Today: Where’s all the money coming into American think tanks from? Ben Freeman on the enormous foreign-government “donations” flowing through Washington, D.C. … & Is Taiwan’s democracy in trouble?

Developing: Command and control in Washington, D.C.. Tech giants pay tribute to the U.S. government. & A major eruption in the Pacific Ocean’s Ring of Fire.

+ New music from Black Sites …

A ‘known unknown’

Meanwhile, however, a string of recent reports indicates a considerably less abstract issue that the U.S. administration appears unconcerned with: Foreign governments are pouring money into think tanks across Washington.

The Atlantic Council, for example—where U.S. secretaries of state often go to launch new foreign-policy initiatives—is one of the most influential. Yet the Atlantic Council has taken more than US$20 million from foreign governments over the last six years. Those giving significantly aren’t just donors; they’re “strategic partners.” And leaked emails show that one such strategic partner, Yousef Al Otaiba, currently the United Arab Emirates’ U.S. ambassador, was given the opportunity to provide comments on a draft report about American policy towards Iran.

Foreign-government funding works in subtler ways, too. For instance, following the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi intelligence operatives, the Center for American Progress (CAP) prepared a statement that called for the U.S. government to impose specific punitive consequences on Saudi Arabia. But in the published statement, CAP merely recommended that Washington “take additional steps to reassess” its relationship with Riyadh. Coincidentally or not, one of CAP’s top donors is Saudi Arabia’s own strategic partner, the Emirates.

Think tanks operate under all kinds of mission statements, most of them lofty, all of them costly to execute against. Fortunately, they can count on foreign governments to help meet those costs. But where exactly does that money come from—and what kinds of interests are behind it?

Ben Freeman is the director of the Democratizing Foreign Policy program at the Quincy Institute and the co-creator, with Nick Cleveland-Stout, of the Think Tank Funding Tracker, where you can look up which think tanks take how much money from which foreign governments.

From 2019 through 2023, Freeman says, foreign governments spent more than US$100 million on funding American think tanks. For the most part, the money comes from America’s formal allies. The United Kingdom, for instance, spends millions on American think tanks. But so do what Freeman calls America’s “autocratic friends,” principally the Emirates, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia—all signing multi-million dollar checks on the regular. As mightn’t surprise you, they aren’t doing it out of sheer generosity, either; they’re buying influence—over the American democratic process.

But what may be even more concerning, Freeman says, is that so much of this money remains untraced. With disclosure being voluntary, many think tanks simply refuse to say who their funders are or how much they’re funding. And so it’s entirely possible—in fact, very likely—that they’re systematically covering up donations from certain governments. Is it plausible, for example, that out of the more than $100 million foreign governments gave to American think tanks in recent years, only $10,000 comes from the People’s Republic of China? Freeman says we have reasons to believe it’s not …

• “Think tanks are growing. Some of them are enormous entities. The Brookings Institution, for example, has an annual budget of almost US$100 million. It’s a gigantic organization, with scholars all over the world. It has several hundred folks on staff. And that’s not even counting their vast network of fellows. And still, Brookings is only one think tank among many. There are places like the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Center for American Progress that have annual budgets in the tens of millions of dollars. As they’ve expanded, they’ve had to find new ways to secure funding. And foreign governments have kindly provided it.”
• “It’s the worst-kept secret in Washington, D.C. that think tanks can effectively operate like lobbying firms. If you work at a think tank, you might be testifying before Congress; you might be helping a congressional office prepare for congressional hearings; or you might, at the very least, send them your latest report. And in some cases, you’re not just providing talking points but helping them draft laws. … Now, outside forces and special interests have started to recognize that fact, too. Now, they’ve developed a more sophisticated understanding of how American politics functions.”
• “Leaked emails showed that the U.A.E. embassy reached an agreement for a quarter of a million dollars for the Center for a New American Security to write a report on U.S. drone-proliferation policy. Drones are among the U.S. military’s high-end tech. And so the U.S. is very reluctant to share it with other countries. The U.A.E. wanted an analysis of that proliferation regime, to see if it should be broadened to include more countries. Lo and behold, they pay for a report on exactly this topic, and the CNAS report ultimately recommends that the U.S. expand its proliferation regime to include a number of other countries, including the UAE.”

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Much ado in Taipei

The center-right Kuomintang (KMT) and their ally, the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), won a majority in the Yuan after last year’s elections, but the center-left Democratic People’s Party (DPP) backed the recall effort to try to flip control of the chamber.

The DPP had controlled it—and the country’s presidency—since 2016, but President Lai Ching-te, a.k.a. William Lai, has met immovable opposition in the Yuan since the last elections.

The recall effort failed, but the campaign—and the months of divided government—have shown a deepening and dangerous partisan polarization in the country. The KMT wants a friendlier approach to mainland China, while Lai and the DPP see Beijing as an existential threat and want closer ties with the U.S. and the West.

But now the Kuomintang and the TPP are pushing to give the legislature greater powers over the presidency and to freeze spending—which the DPP says serves the interests of China.

The KMT-TPP allies say Lai and the DPP want a war with China and are using anti-democratic means to silence opposition: The government indicted TPP leader Ko Wen-je on corruption charges last December. During the recall campaign, KMT leader Eric Chu compared the DPP to the Nazis and Lai to Adolf Hitler. Yuan members from opposing parties even got into a huge brawl inside the chamber in May of 2024.

And amid all this, the Chinese Communist Party is stepping up social-media propaganda campaigns to demonize Lai and the DPP and to promote misinformation and conspiracies.

Is Taiwan’s democracy in trouble?

Developments we’re keeping an eye on

• Command and control in Washington. U.S. President Donald Trump has taken the unprecedented step of assuming direct authority over the District of Columbia’s police department and activating the National Guard. The president calls it a crackdown on crime and homelessness, while D.C.’s Mayor Muriel Bowser argues that none of the legal conditions for such an intervention obtain. Notably, the move exploits D.C.’s unique lack of statehood to assert federal control in ways that can’t be done in other major cities.
• Tech giants pay tribute. Nvidia and AMD have agreed to share 15 percent of their revenues from chip sales to China with the U.S. government in exchange for eased export restrictions—though President Trump initially sought an even bigger cut. The deal is remarkable in the way it’s turned national-security restrictions into a profit-sharing scheme between Silicon Valley and Washington.
• A major eruption in the Ring of Fire. Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki erupted for a second consecutive day, sending volcanic materials and ash up to 18 kilometers into the sky in one of Indonesia’s largest volcanic eruptions since 2010, with no casualties reported despite the massive scale of the event. Its magnitude means potential global disruptions to air travel and agricultural systems if the volcanic activity should continue or intensify.

retain what’s happened, understand the stakes,

and think for yourself …

See you Thursday …

‘FLIKK’

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