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Born in rural Ohio, Howard Keylor attended a one-room country schoolhouse. He became a mem-ber of the National Honor Society when he graduated from Marietta High School.
After enlisting in the U.S. Army, Howard fought in the Pacific Theater in World War Two, during which he participated in the Battle of Okinawa as a Corporal. The 96th U.S. Army Division, which Howard trained with, had casualty rates above 50%. The incompetence and racism of the military command, the destruction of the capital city of Naha and the deliberate killings of tens of thousands of Okinawan civil-ians – a third of the population - made Howard a committed anti-imperialist, anti-militarist and anti-racist for the rest of his life.
Upon returning to the United States, Howard enrolled in the College of the Pacific, but dropped out to support Filipino agricultural workers in the 1948 asparagus strike, working with legendary labor leader Larry Itliong. He became a longshore worker in Stockton in 1953. As a member of the Communist Party, Howard and his wife, Evangeline, were attacked in the HUAC (McCarthy) hearings in San Francisco. Later, Howard transferred to ILWU Local 10. In 1971 he, along with Brothers Herb Mills, Leo Robinson and a ma-jority of Local 10’s members, opposed the proposed 1971 contract which codified the 9.43 steadyman sys-tem. This led to the longshore strike of 1971-1972, which shut down 56 West Coast ports and lasted 130 days. It was the longest strike in the ILWU’s history.
In Local 10 Brother Keylor was a member of the Militant Caucus, a class struggle rank-and-file group which published a regular newsletter, the “Longshore Militant”. He later left the Militant Caucus and pub-lished a separate newsletter on his own, the “Militant Longshoreman.” Howard advocated deliberate defi-ance of the “slave-labor” Taft-Hartley law through illegal secondary boycotts and pickets. Running on an open class-struggle program which called for breaking with the Democratic and Republican Parties, form-ing a worker’s government, expropriating the capitalists without compensation and creating a planned economy, Howard won election to the Executive Board of Local 10 for twelve years.
The Militant Caucus was involved in organizing protests and boycotts of military cargo bound for the military dictatorship in Chile in 1975 and 1978 and again in 1980 to the military dictatorship in El Sal-vador. The Caucus also participated in ILWU Local 6’s strike at KNC Glass in Union City, during which a mass picket line physically defeated police and scabs, winning a contract for a workforce composed pri-marily of Mexican-American immigrants.
In 1984, Brother Keylor made the motion, amended by Brother Leo Robinson, which led to the elev-en-day longshore boycott of South African cargo on the Nedlloyd Kimberley. In 1986, Howard again partici-pated in the Campaign Against Apartheid’s community picket line against the Nedlloyd Kemba. When Nel-son Mandela spoke at the Oakland Coliseum in 1990 after his release from prison, he credited Local 10 with re-igniting the anti-Apartheid movement in the Bay Area.
Other actions Brother Howard initiated, organized or participated in included the 1995-98 struggle of the Liverpool dockworkers; the 1999 coastwide shutdown and march of 25,000 in San Francisco to de-mand freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal; the 2000 Charleston longshore union campaign; the 2008 May Day anti-imperialist war shutdown of all West Coast ports; the shutdown of Northern California ports in pro-test of the murder of Oscar Grant; the blockades of Israeli ships to protest the war on Gaza in 2010 and 2014; the 2011 ILWU struggle against the grain monopolies in Longview; Occupy Oakland’s march of 40,000 to the Port of Oakland, and countless other militant job actions and protests. Throughout his life, Brother Keylor always extended solidarity where it was needed. He fought racist police murders and fas-cist terror, defended abortion clinics, and fought for survivors of psychiatric abuse. Having grown up in Appalachia, he has always been an environmentalist, and helped shut down a Monsanto facility in Davis in 2012, as well as fighting pesticide use and deforestation in the East Bay.
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The Trump administration is escalating its attack on Cuba, cutting off the island’s access to oil in a deliberate attempt to induce famine and mass suffering. This is collective punishment, plain and simple.
In response, we’re releasing a public Call to Conscience, already signed by influential public figures, elected officials, artists, and organizations—including 22 members of the New York City Council, Kal Penn, Mark Ruffalo, Susan Sarandon, Alice Walker, 50501, Movement for Black Lives, The People’s Forum, IFCO Pastors for Peace, ANSWER Coalition, and many others—demanding an end to this brutal policy.
The letter is open for everyone to sign. Add your name today. Cutting off energy to an island nation is not policy—it is a tactic of starvation.
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Petition to Force Amazon to Cut ICE Contracts!
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-amazon-end-contracts-with-ice/?source=group-amazon-labor-union&referrer=group-amazon-labor-
Amazon Labor Union
Over 600,000 messages have already been sent directly to Amazon board members demanding one thing: Amazon must stop fueling deportations by ending its contracts with ICE and DHS.
ICE and DHS rely on the data infrastructure provided by Amazon Web Services. Their campaign against immigrants and those who stand with them depends on the logistical, financial, and political support of companies like Amazon.
But workers and communities have real power when we act collectively. That’s why we must expose Amazon’s role in the deportation machine. Help us reach 1 million messages and force Amazon to act by signing our petition with The Labor Force today:
Tell Amazon: End contracts with ICE!
On Cyber Monday 2025, Amazon workers rallied outside of Amazon’s NYC headquarters to demand that Amazon stop fueling mass deportations through Amazon Web Services’ contracts with ICE and DHS.
ICE cannot operate without corporate backing; its campaign against immigrants and those who stand with them depends on the logistical, financial, and political support of companies like Amazon. Mega-corporations may appear untouchable, but they are not. Anti-authoritarian movements have long understood that repression is sustained by a network of institutional enablers and when those enablers are disrupted, state violence weakens. Workers and communities have real power when they act collectively. That is why we must expose Amazon’s role in the deportation machine.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) rely on Amazon Web Services (AWS) as its most commonly used cloud platform. DHS and ICE cannot wage their attack on immigrants without the critical data infrastructure that Amazon Web Services provide, allowing the agencies to collect, analyze, and store the massive amounts of data they need to do their dirty work. Without the power of AWS, ICE would not be able to track and target people at its current scale.
ICE and DHS use Amazon Web Services to collect and store massive amounts of purchased data on immigrants and their friends and family–everything from biometric data, DMV data, cellphone records, and more. And through its contracts with Palantir, DHS is able to scour regional, local, state, and federal databases and analyze and store this data on AWS. All of this information is ultimately used to target immigrants and other members of our communities.
No corporation should profit from oppression and abuse. Yet Amazon is raking in tens of millions of dollars to fuel DHS and ICE, while grossly exploiting its own workers. Can you sign our petition today, demanding that Amazon stop fueling deportations by ending its contracts with DHS and ICE, now?
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-amazon-end-contracts-with-ice/?source=group-amazon-labor-union&referrer=group-amazon-labor-
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End Texas Torture of Revolutionary Elder Xinachtli
Organization Support Letter
Letter to demand the immediate medical treatment and release of Chicano political prisoner Xinachtli (Alvaro Hernandez #00255735)
To the Texas Department of Criminal Justice,
We, the undersigned organizations, write to urge immediate action to protect the life, health, and human rights of Xinachtli (legal name Alvaro Hernandez). Xinachtli is 73-year-old Chicano community organizer from Texas who has spent 23 years in solitary confinement and 30 years incarcerated as part of a 50-year sentence. His health is now in a critical and life-threatening state and requires prompt and comprehensive medical intervention.
Since his conviction in 1997, Xinachtli has spent decades in conditions that have caused significant physical and psychological harm. As an elder in worsening health, these conditions have effectively become a de facto death sentence.
Xinachtli’s current medical condition is severe. His physical, mental, and overall well-being have declined rapidly in recent weeks. He now requires both a wheelchair and a walker, has experienced multiple falls, and is suffering from rapid weight loss. He is currently housed in the McConnell Unit infirmary, where he is receiving only palliative measures and is being denied a medical diagnosis, access to his medical records, and adequate diagnostic testing or treatment.
A virtual clinical visit with licensed medical doctor Dr. Dona Kim Murphey underscores the severity of his condition. In her report of the visit, she wrote: "Given the history of recent neck/back trauma and recurrent urinary tract infections with numbness, weakness, and bowel and bladder incontinence, I am concerned about nerve root or spinal cord injury and/or abscesses that can lead to permanent sensorimotor dysfunction."
Despite his age and visible disabilities, he remains in solitary confinement under the Security Threat Group designation as a 73-year-old. During his time in the infirmary, prison staff threw away all of his belongings and “lost” his commissary card, leaving him completely without basic necessities. He is experiencing hunger, and the lack of consistent nutrition is worsening his medical condition. McConnell Unit staff have also consistently given him incorrect forms, including forms for medical records and medical visitation, creating further barriers to care and communication.
