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Jacoby for Washington Monthly: Ukraine Infantry Adapts to More Menacing Drones

Posted on July 7, 2025 by Alex Terr

The simple farmhouse north of Kharkiv—Ukraine’s second-largest city, just 20 miles from the Russian border—serves as the base of operations for an infantry company of the Ukrainian 13th National Guard Brigade, known as Khartia. One room is filled with bunk beds, and the walls are hung with helmets and body armor. In the yard, sacks of food and crates of ammunition sit under a laundry line dangling fatigues and T-shirts. But this is more than just a soldier’s billet. The main activity here is planning—a new kind of detailed forethought required by drone warfare.

Both Russian and Ukrainian use of drones has changed dramatically since the war began nearly three and a half years ago. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) now come in all shapes and sizes. Both sides use widely diversified drone arsenals for scouting and striking enemy forces. Long-range drones terrorize Ukrainian cities and destroy oil depots deep inside Russia. Others with shorter ranges buzz overhead, night and day, on the front line.

These smaller drones, ever-present eyes and weapons in the sky have transformed the battlefield, creating a six-to-12-mile “gray zone” between Russian and Ukrainian lines. It’s a deadly no man’s land where no one dares risk exposure. Even tanks and armored vehicles hesitate to cross the desolate territory for fear of drones. Instead, small groups of attacking Russians dash in on motorbikes, drawing fire to expose Ukrainian positions. And virtually everything the foot soldiers of Ukraine’s infantry once knew about fighting—assault and defense—has changed.

Jacoby on Background Briefing with Ian Masters: China Admits It Wants the Ukraine War to Drag on to Keep the US and NATO Out of Asia

Posted on July 6, 2025July 7, 2025 by Alex Terr

Watch the full episode.

The People Who Brought You Bill Clinton Want to Introduce You to the ‘Colorado Way’

Posted on July 6, 2025July 7, 2025 by Alex Terr

“We tried moving to the left under Biden. … It really helped shrink the party’s appeal,” PPI president and founder Will Marshall told me a few days after the retreat. “What will work in a deep blue district is one thing. What will work in swing states and swing districts is something else altogether.”

PPI’s own polling and focus groups with non-college voters over the last three years showed a more moderate or even conservative outlook on issues like immigration or policing, Marshall explained. That’s why they went to Denver: Marshall and others at PPI believe the key to the party’s future success is to be found in the unique combination of libertarian ideals, progressive programs and pocketbook-focused governance that has become a hallmark of western liberalism. The pragmatic approach, they say, reflects the growing number of unaffiliated voters in the country.

PPI’s plan to take the strategy sessions national has a compelling pedigree: After Democrats’ dismal 1988 election showing — when George H. W. Bush beat Democrat Michael Dukakis with nearly 80 percent of the electoral college vote — PPI went to the American South looking for answers. Marshall and other PPI strategists held similar sessions that grew into the bones of the influential New Democratic movement. Involved in those strategic discussions was a little-known governor named Bill Clinton.

Passage of ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ Renders Republican Deficit Hawks Extinct

Posted on July 3, 2025July 3, 2025 by Alyssa Brown

Republicans have sent their “One Big Beautiful Bill” to President Trump’s desk and it’s hard to overstate the consequences. Not only will the bill be one of the most regressive transfers of wealth from society’s poorest to its richest in recent memory, but it will also add trillions of dollars to our national debt and hurt our economy. By passing this obscene budget-busting bill with near-unanimous support from their members in Congress, Republicans have proven that their party’s deficit hawks have gone extinct.

According to analysis from the Yale Budget Lab, the bill’s deep cuts to safety-net programs such as SNAP and Medicaid will reduce annual incomes for the bottom 20% of Americans by roughly $700 per person. But the savings from these cuts won’t be used to pay down the national debt or improve the programs for the people who need them most — rather, they will help offset tax cuts that will increase average after-tax incomes for individuals in the top 1% by roughly $30,000. The bill also guts pro-growth investments in the clean energy transition while propping up coal production and other conservative special interests with new giveaways, such as expansive new aid for wealthy farmers and large tax deductions for whaling boats.

Despite the bill’s large cuts, it would add roughly $4.1 trillion to the national debt over the next ten years. Moreover, if ostensibly “temporary” policies in the bill are eventually made permanent without offset — as Republicans have made clear they had no trouble doing when writing this bill— the cost would swell to $5.5 trillion, making it more expensive than every COVID stimulus bill combined. This is not only the most expensive bill ever passed using the filibuster-proof reconciliation process, it is also the first one to permanently increase budget deficits outside the 10-year window. This unprecedented outcome was only possible because Senate Republicans effectively invoked the “nuclear option” to blow up budget enforcement mechanisms, which will open the floodgates for future Congresses to add trillions more to the national debt with barebones majorities.

