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Express Tribune
21-07-2025
- Business
- Express Tribune
Sino-Russian cooperation and the world order
"Beijing and Moscow should work to unite countries of global South and promote the development of the international order in a more just and reasonable direction," said Chinese President Xi Jinping during his conversation with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the occasion of the SCO Foreign Ministers meeting in Tiangin, China last week. The two sides called for strengthening mutual support for multilateralism, stability and peace for a just global order, while countering the West-led order. According to an AI overview, "Sino-Russian strategic cooperation, particularly within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), plays a crucial role in regional stability and development. Both nations view the SCO as a platform for enhancing their comprehensive strategic partnership and addressing common challenges. This cooperation extends to various fields including security, economics, and cultural exchange, with both countries actively working to strengthen the organization and ensure its success". Russian president Vladimir Putin is expected to visit China on the occasion of SCO summit to be held in August 2025 in which it is expected that the two global giants will examine in detail how to play a leadership role in the prevailing world order. US President Donald Trump has threatened to impose maximum tariff on Russia and provide military support to Ukraine through NATO. In the aftermath of the Iran-Israel war and West's unequivocal support to the Jewish state, it is expected that Moscow and Beijing will deepen their strategic cooperation under the platform of BRICS and SCO in order to provide an alternate leadership in world order. Majority of members of BRICS and SCO are supportive of the Sino-Russian strategic partnership and argue that if the two great powers remain united, an alternate to the US dollar and its biased trade policies may be agreed upon. How can the Sino-Russian strategic partnership help ensure peace, stability and multilateralism and why does the Trump administration perceive the leadership role of Moscow and Beijing in BRICS and SCO a major threat to its interests? Will Sino-Russian strategic partnership sustain in the post-Putin and post-XI era and how will the two powers reshape their role in providing an alternate world order once the leaderships of Putin and Xi are part of history? For decades China and the defunct USSR were adversaries but following the visit of Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to Beijing in May 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991, the two neighbours forged a new relationship based on strategic partnership while freezing their unresolved territorial issues. Certainly, the West had benefited from the Sino-Soviet rivalry, but the replacement of the Russia-China animosity with friendship and meaningful cooperation challenged the US-led unipolar world. Certainly, a multipolar world is the vision of Russia and China which is gradually transforming into a reality. Certainly, the US still dominates the world economic, military and technological order. With an economy of 28 trillion dollars and defence expenditures amounting to 900 billion dollars, America is still in a commanding position. Technologically also, the US is superior to Russia and China. But, with a huge debt of 37 trillion dollars, American economy is in dire straits. Russia, China and other ambitious powers want to take advantage of the US economic fault lines and its growing use of hard power, making it unpopular in different parts of the world. One can figure out three major aspects of the Sino-Russian strategic partnership in the world today. First, the success of China in focusing on its economy and the failure of Russia to disengage itself from conflicts in its neighbourhood, particularly the war with Ukraine. China's rise as the world's second largest economy was because of its focus on development and the application of soft power like diplomacy, aid, investments and trade instead of military involvement in its neighborhood. This is not the case with Russia which has its ambitions in former Soviet republics. Its occupation of Crimea in 2014 and attack on Ukraine in February 2022 not only led to worldwide condemnation but imposition of sanctions. The Russian economy also suffered heavily because of its war with Ukraine. President Trump who had a soft corner for Putin is now forced to take a hard stance on Russia's refusal to accept American plan for ending the Russia-Ukraine war. It means Russia is in dire straits and its efforts to widen its support base through BRICS and SCO cannot yield positive results. Second, China needs to convince the Russian president to reverse its policy of hard power and withdraw forces from Ukraine. If Russia is unable to listen to Beijing's advice, it would mean further deepening of Moscow's military and economic losses in its war with Ukraine. When one major power in BRICS and SCO is not at peace, how can the Sino-Russian strategic partnership strive for a multipolar world? Presently, India is not happy with the Trump administration over the manner in which it dealt with the May 7-10 armed conflict with Pakistan and took the credit for the ceasefire. For India it is the ideal opportunity to put its weight behind the Sino-Russian strategic partnership so as to exert maximum pressure on Washington. Iran is also supportive of a multipolar world because it has suffered the most at the hands of America over the last several decades. South Africa is against the blatant US support to Israel, and the manner in which the American President dealt with the South African President during his meeting at White House proves growing cleavage between South Africa and the Trump administration. Likewise, other members of BRICS and SCO are also not supportive of the perceived American hegemonic designs and subscribe to the Sino-Russian strategic partnership to break the US dominance in the prevailing world order. Finally, the forthcoming SCO summit in China provides a valuable opportunity for member countries to forge consensus on striving for a multipolar world. For that purpose, it is essential that contentious issues among SCO members are resolved through diplomacy. Notable in the context is the rivalry between India and Pakistan, the two nuclear-armed SCO members. Without bringing peace between the two, it will not be possible for Russia and China to transform the US-led world order.
