The Governments of the United States of America, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the European Union, chaired by Sweden, issue the following statement on situation in the eastern DRC:
The ICG expresses its profound concern regarding the continued and recent violations in eastern DRC of the ceasefires upheld by the signing of the Washington Accords on 4 December 2025 and the commitment in Doha on 19 July 2025 to a permanent ceasefire and a permanent cessation of hostilities. Such violations include the use of drones in military attacks which also pose an acute risk to civilian populations. All parties involved should urgently and unequivocally recommit to ceasing the hostilities and return to negotiations.
There can be no military solution to the conflict.
We urge all parties to fully implement their obligations and commitments made under the Washington Accords and the Doha process and to comply with the relevant UN Security Council resolutions, including resolutions 2773 and 2808, and the full respect of territorial integrity. The ICG commends the ongoing mediation by the AU-appointed mediator, Faure Gnassingbé, President of the Council of the Republic of Togo, and the Panel of Facilitators, as well as the crucial mediation conducted by the US and Qatar. We welcome the efforts by Qatar, the ICGLR and MONUSCO to establish a ceasefire monitoring and verification mechanism. We recall the importance of creating conditions for an inclusive inter-Congolese dialogue with all key Congolese stakeholders – a necessary element for durable peace in the DRC – and welcome the consultations undertaken by the Republic of Angola.
We stand ready to support these efforts.
The ICG calls on all parties to honor their obligations to respect international humanitarian law and to ensure full, safe and unimpeded humanitarian access to enable critical assistance to those in need. We welcome positive steps forward such as the commitments by governments and actors in the region to improve and facilitate humanitarian access, including following the visit of EU Commissioner Lahbib; the reopening of the border between the DRC and Burundi; and the use of the Goma airport during the recent visit to Goma by MONUSCO Interim Head and Special Representative of the Secretary-General van de Perre, which should lead to the sustained reopening of the Goma airport for humanitarian flights.
The ICG further calls on parties to stop incitement to hatred, discrimination or violence, including against Rwandophone minorities, and other actions that gravely endanger civilian populations and social cohesion.
February, 2026. The United States is designating individuals and entities involved in multiple weapons procurement networks based in Iran, Türkiye, and the United Arab Emirates supporting the Iranian regime’s ballistic missile and advanced conventional weapons (ACW) development. We are also sanctioning numerous shadow fleet vessels and their owners or operators that have collectively transported hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of Iranian petroleum, petroleum products, and petrochemical products.
The Iranian regime continues to mismanage its economy, with catastrophic consequences for its people, and prioritizes funding of foreign proxies and missiles over the basic needs of ordinary Iranians. Today, sanctions target the illicit funds that the regime uses to advance its malign and destabilizing ends.
This action implements President Trump’s National Security Presidential Memorandum 2 by countering the Iranian regime’s aggressive development of missiles and other asymmetric and conventional weapons capabilities. It also denies the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps access to assets and resources that sustain its destabilizing activities. The nonproliferation designations today support the reimposition of United Nations restrictive measures and sanctions on Iran, which occurred as a direct result of the Iranian regime’s “significant non-performance” of its nuclear commitments.
The United States will continue to use all available means to expose, disrupt, and counter the Iranian regime’s ability to procure revenue to develop its weapons programs and fund its destabilizing behavior.
The Department of the Treasury’s action was taken pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13382, which targets proliferators of weapons of mass destruction and their supporters, E.O. 13949, the Iran conventional arms authority, and E.O. 13902, which authorizes sanctions related to key sectors of Iran’s economy. For more information on today’s actions, please see the Department of the Treasury’s Press Release.
Next year, the United States will host the world’s 20 largest economies for the first time since 2009. Coinciding with America’s 250th anniversary, the 2026 G20 will be a chance to recognize the values of innovation, entrepreneurship, and perseverance that made America great, and which provide a roadmap to prosperity for the entire world. We’ll showcase these values and more when we host the G20 Leaders’ Summit in December 2026 in one of America’s greatest cities, Miami, Florida.
Under President Trump’s leadership, the G20 will use four working groups to achieve progress on three key themes: removing regulatory burdens, unlocking affordable and secure energy supply chains, and pioneering new technologies and innovation. The first Sherpa and Finance Track meetings will be held in Washington, DC, on December 15-16, followed by a series of meetings throughout 2026. As the global economy confronts the changes driven by technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, and shakes off ideological preoccupations around green energy, the President is prepared to lead the way.
