In one of its final acts, the Biden administration secured the release of two Americans held in Afghanistan in a prisoner swap for a Taliban member imprisoned in the United States on narcotics charges. The Taliban government freed Ryan Corbett and William Wallace McKenty in exchange for Khan Mohammed, who was released from a U.S. […]

A transition team for President Trump has asked scores of senior career diplomats to resign from their positions on Monday, as soon as Mr. Trump takes office, and many of those asked to step down intend to do so, two U.S. officials said. The practice is common when a presidential transition occurs, but it is […]

After they win elections and move into the White House, plenty of presidents at some point eventually break a campaign promise. Donald J. Trump will not even wait that long. He will break an important campaign promise the moment he takes the oath of office. While stumping for a return to power in the fall, […]

President Biden and his aides came into office with deep experience in trans-Atlantic affairs. But over four years, they focused too on the Pacific, where China strains to be the dominant player. Their main effort: building up alliances to counter China. President-elect Donald J. Trump has already signaled a different approach to China. He invited […]

“That to me, I think, has a practical answer, which is government-to-government agreements that emplace effective security safeguards and transparency around the hardware, the model weights and the know-how, and that’s what we have worked through in our M.O.U. [memorandum of understanding] with the U.A.E., and I believe that is a sustainable model for having […]

Putting aside that argument, there are certainly some diplomatic opportunities Mr. Trump can seize, though history and ominous recent warnings suggest that he may soften up his adversaries and his allies with threats of military action if he doesn’t get what he wants. (See: Iran, Greenland, Panama.) Here is a scorecard to keep handy in […]

The mediating country Qatar on Saturday announced a time for the cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas to take effect the next day, setting off final preparations for a truce that much of the world hopes will end 15 months of destruction in Gaza. The deal should go into effect at 8:30 a.m. local time […]

Migrants used to gather by the hundreds in encampments in Ciudad Juárez, on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande, waiting for a chance to cross into the United States. But as President-elect Donald J. Trump prepares to take office on Monday, few people could be found this past week on the once-teeming embankments. All […]

For his first three years as the head of the C.I.A., William J. Burns was relentlessly focused on tripling the agency’s resources devoted to understanding China, and on countering Russia and its mysterious partnerships with Iran and North Korea. But in the last 16 months of his tenure, the diplomat-turned-spy was plunged back into his […]

Making his final trip as America’s top diplomat last week, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken arrived in Paris, his former hometown, to a hero’s welcome. France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, proclaimed Mr. Blinken “an eminent servant of peace” at a ceremony at the Élysée Palace before awarding him the country’s highest tribute, the Legion of […]