In 2025, amid a spike in tension in the Canada-US relationship unseen since 1812, Policy began a content collaboration with The Scowcroft Group, the Washington, D.C.-based international business advisory firm founded by the late Brent Scowcroft, former National Security Advisor to Presidents George H.W. Bush and Gerald Ford. TSG principals and associates generously provide Policy’s regular Letter from Washington, as well as the shorter Scowcroft Snapshot brief on key issues of bilateral interest. With many thanks to our American friends for sharing their expertise with Policy readers. 

The Scowcroft Group at Policy/2026:

As Donald Trump carried out his “maximum pressure” operation against Cuba, leaving scores of Canadian tourists stranded and grounded amid a shortage of jet fuel, TSG Principal Filipa Jorge laid out the politics, geopolitics and economics of Trump’s coercion operation. “How events will play out is unknown, but one thing is certain,” writes Jorge, “Cuba presents a non-trivial political risk for Trump and a cautionary tale for U.S. regional partners increasingly concerned about spill-over effects and their own sovereignty.” Here’s Filipa Jorge on February 13th with, Letter from Washington: Trump’s Endgame on Cuba is Unclear; the Political Risks are Not. 

As Policy readers on both sides of the border watch the CUSMA/USMCA narrative that has been the subtext of so many tariff, trade, and political developments since Donald Trump’s return to office enter its homestretch toward the July 1st review deadline, TSG’s Jennifer Lee and Jackson Mariani have filed an indispensable scene-setter. Here are Jennifer Lee and Jackson Mariani on February 2nd with Letter from Washington: The Outlook for USMCA/CUSMA on the Road to July.

Our January 11th Scowcroft Group Snapshot previews Prime Minister Mark Carney’s trip to China from January 13-17 at a time of unprecedented trade and geopolitical tension unleashed by Donald Trump’s tariff and hemispheric wars. Here’s The Scowcroft Group with Scowcroft Group Snapshot: Carney Heads to China Amid US Tariff Uncertainty.

The Scowcroft Group at Policy/2025:

From Scowcroft Group Principal, Policy Contributing Writer and Russia expert Fritz Lodge on December 9th, invaluable context and perspective on the Russia-Ukraine negotiations and how further sanctions might impact Vladimir Putin’s intractability. “What sanctions represent is a recognition of the fact that Putin must be forced – not just coaxed – into negotiating an end to the war on reasonable terms,” writes Lodge. Here’s Fritz Lodge with Letter from Washington: For Putin, Talk is Cheap, but Sanctions Could Bite. And, our November 6th sanctions piece from Fritz, Letter from Washington: New Sanctions are a First Step in Forcing Putin to the Table.

Our December 8th Scowcroft Group Snapshot was an indispensable addition to Policy‘s insight, analysis and opinion coverage of the Trump administration’s bombshell National Security Strategy, which, per the TSG brief, “is a political document, clearly written not by defense and security experts but by America First isolationists in the White House.” Here’s  Scowcroft Group Snapshot: Donald Trump’s ‘National Security Strategy’.

On October 30th, on the margins of the APEC Summit in Busan, South Korea, U.S. President Donald Trump met Chinese President Xi Jinping for approximately 100 minutes at Gimhae International Airport. For TSG’s Jennifer Lee and Robert Goldberg, assessing the bilateral takeaways was an exercise in compare-and-contrast, with fascinating results. “Although the summit between President Trump and China’s President Xi in South Korea appears to have produced a ‘trade truce’,” write Lee and Goldberg, “the interpretations of the outcomes given by the two sides are significantly different.” Here are Jennifer Lee and Robert Goldberg with Letter from Washington: Parsing the Takeaways from the Trump-Xi Bilateral.

In what one might call a hinge-moment post bylined by The Scowcroft Group, our October 15th dispatch from Farragut Square delivered an unvarnished assessment of the Trump administration’s foreign policy. “Trump delights in fostering competition and uncertainty within his team – a product of both his business behavior and reality-show persona,” per the briefing. “This ‘scorpions in a bottle’ model has decayed into threats and physical contests, but the day-to-day result is uncertainty and lack of coordination.” Here’s Letter from Washington: From ‘Indispensable Nation’ to ‘Scorpions in a Bottle’. In a noteworthy sidebar, we chose an evocative stock shot of a crumbling White House for the piece, and within days, reality outdid that visual with the demolition of the entire East Wing.

For months, Donald Trump’s hostilities toward Venezuela’s Maduro regime have escalated from sabre-rattling to what some have characterized as war crimes with the deadly targeting of alleged drug boats. Our October 8th Letter from Washington described the ways in which an escalation in the administration’s belligerence to direct strikes against the country could backfire: “Certainly, drug and anti-crime cooperation would be jeopardized, and American efforts to limit China’s involvement and influence in the region would likely be undermined.” Here’s Letter from Washington: How Trump’s Escalation with Venezuela Could Undermine America’s Latin America Policy.

In the wake of August’s Donald Trump-Vladimir Putin summit in Anchorage, hopes for a negotiated settlement in Russia’s war on Ukraine seemed, not surprisingly, more distant than ever. Our September 19th piece by Fritz Lodge explored the role of a particular propaganda trope in the war narrative; the one that insists, against the overwhelming preponderance of evidence, that Russia is winning. Here’s Letter from Washington: Demystifying the Myth of Russian Inevitability.

On August 5th, Scowcroft Group Principals Tom Gallagher Kevin Nealer filed our first Letter from Washington, an authoritative and neighbourly primer on the “structural features of Trump’s tariff activism” that are rewriting supply chains and investment patterns in North America and globally. “For Canada, the country most impacted by America’s every economic challenge,” the authors warn, “the pace and nature of these policy changes will require an approach both vigilant and adaptive.” Here are Tom Gallagher and Kevin Nealer with The Economic Anomalies of Trump’s Tariff Activism.

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