New Indian Express
15-07-2025
- Business
- New Indian Express
BRICS to buttress Global South
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's recent five-nation diplomatic tour spanning Brazil, Ghana, Namibia, Trinidad and Tobago, and Argentina was a demonstration of India's strategic vision for the Global South. Centred around the BRICS summit in Brazil, these visits reinforced India's position as a pivotal voice among emerging economies in a rapidly-evolving multipolar world. It showcased India's intent to shape global governance by empowering the Global South, deepening regional cooperation and counterbalancing the hegemonic influences in multilateral platforms. India's efforts to amplify the voice of the Global South have gained momentum in recent years, culminating in the inclusion of the African Union into the G20 during India's presidency in 2023. This precedent is now mirrored in BRICS, which is undergoing significant expansion. With India's proactive involvement, countries such as Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the UAE have joined the bloc, now termed BRICS+. Several more nations from West Asia, Africa and Latin America have expressed interest, viewing BRICS as a credible platform to champion their interests. India's current standing can be better appreciated by revisiting the origins of BRICS in the early 2000s and the foundational RIC or Russia-India-China framework. At that time, the global order was markedly different. Russia was a member of the G8, China was seamlessly integrating into West-led institutions, and India-China relations were relatively cordial. The inclusion of Brazil and South Africa expanded the group into BRICS, bound by a shared vision for a new multipolar world. Over the past two decades, the BRICS economies have surged. In purchasing power parity terms, the bloc's collective economy now stands at $60 trillion, surpassing the G7's $45 trillion, driven largely by the dynamism of Asian and other Global South countries. However, BRICS is not without contradictions. Border tensions in 2013, 2017 and 2020 have significantly altered India-China relations. While the bloc continues to espouse unity, there are heavy undercurrents of mistrust and apprehension. India's actions reflect an acute awareness of these realities.
Indian Express
11-07-2025
- Business
- Indian Express
Best of Both Sides: BRICS is China's playground
As an emerging power, India's interests are arguably served best by aligning with multiple major powers, which according to conventional wisdom allows Delhi to limit its dependence on any one power and instead work with each on specific issues of common interest. India's membership of multilateral institutions such as BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) has been justified along the lines that these provide platforms to push for a more multipolar world order that limits the dominance of Western powers and West-led institutions. Indeed, BRICS emerged as a group focused on challenging the norms that shaped multilateral economic institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. BRICS offered another avenue for India's aspirations for global leadership as it, along with Brazil, China and Russia, negotiated a larger proportion of quotas and votes at these institutions. In recent years, as BRICS has expanded its membership, it has arguably provided India another platform to develop ties with countries in the Global South. One could argue that as the US under the Donald Trump administration pursues an unpredictable and more volatile foreign policy, it might be even more imperative for India to build ties with such institutions. But does membership of BRICS really serve India's interests? What specific foreign policy goals can it pursue through this? The international order is going through a transformation and the contours of the new order are not yet clear, and it is pertinent to ask whether China-dominated institutions such as BRICS will help India or drag it down. I argue that while BRICS and the SCO still provide India platforms to push for multipolarity, they do not further many of its key foreign policy goals. In some cases, its interests might even be adversely affected through the collective positions taken. Clearly, China's economic size, assertive foreign policy and dominance in these institutions limit the extent to which India can exert its influence and secure its interests. China's GDP, at $17.79 trillion, is nearly five times the size of India's at $3.56 trillion. This economic might, along with China's extensive trade and investment ties with other BRICS countries, allow it to exert greater political influence. At the BRICS summits, Beijing has used its leverage to promote goals such as de-dollarisation and expansion of the organisation's membership. It has also used the venue to advocate for a larger role in global governance for itself. While India seeks to pursue some of these goals, it has not been able to further its interests through BRICS. The redistribution of IMF quotas