Category Archives: US foreign policy

US ‘restricts intelligence sharing with South Korea’ after minister identified suspected nuclear site

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Washington reportedly limits satellite data after minister spoke publicly about suspected facility in North Korea

The US has partly restricted intelligence sharing with South Korea after the country’s unification minister publicly identified a suspected North Korean nuclear site, according to reports in South Korean media.

Chung Dong-young told lawmakers in March that North Korea was operating uranium enrichment facilities in Kusong, a north-western area that had not previously been officially confirmed as a nuclear site alongside the known facilities at Yongbyon and Kangson.

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Carney says Canada’s strong economic ties to US are ‘weakness’ to be corrected

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Prime minister details efforts to attract investment and sign trade deals with other countries in 10-minute video address

Canada’s strong economic ties to the United States were once a strength but are now a weakness that must be corrected, the country’s prime minister has warned

In a 10-minute video address, Mark Carney spoke about his government’s efforts to strengthen the Canadian economy by attracting new investments and signing trade deals with other countries.

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US urges contractor to evacuate workers from Kuwait and Iraq over worries of Iran-backed attacks

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After Guardian reports about danger to V2X employees, sources say state department raised concerns with defense contractor

The US government has called on the defense contractor V2X to evacuate its employees from Kuwait and Iraq, warning the company that they could be targeted by Iran-backed militias, four sources said.

The intervention follows reporting by the Guardian that V2X employees were stationed at US military bases in Kuwait, and at Martyr Brigadier General Ali Flaih airbase and Erbil in Iraq. Employees claimed having inadequate protections, receiving limited communications from the company about evacuation plans and being pressured to remain in the Middle East. In Iraq, workers say they are targets of Iran-allied attacks, and one employee was killed in a night-time drone attack in March.

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Intemperate Trump brings chaos and confusion to Iran talks

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US president’s unreliable style sows diplomatic confusion but leaves Tehran clear on strategic value of strait of Hormuz

Donald Trump’s decision to send US officials to Islamabad for further talks on Monday with Iran just 24 hours after Iran once again closed the strait of Hormuz will signal to Tehran that the strategic waterway remains a bargaining asset beyond parallel.

It will also confirm in Iran’s eyes that the US president’s chaotic approach to diplomacy doubles the need for Tehran to act calmly and strategically – two competencies it believes he totally lacks.

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Iran closes strait of Hormuz again ‘until US lifts blockade’

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IRGC reportedly fires on tanker as it tries to pass through strait during brief window when shipping lane had reopened

Iranian officials say they have reversed the reopening of the strait of Hormuz and reimposed restrictions on the vital shipping lane after the US said it would not end its blockade of Iranian ports.

A UK maritime agency reported that Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) ships had fired at a tanker as it attempted to pass through the strait on Saturday. Reuters reported an Indian-flagged vessel carrying crude oil had also been attacked while in the waterway.

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Iran says strait of Hormuz ‘completely open’ but sounds warning on US blockade

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Iran’s parliamentary speaker says strait could close again if US blockade continues, but Trump says it will remain in place until ‘transaction’ with Tehran is complete

Iran’s foreign minister has said that the strait of Hormuz is now fully open to commercial vessels, reinforcing hopes for an eventual end to the war in the Middle East and sending oil prices tumbling despite analysts’ warnings that there will be no immediate widespread resumption of passage through the vital waterway.

In a barrage of social media posts, Donald Trump claimed on Friday that Iran had agreed never to close the strategic waterway again, hailing “A GREAT AND BRILLIANT DAY FOR THE WORLD!”

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Donald Trump claims to have ended a 10th war – but will the Lebanon ceasefire hold?

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Lasting peace depends on resolving a border dispute dating back to 2000 and dealing with Hezbollah’s weapons

Israel’s security cabinet first heard about the ceasefire with Lebanon from a social media post by Donald Trump. Hezbollah first heard about the ceasefire from the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon. Each side shot off as many bombs, drones and rockets as they could before the ceasefire – imposed from above – came into effect.

Despite the US president claiming it is the 10th war he has ended, the situation on the ground in Lebanon looks anything but stable.

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‘A dollar or two increase is devastating’: US consumers on toll of rising gas prices

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Guardian readers describe how their lives have been upended by cost hikes stemming from Trump’s Iran war

With the US and Israel’s war on Iran now in its seventh week, with a fragile ceasefire in place since earlier this month, Americans are continuing to feel the effects at the pump as global fuel prices rise.

For several readers who spoke to the Guardian, the impact has forced difficult trade-offs – from accessing essential medicines and groceries to facing the brink of homelessness amid an already rising cost of living.

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Trump needs a better Iran deal than Obama’s – but faces major hurdles

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US president will need to show heavy costs of war were worthwhile while Iran must choose between instant and delayed gratification

If talks between Iran and the US reconvene within the next few days in Islamabad, Donald Trump will have two major political hurdles to overcome – first showing that any deal he secures is better than the one signed by Barack Obama in 2015 and from which he withdraw in 2018, and secondly proving the deal is more favourable than the one on offer in Geneva in February before he launched his war.

Otherwise he will have inflicted massive damage on the world economy when alternatives were available that were less costly in blood and treasure. He will also have to show that Iran has made no permanent gain by taking control of shipping passing through the strait of Hormuz. These are the yardsticks, or tests, around which his negotiating team will be keeping an anxious eye.

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Trump warns US-UK trade deal ‘can always be changed’ with relations in ‘sad state’

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President says he gave Britain ‘better deal than I had to’ but ally was ‘not there when we needed them’ on Iran

Donald Trump has threatened to row back on the trade deal the US signed with the UK last year, in his latest salvo against the British government over sharp differences about the US’s approach to the Middle East.

