And that will be it from me this week. No newsletter on Friday. I’m going to actually enjoy my time in Spain. I’ll be back on Friday, June 12. 😎 —Elmira

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Spain’s Foreign Policy Isn’t Just Brave, It’s Feminist

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of Spain has made countless headlines over the past few months. From his relentless and consistent condemnations of President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to his ascent as a convener of global progressives, Sánchez has stood out for his defense of democracy, multilateralism and the rules-based international order—offering leadership in a seemingly hopeless era for global cooperation and diplomacy.

Missing from the headlines and political analyses, however, is coverage of Spain’s lesser known, ambitious agenda undergirding its actions on the international stage: its feminist foreign policy.

Since the world’s first feminist foreign policy was launched by Sweden in 2014, 15 more governments (and counting) have formally adopted the agenda, committing to advance gender equality and human rights in their foreign policy, diplomacy and multilateral engagement. Several of these governments have published feminist foreign policy guidelines, appointed ambassadors to advance the agenda and leveraged their commitments to deepen bilateral relationships. Feminist foreign policy has taken stage at the United Nations and regional bodies, and captured the attention of civil society organizations and feminist movements worldwide.

Feminist foreign policy, for many, represents a way of doing things differently—an alternative to traditional foreign policies that prioritize military prowess and “might makes right” ideology at the expense of human safety. But for others, feminist foreign policy raises eyebrows; activists have questioned the feasibility of a state to truly be “feminist,” and whether the adoption of a flashy title prioritizes a political brand over transformative change. Spain’s feminist foreign policy, however, might offer skeptics some reprieve.

Spain committed to a feminist foreign policy in July 2020, and has since published official guidelines, a follow-up action plan and reiterated its commitment in its most recent foreign policy strategy. Most often, feminist foreign policies are platformed by ambassadors or foreign ministers, but in Spain’s case, Sánchez himself has invoked the commitment—signifying the rare elevation of the commonly-overlooked agenda by a state leader.

Today, Spain will host the 5th Ministerial Conference on Feminist Foreign Policy in Madrid. Bringing together fellow governments, researchers, philanthropists and activists, this two-day conference comes at a time when efforts to advance gender equality are under attack and on the brink of collapse. The conference’s subtitle, “Building Peace and Democracy,” speaks to Sánchez’s ongoing campaign for rights, justice and “no to war.”

In an era of intense rollbacks on gender equality and multiple rescindments of feminist foreign policies, Spain’s commitment to the agenda has deepened, expanded and withstood the tests of time. This International Women’s Day, Sánchez declared, “...we believe that feminism is a cross-cutting, not sectoral, policy that must permeate each and every one of the policies we launch and implement from the Government of Spain.”

An oft-considered “middle power,” Spain has stood out on the world stage through its advocacy for human rights, international law and global peace—which advocates, researchers and policy experts recognize as core elements of feminist foreign policy. For example, Sánchez distinguished himself from other European allies with his early and consistent opposition to the US-Israel war on Iran. In line with Spain’s feminist foreign policy, he decried assumptions that the war would result in the liberation of the Iranian people. He declared,

“Therefore, I will say it loud and clear: if we truly believe—and I believe we do—if we truly believe in the freedom of Iranian women, the response cannot be more violence; it must be more diplomacy, more support for those fighting from within, and, of course, more international law.”

Also, Spain emerged as one of the most vocal critics of the Government of Israel, recently calling for an end to EU-Israel relations, and was the only member of NATO to refuse the increased defense spending target of 5 percent of GDP, citing concerns for social investment and affirming that its defense needs were adequately met.

Furthermore, at a time when most countries are cutting back official development assistance, Spain has increased its investment by an impressive 13 percent, reaching its highest levels in 15 years. This January, Spain even launched its Feminist Cooperation Strategy, which “addresses structural gender inequalities from an intersectional approach, transforming the power structures that perpetuate them” in its development action and assistance. And while many European counterparts tighten their borders, Spain recently took steps to legalize 500,000 undocumented migrants, an effort largely led by grassroots women organizers employed as caregivers and domestic workers. Activists have pointed out, however, that Spain’s embrace of migrants is warmer towards Latin Americans than Africans, who face greater roadblocks in route to the country and upon arrival.