A family visit on November 29 confirmed the seriousness of his condition. Xinachtli, who was once able to walk on his own, can no longer stand without assistance. He struggled to breathe, has lost more than 30 pounds, relied heavily on his wheelchair, and was in severe pain throughout the visit.
In light of these conditions, we, the undersigned organizations, demand that TDCJ take immediate action to save Xinachtli’s life and comply with its legal and ethical obligations.
We urge the immediate implementation of the following actions:
Immediate re-instatement of his access to commissary to buy hygiene, food, and other critical items. Immediate transfer to the TDCJ hospital in Galveston for a full medical evaluation and treatment, including complete access to his medical records and full transparency regarding all procedures. Transfer to a geriatric and medical unit that is fully accessible under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Xinachtli requests placement at the Richard P LeBlanc Unit in Beaumont, Texas. Approval of Medical Recommended Intensive Supervision, the release program for individuals with serious medical conditions and disabilities, in recognition of the severity and progression of his current health issues. Failure to act will result in the continued and foreseeable deterioration of Xinachtli’s health, amounting to state-sanctioned death. We urge TDCJ to take swift and decisive action to meet these requests and to fulfill its responsibility to safeguard his life and well-being.
We stand united in calling for immediate and decisive action. Xinachtli’s life depends on it.
Signed, Xinachtli Freedom Campaign and supporting organizations
Endorsing Organizations:
Al-Awda Houston; All African People’s Revolutionary Party; Anakbayan Houston; Anti-Imperialist Solidarity; Artists for Black Lives' Equality; Black Alliance for Peace - Solidarity Network; Columbia University Students for a Democratic Society; Community Liberation Programs; Community Powered ATX; Contra Gentrificación; Diaspora Pa’lante Collective; Down South; DSA Emerge; Entre nos kc; Fighting Racism Workshops; Frontera Water Protectors; GC Harm Reductionists; JERICHO MOVEMENT; Jericho Movement Providence; Montrose Anarchist Collective; NYC Jericho Movement; OC Focus; Palestine Solidarity TX; Partisan Defense Committee; Partido Nacional de la Raza Unida; PDX Anti-Repression; Red Star Texas; Root Cause; San Francisco Solidarity Collective; Shine White Support Team; Sunrise Columbia; UC San Diego Faculty for Justice in Palestine; Viva Palestina, EPTX; Water Justice and Technology Studio; Workshops4Gaza.
Sign the endorsement letter for your organization here:
https://cryptpad.fr/form/#/2/form/view/MiR1f+iLiRBJC7gSTyfhyxJoLIDhThxRafPatxdbMWI/
IMPORTANT LINKS TO MATERIALS FOR XINACHTLI FREEDOM CAMPAIGN:
PHONE BLAST: Your community can sign up for a 15-minute-long call shift here: bit.ly/xphoneblast
FUNDRAISER: Here is the link to Jericho's fundraiser for Xinachtli: http://givebutter.com/jerichomovement
CASE HISTORY: Learn more about Xinachtli and his case through our website: https://freealvaro.net
CONTACT INFO:
Follow us on Instagram: @freexinachtlinow
Email us:
xinachtlifreedomcampaign@protonmail.com
COALITION FOLDER:
https://drive.proton.me/urls/SP3KTC1RK4#KARGiPQVYIvR
In the folder you will find: Two pictures of Xinachtli from 2024; The latest updated graphics for the phone blast; The original TRO emergency motion filing; Maria Salazar's declaration; Dr. Murphy's report from her Dec. 9 medical visit; Letter from Amnesty International declaring Xinachtli's situation a human rights violation; Free Xinachtli zine (which gives background on him and his case); and The most recent press release detailing who Xinachtli is as well as his medical situation.
Write to:
Alvaro Hernandez CID #00255735
TDCJ-W.G. McConnell Unit
PO Box 660400
Dallas, TX 75266-0400
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Self-portrait by Kevin Cooper
Funds for Kevin Cooper
Kevin was transferred out of San Quentin and is now at a healthcare facility in Stockton. He has received some long overdue healthcare. The art program is very different from the one at San Quentin but we are hopeful that Kevin can get back to painting soon.
For 41 years, an innocent man has been on death row in California.
Kevin Cooper was wrongfully convicted of the brutal 1983 murders of the Ryen family and houseguest. The case has a long history of police and prosecutorial misconduct, evidence tampering, and numerous constitutional violations including many incidences of the prosecution withholding evidence of innocence from the defense. You can learn more here .
In December 2018 Gov. Brown ordered limited DNA testing and in February 2019, Gov. Newsom ordered additional DNA testing. Meanwhile, Kevin remains on Death Row at San Quentin Prison.
The funds raised will be used to help Kevin purchase art supplies for his paintings . Additionally, being in prison is expensive, and this money would help Kevin pay for stamps, books, paper, toiletries, supplies, supplementary food, printing materials to educate the public about his case and/or video calls.
Please help ease the daily struggle of an innocent man on death row!
An immediate act of solidarity we can all do right now is to write to Kevin and assure him of our continuing support in his fight for justice. Here’s his address:
Kevin Cooper #C65304
Cell 107, Unit E1C
California Health Care Facility, Stockton (CHCF)
P.O. Box 213040
Stockton, CA 95213
www.freekevincooper.org
Call California Governor Newsom:
1-(916) 445-2841
Press 1 for English or 2 for Spanish,
press 6 to speak with a representative and
wait for someone to answer
(Monday-Friday, 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. PST—12:00 P.M. to 8:00 P.M. EST)
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Dr. Atler Still Needs Our Help!
Please sign the petition today!
https://www.change.org/p/texas-state-university-give-tom-alter-his-job-back
What you can do to support:
—Donate to help Tom Alter and his family with living and legal expenses: https://gofund.me/27c72f26d
—Sign and share this petition demanding Tom Alter be given his job back: https://www.change.org/p/texas-state-university-give-tom-alter-his-job-back
—Write to and call the President and Provost at Texas State University demanding that Tom Alter be given his job back:
President Kelly Damphousse: president@txstate.edu
President’s Office Phone: 512-245-2121
Provost Pranesh Aswath: xrk25@txstate.edu
Provost Office Phone: 512-245-2205
For more information about the reason for the firing of Dr. Tom Alter, read:
"Fired for Advocating Socialism: Professor Tom Alter Speaks Out"
Ashley Smith Interviews Dr. Tom Alter
—CounterPunch, September 24, 2025
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 Russia Confirms Jailing of Antiwar Leader Boris Kagarlitsky In a secret trial on June 5, 2024, the Russian Supreme Court’s Military Chamber confirmed a sentence of five years in a penal colony for left-wing sociologist and online journalist Boris Kagarlitsky. His crime? “Justifying terrorism” — a sham charge used to silence opponents of Putin’s war on Ukraine. The court disregarded a plea for freedom sent by thirty-seven international luminaries. Kagarlitsky, a leading Marxist thinker in Russia’s post-Soviet period, recently addressed socialists who won’t criticize Putin: “To my Western colleagues, who…call for an understanding of Putin and his regime, I would like to ask a very simple question. [Would] you want to live in a country where there is no free press or independent courts? In a country where the police have the right to break into your house without a warrant? …In a country which…broadcasts appeals on TV to destroy Paris, London, Warsaw, with a nuclear strike?” Thousands of antiwar critics have been forced to flee Russia or are behind bars, swept up in Putin’s vicious crackdown on dissidents. Opposition to the war is consistently highest among the poorest workers. Recently, RusNews journalists Roman Ivanov and Maria Ponomarenko were sentenced to seven, and six years respectively, for reporting the military’s brutal assault on Ukraine. A massive global solidarity campaign that garnered support from thousands was launched at Kagarlitsky’s arrest. Now, it has been revived. This internationalism will bolster the repressed Russian left and Ukrainian resistance to Putin’s imperialism. To sign the online petition at freeboris.info —Freedom Socialist Party, August 2024 https://socialism.com/fs-article/russia-jails-prominent-antiwar-leader-boris-kagarlitsky/#:~:text=In%20a%20secret%20trial%20on,of%20Putin's%20war%20on%20Ukraine. Petition in Support of Boris KagarlitskyWe, the undersigned, were deeply shocked to learn that on February 13 the leading Russian socialist intellectual and antiwar activist Dr. Boris Kagarlitsky (65) was sentenced to five years in prison. Dr. Kagarlitsky was arrested on the absurd charge of 'justifying terrorism' in July last year. After a global campaign reflecting his worldwide reputation as a writer and critic of capitalism and imperialism, his trial ended on December 12 with a guilty verdict and a fine of 609,000 roubles. The prosecution then appealed against the fine as 'unjust due to its excessive leniency' and claimed falsely that Dr. Kagarlitsky was unable to pay the fine and had failed to cooperate with the court. In fact, he had paid the fine in full and provided the court with everything it requested. On February 13 a military court of appeal sent him to prison for five years and banned him from running a website for two years after his release. The reversal of the original court decision is a deliberate insult to the many thousands of activists, academics, and artists around the world who respect Dr. Kagarlitsky and took part in the global campaign for his release. The section of Russian law used against Dr. Kagarlitsky effectively prohibits free expression. The decision to replace the fine with imprisonment was made under a completely trumped-up pretext. Undoubtedly, the court's action represents an attempt to silence criticism in the Russian Federation of the government's war in Ukraine, which is turning the country into a prison. The sham trial of Dr. Kagarlitsky is the latest in a wave of brutal repression against the left-wing movements in Russia. Organizations that have consistently criticized imperialism, Western and otherwise, are now under direct attack, many of them banned. Dozens of activists are already serving long terms simply because they disagree with the policies of the Russian government and have the courage to speak up. Many of them are tortured and subjected to life-threatening conditions in Russian penal colonies, deprived of basic medical care. Left-wing politicians are forced to flee Russia, facing criminal charges. International trade unions such as IndustriALL and the International Transport Federation are banned and any contact with them will result in long prison sentences. There is a clear reason for this crackdown on the Russian left. The heavy toll of the war gives rise to growing discontent among the mass of working people. The poor pay for this massacre with their lives and wellbeing, and opposition to war is consistently highest among the poorest. The left has the message and resolve to expose the connection between imperialist war and human suffering. Dr. Kagarlitsky has responded to the court's outrageous decision with calm and dignity: “We just need to live a little longer and survive this dark period for our country,” he said. Russia is nearing a period of radical change and upheaval, and freedom for Dr. Kagarlitsky and other activists is a condition for these changes to take a progressive course. We demand that Boris Kagarlitsky and all other antiwar prisoners be released immediately and unconditionally. We also call on the auth *..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........* *..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........*..........* |
Mumia Abu-Jamal is Innocent!