The explosion of federal debt will have lasting consequences for Americans. In the short term, deficit spending by the federal government will increase by up to $632 billion in a single year, putting upward pressure on inflation rates that have remained stubbornly above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. Increased government borrowing will also put upward pressure on already elevated interest rates, making everything from mortgages to car loans more expensive for ordinary families. Over the long term, higher rates will make it more expensive for businesses to finance new investments, slowing innovation and job creation. The federal government already spends roughly a trillion dollars each year on interest payments – more than it spends on national defense or Medicare. Now those costs will grow even faster, putting them on track to rival Social Security as the single-largest line item in the federal budget within 20 years. Instead of being used to fund investments in America’s future, taxpayer dollars will be almost exclusively used to pay for previous obligations.

Perhaps what is most remarkable is that this massive assault on our country’s fiscal integrity was only made possible by the people pretending to be its loudest defenders. For years, self-identified “deficit hawks” in the House GOP conference repeatedly called the deficit an “existential threat.” And even though they relied on completely fake growth assumptions to argue that $2.5 trillion of tax cuts would pay for themselves, these representatives insisted they would not support legislation that included any additional tax cuts without offset. They went so far as to get a commitment from House Speaker Mike Johnson that he would step down if he passed a bill that crossed this red line. Yet when the Senate sent them a bill that blatantly violated their agreement, these “fiscal hawks” quickly folded under pressure and rubber-stamped it.

Compare that to what happened just four years ago under the Biden administration. President Biden’s full “Build Back Better” agenda, while no model of fiscal responsibility, would have added less than $3 trillion to budget deficits over the first 10 years if it had been permanently enacted. Even though they used budget gimmicks to do it, Democratic deficit hawks in the House ensured the reconciliation bill advancing this agenda was scored as roughly deficit-neutral under traditional accounting. And when Democratic deficit hawks in the Senate forced party leaders to strip out those gimmicks, the bill eventually became something that actually reduced deficits. While deficit hawks may be endangered within the Congressional Democratic Party, today it is clear they are functionally extinct on the Republican side.

Deeper Dive:

Budget Breakdown, by PPI’s Center for Funding America’s Future
How Trump’s BBB is Shaping Up to Be an Even Bigger Mess Than Biden’s, by Ben Ritz
Senate Changes to House Reconciliation Bill Are a Mixed Bag, by Ben Ritz and Nate Morris
The Senate OBBBA in Charts, by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget
Senate Republicans Go Nuclear to Blow Up the National Debt, by Ben Ritz
The National Debt Is Already Causing Bigger Problems Than People Realize, by The New York Times Editorial Board
We Both Served as Treasury Secretary. We Know This Bill Is Dangerous, by Robert E. Rubin and Lawrence H. Summers

Fiscal Fact:

As President Trump’s chaotic and destructive economic policies have shaken investor confidence in the first half of 2025, the U.S. dollar has lost over 10% of its value relative to foreign currencies — the worst such decline in more than 50 years. A weaker dollar results in more expensive imports, lower spending power when traveling internationally, and higher borrowing costs for both the American people and their government.

Other Fiscal News:

Trump Administration Lowers Expectations for Trade Deals as Tariff Deadline Approaches, by Time
US, Canada to Resume Trade Talks After Ottawa Drops Digital Tax, by Reuters
Donald Trump’s Fiscal Policy and Fed Attacks Imperil US Haven Status, Say Economists, by Financial Times
The Problematic Politics of Trump’s Bill: More Lower-Income Americans Are Voting GOP, by The Wall Street Journal
House Appropriators Slam DHS for ‘Egregious’ ICE Overspending, by Federal News Network

Ryan for Newsweek: Kathy Hochul’s Balanced and All of the Above Energy Approach Can Be a Blueprint for Democrats

Posted on July 3, 2025July 8, 2025 by Alex Terr

In today’s hyper-polarized political landscape, common sense often feels like a radical act. That’s why Governor Kathy Hochul’s (D-N.Y.) embrace of a balanced, all-of-the-above energy strategy deserves more than polite applause. Governor Hochul can create a model for Democrats across the country.

Natural Allies for a Clean Energy Future, a group I co-chair, conducted polling last month from showed a strong majority of New Yorkers want energy that is reliable and affordable. Sixty-six percent of New York voters, including 74 percent of state Democrats, oppose efforts to block natural gas. This isn’t a red or blue issue. It’s a kitchen table issue. It’s time Democrats leaned into it.

Energy policy doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It’s the backbone of everything we care about—economic growth, national security, public health, and affordability. Nowhere is this more apparent than in New York—a state whose infrastructure powers not just the local economy, but vital national assets.

Senate Republicans Go Nuclear to Blow Up the National Debt

Posted on July 2, 2025July 3, 2025 by Alyssa Brown

Senate Republicans on Monday took the dangerous step of “going nuclear” to pass their One Big Beautiful Bill in violation of the rules governing the filibuster-proof reconciliation process — and the fallout will add trillions of dollars to the national debt.