As feminist foreign policies have expanded in scope and ambition, so too have questions about their coherence. Are feminist principles being applied across all areas of foreign policy? While many governments have fallen short of advocates’ litmus test for consistency, Spain might just have a chance. But it’s not guaranteed; without a reckoning of its colonial history and principled management of Sánchez’s domestic troubles—including proximity to corruption-laden associates and party members facing sexual harassment allegations—Spain could easily veer off course. However, against the tide of right-wing victories and impulsive state leaders, Spain is offering hope to those who invested in international norms, laws and principles, and now want to see them implemented.

The 5th Ministerial Conference on Feminist Foreign Policy provides Spain yet another opportunity to exercise leadership on the global stage. This time, to demonstrate how feminism can be a powerful force for the protection of people, peace and the planet. Spain aims to build on the declaration spearheaded by France at last year’s Ministerial Conference, in which 31 countries committed to advancing feminist or gender-transformative foreign policies, among other critical issues like abortion and climate change.

As state leaders figure out how to manage the so-called “rupture” of the current world order, the 5th Ministerial Conference might be Sánchez’s chance to position feminist foreign policy as a meaningful, credible approach to international relations. It remains to be seen whether he will join Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares in presiding over the conference, and how Spain will leverage the opportunity to influence broader geopolitical matters, but for now, it seems hosting duties have fallen to the right hands. —Spogmay

Spogmay Ahmed is the Deputy Director of the Feminist Foreign Policy Collaborative.

Luckily, I sat down with Madeleine and one of the contributors, Lucía Cholakian Herrera, an Argentine-based journalist before jetting off. Our conversation is above. Substack doesn’t allow you to move around the format of the video. It’s one of many complaints I have about Substack’s video feature…The weekly roundup of links and the Gender Tracker will land in your boxes separately later—this morning or Saturday! It’s been a busy week…

And speaking of book reviews, check out this one by Natalia Kopytnik of Nino Haratschwili’s book, The Lack of Light: A Novel of Georgia. (Lossi 36) Georgia the country, not the state. 🇬🇪

I plan to run more book reviews moving forward, which will only be available to paid subscribers. Yes, dear reader, I’m going to put some parts of the newsletter behind a paywall. A gal’s gotta pay her bills…More on that when I’m back from Europe. Back to book reviews…I’m reaching out to various individuals to review largely non-fiction books—by women and men. In addition to there being a dearth of women on the op-ed page, there is a dearth of women reviewing non-fiction books; and most non-fiction books in geopolitics are by men. If you’re interested in being one of those people, get in touch.

Note: Be on the lookout for a special edition on Tuesday on Feminist Foreign Policy and Spain’s convening in Madrid. I talked to Lyric Thompson, Founder and CEO of the Feminist Foreign Policy Collaborative about Spain’s foreign policy and whether Spain can save feminist foreign policy. —Elmira

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Book Review

By Kate Brannen

Across the globe, foreign governments are having regrets about how much they have come to depend on the United States. For decades, it was a relatively safe bet. The United States was a reliable partner, even as administrations—and political parties—in Washington changed. It was committed to free trade, the rule of law, and multilateral institutions, which it helmed. With dependable US leadership, other countries were incentivized to join the rules-based order. The US dollar was a strong, stable currency. Countries courted US companies because they offered investment and jobs for their citizens.

Now, a year into Trump’s second term, it’s becoming clear (if it wasn’t already) that the United States can no longer be trusted. It is acting like the kind of rogue nation it used to warn against. The country seems to have lost its mind because Trump is a chaotic, unpredictable, and crass ruler, but also Americans voted for this mad king … twice. From Ireland to Argentina, countries are waking up to the fact that the country they had come to depend on more than any other has deeply changed, and they have to figure out what to do about it.

This epiphany and the questions that stem from it dominate a new book of essays titled How We See It: The World Looks at America in the Age of Trump. The book, which was put together by The Dial, an online magazine with an-all female editorial team, features 12 writers, who are located everywhere from Gaza to Ukraine.