FREE HIM NOW!
Write to Mumia at:
Smart Communications/PADOC
Mumia Abu-Jamal #AM-8335
SCI Mahanoy
P.O. Box 33028
St. Petersburg, FL 33733
Join the Fight for Mumia's Life
Since September, Mumia Abu-Jamal's health has been declining at a concerning rate. He has lost weight, is anemic, has high blood pressure and an extreme flair up of his psoriasis, and his hair has fallen out. In April 2021 Mumia underwent open heart surgery. Since then, he has been denied cardiac rehabilitation care including a healthy diet and exercise.
He still needs more complicated treatment from a retinal specialist for his right eye if his eyesight is to be saved:
Donate to Mumia Abu-Jamal's Emergency Legal and Medical
Defense Fund
Mumia has instructed PrisonRadio to set up this fund. Gifts donated here are designated for the Mumia Abu-Jamal Medical and Legal Defense Fund. If you are writing a check or making a donation in another way, note this in the memo line.
Send to:
Mumia Medical and Legal Fund c/o Prison Radio
P.O. Box 411074, San Francisco, CA 94103
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Resources for Resisting Federal Repression
https://www.nlg.org/federalrepressionresources/
Since June of 2020, activists have been subjected to an increasingly aggressive crackdown on protests by federal law enforcement. The federal response to the movement for Black Lives has included federal criminal charges for activists, door knocks by federal law enforcement agents, and increased use of federal troops to violently police protests.
The NLG National Office is releasing this resource page for activists who are resisting federal repression. It includes a link to our emergency hotline numbers, as well as our library of Know-Your-Rights materials, our recent federal repression webinar, and a list of some of our recommended resources for activists. We will continue to update this page.
Please visit the NLG Mass Defense Program page for general protest-related legal support hotlines run by NLG chapters.
Emergency Hotlines
If you are contacted by federal law enforcement, you should exercise all of your rights. It is always advisable to speak to an attorney before responding to federal authorities.
State and Local Hotlines
If you have been contacted by the FBI or other federal law enforcement, in one of the following areas, you may be able to get help or information from one of these local NLG hotlines for:
Portland, Oregon: (833) 680-1312
San Francisco, California: (415) 285-1041 or fbi_hotline@nlgsf.org
Seattle, Washington: (206) 658-7963
National Hotline
If you are located in an area with no hotline, you can call the following number:
National NLG Federal Defense Hotline: (212) 679-2811
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Articles
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1) Syrian Billionaires Needed a Favor in Washington. They Invoked the Trump Name.
The attempt by the Khayyats to influence foreign policy while discussions are underway about potential Trump family deals is an increasingly common feature of the president’s second term.
By Eric Lipton, Reporting from Syria, Qatar and Washington, April 19, 2026
Moutaz and Ramez Al-Khayyat, two of three Syrian-born brothers, at their company’s headquarters in Doha, Qatar. Laura Boushnak for The New York Times
Last summer, Representative Joe Wilson, Republican of South Carolina, sat in his Capitol Hill office in rapt attention as Middle Eastern investors laid out their plans in a video call to develop coastal property in Syria.
A cruise ship port. A polo club. A Bugatti car showroom. A world-class golf course. All in a country that had just recently been torn apart by civil war.
Nor was this everything. While Mohamad Al-Khayyat, a powerful Syrian-born businessman, was pitching the proposal, his brothers were winning more than $12 billion in government-sponsored contracts to rebuild a wide swath of the devastated Syrian economy.
There was a hitch, though. The Khayyats needed a big favor from Congress with the support of President Trump: the permanent lifting of crippling sanctions imposed on Syria before the fall of President Bashar al-Assad in late 2024.
That is when Mr. Wilson, himself a former real estate lawyer and proponent of the sanctions repeal, offered a tactical suggestion.
“I know how to get the president’s attention,” Mr. Wilson said. “Make it a Trump National Golf Course in Syria.”
Mohamad Al-Khayyat was already a step ahead. He said he had planned to propose a Trump-branded resort.
At the same time, his two older brothers were negotiating an even bigger real estate partnership with Ivanka Trump, the president’s elder daughter, and Jared Kushner, her husband, to help them finance a multibillion-dollar resort in Albania.
Such a mixing of personal and diplomatic affairs has long been the norm in Middle Eastern nations, where a small set of players have historically run, and profited from, their dominant role in society. But it has become the way Washington operates in Mr. Trump’s second term, too.
Business discussions involving the president’s family, be it merely aspirational like the golf course or active like Mr. Kushner’s project, are consistently blurred with important policy decisions or consequential nation-to-nation negotiations.
It is also a sign of how powerful Mr. Trump has become. To get almost anything done in the nation’s capital requires not alienating a vexed and vengeful president, and, ideally, pleasing him.
Other presidents, both Democratic and Republican, have taken steps to avoid even the perception of a conflict of interest, while in Mr. Trump’s world it is almost the reverse. The family has been open that it intends to keep doing business deals around the world.
That has led to a warped system of executive patronage in which investors donate millions to the president’s pet projects, or invest alongside the Trump family, in hopes of achieving their policy goals, even if no explicit ask is ever made.
In fact, the White House and the Trump Organization assert that they were not aware of the proposed Trump golf resort for Syria, and the Trump Organization said that no discussions were underway.
And White House officials rejected any suggestion that Trump family-related real estate discussions had any impact on the president’s foreign policy choices related to Syria.
“President Trump performs his constitutional duties in an ethically sound manner and to suggest otherwise is either ill-informed or malicious,” David Warrington, the White House counsel, said in a statement.
The Khayyat family also said their financial partnership with Mr. Kushner was unrelated to the sanctions repeal effort.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle had favored lifting the sanctions, to enable Syria to draw the hundreds of billions of dollars that would be needed to repair the devastated country. Mr. Trump himself had been in favor of lifting them early in his current term, and did so temporarily last spring.
Still, some members of Congress were reluctant to repeal the legislation permanently without leverage, in case the new Syrian regime turned out as brutal as the old one had been.
The golf course proposal became part of a lobbying effort on Capitol Hill, a hint of how simply invoking the Trump brand has become politically advantageous to certain political causes.
Mohamad Al-Khayyat returned to Washington late last year toting a special stone celebrating the proposed golf course, carved with the Trump family emblem. He presented it to Mr. Wilson in his Capitol Hill office to deliver to the White House. Mr. Al-Khayyat then joined meetings with other lawmakers to push the sanctions repeal.
Weeks later, legislation for a permanent repeal won approval in Congress and was signed into law by Mr. Trump in late December.
Sharing Dreams
The Trump and Khayyat families came together at an Italian restaurant in Doha in 2022.
Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner were in Qatar for World Cup soccer matches, and they dined at Carbone Doha, an extension of the New York City restaurant that sits on an island with a view of Doha’s impressive skyline.