We will be inviting friends, neighbors, and partners to the American G20. We will welcome the world’s largest economies, as well as burgeoning partners and allies, to America’s table. In particular, Poland, a nation that was once trapped behind the Iron Curtain but now ranks among the world’s 20 largest economies, will be joining us to assume its rightful place in the G20. Poland’s success is proof that a focus on the future is a better path than one on grievances. It shows how partnership with the United States and American companies can promote mutual prosperity and growth.
The contrast with South Africa, host of this year’s G20, is stark.
South Africa entered the post-Cold War era with strong institutions, excellent infrastructure, and global goodwill. It possessed many of the world’s most valuable resources, some of the best agricultural land on the planet, and was located around one of the world’s key trading routes. And in Nelson Mandela, South Africa had a leader who understood that reconciliation and private sector driven economic growth were the only path to a nation where every citizen could prosper.
Sadly, Mandela’s successors have replaced reconciliation with redistributionist policies that discouraged investment and drove South Africa’s most talented citizens abroad. Racial quotas have crippled the private sector, while corruption bankrupts the state.
The numbers speak for themselves. As South Africa’s economy has stagnated under its burdensome regulatory regime driven by racial grievance, and it falls firmly outside the group of the 20 largest industrialized economies.
Rather than take responsibility for its failings, the radical ANC-led South African government has sought to scapegoat its own citizens and the United States. As President Trump has rightly highlighted, the South African government’s appetite for racism and tolerance for violence against its Afrikaner citizens have become embedded as core domestic policies. It seems intent on enriching itself while the country’s economy limps along, all while South Africans are subject to violence, discrimination, and land confiscation without compensation. Its former Ambassador to the United States was openly hostile to America. Its relationships with Iran, its entertainment of Hamas sympathizers, and cozying to America’s greatest adversaries move it from the family of nations we once called close.
The politics of grievance carried over to South Africa’s Presidency of the G20 this month, which was an exercise in spite, division, and radical agendas that have nothing to do with economic growth. South Africa focused on climate change, diversity and inclusion, and aid dependency as central tenets of its working groups. It routinely ignored U.S. objections to consensus communiques and statements. It blocked the U.S. and other countries’ inputs into negotiations. It actively ignored our reasonable faith efforts to negotiate. It doxed U.S. officials working on these negotiations. It fundamentally tarnished the G20’s reputation.
For these reasons, President Trump and the United States will not be extending an invitation to the South African government to participate in the G20 during our presidency. There is a place for good faith disagreement, but not dishonesty or sabotage.
The United States supports the people of South Africa, but not its radical ANC-led government, and will not tolerate its continued behavior. When South Africa decides it has made the tough decisions needed to fix its broken system and is ready to rejoin the family of prosperous and free nations, the United States will have a seat for it at our table. Until then, America will be forging ahead with a new G20.
Marco Rubio was sworn in as the 72nd secretary of state on January 21, 2025. The secretary is creating a Department of State that puts America First.
This article provided by our friends at Share America/ US Department of State.
President John F. Kennedy meets with members of the Executive Committee of the National Security Council regarding the crisis in Cuba, in October 1962. (White House/Cecil Stoughton/John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum)
The Cuban missile crisis of October 1962 was the moment that the United States and the Soviet Union came closest to nuclear war. The conventional wisdom is that decision-making occurred “with relatively little input from the respective bureaucracies typically involved in the foreign policy process.”
In fact, the lawyers in the State Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser played a crucial role in crafting a strategy that would simultaneously project American strength and maximize decision-makers’ political flexibility.
A brewing crisis
In July 1962, the Soviet Union secretly agreed with the Castro regime to place medium and intermediate range ballistic nuclear missiles in Cuba, a mere 90 miles off of the Florida coast, targeting the entire eastern and middle United States and a large portion of Mexico, Central and South America.
A right side view of two vehicle-mounted Soviet R-14 Chusovaya (NATO code name SS-5 Skean) intermediate-range ballistic missiles.
In early September 1962, U.S. intelligence discovered evidence of a general Soviet arms buildup, including IL-28 “Beagle” tactical nuclear bombers.
