The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is an invitation-only think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and international affairs. ⁶ CFR has been referred to as a “bastion of the bipartisan U.S. foreign policy establishment” by the left-of-center Mother Jones magazine. ¹⁵

Activities and Funding

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is a nonprofit think tank that specializes on U.S. foreign policy issues. ¹⁹

In April 2025, CFR senior fellow Varun Sivaram published an article titled, “We Need a Fresh Approach to Climate Policy. It’s Time for Climate Realism” that advocated for the United States to use “Climate Realism” to create policy he claims will help address climate change. According to Sivaram, the Climate Realism doctrine calls for the United States to invest in programs meant for addressing potential environmental and migration-based issues in the future caused by climate change, investing in “clean technology industries,” and making climate change a top security priority by investing in strategies such as “geoengineering” and pushing other countries like China to reduce their emissions. ²⁰

Controversies

In the summer of 2024, Council on Foreign Relations (CRF) scholar Sue Mi Terry was arrested and charged with violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) for improperly working for the South Korean government. The U.S. Department of Justice charged Terry with advocating for the positions of Korean government officials and aiding Korean officials in gaining access to U.S. government officials. Prosecutors alleged that in return, the Korean government allegedly bought Terry expensive handbags, luxury meals, and deposited a $37,000 unrestricted grant into an account at a think tank where Terry worked. 0){ let parent=divs[divs.length-1].parentNode; let footer=divs[divs.length-1]; delete divs[divs.length-1]; for (let i=2; i