Donald Trump

Subterms

    More stories

    • 163 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      There is no ‘Trump Doctrine’ in foreign policy. Just chaos | Sidney Blumenthal

      by

      All the elaborate efforts of the European allies to prevent Donald Trump from prostrating himself before Vladimir Putin came to naught at their summit meeting in Alaska. Flattering, coddling and petting the big baby appeared to have been in vain. Before the 15 August summit, the Europeans persuaded Trump to impose new sanctions if Putin would not agree to a ceasefire, which would serve as a prerequisite for any negotiations. But Trump willfully tossed policy like a stuffed animal out of the window of “the Beast,” the presidential car as he eagerly invited Putin to join him for a triumphant chariot ride.The Europeans scrambled once again, trying to get the addled Trump back on the page he was on before the summit. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, sped to Washington to confer with Trump to try to pick up the pieces. At their last encounter, Trump jibed: “You don’t have any cards.” But Trump had just handed over his cards to Putin. Zelenskyy was not about to play the appeasement card. The European leaders gathered in an extraordinary posse to accompany Zelenskyy in an attempt to restore a unified western position. Unlike the last Zelenskyy meeting with Trump, he was not hectored. With the Ukrainian leader urrounded by a protective phalanx, Trump made agreeable sounding but vague gestures about a future summit with both Zelenskyy and Putin. Trump seemed favorable, if indefinite and imprecise, about western forces stationed in Ukraine to maintain its sovereignty. But the notion of a ceasefire, pressed again by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, had evaporated. While the European recovery effort took place at the White House, Russian bombs rained down. Trump dreams of receiving the Nobel peace prize. Before the summit, he called the Norwegian finance minister to lobby him.In Alaska, Trump melted again in the presence of Putin while the whole world was watching. The self-abasing embarrassment of his previous meeting in Helsinki in 2018 did not serve as a cautionary precedent. Now, he invited the sanctioned war criminal to US soil. He ordered uniformed US soldiers to roll out the red carpet, “the beautiful red carpet” as the Russian foreign ministry called it. He applauded when Putin stood next to him. He patted Putin’s hand when he clasped it with an affectionate gesture. Then the door of “the Beast” opened for Putin.Trump’s personal negotiator for the summit, Steve Witkoff, a New York real estate operator whose knowledge of Russian culture to prepare him for his delicate role may had been a bowl of borscht at the Russian Tea Room on 57th Street, was easy prey for Putin. Bild, the German newspaper, reported on 9 August that Witkoff had committed an “explosive blunder”. According to Bild, Putin “did not deviate from his maximum demand to completely control the five Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Crimea before the weapons remain silent … And even worse: Trump’s special envoy Witkoff is said to have completely misunderstood some of the Russians’ positions and misinterpreted them as an accommodation by Putin. He had misunderstood a “peaceful withdrawal” of the Ukrainians from Kherson and Zaporizhzhia demanded by Russia as an offer of “peaceful withdrawal” of the Russians from these regions”.“Witkoff doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” a Ukrainian government official told Bild. An assessment that, according to Bild information, is also shared by German government representatives.Bild further reported: “There was a telephone conference on Thursday evening between representatives of the US government – including the special envoy Witkoff and Foreign Minister Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance – and the European partners. As BILD learned, the American side was perceived as chaotic and ununited. This was primarily due to Witkoff, whose remarks about his conversation with Putin on Wednesday in the Kremlin were perceived as confusing. He himself seemed overwhelmed and incompetent to the Europeans when he spoke about the territorial issues in Ukraine.”The German newspaper also reported friction between Rubio and Vance, with the vice-president seeking to shut the European allies out of the process and Witkoff taking his side against the secretary of state. “Apparently, there was also disagreement about the further course of action between Witkoff and Rubio, as the foreign minister emphasized that the Europeans should be involved in the further process, while Vance and Witkoff only wanted to inform Europe of the results of the further Trump steps.”Bild’s report on Putin’s position turned out to be completely accurate and its description of the Trump administration’s unsettled position prophetic of the fiasco that would unfold.Little noticed in the US media accounts, Trump had presented Putin with enormous economic advantages, according to the Telegraph. He offered access to valuable Alaskan natural resources, opportunities to tap into the US portion of the Bering Strait, which would boost Russia’s interests in the Arctic region. Trump promised to lift sanctions on Russia’s aircraft industry, which would permit Russian airlines (and by extension the Russian air force) to return to US suppliers for parts and maintenance. Trump would give Putin approval for access to rare earth minerals in Ukrainian territories currently under Russian occupation.In Trump’s new world order, Putin would be his partner, especially on the frontier of the Arctic, while Trump waged a trade war imposing harsh tariffs on every other nation. Ukraine stood as an obstacle to the gold rush.According to the Telegraph, Witkoff suggested to the Russians: “Israel’s occupation of the West Bank could be used as a model for ending the war. Russia would have military and economic control of occupied [parts of] Ukraine under its own governing body, similar to Israel’s de facto rule of Palestinian territory.”Then, after Trump laid on lavish treatment for the Russian dictator at the US military base, marking his indifference to international condemnation, came the joint appearance, which exceeded the Helsinki disaster. An elated Putin and dejected Trump appeared on stage together.The announced joint press conference was a theater of the absurd. Its brevity contributed to the farce. There was no agreement, no plan for an agreement, and no press conference. Trump deferred to Putin to speak first, to set the tone and terms after which he would come on as