Category Archives: US foreign policy

US congresswoman ‘rooting’ for Canada and Mexico against Trump’s threats

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Democrat Jasmine Crockett calls it ‘really wild’ that it is foreign leaders who are speaking truth to power

The congresswoman Jasmine Crockett has revealed she is “rooting” for Canada and Mexico over Donald Trump in their attempts to stand up to him, saying it is “really wild” to find herself in that position given he is the president of the US.

“They are really the ones that are speaking truth to power right now,” the Democratic representative from Texas said on Friday on the popular Breakfast Club podcast, alluding to the political feuds Trump has engaged in with the US’s two North American neighbors during the first month of his second presidency. “They can see what it is and they were like, ‘We are not messing with this crazy regime.’”

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US envoy to Ukraine hails Zelenskyy as ‘embattled and courageous leader’

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Keith Kellogg takes different tone from Trump, who contrasted ‘very good talks’ with Putin with cooler relationship with Ukraine’s leader

The US envoy to Ukraine, Gen Keith Kellogg, has praised Volodymyr Zelenskyy as “the embattled and courageous leader of a nation at war”, striking a dramatically different tone from Donald Trump, who has called Ukraine’s president a “dictator”.

Kellogg left Kyiv on Friday after a three-day visit. Posting on social media, he said he had engaged in “extensive and positive discussions” with Zelenskyy and his “talented national security team”. “A long and intense day with the senior leadership of Ukraine,” he said.

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Stop criticising Trump and sign $500bn mineral deal, US official advises Kyiv

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National security adviser says Ukraine is wrong to push back against Trump’s approach to peace talks with Russia

White House officials have told Ukraine to stop badmouthing Donald Trump and to sign a deal handing over half of the country’s mineral wealth to the US, saying a failure to do so would be unacceptable.

The US national security adviser, Mike Waltz, told Fox News that Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, should “tone down” his criticism of the US and take a “hard look” at the deal. It proposes giving Washington $500bn worth of natural resources, including oil and gas.

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Trump’s savage attack on Zelenskyy shaped by pro-Russian coterie

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‘Kremlin whisperers’ have the president’s ear and dissenters are few – but a thin skin and self-interest are also at play

Donald Trump’s tarring of Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a “dictator” who is to blame for the war with Russia, plunging Ukraine into a Darwinian struggle for its very existence, landed like a bombshell on the diplomatic landscape. But it did not come out of nowhere.

The US president has left the already badly frayed western alliance in disarray with a devastating social media attack on his Ukrainian counterpart, just hours after he had already implicitly blamed Kyiv for Russia’s invasion.

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Reagan-era Republicans aghast as Trump turns Russia policy on its head

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Officials who served in 1980s say Trump is opposing friends and supporting enemies: ‘It makes me sick what’s going on’

Republicans who served under President Ronald Reagan during the cold war have condemned Donald Trump’s move to soften relations with Russia and undermine the 75-year-old transatlantic alliance.

European leaders were left reeling last week when the US vice-president, JD Vance, told the Munich Security Conference that the greatest danger facing Europe was “the threat from within” and the “retreat from fundamental values”.

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Ukraine and Europe made to sit outside as US and Russia sharpen their carving knives

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In this back-to-the-future world, Russia is fully restored to the top table, while the US envoys outdo each other to praise Trump

Ukraine was laid out on the glossy conference table in Riyadh on Tuesday, not to be dissected on this occasion, but rather for an initial inspection by the Americans and Russians, who have reserved the carving knives for future use.

No Ukrainians were present for these opening discussions on the country’s fate, or for the lunch of whole lamb and “symphony of scallops”, nor was anyone there representing the rest of the European continent. Whether they will be given a seat at the table before lines are drawn is far from clear. For now, they must wonder if they are among the “irritants” in US-Russia relations referred to by the US state department.

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Ukraine officials say US is ‘appeasing’ Russia with talks in Riyadh

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Absurd for Moscow to talk about peace while it is killing Ukrainians, official says, after drone strikes across country

Ukraine reacted with gloom and dismay on Tuesday to the meeting between the US and Russia in Saudi Arabia, with officials in Kyiv saying the Trump administration was “appeasing” Moscow.

They said negotiations between the two delegations got under way in Riyadh just hours after Russia attacked Ukraine with dozens of drones. At least two people were killed and 26 injured in strikes across the country.

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Netanyahu seeks to draw Trump into future attack on Iranian nuclear sites

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Israeli PM urges US to help ‘finish the job’ as Washington makes early maximalist demand over Tehran’s programme

Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed that, with Donald Trump’s support, his government will “finish the job” of neutralising the threat from Iran, amid US reports that Israel is considering airstrikes against Iranian nuclear sites in the coming few months.

Trump has said he would prefer to make a deal with Tehran, but also made clear that he was considering US military action if talks failed, and his administration has laid down an early maximalist demand: Iranian abandonment of its entire nuclear programme.

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‘Allo ‘Allo! Europe’s leaders get together dans Paris for emergency sommet | John Crace

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Emmanuel Macron, Kier Starmer and others discuss Trump, Russia and Ukraine at hastily arranged conference

Emmanuel Macron: Bienvenu á Paris.

Keir Starmer: Bonjour, Monsieur le President. Thank you for organising this “once-in-a-generation” summit at such short notice.