The restaurant’s owner worked his way over to meet the famous diners. It turned out that Ramez Al-Khayyat and his family owned not just Carbone Doha, but every restaurant along that street on an artificial island the family had built in just six months, at the request of the Qatari royal family, to create an entertainment zone for the World Cup.
Soon the Kushners and the Khayyats were sharing their histories as scions of real estate developers, along with their dreams for the future.
Mr. Kushner had recently tapped Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds, including those from Qatar, to set up a $3 billion private equity firm after serving in the White House during Mr. Trump’s first term.
Now he had designs on building a multibillion-dollar resort on an island off the coast of Albania. Not too different from the one he was sitting on, in fact.
Ramez and his brothers had moved to Qatar full time in 2011. The Khayyats developed a relationship with the Qatari royal family, and built them a mountaintop vacation palace outside of Damascus.
It was one of several high-profile projects that had grabbed headlines for the family, including a wild episode when, after several neighboring countries imposed a blockade on Qatar in 2017, they flew in thousands of cows to supply milk and other dairy products to the small oil-rich nation.
Despite their success in Qatar, the Khayyats never gave up hopes of returning to Syria in some way.
A Change of Fortune
In late 2024, two monumental events changed the Khayyats’ fortunes and set them up for some globe-trotting: Mr. al-Assad was deposed, and Mr. Trump was returned to the presidency.
Weeks later, Ramez and his older brother, Moutaz, were on their way to Mr. Trump’s inauguration.
While in Washington for the festivities, the Khayyats engaged with the parents of Mr. Kushner. They also met Michael Boulos, the spouse of Tiffany Trump, the president’s younger daughter, as well as Mr. Boulos’s father, Massad Boulos, who had helped coordinate outreach to Syrian American voters during Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign, photographs posted on social media show.
“Amazing experience,” Ramez Al-Khayyat, 41, said, recalling the event and an inauguration dinner they attended, during a recent interview. “Once in a lifetime.”
Access to the candlelight dinner generally required a minimum donation of $250,000 for a pair of tickets. Ramez Al-Khayyat said that a number of foreign business executives were invited, and that he and his older brother had not paid for the invitation.
That same month, Khayyat family members flew to Damascus to visit with the new president of Syria. The president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, only weeks earlier had been a rebel leader with a $10 million antiterrorism bounty on him from the United States. Now he was in charge, but of a country in tatters. Much of its infrastructure needed to be rebuilt.
The Khayyat family was a natural pick to get these projects jump-started. “We’re ready to move, and we are ready to move fast,” Ramez Al-Khayyat said, recalling his message to the new Syrian leader.
An extraordinary string of deals in Syria emerged.
The Khayyats and their partners were granted a $4 billion deal to rebuild the decrepit airport into a Middle Eastern hub, and another $7 billion contract to build four natural gas-powered electric plants. They negotiated a third deal to work with U.S.-based Chevron to develop offshore natural gas drilling sites in the Mediterranean off the coast of Syria.
Thomas J. Barrack Jr., the president’s special envoy to Syria, has cheered along the Khayyat brothers, joining with them for each of these announcements, making it clear that the Trump administration supported the projects.
Ramez Al-Khayyat has also been buying up historic homes in Damascus’s old city, a UNESCO World Heritage site due to its status as one of the world’s oldest continuously inhabited cities, with plans to create a tourist destination.
Up the Syrian coast, Mohamad Al-Khayyat was working on his plan for the cruise ship terminal and resort where the Trump-branded golf course would be included, a project that would be built on land controlled by the Syrian government.
But there was a problem with each of these deals. They all hinged on getting the U.S. sanctions permanently repealed.
That is because international banks and other investors would not commit the capital needed to finance these efforts unless they could be assured that once the sanctions passed under the 2019 Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act were repealed they could not be “snapped back” into place.
Named after a Syrian photographer who documented torture in Mr. al-Assad’s prisons, the act was not only severely restrictive on the country and its trading partners. It also mandated sanctions on those profiting off the Syrian conflict by engaging in reconstruction activities.
“We were all waiting for this minute for the sanctions to be lifted permanently, and it’s a great thing for Syria,” Ramez Al-Khayyat said.
Golf Course Diplomacy
The wooing of Congress began in the spring.
Free flights to Syria were being offered to some members of Congress.
Repealing the sanctions was broadly supported by Syrian American groups and some lawmakers. They argued the move would boost Syria’s recovery by encouraging more foreign investment now that Mr. al-Assad was gone.
A chunk of the heavy lifting in Washington was done by a Syrian American businessman, Tarek Naemo, a lifelong friend of Mohamad Al-Khayyat who acknowledged in an interview that he was working on the proposed Trump golf course project.
Mr. Naemo, who is based in Florida and runs an investment firm that he said had done deals with partners including the Qatari Investment Authority, began with his wife to court at least a dozen members of Congress, starting with Speaker Mike Johnson.
The access was facilitated by a series of campaign contributions, records show, by Mr. Naemo, his wife and others who were championing the cause.
Mr. Wilson, the South Carolina Republican, was a particular target. Mr. Naemo became a social partner for the lawmaker, joining with him to shoot skeet, catching up with him at the Omni Homestead Resort in Hot Springs, Va., and attending a Kennedy Center performance of “Les Misérables” with him and other Trump allies. (Mr. Trump also attended.)
By June 2025, Mr. Wilson had introduced legislation calling for the complete repeal of the Caesar Act sanctions.
The Biggest Obstacle
As this frenzy of lobbying moved ahead, there remained a major roadblock.
It was not, in fact, Mr. Trump. He was already sold.
In May, Mr. Trump temporarily lifted the sanctions after a meeting in Riyadh with Mr. al-Sharaa and Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi ruling crown prince, who urged Mr. Trump to do so. The Saudis also want to be involved in the rebuilding of Syria.
But Syria, and investors like the Khayyats, still needed an act by Congress to make it permanent. And that is when they ran into a House lawmaker who emerged as the biggest obstacle.
Representative Brian Mast, Republican of Florida and the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, remained concerned that revoking all the sanctions against Syria could leave ethnic and religious minorities there vulnerable to continued persecution and slaughter.
The standoff came to a head on Nov. 9, the night before Mr. Trump was scheduled for a meeting with Mr. al-Sharaa — the first Syrian head of state visit to the White House since the country gained independence from France in 1946.
At the St. Regis Hotel, three blocks from the White House, Mr. Mast and other members of Congress, including Mr. Wilson, joined Mr. al-Sharaa for a private dinner.
It was an odd moment, recalled Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, one of the attendees. After all, Mr. al-Sharaa was a former member of Al Qaeda in Iraq, directly targeting U.S. troops in Mosul two decades ago. Now he was asking for help.
Mr. Mast, a U.S. Army veteran who lost both of his legs in 2010 while serving as a bomb disposal technician in Afghanistan, was unsure if he could trust Mr. al-Sharaa, asking him at the dinner: “We are no longer enemies?” Mr. al-Sharaa responded that he wanted to “liberate” his nation from the past, Mr. Mast recalled at a House hearing in February.
No mention was made of the tie-ins to Trump family deals, Mr. Blumenthal said.
Mohamad Al-Khayyat and Mr. Naemo had returned to Washington, and were there at the hotel that night with a group of investors they were hoping would provide financing for their resort with the proposed Trump golf course.
After the bipartisan dinner with lawmakers, a second late-night meeting with Mr. Mast and Mr. al-Sharaa was hastily arranged that included Mr. Al-Khayyat and Mr. Naemo, participants in the meeting said.
By the end of the conversations that night, Mr. Mast had shifted his stance. He was prepared to support the sanctions repeal without a provision allowing them to be quickly reinstated.
He explained his revised view later that month when speaking from the House floor. “We are giving Syria a chance to chart a post-Assad future,” he said.
Aides to Mr. Mast said the tie-ins to the Trump family were not a factor in his decision.
Before leaving Washington, Mr. Al-Khayyat and Mr. Naemo presented the “foundation stone” for the proposed Trump golf course to Mr. Wilson and Representative Marlin Stutzman, Republican of Indiana. The framed stone, emblazoned with the words Trump International Golf Club, Syria, signified what Mr. Al-Khayyat called “an emblem of future American economical opportunities in Syria.”
The sanctions repeal was inserted into the must-pass piece of legislation that authorizes nearly $1 trillion in annual Pentagon spending, two pages inside a 1,260-page law.
Trump signed it on Dec. 18, 2025, almost exactly a year after the fall of Mr. al-Assad.
Deals Playing Out
Convoys of Russian troops routinely travel the local highway along the coast of northern Syria, on their way to a nearby air force base that Russia still controls. Not far away, there is a toppled statue of the former Syrian president Hafez al-Assad, father of Bashar al-Assad. One of the sculpture’s arms was broken off, and its giant face was planted in the mud.
