Trump Administration Foreign Policy Tracker: July

The goodwill from May’s U.S.-China summit in Geneva quickly evaporated. Just weeks after agreeing to a limited tariff détente in Switzerland, President Trump publicly accused Beijing of violating the deal. At issue was China’s decision to halt exports of rare earths and magnets — critical to the U.S. automotive and defense sectors. Washington responded by threatening to revoke thousands of Chinese student visas and announcing tighter export controls, including new licensing requirements for U.S. ethane shipments to China. Ethane is a key input for China’s plastics and industrial manufacturing industries.

The pressure campaign culminated in Trump’s first call with Chinese leader Xi Jinping since Trump returned to office, followed days later by a high-level summit in London. There, both sides announced a narrow framework to implement the stalled Geneva deal, including an agreement in principle for China to quickly process rare earth and magnet orders for U.S. companies. While the call and subsequent summit were limited in scope, they signaled that Trump’s escalate-to-de-escalate approach can compel Beijing to reengage on trade — at least tactically.

Still, core tensions remain unresolved. Neither side has outlined a viable roadmap for follow-on negotiations, and both continue to deploy economic pressure tools — including tariffs and export controls — with little coordination. Beijing, for its part, appears willing to stall implementation of the agreements if it perceives Washington as overreaching. Meanwhile, the White House is reportedly weighing new restrictions on Chinese AI chips, banking ties, and state-linked firms. The risk of renewed escalation remains high, especially if either side miscalculates or reverts to maximalist demands.

During Sean Cairncross’s confirmation hearing, the nominee for the position of national cyber director reaffirmed the importance of U.S. cyber resilience and deterrence, calling for imposing costs on adversaries in cyberspace. Once Cairncross is confirmed, his office is poised to lead policy coordination on national cyber policy.

The Department of Homeland Security issued a bulletin following U.S. military strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, highlighting Iran’s cyber capabilities. Despite the heightened threat environment, the Trump administration has not reversed plans to slash the budget of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the nation’s civilian cyber defense agency. However, Congress seems to recognize the importance of CISA’s efforts. House appropriators passed their proposed homeland security funding bill with only a 5 percent cut to CISA.

The heightened cyber threat environment also did not alter the State Department’s planned reorganization, which took effect July 1 and stands to undermine the department’s ability to execute its statutorily prescribed cyber diplomacy mission. Splitting the cybersecurity, digital economy, and emerging technology components of the Cyberspace and Digital Policy Bureau will likely hamper State’s ability to thwart China’s technology dominance and to provide timely cyber assistance to U.S. partners.

In positive news, the Federal Communications Commission is leaning into its national security and cybersecurity mission set, initiating investigations on proposed rules to address China’s malign cyber behavior. The Food and Drug Administration also issued secure-by-design guidance for technology used in medical product manufacturing.

President Trump ordered military strikes on June 21 against three Iranian nuclear sites after surging combat power to the Middle East to defend American forces and Israel during the Israeli air campaign against Iranian nuclear, military, and regime targets. While battle damage assessments continue, the impressive U.S. operation severely damaged, but did not destroy, Iran’s nuclear program. Now Trump should translate battlefield progress into a sustainable political outcome that ends Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

Iran responded by launching 14 ballistic missiles at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, America’s largest base in the Middle East. Thanks to air defenses, no American casualties were reported. Although Trump had warned Tehran that retaliation would be met with force, he chose not to respond.

At the NATO summit on June 25, alliance members laudably affirmed their commitment to mutual defense, supporting Ukraine, and increasing defense spending. Allies promised to spend at least 3.5 percent of their gross domestic product on defense and up to 1.5 percent on defense-related investments. Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and Trump’s pressure on allies help explain this commitment to spend more, but Trump’s prior suggestions that Washington might not defend NATO members under Article 5 risk inviting aggression. Regardless, countries are not required to reach the spending targets until 2035, suggesting a dangerous lack of urgency among some allies. The summit improved Trump’s view of European allies and the NATO alliance. Time will tell whether Europe follows through on its spending commitments and Trump maintains his more accurate view of the alliance.