the second banana to slip on the peel.A clearly delighted Putin reiterated his belief that Ukraine was a security threat to Russia, and that “we need to eliminate all the primary roots, the primary causes of that conflict,” which was his language for the elimination of an independent and democratic Ukraine. He blamed Biden for the war he had launched. He affirmed Trump’s presumptuous boast that there would have been no war had he been president. “Today, when President Trump is saying that if he was the president back then, there would be no war, and I’m quite sure that it would indeed be so. I can confirm that.”A clearly glum Trump stepped to his podium. “So there’s no deal until there’s a deal,” he said. He had pledged during the 2024 campaign that he could and would end the war on “day one”. It had taken him 210 days to reach the “No Deal”.Trump wistfully talked about doing business with Russia, his will-o’-the-wisp ambition since he attempted for decades to build a Trump Tower in Moscow even through the 2016 election. He threw Putin a bouquet. “I’ve always had a fantastic relationship with President Putin, with Vladimir.” He blamed their inability to monetize their relationship to the inquiries that extensively documented Putin’s covert efforts in the 2016 election to help Trump. “We were interfered with by the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax,” Trump complained. He would not let it go, drifting incoherently into his grievances. “He knew it was a hoax, and I knew it was a hoax, but what was done was very criminal, but it made it harder for us to deal as a country, in terms of the business, and all of the things that would like to have dealt with, but we’ll have a good chance when this is over.”Then, Trump praised the Russian officials accompanying Putin. Chief among them was the foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, who had arrived wearing a sweatshirt embossed with the Cyrillic letters “CCCP”, standing for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, signaling Putin’s ultimate objective to restore the empire of the Soviet Union. The message was more than nostalgia; it was a mission statement. And Trump called Putin “the Boss”, not a reference to Bruce Springsteen. “Next time in Moscow,” said Putin.The press conference was over. There were no questions. There were no answers. Trump fled from the stage.Before the summit, Trump threatened new sanctions if Putin did not agree to a ceasefire, but now he forgot he had ever said that. He spoke loudly and carried a tiny stick. On Air Force One, on the return to Washington, he gave an exclusive interview to his lapdog, Sean Hannity of Fox News, along on the ride for this purpose. Trump reverted to his tacit support for Putin’s position. He put the burden on Zelenskyy to accede to Putin’s demands, which were unchanged.Then, Trump spiraled down a wormhole, obviously anxious about his growing unpopularity and the prospect of the Democrats winning the congressional midterm elections, which has prompted him to prod the Texas Republicans to gerrymander districts and California Democrats aroused to counter it in their state. “Vladimir Putin, smart guy, said you can’t have an honest election with mail-in voting,” said Trump. “Look at California with that horrible governor they have. One of the worst governors in history. He is incompetent, he doesn’t know what he is doing.”Is this a subject that Putin actually spoke about in their discussion? Has he had experience with mail-in voting or even know what it is? Was it brought up by Trump during their car ride? Or was Trump simply making it up for his gullible Fox News audience? Whatever the reality, Trump’s fear about losing control of domestic politics was at the top of his mind as he flew away from his charade in Anchorage.The shambolic scene left in Alaska represented the wreckage of Trump’s attempt at diplomacy. Setting the stage himself, Trump babbled, whined and weakly sided with Putin. Trump’s foreign policy team was exposed as incompetent, confounded and feckless. This was no best and the brightest, no rise of the Vulcans, but the circus of the Koalemosians, after Koalemos, the Greek god of stupidity.Apologists for Trump, in advance of this exemplary event, had suggested that there was such a conceit as a Trump doctrine. A former Trump official from his first term, A Wess Mitchell, has called it “The Return of Great Power Diplomacy” in the May/June issue of Foreign Affairs. He described “a new kind of diplomacy” that is “diplomacy in its classical form” and “an instrument of strategy”. He cited an ancient Spartan king, Archidamus II, the Roman Emperor Domitian, Cardinal Richelieu, and in his mélange did not neglect to throw in Metternich and Bismarck. (Kissinger, in his grave, must be weeping over the parading of Metternich’s mannequin as a forerunner of Trump. Mitchell, in any case, dismisses Kissinger as a fake realist and an “idealist”, which would have been a revelation to Kissinger.) Left out of Mitchell’s pantheon of great diplomatic influences through the ages is the influencer Laura Loomer, the loony far-right troll who has an open door to Trump, feeding him lists of national security officials he must purge.In Putin’s shadow, Trump was bared as having no larger or smaller concept or strategy of Great Power politics. It would be unfair to accuse Trump of having an idea beyond his self-aggrandizement. If anything, he aspires to be like Putin, whom he called a “genius” after his invasion of Ukraine. Putin has created and controls a vast kleptocracy. In 2017, Bill Browder, an American businessperson who had invested in Russia and has been targeted for assassination by Putin for exposing his corruption, testified before the Senate judiciary committee that Putin was “the biggest oligarch in Russia and the richest man in the world”. Nobody, however, knows Putin’s true personal wealth.Trump, the Putin manqué, is trying to turn the United States into a kleptocratic system. According to the calculations of David D Kirkpatrick in the New Yorker, in just six months of his second term his alleged personal profiteering, “would disappoint the haters who saw Trump as a Putin-level kleptocrat. Yet some three and a half billion dollars in Presidential profits – even though my accounting is necessarily approximate – is a dizzying sum.”Meanwhile, three days before the Trump-Putin summit, the Trump family crypto business, World Liberty Financial, raised $1.5bn to buy the Trump family token. The CEO of World Liberty Financial, Zach Witkoff, son of Steve Witkoff, along with Eric Trump of WLF, will join the board of the investing company. That is the Trump doctrine.

      Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth. He is a Guardian US columnist More

    • 163 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Republicans want to rig the midterm elections. Will they succeed? | Moira Donegan

      by

      If one mark of an autocratic regime is the meaningfulness of elections, you can make an argument that the United States has been backsliding away from a properly democratic form of government for a long time. In 2013’s Shelby county decision, the US supreme court gutted the 1965 Voting Rights Act, clearing the way for states to impose a slew of restrictions on the franchise that were previously banned as part of an effort to prevent the re-establishment of Jim Crow; voting quickly became more burdensome and onerous in many Republican-controlled states.Three years before, in Citizens United, the same court declared that corporate money counted as political speech, thereby opening the floodgates on money in politics in ways that allowed the rich to distort public discourses ahead of elections. Donald Trump memorably tried to interfere with the 2020 census so that it would count as few of those who were disinclined to support him as possible, hoping to create a skewed vision of America in the data that the government uses to apportion public resources and congressional representation alike. The result is a clear picture of the Republican party’s approach to elections: that so long as they create a positive outcome for their candidates, they need not be strictly speaking fair, free or meaningful representations of the people’s will.Ahead of the 2026 midterms, Republicans are pursuing this agenda with renewed zeal. At Trump’s direction, Republicans in Texas are looking to redraw their state’s congressional maps to be more favorable to the Republican party, allowing the party to gain more seats in the House of Representatives not by persuading voters, but by choosing who their voters will be. The US supreme court, meanwhile, has chosen to continue its own efforts to rewrite election law in the Republicans favor, taking up a long-languishing case out of Louisiana challenging the remainder of the Voting Rights Act and accelerating argument so that a decision can be released in time for Republican-leaning states to redraw their maps ahead of the November 2026 contests.In Texas, the effort to ensure that the voters’ actual preferences will have no bearing on the outcome of the House races has unfolded in dramatic fashion. In early August, Trump told Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, to redraw his state’s congressional district maps – an unusual move in the middle of the decade – to ensure that Republicans picked up as many as five additional seats in Congress. “We” – the Republicans – “are entitled to five more seats”, the president said. Trump cited his own victory in Texas in the 2024 election as evidence that the state’s congressional seats belonged to his party – furthering his claim, often amorphous but repeatedly asserted, that his victory in 2024 amounts to a total and permanent grant of authority over all American policy and political jurisdictions.The Texas governor quickly called the state legislature into a special session to vote on a proposed new set of districts for 2016. In a bit of political theater meant to draw attention to the move, the state legislature’s Democrats then left Texas in protest in order to deny the body a quorum to move on the vote, seeking sanctuary in Democratic-controlled Illinois. The standoff came to an end when the Democrats gave in and agreed to return to the state on Friday, following the announcement by the California governor, Gavin Newsom, that he would encourage legislators in his own state to redraw maps in Democrats’ favor. The new Texas maps are likely to be passed by Labor Day, allowing the state to secure the outcomes in their 2026 congressional contests more than a year before a single vote is cast.Such moves are likely to become more common in the near future. The supreme court, not satisfied with having declared large portions of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional in 2013, is now moving to strike down section 2, the law’s last remaining edifice. The law allows states to draw so-called “majority minority” districts, so that Black voters can express political power in areas where they are concentrated instead of having their voting preferences diluted by spreading their votes out across majority-white districts.The justices are now poised to strike down this last remaining vestige of the monumental 20th-century law that was meant to remedially constitute Black voting power amid a long history of political repression, and finally make the 15th amendment meaningful in practice. Without this law, Republican-controlled states are likely to redraw their maps in order to eliminate “majority-minority” districts, thereby making it all but impossible for Black voters to elect their preferred candidates in many states, particularly across the former Confederacy.There was no need for the justices to take this case. The issue in question – a redistricting in Louisiana that created a second majority-minority congressional district in a state with six congressional districts that is more than 30% Black – had already been declared constitutional by an appellate court, in deference to the supreme court’s longstanding precedent. But John Roberts – depressingly, now the court’s moderate – has had a career-long vendetta against the Voting Rights Act, and will not resist an opportunity to finally strike it down in full. That the court expedited argument so as to be able to issue an opinion in June 2026 – just in time for states to redistrict before the midterms. It is yet another signal that the justices in the court’s majority consider themselves to be Republican party operatives – and the Republican party, as a whole, is becoming less and less interested in running in competitive elections.It is yet to be seen whether these efforts will succeed in swinging the midterm elections decisively in Republicans’ favor. Maybe the redistricting in Texas and the retaliation planned by California will not prompt a nationwide tit-for-tat of gerrymandering across the states; maybe the supreme court will show uncharacteristic restraint, and not overturn a decades-old precedent in order to further erode Black Americans’ voting rights.But the odds are slim, and at any rate, the Republican party has already shown that its commitment to democratic elections – that is, the kind that they might lose – is paper thin. The Trump administration, meanwhile, is reviving their first-term effort to rewrite the rules of the census. In 2030, they hope, many Americans in Democratic-leaning districts simply won’t count at all.

      Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist More

    • 188 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump news at a glance: President hosts Ukraine talks, announces plan to end mail-in voting

      by

      Donald Trump said arrangements were under way for a face to face meeting between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, to be followed by a trilateral meeting between the two and the US president.Writing on his Truth Social site after meetings with Ukraine’s president and European leaders ended at the White House on Monday, Trump said: “I called President Putin, and began the arrangements for a meeting, at a location to be determined, between President Putin and President Zelenskyy.”He added: “After that meeting takes place, we will have a Trilat, which would be the two Presidents, plus myself. Again, this was a very good, early step for a War that has been going on for almost four years.”The US president also said after talks with leaders from the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Finland, the EU and Nato that Europe could provide security guarantees for Ukraine as part of a Russia peace deal, with Washington taking an oversight role.“During the meeting we discussed Security Guarantees for Ukraine, which Guarantees would be provided by the various European Countries, with a coordination with the United States of America,” Trump said on Truth Social.Here are the key Trump news of the day:Trump tells Zelenskyy ceasefire not needed for peace dealDonald Trump has ruled out a ceasefire in Ukraine as Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his European allies visited the White House to push for US-backed security guarantees as part of any long-term peace deal.The US president, who only last week warned Russia of “very severe consequences” if Vladimir Putin failed to agree to a halt the fighting, made clear on Monday he had reversed his position.Welcoming Zelenskyy to the hastily assembled meeting at the Oval Office, Trump referred to other conflicts which he claimed to have ended, telling reporters: “I don’t think you’d need a ceasefire. If you look at the six deals that I settled this year, they were all at war – I didn’t do any ceasefires.”Read the full storyTrump says lawyers are drafting executive order to end mail-in votingDonald Trump on Monday announced that lawyers are drafting an executive order to eliminate mail-in voting, days after Vladimir Putin told him US elections were rigged because of postal ballots.In a White House meeting alongside Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump said: “We’re going to start with an executive order that’s being written right now by the best lawyers in the country to end mail in ballots because they’re corrupt.”Read the full storyDemocrats return to Texas as California kicks off push to pass new electoral mapTexas Democrats returned to their state on Monday as California lawmakers are set to convene in the state capitol to kick off a rapid push to get voters to approve a new congressional map that could add as many as five Democratic seats in the US House.The California effort is in response to Texas’s push to redraw the congressional map there to add five Republican seats. On Friday, Texas’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott, called a second special session after Democrats remained out of the state for two weeks, denying Republicans a quorum to conduct legislative business.Read the full storyNewsmax to pay $67m to Dominion to settle US election defamation lawsuitThe conservative outlet Newsmax has agreed to pay $67m to Dominion Voting Systems to settle a defamation lawsuit over lies about voting in the 2020 election.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      The number of people eating at restaurants in Washington DC has plummeted since Donald Trump deployed federal troops to the city, according to data, as the president’s purported crackdown on crime continues.

      A federal judge in Miami was hearing arguments on Monday that detainees at the remote immigration jail in the Florida Everglades known as “Alligator Alcatraz” are routinely subjected to human rights abuses and denied due process before being deported.

      As part of his administration’s war on “woke”, Donald Trump has asked the American public to report anything “negative” about Americans in US national parks. But the public has largely refused to support a worldview without inconvenient historical facts, comments submitted from national parks and seen by the Guardian show.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 17 August 2025. More