The reconciliation process, which was designed to fast-track policies needed to help Congress hit its budget targets, does not allow lawmakers to increase deficits outside the 10-year scoring window. These rules have always been enforced by measuring how enacting provisions in the legislation would affect the federal budget relative to a “current law baseline,” which is a scenario defined in statute and generally assumes laws are left unchanged. Senate rules require 60 votes to waive this restriction.

Republicans couldn’t find a politically palatable way to pay for the trillions of dollars in tax cuts they wanted to make permanent, so they instead decided to make those tax cuts appear free by scoring against a “current policy” baseline, which assumes every policy in effect today is extended in perpetuity — even if the law as written would have them expire. But it gets worse: to enact new tax cuts without paying for them, Senate Republicans scheduled those provisions to expire within the 10-year window and scored them as temporary. The result is a Frankenstein scorekeeping system in which no consistent accounting is used, and legislation is assumed to cost whatever the majority wishes it did.

While the Senate GOP’s “official” score of the bill using this Frankenstein accounting shows they would reduce deficits, traditional scoring against the current law baseline would show it adding more than $4 trillion to the deficit over 10 years (including higher interest payments) — and the cost would swell to $5.5 trillion if all the “temporary” provisions were made permanent. Notably, if the bill were measured in a way that treated the scheduled expirations of both new and existing policies consistently, it would violate the rules of reconciliation by permanently increasing deficits relative to either a current policy or a current law baseline.

The Senate’s parliamentarian, who is responsible for interpreting the chamber’s rules, almost certainly would rule against the GOP’s attempt to use their Frankenstein score for enforcement purposes. Any effort to circumvent the parliamentarian’s official interpretation of the rules – whether by firing her, overruling her, or formally changing the 60-vote supermajority requirement with just 51 votes — would be invoking a “nuclear option” that fundamentally changes the character of the Senate.

Senate Republicans insist they found an alternative to going nuclear by asserting the Senate Budget Committee chairman has unilateral authority to determine scores — something they argue Senate Democrats did in their 2022 budget resolution. But the two situations are not remotely the same: Senate Democrats used their authority to consistently assume discretionary spending for both the IRS and Head Start continued at baseline levels, when the original CBO score was inconsistent. Moreover, Democrats made sure the move was blessed by the parliamentarian ahead of time, whereas Republicans actively prevented the parliamentarian from making any ruling.

The fact that Republicans prevented the parliamentarian from weighing in before voting to break their own rules with a simple majority vote, rather than overruling her directly, is a distinction without a difference. Republicans have gone nuclear with their chicanery and destroyed the Senate’s budget enforcement mechanisms.

The fallout will radiate throughout fiscal policy for years to come. Not only will the national debt be up to $5.5 trillion larger 10 years from now than it would be without the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” but there will be little to stop future Congresses from doing the same thing that Republicans did this week: adding trillions more to the debt while claiming they are doing the opposite.

The U.S. Needs 8,000 Tons of Cobalt a Year, and Produces 300 Tons

Posted on July 2, 2025 by Alex Terr

FACT: The U.S. needs 8,000 tons of cobalt a year, and produces 300 tons.

THE NUMBERS: Cobalt reserves known as of 2024, worldwide* –

World	11.00 million tons
Democratic Republic of Congo	6.00 million tons
United States	0.07 million tons
All other countries	5.30 million tons

* U.S. Geological Survey, Mineral Commodity Surveys 2025

WHAT THEY MEAN:

Last March, Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, announced cancellation of 5,200 U.S. Agency for International Development contracts — all but about 1000 of them – claiming that the projects they underwrote “did not serve, (and in some cases even harmed), the core national interests of the United States.” A PPI guest post today by former USAID economist Kevin Ward looks at one of these projects: an effort to secure American manufacturers’ supply of the “critical mineral” cobalt through a transport project in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Ward’s story illustrates the work USAID professionals actually do — often technical, designed for shared benefit, sometimes entailing personal risk — and also casts an ironic light on Mr. Rubio’s line about national interests and things that don’t serve, or sometimes even harm, them:

As a point of departure, the experts at the U.S. Geological Survey consider a mineral “critical” when it is (a) “essential to the U.S. economy and national security,” and (b) “ha[s] supply chains that are vulnerable to disruption.” Reliable access for American industry to these minerals is thus widely thought (including by the Trump administration) a “core national interest.” USGS’ official list has 50 of them, from arsenic and antimony to zinc and zirconium, complete with their uses, sources, production levels, trade flows, and availability in the U.S..

Cobalt, a bluish metal selling for $33,335 per ton on the London Metal Exchange today, is No. 10 on the list. Used for centuries for stained glass and deep-blue paints, it meets USGS’s two “critical” tests because it is (a) necessary for the heat- and wear-resistant ferroalloys used for aircraft engines, and the lithium-ion batteries that run smartphones and electric vehicles, and (b) in short supply. American factories need about 8,000 tons of cobalt each year, but the lone U.S. source is the Eagle Mine in Michigan, a mainly copper-and-nickel operation which also produces about 300 tons of cobalt, and is set to close in four years.