Off the highway, at the edge of the Mediterranean Sea near the port city of Latakia, families grow cabbage, eggplants, grape leaves and other crops in one of Syria’s most fertile spots.
This is the site of the hoped-for Trump golf course.
It sits in the region the Assad family comes from, and many locals, including Bashar al-Assad and several of his relatives, are members of a religious minority known as Alawites. The Assad association explains in part why hundreds of area residents were massacred by bands of vigilantes last year in the weeks after his government fell.
There is little hard information here about the status of the planned resort that could feature the Trump family name.
But there are rumors among the local farmers, like Sinan Younis, 42, and his brothers, who have worked this land for decades even though they do not own the property. Farming supplies the only income for two dozen of their family members.
“What about us?” Mr. Younis wondered, as he and members of his family briefly paused from their task of planting eggplant seedlings one recent afternoon. “How could they take all this, for a reason like that? Why our land, the land that we live from?”
These questions only add to the tensions, as the family still lives in fear that there could be another wave of violence targeting them and fellow Alawites. The eggplant harvest last year had to wait because Mr. Younis said he had to use his farm truck to collect dead bodies of neighbors killed in the attacks.
Back in Washington, some members of Congress, including Mr. Mast, remain worried that Syria has not lived up to expectations after the sanctions were lifted.
“I don’t believe that any of us thought transitions from the dictator Bashar al-Assad to now Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa would be without incident,” Mr. Mast said in February at a House hearing examining recent progress in Syria. “But we’ve already seen too many incidents, in my opinion — too many incidents of sectarian violence against religious and ethnic minorities.”
But the leverage the United States had — the power to snap back the sanctions — is now gone, and getting Congress to reimpose them would be politically complicated.
Foreign money from investors like the Khayyats, meanwhile, continues to pour into Syria.
It is on display at the Damascus airport, where even as a war is now being waged elsewhere across the Middle East, a fleet of earth-moving machines are busy ripping apart what remains of a 1960s-era airport terminal for the Khayyats’ project.
In addition, Mohamad Al-Khayyat recently secured a license to serve as the exclusive importer of brands made by the American consumer products giant SC Johnson, such as Ziploc bags, Raid bug spray and Glade air fresheners, which could not be directly sold in Syria until the sanctions were repealed.
Separately, in Albania, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump’s mammoth seaside project is also moving apace.
At first the Khayyats were simply going to serve as a construction firm on the resort. But over the last year — when the sanctions lobbying was taking place — the negotiations have shifted, executives involved in the deal said. Mr. Kushner and the Khayyats have decided to become partners in the project.
Ivanka Trump traveled there in January to meet with Ramez Al-Khayyat for a gathering with architects and other executives to discuss potential designs. Edi Rama, the prime minister of Albania, showed up.
“We are investing in the holding in order to make sure that there is sufficient capital,” Ramez Al-Khayyat said. “So it’s a joint venture between the two companies, and actually we are managing it together.”
A spokesman for Mr. Kushner declined to comment.
There is also talk of the Khayyats joining with Mr. Kushner to do real estate projects in Syria, given that the Caesar sanctions are gone.
“He’s a great guy, and we try to do something great together,” Ramez Al-Khayyat said, referring to Mr. Kushner. “We are presenting many opportunities.”
Kitty Bennett and Julie Tate contributed research.
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2) Tehran Sends Mixed Signals on Talks After U.S. Seizes Ship
An Iranian official vowed retaliation for the U.S. attack on an Iran-flagged vessel near the Strait of Hormuz. But Iran’s president said the war “benefits no one,” as an American delegation prepared for more peace talks.
By Tyler Pager, Sanam Mahoozi, Vivian Nereim and Aaron Boxerman, April 20, 2026
Ships and boats in the Strait of Hormuz off the coast of Musandam, Oman, on Monday. Credit...Reuters
Iran on Monday sharpened its threats to retaliate for the United States’ seizure of an Iranian cargo ship near the Strait of Hormuz, adding to pressure on the fragile cease-fire set to expire this week.
Iranian officials have sent mixed messages about potential peace talks with the United States. President Trump said that American negotiators were heading to Pakistan for the meeting, and a White House official said that Vice President JD Vance was expected to lead the delegation. It was unclear whether Iran would send representatives.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman said Monday that there were “no plans” at the moment for further talks. But Masoud Pezeshkian, the Iranian president, said that while Iran must stand firm “against injustice and excessive demands,” continuing the war “benefits no one.”
The conflicting signals echoed those Iran sent before the first round of talks, last weekend, which ended without an agreement to end the war. Iran had cast doubt on the negotiations even taking place, but its delegation arrived just hours later.
The two-week truce, which went into effect April 8, was being tested in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for oil and gas that Tehran has blocked, prompting the United States to blockade Iranian ports. A U.S. Navy destroyer fired on an Iranian cargo ship on Sunday after it defied that blockade, Mr. Trump said. Iran’s armed forces called it “piracy,” warning that they would soon retaliate, according to Tasnim, a semiofficial Iranian news agency.
Here’s what else we are covering:
· Pakistan: Pakistan was preparing to host new U.S.-Iran peace talks, despite the uncertainty about Iran’s attendance. Officials said they would deploy 10,000 extra security personnel in Islamabad, the capital.
· Energy prices: The U.S. energy secretary, Chris Wright, acknowledged on Sunday that gasoline prices in the United States could remain elevated for months, undermining an earlier claim by Mr. Trump. The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, climbed more than 6 percent on Monday, to around $96 a barrel after the attack. Oil prices are up by about 33 percent since the war began on Feb. 28.
· Lebanon: Joseph Aoun, the Lebanese president, said he had appointed Simon Karam, a former ambassador to the United States, to lead talks aimed at ending war with Israel and achieving a complete Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon. Israel wants the disarmament of Hezbollah, the Iran-backed armed group.
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3) Pakistan’s Leaders Try to Contain Rising Anger Over Iran War at Home
With deep spiritual ties to Iran, Pakistan’s minority Shiites are angry about the killing of Iran’s top clerics in U.S.-Israeli strikes, complicating Pakistan’s role as mediator.
By Zia ur-Rehman, Photographs by Asim Hafeez, Reporting from Karachi, Pakistan, April 20, 2026\
A mosque and religious center in a Shiite neighborhood of Karachi, Pakistan, on April 1. People came to show their respects to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, his successor Mojtaba Khamenei and other Iranian leaders who were killed in recent U.S.-Israeli strikes.
While Pakistan has become the central mediator between the United States and Iran in negotiations to end the war, its leaders are scrambling to contain the fallout of the conflict at home.
On March 18, just days before Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, emerged as the main interlocutor between the United States and Iran, he summoned Pakistan’s leading Shiite clerics for a meeting. News of the killing of Iran’s supreme leader, who is also a spiritual guide for many Shiites worldwide, had set off unrest in parts of Pakistan, and the meeting was widely seen as an attempt to prevent the violence from spreading further.
“Violence in Pakistan, on the basis of incidents occurring in another country, will not be tolerated,” the field marshal warned the clerics, according to the military’s media wing.
Some clerics who attended the meeting described it as tense, and said they felt their loyalty to Pakistan had been questioned. Others said his remarks — suggesting that those loyal to Iran should leave Pakistan — had been misinterpreted, and they gave the army chief credit for trying to restore order.
But while Pakistan’s diplomacy has won praise from President Trump and leaders across the region, the sense of grievance has only deepened among Pakistan’s estimated 35 million Shiites, a minority often targeted by militant violence.
The war in Iran has become a major domestic issue, second only to sky-high fuel prices and prolonged electricity outages, with officials worried that the conflict could reignite sectarian violence and tarnish Pakistan’s new image as a peacemaker.
Already, the war in Iran has raised tense questions of loyalty and identity for many Shiites, a minority group among Pakistan’s 250 million people. Some adhere to a doctrine, known as wilayat al-faqih, which grants Iran’s supreme leader transnational religious and political authority over Shiites.
“We are Pakistani,” said Syed Ali Owais, 30, a Shiite activist who attended a March 1 demonstration in which protesters stormed the U.S. Consulate in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, where 11 people were killed. “But when our religious leaders are attacked, silence is not an option,” he added. “And when we mourn, we receive bullets.” He said that a friend, Syed Adeel Zaidi, had been among the victims.
Across Shiite communities in Karachi and around the country, in rallies and private gatherings, clerics and activists have been mourning Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and pledging allegiance to Mojtaba Khamenei, his son and successor. Shiite clerics have increasingly framed the conflict in Iran as a religious war, drawing parallels to the seventh-century Battle of Karbala, a defining episode in Shiite history.
Syeda Fatima Batool grew up listening to Mr. Khamenei’s speeches, and his portrait was a constant presence — in her family’s home, along neighborhood streets and inside places of worship scattered across the city.