    • 175 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Democrats return to Texas as California kicks off push to pass new electoral map

      by

      Texas Democrats returned to their state on Monday as California lawmakers kicked off a rapid push for voters to approve a new congressional map that could add as many as five Democratic seats in the US House.The Texas Democrats’ return ends a two-week walkout that stalled the Republican effort to redraw the state’s congressional districts to satisfy Donald Trump’s demands to reshape the US House map in his favor ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.The California plan was drafted in response to Texas’s push to redraw the congressional map there. On Friday, Texas’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott, called a second special session after Democrats remained out of the state for two weeks, denying Republicans a quorum to conduct legislative business.The Democrats said last week they would return once California moved ahead with its counter-proposal, all but ensuring that Texas’s new maps will pass.The protest began on 3 August, when dozens of Texas Democrats left the state for Illinois and other blue states in a high-stakes bid to deny their Republican colleagues the quorum needed to approve the redrawn maps. Although the Democrats’ return allows Republicans to advance their redistricting plan, the quorum-breakers have declared their two-week walkout a strategic success that set off a “redistricting arms race”.“We killed the corrupt special session, withstood unprecedented surveillance and intimidation and rallied Democrats nationwide to join this existential fight for fair representation – reshaping the entire 2026 landscape,” Gene Wu, the chair of the Texas house democratic caucus, said.“We’re returning to Texas more dangerous to Republicans’ plans than when we left.”Dustin Burrows, the Republican house speaker, did not mention the Republican redistricting proposal, but said the chamber would move swiftly to enact its legislative agenda during the second special session. Later on Monday evening, a house committee approved the new map, which will soon be sent to the floor for a full vote.“Representatives come and go. Issues rise and fall. But this body has endured wars, economic depressions and quorum breaks dating back to the very first session,” Burrows said during Monday’s session. “Now is the time for action.”He also outlined new surveillance protocols that would apply to the Democrats who had civil arrest warrants issued in their absence, stating they would “be granted written permission to leave only after agreeing to be released into the custody of a designated [Texas department of public safety] officer” who would ensure their return to the chamber.One Democrat is refusing to accept the conditions. Nicole Collier, a state representative for Fort Worth, vowed to remain confined inside the Texas house chamber until lawmakers reconvene on Wednesday, declining to comply with what she condemned as a Republican “permission slip” – a document authorizing a round-the-clock law enforcement escort.“I refuse to sign away my dignity as a duly elected representative just so Republicans can control my movements and monitor me with police escorts,” Collier, a seven-term lawmaker and a former chair of the Texas Legislative Black caucus, said on Monday.Collier’s demonstration is the latest act of Democratic resistance to the Republican redistricting plan. “When I press that button to vote, I know these maps will harm my constituents – I won’t just go along quietly with their intimidation or their discrimination,” she said.The new California map, released on Friday, would create three new safely Democratic districts and two new districts that are Democratic leaning but still competitive.The plan, led by the California governor Gavin Newsom, must be approved by the state legislature before it is put to vote in a special election this fall. If voters agree to override the house map created by the independent redistricting commission after the 2020 census, the proposed boundaries would replace current ones through 2030. Democrats said they will return the mapmaking power to the commission after that.Newsom praised the effort on Monday, calling it a necessary response to Trump’s influence over redistricting in Texas and other Republican-led states.“We are not going to sit idle while they command Texas and other states to rig the next election to keep power,” Newsom said, adding that the proposal gives Californians “a choice to fight back”.Internal polling presented to lawmakers showed voters favored the measure 52% to 41%, with 7% undecided, according to the local television station KCRA.Republicans in California condemned the proposal as an assault on the state’s voter-approved independent redistricting commission and said they plan to introduce legislation that advocates for creating similar map-drawing bodies in all 50 states.“Governor Newsom, this is nothing more than a power grab,” Tony Strickland, a Republican state senator, said during a Monday news conference in Sacramento.He warned the redistricting tit-for-tat sets a dangerous precedent that will not be easily undone. “The Golden Gate Bridge toll was supposed to be temporary,” he added. “You’re still paying the toll.”The legislature could hold floor votes to send the measure to voters for approval as soon as Thursday, KCRA reported.House Republicans currently hold a razor-thin three-seat majority in the US House and Trump has pushed to redraw district boundaries ahead of next year’s midterm elections, in which the president’s party typically loses seats. Republicans are also poised to redraw congressional districts in Ohio, Missouri and Florida, as well as potentially Indiana.Democrats have signaled they will try to redraw districts in other states where they hold power at the state level, such as New York and Maryland, though they do not have as many opportunities to draw districts as Republicans do. More

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Zelenskyy’s European ‘bodyguards’: which leaders joined Trump talks in Washington?