The US president said the economic deal struck with the UK, which cut some of his tariffs on cars, aluminium and steel, was “better than I had to” and that it could “always be changed”.

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Sheinbaum vows to ‘defend Mexicans at every level’ amid anger at Trump over migrant deaths

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Sheinbaum has recently been taking a firmer stance with the US, defying pressures where other countries have caved

The Mexican government has voiced concern about the deaths of its citizens in US custody, with Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum also pushing back against the Trump administration’s decision to impose an energy blockade on Cuba.

The progressive Mexican leader has walked a careful line with Trump for more than a year, addressing provocations with a measured tone and meeting US requests to crack down on cartels more so than her predecessors, in an effort to offset threats of tariffs and US military action against gangs.

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Middle East crisis live: Hezbollah urges Lebanon to pull out of talks with Israel; blockade of strait of Hormuz begins

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Hezbollah says it will not abide by agreements that result from the Lebanon-Israel talks in the US; Trump claims Iran wants to make a deal

Pakistan has reportedly proposed hosting a second round of talks between the United States and Iran in Islamabad in the coming days, before the end of the ceasefire, the Associated Press has reported.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the matter with the press, said the proposal would depend on whether the parties request a different location.

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Vance’s bad week: vice-president risks becoming face of two Trump foreign policy failures

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Orbán is out in Hungary and talks have failed to end the war in Iran – ill-fated road trip has been setback for Maga aims

Shortly before JD Vance’s ill-fated week crisscrossing the world, Donald Trump asked him during a private Easter brunch about how the Iran negotiations were shaping up. “If it doesn’t happen, I’m blaming JD Vance,” Trump said to laughs in the room. “If it does happen, I’m taking full credit.”

The joke at Vance’s expense contained an unfortunate nugget of truth: this is not an administration that rewards failure.

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Planeloads of negotiators and too little time: US and Iran’s 21 hours of talks

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The two sides turned up to test one another’s resolve. It was probably unrealistic to expect a dispute that has taken up years of discussion to be settled in one marathon session

It was if the two delegations in the Iran-US peace talks in Islamabad hoped that the sheer number of negotiators flown into Pakistan could overcome the handicap of having only a finite number of hours in which to settle a 20-year dispute over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, now overlaid by complex new issues such as future control of the strait of Hormuz and US compensation for its attack on Iran.

Iran sent two planeloads of negotiators. They included many members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), present to ensure that no gains made in the field were relinquished at the diplomatic table. Diplomats fanned out across political, legal, security, economic and military files. One Iranian-drafted technical explanation on nuclear facility safety ran to more than 100 pages.

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Collapse of US-Iran talks heightens fears of prolonged energy shock

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Oil prices and borrowing costs are expected to rise this week as tankers remain stranded in the Gulf

The failure of the US and Iran to reach a peace deal after marathon negotiations has put markets on alert for further oil and gas price rises.

With large numbers of oil tankers remaining stuck in the Gulf, the US vice-president, JD Vance, blamed the collapse of the talks on Tehran’s refusal to abandon its nuclear weapons programme, while Iranian sources hit back at “excessive” demands from Washington.

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JD Vance says talks failed due to Iran’s refusal to give up nuclear programme

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Iranian delegates in Islamabad say Washington needs to do more to win their trust if talks to resolve US-Iran conflict are to be successful

The US vice-president, JD Vance, has blamed the failure of marathon negotiations with Iran on the country’s refusal to abandon its nuclear weapons programme, while Iranian delegates have claimed Washington needs to do more to win their trust.

Vance, who left Islamabad on Sunday morning after 21 hours of talks with Iranian officials in the Pakistani capital, said his team had been very clear on its red lines, as hopes faded of a quick end to the conflict that began on 28 February.

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UK forced to shelve Chagos Islands legislation after US dropped support

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Officials accept that time has run out to pass law to allow transfer of islands to Mauritius

The UK government has been forced to shelve its legislation to hand the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, after the US dropped its support for the agreement.

On Friday, UK government officials acknowledged that they had run out of time to pass legislation within the current parliamentary session, which ends in the coming weeks.

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Is Iran Trump’s Suez crisis, or just a passing thunderstorm?

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Britain’s standing in the world was never the same after its assault on Egypt in 1956. Now the US risks repeating history in the Middle East

Donald Trump’s addiction to framing every event in the most apocalyptic terms is what allows conservative commentators such as Mark Levin to praise him as “a once-in-a-century president”.

But Trump cannot play out his entire presidency on a reckless high wire without eventually falling off – potentially taking America with him into a steep decline into the unknown.

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JD Vance dispatched to negotiate Iran peace with few cards to play

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Vice-president’s war doubts and his boss’s desperation to reopen the Hormuz strait constitute a weak deck against bolstered opponents

As JD Vance arrives in Islamabad to negotiate a peace deal with Iran, his first high-profile assignment of the war looks to be a poisoned chalice.

Vance, a vocal opponent of US wars in the Middle East gone quiet since the beginning of the current military campaign, will now face off with Iranian negotiators who feel emboldened by their new control of the Hormuz strait and their resilience in the face of the largest US-Israeli onslaught in history. Vance’s presence at the talks as vice-president will make it the highest-level meeting since the Iranian revolution of 1979.

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’He’s mentally unstable’: Iranian American in Congress condemns Trump’s war and pushes for his removal

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Democratic representative Yassamin Ansari says the war has only more deeply entrenched the Iranian regime

Donald Trump is an “evil human being” who “wants to be an emperor” and should be removed from office over the war in Iran, Yassamin Ansari, an Iranian American member of the US Congress, has told the Guardian.

Ansari, the daughter of Iranian immigrants who decades ago fled the regime, spoke out after the president threatened to wipe out Iran’s civilisation before backing down and announcing an uncertain two-week ceasefire.

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