Russia and Ukraine held another round of talks in Istanbul on June 2. The meeting yielded a limited agreement on humanitarian measures but no progress on core issues, as Russia doubled down on its maximalist demands. Although President Trump seems to recognize that Moscow is the obstacle to peace, he has continued to refuse calls for tougher sanctions, including by blocking an effort to lower the G7 price cap on Russian oil exports. In mid-June, Reuters reported that the administration had disbanded an interagency working group tasked with devising ways to pressure Moscow to negotiate.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon suspended shipments of key munitions to Ukraine, citing concerns about U.S. stocks. The weapons in question include Patriot and other air defense missiles, kneecapping Ukraine’s ability to protect its skies even as Russia has ramped up its barrages against Ukrainian cities and critical infrastructure. The Pentagon’s decision undercuts Trump’s own leverage to broker peace and will likely make the Kremlin even more intransigent.

In better news, NATO members agreed to increase defense spending at the alliance’s summit in The Hague. They committed to spend 3.5 percent of GDP on “core defence requirements” and another 1.5 percent on security-related issues, including critical infrastructure, cyber, and investments in their defense industries. This spending hike, motivated partly by pressure from Trump, will help allies meet new capability targets agreed to earlier in June. Declaring that NATO is now “not a rip off,” Trump promised to uphold NATO’s collective-defense guarantee, having cast doubt on that commitment just a day earlier.

President Trump’s handling of the war between Israel and Iran allayed chronic Gulf fears that the Islamic Republic had become an unstoppable, and untouchable, neighbor. After Iran targeted America’s Al Udeid base in Qatar, foreign ministers from Arab Gulf countries held a meeting in Doha in which they unequivocally denounced the Iranian aggression, though they remained officially neutral.

The conflict shattered delusions that Russia or China could replace American power in the region. “The stances of Russia and China toward Iran” during its war with Israel “should be carefully considered,” wrote Saudi pundit Mshari al-Thaydi, noting the absence of Russian and Chinese military support to their partner Iran. Thaydi pointed out that Russia did nothing to support Iran beyond condemning the Israeli strikes and calling for de-escalation.

In contrast to Thaydi’s animated analysis, most Gulf commentators toed the official line of neutrality, writing negatively against both Israel and Iran, but also expressed dismay at the Gulf’s inability to influence events. “My voice is that of my leadership, that I denounce the violation of international conventions, but I also feel the pain of someone who has no agency, not even space to remain silent … with fire flying over our heads,” wrote Abdullah Fadaaq in the Saudi daily Al-Watan.

Gulf countries were split over the war. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Kuwait were happy to see the region’s bully taken down. Qatar and Oman think they lost a power that they used to counter Saudi hegemony. Both camps agree that Tehran has been drastically weakened.

China held a major naval exercise near Japan in June, marking the first time a Chinese carrier sailed past the second island chainsignaling Beijing’s growing capacity to contest access to the region. As China continues to expand its military capabilities, friction over trade and defense spending is undermining relations between Washington and its closest allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific.

Despite several months of negotiations, the Trump administration has struggled to finalize a new trade deal with Japan, with Tokyo’s trade negotiator describing the talks as occurring “in a fog.” Washington and Tokyo also remain at odds over defense expenditures. Japan canceled the annual “2+2” meeting between top U.S. and Japanese defense and diplomatic officials after the Trump administration abruptly requested that Japan dramatically increase its spending targets.

The United States has also made limited progress in negotiating a new trade agreement with South Korea in the aftermath of Seoul’s recent presidential election. While South Korea’s top trade chief visited the United States in late June, Washington and Seoul remain at odds over the Trump administration’s desire to tie the trade talks to a new agreement on cost sharing for U.S. forces stationed on the peninsula.

Elevating concerns, the Pentagon launched a review of AUKUS, a multi-billion-dollar submarine and technology-sharing agreement between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, intended to counter China. The review, which will probe whether the agreement undermines America’s own submarine fleet, comes as Washington is pushing Canberra to increase defense spending.

