Iranian officials accuse US president of breaching UN charter and say ‘violence brings violence’
Iran has reacted with outrage after Donald Trump said the country will be bombed if it does not accept US demands to constrain its nuclear programme.
The US president said on Sunday that if Iran “[doesn’t] make a deal, there will be bombing. It will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before.”.
Continue reading...Officials in France and Belgium hit out at ‘American interference’ amid growing transatlantic tensions
Officials in France and Belgium have hit back at American efforts to impose Donald Trump’s rollback of diversity measures on Europe, which in the US has seen Disney put under investigation.
Several companies across the EU have in recent days reportedly received letters informing them that the Trump administration’s crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives also applies to firms around the world looking to do business with the US government.
Continue reading...In interview Trump said he wasn’t joking when he alluded to a purported loophole for a third term as president
Donald Trump has said there are “methods” – if not “plans” – to circumvent the constitutional limit preventing US presidents from serving three terms.
In an interview aired Sunday on NBC, Trump was asked about his trying to stay in office beyond his second presidency, a specter he has repeatedly raised while sometimes claiming he is just joking.
Continue reading...Atlantic editor says Trump adviser’s defense for accidentally adding him to war plans chat was implausible
Atlantic magazine editor Jeffrey Goldberg has dismissed the explanation offered by national security adviser Mike Waltz for how he was included in a Trump administration group text chat about – and in advance of – the recent bombing of Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Goldberg said Waltz’s theory that his contact was “sucked in” to his phone via “somebody else’s contact” was implausible.
Continue reading...Alexander Stubb – who played golf with Trump this weekend – suggested deadline and US sanctions package
Donald Trump is losing patience with Vladimir Putin’s stalling tactics over the Ukraine ceasefire, the Finnish president, Alexander Stubb, said after spending several hours with the US president – including winning a golf competition with him at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Saturday.
Stubb, who also spent two days with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, last week in Helsinki suggested in a Guardian interview a plan for a deadline of 20 April, by which time Putin should be required to comply with a full ceasefire.
Stubb pointed out that a third golf partner on Saturday, the Republican senator Lindsey Graham, already has a bill in the US Senate proposing what he has described as “bone-breaking” US sanctions on Russia if it did not accept an unconditional ceasefire.
US president says his Russian counterpart’s questioning of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s credibility could delay ceasefire
Donald Trump has said he is “pissed off” with Vladimir Putin over his approach to a ceasefire in Ukraine and threatened to levy tariffs on Moscow’s oil exports if the Russian leader does not agree to a truce within a month.
The US president indicated he would levy a 25% or 50% tariff that would affect countries buying Russian oil in a telephone interview with NBC News, during which he also threatened to bomb Iran and did not rule out using force in Greenland.
Continue reading...Trump says tariffs on foreign-made cars would would lead to increased sales of US-made cars
Donald Trump said on Saturday he did not warn car industry executives against raising prices as tariffs on foreign-made autos come into force, telling NBC News he “couldn’t care less” if they do.
The president’s comments came as the White House prepared to impose new tariffs on a range of consumer goods on 2 April, a move that has drawn criticism from international leaders and concerns about potential price increases for consumers.
Guardian staff contributed reporting
Continue reading...Departures of Cemal Kafadar and Rosie Bsheer are seen by critics as ‘shameful attempt’ by school to appease Trump
The leaders of Harvard University’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies are leaving their positions after the center faced accusations of anti-Israel bias.
The departures come as the Trump administration scrutinizes institutions who have had pro-Palestine protests over the last year. Earlier this week, Columbia’s president announced she will step down after Trump targeted the university for protests on campus last year.
Continue reading...PM told to be as robust as Canada with the US president as the UK stages last-ditch talks to strike trade deal
Keir Starmer should fight back strongly against Donald Trump if he imposes punitive tariffs on British exports, senior UK and EU diplomats said on Saturday night, amid heightened fears that the US president could trigger a global trade war with devastating effects on the UK economy.
British government officials in London and Washington are working frantically this weekend to try to persuade Trump not to slap duties on more key UK industries on what he is calling “liberation day” on Wednesday. The US president has already announced plans for 25% levies on imports of cars, steel and aluminium to the US.
Continue reading...The US administration believes it can divide public attention until there is a new scandal. It may be a winning strategy
When it comes to Trump-era scandals, the shameless responses to “Signalgate”, in which top administration officials discussing details of an impending strike in Yemen in a group chat without noticing the presence of a prominent journalist, should set alarm bells ringing for its brazenness and incompetence.