in 2015 may have been the only exception. Even then, as BRICS countries banded together to reform global governance, China emerged as the clear winner as it was able to secure a deputy managing director position at the IMF. While India seeks to expand its ties with countries in the Global South and portray itself as their leader, given the deep economic ties China enjoys with other BRICS countries, it is difficult for New Delhi to claim the leadership mantle while operating within the organisation. It might be easier for India to create a leadership narrative through its bilateral ties and in blocs where China is not present. Additionally, India is deeply conflicted on de-dollarisation. While it has not been opposed to creating alternative payment mechanisms, it has enjoyed strong and increasing trade and investment ties with the US and has sought to limit its dependence on China. Trump's threat of imposing additional tariffs on BRICS countries pursuing de-dollarisation puts India in a difficult position: Even though New Delhi was never in favour of the policy, it would need to clearly communicate that it is not retreating under threat. The economic asymmetry within BRICS has also spilled over in the way Beijing has used the New Development Bank, the group's flagship financial institution. While India has borrowed for its infrastructure projects, it is China that has been able to leverage its economic power to shape the discussion at the NDB around infrastructure and connectivity, which in turn bolsters its Belt and Road Initiative. It is not only in the realm of economics that New Delhi has seemingly played second fiddle. More recently, to maintain BRICS cohesion, India signed a joint declaration that condemned the terrorist attack in Pahalgam but did not criticise Pakistan for supporting cross-border terrorism. India has fought long and hard to convince the world that Pakistan promotes and exports terrorism — the BRICS declaration went directly against India's long-held position. In the early years of the forum, BRICS membership likely gave India a larger profile in global governance by providing a mechanism for policy coordination by emerging economies. As China's economic might has continued to grow and its foreign policy has increased in ambition and assertiveness, the forum today might constrain rather than further India's foreign policy objectives. Indian leaders might be well advised to reevaluate BRICS's utility. The writer is associate professor, political science and international affairs, University of Mary Washington
AllAfrica
08-07-2025
- Politics
- AllAfrica
Russia's formal recognition a shot in the arm for the Taliban
On July 3, Moscow formally recognized the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan. Recognition has opened a new chapter in the Taliban's outreach to the outside world. Russia and the former Soviet Union have had a complicated history, to say the least, with Afghanistan, the Mujahideen forces and the Taliban. From having lost the last Cold War era proxy war in Afghanistan, during 1979-89 and then, in the early 21st century, having shown initial support for the US counter-terror war in Afghanistan, Russia has gone full circle in becoming the first major power – indeed, the first country – to recognize the Taliban government in its second iteration. Is this a win-win for Russia and the Taliban, particularly for the latter's relentless drive to gain global recognition? What could be the implications for the Taliban's re-engagement with the world, after a hiatus of more than two decades? Russia is a permanent veto-wielding member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Therefore, its recognition of the Taliban infuses a very tangible de-facto legitimacy to the erstwhile insurgency group deemed by much of the rest of the world a terrorist organization. During the Taliban's first rule in Kabul from 1996 to 2001, its self-declared 'Islamic Emirate' was officially recognized only by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). After having forced the world's most powerful military and its allies, to leave Afghanistan lock, stock and barrel, the Taliban in its second innings has had a very different beginning. It has managed to leverage a shifting regional and global security environment to its advantage, and reduced its international isolation to a large extent. But, what prompted Russia to take this rather bold step, before any other country? Extending a diplomatic hand of friendship to a Taliban thirsty for recognition,could provide some strategic traction to a Russia that is struggling with a list of huge challenges that starts with the on-going Ukraine war, West-led sanctions and the weakening of its economy. For Moscow, Afghanistan is a good arrow to have in its strategic quiver. Moreover, this is a move in which Russia has been well invested in, even in the midst of the US war on terrorism. As the military fortunes of the US in Afghanistan started to slide and the signs that the Taliban would return became more ominous, Russia