{"id":72,"date":"2026-05-25T13:08:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T13:08:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalconsumerreportss.com\/?p=72"},"modified":"2026-05-25T13:08:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T13:08:20","slug":"rational-security-the-no-banner-is-safe-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalconsumerreportss.com\/?p=72","title":{"rendered":"Rational Security: The \u201cNo Banner is Safe\u201d Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p>This week, Scott sat down with co-host emeritus Benjamin Wittes and Brookings Senior Fellow Kari Heerman to talk through the week\u2019s big news in national security, including:<\/p>\n<p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/nationalconsumerreportss.com\/?p=68\">Lawfare Daily: Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-CA) on Congress\u2019s Role in Foreign Affairs<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cWith Friends Like Xi.\u201d This past week, top U.S. officials and business CEOs traveled with President Trump to Beijing for his summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The summit had a warm air to it, with Trump going so far as to call Xi his \u201cfriend,\u201d a far cry from his hawkish stance toward China during the campaign and his prior administration. But Trump left having made relatively few concrete deals on the host of issues dividing the U.S. and China. Did Trump miss an opportunity here? Or is the seeming thaw in relations a positive sign for future cooperation?<\/li>\n<li>\u201cDirty Dancing: Havana Fights.\u201d Cuba ran out of oil last week, but the Trump administration\u2019s pressure campaign against the island nation 90 miles off the coast of Florida has only intensified. On Monday, the U.S. announced new sanctions on three Cuban government agencies and 11 top officials amidst reports that the Department of Justice may seek an indictment against Ra\u00fal Castro, the 94-year-old brother of Fidel Castro and former president of Cuba. And surveillance flights over the island nation have reportedly increased in advance of an expected military build-up in coming weeks. How seriously should we take Trump\u2019s threats to pursue regime change in yet another country after Iran and Venezuela? And how long can Cuba hang on with its economic situation becoming more dire?<\/li>\n<li>\u201cI\u2019ve Got 122 Problems, and a Tariff is One.\u201d On May 7, the U.S. Court of International Trade struck down yet another round of Trump tariffs\u2014this time, the across-the-board 10% Section 122 tariffs that President Trump had imposed after the Supreme Court invalidated the earlier tariffs he\u2019d issued under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Specifically, the Court of International Trade ruled that the administration cannot meet the statutory requirements for using Section 122, though its ruling has since been stayed by the Federal Circuit pending appeal. Is this decision likely to stick? With another legal defeat, what options does the administration have left to follow through on Trump\u2019s trade policy?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div>\n<div><iframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"110px\" src=\"https:\/\/embed.acast.com\/60427f9d34b9a27f4b6e3a8d\/6a0f13a611eba3cf155570e9\" width=\"100%\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>In object lessons, Ben appeases the AI overlords with a glowing review of his latest experiments with Claude. Scott appeases his inner middle-aged man with a reprised recommendation of A Man on the Inside. And Kari fears that Americans are far from appeasing friends and allies in other democratic countries.<\/p>\n<p>To receive ad-free podcasts, become a <em>Lawfare <\/em>Material Supporter at www.patreon.com\/lawfare. You can also support <em>Lawfare <\/em>by making a one-time donation at .<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scott Anderson, Benjamin Wittes, and Kari Heerman discussed the week\u2019s big national security news stories.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-armed-conflict"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Rational Security: The \u201cNo Banner is Safe\u201d Edition - National Consumer Reports<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nationalconsumerreportss.com\/?p=72\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Rational Security: The \u201cNo Banner is Safe\u201d Edition - 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