So most cobalt must come from somewhere else, and one country in particular has a lot. The Democratic Republic of Congo (in central Africa along the eponymous river, formerly Zaire, home to 84 million people) has 55% of the world’s 11 million tons of cobalt reserves, and produces 75% of the world’s 290,000 tons of annual mining output. But as Ward explains, geopolitical uncertainty makes this source “vulnerable to disruption”:

“Though the DRC is the world’s largest cobalt producer and the second largest copper producer, its mineral supply chains are tightly controlled by China: Chinese companies own the country’s largest mines, its local processing operations, and the railroad that takes its minerals to China for additional processing.”

This is where USAID came in. The contract Ward was working on last winter was clearing the way for American businesses to get access without relying on Chinese middlemen:

“To counteract China, USAID supported the growth of a copper processing industry in the DRC and various projects along the Lobito Corridor: an infrastructure initiative connecting the Copperbelt to Angola’s Port of Lobito, increasing access to the U.S. market. As part of that effort, I kicked off a new USAID activity in January of 2025 to help refurbish the railroad from the DRC’s Copperbelt to the Angolan border — a key segment of the Lobito Corridor.”

In sum, a modest U.S. investment would restore a dilapidated railroad outside Chinese control, running from mining areas in the interior to the coast through Angola. Railcars carrying cobalt along it could sell their cargo to American manufacturers. This was one part of a five-year, $235 million program, with additional financial backing from a third U.S. agency (the Development Finance Corporation) and several dozen USAID technical people on the ground. Not a luxury posting for them, to put it mildly — see the State Department’s “Level 4, Do Not Travel” advisory for civilians and CDC’s health warnings about endemic cholera, meningitis, etc. But the job is part of a mission to serve a widely agreed U.S. interest in reducing, or perhaps eliminating, a risk of supply shock for thousands of large American manufacturers, and is the sort of work USAID people regularly do. Ward laconically explains the project’s current status:

“[W]ork came to an abrupt stop on January 20, 2025.”

So: By canceling this particular project, the administration more or less concedes a Chinese monopoly on the largest supply of a critical mineral. In a few years, even designing such projects may be harder: per its 2026 budgeting, the administration hopes to cut USGS by 40%, so by 2027 the government may lack experts on critical mineral reserves and production. The administration is, though, offering a baffling substitute: Mr. Lutnick’s Commerce Department is proposing “national security” tariffs on critical minerals — that is, taxes of 25% or so on essential things not in sufficient supply at home. In practice, this is a chance for American auto, aircraft, and battery companies to pay $41,670 per ton of cobalt, rather than the $33,335 their overseas competitors pay.

Lots more stories like this among the other 5,199 cancellations, of course. So, in a sense, Mr. Rubio is right to say that some people are going around doing things that “do not serve (or even harm) the core national interests” of the United States. He won’t have to look hard to find them.

ABOUT ED

Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.

Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.

Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank ProgressiveEconomy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.

Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007). He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.

Read the full email and sign up for the Trade Fact of the Week.

New PPI Report Asserts Democrats Must Reclaim Obama’s Vision of American Identity

Posted on July 2, 2025 by Alex Terr

WASHINGTON — A new report from the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) warns that Democrats have strayed from former President Barack Obama’s unifying vision of American national identity — and paid a steep political price. In “How Democrats Have Lost Sight of Obama’s Vision of American National Identity,” PPI contributor Ian Reifowitz contends that the party’s embrace of identity-based rhetoric and policies has alienated working-class voters of all races while failing to deliver electoral gains among communities of color.

Reifowitz, a historian and longtime observer of Obama’s political philosophy, traces how the 44th president’s inclusive and aspirational message helped build a multiracial coalition and win decisive victories. By contrast, he argues, Democratic leaders in the post-Obama era — most notably during the Biden administration — have too often leaned into the race essentialist worldview popular among progressive academics and elite institutions, emphasizing division over universal solutions and common purpose.

“Barack Obama offered Democrats a winning formula: an inclusive patriotism rooted in both realism and hope,” said Reifowitz. “My report shows that abandoning that vision has not only weakened the party’s appeal to working- and middle-class voters — it’s also left a vacuum that demagogues are eager to fill. It’s time to reclaim the idea of America as a unifying force.”

The report details how this shift coincides with declining Democratic support among key demographic groups, including nonwhite and working-class voters, and critiques the left’s overreliance on divisive frameworks such as equity mandates, race-based preferences, and pessimistic historical narratives. Reifowitz calls for a return to a politics that balances acknowledgment of past injustices with belief in America’s capacity for renewal and unity.

The report reinforces the mission of PPI’s American Identity Project and follows the announcement earlier this week of a new advisory group co-chaired by former Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers and New York Times columnist David Brooks. The project seeks to revitalize the civic traditions that sustain American democracy and promote unity in an age of polarization.