In a particularly jaw-dropping exchange, Tulsi Gabbard, the United States’ director of national intelligence, was forced to backtrack during a house hearing after she had said that there had been no specific information in the Signal chat about an impending military strike. Then, the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg published the chat in full, contradicting Gabbard’s remarks that no classified data or weapons systems had been mentioned in the chat.
Continue reading...France has been urged to shun Maga America as #BoycottUSA hashtag spreads, but teenagers say they can’t afford to join the action
On the rainy Grands Boulevards in Paris on Friday, the branches of McDonald’s and KFC were doing brisk business.
There was little sign of “le boycott” – a movement among French customers to reject American brands and products made in the US, in protest at Donald Trump’s trade tariffs and anti-Europe rhetoric.
Continue reading...Giorgia Meloni says it is her responsibility to defend transatlantic unity in face of looming US levies
Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, has called for a “reasoned” approach to an escalating tariff war between the EU and the US and repeated the importance of transatlantic unity.
The US president, Donald Trump, has announced sweeping tariffs on his country’s allies and adversaries, including a 25% levy on car imports starting next week, and a 200% tariff on champagne, wine and other alcoholic drinks from the EU.
Continue reading...‘This is not how you talk to your close allies,’ says Danish foreign minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen
Denmark has hit back against JD Vance’s comments that Copenhagen has not done enough for Greenland.
The US vice-president made his remark on Friday during a trip to the Pituffik space base in north-western Greenland, viewed by both Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation.
Continue reading...Drone raid sparks blaze in Dnipro hotel and restaurant complex and injures 19; Ukrainian president says too early to judge Washington’s expanded proposal. What we know on day 1,130
Continue reading...Federal Communications Commission says its DEI efforts may breach equal employment opportunity regulations
The US’s top media regulator on Friday said it was opening an investigation into the diversity practices of Walt Disney and its ABC unit, saying they may violate equal employment opportunity regulations.
Brendan Carr, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chair, wrote to the Disney CEO, Robert Iger, in a letter dated on Thursday that the company’s diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts may not have complied with FCC regulations and that changes by the company may not go far enough.
Continue reading...Vice-president criticises Denmark’s treatment of Arctic island and says it should come under US ‘security umbrella’
JD Vance told troops in Greenland that the US has to gain control of the Arctic island to stop the threat of China and Russia as he doubled down on criticising Denmark, which he said has “not done a good job”.
Under increasingly strained relations between the White House and Greenland and Denmark, the US vice-president said during a visit to Pituffik space base on Friday: “Our message to Denmark is very simple: you have not done a good job by the people of Greenland. You have underinvested in the people of Greenland and you have underinvested in the security architecture of this incredible, beautiful landmass.”
Continue reading...Appeals court had upheld block on flights using Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members
The Trump administration on Friday asked the US supreme court to intervene to allow the government to continue to deport immigrants using the obscure Alien Enemies Act.
The request came one day after a federal appeals court upheld a Washington DC federal judge’s temporary block on immigrant expulsions via a wartime act that allows the administration to bypass normal due process, for example by allowing people a court hearing before shipping them out of the US.
Continue reading...As US pivots toward territorial ambitions in the west, the Kremlin’s support signals a deeper alignment in their challenge to global norms
As JD Vance touched down in Greenland, the Trump administration received an unlikely endorsement for the US’s first potential territorial expansion since 1947: Vladimir Putin.
Speaking at an Arctic policy forum in the northern Russian city of Murmansk on Thursday, Putin presented a more comprehensive case than any US official yet for Donald Trump’s plan to annex Greenland, crafting a historical argument that sounded suspiciously convenient in terms of Russia’s own territorial designs on Ukraine.
Continue reading...US president says he and Canadian prime minister ‘agree on many things’ after first talk since Carney assumed role
Donald Trump described a long-awaited call with the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, as “extremely productive” amid a trade war between the two nations launched by the US president.
The Friday morning call, requested by the White House, marks the first time the two leaders have spoken since Carney became prime minister on 14 March.
Continue reading...US rejects suggestion and Kremlin later clarifies idea is just ‘one of the options’ and has not been raised with Trump
Vladimir Putin has suggested Ukraine could be placed under a temporary UN-led government to organise fresh elections as both Moscow and Kyiv accused each other of breaching an energy ceasefire agreed this week.
The idea was quickly rejected by a US spokesperson, and it was not clear how far it was meant to be taken seriously, given that the Kremlin clarified that Putin had not raised this idea in recent phone calls with Donald Trump.
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