NEWS WRAP

France emphasises European independence in strategic competition

• Macron meets with Xi, pulls back from US-China competition | France's President Emmanuel Macron is emphasising his country's role as a geopolitical counterweight to the United States, urging European allies to avoid being caught up in a potential China-US conflict. The statement came during a visit to China where he met with President Xi Jinping. READ MORE HERE
   
• US Department of Justice appeals abortion drug ruling | Nearly a year after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, a federal judge in Texas suspended the Food and Drug Administration's approval of common abortion drug mifepristone, but allowed one week for appeal, which the Department of Justice quickly filed. The legality of the drug is expected to ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court. READ MORE HERE
   
• US-born children also separated from families under Trump border policy | Lawyers and advocates working with the US government revealed that US-born children, who are citizens by birth, were caught up in a strict migration policy enacted under the Trump administration which separated children from their migrant parents along the Mexico-US border. READ MORE HERE
   
• Manhattan District Attorney sues congressional Republicans | District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who is leading the case against former President Trump over falsified hush-money payment records, is suing to prevent Congressional Republicans from subpoenaing a former assistant district attorney who has criticised Bragg’s investigation. Bragg says Republicans have engaged in a campaign of harassment in the Trump case. READ MORE HERE
   
• Biden calls out Republicans after Louisville shooting | President Joe Biden has criticised Republicans over "inaction" after a mass shooting killed five at a bank in Kentucky. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is from Kentucky, tweeted his condolences to “the victims, their families and the city of Louisville.” READ MORE HERE

ANALYSIS

The US Indo-Pacific strategy has a navy-sized hole in it

Blake Herzinger, Foreign Policy and Defence Research Fellow, USSC 

As well as being warfighting organisations, navies are tools for conducting diplomacy.

The US Navy, perhaps more than any other branch of the armed forces, is poised to play a key role in Washington’s Indo-Pacific strategy. While this role is often imagined in terms of conflict scenarios, the Navy’s first priority is the plethora of peacetime responsibilities assigned to it. One of them, to prepare for “the peacetime promotion of the national security interests and prosperity of the United States,” was explicitly codified in the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act to recognise the branch’s strategic role in preventing war.

This article was first published in World Politics Review.

BY THE NUMBERS

One in five US adults have lost family members to gun deaths

One fifth of US adults have lost a family member to gun violence, a new study by the Kaiser Family Foundation found. 

The results of the survey of 1,271 US adults came as President Joe Biden called on Republicans to work with Democrats on gun reforms as another mass shooting happened, this time in Louisville, Kentucky. 

THE WEEK IN TWEETS

#LouisvilleShooting