      by

      European leaders gathered in Washington on Monday for Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s meeting with Donald Trump in the Oval Office, in a show of support for the Ukrainian president. Their presence came amid expectations that Trump would try to bully Zelenskyy into accepting a pro-Russia “peace plan” that would include Kyiv handing territory to Moscow. The Europeans have been described as Zelenskyy’s “bodyguards”, with memories fresh of the mauling he received in February during his last Oval Office visit. So, who are they?Mark RutteSecretary general of NatoRutte has a proven record of flattering Trump for strategic purposes, using language that some allies find cringe-making. In June he referred to the capricious US president as “Daddy” in an attempt to avoid disastrous outbursts at the Nato summit. Rutte has repeatedly praised Trump in public, including in a recent interview on Fox News, and credits him for pushing Nato members to spend 3.5% of their GDP on defence. The US had carried the burden of European security for too long, Rutte has said – music to Trump’s ears.Ursula von der LeyenPresident of the European CommissionVon der Leyen is a staunch supporter of Ukraine who backs Kyiv’s EU membership. For Trump, she is a reminder of Europe’s combined importance as an economic bloc. The US struck a trade deal with the EU three weeks ago, and Trump hailed the relationship as “the biggest trading partnership in the world”. On Sunday she hosted Zelenskyy in Brussels. She said a post-peace-deal Ukraine had to become “a steel porcupine, indigestible for potential invaders”, with no limits on its armed forces.Keir StarmerUK prime minister Starmer has performed a balancing act when it comes to Trump, keeping him on side while advocating for Ukraine. So far, this tactic has worked. The US president has gone out of his way to emphasise their good relations, despite Starmer’s “liberal” outlook. Both men have an incentive to preserve this rapport ahead of Trump’s state visit next month to the UK. Meanwhile, Starmer and Zelenskyy have developed a warm personal relationship, hugging in February outside Downing Street after Zelenskyy’s previous, disastrous Oval Office meeting, and again last week. The prime minister stresses territorial integrity, which contradicts Trump’s “peace deal” that involves Russia taking more Ukrainian land.Alexander StubbPresident of Finland Stubb represents a small European state but he will be in Washington because he has managed to establish an unexpectedly warm relationship with Trump. The Finnish leader cultivated his access to the US president by hastily polishing his rusty golfing skills before an impromptu trip to Florida in March for a round with Trump, on the recommendation of the Republican senator Lindsey Graham. Stubb’s message on the putting green: you can’t trust Vladimir Putin. Finland sees parallels between Ukraine’s plight and its own history, the Soviet Union having invaded in 1939, saying it needed Finnish territory.Emmanuel MacronFrench presidentMacron combines French economic and military clout with a proven ability to get on with Trump, symbolised by their intense handshakes. In the lead-up to Russia’s 2022 invasion, Macron flew to Moscow to reason with Putin. He has since become a key diplomatic ally for Ukraine. Asked on Sunday whether Putin wanted a genuine peace deal, Macron replied: “No.” He said Ukraine needed a strong army and security guarantees if a lasting settlement was to be achieved. The French president will want to persuade Trump that his post-Alaska-summit plan to stop the fighting is a non-starter, and against Ukraine and Europe’s long-term security interests.Friedrich MerzGerman presidentMerz has cut a sure-footed figure on the world stage since taking office in May, including largely holding his own in an Oval Office face-off with Trump over the summer. He has emerged as a crucial partner for Zelenskyy, who was often frustrated with Merz’s slow-moving predecessor, Olaf Scholz. Berlin has clout as one pillar of the French-German axis at the heart of the EU. It is also a major financial donor to Kyiv. Merz’s task in the Oval Office is to persuade Trump not to act hastily and “over the heads of Ukrainians and Europeans”, as he put it last week.Giorgia MeloniPrime minister of ItalyMeloni has broken off from her holiday to fly to Washington, a sign that Trump’s Russia-friendly “peace plan” marks a moment of danger for Europe. She will be a useful bridge in the Oval Office meeting, as a European far-right leader whom Trump counts as a friend. Meloni has spent time at Mar-a-Lago, the US president’s Florida home, and was the only European leader invited to his inauguration in January. At the same time, she strongly supports Kyiv’s sovereignty. In July she hosted a Ukraine recovery conference in Rome, designed to help the country rebuild when Russia’s war finally ends. More

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump says lawyers are drafting executive order to end mail-in voting

      by

      Donald Trump on Monday announced that lawyers are drafting an executive order to eliminate mail-in voting, days after Vladimir Putin told him US elections were rigged because of postal ballots.In a White House meeting alongside Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump said: “We’re going to start with an executive order that’s being written right now by the best lawyers in the country to end mail in ballots because they’re corrupt.”The push follows Trump’s meeting with Putin in Alaska on Friday, when the Russian president allegedly told him that the 2020 election “was rigged because you have mail-in voting”, according to Trump’s subsequent interview with Sean Hannity.Trump falsely claimed that late former president Jimmy Carter opposed mail-in voting, saying: “Even Jimmy Carter with this commission, they set it up. He said, the one thing about mail in voting, you will never have an honest election if you have mail in it.”In reality, Carter urged the opposite during the 2020 Covid pandemic, with the Carter Center arguing that the best way to tackle potential voter fraud in a vote-by-mail situation is to strengthen safeguards and expand voting access.“I urge political leaders across the country to take immediate steps to expand vote-by-mail and other measures that can help protect the core of American democracy – the right of our citizens to vote,” Carter said in a statement.Trump started off his Monday morning by making a lengthy Truth Social post, in which he said: “I am going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS,” while also targeting “Highly ‘Inaccurate,’ Very Expensive, and Seriously Controversial VOTING MACHINES” which he claimed cost “Ten Times more than accurate and sophisticated Watermark Paper”.In that post, Trump falsely asserted that the US was “now the only Country in the World that uses Mail-In Voting” and claimed “All others gave it up because of the MASSIVE VOTER FRAUD ENCOUNTERED.”Data from International Idea contradicts this claim, showing that 34 countries worldwide allow mail-in voting, with 12 allowing it for all voters and 22 for some voters. Most European countries offer some form of mail voting, and more than 100 countries let their citizens vote by mail when living abroad.US courts rejected numerous fraud allegations after the 2020 presidential election, finding no evidence of widespread irregularities.Across the US, 28 states let voters request a mail ballot without giving a reason, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Eight states and Washington DC send everyone their ballot in the mail automatically, and about one in five American voters lives in one of those states.The president’s opposition to mail-in voting comes despite his own use of the method. In 2020, both Trump and the first lady, Melania Trump, submitted vote-by-mail ballots in Florida ahead of the state’s primaries, which Palm Beach county confirmed receiving.Trump also claimed states are “merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government” and must follow presidential orders on elections. That’s wrong: the constitution gives states control over how they conduct elections.Mail voting has exploded in popularity – from fewer than one in 10 voters in 1996 to nearly half during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. As of 2022, it was used by about one in three voters, according to a report by the MIT Election Data and Science Lab. Supporters have long said mail ballots make voting easier for people who can’t get to polling stations – those with disabilities, parents with young kids, or workers with long shifts, while also giving voters more time to research candidates at home. More

