Category Archives: US foreign policy

Bahrain to normalise ties with Israel, Donald Trump announces

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Arab country is latest to make agreement as part of US president’s diplomatic push

Bahrain has agreed to establish diplomatic relations with Israel, and will join the United Arab Emirates in signing an agreement at the White House on Tuesday.

“Even great warriors get tired of fighting, and they’re tired of fighting,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, portraying the deals as peace agreements, although neither Gulf monarchy has ever been at war with Israel, and both had already established extensive informal ties. Bahrain has long advocated Israel’s integration in the region.

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Woodward tells how allies tried to rein in ‘childish’ Trump’s foreign policy

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On the golf course, Lindsey Graham urged restraint on Iran, while James Mattis slept in his clothes in case of emergency, book says

Four days before ordering a drone strike against the Iranian military commander Qassem Suleimani, Donald Trump was debating the assassination on his own Florida golf course, according to Bob Woodward’s new book on the mercurial president.

Trump’s golfing partner that day was Senator Lindsey Graham, who had emerged as one of his closest advisers, and who urged him not to take such a “giant step”, that could trigger “almost total war”.

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Trump loyalists interfered to downplay Russia election threat – whistleblower

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Brian Murphy claims he was demoted for refusing to accept fabrication of intelligence to match Donald Trump’s rhetoric

Trump loyalists running the Department of Homeland Security manipulated intelligence reports to play down the threat of Russian election interference and white supremacists and exaggerate the threat of antifa and anarchist groups, according to the department’s former top intelligence official.

The official, Brian Murphy, said he was demoted in August from his position running the department’s office of intelligence and analysis because of his refusal to go along with the fabrication of intelligence to match Donald Trump’s rhetoric, and for making formal complaints about the political pressure. He filed a whistleblower reprisal complaint on Tuesday.

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UK plans to change Brexit rules threaten US trade deal, top Democrats say

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Altering terms of withdrawal agreement on Northern Ireland could damage relations under Biden presidency

Senior Democrats have warned that any attempt by the UK government to backtrack on the Brexit agreement on Northern Ireland would jeopardize a future US-UK free trade deal and could hobble bilateral relations across the board if Joe Biden wins the presidency.

Biden, an Irish American, is a staunch defender of the Good Friday Agreement, of which the US is the guarantor, and which requires an open border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

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Donald Trump hopes for election boost from Kosovo-Serbia talks

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White House summit irritates EU diplomats, who say deal brokered by them is near

The leaders of Kosovo and Serbia will meet at the White House on Thursday and Friday, in an encounter that some see as a push for a diplomatic win for Donald Trump to brandish during his re-election campaign.

Kosovo’s prime minister, Avdullah Hoti, will meet with the Serbian president, Aleksandar Vučić, in talks that Trump aides say will be primarily about economic issues between the two countries, but may pave the way to a broader deal.

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US imposes sanctions on top international criminal court officials

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  • Mike Pompeo says ICC ‘continues to target Americans’
  • Fatou Bensouda and Phakiso Mochochoko have assets blocked

The US has imposed sanctions on the chief prosecutor of the international criminal court, Fatou Bensouda, in the latest of a series of unilateral and radical foreign policy moves.

Announcing the sanctions, the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, did not give any specific reasons for the move other than to say the ICC “continues to target Americans” and that Bensouda was “materially assisting” that alleged effort.

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Trump told Sarah Sanders to ‘take one for the team’ after Kim Jong-un wink

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  • Ex-press secretary describes boorish remarks in new memoir
  • ‘Kim Jong-un hit on you,’ Trump said, after gesture at summit

Donald Trump told Sarah Sanders she would have to “go to North Korea and take one for the team”, after Kim Jong-un winked at the then White House press secretary during a summit in Singapore in June 2018.

Related: Trump denies 'series of mini-strokes' after book reports mystery hospital visit

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Mike Pompeo address to RNC from Jerusalem praises Trump for standing up to China – video

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Mike Pompeo has lavished praise upon Donald Trump in a speech to the Republican National Convention that itself is prompting questions about its legality. Pompeo delivered a recorded speech to the RNC while on an official visit to Israel, potentially breaching federal law according to Democrats. Pompeo's address celebrated Trump's decision to relocate the US embassy to Jerusalem, and congratulated the president for standing up to China and wiping out the Isis caliphate

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Edward Snowden has taken $1.2m in speaking fees in exile, US filing says

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  • US trying to strip whistleblower of profits earned since leaks
  • Government says speaking fees cover 67 engagements

Whistleblower Edward Snowden has earned more than $1.2m in speaking fees since he leaked confidential US material to outlets including the Guardian and went into exile in Moscow, according to a filing by the US justice department in court in Massachusetts.

