Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the collapse of the Dutch government, an early presidential election in South Korea, and Gaza’s deadly aid crisis.
Triggering New Elections
The Netherlands’ far-right Party for Freedom pulled out of the country’s ruling coalition on Tuesday, effectively collapsing the Dutch government. Party leader Geert Wilders blamed his coalition partners’ refusal to sign off on a new list of migration crackdowns as the reason for his decision.
Last week, Wilders, who has a long history of anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant views, sought to add 10 more proposals to an extensive migration control package. These included a complete halt to asylum, a temporary ban on family reunions for asylum-seekers granted refugee status, and the return of all Syrian refugees. Wilders’s other coalition partners said they did not oppose his plans, but they urged him to propose them in the House of Representatives. Wilders rejected this idea, as it would have taken longer and would not have guaranteed their implementation.
The other parties’ decision “left me no choice but to withdraw my support for this government,” Wilders said on Tuesday, after holding a 20-minute emergency meeting with his coalition partners. “I signed up for the strictest asylum policies, not for the demise of the Netherlands.”
Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof said that he would present his resignation to King Willem-Alexander and stay on in a caretaker capacity until new elections could be held. However, a vote is unlikely to occur before October, meaning the Netherlands will not have a ruling government when it hosts a NATO summit later this month and may be forced to delay its decision to boost defense spending—a top concern for the United States going into the meetings.
“We are facing major challenges nationally and internationally and, more than ever, decisiveness is required for the safety of our resilience and the economy in a rapidly changing world,” Schoof said on Tuesday. He has since called Wilders’s decision “unnecessary and irresponsible.”
The Party for Freedom’s coalition partners were quick to join Schoof’s condemnation. “He isn’t putting the Netherlands first, he’s putting Geert Wilders first,” said Caroline van der Plas, leader of the pro-farmer party. “And I blame him for that.”
As political divisions across Europe widen, support for far-right parties has surged, particularly for their anti-immigrant and xenophobic rhetoric. The Netherlands is no exception. In its 2023 general election, Wilders’s party shocked lawmakers by securing the greatest number of seats, allowing it to form a coalition government with three other right-wing parties. This was the first time that a Dutch government had ever included the Party for Freedom, which has historically been shunned by mainstream parties for its extremist views, including its efforts to ban the Quran, close Islamic schools, and halt the acceptance of all asylum-seekers.
Wilders is expected to champion his migration platform in the now-looming campaign season. But experts warn that Tuesday’s drastic decision may not pay off in the long run.
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What We’re Following
“Judgment day.” Liberal candidate Lee Jae-myung won South Korea’s early presidential election with approximately 49 percent of the vote. His victory, more than five points ahead of lead conservative candidate Kim Moon-soo, ushers in a new era for Seoul following a short-lived martial law order and months of political upheaval.
Lee has called the election “judgment day” against the ousted Yoon administration and its conservative backers, and he has pledged to tackle U.S. protectionist trade moves and deep societal divisions among South Koreans. Voter turnout reached nearly 80 percent on Tuesday, marking the highest participation since South Korea’s 1997 election.
South Korea’s presidency has been fraught with controversy over the past several decades. Of the nine elected leaders who have taken the helm since 1980, two were removed through impeachment, four were convicted of criminal charges, and another died by suicide while under a criminal investigation. The country’s last elected president, Yoon Suk-yeol, was formally removed from office in April and currently faces criminal proceedings over his decision last December to declare martial law to try to consolidate power.
“Militarized” humanitarian aid. Israeli forces reportedly fired on Palestinians heading to an aid distribution site in the southern Gaza city of Rafah on Tuesday, killing at least 27 people. According to the Israeli military, the individuals left the designated route and ignored its warning shots, but its troops denied opening fire on the civilians or blocking them from reaching humanitarian assistance.
The United Nations, however, has accused Israel of weaponizing aid access, leading to overcrowding and displacement, at a time when Gaza’s hunger crisis is getting closer to all-out famine.
“Palestinians have been presented the grimmest of choices: die from starvation or risk being killed while trying to access the meager food that is being made available through Israel’s militarized humanitarian assistance mechanism,” said Volker Turk, the U.N.’s high commissioner for human rights.
This was the third reported shooting near the distribution site in the past few days. Since Israel lifted its blockade on aid entering Gaza, an Israeli- and U.S.-backed initiative known as the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has opened just four distribution points—significantly less than the roughly 400 locations used under the previous U.N.-coordinated system. But often, most of the four sites have not been operational.
Secret ballot. The U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly elected former German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock to be the next president of the 193-member body. With 167 votes in her favor—almost double the total needed to win—Baerbock said she aims to prioritize unity in the face of several wars and repeated gridlock at the U.N. Security Council.
Baerbock became a candidate after German parliamentary elections in February forced her to step down from her role as foreign minister. She replaced Berlin’s original favored candidate for the role, diplomat Helga Schmid, and will now be the fifth woman and one of the youngest people to ever hold the position.
Baerbock will begin her one-year term in September. But not everyone is thrilled with her election. “Ms. Baerbock has repeatedly proved her incompetence, extreme bias, and lack of understanding of the basic principles of diplomacy,” Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russia’s deputy U.N. ambassador, said last month ahead of the vote. Moscow had demanded that the election be cast via secret ballot in a failed effort to prevent her victory.
Chart of the Week
As many U.S. universities wrap up their graduation seasons, the Trump administration is continuing its crusade against elite institutions by singling out foreign enrollment. Its top target: Chinese-born students. When U.S. President Donald Trump took office during his first term in 2017, China was the main source of international students in the United States. Those numbers have dropped significantly since, FP’s Christina Lu reported. And in the 2023-2024 academic year, Indian student enrollment surpassed it. Now, other countries are hoping to capitalize on fears of a U.S. brain drain by recruiting top talent.
Odds and Ends
Greenpeace environmental activists stole a wax figure of French President Emmanuel Macron from Paris’s Grévin Museum on Monday to protest French business ties with Russia. Disguised as tourists, the activists smuggled the statue (worth more than $45,600) through an emergency exit and placed it outside the Russian Embassy. “If we want to be coherent and consistent, we cannot, on the one hand, support Ukraine and, on the other, continue to import such massive amounts of gas, chemical fertilizers, and uranium” from Russia, Greenpeace France director Jean-François Julliard told Reuters. The organization has yet to return the statue.