On September 4, 1962, the White House issued a statement that “All Americans, as well as all of our friends in this hemisphere, have been concerned over the recent moves of the Soviet Union to bolster the military power of the Castro regime in Cuba,” that approximately 3,500 Soviet military technicians were “in Cuba or en route,” but that there was “no evidence” of “offensive ground-to-ground missiles; or of other significant offensive capability either in Cuban hands or under Soviet direction and guidance. … Were it to be otherwise, the gravest issues would arise.” Then-President John F. Kennedy promised that the United States “shall continue to make information available as fast as is obtained and properly verified.”
On October 3, 1962, the Congress passed a joint resolution declaring that “the United States is determined to prevent by whatever means may be necessary, including the use of arms, the Marxist-Leninist regime in Cuba from extending, by force or the threat of force, its aggressive or subversive activities to any part of this hemisphere.”
On October 14, 1962, a U.S. U-2 aircraft took several pictures clearly showing sites for nuclear-armed, medium-range and intermediate-range ballistic missiles under construction in Cuba.
A map of Cuba, with a partial listing of Soviet military equipment, used during the president’s meetings with political and military advisers. (John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum)
The president and his advisers considered a range of options. Some, including all members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, argued for an air strike to destroy the missiles followed by a U.S. invasion of Cuba. Others argued for warnings to Cuba and the Soviet Union without action. The president decided upon a middle course. On October 22, 1962, he ordered a naval “quarantine” of Cuba.
The use of the word “quarantine” legally distinguished this action from a blockade, which assumed a state of war existed. The use of “quarantine” instead of “blockade” also enabled the United States to receive the support of the Organization of American States. The goal was to prevent further military deliveries to Cuba and to apply pressure on the Soviet Union to remove the existing missiles and bombers.
That same day, the president sent a letter to Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev declaring that the United States would not permit offensive weapons to be delivered to Cuba and demanding that the Soviets dismantle the missile bases already under construction or completed and return all offensive weapons to the Soviet Union.
The letter was the first in a series of direct and indirect communications between the White House and the Kremlin throughout the remainder of the crisis. That evening, Kennedy announced to the nation via a televised address that the United States had confirmed that a series of offensive Soviet missile sites were in “preparation” and that their purpose “can be none other than to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western Hemisphere.”
On October 23, 1962, the president issued Proclamation 3504 , “Interdiction of the Delivery of Offensive Weapons to Cuba.” The order included “Surface-to-surface missiles; bomber aircraft; bombs, air-to-surface rockets and guided missiles; warheads for any of the above weapons; mechanical or electronic equipment to support or operate the above items; and any other classes of materiel hereafter designated by the Secretary of Defense for the purpose of effectuating this Proclamation” and provided that “to enforce this order, the Secretary of Defense shall take appropriate measures to prevent the delivery of prohibited materiel to Cuba, employing the land, sea and air forces of the United States in cooperation with any forces that may be made available by other American States.”
On October 25, 1962, the U.S. military was ordered to DEFCON 2, the alert state just short of nuclear war and the highest-level alert ever issued in U.S. history.
A Russian IL-28 bomber.
On October 28, 1962, the Soviet Union announced the dismantling of its missiles in Cuba.
On November 20, 1962, following the Soviet Union’s agreement to withdraw the IL-28 nuclear bombers from Cuba, the president terminated the quarantine.
A low-altitude reconnaissance photograph shows destroyed launch pads at medium-range ballistic missiles site number 2 in San Cristóbal, Cuba. (Department of Defense/John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum)
How the legal adviser empowered U.S. decision-makers
The State Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser played a pivotal role by creating options for the president and other U.S. decision-makers to shape U.S. diplomatic strategy.
In September 1962, after it became clear that the Soviet Union was rapidly building an offensive military capability in Cuba, the White House tasked the State Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser with assessing the United States’ international legal obligations and commitments. The Kennedy administration thought that the best option available — short of military invasion or an aerial campaign — was to prevent any additional military equipment from reaching Cuba.
A problem was that Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Vice President Lyndon Johnson had both recently testified to Congress that a blockade of Cuba would be “an act of war.” Legal Adviser Abram Chayes advised against such a blockade in a now-declassified legal memo:
An excerpt from September 10, 1962, memorandum by State Department Legal Adviser Abram Chayes (John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum)
Accordingly, the administration shifted from the idea of a blockade to a “defensive quarantine.” The State Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser had proposed that shift during a meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Security Council on October 19, 1962. While a defensive quarantine would not be an act of war, it would still be a use of force. Thus, a defensive quarantine would be analyzed under Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter : “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.”
