Daily News Brief

January 9, 2025

Top of the Agenda

U.S. President Joe Biden canceled his last overseas trip as president today to monitor the response to wildfires raging across greater Los Angeles, which have quickly grown to be the most destructive in the area’s history. The fires have burned through hundreds of buildings, with local disaster responders struggling to contain them. At least five people have died and more than one hundred thousand are under mandatory evacuation orders. Dry conditions and low water levels in reservoirs have further hampered relief efforts. The National Weather Service warned this morning that critical fire conditions will persist in the area through tomorrow evening. 

Biden will oversee federal containment and relief efforts rather than travel on a planned trip to meet with the Pope, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. As part of the federal disaster declaration, Biden directed the Department of Defense to aid in the firefighting response, including Navy helicopters and National Guard personnel. (AP, NYT, White House)

Analysis

“With the possible exception of a Taiwan invasion or a nuclear attack on the homeland, nearly everything else that U.S. foreign policy professionals focus on—from terrorism prevention to regional conflict management to supply chain diversification—matters far less to U.S. interests than the certain harms that global climate change will inflict on the United States,” CFR Senior Fellow Varun Sivaram told CFR.org.

“The California wildfires should be a stark reminder that the United States, which will only account for less than 5 percent of future climate-warming emissions, will suffer immense economic damage at the hands of foreign greenhouse gas emissions. Stopping those emissions represents a more valuable national security goal than nearly every priority the U.S. military, intelligence services, and diplomatic missions currently focus on,” Sivaram continued.

“Our disaster management system is not sustainable in this era. [The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection] gets a lot of training in the wildland-urban interface, much more so than most federal wildland fire crews which focus on uninhabited national forests and public lands. The size and scale and proximity to populated areas is just too much,” Harvard University’s Juliette Kayyem posts.

Pacific Rim

Beijing accused the European Union (EU) Foreign Subsidies Regulation of being an unfair trade barrier yesterday and said it reserved the right to retaliate, though it announced no immediate countermeasures. The law allows for investigations into certain foreign government subsidies, prompting the bloc to increase tariffs on Chinese electric cars last year. An EU official said the regulation is “country agnostic.” (WSJ, Bloomberg)

CFR’s Brad W. Setser and Michael Weilandt show how China’s stunning 2024 export growth means Europe is losing out. 

Indonesia: Apple’s billion-dollar offer to relocate some production in Indonesia was “not enough” for the country to reverse its ban on the sale of iPhone 16s, an Indonesian minister said yesterday. The company had been trying to relocate some of its production from China as trade tensions grow but negotiations ended yesterday without a deal, Bloomberg reported. (FT, Bloomberg)

South and Central Asia

A letter from hundreds of veterans and current and former U.S. officials appealed to President-elect Donald Trump and Congress to continue funding the slow-moving resettlement of Afghans who are at risk for helping the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan, Reuters reported. They also call for the approval of fifty thousand new special immigrant visas. The Trump transition team did not immediately comment. (Reuters)

Japan/Myanmar: A suspected Japanese criminal leader pleaded guilty in a New York court yesterday to trafficking nuclear weapons materials from Myanmar. He tried to sell the components to someone he thought was an Iranian general who intended to use them for a nuclear weapons program, the Department of Justice said. (CNN)

Middle East and North Africa

Lawmakers chose armed forces commander Joseph Aoun as president today, ending an impasse in which twelve previous votes to choose the leader were unsuccessful. Lebanon’s previous president departed in October 2022. (WaPo) 

U.S./Syria: The Biden administration opted not to lift a terrorist designation on the Syrian rebel group that is now running the country’s transitional government, pushing a decision on whether to do so to Trump. The designation affects the ease of lifting U.S. sanctions on Syria. (WaPo) 

CFR Senior Fellow Bruce Hoffman looks at what to know about Syria’s victorious rebel group.

Sub-Saharan Africa

The two countries with the largest shipping registries in the world have backed a proposed flat tax on greenhouse gas emissions from shipowners. Both are influential in talks on standards for the sector at the International Maritime Organization. (FT)

Chad: Two weeks after the country held disputed parliamentary elections, the ruling military said it had stamped out a “destabilization attempt” on the presidential complex. The incident occurred just hours after officials had hosted China’s foreign minister; one guard and eighteen assailants died, the government said. (Bloomberg)

Europe

Those aiding gangs that facilitate undocumented migration into the United Kingdom will soon be targeted with new financial penalties, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said. (Bloomberg)

Russia/Ukraine: Russia bombed the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia in its deadliest single strike in Ukraine in recent weeks; thirteen people were killed and over sixty wounded, authorities said. (NYT)

This week, CFR expert Paul B. Stares released a report on the major conflicts to watch in 2025.

Americas

Opposition leader María Corina Machado called Venezuelans to the streets today to reject tomorrow’s planned inauguration of President Nicolás Maduro for a third term. Several countries including the United States recognize opposition candidate Edmundo González as the true winner of Venezuela’s July 2024 election. Maduro’s government detained opposition members, including a former presidential candidate, ahead of today’s marches. (CNN, Reuters)

Argentina: The Argentine government sold a state metals company to a U.S.-based consortium, its first privatization under libertarian President Javier Milei. (Reuters)

United States

Biden and all four living former presidents will honor former President Jimmy Carter, who died on December 29 at 100 years old, at his National Cathedral funeral today. Biden, who has said Carter “lived a life measured not by his words but by his deeds,” is due to give a eulogy; Vice President Kamala Harris paid tribute to Carter yesterday as he lay in state. Trump praised Carter yesterday as “a good man,” but criticized his presidential record, including Carter’s move to transfer ownership of the Panama Canal, which he called a “big mistake.” (NPR, White House) 

Gideon Weiss and CFR Senior Fellow Ray Takeyh discuss Carter’s foreign policy legacy.

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