Despite significant concessions and reductions in aid to Ukraine, Russia has shown little interest in the Trump administration’s attempts to broker peace—stalling negotiations and continuing attacks on civilians. Writing in Politico, Russian historian Leon Aron explains why Vladimir Putin benefits from continuing the war—and why a soft line will not convince him to end it.

Fundamentally, conceding spheres of influence to the authoritarian regimes confronting the US will only embolden further aggression. In a new essay for Foreign Affairs, Michael Beckley assesses the destabilizing effects of this assumption and other elements of the administration’s unilateralist strategy and proposes a more effective and sustainable alternative that could still strengthen the free world.

Tariffs are especially counterproductive to any unilateral strategy because they intensify geopolitical conflict while undermining American power’s economic basis. AEI tax expert Kyle Pomerleau underlines these costs by showing how tariffs not only tax consumption but also make investment in the American economy more expensive.

In his first term, Donald Trump tried to offset the costs of his tariffs with a bailout to farmers, and this week he announced he would pursue a similar approach. In a new AEI report, Joseph W. Glauber analyzes the American agricultural sector’s vulnerability to trade war, showing how government compensation cannot offset the long-term costs of trade flows shifting away from the US.

This week, new lawsuits were filed challenging the legal basis for these tariffs—the president’s declaration that large and persistent trade deficits constitute an emergency under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act. John Yoo highlights the constitutional issues at stake and explains why the Trump administration cannot assert any constitutional executive emergency power if it loses the statutory basis for these actions.