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Netanyahu ‘committed’ to Trump’s plan to take over Gaza

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Comments suggest Israeli PM will reject Hamas pledge to hand over control of territory to the PA

Benjamin Netanyahu has reiterated that he is “committed” to Donald Trump’s plan to take over and develop the Gaza Strip, amid uncertainty over whether Israel will send a delegation to Qatar to discuss the second stage of the fragile ceasefire in the war with Hamas.

In a statement on Monday, the Israeli prime minister said: “Just as I have committed to, on the day after the war in Gaza, there will be neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority. I am committed to US president Trump’s plan for the creation of a different Gaza.”

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‘The US is ready to hand Russia a win’: newspapers on Europe’s Trump shock

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European papers express deep alarm at declaration of an ‘ideological war’, while the NYT says Putin may soon ‘realise his dream’

This year’s Munich security conference exposed the chasm in core values separating the Trump administration from most Europeans and sparked deep alarm at US efforts to control the Ukraine peace process and exclude European governments from it.

Here is what some of the main European and US newspapers had to say about it.

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Netanyahu says Israel working closely with US on Trump’s plan for Gaza

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Israeli PM and US secretary of state express joint support for ‘bold vision’ that would force 2 million people to leave

Benjamin Netanyahu has said his government is working closely with the US to implement Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza, which involves US ownership of the coastal strip, the removal of more than 2 million Palestinians and the redevelopment of the occupied territory as a resort.

The Israeli prime minister was speaking after a meeting in Jerusalem with the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who defended the Trump plan as bold and visionary. Rubio and Netanyahu blamed Iran for the violence in the Middle East and insisted Tehran would be stopped from developing nuclear weapons.

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‘They may be Russian some day’: was this the week that changed the war in Ukraine?

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As Donald Trump and his officials rip up three years of US rhetoric on supporting Kyiv, Volodymyr Zelenskyy is walking an unenviable diplomatic tightrope

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has had some tough weeks in the past three years, but this past one may be up there with the worst of them.

Back on Monday, in an hour-long interview with the Guardian at his Kyiv offices, the Ukrainian president was in a cautiously optimistic frame of mind. He said he had received “positive signals from the Americans” over upcoming negotiations. His team was working to fix a date for a meeting with Donald Trump, he said, and he was sure that the US president understood the importance of coordinating his position with Kyiv before talking to Russia.

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Trump agrees to ‘friendly meeting’ with Keir Starmer after making surprise call

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President phoned while PM was with Mark Burnett, the Apprentice producer appointed as ‘special envoy’ to UK

Donald Trump has spoken to Keir Starmer again after what appears to have been a spur-of-the-moment phone call from the US president that was not expected by the British prime minister and his team.

News of the call, which took place on Thursday evening, emerged in a Downing Street statement about Starmer’s meeting with Mark Burnett, the British TV producer whom Trump has appointed as special envoy to the UK.

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Zelenskyy tells Vance Ukraine needs ‘security guarantees’ before any Putin talks

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Ukrainian leader appears reassured after Munich bilateral, having feared he could be bounced into peace negotiations

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said during a meeting with the US vice-president, JD Vance, that his country wants “security guarantees” and a joint US-Ukrainian peace plan before he enters into any talks with Vladimir Putin to end the war in his country.

Both men agreed after an hour-long discussion on Friday on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference that further talks were required to see if they could reach a common understanding.

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Ukraine on ‘irreversible path’ to Nato membership, Starmer tells Zelenskyy

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Prime minister uses call with Ukraine president to restate UK support in face of Trump interventions

• Europe live – latest updates

Ukraine remains on “an irreversible path” towards Nato membership, Keir Starmer has told Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a phone call that underlined the divide between Europe and the US over the future of the country.

According to a Downing Street readout of the call with the Ukrainian president, Starmer stressed “the UK’s concrete support for Ukraine, for as long as it’s needed”.

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Trump’s Gaza plan unites jihadist and far-right circles, experts warn

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Trump’s threat to take over Gaza is galvanizing two of the most dangerous and organized extremist movements

As Donald Trump continues to threaten to take control over the Gaza Strip, an unlikely consensus has emerged across hardcore jihadist and far-right circles: both strongly oppose any new US military actions in the territory.

Now experts are warning that Trump’s plan is galvanizing two of the most dangerous and organized extremist movements with track records of domestic terrorist attacks.

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The heartlessness of the deal: how Trump’s ‘America first’ stance sold out Ukraine

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The US president does not care who controls east Ukraine, so long as he can access the rare earth minerals underneath

In Donald Trump’s world, everything has its price.

There is no place for sentiment in his politics. Common values cannot secure loans for military aid. And the US president does not care who controls the blood-soaked soils of east Ukraine, so long as he can access the rare earth minerals that lie beneath.

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Trump’s Ukraine call with Putin leaves UK sounding at odds with reality

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Statements that there can be no negotiations without Kyiv ring hollow when the US president has just sidelined it

In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s incendiary call with Vladimir Putin, UK ministers and officials have had to do some extraordinary contortions.

There is no greater priority in the UK’s foreign policy than keeping the volatile occupant of the White House on side. And that has meant over the past 24 hours that some pronouncements by the British government have seemed at odds with reality.

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Pete Hegseth says ‘everything is on the table’ to end Ukraine war

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US defence secretary suggests cutting number of American troops in Europe could even be part of a deal with Russia

The US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, has said “everything is on the table” to bring peace to Ukraine and suggested reducing the number of American troops in Europe could be part of any deal.

European leaders are reeling from several abrupt US moves since Wednesday in relation to the Ukraine war and the continent’s security, which has been underpinned by the US since Nato was formed at the end of the second world war.

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