“He may have been the head of state in Iran,” said Ms. Batool, 25, a physician. “But I, like millions of other Shiite Muslims, chose him as my religious and moral guide.”
At a gathering in a mosque in a Shiite neighborhood of Karachi on April 1, clerics addressed a crowd waving Pakistani and Iranian flags, declaring their readiness to sacrifice their lives for Mr. Khamenei’s cause.
Speaking after Field Marshal Munir’s warning, the clerics appeared to choose their words carefully, condemning Israel and the United States but avoiding any mention of Pakistan’s role in the negotiations.
“Khamenei’s martyrdom has not weakened us; it has united us against global tyranny,” said Allama Baqar Zaidi, a cleric. The crowds greeted his remarks with chants of “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.”
The current Iran conflict is “reigniting faded anti-Americanism,” said Bilal Gilani, head of the research firm Gallup Pakistan. He noted that such sentiment had subsided after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. But after Ayatollah Khamenei’s killing, Shiite clerics in Gilgit-Baltistan, a popular tourist region in Pakistan, announced a ban on American visitors.
Many Pakistani Shiites have also been angered by the country’s recent diplomacy. Pakistan has joined Mr. Trump’s Board of Peace and deployed troops to Saudi Arabia under a joint defense agreement. On April 11, Pakistan’s capital hosted Vice President JD Vance and a delegation of Iranian negotiators trying to reach a cease-fire agreement. On Thursday, Mr. Trump floated the possibility of coming to Islamabad if a deal is reached, praising Pakistan’s leaders in a social media post as “fantastic people.”
“Trump’s praise is meaningless when most people at home reject the U.S. and its wars in Iran and elsewhere,” said Baqir Karbalai, 35, a Shiite and software engineer. He said that there was a clear disconnect between the government’s foreign policy and public sentiment.
And while the unrest that followed Ayatollah Khamenei’s killing has calmed, Pakistani officials said they feared that if the war is prolonged, Shiite groups in Pakistan might be reactivated, causing a resurgence of sectarian violence.
After the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Iranian outreach to Pakistan’s Shiites alarmed Gulf rivals, fueling an Iran-Saudi proxy conflict that drove sectarian militancy across Pakistan in the 1990s.
Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, said that unlike its approach in Lebanon or Iraq, Iran “prioritizes stable bilateral ties with Pakistan, carefully avoiding actions that appear as overt sectarian interference.”
In 2024, Pakistan banned the Zainebiyoun Brigade, a Shiite group believed to be backed by Iran. The group was accused of recruiting Pakistani Shiites to join the forces of Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s ousted ruler, to protect holy shrines in Syria and carry out attacks on rival Sunni clerics inside Pakistan.
Many Shiites view Iran as a protector against violence by Sunni militant groups. The Islamic State killed at least 33 Shiites in two attacks this year.
Although Pakistan has so far contained further violence by Shiite groups, a Karachi-based counterterrorism official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media warned that prolonged turmoil, particularly strikes on top clerics and holy sites in Iran, could drive Shiite youth toward militancy. These individuals might target American interests in Pakistan or join conflicts abroad in defense of Iran, which they see as the sole Shiite holy state, the official said.
Across Shiite neighborhoods in Karachi, portraits of Mojtaba Khamenei now hang alongside those of his father and other leaders, signaling what many followers see as continuity rather than rupture.
For Ms. Batool and others who adhere to wilayat al-faqih, his ascent represents a spiritual succession, not merely a political one — he provides a form of guidance they believe will endure until the return of the Mahdi, the messianic figure in Shiite belief expected to establish global justice.
“You cannot measure this in borders or governments,” Ms. Batool said. “For us, it is a faith that continues, no matter what changes around it.”
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4) In Turkey, Middle Powers Ponder Diplomacy With a Rogue U.S.
The U.S. remains an essential player. The problem, one analyst said, is how to deal effectively with a power that is “indispensable, coercive and unpredictable at the same time.”
By Ben Hubbard, April 20, 2026
Ben Hubbard reported from Antalya, Turkey, where he attended Turkey’s annual diplomatic conference.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey in Antalya on Friday, where he said the global system was in “a moral and existential crisis.” Riza Ozel/Associated Press
At Turkey’s showcase diplomatic conference in the Mediterranean resort town of Antalya over the weekend, the United States was rarely the official topic of conversation.
But coursing through the discussions among the thousands of participants — including dozens of heads of state and other senior officials from Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia — were questions about how to respond when the United States disregards its allies and the global order it long professed to represent.
The foreign policy chaos of President Trump’s second term, and the vast disruptions caused by the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, has put new urgency behind the idea that Turkey and other so-called middle powers should count less on global heavyweights and instead partner with their neighbors to manage their own regions.
The desire for such cooperation surfaced repeatedly at the conference, the Antalya Diplomacy Forum, which concluded on Sunday.
“If this region continues to wait for a savior, in the end it is going to continue facing these problems until eternity,” Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, said at the closing news conference.
Instead, states must come together to “own regional issues,” he said.
Since his return to the White House, Mr. Trump has cast off long-held tenets of U.S. foreign policy. He has bashed the United Nations, threatened to withdraw from NATO and given up on promoting human rights and democracy abroad.
But the war in Iran, which he launched with Israel despite fervent efforts by other countries to prevent the conflict, has disrupted the global economy and turned several U.S. partners into targets for Iranian retribution.
“America acted in Iran against its allies’ interests,” said Timothy Ash, an economist at RBC Bluebay Asset Management in London, who attended the conference. “That reinforces the idea that there needs to be an alternative to the Americans.”
The Antalya conference served not just as a foreign affairs gabfest but also as a venue for Turkey to lay out its view of the world and Turkey’s place in it.
In its fifth year, the gathering attracted an array of mostly non-Western officials and showed off the wide diplomatic network that Turkish officials say makes the country a valuable mediator.
On day one, Ukraine’s top diplomat updated a packed room about his country’s efforts to push back Russia’s invasion. The next day, his Russian counterpart held forth to a similarly large audience on the ways he said the West had mistreated Russia.
Despite the Iran war, now on hold with a temporary cease-fire, U.S. and Iranian officials both traversed the crowds queuing for coffee and sandwiches to reach their respective meetings. They did not meet.
Addressing the opening ceremony on Friday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey said the global system was in “a moral and existential crisis” and repeated his mantra that “the world is bigger than five,” his oft-repeated criticism of the limited number of permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council.
He criticized Israel for what he called its genocide in Gaza and its military expansion into Lebanon, Syria and Iran.
Turkey was ready to help negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine, he said, without criticizing Russia for starting it.
He blasted the war in Iran, but without mentioning the United States or Mr. Trump, with whom he has a cordial relationship.
Many participants expressed frustration with the Iran conflict.
“We find ourselves subject to Iranian attacks that were unprovoked in a war that we tried to prevent,” Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, lamented during one panel.
Two senior American officials attended. One of them, Tom Barrack, Mr. Trump’s ambassador to Turkey and special envoy for Syria, ruffled feathers by saying during a public interview: “This part of the world respects only one thing: power. And if you don’t reflect power, if you reflect weakness, you are on your heels.”
He added that the only governments that had worked in the Middle East were “benevolent monarchies” and republics that were run in similar ways.
“Countries that have put on this cloak of democracy or that we have gone after for human rights have failed,” he said, mentioning the Arab Spring uprisings that began in 2010 and produced short-lived, democratic governments in Egypt and Tunisia.
The clearest example of steps toward greater regional cooperation was a meeting on the sidelines of the conference on Saturday between the foreign ministers of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan, who hope to deepen their cooperation.
Experts said such coalitions could not fill all the gaps left by the United States.
“The trouble that the region feels vis-à-vis the U.S. is that the U.S. still is indispensable for many regional actors, but it is also unreliable and coercive,” said Galip Dalay, a senior research fellow at Chatham House who was at the conference. “How do you deal with an actor that is indispensable, coercive and unpredictable at the same time?”
He predicted that Turkey and other countries would continue to pursue such initiatives, but only with countries that the United States would approve of.
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5) The Great Hesitation
By Amit Seru, Dr. Seru is a finance professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business, April 20, 2026
John Lehr for The New York Times
Donald Trump casts himself as a champion of American business. In many ways, he is. He has slashed corporate taxes. He is rolling back regulations and embracing industries like artificial intelligence. Yet the payoff is far smaller than many business leaders expected, and our economy is losing momentum.
The reason is simple. Mr. Trump’s constant policy swings are offsetting whatever benefits his business-friendly instincts might bring. There is some irony that a president who was elected in part because of his perceived business acumen is instead intensifying one of the most corrosive forces in the economy: the creeping of political dysfunction into capitalism itself.
