Category Archives: US foreign policy

Venezuela’s Maduro urges Trump to avoid Afghanistan-style ‘forever war’

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Authoritarian leader calls for US to make peace amid military buildup and strikes against alleged drug smugglers

Venezuela’s authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro, has urged Donald Trump not to lead the US into an Afghanistan-style “forever war”, as the American military buildup in the region intensified and Trump’s defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, vowed to purge the Americas of “narco-terrorists”.

Speaking to CNN outside the Miraflores presidential palace in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, Maduro called on Trump to make peace, not war, after the world’s largest aircraft carrier, USS Gerald R Ford, arrived in the region.

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UAE refuses to join Gaza stabilisation force without clear legal framework

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Decision reflects wider regional doubts about terms of US-drafted plan to disarm Hamas

Plans for a UN-mandated international stabilisation force charged with disarming Hamas inside Gaza face growing opposition after the United Arab Emirates said it would not participate because it did not yet see a clear legal framework for the force.

Israel has already ruled out Turkey joining the force, and King Abdullah of Jordan has said Jordanian troops will not join. Azerbaijan, once mooted as a contributor, did not attend a planning meeting in Turkey last week and said it would not contribute unless a full ceasefire was in place.

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Trump-Orbán meeting: US gives Hungary exemption from sanctions on Russian oil and gas

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US president also praises Hungarian leader’s hardline stance on immigration during friendly White House summit

The US has granted Hungary a one-year exemption from US sanctions on importing oil and gas from Russia, according to a White House official, after Viktor Orbán pressed his case for a reprieve during a meeting with Donald Trump in Washington.

Last month, Trump imposed Ukraine-related sanctions on Russian oil companies Lukoil and Rosneft that carried the threat of further sanctions on entities in countries buying oil from them.

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Hegseth announces another deadly US strike on alleged drug boat

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Pentagon secretary says two people killed in attack on boat in eastern Pacific, bringing total killed to 66 in 16 strikes

Defense secretary Pete Hegseth announced yet another deadly strike on a boat accused of ferrying drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, coming the same day an aircraft carrier began heading to the region in a new expansion of military firepower.

The attack Tuesday killed two people aboard the vessel, Hegseth said, bringing the death toll from the Trump administration’s campaign in South American waters up to at least 66 people in at least 16 strikes.

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Malaysia defends Trump trade deal after critics warn it will compromise country’s sovereignty

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Former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad said the deal amounted to ‘handing over’ the country’s independence

Malaysia’s government has been forced to defend its new trade deal with the US after opposition politicians, analysts and civil society groups warned that the deal was “one-sided” and could compromise the country’s sovereignty.

Investment, trade and industry minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz has called the trade deal “the best possible outcome for Malaysia.”

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Dick Cheney’s role in ‘war on terror’ may have paved way for Trumpism

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Former US vice-president a key figure in expanding White House’s power and ‘corrupting the intelligence-policy relationship’ to sell Iraq war

Dick Cheney, who has died aged 84, came to be seen as a moderate in his later years for his staunch opposition to Donald Trump, but he also stands accused of paving the way for Trumpism by undermining the independence of the intelligence agencies and US adherence to international law.

As George W Bush’s second-in-command in the “war on terror” declared after the 9/11 attacks, Cheney made himself one of the most powerful vice-presidents in US history, and was a key protagonist in the push to invade Iraq, as well as the use of torture on suspected al-Qaida members detained without charge in the CIA’s offshore “black sites”.

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Trump threatens to go into Nigeria ‘guns-a-blazing’ over attacks on Christians

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US president says he ordered Pentagon to begin planning for action, without mentioning Muslim persecution

Donald Trump on Saturday said he had ordered the Pentagon to begin planning for potential military action in Nigeria as he stepped up his criticism that the government was failing to rein in the persecution of Christians in the west African country.

“If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the USA will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities,” Trump posted on social media. “I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action. If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians!”

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Gaza risks sliding into deadly limbo of ‘no war, no peace’, top Qatari diplomat warns

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Majed al-Ansari calls for international force to be set up urgently to pave way for Israeli withdrawal

Gaza risks sliding towards a deadly limbo where a ceasefire is nominally in place but killing continues, a top Qatari diplomat has warned, calling for rapid progress in setting up the international security force and administration to pave the way for full Israeli withdrawal.

“We don’t want to reach a situation of no war, no peace,” said Majed al-Ansari, adviser to Qatar’s prime minister and spokesperson for the foreign ministry.

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Xi-Trump meeting: America has discovered that bullies can be bullied back

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Outcome appears closer to truce than durable peace but outline of broader diplomatic relationship is visible

When Donald Trump launched his trade war against China in April, threatening tariffs as high as 145%, the Chinese government said it would never bow to blackmail and vowed to “fight to the end”.

The question now is whether the consensus reached between Trump and Xi Jinping in Busan, South Korea, on Thursday means that the fight really has come to an end, and if so on whose terms.

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Wole Soyinka, Nigerian Nobel laureate and Trump critic, says US visa revoked

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Soyinka, 91, who recently compared US president to Idi Amin, says ‘I have no visa – I am banned’

The Trump administration has revoked the visa for Wole Soyinka, the acclaimed Nigerian Nobel prize-winning writer who has been critical of Trump since his first presidency, Soyinka revealed on Tuesday.

“I want to assure the consulate … that I’m very content with the revocation of my visa,” Soyinka, who won the 1986 Nobel prize for literature, told a news conference.