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Newsmax to pay $67m to Dominion to settle US election defamation lawsuit

      by

      The conservative outlet Newsmax has agreed to pay $67m to Dominion Voting Systems to settle a defamation lawsuit over lies about voting in the 2020 election.The settlement came as the case was headed to trial. Earlier this year, Delaware superior court judge Eric Davis ruled that Newsmax had defamed the voting technology company by broadcasting false claims about its equipment after the 2020 election. A jury would have considered whether Newsmax was liable for damages. Dominion had sued the outlet for $1.6bn.After the 2020 election, lies about the security of Dominion voting machines, which are widely used in the US, became central to Donald Trump’s false claim that the election was stolen from him. Allies and other rightwing personalities made baseless claims that votes had been flipped and that the equipment was not secure.“We are pleased to have settled this matter,” Dominion said in a statement to CNN.In a lengthy statement of its own, Newsmax was defiant, saying it chose to settle not because it was admitting wrongdoing, but because it believed Davis would not give the company a fair trial.“Newsmax believed it was critically important for the American people to hear both sides of the election disputes that arose in 2020,” the company said. “We stand by our coverage as fair, balanced, and conducted within professional standards of journalism.”Newsmax will be paying the settlement in three instalments until January 2027.Dominion obtained a $787.5m defamation settlement from Fox in 2023 on the eve of a defamation trial in Delaware. Ahead of the settlement, Dominion lawyers obtained internal communications from Fox hosts and personalities that showed they knew many of the outlandish claims the outlets hosts and guests were broadcasting about the election were not true.Newsmax agreed to pay $40m to settle a defamation case against Smartmatic, another voting equipment company, last year. One America News, another far-right outlet, also settled a defamation case with Smartmatic last year.Fox is now defending itself in a pending defamation suit brought by Smartmatic. More

    • 150 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump’s promise of a US manufacturing renaissance leaves experts scratching their heads