Let’s start with what millions of businesses face today. Mr. Trump’s war on Iran has caused oil prices to soar and injected volatility into global markets. His administration imposed steep tariffs on nearly all of America’s trading partners a year ago, only to shift or reschedule duties depending on, among other things, how the trading partners have reacted (like Mexico and Japan); lobbying; stock market reaction; and court decisions, with the Supreme Court ruling his sweeping tariff plan illegal. Regulatory agencies have abruptly stopped pursuing cases or significantly altered their priorities. The twists and turns surrounding the appointment of the next chair of the Federal Reserve and the performance of its current leadership deserve its own reality show.
The Baker, Bloom and Davis Economic Policy Uncertainty Index, a widely watched measure of policy-related uncertainty, has surged to levels typically seen during situations like the 2008 financial crisis and the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic. A growing number of economists and executives describe this as a period of heightened hesitation, when businesses are delaying and canceling investments and hiring because they cannot predict the rules under which those decisions will play out.
The impact, dubbed “The Great Hesitation” to describe our cautious labor market, has already been felt by a generation of young job seekers. They face fewer entry-level opportunities, slower wage growth and a lasting hit to lifetime earnings as delayed hiring compounds over time.
Mr. Trump may be a primary contributor to this chaos, but he is not the only one.
For decades, American businesses competed and invested within a relatively stable framework of rules. Those rules were not perfect, but they were predictable enough that companies could confidently plan years into the future. That stability was possible because both political parties largely accepted a similar governing philosophy: Changes would generally be made gradually. That predictability helped fuel investment, innovation and rising living standards.
The rate of change began to accelerate after the 2008 crisis, when policymakers and regulators expanded oversight of banks and other financial firms, often in response to real failures and public backlash. But the fire was really lit with the arrival of Mr. Trump, who introduced a more erratic style of economic governance, especially through tariff threats, trade wars and abrupt policy changes. The economy in his first term stayed strong, but businesses increasingly had to factor in the risk that key policies could be upended quickly.
In some ways, Joe Biden’s administration goosed the cycle. His administration expanded industrial policy through semiconductor and clean-energy subsidies, pushed regulators to take a tougher stance on large technology companies and mergers and introduced new expectations on climate, D.E.I., and corporate behavior. Even when the underlying concerns were real, and the approach was more structured, the moves still expanded the scope of intervention. This may explain why many top executives favored Mr. Trump in his bid for a second term.
Now, Mr. Trump is drastically revving up the cycle, seizing new terrain and growing even more erratic. He has not simply reversed Biden-era policies but has done so abruptly, unevenly and often in public.
Look at the auto industry’s production of electric vehicles. Rules on electric-vehicle incentives, import tariffs and domestic production requirements have shifted so often that manufacturers have posted billions in losses and are left guessing where to build, what to produce and which technologies will be favored. Businesses are no longer just adapting to new rules. They are trying to guess which ones will survive.
There are already signs that Mr. Trump’s overreaching is seeding a backlash from the left that may further feed the cycle. Proposals such as wealth taxes and expanded corporate regulation are gaining traction, suggesting that Mr. Trump’s policies may be replaced by a different set of sweeping interventions. The risk is not a single shift, but repeated swings in different directions.
This is how political dysfunction is seeping into American capitalism: not through one sweeping reform, but through a steady erosion of stability. And that erosion hits hardest where the economy is most dynamic: among the smaller and midsize businesses that drive job creation and innovation.
Take mergers and acquisitions. The ability of companies to combine or be acquired is essential because it allows new ideas to be developed and take hold more widely, inefficient companies to be restructured and innovations to reach consumers through larger platforms.
Big corporations have continued to do deals, wielding large legal teams, access to financing and lobbying power to navigate shifting rules. But in the rest of the economy, activity is slowing. Medium-sized businesses are delaying deals, postponing expansion and holding back investment. And smaller businesses are freezing hiring and growth plans.
Innovation is a major driver of growth, and much of it originates in smaller companies and start-ups. When smaller deals stall, fewer new ideas receive funding, fewer businesses grow into major employers and fewer innovations reach consumers. Over time, that means slower productivity growth, fewer job opportunities and higher prices than would otherwise prevail.
This negative cycle is self-reinforcing. As an economy slows, companies increasingly look for more ways to insulate themselves from uncertainty, building cash reserves, focusing on established markets and avoiding riskier new ventures.
The result looks less like the dynamic capitalism America has long enjoyed and more like parts of Europe such as Italy, where growth has been slower, fewer new companies grow into large ones, innovation is lagging and businesses spend as much time navigating political rules as they do competing in markets. That comparison is even more apt given Mr. Trump’s recent moves to have the federal government take direct stakes in corporations, blurring the line between setting rules and picking winners.
Markets can adapt to change. What they cannot function under is constant chaos. Policymakers need to focus not just on what rules to adopt, but on making those rules durable, predictable and credible across political cycles. That requires restraint, not just from those in power, but also from those seeking to reverse course, so that policy changes do not set off equally destabilizing countershifts.
The deeper challenge facing American capitalism today is not choosing between shareholders and voters. It is restoring confidence in the rules of the game. There will be work to do once Mr. Trump leaves office, but perhaps the hardest task of all will be imposing the discipline required to ensure that policymakers not do too much all at once.
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6) The Killer Robots Are Coming. The Battlefield Will Never Look the Same.
Ukraine is using unmanned ground vehicles armed with bombs, guns or rockets to carry out attacks and keep its soldiers out of harm’s way.
By Maria Varenikova, Reported from Kyiv, Ukraine, April 20, 2026
Ukrainian soldiers training with an unmanned ground vehicle in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine last year. The country is eager to highlight its advances in technological warfare. Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
The robots charged into battle through a valley in eastern Ukraine, driving over grass toward a Russian position. Essentially little green wagons, they looked like something you might buy at a garden store to move bags of soil around. But each carried 66 pounds of explosives.
As the remotely controlled vehicles approached the enemy soldiers, an aerial drone flew in and dropped a bomb to help clear a path. One of the robots then rushed in and blew itself up, while the others held back, monitoring the position.
A sheet of cardboard appeared above a trench. “We want to surrender,” it read. Two Russian soldiers then stepped out and walked to Ukrainian lines to be taken as prisoners of war.
The assault, captured on video last summer, shows how Ukraine is pioneering a new way of war, its leaders say.
Kyiv is trying to turn more of the fighting over to unmanned systems as it struggles with troop shortages and seeks ways to defend itself without risking heavy losses of soldiers. The attack last year, which took place in the Kharkiv region, demonstrates that the Ukrainian military can now seize Russian positions solely with automated weapons, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said this past week.
Manpower remains the most decisive factor on the battlefield, and any future in which wars are fought mostly by robots appears to be far away. But Ukraine is eager to highlight its advances to show Western partners that its outnumbered army can stay in the fight. Kyiv also wants to promote a homegrown defense industry that could help the country build security partnerships with other nations.
“It is better to throw in metal than people,” said Mykola Zinkevych, a junior lieutenant with the Third Army Corps, who commanded the automated attack last year.
“Human life is precious,” he added, “and robots don’t bleed.”
As technology has evolved rapidly on the battlefield in Ukraine, much of the focus has been on the small aerial drones that fill the skies over the front line, keeping watch and attacking virtually anything that moves. But Ukraine is fielding unmanned systems not only in the air but also under the sea and on land.
While ground robots are most widely used for shuttling supplies and for performing medical evacuations in dangerous areas, Ukraine is also using them to conduct attacks at a quickening pace.
Last month, according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, the army carried out more than 9,000 frontline missions using unmanned ground vehicles equipped with explosives, machine guns or other weapons like rockets. By comparison, 2,900 such operations were conducted in November 2025, and a year ago they were rare and experimental.
The ground vehicles are slower and more visible than small quadcopter drones, making them more vulnerable to enemy fire. Most last about 24 hours before their batteries die or they are detected and destroyed. In rare operations when unmanned systems are used to clear a trench, soldiers must then deploy to hold the ground, or at least to replace batteries.
But ground robots can carry much larger explosives than aerial drones can, and they offer a more stable platform for firing guns or rockets.
A Ukrainian military program that allows soldiers to procure their own weapons using an internal Amazon-style shopping site offers seven models of ground robots, out of a total of 470 types of drones on offer.
Mr. Zelensky brought attention to his country’s automated assaults in a slickly produced video released last week. He is hoping to sell Ukrainian systems abroad or trade them for weapons that his country needs.
“The future is already on the front line, and Ukraine is building it,” he says in the clip, with ground robots, aerial drones and missiles illuminated dramatically behind him.
The video was released ahead of a round of meetings with European leaders. As Ukraine seeks continued military assistance, the government has been eager to show that it is not just a charity case but also a valuable ally that can help other countries strengthen their defenses.
Ihor Fedirko, the executive director of the Ukrainian Council of Defense Industry, a trade organization, said, “Even if you have a top-tier radar, a system that integrates data, or the most advanced drones, even those battle-tested in Ukraine, the key factor is how they are used tactically.” It is this tactical application of unmanned systems that Ukraine can offer, he added.
