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Good morning, Roca Nation. Here are today’s four need-to-know stories:
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced that ChatGPT would allow adult content for age-verified users (free)
Major television networks announced they would not sign the Pentagon’s new press policy
The trial for conservative UK activist Tommy Robinson ended on Tuesday (free)
Meta announced that Instagram would restrict content for teenage users, similar to to PG-13 movie standards
By Max Frost
In March, The New York Times ran a news article – not an opinion piece – titled, “How Trump Supercharged Distrust, Driving U.S. Allies Away.”
The author spent his 1,600 words detailing how, in just two months as president, Trump had shattered decades of “trust” and undermined American alliances.
“Few forces have such a powerful, long-lasting impact on geopolitics as distrust, according to social scientists who study international relations. It has repeatedly poisoned negotiations in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It kept Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union burning for decades,” he wrote.
He continued:
His own distrust of allies, evident in his zero-sum belief that gains for others are losses for America, has been reciprocated. What it’s created is familiar – a distrust spiral. If you think the other person (or country) is not trustworthy, you’re more likely to break rules and contracts without shame, studies show, reinforcing a partner’s own distrust, leading to more aggression or reduced interaction.
“Trust is fragile,” Paul Slovic, a psychologist at the University of Oregon, wrote in a seminal 1993 study on risk, trust and democracy. “It is typically created rather slowly, but it can be destroyed in an instant – by a single mishap or mistake.”
In Mr. Trump’s case, allies point to a sustained assault.
That article wasn’t unique: The mainstream analysis of Trump is that he has broken relationships and fueled distrust between the US and its allies through tariffs, threats about military drawbacks, and sudden pivots in policy.
Yet, most analysts seem to agree, two things made the Gaza deal possible: Trust and alliances.
How did Trump win the trust of both Israel and Hamas to secure a ceasefire? How did he build a coalition of Middle Eastern countries to endorse it? What did he do differently from President Biden?
That’s the subject of today’s deep-dive, part one of a two-part look at how Trump secured the Gaza ceasefire.
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Editor’s Note
Thanks for reading. Stay tuned for Part 2 on Friday. If you want to get the entire story in your inbox, become a Roca Member today.
In the meantime, check out our latest reports below:
See you tomorrow,
Max and Max