The Office of the Legal Adviser analyzed the word “other” in Article 2(4) to mean that only threats or uses of force inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations were prohibited. In other words, even measures that might impinge on the territorial integrity or political independence of a state would not necessarily violate Article 2(4) as long as such measures were not inconsistent with the purposes of the U.N. The purpose of the quarantine was to safeguard peace and stability in the region, and Article 52 of the U.N. Charter affirms that regional organizations could enact their own solutions for peace and security.
The Office of the Legal Adviser therefore turned to the Organization of American States Charter and the Rio Treaty . Article 6 of the Rio Treaty sets forth a broad authorization for regional security: When a situation “might endanger the peace of America,” the Member States would “meet immediately in order to agree on … the measures which should be taken for the common defense and for the maintenance of the peace and security of the [American] Continent.” Based on that, the State Department concluded that a defensive quarantine — and even a blockade — authorized by the Organization of American States would be consistent with the purposes of the U.N. and international law.
Now-declassified Top Secret account of the critical Organization of American States’ meeting on October 23, 1962 (John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum)
The member states unanimously adopted the U.S. resolution, authorizing them to “take all measures, individually and collectively including the use of armed force which they may deem necessary to ensure that the Government of Cuba cannot continue to receive from the Sino-Soviet powers military material and related supplies which may threaten the peace and security of the Continent and to prevent the missiles in Cuba with offensive capability from ever becoming an active threat to the peace and security of the Continent.” Notably, Cuba had been suspended from the Organization of American States earlier that year because its communist government threatened the region.
The United States’ deployment of a quarantine consistent with international law proved highly effective. On October 24 and 25, some Soviet ships turned back from the quarantine line, while others were stopped by U.S. naval forces but allowed to proceed after confirming they were not carrying offensive weapons. The quarantine helped convince Soviet dictator Nikita Khrushchev to come to the negotiating table. By October 28, the United States and the Soviet Union reached a deal for the removal of the Cuban missiles, effectively ending the crisis.
Lessons learned
The Cuban missile crisis case study proves that creative legal advice can help counter U.S. adversaries, build international coalitions and preserve peace. Then, the Office of the Legal Adviser developed practical alternatives providing American political and military leaders maximum flexibility in action while at the same time informing and supporting the administration’s public diplomacy strategy. Today, the Office of the Legal Adviser provides the legal advice needed to help our clients advance American interests worldwide, and the results are evident: from Gaza to the Caucasus to eastern Africa and beyond, the president, the secretary of state, and other senior policymakers are leveraging the Office of the Legal Adviser’s innovative ideas to help make America safer, stronger and more prosperous.
For the Silo, Reed D. Rubinstein/ Legal Adviser of the U.S. Department of State.
Supplemental- How Canada was affected by the Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis heightened military readiness in Canada, strained U.S. Canada relations, and had lasting political implications for the Canadian government.
Military Readiness and Alert Status
During the crisis, Canada faced a direct threat from the Soviet missiles stationed in Cuba, capable of reaching both the United States and Canada. In response, Canadian armed forces were placed on heightened alert. National Defence Minister Douglas Harkness requested that Canadian military units raise their alert level to the “Ready State”, equivalent to the U.S. DEFCON 3. This decision was delayed due to internal cabinet debates, reflecting the cautious approach of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, who was hesitant to fully commit Canadian forces without U.S. approval.
Political Implications
Diefenbaker’s indecisiveness during the crisis soured relations with the United States. His reluctance to provide unequivocal support for U.S. actions, such as the naval blockade of Cuba, led to tensions between the two countries. Diefenbaker’s government faced criticism for its handling of the crisis, which contributed to the its downfall in the 1963 election. The crisis highlighted the complexities of Canada-U.S. relations, particularly regarding military cooperation and sovereignty issues, as Diefenbaker sought to assert Canada’s independence in foreign policy.
Military Cooperation and Lessons Learned
The crisis also underscored the importance of military cooperation between Canada and the United States. Canadian naval forces participated in patrols to locate Soviet submarines in the North Atlantic, demonstrating the close coordination between the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) and the U.S. Navy. The experience gained during the crisis influenced future Canadian military operations and emphasized the need for readiness in the face of potential threats.
Conclusion
Overall, the Cuban Missile Crisis had a profound impact on Canada, affecting its military posture, political landscape, and diplomatic relations with the United States. The events of October 1962 served as a critical moment in Canadian history, sharing its approach to defense and foreign policy in the subsequent Cold War era.