“We are proud to publish this splendid report as part of PPI’s larger effort to help Americans escape the thicket of racial identity politics that is so pronounced on both the left and right,” said Richard D. Kahenberg, Director of the American Identity Project. “Ian Reifowitz reminds us of how far many Democrats have moved away from Barack Obama’s powerful, unifying story of America, and the importance of reinvigorating that vision today.”

Read and download the report here.

Founded in 1989, PPI is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Find an expert and learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org. Follow us @PPI.

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Media Contact: Ian O’Keefe – iokeefe@ppionline.org

Real Mineral Security Requires Foreign Assistance

Posted on July 2, 2025July 28, 2025 by Alyssa Brown

Following a near-total freeze on foreign assistance, the Trump Administration is moving fast to shut down USAID, with plans for the State Department to manage its few remaining assistance programs by July 1.

Ironically, this rash decision will frustrate one of the Trump Administration’s most ambitious foreign policy goals: reducing America’s reliance on China for critical minerals. Along with pausing major programs on health and humanitarian assistance, the Administration shuttered programs that my colleagues at USAID and I had specifically designed to move global mineral supply chains out of Chinese control.

These programs ended at a time when China had already begun leveraging its dominant role in several critical mineral supply chains against the United States. In response to the Biden Administration’s export restrictions on semiconductor technology, China restricted exports of antimony, graphite, germanium, and gallium. More recently, in response to the Trump Administration’s new tariffs, China added new export restrictions for seven rare earth elements, creating severe shortages for American manufacturers.

Mineral security is but one of the many bipartisan foreign policy goals set back in closing USAID. The Administration’s rushed review process failed to identify many programs that were already aligned with its interests — let alone those that could have been easily realigned. As the State Department considers how to use its foreign assistance budget, it should look first to what was lost.

USAID’s approach to critical minerals

Historically, the focus of USAID’s minerals work had been on promoting transparency and accountability in resource governance, which increases opportunities for citizen engagement and limits opportunities for corruption. For example, USAID has long supported the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative to increase public disclosure on exploration, production, revenue distribution, and ownership. Other initiatives included formalizing illegal mining operations, improving traceability, and increasing enforcement of labor and environmental standards.

These efforts helped deliver economic development to mineral-rich countries, but they also leveled the playing field for American companies competing for foreign contracts. Whereas American companies would risk legal enforcement and public backlash for engaging in corruption or tolerating illegal or otherwise unsavory activity in their supply chains, Chinese companies operate abroad with significantly less scrutiny back home. It is therefore in the interest of American companies that rules and regulations abroad be consistent with those of the United States.

In recent years, USAID’s focus on breaking China’s stranglehold on critical mineral supply chains became more explicit. For example, during the last Administration, USAID expanded its programming in the Copperbelt region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Though the DRC is the world’s largest cobalt producer and the second largest copper producer, its mineral supply chains are tightly controlled by China: Chinese companies own the country’s largest mines, its local processing operations, and the railroad that takes its minerals to China for additional processing.

To counteract China, USAID supported the growth of a copper processing industry in the DRC and various projects along the Lobito Corridor: an infrastructure initiative connecting the Copperbelt to Angola’s Port of Lobito, increasing access to the U.S. market.

As part of that effort, I kicked off a new USAID activity in January of 2025 to help refurbish the railroad from the DRC’s Copperbelt to the Angolan border — a key segment of the Lobito Corridor. The activity would have provided the government of the DRC with a financial model and a stakeholder analysis, helping to accelerate the refurbishment, improve the project’s development outcomes, and mitigate the risk that stakeholders would block the project. And though the project would have also increased access to the DRC’s critical minerals for American manufacturers, the work came to an abrupt stop on January 20, 2025.

What is missing from the Trump Administration’s approach?

The Trump Administration’s foreign policy on critical minerals seems focused on negotiating rights to mineral reserves, from Ukraine to Greenland to the DRC. Presumably, once the U.S. obtains these rights, the U.S. Development Finance Corporation (DFC) would invest taxpayer dollars alongside private capital to mine, process, and transport critical minerals.

DFC, a U.S. government agency first authorized in 2018, is an important part of America’s foreign policy toolkit. Its various financial tools, including loans, equity investment, and political risk insurance, mobilize capital into strategically important projects that would not otherwise attract sufficient investment. In fact, a $553 million loan from DFC to the Lobito Atlantic Railway in 2024 served as the backbone for billions in investment into the Lobito Corridor.

However, DFC financing alone will not achieve the Administration’s desired outcome. There are two functions once held at USAID that are necessary complements to DFC’s investments: transaction support and policy reform.

Transaction Support: Since DFC has a modest overseas presence, USAID often served as its “boots on the ground.” This relationship was codified with a step-by-step manual on how USAID should support DFC transactions. In the sourcing phase, USAID staff’s combination of technical expertise and in-country connections allowed them to identify promising opportunities for DFC financing. And once DFC invested in a project, USAID engaged with stakeholders at all levels — including those in mining regions located far from capital cities — to make DFC’s investments successful.

