On the heels of a successful meeting of the Quad, the informal strategic dialogue between the United States, Japan, Australia and India, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with their counterparts in Tokyo and Seoul to reinvigorate these crucial alliances in the face of an increasingly aggressive China. Host Carol Castiel talks with East Asia experts Ambassador Kelley Currie, former US Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues and Dean Cheng, senior research fellow in the Asian Studies Center at the Heritage Foundation, about the significance of the trip and what the allies can do to reverse the military takeover in Myanmar.

On this Latin American edition of Encounter, host Carol Castiel talks with Eric Farnsworth, Vice President of the Council of the Americas and the Americas Society, and Miriam Kornblith, Director of Latin America and the Caribbean at the National Endowment for Democracy, about the devastating economic, social and health impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on the region and the opportunities for a “reset” in US-Latin America relations under the Biden administration as China and Russia compete for geopolitical influence in the Western hemisphere.

The Biden Administration ordered its first military strike on Iran-backed militias in eastern Syria. Ellen Laipson, professor and director of the Center for Security Policy Studies at George Mason University, and Randa Slim, Director of the Conflict Resolution and Track II Dialogues Program at the Middle East Institute, join Carol Castiel to discuss how these strikes could affect US-Iran nuclear talks, US-Iraq relations and US policy toward Syria.

Lisa Curtis, former senior National Security Council official under the Trump administration, now director of the Indo-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), and Michael Kugelman, senior associate for South Asia at The Wilson Center, discuss with host Carol Castiel the current state of play in Afghanistan where the Biden administration may consider extending a May 2021 deadline for US troop withdrawal given continued violence from the Taliban, among other stabilizing measures in consultation with NATO allies.

John Fortier, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and Jim Kessler, senior vice president for policy at Third Way, spar over the political fallout from former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial in which he was acquitted of the charge of “incitement of insurrection.” They also discuss the growing rift within the Republican Party and prospects for passing Covid relief legislation with host Carol Castiel.