Flagship

Trump considers Iran strikes

US President Donald Trump is considering whether to join Israel’s bombardment of Iran, including possibly targeting its tightly guarded Fordo nuclear enrichment site. Trump was elected on a platform of withdrawing Washington from entanglements in foreign wars and had prioritized securing a deal to neuter Iran’s nuclear program, but reportedly sees an opportunity to destroy it militarily: Notably, the US is the only country with the warplanes and bombs capable of destroying Iran’s underground enrichment sites. Analysts cautioned of the risks of American involvement, arguing military means were unlikely to end Iranian nuclear efforts: “Instead, [the US] will likely find itself enmeshed in yet another prolonged and bloody Middle Eastern conflict,” an expert at the Carnegie Endowment argued.

Israel learns wrong lessons

Israel has learned the wrong lessons from its military successes, analysts argued. The country has won several recent conflicts — largely dismantling Hamas and Hezbollah as battlefield adversaries and significantly weakening Iran — and maintains a significant military advantage in the Middle East. But it “has a dismal record when it comes to turning military victories into long-term diplomatic successes,” historian and Middle East expert Kim Ghattas argued in the Financial Times, while a Harvard political scientist wrote in World Politics Review: “There’s a difference between being inclined to prefer military force to diplomacy and convincing oneself there is no problem that cannot ultimately be solved by force alone.”

Palestinians killed at aid station

Israeli forces killed at least 51 Palestinians at an aid station in Gaza, according to witnesses. Shootings at aid distribution sites in the enclave happen almost daily, but this may have been the deadliest: A local journalist said two missiles and a tank shell landed in the crowd. Since May, the private, US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has been the only source of food aid in the strip, and every day thousands of Palestinians crowd the four sites with “no apparent control,” the BBC reported; Israel claims the new system is necessary because Hamas was stealing aid from UN-run programs, but critics say the foundation is enabling Israeli government plans to push Palestinians into a smaller region of Gaza.

California seeks AI guardrails

Artificial intelligence could cause “irreversible harms” without proper safeguards, a report commissioned by the governor of California warned. Silicon Valley makes California ground zero for the AI regulation debate: US Republicans have proposed banning states from regulating the technology for 10 years. Governor Gavin Newsom said that President Donald Trump was “dismantling laws protecting public safety,” as the report said AI’s contribution to “chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear” risks has grown. AI leaders themselves, including Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, have called for regulation requiring transparency over safety policies, and Flagship’s Tom Chivers argued in UnHerd that it is as “appropriate to be scared” of AI development now as it was of the evolution of atomic physics in the 1930s.

Fresh doubt for AUKUS deal

A US-UK deal to provide nuclear-powered submarines to Australia, widely seen as targeting China, is at risk because of shifting priorities in Washington and London. US President Donald Trump has ordered the AUKUS agreement be reviewed and a key aide has argued that American submarine production is insufficient for domestic requirements, let alone supplying another country, while Britain faces similar manufacturing constraints. As a result, doubts are surfacing in Canberra, where officials are concerned Trump will renege on the deal negotiated by his predecessor Joe Biden. The consequences are both financial — Australia has already committed $3 billion to the agreement, which has no payback clause — and strategic: The countries all say they want to push back against Beijing.

Fed to hold rates steady

The US Federal Reserve is likely to hold rates steady today as it weighs the broader fallout from Washington’s trade war and a burgeoning conflict in the Middle East. The central bank’s balancing act is a difficult one: Whereas many of its counterparts worldwide are embarking on a rate-cutting path to ward off slowing growth and rising prices as a result of American protectionism, economists expect US growth to slow but inflation to quicken, a combination that leaves no clear path for monetary policy. Though price rises in the US have so far been mild, inflation expectations — simply, the belief that prices may increase — are a worry, and often cause real-world inflation, The Wall Street Journal’s chief economics correspondent noted.

Beijing battles pig fattening

Beijing is cracking down on pig fattening as it seeks to reduce its dependency on US feed imports and stabilize the price of pork, a Chinese culinary staple. Chinese farmers typically “refatten” pigs — buying adult pigs and feeding them until they gain an extra 40-50 kilograms (90-110lbs) — as a way to gamble on pork prices rising. However the practice has led to a glut in the world’s biggest pork market, eroding margins for producers and softening demand, Reuters reported. Hog prices remain a third below their peak last August. Beijing has sought to discourage the practice as it looks to reduce its dependence on US agricultural products amid the two countries’ trade war.