To fill the gap in transaction support left by the dissolution of USAID, the State Department or DFC itself will have to significantly expand overseas staff with strong development expertise related to the mining industry and extensive in-country networks, likely drawing from former USAID staff.

Policy Reform: In addition to supporting DFC’s work on specific investments, USAID benefited all DFC transactions through programs that improved the policy environment for international investment. More competitive bidding processes allow DFC-backed companies to win contracts, while clear and consistent regulations reduce policy uncertainty throughout the lifetime of an investment.

Moreover, mining under a stronger policy environment has a much lower risk of further damaging America’s global reputation. If a local government fails to enforce environmental regulations or to properly manage its own revenue from the mining project, blame will inevitably fall to the mining company and its investors (such as the U.S. government through DFC). China’s reputation has already suffered this fate in many countries, and it is in the American interest to differentiate itself as the preferred partner.

As with transaction support, the U.S. government will need to build the capacity to help countries implement policy reforms that align with American foreign policy interests, particularly in the mining sector. That capacity existed at USAID, and it can be brought back.

Conclusion

The humanitarian consequences of USAID’s sudden demise have already garnered significant attention in the media. And, while many important programs have been cut, the Administration has decided to keep some of the most prominent life-saving programs.

But the public outcry over USAID has yet to emphasize how foreign assistance also promotes American economic strength, including by reducing our dependence on China for critical minerals. The integration of some of USAID’s functions into the State Department presents an opportunity for advocates to refresh their message, perhaps triggering a more comprehensive review of past programs that could salvage some of the development expertise and networks lost with USAID.

The Union Podcast: Live from NCSC in Orlando!

Posted on July 1, 2025August 21, 2025 by Alex Terr

How Democrats Lost Sight of Obama’s Vision of National Identity

Posted on July 1, 2025July 2, 2025 by Alyssa Brown

Roughly two decades ago, Barack Obama burst onto the national stage with an address at the 2004 Democratic Convention that captivated millions of Americans. He offered what became his most widely quoted line: “There’s not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America.”

Obama connected the language of American unity to progressive policy goals. He described his: “belief that we are connected as one people. If there’s a child on the south side of Chicago who can’t read, that matters to me, even if it’s not my child. If there’s a senior citizen somewhere who can’t pay for her prescription and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it’s not my grandmother.”

The speech was not a one-off. I have carefully studied just about every word Barack Obama uttered or wrote in a public forum from the early 1990s through the end of his presidency, and most of the rest since. My book, Obama’s America: A Transformative Vision of Our National Identity, examined his deeply held concepts of America and Americanness. His soaring depiction of our country’s story in which we’ve committed terrible wrongs but drawn upon the founding documents to make remarkable progress resonated with enough Americans to elect and re-elect him to the presidency with commanding margins — a feat accomplished by none of the Democratic Party’s three subsequent presidential candidates.

It should be obvious that Donald Trump’s vision of America represents something like the antithesis of Obama’s. Where Obama sought to unite, Trump divides. As my coauthor and I demonstrate in a forthcoming book, Trump plays on racial stereotypes as a routine feature of his rhetoric. He labeled Mexican immigrants “murderers, child predators and bloodthirsty rapists and drug dealers.” He stated: “I think Islam hates us,” impugning people of an entire religion. He told America that Haitian migrants were eating their pets. And his Defense Secretary ordered the removal from the curriculum of U.S. military service academies any topic focusing on “race, gender or the darker moments of American history.” In large part, Trump rode racial divisiveness to the Republican nomination in 2016 and then to the presidency. For Obama, being divisive was one of the most shameful things a public figure could be. It was, in fact, the strongest criticism he leveled at his own leftwing former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, in his vitally important 2008 speech titled: “A More Perfect Union: Race, Politics, and Unifying Our Country.” Whereas Trump revels in “blood and soil” nationalism, Obama champions the idea of America.

What’s less obvious but equally important is that Democratic politicians — influenced by far-left academics — have in important ways departed from how the 44th president talks about our history and our national identity in the years since he left office. In fact, I have been astonished by how much influence the views of the academic left — views that depart significantly from Obama’s — have gained even among Democratic officials.

Read the full report.

Manno for Forbes: Civic Education As We Look To Our Nation’s 250th Anniversary

Posted on June 30, 2025June 30, 2025 by Max Sherrill

More than seven out of 10 U.S. adults give a grade of C or worse to K-12 public schools’ efforts to prepare students “to be good citizens.” History and civics 8^th-grade test scores are at an all-time low. On the other hand, there is strong support and narrowing political differences between Democrats and Republicans on the importance of civic education, especially students learning civics and history.

