Welcome back to the penultimate 2025 edition of Foreign Policy’s Situation Report, as we approach the holiday break and start looking ahead to a likely even busier 2026.
Here’s what’s on tap for the day: Humanitarian aid workers are struggling to do their jobs, U.S. President Donald Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi hold a phone call, and European leaders weigh in on Ukraine peace negotiations.
Aid agencies and humanitarian workers operating in conflict zones are facing historic challenges that are making it harder to safely and adequately provide assistance to some of the world’s most vulnerable people.
Working in the humanitarian sector has become increasingly dangerous in recent years—2024 was the deadliest year on record for aid workers, with 383 killed, and 2025 may be worse. With a few weeks left in the year, there have already been 326 aid workers killed, according to the Aid Worker Security Database.
The dangers are particularly pronounced in Gaza. Nearly half of the aid workers killed in 2024 were in the coastal enclave, and this trend has continued into 2025. In just one incident back in March, 15 emergency workers were killed by Israeli forces in southern Gaza.
“I really worry a lot about the safety and security of my teams,” Tjada D’Oyen McKenna, the CEO of Mercy Corps who leads a team of more than 4,300 humanitarian workers, said during an interview at the Doha Forum.
McKenna expressed concern about the “demonization of aid,” saying there’s been an evident erosion of space and respect for “humanitarian law and norms” across the globe as well as “a lot more open, flagrant atrocities” committed by a variety of players in conflict zones worldwide.
Hostile governments. From Gaza to Sudan and beyond, barriers to the movement of both personnel and aid also continue to make delivering assistance difficult. Though a cease-fire has been declared in Gaza, aid agencies operating there are still struggling to do their jobs. “The humanitarian situation in Gaza remains dire as a result of the two years conflict, the restrictions on the aid access, the access of food, [and] the famine that was declared,” Tamara Alrifai, UNRWA’s director of communications, said during an interview at the Doha Forum.
“The cease-fire comes with a condition for around 600 trucks of food and other supplies per day. We’re very far away from that figure for a variety of reasons. While the quantity and the quality of what’s going into the strip have increased and improved, they’re still very far away from the minimum requirement,” Alrifai added.
UNRWA, which has been banned in Israel and recently had its East Jerusalem headquarters raided by Israeli authorities, continues to operate in Gaza, the occupied West Bank, and other places in the Middle East, providing aid, schooling, health care, and other services to millions of Palestinians. Israel has accused the United Nations agency of being “infiltrated by Hamas,” a claim that UNRWA rejects. The Trump administration is also now reportedly considering putting terrorism-related sanctions on the agency.
The “yellow line” that Israeli forces pulled back to in Gaza, dividing the territory, as part of the cease-fire adds yet another complication to doing humanitarian work there. “UNRWA is operating in the red zone while acknowledging that the situation is very fluid, and the lines keep moving every day,” Alrifai said.
Trump’s aid cuts. Aid organizations are also facing serious challenges brought on by major cuts to U.S. foreign aid under Trump.
As a result of those cuts, as well as reduced aid from Europe, the U.N., which heavily relies on donations from member states to fund humanitarian assistance, has cut its fundraising goal for 2026 in half. “We are overstretched, underfunded, and under attack,” Tom Fletcher, the United Nations under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said in a press briefing on Dec. 3.
It’s estimated that millions could die as a result of the U.S. foreign aid cuts. The Trump administration’s dismantling of United States Agency for International Development has already resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths, according to one estimate.
The problems tied to U.S. funding cuts are especially apparent in Sudan, aid groups say, where a civil war has fomented one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
Mercy Corps has “always been underfunded” for the response in Sudan, McKenna said, but aid is needed there now more than ever. “People need the funding. They need to be able to buy food, and medicine, and supplies for their families,” McKenna said. “The global funding situation just continues to be a strain on that.”
Kirsten Hillman, Canada’s ambassador to the United States and its top bilateral trade negotiator, announced this week that she will be stepping down in 2026 after more than eight years in Washington. “It has been the greatest privilege of my professional life to have served and represented Canada and Canadians during this critical period in Canada-U.S. relations,” she wrote in a letter announcing her decision.
Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna hosted Alexander Darchiev, the Russian ambassador to Washington, at her Christmas reception on Capitol Hill. “Continue working to make Russian-American relations great again!” the Russian embassy posted on X with a photo of Luna and Darchiev together.
The Trump administration plans to appoint a U.S. two-star general to command the international stabilization force dedicated to peacekeeping in Gaza, Axios reported.
What should be high on your radar, if it isn’t already.
Trump-Modi call. The gradual thaw between Washington and New Delhi appears to be gradually progressing, with Modi speaking with Trump on the phone Thursday. Modi described the conversation as “warm and engaging” in a post on X, adding that the two countries would “continue to work together for global peace, stability and prosperity.” Trump, as of this writing, has not publicly acknowledged the call.
It remains to be seen whether the conversation will be enough to clinch an India-U.S. trade deal that has remained out of reach, with Indian exports to the United States still subject to the 50 percent tariffs that Trump imposed over New Delhi’s purchases of Russian oil. A U.S. State Department team, led by Undersecretary of State Allison Hooker, visited New Delhi earlier this week to discuss “key bilateral issues,” including trade, defense, and energy cooperation, the Indian Embassy in Washington said in a statement.
Trump takes a tanker. The United States on Wednesday seized an oil tanker carrying Venezuelan crude bound for Cuba, opening up a new front in the Trump administration’s escalating campaign against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a post that the tanker has been subject to U.S. sanctions for multiple years for its role in transporting “sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran.”
The tanker seizure follows months of U.S. military strikes on alleged drug trafficking boats off the coast of Venezuela and the threat of additional land strikes in the country. When asked what the United States plans to do with the oil from the tanker, Trump said, “We keep it, I guess.”
Tens of thousands of protesters demonstrate against the government in Sofia, Bulgaria, on Dec. 10. The anti-corruption protests resulted in the resignation of Bulgarian Prime Minister Rossen Zhelyazkov and his cabinet.Dobrin Kashavelov/AFP via Getty Images
As the Trump administration continues to push for a Russia-Ukraine peace deal, SitRep spoke to current and former European officials on the sidelines of events in Doha, Qatar, and Washington to get their take on the efforts.
“There are no peace talks” at the moment, Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said bluntly at the Doha Forum. “There are talks between the U.S., Ukraine, and Europe, but they are not at war.” Those talks, while useful, are “just a platform,” Barth Eide added, “and then the peace talks will start—because the peace talks, at the end of the day, have to be between those who are at war, and that’s Russia and Ukraine.”
Former Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid expressed concerns about Ukraine being forced into an unfavorable deal. “Ukrainians will have to have a say, and they will have to make the decision. Our job is to create conditions for them to be free in making that decision,” she said at the Aspen Security Forum in Washington. “If the Ukrainian people are disappointed with any peace arrangement, Russia will have that country for breakfast simply by messing with its democratic process, which will be difficult enough after this kind of cease-fire,” she added.
Monday, Dec. 15 The European Union’s foreign affairs council meets.
Qatar hosts a U.N. anti-corruption conference.
China holds a monthly press conference on its economic data.
Tuesday, Dec. 16 Argentina releases GDP figures for the third quarter of the year.
Thursday, Dec. 18 The European Council leaders’ summit convenes.
Central banks in the European Union and United Kingdom release interest rate decisions.
$10.5 billion—the shortfall in military aid that Ukraine is set to face in 2025 compared to the annual average aid since Russia invaded in 2022, according to a new report by the Kiel Institute, a German think tank. That shortage is largely due to the Trump administration’s halt of U.S. aid to Ukraine. Although European countries have stepped up with $38 billion in aid so far this year, it hasn’t been enough to offset the U.S. pullback.—Sam Skove
“I understand why China [would] do this. I don’t understand why the U.S. is trying to do this.”
—Yehor Cherniev, head of the Ukrainian delegation to the NATO parliamentary assembly, speaking at an event in Washington, referring to efforts to “rebalance” the post-World War II liberal order that the United States helped create.