In keeping with President Trump’s goal to shrink the federal budget, the White House sent a hefty rescission proposal to Congress on June 3 that would claw back funding from the current and previous fiscal years. The proposal would rescind over $350 million for international peacekeeping missions, referencing “ongoing sexual exploitation and abuse in the Democratic Republic of the Congo” and the “abject failure” of the Lebanese peacekeeping force, UNIFIL, to contain Hezbollah. The proposal would also rescind U.S. funding to the United Nations and other international organizations, consistent with the president’s February executive order.

On June 4, the United States vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that called for an “immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire” in Gaza. The other 14 members of the Security Council voted in favor of the resolution despite its failure to denounce Hamas or call for the terror group’s disarmament or expulsion from Gaza. A day later, the Trump administration sanctioned four judges from the International Criminal Court (ICC) for engaging in efforts to “investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute nationals of the United States or Israel.” Neither country is a member of the ICC or party to the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC.

During a June 24 meeting of the UN Security Council, Dorothy Shea, acting U.S. envoy to the United Nations, defended the U.S. strikes on the Iranian nuclear program. The strikes “effectively fulfilled our narrow objective: to degrade Iran’s capacity to produce a nuclear weapon,” she argued.

Since the end of the Cold War, every single American president has promised to do all he can to prohibit Iran from developing nuclear weapons. President Trump made good on that promise, becoming the first U.S. leader to use overt military force against Iran’s nuclear program. After initially opposing the idea of a preemptive Israeli strike, Trump ordered U.S. military strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites in Isfahan, Natanz, and Fordow. The Fordow facility was buried too deep underground for the Israeli Air Force to destroy, requiring American bombers to hit it with 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs called Massive Ordnance Penetrators.

While the Trump administration has declared the strikes a success, technical debates persist about how much the U.S. and Israeli military action set back Iran’s nuclear program. The U.S. operation, dubbed “Midnight Hammer,” magnified the strategic impact of Israel’s extensive strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities and scientists, long-range strike and air defense capabilities, and military leadership.

Washington, however, has yet to comment on the domestic crackdown in Iran following the strikes. Many activists and analysts fear this repression will widen as the regime looks to project strength at home after failing to do so against Israel and America.

On the sanctions front, in June, the Treasury Department issued two batches of Iran designations. One targeted a large shadow banking network helping Tehran access the international financial system through front companies in the United Arab Emirates and Hong Kong. The other targeted an Iranian and Chinese procurement and transshipment ring supporting Iran’s military-industrial complex.

The month of June witnessed perhaps the most dramatic upswing ever in Israeli security. In Operation Rising Lion, launched on June 13, the Israeli Air Force and Mossad decimated Iran’s military leadership and ballistic missile capabilities, eliminated key Iranian nuclear scientists, and struck a number of Iranian nuclear sites.

Tehran’s mistaken belief that Israel would not attack absent U.S. consent was key to Israel’s element of surprise. Initially, the Trump administration distanced itself from the strikes. But after the success of Israel’s initial attack became clear, Trump began associating the United States with the operation while reiterating that Iran cannot be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.

Ultimately, Trump decided to join the attack himself, as the Israeli Air Force lacks the capability to eliminate Iran’s deeply buried nuclear site at Fordow. On June 21, the United States launched a surprise attack on nuclear facilities in Fordow, Isfahan, and Natanz. Trump claimed that Iran’s nuclear program had been “completely and totally obliterated,” though it remains unclear exactly how much the U.S. and Israeli strikes set back Iran’s nuclear program.

The president then quickly brokered an Israeli-Iranian ceasefire. The administration is now looking to seize on its momentum to expand the Abraham Accords, the Israeli-Arab peace agreement Trump brokered in 2020. To facilitate this effort, Trump is pushing Israel to end the Gaza war.

