Iranian officials refused Tuesday to commit to rejoining scheduled peace negotiations, even as a U.S. delegation prepared to travel to Pakistan for talks ahead of the expiration of a temporary ceasefire that has held for two weeks. 

Iranian parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who led the Islamic republic’s negotiating team during the last round of talks, said Tehran won’t negotiate under threats and warned President Trump to change course. “Trump, by imposing a siege and violating the ceasefire, seeks to turn this negotiating table — in his own imagination — into a table of surrender or to justify renewed warmongering,” Mr. Bagher Ghalibaf posted on X. 

Those comments came hours after Mr. Trump said he’s under no pressure to reach an agreement with Iran, although he thinks a deal is within reach. “If Iran’s new leaders (Regime Change!) are smart, Iran can have a great and prosperous future!” Mr. Trump said on social media. Mr. Vance is expected to fly to Pakistan on Tuesday for talks, with tensions in the Middle East running hot and negotiations teetering atop a knife’s edge before the potential expiration of the ceasefire.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov slammed the American-led world order from Turkey’s annual diplomacy forum over the weekend, calling NATO — of which Turkey is a member nation — an “aggressive bloc” and asserting that the rules-based international system is just a slogan that “never existed.” 

Mr. Lavrov also said the U.S. and Israel launched their ongoing war with Iran as part of a “a plan to control the oil through the Strait of Hormuz.” His comments came hours after NATO Deputy Secretary-General Radmila Shekerinska told the same forum that Europeans and Canadians must now take primary responsibility for their own defense. 

The three-day Antalya Diplomacy Forum, with an estimated 6,400 participants from 150 countries around the world, underscored the NATO member’s growing role as a bridge connecting the West to a skeptical Middle East, Asia and Africa — and this year, the international conference came just two months before Ankara hosts its first NATO summit.

Mr. Trump will press China on its export of deadly fentanyl and related chemicals during a meeting next month with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, who is leading preparations for the Beijing summit, says Mr. Trump will also discuss obtaining greater access to rare earth minerals largely controlled globally by China when the two leaders meet.  

Mr. Greer disclosed some details of the planned Beijing summit set for mid-May during testimony before a House Appropriations subcommittee on April 16. The trade office is seeking an additional $7 million in its annual $95 million budget that Mr. Greer said will be used to add experts on China to its staff and to enforce regulations against unfair trade practices.

As for the Trump-Xi summit, a key goal for the Trump administration will be assuring that the United States can continue to obtain rare earth minerals that most of the world buys from China for their industries, said Mr. Greer. A second goal, he said, will be to ensure that the Chinese are purchasing goods from the United States, including agricultural products, commercial aircraft and medical devices.

The Chinese Communist Party-ruled government in Beijing is intensifying its campaign of poaching diplomatic allies from the autonomously governed island democracy of Taiwan. Taipei currently has diplomatic ties with only 12 countries, almost all smaller nations in Latin America, the Caribbean and the Pacific.

Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te’s office said Tuesday he has canceled a planned visit to Africa this week after Beijing pressured three countries on the continent to withdraw permission for him to fly over their territories. The office said Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar canceled the permissions “due to strong pressure from the Chinese authorities, including economic coercion.”

China claims self-ruled Taiwan as a breakaway province to be retaken by force if necessary and prohibits countries it has diplomatic relations with from maintaining formal ties with Taipei. Over the past few years, Beijing has intensified a campaign of poaching Taiwan’s diplomatic allies.

So much for the “Spheres of Influence” dogma or the “Donroe Doctrine.” Stephen M. Walt, a Harvard professor, ripped into the president in a recent edition of Foreign Affairs, writing that “ever since [Mr. Trump] first became U.S. president, in 2017, commentators have searched for an adequate label to describe his approach to U.S. foreign relations.

“Trump has been called a realist, a nationalist, an old-fashioned mercantilist, an imperialist, and an isolationist. Each of these terms captures some aspects of his approach, but the grand strategy of his second presidential term is perhaps best described as ‘predatory hegemony,’” wrote Mr. Walt. “Its central aim is to use Washington’s privileged position to extract concessions, tribute, and displays of deference from both allies and adversaries, pursuing short-term gains in what it sees as a purely zero-sum world.”

• April 21 — Profiting from Chaos? Russia’s Energy Windfall from a Fragmented Middle East, Chatham House

• April 21 — What’s Next for Pakistan After the Islamabad Talks? Atlantic Council

• April 21-22 — Sea Air Space Global Maritime Expo 2026, Navy League

• April 22 — Pakistan at the Center: A Year of Change at Home and Abroad for Islamabad, Stimson Center

• April 22 — Commanding the Air: The Future of Airborne Battle Management, Center for a New American Security

• April 23 — The New India Conference: India’s Importance to American Interests, Hudson Institute

• April 27 — Power, Religion and Ideology in North Korea, Brookings Institution