In 2026 we will celebrate America’s 250th anniversary commemorating the signing the Declaration of Independence. As we prepare for this event, we should acknowledge both the worrisome and good news and continue to advance efforts that increase students’ knowledge of civics and history.

Troubling News

There are worrisome signs that patriotism, civic knowledge, and civic education are declining. A Gallup poll in 2023 found that 39% of U.S. adults were extremely proud to be an American, compared to 55% in 2001 when the question was first asked. This was essentially unchanged from the 38% record low in 2022. When combining those extremely or very proud, the number dropped from a high of 90% in 2003 to 67% in 2023. There also is a divide on patriotism between younger and older Americans. While 50% of adults aged 55 and older said they are extremely proud to be American, 40% of those aged 35 to 54 and 18% of 18- to 34-year-olds said the same.

Keep reading in Forbes.

PPI Announces Group to Strengthen American Identity

Posted on June 30, 2025June 30, 2025 by Alyssa Brown

WASHINGTON — In advance of Independence Day, a group of prominent Americans, led by former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers and New York Times columnist David Brooks, is coming together to provide advice and recommendations about how schools and colleges can best transmit American traditions and civic ideals to the next generation.

The group is seeking to address four related challenges:

Social cohesion is eroding on both sides of the political spectrum. Right-wing white nationalists see some citizens as more American than others, while left-wing race essentialists undermine what we have in common as Americans.
Historically, our civic creed has provided the glue that unifies Americans of diverse backgrounds; yet today, young Americans report much less faith in America and in democracy than older Americans. Our schools need to do a better job of teaching students what it means to be an American.
America’s founders believed education was the safeguard of democracy. Yet our schools have fallen short, as many Americans have demonstrated a troubling tolerance for political leaders who defy long-standing liberal democratic norms.
Paradoxically, figures who show autocratic tendencies are sometimes seen by Americans as particularly patriotic, underlining the need for those who stand firmly for democracy to embrace a proud American identity.

Among the other leaders who will advise the Progressive Policy Institute’s American Identity Project are: Former U.S. Senator Doug Jones (Ala.), Former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley (N.J.), Representative Ritchie Torres (N.Y.), Ford Foundation President Darren Walker, Harvard professors Danielle Allen and Elisa New, Brookings scholar William Galston, Center for Equal Opportunity chair Linda Chavez, and Columbia professor Mark Lilla.

“Young people need an education that tells America’s whole story — acknowledging America’s shortcomings but also its idealism and extraordinary achievements. This education merges a love and appreciation of country with clear-eyed recognition that the United States has a long journey on the way to its ‘more perfect union,’” said Summers, who is president emeritus of Harvard University.

Brooks added: “It is fashionable in some elite circles to denigrate patriotism, but a deep belief in American ideals has fueled much of the progress in this country, from advances in civil rights to those for women. If our schools do not instill a healthy love of our country’s highest aspirations, we are greatly diminished as a people.”

“A nation cannot endure if its children are taught to loathe it,” said Rep. Torres. “In a time of deep division and democratic backsliding, we must instill in the next generation not only a critical understanding of our history, but a proud sense of what it means to be an American. The American Identity Project is essential to renewing our civic spirit and strengthening the democratic values that hold us together.”

“At a time of great national division that only seems to be getting wider, it’s enormously important that our public schools teach our young people a common American identity,” remarked Senator Jones. “That’s good policy, good politics, and is truly what makes America great. It’s time for those of us alarmed by Donald Trump to recapture the mantle of patriotism.”

“You cannot expect people to change a country for the better if they do not love it enough to care,” added Lilla. “It’s time to remind ourselves what we share and why it matters.”

“My identity as a Black person, a Texan, and a gay man are all important to me, but my most cherished identity is that of being an American,” said Walker. “It’s critical that our students learn the shared values that bind us together across lines of race, gender, class, sexuality, region, and ideology.”

“We are on the verge of losing the idea that we are one nation,” Chavez observed. “In the words of our national motto, E Pluribus Unum: Out of Many, One. Forging a common identity has been vital to our success as an immigrant nation, and the American Identity Project will help preserve that ideal.”

“Next year marks the 250th anniversary of America’s grand experiment in individual liberty and democratic self-government,” said PPI President Will Marshall. “What better time to reaffirm the primacy of our shared civic identity as Americans over our various tribal identities and loyalties? That’s what makes U.S. pluralism a source of national strength, and it’s the mission of PPI’s new American Identity Project.”

Richard D. Kahlenberg, Director of PPI’s American Identity Project, thanked the advisory board members for offering to guide PPI’s thinking about “what can be done to address one of the central puzzles of modern political times: how those who champion the values America’s Founders held dear are seen as less patriotic than those who threaten liberal democratic norms on a daily basis. We urgently need new approaches.”

More background information can be found at PPI’s American Identity Project webpage, which includes a 7-page prospectus that explains the need for the project, its parameters, and its potential impact; a 50-page overview report previewing areas of future research, and inspiring examples of groups doing promising work; and a shorter summary of the overview report that appeared in The Liberal Patriot.

