It’s clear just how frustrated Mr. Trump has become with what he views as Russia’s refusal to seriously pursue ceasefire talks with Ukraine. But he isn’t so angry that he wants to see Russia’s capital targeted by Ukraine with U.S.-provided long-range weapons.

Mr. Trump told reporters that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “shouldn’t target Moscow.” He was asked the question because of a Financial Times report that said Mr. Trump not only asked his Ukrainian counterpart about targeting Moscow, but also inquired whether Ukrainian troops could hit Russia’s second-largest city, St. Petersburg.

The White House didn’t deny that Mr. Trump asked the question, but officials said he wasn’t endorsing the idea.

There’s more to unpack after the deadly stampede at an aid distribution site in the Gaza Strip overnight. The tragedy at the location in Khan Younis will cast an even brighter spotlight on the U.S.- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a private organization funded in part by the American government that runs aid distribution sites across war-ravaged Gaza.

The GHF says armed agitators in the crowd, who were affiliated with Hamas, “fomented the unrest” and sparked the chaos. The foundation said its personnel identified multiple firearms in the crowd ahead of the stampede.

The GHF has become a prime target for critics, including the United Nations and other aid organizations such as Amnesty International. We explored the GHF and its operations in detail on the latest episode of the Threat Status weekly podcast. Retired British Army Col. Richard Kemp, who recently visited GHF sites in Gaza, gave a firsthand account of aid distribution efforts and pushed back on criticism of the organization.

It’s worth noting just how strongly Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese emphasized his nation’s trade ties with Beijing during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. His comments in the widely anticipated bilateral summit come amid economic tensions with the Trump administration over potential U.S. tariffs set to take effect next month.

“China is our major trading partner, the destination for more than one in four of our export dollars,” Mr. Albanese said. “Our trade with the U.S. is less than 5%.”

Washington Times Asia Editor Andrew Salmon has more on the meeting and its geopolitical implications. It’s important to remember just how crucial Australia is to the regional alliance structure that the U.S. views as critical to containing China’s aggression and expansion. 

Amid the Albanese-Xi meeting, Australia this week hosted Exercise Talisman Sabre, a major set of war games involving 35,000 international troops from 19 nations. Though no enemy state is targeted in the war games, it is broadly understood among participating democracies that the key regional threat is China. 

The Pentagon is reviewing America’s force posture abroad. And as it does so across the Middle East, military planners should consider establishing a major base in Israel, the key U.S. ally in the region.

Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Charles Corcoran and Yoni Tobin, a senior policy analyst at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, make that case in a new op-ed in The Times. They write that the recent Iranian missile attack on the U.S. Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, while unsuccessful, again demonstrated the potential vulnerability of American bases in an increasingly dangerous Mideast.

A base in Israel, on the other hand, solves many problems.

“Shifting some U.S. basing to Israel checks all the boxes of a Goldilocks solution to project power. … An American base in the Jewish state would be uniquely secure,” they write. 

It’s often said that you make peace with your enemies, not your friends. But is it truly worthwhile for Israel to seek peace with a terrorist group such as Hamas or for the U.S. to try to make peace with the authoritarian regime in Beijing?

Threat Status contributor Clifford D. May tackles that question in a fascinating new piece for The Times, examining whether the idea of seeking peace with enemies needs to be rethought in today’s environment.

“Today, there is no conceivable way that Israel can make peace with Hamas, a military wing of the Muslim Brotherhood and a Tehran-backed terrorist organization committed to jihad, the annihilation of Israel and the genocide of Israelis,” writes Mr. May, the founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “It’s also unrealistic to believe that the rulers of Russia, China, Iran and North Korea — an axis grounded in anti-Americanism — will make peace with America.

“What is realistic is for Americans to limit the ability of these unsavory enemies to successfully wage war against us and other free nations,” Mr. May says. 

• July 16-17 — GenAI Summit, GenAI Week

• July 16-18 — Aspen Security Forum, Aspen Institute

• July 16 — Fortifying Deterrence through Logistics: A Conversation with Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Patrick Kelleher and Maj. Gen. David Sanford, Center for Strategic & International Studies

• July 16 — Global Swing States and the New Great Power Competition, Center for a New American Security

• July 21 — Mesh Sensing for Air and Missile Defense, Center for Strategic and International Studies

• July 22 — Breaking China’s Chokehold: Securing America’s Advanced Battery Supply Chains, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

• July 23 — The State of Republican Foreign Policy with Rep. Jake Ellzey, Hudson Institute 

• July 29 — ICE Pact: The Icebreaker Collaboration Effort and Arctic Security Conversation, The Heritage Foundation