Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the United States’ new national security directives, a drone incursion into Latvian airspace, and a controversial delay in Zambia’s election.
Policy Action In Washington
U.S. President Donald Trump unveiled a slate of national security directives this week, including aggressive tariffs on drones, measures that free U.S. companies to hack on behalf of the government, and changes to Navy policy.
Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the United States’ new national security directives, a drone incursion into Latvian airspace, and a controversial delay in Zambia’s election.
Policy Action In Washington
U.S. President Donald Trump unveiled a slate of national security directives this week, including aggressive tariffs on drones, measures that free U.S. companies to hack on behalf of the government, and changes to Navy policy.
In the name of “securing American drone dominance,” the Trump administration on Friday announced a 100 percent tariff on drones weighing more than 25 kilograms and drones with thermal imaging; a 25 percent tariff on small drones, even those without particular national security concerns; and a 15 percent tariff on drone parts from allies such as the European Union, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Drones from the United Kingdom will only face a 10 percent tariff.
Trump will implement the tariffs under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which gives the president a more legally durable tariff strategy for national security risks after the Supreme Court ruled against a different method in February. The White House’s announcement makes no mention of China, but the move is widely seen as attempting to counter Chinese dominance, as drones have become a critical part of modern warfare from Ukraine to Iran to Latin America.
In a national security memorandum on Wednesday, Trump also directed the U.S. government to partner with “vetted” private companies to conduct cyberattacks and surveillance against foreign transnational criminal networks that target U.S. citizens. While the announcement does not say which companies might sign on or what their specific missions would be, it establishes a framework for federal government oversight of such activities and sets guardrails against cyberattacks that would cause loss of life or “rise to the level of use of force or armed attack under international law.”
The move offloads work from U.S. military and intelligence agency hackers and puts the United States on more equal footing with the likes of Russia, China, and Iran, which have long merged private cyber capabilities with the state. Hackers linked to these governments “have a history of targeting U.S. critical infrastructure,” including recent suspected Iranian cyberattacks on vulnerable U.S. water systems, Foreign Policy’s Rishi Iyengar and Christina Lu report. However, the directive makes it clear that it only targets criminal groups that are “not an institutional part of a foreign government or wholly operated under a foreign government’s direction.”
But some experts warn that Trump’s directive risks inflaming global cyberwarfare and that attributing cyberattacks to specific actors is a fraught undertaking. “People are regularly and willingly wrong on pretty important incidents,” Nick Carr, threat intelligence lead at Microsoft and a former official at the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, wrote on social media.
Finally, Trump achieved a longtime goal on Thursday, when he mandated the Navy’s return to steam catapults to launch jet fighters from aircraft carriers, replacing a newer electromagnetic catapult system. The switch could cost billions of dollars. The memo also allows the Navy to outsource building to overseas shipyards and orders the Pentagon to build a fifth naval shipyard for submarines and aircraft carriers.
The order comes alongside growing concerns over the strength and health of the U.S. military, including reportedly poor conditions onboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, a depleted drone arsenal, and a loss to Ukrainian troops in a military training exercise earlier this year.
Today’s Most Read
What We’re Following
Fire and drones. Ukrainian drones battered Ust-Luga, Russia’s largest Baltic Sea port, on Friday morning, causing a fire and imperiling a key node in Russia’s oil export network. Russian officials claimed that the country’s air defenses shot down 54 Ukrainian drones, that the fires have been put out, and that there are no casualties.
But one day of attack may not be the end. In the span of just seven days in March, Ukraine attacked Ust-Luga four times, which, combined with an additional attack on the port of Primorsk, may have cost Russia nearly $1 billion in oil revenues. Earlier this week, long-range Ukrainian drones forced an oil refinery in the Russian city of Orsk, near the border of Kazakhstan, to shut completely for up to six months.
NATO jets also shot down a foreign drone over Latvia on Friday. Two Italian jets from a base in Lithuania and two Turkish jets from a base in Estonia responded to the reported violation of Latvian airspace. The Latvian military is searching for debris near the village of Rugaji, around 20 miles from the Russian border. It has yet to confirm the drone’s origin, but Ukrainian drones have previously strayed into Baltic countries accidentally. A spokesperson for the Latvian military blamed “Russian electromagnetic warfare” for such incidents.
Zambian election. Zambia’s Electoral Commission temporarily suspended vote-counting in the country’s parliamentary and presidential elections on Friday, citing reports of ballot theft and violence at polling locations. The Electoral Commission resumed counting later in the day and said the final results of the Aug. 13 elections will still be delivered as expected on Monday.
Although 14 candidates are vying for the presidency, it is primarily a showdown between incumbent Hakainde Hichilema, who is favored to win a second term, and opposition leader Brian Mundubile. Hichilema was first elected in 2021 and has since steered the copper-rich nation out of a debt crisis. His long-term economic plan to triple Zambia’s copper output has garnered attention from mineral-hungry powers such as China and the United States. But Zambia’s cost-of-living conditions are still dire, and critics charge that Hichilema has silenced dissent.
Hichilema called for patience after the vote-counting was suspended. Mundubile condemned the decision and alleged that the ruling party suspended the vote count for its own benefit. “We have serious grounds for concern that the widespread intimidation surrounding this election is being orchestrated and exploited by elements associated with the state in an attempt to interfere with the democratic will of the Zambian people,” Mundubile said in a video posted to social media. In an earlier post, he claimed that “our tabulation indicated that we have won this election.”
After vote-counting resumed, Electoral Commission Chairperson Mwangala Zaloumis urged candidates to “desist from declaring themselves as the winners of these elections” as preliminary counts are released.
Focus on the straits. The United Arab Emirates accused Iran on Friday of a “hostile” drone attack on two ships affiliated with the state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) in the Strait of Hormuz yesterday. This follows a similar incident last week, in which the UAE accused Iran of attacking an ADNOC tanker. No deaths have been recorded from either incident, according to the UAE’s Foreign Affairs Ministry; Iran has not responded to the accusations.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters on Thursday that the U.S. military can maintain an “indefinite” naval presence in the strait to enforce its blockade of Iranian ports. The commander of Iran’s navy, meanwhile, insisted that Iran has “complete and decisive” control over the strait. “Reality should be seen on the ground, not in the statements and declarations of U.S. officials,” he said in a statement.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Newsmax on Thursday that new economic measures to pressure Iran will be announced next week. Meanwhile, 13 countries have joined a maritime military coalition founded by Saudi Arabia to safeguard freedom of navigation in the Red Sea, the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, and the Gulf of Aden, Saudi Arabia’s defense ministry announced on Thursday. Bahrain, Bangladesh, the Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Pakistan, Qatar, Somalia, Sudan, Turkey, and Yemen have joined so far, with more expected to follow.
What in the World?
A major typhoon made landfall in southeastern China on Sunday. What marine animal was it named after?
A. Orca
B. Swordfish
C. Lobster
D. Dolphin
Odds and Ends
A person has been fined $5,255 for blasting a foghorn onboard a ship in Norway’s Svalbard archipelago and causing a sleeping polar bear to wake up and move to a different location. According to a statement released by Svalbard’s governor, the act was “intentional” and thus in violation of the Svalbard Environmental Act, which forbids any actions that “needlessly disturb, attract or pursue a polar bear.” Let sleeping bears lie.
And the Answer Is…
D. Dolphin
The storm also triggered rough conditions as far away as the Philippines. Southeast Asia is disproportionately impacted by inclement weather due to a confluence of factors, FP’s Joseph Rachman wrote in Southeast Asia Brief last November.
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