Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Situation Report. It’s been a busy week in the world, and FP’s news team has been all over it with pieces on a new (and mysterious) Ukraine peace plan and the Russian envoy linked to it as well as Trump’s meeting with MBS and its nuclear implications.
But we’ve still got plenty for you in this week’s newsletter, including Trump vowing to help end the war in Sudan, the impact of sanctions on Russia’s top oil companies, and Mexico’s pushback on Trump once again floating strikes on drug cartels there.
After two and a half years of fighting, the civil war in Sudan between the country’s military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) is slowly but surely garnering more international attention following a massacre in El Fasher late last month as the RSF overran the city.
Though the conflict is estimated to have killed more than 150,000 people and has sparked what the United Nations has characterized as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, the global community has consistently neglected the war.
During a meeting at the White House on Tuesday, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman urged U.S. President Donald Trump to help end the war. Saudi Arabia sits across the Red Sea from Sudan and views the war there as a threat to its national security.
And it seems his urging worked.
“Not on my charts.” Trump—who has made a point to highlight the various peace negotiations he has been involved in during his presidency—on Wednesday effectively conceded that the war hadn’t been on his radar and said he saw the conflict “differently” after his conversation with the crown prince.
“His majesty would like me to do something very powerful having to do with Sudan. It was not on my charts to be involved in that,” Trump said. “I viewed it as being just sort of a freelance, no government, no this, no that. And [Mohammed bin Salman] explained the whole culture and the whole history, and it was very interesting to hear, really amazing actually to hear, and we’ve already started working on that.”
In a subsequent post on Truth Social, Trump vowed to work with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and other Middle Eastern partners to end the “atrocities” in Sudan and stabilize the country.
The Trump administration has already been engaged in diplomatic efforts with those three countries, as part of an initiative dubbed the Quad, to raise pressure for an end to the war. The Quad has pushed for a humanitarian truce in Sudan as an initial step, but it has been unsuccessful so far. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio also recently called for countries to take steps to cut off the flow of arms and supplies to the RSF.
The UAE, a key security partner for Washington in the Middle East, has been widely accused of fueling the conflict by providing weapons to the RSF in exchange for gold. Though Abu Dhabi denies this, U.N. experts have found the allegations against the Gulf state to be credible.
More pressure needed. The situation in Sudan has sparked famine in parts of the country and led to allegations of genocide, including from the United States. The war is also fueling regional instability and pushing refugees into neighboring countries such as Chad.
This week, John spoke with Charlotte Slente, the secretary-general of the Danish Refugee Council, about a recent trip she took to eastern Chad to meet with Sudanese refugees. Slente said the situation she encountered was “horrifying,” and she implored world leaders to do more to pressure the warring parties to lay down their arms.
“We need a very, very dedicated effort from the international community to try to make the parties stop this war or agree to a cease-fire. This is not a war that is going to end by military means. It needs a negotiated agreement between the parties. That will not be easy—it needs sustained pressure from all parties,” Slente said.
Read the rest of John’s interview with Slente about Sudan here.
Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, is set to depart the administration in January, according to a Reuters report. Kellogg, considered to be among the more Kyiv-friendly officials under Trump 2.0, is said to be leaving because the 360-day period in which he’s able to serve as an envoy without Senate confirmation is coming to an end and he felt it was a natural moment to make his exit.
What should be high on your radar, if it isn’t already.
Shipping chips. The U.S. Commerce Department announced on Wednesday that it had approved the export of advanced semiconductor chips from tech giant Nvidia to the UAE and Saudi Arabia. G42, an artificial intelligence firm backed by the Emirati government, and Humain, a similar company owned by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, will each get approvals to buy up to 35,000 Nvidia Blackwell chips, used to train advanced AI models.
The authorization is the final step in deals signed by Trump when he visited the region in May. The Commerce Department sought to allay fears that the shipments could see advanced U.S. tech end up in China’s hands, saying the approvals “are conditioned on both companies meeting rigorous security and reporting requirements.”