Related: Trump says he will 'take a look' at pardon for Edward Snowden

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Speculation grows over pardon for Edward Snowden after Trump remarks

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  • Trump: ‘A lot of people think he is not being treated fairly’
  • Congressman calls for Trump to pardon NSA whistleblower

Speculation is growing over whether Donald Trump might pardon Edward Snowden after the US president told an interviewer that the exiled former intelligence operative was “not being treated fairly”.

Related: Edward Snowden on 9/11 and why he joined the army: ‘Now, finally, there was a fight’

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Turkey threatens to suspend UAE ties over deal with Israel

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‘The move against Palestine is not a step that can be stomached,’ says Erdoğan

Turkey has threatened to suspend its diplomatic relations with the United Arab Emirates and recall its envoy, a day after the Gulf state announced it would become the third Arab country to establish full ties with Israel.

“The move against Palestine is not a step that can be stomached,” President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told reporters on Friday.

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‘It’s a game and we lost’: Palestinians decry Gulf moves towards Israel

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Israel’s relationship with neighbours is no longer defined by occupation, Palestinians say

Shortly after Donald Trump announced he had brokered a “huge breakthrough” deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, the White House published a list of bullet points detailing what it had achieved.

Only at the bottom, just after “expanded business and financial ties between these two thriving economies”, did the very last sentence blandly mention what had previously been the key regional issue: the fate of the Palestinians.

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Israel and UAE agree to ‘historical peace agreement’, says Donald Trump – video

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Donald Trump has said the United Arab Emirates and Israel have agreed to establish full diplomatic ties as part of a deal to halt the annexation of occupied land sought by the Palestinians for their future state. US officials described the agreement, to be known as the Abraham Accords, as the first of its kind since Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty in 1994. It also gives Trump a foreign policy success as he seeks re-election in November

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Why a Biden presidency might not mean a return to pre-Trump foreign relations

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There could be a renewed focus on international cooperation – but Biden would not be great news for Boris Johnson’s Britain

European leaders, desperate for an end to the Trump presidency, are being warned that four years of Joe Biden may present them with new challenges and not a simple restoration of the benign status quo in transatlantic relations prior to 2016.

An evolving Biden doctrine about ending “forever wars” and protecting American workers from Chinese competition would require collective military and economic commitments from the EU that it is still ill-equipped to meet, foreign policy specialists have suggested.

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Trump’s top Iran envoy quits as US bids to extend Tehran embargo

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  • Elliott Abrams, key figure in Iran-Contra affair, to take over
  • US intends to bring UN resolution to extend arms embargo

The Trump administration’s lead diplomat on Iran, Brian Hook, has announced his resignation days before the US attempts a high-stakes gambit against Tehran at the United Nations.

Related: Iran's Covid death toll three times higher than admitted, says report

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US announces highest-level visit to Taiwan in decades, risking China anger

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In thinly veiled comments, coronavirus taskforce chair Alex Azar praises island as ‘model of transparency and cooperation’ during pandemic

A senior US official is to lead a delegation to Taiwan in the highest-level visit since 1979 to discuss the coronavirus pandemic and to “celebrate the shared values” of the two democracies – prompting China to urge the US not to “send the wrong signals to Taiwan secessionists”.

The US health secretary, Alex Azar, said he would be the first cabinet member to visit in six years, in the most significant trip there since the US formally cut diplomatic ties decades ago to pursue relations with the Chinese Communist party. Taiwan said the visit would take place in the coming days.

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Democrats and Republicans take aim at Pompeo over US troop withdrawal from Germany

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Secretary of state receives bipartisan grilling, and makes false claim to have fought along East German border as soldier in 1980s

The Trump administration’s decision to withdraw nearly 12,000 troops from Germany has come under bipartisan attack in the Senate, amid warnings it would disrupt US alliances.

Related: Barack Obama praises John Lewis as 'a man of pure joy and unbreakable perseverance' – live

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‘Beyond the pale’: antics of Trump ambassadors highlight crisis in US diplomacy

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The president has given key diplomatic roles to big donors – who have stood out for their lack of qualifications or aptitude

The US ambassador to Iceland, a dermatologist and major Republican donor, reportedly became so paranoid about his security he asked to carry a gun and to be taken everywhere in an armoured car.

Related: Bill Clinton pushed 'appeasement' of Serbs after Srebrenica massacre

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Flag lowered at US consulate in Chengdu as China takes control

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Troops posted outside building as Chinese authorities take over diplomatic mission

Chinese authorities have taken over the US consulate general in Chengdu, marking the diplomatic mission’s official closure and a new low point in ties between the world’s largest economies.

At dawn on Monday, the American flag outside the consulate was lowered while police held back crowds that had gathered over the weekend to watch. At 10am, the mission was closed, according to China’s foreign ministry.

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