• China-U.S. trade: Beijing on Sunday welcomed the U.S. administration’s rolling back of tariffs on cellphones, computers, and other electronics imports from China – relief that will help U.S. tech firms like Apple. But by casting the move as a “small step,” and calling for Washington to take a “big step” to “correct its wrongdoings,” Beijing signaled confidence that China can outlast the United States in the trade war. China’s leader, Xi Jinping, is treating the conflict as part of a long-term strategic competition with the United States for global influence. – Staff
• U.S.-Iran talks: With Iran weeks away from developing nuclear bombs, the adversaries held their highest-level talks in years in Oman on Saturday. The U.S. seeks to prevent a nuclear Iran looming over Israel. Meanwhile, Iran – saddled with sanctions – faces a worsening economy and restless population, with food prices up 41% year-on-year last month. U.S. President Donald Trump, who exited a 2015 Iran nuclear deal he said was too soft, has threatened worse sanctions and bombing if negotiations fail. Axios reported the parties will meet again in Rome this weekend. – Staff
• Fire at a governor’s home: Police evacuated Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and his family from the governor’s residence in Harrisburg after what officials called an act of attempted arson. The fire broke out overnight Saturday, on the first night of the Jewish holiday of Passover, which Shapiro and his family had celebrated there. Police said a suspect was in custody and that charges were forthcoming. – The Associated Press
• Argentina unrest: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was set to visit Buenos Aires Monday in a show of U.S. support for Argentina’s President Javier Milei, whose economic reforms appear to be wearing thin with growing sectors of the country. Last week Mr. Milei faced the third general strike of his 17-month presidency. Labor unions and pensioners protested deep cuts in government spending and downsizing of the public sector, “chainsaw austerity” moves that have in some ways served as a model for efforts to slash the U.S. federal government. – Staff
• Support for Ukraine: Germany and Britain sent a message to Russia that Ukraine will continue to receive Western support in its fight. The European powers last week for the first time co-led a meeting of what is often known as the Ramstein group of some 50 countries that give military support to Ukraine, after Washington gave up the chair. – Reuters
  • Related Monitor story: Can Europe confront Russia without U.S. help? Not yet, but it may have to.
• Remembrance: An investigation continues into the cause of last Tuesday’s roof collapse at a nightclub in the Dominican Republic, which killed 226 people including a merengue icon and a baseball star. After a five-hour memorial for singer Rubby Pérez at Santo Domingo’s National Theater late last week, attendees spontaneously sang his hit song “Volveré.” Zulinka Pérez, one of his daughters, said, “I knew he was loved, but I never imagined this.” – AP
• Masters triumph: Rory McIlroy turned a near collapse into his grandest performance of all, hitting a wedge into 3 feet for birdie in a sudden-death playoff Sunday to finally win the Masters at Georgia’s August National and take his place in golf history as the sixth player to claim the career Grand Slam. – AP

More than a decade after Syria’s war began, and months after the fall of President Bashar al-Assad, small investments – in homes, in businesses – signal hope. The obstacles to rebuilding are immense. Economic collapse, sanctions, broken infrastructure, and political uncertainty cast a shadow. Government promises have mostly been symbolic gestures. The challenges are especially acute for families without regular income. But there is a motivating will. “People want to be on their land,” says a construction worker who found a temporary job on the salt flats, “no matter what the work situation is.”

President Donald Trump’s controversial immigration actions are possible partly because he is enforcing already existing, but rarely used, legislation – from an 18th-century wartime authority to a World War II-era registration law. How far he can push his executive power in the courts remains to be seen. Detractors argue some of his actions are unconstitutional. The government contends that judges are overstepping their role by holding the White House back.

In recent years, satellite cities have begun sprouting on the fringes of many African cities, promising an orderly, modern alternative to their grit and congestion. Many of the projects, rushed and overly ambitious, have flopped. Kenya’s Tatu City is poised to be an exception. This new urban development is meant to be everything Nairobi is not. Wide avenues run through carefully planned residential and industrial areas. Residents have a reliable supply of water and electricity. Starting from a blank canvas, it promises to provide not only an alternative way of living, but also a hub of economic growth.

Sheltering people fleeing violence and persecution is a moral and spiritual imperative across faiths. But after decades of working with the government to resettle refugees, organizations in the United States find themselves without a partner. First came a president’s executive order suspending admissions and freezing funding. Lawsuits followed. On April 9, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which operates some of the largest resettlement programs, said it needed to shutter such programs by year’s end. Now in limbo, resettlement organizations are determining what services they can provide on their own.

Humans started scratching caves into the limestone hillsides of Matera, Italy, 9,000 years ago. In medieval times, facades were added, roads laid. But the caves were largely untouched for centuries, and then occupied without water or drainage or heat for a period leading up to the 1950s. Today, after preservationists’ work, filmmakers and other storytellers come for the same reasons tourists do: for the breathtaking, nearly biblical look of the place. And for the now famous, once infamous, caves. With camera and pen, we went inside.

President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs – duties on imports – have brought recriminations and specific threats by most nations. Notably, the European Union has struck a decidedly mild tone. “What’s important here is that Europe reacts in a calm and measured way,” Irish Foreign Minister Simon Harris said. Britain, an EU member until 2020, said it, too, would negotiate calmly with Washington.

For the EU, the stakes in a trade war with the United States would not be low. But its mild reaction so far comes from a need to navigate the divergent interests of 27 member countries. Patient listening and consensus-making are the only options.

That can be infuriating for some. The bloc’s bureaucracy can be a faceless force, binding energy and ideas in endless process. But recent weeks have shown the flip side. Europe didn’t react precipitously to the Trump tariffs because it first needed to deliberate.

France wanted to get tough on the U.S. but not cause damage to its best exports. Everyone was eager to put pressure on American Big Tech, except Ireland, which houses the European headquarters of most of these firms. And Italy, whose prime minister is a strong ally of Mr. Trump, didn’t want to do much at all. 

Each country knows that it is far stronger together than alone. For example, “EU countries typically have a hundred times more leverage over China when acting through the EU than when acting bilaterally,” noted a study by the Mercator Institute for China Studies. The EU’s unity has held so far because “A shared commercial policy remains in everyone’s interest,” a European diplomat told Reuters.

Mr. Trump once co-penned a book called “The Art of the Deal.” The EU’s superpower is “the art of compromise,” wrote Jan Voßwinkel on the Common Ground of Europe blog. That means being open to letting good ideas float to the top through respectful and informed deliberation. 

The EU “has been successful because it takes a very long-term view,” Dr. Voßwinkel said. At its best, it helps member states “constantly search for ‘common ground’ and find compromises in the spirit of shared values.”