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Japanese PM promises golden age in relations with US during Trump visit

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Sanae Takaichi says she will nominate Trump for peace prize as two leaders sign agreement on rare earths

Japan’s new prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, has pledged to realise a “golden age” in relations with the US and to “fundamentally reinforce” her country’s defence posture at the start of a visit by Donald Trump.

The US president, who is in Japan on the second leg of a week-long tour of Asia, and Takaichi quickly signed an agreement laying out a framework to secure the mining and processing of rare earths and other minerals.

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Trump’s bailout threat may have been key to Milei’s electoral triumph in Argentina

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Voters appear to have responded to idea that US president’s ‘generosity’ would evaporate if Milei failed to win

“The dollar always talks in the end,” Donald Trump wrote in his 1987 bestseller The Art of the Deal.

Javier Milei’s surprise triumph in Argentina’s midterm elections – after Trump bailed him out with 40bn of them – suggests there may be some truth to that assertion.

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Japan’s new PM will hope the Abe effect endears Trump to her at crucial talks

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Sanae Takaichi leads a minority government and needs a successful meeting with the US president on Tuesday. Thankfully her mentor, Shinzo Abe, is one of Trump’s ‘favourites’

Japan’s new prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, faces the first real test of her diplomatic and personal skills when she meets Donald Trump for talks in Tokyo that are expected to focus on trade and security.

Takaichi, who this month became Japan’s first female leader after winning a vote to lead the ruling Liberal Democratic party (LDP), made her international debut at this weekend’s Asean summit.

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Trump oversees Thailand-Cambodia ceasefire signing as Asia tour gets under way

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Trump has begun a five-day trip to Malaysia, Japan and South Korea, his first visit to the region since taking office in January

Donald Trump has overseen the signing of a ceasefire agreement between Thailand and Cambodia on the first day of an Asia tour where he will seal new trade agreements and hold a crucial meeting with Xi Jinping.

The US president arrived in Malaysia on Sunday before the Asean summit in the capital, Kuala Lumpur. At a ceasefire ceremony in front of a sign that read “Delivering Peace”, the Thai prime minister, Anutin Charnvirakul, and his Cambodian counterpart, Hun Manet, signed an expanded ceasefire deal related to a deadly five-day conflict in July.

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Surprise sanctions look to have ended Trump and Putin’s Groundhog Day | Pjotr Sauer

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His patience exhausted, the US president has taken action that could bite, but is unlikely to alter Moscow’s course in Ukraine

For once, a phone call with Vladimir Putin did not lead to a thaw.

By imposing sanctions on Russia this week, Donald Trump broke from his usual pattern of easing tensions with the Kremlin after conversations with the Russian leader, when threats of pressure often give way to talk of renewed dialogue.

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Trump says all Canada trade talks ‘terminated’ over ad criticising tariffs

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US president accuses Canada of ‘egregious behaviour’ after release of ad featuring Ronald Reagan criticising tariffs

Donald Trump has announced an immediate end to “all trade negotiations” with Canada over a television advertisement opposing US tariffs that quoted the former US president Ronald Reagan.

The ad, which was paid for by the government of the Canadian province of Ontario, uses excerpts of a 1987 speech where Reagan says “trade barriers hurt every American worker”.

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Vance says Knesset votes on annexing West Bank are an ‘insult’ as Netanyahu halts progress

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US vice-president suggests votes were ‘stupid political stunt’ as Israeli PM orders a stop to any further work on bills

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has ordered a halt to the advancement of parliamentary bills linked to the annexation of the West Bank after the US vice-president, JD Vance, described a vote on two bills in the Knesset as an “insult”.

The bills applying Israeli law to the occupied West Bank, which would be tantamount to the annexation of land Palestinians want for a state, won preliminary approval from Israel’s parliament on Wednesday, barely a week after Donald Trump pushed through a deal aimed at ending a two-year Israeli offensive in Gaza.

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US imposes sanctions on Russian oil over Putin’s ‘refusal’ to end war in Ukraine

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Trump administration hardens stance against the Kremlin day after cancelling a planned summit with Russian leader

The US has sanctioned Rosneft and Lukoil, Russia’s two largest oil companies, as the Trump administration increased pressure on the Kremlin to negotiate an end to its war against Ukraine.

The sanctions were the first against Russia since Donald Trump returned to the White House in January, and were targeted to cut key revenues from oil sales that finance the Russian war machine.

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US ‘Night Stalkers’ seen in Caribbean as fears of regime change rise in Venezuela

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Elite helicopter unit’s part in military deployment comes as Donald Trump ramps up pressure on Nicolás Maduro

They call themselves the Night Stalkers and their unofficial motto hints at the group’s lethal nocturnal line of work: “Death Waits in the Dark.” “You can flee, but they will find you,” warns a rare book about the US army’s secretive 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR).

Since the elite helicopter unit’s creation in 1981, its daredevil pilots have taken part in some of the most dangerous missions in recent US military history: battling Islamic State during Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq and Syria, and Somali warlords during Operation Gothic Serpent; and spiriting Navy Seals into Pakistan to kill the al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden as part of Operation Neptune Spear.

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Zelenskyy to visit London for talks before expected Trump-Putin summit

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Ukrainian president will seek to win security guarantees at ‘coalition of the willing’ meeting before any US-Russia talks

Volodmyr Zelenskyy will travel to London on Friday for a meeting of the “coalition of the willing” before an expected summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Hungary, amid mounting European disquiet over Ukraine’s exclusion from the Budapest meeting.

Posting on social media, Zelenskyy said the aim of the London visit was to win security guarantees for Kyiv and there would be “many meetings and negotiations in Europe” this week.

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