Since South Korea’s snap presidential election earlier in June, President Trump has not formally reached out to newly elected President Lee Jae Myung to reaffirm America’s unwavering commitment to the U.S.-ROK alliance. The Trump administration also has yet to nominate a new U.S. ambassador to South Korea. Joseph Yun, a former special envoy for North Korea, is currently filling the position on an interim basis. A Senate-confirmed ambassador is imperative to ensure proactive, robust diplomatic cooperation between the two countries.

High-level diplomatic engagement will be particularly important because the new administration in Seoul may seek to restart dialogue with North Korea. President Lee represents the more progressive and pro-engagement Minjoo Party, which has historically undertaken bilateral talks with Pyongyang. On June 20, Trump extended U.S. sanctions on North Korea, a formality required annually under U.S. law.

In late June, Lee sent trade minister Yeo Han-koo to Washington for the first high-level U.S.-ROK trade talks since the election. Washington and Seoul had previously said they aim to achieve a deal by July 8, when the pause on Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs will expire. During his visit, Yeo pushed for exemptions to the reciprocal tariffs as well as automobile and steel tariffs, while Washington asked South Korea to drop pending anti-trust legislation that would affect American tech firms. Seoul is now seeking an extension to the deadline. Meanwhile, the two sides have begun working-level discussions on military burden sharing, which Trump has suggested should be linked to the trade talks.

The Israeli military continued to conduct strikes against Hezbollah targets in June, aiming to impede the group’s efforts to reconstitute. The Trump administration, meanwhile, has begun leaning on Beirut to remove Hezbollah’s forces and military assets from the area south of the Litani River as a preliminary step to completely disarming the group as required under the 2024 Israel-Lebanon ceasefire agreement.

In early June, U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Lisa Johnson expressed Washington’s displeasure with Beirut for delaying the process to begin disarming Hezbollah. She upbraided officials from the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) for failing to produce any evidence that the LAF had seized the group’s weapons.

Johnson’s stern warning came one week after Lebanese President Joseph Aoun appointed Ali Hamiyeh, a former transportation and public works minister affiliated with Hezbollah, as his personal adviser on post-war reconstruction and representative to relevant governmental committees. Hamiyeh’s appointment appears to have been a critical concession to Hezbollah, which has been demanding that Beirut not make the group’s disarmament a precondition for post-war reconstruction in Hezbollah-dominated areas.

But the message from Washington — conveyed by Johnson and U.S. envoy Tom Barrack — is that Lebanon is facing its “last chance” to begin delivering on its duties and disarm Hezbollah. Beirut’s “special circumstances” — namely, its inability or unwillingness to challenge Hezbollah, which maintains considerable domestic popularity, for fear of igniting domestic unrest — will no longer justify Lebanese inaction in American eyes. Otherwise, administration officials warn, there is little they can or will do to stop the Israelis from ramping up their strikes on Hezbollah.

Israel’s surprise attack on Iran, launched on June 12 and later joined by the United States, dealt a serious blow to Tehran’s nuclear program. On June 19, Trump suggested he would allow up to two weeks for further diplomatic talks with Tehran before deciding whether to join Israel in striking Iran’s nuclear sites. But shortly thereafter, Trump authorized U.S. strikes on key nuclear sites at Isfahan, Natanz, and Fordow, conducted on June 21.

The U.S. intelligence community is conducting a post-attack damage assessment to determine whether the deeply buried Fordow enrichment plant, in particular, was fully eliminated. Washington is also seeking to determine whether nuclear assets such as gas centrifuges and enriched uranium survived or were removed from any of the sites.

Satellite imagery reveals significant damage to many Iranian facilities. Israeli officials say the strikes set back Iran’s ability to make nuclear weapons by years, as they created key bottlenecks in the uranium fuel cycle; destroyed sites, equipment, and documentation; and assassinated scientists relevant to constructing nuclear weapons. America and Israel have threatened to strike again should Iran attempt to reconstitute a nuclear breakout capability, including by enriching uranium.

