As the toll of the COVID-19 economic shutdown reverberates around the world, money sent home by foreign workers is drying up.

Blame narratives over the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic are deepening rifts between the U.S. and China, according to Javed Ali, Towsley Policymaker in Residence at the Ford School. In a co-authored op-ed featured in The Hill on April 23, Ali asserts that these rising tensions added to an already weak relationship, and “risks igniting a new Cold War.”

The response to the spread of COVID-19 has not only “revealed deep shortcomings in America’s emergency preparedness and national medical response systems,” but also has broader implications for national security(link is external), according to Ford School Towsley Policymaker in Residence Javed Ali. As the nation’s attention is focused on fighting the pandemic, domestic and foreign adversaries could seize on the moment, as an opportunity to conduct “attacks against physical targets, undermine public confidence in government through disinformation and propaganda, disrupt medical and public health response efforts or create further economic uncertainty through commodity or currency manipulations,” he wrote in The Hill on March 13.

"On February 26, the Ford School welcomed Denis McDonough, former White House Chief of Staff for President Obama for an armchair conversation on “New Frontiers: Labor, Immigration and Foreign Policy,” with John Ciorciari, associate professor at the Ford School. The conversation covered topics from international economic policy to advice for rising policymakers. Michigan Daily covered the event in an article published on February 26."

The Ford School held its annual DC career trip with record student attendance (55 graduate students) and alumni participation (140). A Ford School tradition, this year’s Washington, DC experience provided students with several opportunities to engage alumni and other professionals working in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. On Thursday evening, the Ford School reception was kicked off with a lecture by Professor John Ciorciari on “The Path Forward in Afghanistan,” followed by a robust networking reception at the Council on Foreign Relations.

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the Ford School hosted Ambassador Susan Rice, former United Nations Ambassador and former U.S. National Security Advisor, for a conversation with Dean Michael S. Barr on her new memoir Tough Love: My Story of the Things Worth Fighting For.

The Hill recently featured Ford School faculty expertise on domestic and international security and counterterrorism. Javed Ali, Towsley Policymaker in Residence at the Ford School, discusses domestic terrorism and the United States’ role in Iranian counterterrorism efforts in op-eds on December 28(link is external) and January 9(link is external), respectively.

In conjunction with hosting a presidential debate next fall, the University of Michigan will welcome representatives from regions across the globe for a symposium on promoting political candidate debates and other key democratic principles and practices in their home countries.

Carl Simon on the spread of HIV, Robert Axelrod on the evolution of cooperation, and Mary Corcoran and Paul Courant on gender wage discrimination.