could be seen engaging with the group through back-door channel – from 2007 for addressing concerns related to drug trafficking and especially post-2015 when the growing potency of ISIS-K emerged as a common threat to Moscow and the Taliban. Moreover, Russia has also been involved in facilitating national reconciliation and settlement in Afghanistan. It has been making its presence felt in the region, through multilateral platforms such as the Moscow Format of Consultations, the regional Quartet (Russia, China, Iran and Pakistan), the Collective Security Treaty Organization and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Moscow's distinct perception of regional geopolitics and security also shapes its engagement with the Taliban, whose writ over Afghanistan cannot be ignored anymore. A working relationship with the Taliban is considered germane to how Moscow views security on its southern borders as well as in Central Asia. Those five post-Soviet countries, according to Moscow, still consider Russia to be their regional security guarantor. The stability of Afghanistan is deemed crucial in preventing uncontrollable refugee flows to the Central Asian countries and Russia; stopping terrorists and other criminals crossing those borders; stopping the spread of Islamic radicalization in Central Asia and Russia; and stopping the flow of drugs. Moreover, Russia will want to leverage the post-American vacuum in Afghanistan, to take the first-mover advantage in this case, to re-establish its strategic footprint – something it lost post 1989. From pure geostrategic considerations and Russia's sphere of influence in Central Asia, any lingering presence of the United States in Afghanistan will be an eyesore for Moscow. However, Moscow did attempt to draw in the US, in its dialogue with the Taliban that included India, China, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the five Central Asian countries. Although no state before Russia had formally recognized the Taliban administration since its return to power on August 15, 2021, the group has experienced significantly less international isolation this time than it did during its earlier rule. On February 5, 2025, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed that the administration was engaging with 40 countries on diplomatic affairs. Soon after the Taliban's takeover of Kabul for the second time, many countries evacuated their embassies or temporarily closed them down due to the deteriorating security situation in the country. However, some regional countries such as Iran, China, Pakistan, most of the Central Asian Republics, Qatar, UAE, Turkiye and Russia maintained diplomatic presences in Kabul, keeping their missions operational. Without the final step of formal recognition, as of 2025 over a dozen countries had appointed ambassadors to Kabul, including China, Pakistan, Iran, Japan, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Uzbekistan. In addition, several regional states, such as India, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, maintained diplomatic engagement at the level of chargés d'affaires (CDAs). The United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands and South Korea conduct their diplomatic engagement with Afghanistan through their missions based in Doha, Qatar. Other countries, including Belgium, Brazil, Nepal and Sri Lanka, sustain such engagement via their embassies in Islamabad, Pakistan. In December 2023, China became the first country to formally accept a Taliban-appointed ambassador, while the Islamic Emirate's first military attaché was received in Moscow in March 2024. In addition to diplomatic exchanges, the Taliban administration hosted several high-level visits, most notably, in 2024, that of the Uzbek Prime Minister, the highest-ranking foreign official to visit Kabul since the group's return to power. From 2021 onward, Taliban officials have also held multiple meetings with representatives from various international/regional bodies, including the United Nations (UN), the European Union's Special Envoy for Afghanistan, the Economic Cooperation Organization and member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council. In June 2024, a Taliban delegation participated for the first time in the high-level UN-led meeting of special envoys to Afghanistan in Doha. That was the third such meeting. The Taliban made its attendance conditional on the exclusion of Afghan civil society representatives, a demand that the UN ultimately accepted. These developments reflect the Taliban's expanding diplomatic outreach and their increasing, albeit limited, acceptance on regional and international platforms. In a significant development, on December 29, 2023, Kazakhstan formally removed the Taliban from its list of proscribed terrorist organizations. Subsequently, in September 2024, the government of Kyrgyzstan followed suit by lifting the designation of the 'Taliban Movement' as a banned entity. Most recently, on April 17, 2025, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation annulled the Taliban's classification as a terrorist organization. As of now, Russia's formal recognition of the Taliban regime constitutes a shot in the arm for the Islamic Emirate's diplomatic drive, particularly given Moscow's historical support for the Northern Alliance – an opposition force that confronted the Taliban during its first rule in the 1990s. At the same time, by accepting Taliban-appointed ambassadors and envoys to represent Afghanistan, countries such as China, Pakistan, the UAE and Uzbekistan have also implicitly signalled accordance of a degree of political legitimacy and recognition of the Taliban's second regime. In the midst of this churn in Taliban's outreach to the world the United States, after more than twenty years of shaping the politics, economics and security landscape of Afghanistan, is, relatively speaking, missing in action as the Trump administration battles strategic challenges in the trans-Pacific and trans-Aatlantic theaters. In short, Afghanistan does not loom large, at least for now, in the White House's radar screen. Reading the tea leaves on Russia's and other major stakeholders' moves, the overriding message that countries in the region and beyond infer is that the forces of geopolitics often trump humanitarian principles and considerations – and that to be left behind the curve is, unfortunately, a recipe for bad strategy. Indrani Talukdar is a fellow, Anchita Borthakur is a research consultant and Monish Tourangbam is a senior research consultant at the Chintan Research Foundation (CRF), New Delhi
Egypt Independent
07-07-2025
- Business
- Egypt Independent
Trump threatens new tariffs on nations supporting ‘anti-American' policies of BRICS group
CNN — President Donald Trump has threatened new tariffs on any nation supporting 'anti-American' policies of the BRICS group of emerging economies, as he announced tariff letters would be sent out to scores of countries from Monday, ahead of a key deadline. In a Truth Social post on Sunday, Trump said the US would impose an additional 10% tariff on 'any country aligning themselves with the Anti-American policies of BRICS' with 'no exceptions,' though it was not immediately clear which policies Trump was referring to. The BRICS group, an acronym of founding members Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, has long stood as a disparate body of countries united by a shared view that global power-sharing should be redistributed to reflect current global economic realities for a 'multipolar' as opposed to a West-led world order. The group has recently expanded to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates as members, and has ten lower-level partner countries – including Belarus, Nigeria, Thailand and Vietnam. It's not clear if Saudi Arabia has accepted an invitation to join the economic club. Brazil is currently hosting a BRICS summit, with leaders releasing a joint declaration on Sunday voicing 'serious concerns' about the 'rise of unilateral tariff and non-tariff measures' – an apparent a veiled jibe at the Trump administration's trade policy. The US administration's 90-day tariff pause is set to come to an end on Wednesday and Trump confirmed on Sunday night that letters will be sent out to dozens of countries from Monday. 'I am pleased to announce that the UNITED STATES TARIFF Letters, and/or Deals, with various Countries from around the World, will be delivered starting 12:00 P.M. (Eastern), Monday, July 7th,' he said in a separate Truth Social on Sunday night. 'If you don't move things along, then on August 1 you will boomerang back to your April 2 tariff level,' Bessent said about trading partners Sunday on CNN's 'State of the Union with Dana Bash.' Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent previously said that tariffs could return to April levels, if countries failed to strike a deal with the US. Trump has suggested the letters would include duty rates at the current 10% baseline, or as extensive as 70%. Bessent said Sunday the United States would not impose 70% tariff rates on major trading partners. 'We're gonna be sending letters out on Monday having to do with the trade deals. Could be 12, maybe 15 … and we've made deals, also,' Trump told CNN's Betsy Klein when asked about tariff rates late Sunday afternoon at Morristown Municipal Airport in New Jersey. Following Bessent's comments, Trump added that letters will continue to go out on Tuesday and Wednesday. 'We'll have most countries done by July 9 — either a letter or a deal,' he said earlier on Sunday. 