Before the assault last summer in the Kharkiv region, the Ukrainian Army had lost soldiers trying to storm the trench holding Russian forces, Lieutenant Zinkevych, the Third Army Corps officer, said.
He had previously served in an infantry assault unit that stormed trenches before taking a role planning unmanned operations. For operational secrecy, the military did not immediately release the information about the robotic assault, he said, as its success spurred other units to try similar tactics.
The use of unmanned ground vehicles in attacks is less about cutting-edge technology and more about instruction in adapting existing systems, said Lt. Volodymyr Dehtyarov, public affairs officer for the Khartia Corps of the National Guard of Ukraine.
“Everything always comes down to how well the commander, staff and operators are trained,” Mr. Dehtyarov said. “Nothing fundamentally new has appeared, but there are new tactics for robots’ use.”
Operations have become more elaborate since the summertime assault in Kharkiv.
In late February, Russian soldiers occupied a school in the city of Kupiansk in eastern Ukraine. They used the building, which had thick walls, to store ammunition and as a hide-out for a drone attack team. The Russian troops put nets over every window, preventing Ukraine from flying an exploding drone into the building.
Maj. Andrii Kopach, commander of an unmanned ground systems company with the Khartia Corps, planned an assault with robotic vehicles instead.
One robot carried rockets with thermobaric warheads that are effective in closed spaces, Major Kopach said. Others held large explosive payloads, one weighing more than 500 pounds.
The vehicles left on their mission in the middle of the night in a snowstorm, to give them protection from Russian drones, Major Kopach said. He noted that the drivers and pilots carried out the operation from the safety of a city far from the front, using relays for the video and radio commands.
When the robots reached the school building, the vehicle with rockets opened fire, forcing the Russian troops away from the windows, Major Kopach said. Two other robots then drove nearby or into the building and detonated, setting off the stored ammunition. The building collapsed with at least nine Russian soldiers inside, Major Kopach said. One managed to crawl out.
That soldier, Major Kopach added, was killed with an aerial exploding drone that accompanied the assault.
Nataliia Novosolova contributed reporting.
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7) Open or Shut, the Strait of Hormuz May Not Go Back to Normal
The energy industry is planning for a future where the choke point on Iran’s southern coast is a lot less important.
By Rebecca F. Elliott, April 21, 2026
Vessels off Musandam, Oman, on Monday. Iran will not forget how easy it is to strangle shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. Credit...Reuters
Even if the Strait of Hormuz opens again, energy executives and analysts say the industry will no longer be able to count on it as it used to. For the strait, there is no going back to normal.
Countries across the region are exploring building, expanding or rehabilitating infrastructure that would bypass the strait.
And nations that import fuel from the region are racing to secure oil and gas from elsewhere, putting conservation measures in place and turning to alternatives like coal. Those strategies are likely to shift over time. Today’s coal use may give way to greater investment in solar power and nuclear energy, for example.
No matter what happens next, Iran will not forget how easy it is to strangle shipping through the strait, meaning that energy companies and consumers must prepare for a very different future.
“From the moment missiles started falling and drones started hitting, it was very clear that we weren’t going back,” said Badr Jafar, a businessman who serves as special envoy for business and philanthropy for the United Arab Emirates.
To stem the current energy crisis, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates have rerouted substantial portions of the oil they produce to ports away from the Strait of Hormuz, via pipelines built years ago in preparation for a crisis. Iraq also recently started sending a small amount of oil to Turkey in a pipeline that has slid in and out of service for years because of political and armed conflict.
More than seven million barrels of oil are being shipped out of the Persian Gulf each day on one of those routes, up from fewer than four million barrels a day before the war, according to the International Energy Agency.
But that is a fraction of the 20 million barrels of oil that traveled through the strait daily before the war. And pipelines are doing nothing for geographically isolated countries like Kuwait and Qatar. They are also of little use for transporting aluminum, fertilizer and other goods.
For those reasons, not to mention geopolitical objectives, reopening the strait remains very important. The strait’s centrality is why international oil prices plunged 9 percent on Friday, to their lowest levels since the second week of the war, after Iran’s foreign minister said the strait would be “completely open.”
But Tehran reversed course the next day, after President Trump made clear that U.S. forces would keep blockading vessels traveling to and from Iranian ports. The United States later seized an Iranian-flagged cargo ship that Mr. Trump said had tried to get around the U.S. blockade.
That back-and-forth reinforced the idea that free passage through the strait can be halted by any world power determined to do so.
“The Strait of Hormuz will be less important in 2030 or 2035 than it was in January,” said Elliott Abrams, who served as a special representative for Iran and Venezuela during the first Trump administration. “People will find alternatives.”
Some simpler options include expanding existing pipelines, storage capacity and ports in Saudi Arabia and the Emirates. But that would solve only a portion of the problem. Most Gulf countries do not have the benefit of access to another coast that lies outside the strait.
Iraq, which is among those without another coast, has floated building a new pipeline to the Mediterranean Sea by way of Syria.
Political conflict often stymied such cross-border projects in the past. A pipeline from Iraq through Saudi Arabia to the Red Sea was built in the 1980s. But Saudi Arabia shut it down in 1990 after Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi leader, invaded Kuwait.
Now, with few working alternatives, last month Iraq was forced to shut the production of an estimated three million barrels a day of oil, according to the I.E.A.
“You can draw beautiful lines on the map,” said Robin Mills, chief executive of Qamar Energy, a consulting firm based in Dubai in the Emirates. “To try to make it happen in reality is something else.”
Mr. Jafar, the Emirati businessman and special envoy, expressed optimism that the war might inspire the kind of regional cooperation that had previously been elusive.
“There’s nothing like both a sense of urgency and an imperative to decouple from this choke point for us to see these sorts of things coming together,” Mr. Jafar said. “It’s not impossible, far from it.”
This kind of infrastructure would most likely cost billions of dollars — and potentially tens of billions for larger projects. That said, crises like the one the world is experiencing are expensive, too.
“One or two months of a disruption like this, and it pays for itself,” Mr. Mills said, referring to smaller projects like expanding existing alternatives.
Of course, no alternative would be fail-safe, as Iran has demonstrated by attacking energy assets throughout the region. But having more options makes it harder for countries to choke off the supply of energy from the region.
Energy importers are also moving quickly to diversify away from the Persian Gulf, whether by buying more fuel from the United States or making plans to restart nuclear power plants. Those trends are likely to be sticky, energy experts say. They could give an upper hand to oil and gas producers that are not at the mercy of maritime choke points and accelerate the transition away from oil and gas.
But remaking energy trading routes to prioritize resilience — rather than efficiency — will be expensive. Such investments will take time and are likely to raise energy prices for consumers, said Spencer Dale, who until recently was the chief economist of the London-based oil company BP.
“The world is just now more uncertain, more vulnerable than it was before,” said Mr. Dale, now a visiting professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science. The rational response is to compensate by making the energy system more resilient to geopolitical upheaval, he said. “But that all comes at a cost.”
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8) Civil Rights Group Says It Is Under Investigation by Justice Dept.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which is best known for investigating hate groups, has been accused by Republicans of unfairly targeting conservative and Christian organizations.
By Devlin Barrett, Reporting from Washington, April 21, 2026
The Southern Poverty Law Center said that it was being investigated by the Justice Department over its past use of paid informants to infiltrate extremist groups. Credit...Eric Lee for The New York Times
The Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights group, said on Tuesday that it was under investigation by the Justice Department over its past use of paid informants to infiltrate extremist groups.
Bryan Fair, the interim chief executive of the group, said in a video that the Trump administration had “made no secret of who they want to protect and who they want to destroy.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center is best known for investigating hate groups, particularly the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacy organizations, over decades. In recent years, Republicans have accused the group of unfairly targeting conservative and Christian organizations and labeling them as extremists.
In his statement, Mr. Fair said the group no longer worked with paid informants but that those informants had “risked their lives to infiltrate and inform on the activities of our nation’s most radical and violent extremist groups.” That work, he insisted, saved lives.
“We will not be intimidated into silence or contrition, and we will not abandon our mission,” Mr. Fair said.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The center had for many years provided information and tips to local law enforcement and the F.B.I.
Late last year, the F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, announced that the bureau was severing its ties with the group, calling it a “partisan smear machine” because of its use of a “hate map” displaying what it described as anti-government and hate groups. Mr. Patel also cut his agency’s ties with the Anti-Defamation League, a group that fights antisemitism.
Conservative criticism of the Southern Poverty Law Center intensified after the assassination of the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk in September at a public speaking event in Utah. A 2024 report from the center included a description of Mr. Kirk’s group, Turning Point USA, which called the group a “case study of the hard right.”
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