Meanwhile, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) conducted a third technical assistance visit to Ukraine, where it reported additional evidence of Russia’s use of a banned riot control agent against Ukrainian troops. Although Moscow has been blocked from key OPCW leadership posts, member states have not yet suspended Russia’s voting rights despite its repeated use of chemical weapons.

The Trump administration lifted sanctions against the Syrian government, military units, businesses, and individuals “to give Syrians a chance at greatness.” Sanctions against a select group of persons, including former President Bashar al-Assad and members of his regime, remain in place. The administration lifted sanctions despite the fact that Syria’s new president, Ahmed al-Sharaa (aka Abu Mohammad al-Jolani), is a Specially Designated Global Terrorist and previously led al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria. Additionally, Sharaa’s regime is responsible for the massacre of 1,500 Alawites in March of this year. In June, a suicide bomber from Saraya Ansar al-Sunnah, a terror group composed of former members of Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, killed 25 people in an attack on a Greek Orthodox Church.

In Afghanistan, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid denied that foreign terror groups currently operate inside the country. Mujahid issued the denial after Congressman Bill Huizenga, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on South and Central Asia, stated, “Afghanistan has once again become a hotbed for terrorists looking for safe harbor as they grow their ranks and abilities to project attacks across the region and, frankly, the world.” Al-Qaeda currently operates training camps in 12 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces, as well as safe houses, religious schools, a weapons depot, and a media operations center. Other terror groups are also based in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, the Taliban denounced Israeli and U.S. airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear weapons program and military targets and reiterated its support for Hamas amid ongoing Israeli military operations in Gaza.

The Trump administration moved forward decisively with its policy of lifting sanctions on Syria even in the absence of any commitment from Damascus to remove terrorists and human rights violators from the senior ranks of its army. On June 30, President Trump issued an executive order revoking previous designations. The new order also lifted export controls and set in motion an effort to reconsider the terror designation of President Ahmad al-Sharaa as well as Syria’s status as a State Sponsor of Terrorism.

Yet the White House preserved sanctions on a select set of individuals while granting itself expansive authority to impose new sanctions on those who act contrary to U.S. interests in Syria. Most who remain under sanctions are part of the Assad family and its inner circle. In addition, two rebel commanders whom Sharaa appointed as generals remain on the list because of their human rights violations, as do the militias they once led, which are now part of the Syrian army. Both groups participated in the massacre of Syrian Alawites in early March. Sharaa has pledged to hold all perpetrators accountable but is waiting for next month’s report from the investigative committee he appointed.

In northeast Syria, U.S. troops working to suppress the Islamic State withdrew from two additional bases following a comment from Thomas Barrack, Trump’s envoy for Syria, that the number of U.S. bases would decline from eight to one. On June 22, a church bombing in Damascus killed 25 worshippers. The government blamed the Islamic State, but it remains unclear who was actually responsible.

The Trump administration’s decision to lift sanctions on Syria granted a major win to Turkey, the chief backer of the new government in Damascus. The sanctions relief will allow greater economic flows into Syria and reduce the risk for Turkish entities doing business in the country. This could help Ankara extend its control over areas in northern Syria, where Turkey maintains dozens of military installations. At the same time, many dangerous entities and individuals involved in terrorism and violence against minority groups in Syria will likely also benefit financially.

In a troubling development, the Trump administration has indicated it will consider allowing Turkey to reenter the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. President Trump expelled Ankara from the program in 2019 due to its purchase of the Russian-made S-400 air defense system, and Congress placed restrictions on Turkey’s participation and purchase of the stealth aircraft. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been lobbying the White House to readmit Ankara, including during a June 26 meeting with Trump. Days later, the American ambassador to Turkey said both sides want a “fresh start” and could reach “a solution by the end of the year.” If Turkey were permitted to receive F-35s while still retaining the S-400, it could compromise the entire F-35 fleet and allow Russia access to sensitive data it could share with China and Iran. U.S. law still bans Turkey from reentering the program, but the administration could pressure Congress to alter that legislation.