Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the United States’ new national security directives, a drone incursion into Latvian airspace, and a controversial delay in Zambia’s election.

 Policy Action In Washington

U.S. President Donald Trump unveiled a slate of national security directives this week, including aggressive tariffs on drones, measures that free U.S. companies to hack on behalf of the government, and changes to Navy policy.

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the United States’ new national security directives, a drone incursion into Latvian airspace, and a controversial delay in Zambia’s election.

 Policy Action In Washington

U.S. President Donald Trump unveiled a slate of national security directives this week, including aggressive tariffs on drones, measures that free U.S. companies to hack on behalf of the government, and changes to Navy policy.

In the name of “securing American drone dominance,” the Trump administration on Friday announced a 100 percent tariff on drones weighing more than 25 kilograms and drones with thermal imaging; a 25 percent tariff on small drones, even those without particular national security concerns; and a 15 percent tariff on drone parts from allies such as the European Union, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Drones from the United Kingdom will only face a 10 percent tariff.

Trump will implement the tariffs under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which gives the president a more legally durable tariff strategy for national security risks after the Supreme Court ruled against a different method in February. The White House’s announcement makes no mention of China, but the move is widely seen as attempting to counter Chinese dominance, as drones have become a critical part of modern warfare from Ukraine to Iran to Latin America.

In a national security memorandum on Wednesday, Trump also directed the U.S. government to partner with “vetted” private companies to conduct cyberattacks and surveillance against foreign transnational criminal networks that target U.S. citizens. While the announcement does not say which companies might sign on or what their specific missions would be, it establishes a framework for federal government oversight of such activities and sets guardrails against cyberattacks that would cause loss of life or “rise to the level of use of force or armed attack under international........

© Foreign Policy