PUBLICATIONS

This edition's featured story discusses racism in the time of coronavirus while the monitor as a whole presents an aggregation of current continent wide stories, a list of upcoming events, and more.

This report highlights the impact of the Center for International Policy during the year 2019.

This month we honor people of African descent that have kept the flame of Africa alive in the U.S. while making significant contributions to the global Pan-African movement. This fact sheet highlights the accomplishments of some pioneers of the movement as well as some lesser known Keepers of the Flame. This was created by Darren Harvey, Temi Ibirogba and Salih Booker of CIP's Africa Program.

This briefing takes a look at how the 2020 travel ban, annouced on 31 January, affects African nations. President Trump expanded his 2017 travel ban by placing restrictions on half a dozen additional countries including Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, along with Tanzania, Eritrea and Sudan. 25% of Africa’s population will be affected by this ban including the continent’s most populous country and largest economy. The travel ban expansion contradicts the Trump administration’s policy initiative, Prosper Africa, which is meant to increase economic ties with the African continent as a way of competing with Russian and Chinese influence.

The U.S security aid relationship with Ukraine is relatively new, beginning in 2014 after a Russian military intervention in the country's east and annexation of Crimea. Since then, U.S. military aid to Ukraine has grown annually by an average of 42%. Between FY2008 and FY2013, annual security aid to Ukraine averaged 57.9M. Between FY2014 to FY2019, that figure had jumped to $263.5M. But it wasn't until Trump assumed office that the U.S. began providing lethal equipment, a notable policy shift from the Obama Administration. It was the culmination of a bipartisan consensus surrounding support to Kyiv in the face of Russian pressure, which is why the President's subsequent suspension came as such a surprise and drew such a sharp rebuke from lawmakers and other stakeholders.

Think tanks vary considerably in terms of their objectives and organization, but many think tanks in Washington D.C. share a common trait—they receive substantial financial support from foreign governments. While these are often democracies with interests closely aligned with those of the U.S., a significant number of these foreign donors are undemocratic, authoritarian regimes whose aims often diverge significantly from U.S. interests. In a variety of instances, the public has learned that this foreign funding can significantly influence think tanks’ work. It can lead to a think tank producing reports favorable to a foreign power, think tank experts offering Congressional testimony in support of a foreign powers’ interests, or its scholars working closely with a foreign funders’ registered lobbyists.

The Trump administration is reportedly witholding $105M in U.S. security assistance to Lebanon, including substantial aid to the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF).

How has the UAE maintained its privileged status? In short, the UAE has a vast and immensely influential lobbying and public relations campaign in America that has allowed the monarchy to exert considerable sway over U.S. policy, while keeping the UAE’s indiscretions largely hidden. In this report we attempt to tell the story of that influence operation.

After essentially giving a green light to Turkey’s invasion of northern Syria to attack the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) forces, President Trump took a slight turn when he declared that there would be severe economic consequences for Turkey’s economy if the intervention was not carried out in a “humane” fashion. If the president were to take action to try to stem a military incursion that he helped facilitate, he could start by cutting off support for Turkey’s military, which is heavily dependent on U.S.-supplied equipment.

This report provides information on arms offers to Saudi Arabia involving the four largest U.S. arms suppliers to that nation: Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and General Dynamics. Over 90% of U.S. arms offers to Saudi Arabia by value involved one of these top four supplying firms. The analysis covers offers notified to Congress, not all of which have yet resulted in final deliveries of the equipment; and data on weapons deliveries gathered from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) arms transfer database.