Mr. Trump is challenging a long-standing U.S. policy toward Taiwan after his two-day visit to China by announcing he may restrict a multibillion-dollar arms package for the island democracy in a bid to improve relations with Beijing.

Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te is pushing back against Mr. Trump’s statements that the island is provocatively risking war by seeking independence from Beijing. He wrote in a social media post that the island democracy will not be pressured into giving up its freedom and that arms sales are a security commitment under U.S. law.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in an ABC interview Sunday that Mr. Trump was considering using the arms sales to Taiwan as leverage in ongoing negotiations with China, something he said past presidents have done. “Right now, the president’s considering how to move forward on that,” Mr. Greer said. “The reality is, it’s really important for the United States and China to have a stable relationship.”

The vitality of the informal, authoritarian CRINKS alliance — that’s China, Russia, Iran and North Korea — is on display with Russian President Vladimir Putin scrambling Tuesday to visit Beijing in the wake of Mr. Trump’s trip to the Chinese capital last week. 

The Associated Press reports Mr. Putin is traveling to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on a visit likely to be closely watched as Beijing seeks to maintain stable relations with the United States while also preserving strong ties with Russia. 

China’s role in the CRINKS alliance is crucial, given that Beijing is the top buyer of Iranian crude oil, is tacitly supporting Russia’s war against Ukraine and has supplanted Moscow in the post-Cold War era as the most powerful backer of Kim Jong-un’s authoritarian regime in North Korea.

Mr. Trump’s loudest complaint about NATO, that Europe isn’t pulling its weight in defense spending, is prompting countries along the alliance’s eastern flank to push back against the perception that they are a drain on the alliance. Finland is among those leading the charge, pointing to the need for more focused efforts by NATO countries to counter increasing Russian provocations in the Arctic.

“We have exactly the same position as President Trump in the sense that we think that NATO is not at its full potential yet,” Foreign Affairs Minister Elina Valtonen said in a recent media roundtable discussion with journalists, which included Mr. Seward, who is traveling in the region at the moment. “The European countries have not invested enough from their pocket in the defense of deterrence. Finland certainly has.”

In a similar discussion, Finnish Defense Minister Antti Hakkanen emphasized the need for increasing Nordic security cooperation with the United States. He noted reports that Russia has been moving its ballistic missile and nuclear arsenal farther north and said the Nordic countries see themselves as the de facto Arctic security guarantors.

Mr. Trump had threatened to carry out a fresh assault of airstrikes on Iran Tuesday but he said he decided to call it off at the request of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, which are key Arab allies. The president says he remains hopeful Iran will accept U.S. terms for a deal to end the conflict.

“This Deal will include, importantly, NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS FOR IRAN!” Mr. Trump wrote Monday on Truth Social. Speaking at the White House, the president said he is willing to wait on Iran for another “two or three days,” adding that Arab partners and mediators “think they are getting very close to making a deal.”

Iranian officials are pushing a different narrative, saying Tehran is using the extended ceasefire to bolster its combat power. Mohammad Akraminia, chief spokesperson for Iran’s army, said Tuesday the Islamic republic’s forces have treated the ceasefire “as a time of war” and have positioned themselves to respond to future attacks by the U.S. and Israel.

The “suffering of the Cuban people is a result of the merciless regime that rules them, not the U.S. blockade,” according to Don Feder, a Washington Times opinion columnist, who writes that the “only thing Washington and Havana have to talk about is how soon the communists can pack their bags and leave.

“Cuba has been a thorn in our side since Fidel Castro and his gang seized power in 1959,” Mr. Feder writes in an op-ed for The Times. He is a consultant and coalitions director of the Ruth Institute. “It has been allied with the worst of the worst: China, Russia, Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah. As Venezuela moved to Marxism, Cuba sent secret police to Caracas to instruct its goons in the instruments of repression.

“Without Venezuelan oil, there are rolling blackouts. Hunger is rampant. In 2025, the average Cuban worker earned the equivalent of $16 a month. Garbage piles up in the streets,” he writes. “The regime blames the United States for choking off its fuel supply. Good for us.”

• May 19-21 — Special Operations Forces Week 2026, Global SOF Foundation

• May 19 — U.S.-China AI Competition: A Fireside Chat with Chairman Brian Mast, Center for a New American Security

• May 20 — Sen. Bernie Moreno, Ohio Republican, on Colombia’s 2026 Elections, Atlantic Council

• May 20 — A Conversation with Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Sarah B. Rogers, Hudson Institute

• May 21 — Fatih Birol, International Energy Agency Executive Director, on the Strait of Hormuz Crisis and Global Energy Security, Chatham House

• May 22 — What Are the Biggest Space Threats in 2026? Center for Strategic and International Studies

• May 26 — High Wire: The Sheinbaum Administration and the Future of U.S.-Mexico Relations, Brookings Institution