Situation Reports

The Argentine Senate approved three bills immediately increasing pensions by 7.2% in nominal terms, securing resources to provinces and a relief fund to Bahia Blanca, a city hit by floods earlier in the year, La Nacion reported July 10.

Vietnam's leaders were surprised after U.S. President Donald Trump unilaterally announced a 20% tariff rate on Vietnamese exports on July 2 because, according to sources cited in a July 11 Politico report, this was almost double the 11% rate Hanoi had reportedly agreed to in its trade negotiations with the White House.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held talks they both described as ''constructive'' on the sidelines of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the South China Morning Post reported July 11.

In a letter published on Truth Social on July 10, U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to increase tariffs on Canada to 35%.

During a July 10 meeting of the ruling Patriots of Senegal (PASTEF) party, Senegalese Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko urged President Bassirou Diomaye Faye to intervene against what he called ''unacceptable attacks'' by critics or allow Sonko to handle them himself, Jeune Afrique reported July 11.

Senior naval officials from the United States, Japan and Australia signed a trilateral logistics cooperation agreement, according to a July 11 readout from the U.S. Navy.

Around 30 Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) fighters destroyed their weapons in a ceremony near Sulaymaniyah in Iraqi Kurdistan, marking the start of the PKK's disarmament process, The New York Times reported July 11.

The Central African Republic (CAR) government, with mediation from Chad, officially dissolved two major rebel groups: Return, Reclamation and Rehabilitation (3R) and the Union for Peace in the Central African Republic (UPC), RFI reported July 11.

John Steenhuisen, the leader of the center-right Democratic Alliance (DA) -- the second largest party in South Africa's ruling coalition behind the left-leaning African National Congress (ANC) -- insisted that his party would not support the budgets for the Department of Higher Education and the Department of Human Settlements, despite warnings from the senior legal adviser to South Africa's parliament that the 2025 budget could not be approved unless every single departmental budget was approved, Daily Maverick reported July 10.

Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said the country will resort to its economic reciprocity law to retaliate against the 50% tariff U.S. President Donald Trump announced would begin Aug. 1, Folha de S.Paulo reported on July 9.