'The president is right in the midst of discussing all sorts of deals with all sorts of countries,' Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told reporters Sunday alongside Trump. He also confirmed that tariff rates would go into effect on August 1. Bessent on Sunday declined to confirm to CNN which countries were close to a deal. He said that about 100 letters will be sent to small countries 'where we don't have very much trade,' many of which are 'already at the baseline 10%.' Trump on Friday touted letters as the 'better' option for countries that fail to negotiate deals before the July 9 deadline. On April 9, Trump announced a complete three-month pause on all the 'reciprocal' tariffs after insisting historically high tariffs were here to stay. Later that month, he told Time magazine that he had already struck 200 trade deals but declined to say with whom. So far, Trump has only announced deals with three countries: the United Kingdom, which maintained a 10% tariff rate; China, which temporarily paused sky-high duties on most goods from 145% to 30%; and a minimum 20% tariff on goods from Vietnam. In response to the three deals being described as 'frameworks,' Bessent said the upcoming letters 'will set their tariff rates. So we will have 100 done in the next few days.' 'Many of these countries never even contacted us,' he said, adding that 'We have the leverage in this situation,' as the country facing a trading deficit. Bessent pushed back against August 1 as a new deadline. He also described the administration's plan as applying 'maximum pressure.' 'It's not a new deadline. We are saying, 'This is when it's happening. If you want to speed things up, have at it. If you want to back to the old rate, that's your choice,'' Bessent said about America's trading partners, and used the European Union as an example of countries coming to the table after Trump threatened 50% tariffs on EU imports. BRICS Trump's threat of new tariffs on any nation supporting the 'anti-American policies' of BRICS countries on Sunday injects fresh instability and uncertainty into the president's global tariff campaign, as the July 9 deadline for 'reciprocal' tariff negotiations approaches. Some BRICS countries have been negotiating directly with the Trump administration, in particular India. It's unclear if Trump's new threat would impact those talks. Trump earlier this year threatened to place a '100% tariff' on 'seemingly hostile' member countries if they supported a shared currency. The idea of a BRICS currency was floated by Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2023, but has not been a focus of the body, which rather seeks to bolster trade and financing in their local currencies. On Sunday, the group of BRICS leaders backed ongoing discussions of a cross-border payments initiative between member countries. BRICS countries also condemned the military strikes on member state Iran and expressed 'serious concern' over 'deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure' and 'peaceful' nuclear facilities, without naming Israel, which carried out days of strikes against Iran last month, or the US, which bombed three Iranian nuclear facilities as part of the same onslaught. When asked about Trump's latest comments at a regular media briefing Monday, a spokesperson for China's Foreign Ministry called BRICS an 'important platform for cooperation among emerging markets and developing countries,' which 'avoids bloc confrontation or targeting any specific country.' 'We consistently oppose tariff wars and trade wars, as well as using tariffs as a tool for coercion and pressure. Arbitrarily increasing tariffs does not serve the interests of any party,' spokesperson Mao Ning said, in response to a question about how China would react if additional tariffs were imposed on it over BRICS. Economic risks Economists have warned that Trump's trade war, especially the wide-ranging tariffs on Chinese imports, will increase costs for consumers. Some companies, including Walmart, have said they will raise prices for customers despite pushback from Trump. 'We have seen no inflation so far,' Bessent said on 'Fox News Sunday,' calling such projections 'misinformation' and 'tariff derangement syndrome.' Bessent and other Trump officials have repeatedly argued in recent months that countries like China would bear the cost of tariffs. US wholesale inflation rose slightly in May, driven in part by costlier goods, though tariff-related effects were largely muted. The Producer Price Index, a closely watched measurement of wholesale inflation, showed that prices paid to producers rose 0.1% in May, lifting the annual rate to 2.6%, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data released in June. Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who has blasted Bessent for undermining the economic impact of tariffs, said Sunday on ABC's 'This Week' that tariffs 'will probably collect some revenue' but would come at the expense of higher inflation and less competitiveness for American producers. Also appearing on 'This Week,' Stephen Miran, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said there was no 'lasting evidence' that tariffs imposed on China during Trump's first term hurt the economy and the administration has only 'repeated the same performance' this year. 'Tariff revenue is pouring in. There's no sign of any economically significant inflation whatsoever and job creation remains healthy,' Miran said. CNN's Kit Maher and Alicia Wallace contributed to this report.