Can we reconnect a generation? A mental health crisis is gripping young people, with rates of depression, anxiety, and loneliness rising. As social bonds fray and digital life deepens isolation, experts are sounding the alarm and demanding action.

Join Daniel Zoltani, Executive Director of the Whole Foods Market Foundation; Sara DeWitt, Senior Vice President and General Manager of PBS KIDS; January Contreras, former Assistant Secretary for the Administration for Children and Families, US Department of Health and Human Services; and Steve Bullock, former Governor of Montana, as Semafor explores the complex drivers of youth wellbeing, highlighting opportunities to rebuild social ties, foster resilience, and develop lasting strategies to improve the mental health of young people.

July 16, 2025 | Washington, DC | RSVP

Latam markets win in trade war

Latin American stock markets are emerging as winners in the global trade war, as investors shift their assets away from the US. Both the Brazilian and the Mexican stock markets, the two biggest in the region, stand near-record highs and have vastly outperformed the US market since the start of the year. However, their stocks’ relatively low valuations — investors pay just over $9 for each dollar in earnings across the region, compared with more than $19 for wealthy nations — reflect their high risk premium. Other developing markets such as India could also benefit from an investor shift away from the US. “Small changes to large markets… can have big impacts on smaller markets,” an expert told Reuters.

Streaming overtakes linear TV

France’s most-watched TV channel TF1 signed a deal with Netflix to allow the streaming giant to show its broadcasts, including soap operas and major sporting events. Broadcast TV has been losing market share for years: In the US, streaming viewership surpassed network and cable in May for the first time. Analysis showed that streaming sites — including free services such as YouTube and Roku — accounted for 44.8% of all TV usage, compared with 44.5% for linear broadcasts. Traditional broadcasters worldwide are racing to try and shore up their position: “Linear TV is [in] secular decline,” TF1’s CEO told the Financial Times, and partnering with Netflix could “reach unparalleled audiences and unlock new reach for advertisers.”

Nigeria football nostalgia

Nigeria’s 2018 men’s soccer World Cup jersey has become an unexpected collector’s item. The Super Eagles’ white-and-green feather-pattern top, a deliberate callback to the kit worn by the country’s great 1994 team, was an instant hit, The Athletic reported, evoking a growing fan nostalgia for 1990s football. It now sells for roughly double its original price, despite Nigeria not doing especially well in the 2018 tournament. Vintage or niche soccer jerseys are a hot property among hipster collectors, and have been for a long time: Way back in 1985, the British satirical rock band Half Man Half Biscuit released a song called All I Want For Christmas Is a Dukla Prague Away Kit.

• Russia opens the three-day St Petersburg International Economic Forum.
• A Senate Judiciary hearing will take place over the alleged cover-up of former President Joe Biden’s mental decline.
• The 33rd Raindance Film Festival opens in London, celebrating British independent cinema.

The share of global foreign direct investment that went to sub-Saharan Africa last year. Rising trade barriers have halted investment across the globe, with developing economies receiving their lowest level in almost two decades, a new report by the World Bank found. The pullback heightens the challenges of “filling vast infrastructure gaps, reducing poverty, creating new jobs, and addressing climate change,” the bank said.

The Reckoning, Arcola theater, London. This collection of anecdotes from Ukrainian civilians and soldiers, acted out on stage by two Ukrainian and two British actors, is “inevitably disturbing,” notes The Guardian: A woman receives a phone call from her husband’s number only to learn his phone was found next to his body; a torture victim describes his treatment. It forces the audience to confront the “indelibly brutal details of what Putin’s land-grab entailed.” Buy tickets for The Reckoning here.

American YouTuber IShowSpeed’s viral trip to China, amplified by Chinese state media, is part of a broader Beijing effort to reshape its global image using foreign influencers, Zichen Wang writes for Semafor.

A video of the influencer marveling at a Chinese SUV that floats in water, as well as Huawei’s new foldable phone, amassed nearly 9 million views — a clear soft power coup.

Wang’s surprising advice? Beijing should disclose its sponsorship and embrace American-style transparency.