      by

      Donald Trump’s hugely disruptive trade war is setting the stage for a manufacturing renaissance in the US, administration officials say. Outside the White House, many economists are skeptical.Global trade experts point to many reasons they believe the president’s tariffs will fail to bring about a major resurgence of manufacturing, among them: Trump’s erratic, constantly changing policies, his unfocused, across-the-board tariffs, and his replacing Joe Biden’s carrot-and-sticks approach to brandish sticks at the world.“I think [Trump’s tariffs] will reduce the competitiveness of US manufacturing, and will reduce manufacturing employment,” said Michael Strain, an economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI). “They’re raising the costs of production to US manufacturing companies, and that makes manufacturers less competitive. There will be some winners and some losers, but the losers will outnumber the winners.”‘Trump keeps changing his mind’The president and his aides insist that higher tariffs on more than 100 countries – making goods imported from overseas more expensive – will spur domestic manufacturing. “The ‘Made in USA’ label is set to resume its global dominance under President Trump,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai claimed recently.But few economists see that happening. Ann E Harrison, an economics professor and former dean of the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, said the erratic, on-again-off-again rollout of Trump’s tariffs has already gone far to doom the president’s hopes of inspiring a huge wave of manufacturing investment.“For the policy to be successful, it has to be consistent over a long period,” she told the Guardian. “People need to believe it’s going to last. Some factories take five years to plan and build. You’re talking a long-term play. But Trump keeps changing his mind. Even over the last six months, we’ve had very little consistency.“The other problem is that he’s old, and no one is sure he’s going to be around that long. These policies need to be consistent, and that’s not happening.”Economists point to another question mark that is causing corporate executives to think twice about building factories in the US. In May, the US Court of International Trade ruled that Trump’s blanket tariffs are illegal – a decision that is under appeal.Strain, at the AEI, said: “When you add into the equation the erratic nature of president Trump’s tariff regime, when you add the question of its questionable illegality, when you add that none of this is going through Congress, when you add that even when the US secures a ‘deal’ with another country, it’s not really a deal, there are major outstanding questions.”France doesn’t think its alcohol exports will be hit by tariffs as part of the European Union’s agreement to pay 15% tariffs, noted Strain. “That’s a big question mark that would never go unresolved in any regular, traditional trade deal,” he said. “That’s all part of the massive uncertainty we’re seeing.”The Biden administration used deliberate industrial policies to boost several strategic industries, most notably semiconductors and electric vehicles, including a 100% tariff on EVs from China and 25% on lithium-ion EV batteries, as well as subsidies to buy EVs and build EV-related factories. The policies resulted in a surge in new factories to build semiconductors, electric vehicles and EV components.Biden “said we care about semiconductors and national security, and what he’d try to do is get actual investors to invest in it”, said Dani Rodrik, an economist specializing in trade and industrial policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, who predicted Trump’s blanket tariffs will prove less successful in inspiring investment. “If you really want to increase manufacturing and employment in the US, you’d go about it in a very different way, through industrial policies that first identify specific segments you care about.”When China, Japan and South Korea adopted policies to build their electronics and auto industries, they insisted that the corporations that benefited from those policies compete with foreign companies to help make them globally competitive. “For industrial policy to succeed, it has to work to promote more competition,” said Harrison, at the Haas School of Business. “The problem with tariffs is they do just the opposite. They restrict competition.”Susan Helper, an economist at Case Western Reserve University who worked on industrial policy in the Biden and Obama administrations, said Trump’s tariff rates on some countries and markets – like 15% on the EU, Japan and South Korea – are too low to spur much investment, questioning why a company would build a major factory to circumvent such a duty.“A [semiconductor fabrication] plant, that’s a billion dollars. You need to get a payback and that takes several years,” Helper said. “If the tariffs are 145% [as Trump once imposed on China], that’s attractive for building a plant. But if they fall back to 15%, then it’s really hard to get a return on your investment.”The administration boasts that several of its trade deals have specific commitments to spur huge manufacturing investment. It says its deal with the EU includes a $600bn investment pledge; with Japan, a $550bn investment pledge; and with South Korea, $350bn. Jamieson Greer, US trade representative, wrote in the New York Times: “These investments – 10 times larger than the inflation-adjusted value of the Marshall Plan that rebuilt Europe after World War II – will accelerate US reindustrialization.”But these supposed pledges have attracted skepticism. After all, this president claimed during his first term that “the eighth wonder of the world” was being built in Wisconsin after FoxConn pledged to invest $10bn and create 13,000 jobs at an electronics plant. But that promise fell embarrassingly short.Many economists question whether the EU, Japan or South Korea can force corporations to make a specific investment in the US. Indeed, an EU Commission spokesperson said the bloc had expressed “aggregate intentions” that are “in no way” binding. “These large numbers really sound like window dressing, some round numbers they’re throwing around,” said Harvard’s Rodrik.“Some include investments you were already going to make, and some are aspirational,” said Todd Tucker, a trade and industrial policy expert at the Roosevelt Institute. “Once we’ve had time to evaluate whether the investment happens or not, Trump will be on to the next press cycle.”In recent years, manufacturing employment has been trending downward – not just in advanced industrial countries, but also in China, as new technologies enable factories to churn out goods more efficiently, with fewer workers. That trend raises questions whether Trump’s trade policies can increase factory jobs in the US.‘An island of backwardness’The US is past its manufacturing peak, Berkeley’s Harrison noted. “That was actually during World War Two, and it has been declining ever since,” she said. “I don’t see manufacturing’s share of the economy or manufacturing employment reversing.”She added: “If the question is, are you going to bring about a major resurgence in manufacturing employment, it’s not just unlikely, the answer is no. More and more manufacturing is robot-driven and not done by people.”Auto industry officials in the US complain that Trump’s 50% tariffs on steel and aluminum have increased their costs and injured their competitiveness. “In manufacturing, for every one job in steel production, there are 80 jobs that use steel,” the AEI’s Strain said. “So putting tariffs on imported steel might help that one guy, but you’re hurting the other 80 people.”A study by Federal Reserve economists found that the tariffs Trump imposed in his first term were actually associated with a reduction in factory jobs nationwide, because increased input costs and retaliatory tariffs outweighed import protection from tariffs.Helper, at Case Western Reserve University, warned that the US auto industry will be hurt badly by Trump’s mishmash of tariffs coupled with his slashing subsidies for EVs. “Trump’s policies are setting the auto industry up to be an island of backwardness,” she said. “The rest of the world is going to be making EVs, but we’re going to be focused on making really high profits on pickup trucks that will be bad for the climate and won’t sell in the rest of the world.“We’ll have a great, competitive position in large, gas-guzzling pickups, but we’ll fall further behind in EVs. That’s a very risky and dangerous path.” More