Countering China. Speaking of China, it’s that time of year when one of the most comprehensive annual U.S. government reports on Beijing’s behavior comes out. The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission released its annual report to Congress on Tuesday, warning that the Chinese government “now possesses a hyper-charged, state-directed manufacturing base without historic parallel” that it is using for “economic coercion” around the world. “[Does] the United States continue to have escalation dominance in imposing economic restrictions on China? Growing evidence suggests that advantage may be eroding,” the report concludes.
The commission issued 28 recommendations to combat China’s growing technological and economic clout, including the creation of a new “economic statecraft entity” aimed at Beijing’s evasion of U.S. export controls as well as increased investment in U.S. quantum, biotechnology, and energy security. If you’re desperately searching for a weekend read, you can read all 733 pages of the report here.
Sheinbaum vs. Trump. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has once again made it clear that she opposes the United States taking military action against drug cartels in her country. “It’s not going to happen,” Sheinbaum said on Tuesday.
“[Trump] has suggested it on various occasions, or he has said, ‘We offer you a United States military intervention in Mexico, whatever you need to fight the criminal groups,’” she said. “But I have told him on every occasion that we can collaborate, that they can help us with information they have, but that we operate in our territory, that we do not accept any intervention by a foreign government.”
Trump has repeatedly floated striking cartels in Mexico, including as recently as Monday. “Would I launch strikes in Mexico to stop drugs? OK with me, whatever we have to do to stop drugs,” he said.
Former U.S. President George W. Bush; his wife, Laura Bush; former U.S. President Joe Biden; his wife, Jill Biden; former U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris; and former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence attend the funeral service for former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington on Nov. 20. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
U.S. Treasury officials were bullish on the impact of sanctions on Russia’s two top oil firms on a call Thursday, a day after the Trump administration appeared to send mixed signals on its willingness to pressure Russia over the war in Ukraine.
“We are seeing concrete impacts,” said one Treasury official, pointing to lower outbound oil flows from Russia and a drop in the price of oil. A second Treasury official said the hits to oil revenue, which Russia relies on heavily for taxes, will “significantly exacerbate Russia’s budgetary pressures and its ability to fund its war machine.” Both officials on the call spoke on condition of anonymity per terms set by the administration.
The first Treasury official said more data would be necessary for a full analysis of the impact but pointed to positive initial signs: “When you see less crude flowing out of Russia, and when you see ships stopped in the sea, unable to offload their crude because the sanctions have come in place, that’s a real impact.”
In October, the Treasury Department levied sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil over what the Trump administration said was Russia’s lack of commitment to a peace process. At the time, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent placed the blame for the failure of a peace process on Russian President Vladimir Putin and just a few days later called Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev a “Russian propagandist.”
The sanctions stand in contrast to reports on Wednesday that Trump envoy Steve Witkoff has been working with Dmitriev on drafting a Ukraine peace plan that heavily reflects Russia’s maximalist demands, including Ukrainian territorial concessions and sharp reductions in the size of Ukraine’s military.—Sam Skove
Friday, Nov. 21: The interior and security ministers of the G-7 countries meet in Ottawa, Ontario.
A court hearing for former U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton, who is charged with mishandling classified information, is scheduled to take place.
Saturday, Nov. 22: South Africa hosts the G-20 leaders’ summit.
Monday, Nov. 24: Angola hosts the European Union-African Union summit.
The Interpol General Assembly convenes in Marrakech, Morocco.
100—the number of Rafale fighter jets France has agreed to sell to Ukraine over the next 10 years. It’s yet another example of European countries stepping up their role in aiding Ukraine’s defense, coming weeks after a commitment by Sweden to sell 150 of its Gripen fighters to Kyiv.
“I would not have said that.”
—Former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, speaking at a Chatham House event on Wednesday, regarding Trump defending Mohammed bin Salman over the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi. A declassified U.S. intelligence report concluded that the crown prince ordered the operation that led to Khashoggi’s killing and dismemberment.
