his wife is a French citizen).
He is somehow more camera-ready, more of a romantic hero, than Mali’s Assimi Goïta, who is the most similar to Traoré of all the new Sahelian/West African military leaders. One could imagine a slightly different world in which Goïta, who also saw a significant amount of combat and carries an aura of a man of action, had become the key symbol of Sahelian and pan-African sovereignty in our era; but Traoré’s greater rhetorical skill and more ideological self-presentation (whether one credits him as a substantive heir to Sankara or not) have made him cut a much larger figure than Goïta.
We can understand Traoré’s appeal through these comparisons; another way to get at his appeal is to think about the even starker contrasts with other world leaders. Many analysts have talked convincingly about ours as an age of gerontocracy - from Biden to Trump to Netanyahu to Putin, the world stage is dominated by men who are well over seventy, as well as by a slate of middle-aged, mostly male and mostly unimaginative (or outright failed and feckless) leaders. Not all leaders are old, of course, but Traoré stands out as not just young but also youthful, conveying a kind of energy and purpose and confidence that make him seem, to many, like a compelling alternative to the status quo. For supporters, Traoré’s appeal seems to be enhanced - not dented - when he declares democracy to be a failed and violent system. Traoré comes across to supporters as a truth teller and a problem solver, not someone caught up in fealty to (what can be seen as) Western-backed political projects and hollow, faux-universal norms. The tremendous challenges facing Traoré and Burkina Faso, namely insecurity and poverty, also add to supporters’ sympathy for and confidence in his rejection of criticism, his assertions of rapid progress on the security front, and his nationalist discourse.
SOMALIA
Al Jazeera reports on the scale of Somalia’s climate- and conflict-driven hunger crisis:
EUROPE
RUSSIA
Anybody wondering about the efficacy of Western sanctions on Russia may be interested to know that, according to Forbes Russia, the collective wealth amassed by Russian billionaires now stands at “a record $696.5 billion,” which is a whopping 11 percent increase over the past year. Most of these folks made their fortunes in the energy and mining sectors and rising prices in those markets fueled the increase. Apparently we can count them among the small number of true winners in the US/Israeli war on Iran.
UKRAINE
Russian drone strikes killed at least three people and wounded another ten in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro overnight. Local officials accused the Russians of deliberately targeting a residential part of the city.
Elsewhere, despite evidence that they’re not working (see above), the European Union moved forward on Thursday with its 20th tranche of Russia sanctions since the start of this war in 2022. The new sanctions focus on the banking and energy sectors and include measures targeting Russian crypto traders. The EU also gave formal approval to its €90 billion Ukraine loan, the first disbursements from which should start arriving in Kyiv in the coming weeks. These measures were made possible because the Hungarian and Slovakian governments finally stopped blocking them, following the reopening of the Druzhba oil pipeline earlier this week.
AMERICAS
BOLIVIA
Bolivian Foreign Minister Fernando Aramayo met with his Chilean counterpart, Francisco Pérez Mackenna, in La Paz on Thursday. Well, technically then met on the border and then traveled to La Paz for discussions. This is noteworthy in that those two countries broke off diplomatic ties back in 1975 after they failed to negotiate an accord that would have given Bolivia a Pacific coastline, something it lost after the 1879-1883 War of the Pacific. The new right-wing governments in both countries are apparently interested in restoring relations, though regaining access to the ocean remains a Bolivian policy goal so it’s unclear how they’ll manage that.
MEXICO
According to the AP the Mexican government has been struggling to get its story straight regarding the apparent presence of two CIA agents at a drug raid in Chihuahua state on Sunday (both were killed in a subsequent car accident which is how their presence became public). Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who has been publicly opposed to direct US involvement in counternarcotics operations, initially professed no knowledge of the raid or any potential CIA involvement and threatened punitive action against the state government. But Mexican officials have since told reporters that federal security forces were involved in the raid and that there was some interaction between the federal government and US officials regarding the operation.
This doesn’t mean the CIA personnel participated in the operation directly, nor does it mean that if they did participate Mexican authorities would have been aware of it. But this is a sensitive subject for Sheinbaum’s government given the CIA’s…oh, let’s say checkered record in Latin America and her stated opposition to US personnel being involved in Mexico in anything more than a training and advisory capacity.
HAITI
The UN’s special envoy for Haiti, Carlos Ruiz Massieu, told reporters on Thursday that Haiti’s nascent “Gang Suppression Force” is actually generating more international support than expected. That would put it well ahead of the multinational police force it’s supposed to replace sometime this year, which never met its goals either in terms of money or manpower. According to Ruiz Massieu countries have pledged manpower in excess of the 5500 personnel the GSF is expected to field, and the UN says it’s already received monetary pledges in excess of $200 million. In addition to greater levels of support the GSF will also have the power to arrest suspected gang members, which the previous force apparently did not have.
UNITED STATES
Finally, Drop Site has additional detail on those Ecuadorian fishermen whose boat was the target of a US drone strike back in January. In addition to being marked for death despite no discernible connection to drug trafficking, they are alleging serious mistreatment while in US custody:
As the fishermen made their way toward what they hoped was safety on the nearby blue boat, an aircraft hovered directly overhead. Nearing closer, they spotted blonde-haired men, armed to the teeth, dressed in camouflage uniforms, and yelling “hands-up” in English. Flores said they began to pray, convinced they were going to die.
Guns drawn, the men placed hoods over the fishermens’ heads, handcuffed them, and held them on the blue ship’s scorching metal deck for over 24 hours, blistering their skin. The Ecuadorian crew of La Negra Francisca Duarte II were surprised to find themselves detained following the attack. Like Mero’s husband, they had been cleared to proceed by Ecuadorian coast guard personnel just hours earlier at a checkpoint near the Galápagos.
The gunmen, issuing instructions through an interpreter, offered no explanation for why they were being apprehended, nor did they bother to inquire what had happened, as a rescue team might, or search their boat for evidence, as a counternarcotics operation would. All but one fisherman were denied medical attention, despite the severity of what they had just endured. Held for days, they were refused food and given only one bottle of water.
The following day, despite being in Ecuadorian waters near the Galapagos Islands, the kidnappers transported the fishermen roughly 900 nautical miles north, turning them over to El Salvador’s coast guard.