The American Identity Project is consistent with PPI’s longstanding commitment to promote fresh policy ideas that draw strong public support from a broad range of Americans. Promoting a reflective patriotism has been a common PPI principle that has animated, among other things, PPI’s policy ideas around national service that were implemented by President Bill Clinton with the creation of AmeriCorps.

Founded in 1989, PPI is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Find an expert and learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org. Follow us @PPI.

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Media Contact: Ian O’Keefe – iokeefe@ppionline.org

The Union Podcast Episode 4

Posted on June 27, 2025August 21, 2025 by Alex Terr

GOP’s “Big Beautiful Bill” Would Undermine Economic Stability

Posted on June 26, 2025June 26, 2025 by Alyssa Brown

Much has been written about the great harm Republicans’ “One Big Beautiful Bill” (OBBB) would do to the federal government’s finances and the financial well-being of low-income Americans. But less appreciated is how adding trillions of dollars to the deficit during a time of high price pressures, and making major cuts to safety-net programs that help cushion the economy during downturns, would undermine economic stability.

When the country enters a recession and demand from the private sector drops, deficit-financed spending is an essential tool governments use to help fill the void and restore the economy to full strength. Conversely, policymakers should rein in deficits to prevent inflation and restore the country’s fiscal reserve when the economy has recovered. Last year, the economy grew at a healthy 2.4% annual rate. Although President Trump’s counterproductive trade policies have threatened to reverse this trend, the nation’s unemployment rate has so far remained stable around 4.2% — a historically low level. Meanwhile, the inflation rate remains stubbornly above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target after years of rising prices. Normally, this would be the perfect time for Congress to cut deficits, clamp down on inflationary pressures, and put debt on a sustainable path.

But despite campaigning against the fiscal excesses and inflationary policies of the Biden administration, Republicans’ OBBB pours fuel on the fire by pumping trillions of dollars into the economy when they’re not needed. In addition to extending the already-unaffordable tax cuts passed in President Trump’s first term, this bill tacks on expensive new provisions such as eliminating taxes on overtime and tips. Moreover, many of these provisions are temporary, supercharging the short-term impact on our deficit at precisely the time when our nation needs the opposite: nearly three-fourths of the House bill’s roughly $3 trillion deficit increase would occur in just the first four years after passage.

Yet in addition to sabotaging the government’s ability to fight inflation now, OBBB would also make it more difficult for the government to fight future economic downturns. Pointlessly piling on debt now can make it harder for the government to borrow more during a recession when it’s actually needed. And some of the few policies Republicans have included to reduce the cost of the bill would undermine programs that are most helpful in supporting the economy through those recessions, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

SNAP is a strong “automatic stabilizer” because spending on benefits increases automatically when the U.S. economy slips into recession, as falling incomes cause more people to become eligible for support. An integral feature of SNAP is that administrators may also waive the program’s work requirements when an area “does not have a sufficient number of jobs,” which often occurs during a recession. Under federal rules, various geographic areas can demonstrate their eligibility for these waivers through several criteria, including averages of unemployment rates, eligibility for special unemployment benefits, and more, ensuring that benefits are not stalled when needed the most.

OBBB removes this flexibility. States would only be able to request waivers for counties, while the only acceptable metric to prove a weak labor market would be an unemployment rate above 10%. For context: During the worst of the Great Recession, the national unemployment rate only hit 10% in a single month, while 40% of counties never reached that threshold at all. In addition, the House bill includes new cost-sharing requirements for states, which would require states to pay up to 25% of SNAP’s cost depending on the state’s payment error rate (the Senate has proposed limiting cost-sharing to 15% in its version of the bill).

Although reducing improper payments is certainly an admirable goal, this legislation undermines that effort by cutting federal support for SNAP administrative costs. And taken together, OBBB’s changes would be especially detrimental during recessions. Because most states are legally not permitted to run budget deficits, they are forced to make painful budget cuts when revenues fall during downturns. At the same time, payment error rates for SNAP and other similar programs tend to rise as states scramble to process a new wave of applications. Thus, the GOP cost-sharing requirements would force states to shoulder a growing share of SNAP costs when they can least afford it, likely leading to spending cuts that prolong recessions.

Republicans might claim that these fears are overblown because Congress is free to change SNAP’s waiver and cost-sharing requirements during a crisis (as it has done in the past). However, requiring Congress to pass legislation to unlock SNAP leaves the program vulnerable to political gridlock, and undermines its ability to automatically stabilize the economy. Moreover, if these requirements are suspended during future recessions, they will fail to generate the savings that Republicans claim will pay for their costly tax cut and make the bill’s deficit impact that much worse. By piling on debt during a time of high prices and low unemployment, while making it needlessly more difficult to fight future downturns when the situation is reversed, OBBB undercuts any argument one could make that Republicans are the party of fiscal responsibility and stable economic growth.