Dónal Gill, an Irishman who teaches Canadian politics in Montreal, laments the dependent relationship Canada developed with the United States, an arrangement that began in 1988 when Canada embraced a sweeping free trade agreement with its southern neighbor. Because of that interdependence, it has too few political options to deal with Trump, who threatens Canadian sovereignty and drives up tariffs whenever he’s upset. Culturally, the United States also came to dominate its neighbor. “The students I meet are often better acquainted with the fifty states of the United States than with Canada’s ten provinces and three territories,” Gill writes. Today, young Canadians are not entirely sure of their national identity, but Trump’s bullying is pushing them to define and embrace it.

Michelle Kuo reflects on how Taiwan placed so much faith in American leadership, but with even higher stakes than Canada. In Taiwan, people are watching Trump closely to see what his commitment to Taiwanese independence ultimately is. Kuo notices, like many of the book’s authors, that her country has put its fate in the United States’ hands, but that Trump handles that grave responsibility with total carelessness. Although he sees himself as playing god – the ultimate arbiter of who lives and dies, which companies succeed or fail, which civilization survives the night – he wields this power with the seriousness of a child playing with toys. With diminishing faith that the United States will have its back if China invades, the Taiwanese people are leaning into their civic strength and unity, the very virtues lacking in American society today.

For Muhammad al- Zaqzouq, a writer from Gaza, the United States has loomed large in his imagination since he was a young boy. Growing up, his notion of America was vague, but he knew to associate it with a vast, epic power. “A simple awareness grew within me that we were a weak and vulnerable nation held down by America the superpower,” he writes. As he gets older, his understanding of the United States grows more sophisticated but it still seems to him that this place – America — “was always at the center of everything.” After Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Israel launched its war on Gaza, destroying al-Zaqzouq’s world. He watches as other Palestinians, with connections to the United States, get to escape the horror show. “I wanted to receive that phone call from the embassy telling me that I would be on the next convoy out of Gaza with my three children,” he writes. It’s then that he realizes, “that the Palestinian catastrophe goes beyond the occupation and is connected to a global hierarchy that values certain lives more than others. American Palestinians are treated as human beings, while regular Palestinians are left to die in silence.” The experience leaves him asking: “How can America be the power we fear as well as the power that can deliver us?”

Jessica Traynor, an Irish poet, surveys her country after 25 years of investment from US tech giants. “While their contribution to our GDP has been huge and successive governments have scrambled to make Ireland attractive to them, their effect on individual citizens can be intangible at best, and at worst, detrimental,” she writes. The reality is that companies such as Google and Meta have become so valuable to the economies of countries like Ireland that their executives are in a position to dictate terms that may not be beneficial to the voters. Traynor wonders how any of this can be unwound.

In Argentina, Lucía Cholakian Herrera writes about how dependent her country became on the US dollar, which offered Argentinians a lifeline during successive financial crises, but its outsized role also undermined the local economy by taking so much Argentinian money out of the formal system. Now, like so many other places, Argentina has to grapple with what happens when the thing you thought was stable–a sure bet—starts to wobble?

Countries are asking this question about their relationship with the United States, but it is also playing out on the individual level, especially for foreign students and immigrants who assumed living in the United States would offer salvation and opportunity. Abraham Jiménez Enoa, who fled Cuba as an adult, confronts a Cuban population in Miami that is obsessed with Trump. They have put all of their hopes and dreams on him, he observes. “In Miami, Trumpism is just as overwhelming, and as fundamentalist, as Castroism is in Cuba. Anyone who disagrees is intimidated, often too afraid—of confrontation, of rejection, of stigma, of being a minority in the face of an ideology that not only hates difference and diversity but tries to violently destroy its opposition—to speak up at all.” Ahmed Naji, who was jailed in Egypt for his writing, experiences freedom when he arrives in the United States in 2018, but by the time The Dial asks him to write for this book, he wonders: “Can I still write freely about my America in a time of war?” The adopted country he had come to love is becoming unrecognizable.

