Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at Panama leaving China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a U.S. executive order sanctioning the International Criminal Court, and legislative efforts to tackle violent crime in Sweden and Australia.

Panama Says Goodbye to BRI

China slammed what it called U.S. “coercion” in Latin America on Friday after Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino said on Thursday that his country had lodged a formal notice that it would not renew its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) deal with Beijing.

U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly accused the Latin American country of ceding control of the Panama Canal—one of the world’s busiest waterways—to China, pointing to a Hong Kong-based company that operates port facilities at both ends of the waterway as evidence of Beijing’s influence. Both Panama and China have denied Trump’s allegations.

But U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s diplomatic trip to Panama last Sunday—during which he threatened retaliatory action against Panama if it did not take immediate steps to reduce Chinese influence over the canal—appears to have effectively cowed Mulino to appease U.S. concerns.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said Rubio’s warnings “unjustly accuse China, deliberately sow discord between China and relevant Latin American countries, interfere in China’s internal affairs, and undermine China’s legitimate rights and interests.” Beijing “firmly opposes the United States using pressure and coercion to smear and undermine Belt and Road cooperation,” he added.

Mulino maintains that Washington did not convince Panama to quit the BRI. Panama was the first Latin American country to join China’s infrastructure development project in 2017. Since the BRI’s inception in 2013, more than 150 countries have participated in BRI programs, including more than 20 in Latin America.

At the same time, Panama continues to reject some U.S. ambitions concerning control and use of the Panama Canal. Mulino reiterated last week that he has no intention of giving up Panamanian sovereignty over the canal; the United States signed a treaty in 1977 that gave Panama full authority over the waterway by 2000, but Trump has repeatedly expressed interest in taking ownership.

On Thursday, Mulino also lashed out at a U.S. State Department claim that Panama had agreed to eliminate tolls for U.S. government ships, calling it a “falsehood” and “intolerable.” The department’s suggestion of a policy shift was initially reiterated by Rubio on Thursday, when he said, “I find it absurd that we would have to pay fees to transit a zone that we are obligated to protect in a time of conflict.”

Panama has no military, but its public security force works with the U.S. military to defend the canal against potential threats. Rubio has since walked back his statement.

Today’s Most Read

• The Chaos at USAID, Explained by John Haltiwanger and Christina Lu
• The Sheer Lunacy of Trump’s Gaza Takeover Plan by Steven A. Cook
• Trump Is Behaving a Lot Like Beijing by Howard W. French

What We’re Following

Trump demands sanctions on the ICC. Trump signed an executive order on Thursday demanding sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC). The order accuses the court of “illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel.”

It argues that since the United States and Israel are not ICC members, the court has no jurisdiction to issue arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Such actions “set a dangerous precedent” that could infringe on U.S. sovereignty and risk national security, the order states.

The ICC issued arrest warrants last November against Netanyahu, Gallant, and three Hamas leaders (all of whom have since been killed) for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity related to Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza.

Trump has long accused the ICC of anti-U.S. and anti-Israel bias. In 2020, he placed sanctions on then-ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda that were later lifted under President Joe Biden. A joint statement by 79 countries condemned Trump’s newest batch of ICC sanctions on Friday, saying it threatens to “erode the international rule of law.”

Current ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan is also likely to be less forgiving of Trump’s actions than Bensouda. “Americans typically call this crime ‘obstruction of justice,’” former Human Rights Watch director Kenneth Roth argued in Foreign Policy. “Even though the United States never joined the court, Trump would be vulnerable to this charge because his actions would be directed at reversing the charges against Netanyahu and Gallant, over which the court has jurisdiction.”

Violent crime legislation. Sweden announced on Friday that it aims to fast-track legislation that would tighten gun control laws following the country’s deadliest mass shooting, which resulted in the deaths of at least 11 people at an adult education center on Tuesday. The right-wing government in Stockholm seeks to make the vetting process for obtaining a gun license stricter, and it wants to clamp down on some semiautomatic weapons, including the AR-15.

“We know that kind of weapon, with some changes, can become very dangerous and also that it has been used in that kind of shooting in other countries,” Swedish Justice Minister Gunnar Strommer said, seemingly referring to the use of assault rifles in mass shootings in the United States, among others.

Australia has also sought to tackle a wave of violent crime by advancing new hate crime legislation on Thursday. Legislators voted almost unanimously to approve measures that would impose mandatory prison terms for terrorism offenses and for displaying hate symbols. The legislation is in response to a recent surge of antisemitic attacks targeting Jewish homes, schools, and places of worship.

Deadly plane crash in Brazil. A small plane crashed into a busy street before hitting a bus in the Brazilian city of São Paulo on Friday, killing at least two people and injuring six others. The Beech King Air F-90 was en route to Porto Alegre in southern Brazil when it crashed shortly after taking off. An investigation to determine the cause of the accident is ongoing.

Deadly plane incidents have made headlines in recent days, including a commercial plane colliding with a U.S. Army helicopter in Washington last Wednesday, a medical jet hitting a Philadelphia neighborhood last Friday, and a small regional airline flight disappearing in western Alaska on Thursday.

What in the World?

The Congo River Alliance rebel group began a self-declared cease-fire in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo on Tuesday. Which country has been accused of supporting the organization?

A. Tanzania
B. Rwanda
C. Uganda
D. Angola

Odds and Ends

Scientists unraveled a new mystery on Wednesday when X-ray imaging and artificial intelligence revealed the content of a badly charred scroll from the Roman town of Herculaneum, which was destroyed during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. The team has begun to sort through the ancient text, with some already visible letters suggesting that it could possess a work of philosophy.

“We’re confident we will be able to read pretty much the whole scroll in its entirety, and it’s the first time we’ve really been able to say that with high confidence,” project lead Stephen Parsons said.

And the Answer Is…

B. Rwanda

The United Nations and Congolese government have both reported continued fighting in spite of the announced pause, FP’s Nosmot Gbadamosi writes in Africa Brief.

To take the rest of FP’s weekly international news quiz, click here, or sign up to be alerted when a new one is published.