Interestingly, the essay on Ukraine, a country that is heartbreakingly dependent on the United States for economic and military support in its war against Russia, does not focus on this glaring vulnerability. Instead, the journalist Nataliya Gumenyuk, like Michelle Kuo in Taiwan, sees her country’s strengths as the same virtues missing in American society. “The war revealed to us what a state truly is,” she writes. In wartime, the state provides “the services that hold a country together,” including “trains running to frontline areas, a health care system capable of treating thousands of wounded, schools and universities continuing to teach— sometimes online, sometimes under occupation—and civil servants adapting services for millions of displaced people.” In the United States, however, the government is “often suspect, seen by some as a threat to freedom or an inefficient relic.” Americans are bogged down in the wrong debates, fueled by disinformation, suffering from “a profound inability to discuss seriously how the state can serve the public good.”

Reading these essays, I registered the profound shock these authors felt, similar to realizing you’ve married a madman, or that you’ve become dependent on a madman to protect you from the madder men. Reflecting on the United States tends to prompt these writers to think more deeply about their home countries—and feel new appreciation for them–more than offer any new insight into the United States under Trump. For an American reader, this is just as helpful because we spend far too little time getting to know our neighbors, our allies, or our enemies. It is also imperative for Americans to understand how poorly the rest of the world views the country, not just Trump, and to think about what that means for the country’s future–long after Trump is gone.—Kate

Kate Brannen is a freelance editor and Non-Resident Journalism Fellow at the Reiss Center on Law and Security at NYU School of Law.

📚 Interrupt Your Bookshelf 📚

Yay, the giveaway! You can win a copy of How We See It by entering a drawing. You must be an active Interruptrr subscriber and be in the continental US (sorry to everyone else!). Deadline for entries: Monday, June 1 at 9:00am ET.

I was eager to do this chat about Victor Orbán’s ousting and what comes next now that Péter Magyar has taken power—he officially came to office on May 5—with Zsuzsanna Végh.

Zsuzsanna is a program officer with the German Marshall Fund’s European Resilience program in Berlin. I’ve been following her writings and perspectives for quite a while now, so it was an amazing opportunity to sit down with her. She was one of the few people who really focused on Hungarian public opinion and the mood in the country, rather than Orbán’s global role and focus.

We cover a lot of ground in our 30-minute conversation: whether Orbán and Fidesz, who amassed enormous power over 16 years, will actually lose it; what kind of leader Magyar will be; and what his government will mean for women. At the heart of all these questions is the fact that Magyar is a conservative nationalist who began his political career in Fidesz. That said, Zsuzsanna notes that many who voted for Magyar did so not because of his ideology or politics, but because they wanted Orbán out.

That could be good news for women. Magyar will not govern as a liberal, and he avoided talking about women’s issues and LGBTQ+ rights on the campaign trail. Still, he is unlikely to continue Orbán’s policies unchanged. On election night, Magyar said “everyone can live with, and love, whomever they want, as long as they do not violate the laws and do not harm others."

He is also likely to move away from casting women solely as mothers and wives, taking a more progressive—or what Zsuzsanna called a more “normal”—approach to women. (This is another reason to like Zsuzsanna). Several women now hold key cabinet posts, including his deputy prime minister and foreign minister, Anita Orbán (no relations to Viktor).

Watch the full conversation to understand why Magyar’s victory may be a break from Orbánism—but not necessarily a turn toward liberalism.

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One of those elites was Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the pedophile and sex offender formerly known as a “prince.” In the files that the US Department of Justice released at the end of January, appears that the former royal, who was rightly stripped of his title, was the “most named Brit.” According to the British press, he was arrested on Thursday, February 19, which is apparently his birthday, on '“suspicion of misconduct in office.”

Earlier this week, I sat down with Frida Ghitis, author of the Insight Substack, about Epstein’s global reach, which she wrote about last week. We touch on Andrew, but more importantly, we look at how Epstein became the ultimate influence peddler and shook global politics—so far leading to the downfall of men abroad and not the US. I had planned to imbed this in tomorrow’s regular newsletter… but given the shocking headline out of the UK, along with the military build-up in the Gulf for a possible strike on Iran and Trump’s “Board of Peace” today, I decided to get this out now—and, yes, ride the headline wave.

My quick hot take: As I note in our conversation, King Charles and Buckingham Palace had gotten ahead of the latest revelations back in October, when he stripped his brother of his royal title. Soon after the latest file dump, Prince William and Princess Catherine released a statement saying they were “deeply concerned about the continuing revelations.” Andrew’s arrest makes it clear that the crown prioritized its preservation.

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