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    The Guardian view on Friedrich Merz’s grand coalition: gambling on a new centre ground | Editorial

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    Some years ago, hundreds of German finance ministry staff dressed in black and formed a giant zero to salute their boss, Wolfgang Schäuble, as he left office. It was a tribute to Mr Schäuble’s extreme fiscal conservatism, which had delivered Germany’s first balanced budget in the postwar period. Amid resurgent prosperity in the Angela Merkel years, the so-called black zero – symbolising a constitutional prohibition on public debt – had gradually acquired cult status.As a new administration prepares to take power in Berlin, it seems unlikely that human euro signs will welcome the latest politician to take on Mr Schäuble’s former role. But in dramatic fashion, the spending taps are set to be turned on. Via a swiftly staged March vote in the outgoing Bundestag, “debt brake” dogma was consigned to history by the chancellor‑elect, Friedrich Merz. The way was thus paved for groundbreaking expenditure on defence, and the overhaul of an economy being left behind in a changed, suddenly menacing world.So much for the theory – now for the practice. Mr Merz, the centre-right leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), last week concluded the fastest set of coalition talks since 2009. Pending approval of the deal by Social Democratic party (SPD) members, he is expected to be sworn in as chancellor in by early May. In office, the “grand coalition” agreed between the CDU and the SPD – handed seven ministries including finance and defence – will immediately be confronted by challenges that dwarf those faced by almost all its predecessors.The US under Donald Trump, whether as economic partner or military ally, can no longer be relied upon – an era-defining shift whatever the outcome of the current tariff wars and Mr Trump’s negotiations with Moscow over Ukraine. China, once a vast outlet for the exports which fuelled growth, has morphed into a fearsome competitor, including on German soil. A stagnant economy, combined with a post-Merkel backlash against migration, has accelerated the rise of Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), one of the most extreme far‑right parties in Europe. Last week, a poll fatefully placed the AfD in the lead for the first time.The pressure from the right – both from within his own party and from the AfD – is having an impact. Mr Merz’s Trumpian promise to turn asylum seekers away at German borders from his “first day”, along with other draconian measures, will only allow the far right to up the ante still further. Meanwhile, he also appears to be looking for wriggle room on agreed coalition commitments to the less well off and to climate targets.Nevertheless, the broad economic thrust of the deal remains right for troubling times. The European Central Bank must play its part – by keeping yields on a leash. As Germany’s neighbours deal with similar geopolitical threats and uncertainties, the ability of the EU’s most powerful member state to show leadership and forge a path through the crisis will be crucial. With short-term growth acutely vulnerable to mood swings in the White House, the effects of spending will take time to be felt in people’s everyday lives. But the prospect of a transformative increase in public investment offers the hope of industrial renaissance and a restoration of voters’ trust in the political centre.Alongside his SPD counterparts last week, Mr Merz confidently announced that Germany was “back on track”. Europe badly needs him to be right.

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      Civilian deaths in Sumy attack may force Washington to get tough with Putin

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      Even by the warped standards of wartime, Russia’s Sunday morning attack on Sumy was astonishingly brazen. Two high-speed ballistic missiles, armed, Ukraine says, with cluster munitions, slammed into the heart of the border city in mid-morning as families went to church, waited for a theatre performance or were simply strolling about on a mild spring day.The death toll currently stands at 34, including two children. Images from the scene show bodies or body bags on the ground, a trolley bus and cars burnt out, rubble and glass scattered around. It was reckless, cruel and vicious and its consequences entirely predictable to those who gave the order and pressed “launch”.To contemplate a daytime city-centre attack, in the full knowledge that civilians will be present, reflects a Russian culture of impunity that has been allowed to endure without effective challenge. Nevertheless, Washington’s approach, under Donald Trump, has been to try to negotiate an end to the war by talking directly with Moscow, while remaining mostly silent on Russian attacks on civilians.Talks between the US and Russia have continued unabated over the past two months at a time when Russian attacks on Ukraine’s cities appear to have stepped up. Nine adults and nine children were killed when a Russian ballistic missile using cluster bombs struck a children’s playground in Kryvyi Rih at the end of last week.People were burned alive in their cars and the bodies of children were found dead in the playground, yet the attack was weakly condemned by the US ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget Brink, who, toeing the White House line, would not say the deadly missile was from Russia as she tweeted: “This is why the war must end.”Brink has since announced she will step down and been more forthright. On Sunday, the ambassador attributed the Sumy attack to Russia and repeated that it appeared cluster bombs had been used. But now that she is on her way out, it is easier for her to speak her mind while Russia’s Vladimir Putin toys with Trump and the rest of the US administration in peace talks that have hardly developed in two months.View image in fullscreenOn Friday, the Russian leader spent four hours in talks with Steve Witkoff, a donor real estate developer who has become a key Trump adviser on Ukraine as well as the Middle East. What they talked about is unclear, but reports suggest Witkoff has been pushing the idea that the quickest way to get Russia to agree a ceasefire in Ukraine is to force Kyiv to hand over the entirety of four provinces that are only partly occupied by Russia’s military, including the cities of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.The dissonance between the killing and destruction in Sumy on Sunday and the photographed handshake between Witkoff and Putin is all too evident to most observers. It is not clear why it should even be contemplated that Ukraine hand over territory (something that even the US cannot easily force on Kyiv) when Russia is willing to countenance daytime attacks on civilians.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut Moscow believes, and acts like it believes, it can get away with it. The Kremlin will ignore condemnation from European leaders and wait for the news cycle to move on – and will almost certainly continue to attack Ukrainian cities to little military purpose. Not only are drone attacks commonplace, but there are now concerns they are routinely being armed with cluster munitions, while almost every day one or two hard-to-intercept ballistic missiles are thrown into the deadly mix.In Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hopes that gradually Trump will realise Putin is not negotiating in good faith. Certainly, the attack on the centre of Sumy hardly suggests a strong appetite for peace. But it is unclear at what point, if any, the White House is prepared to conclude that killing of civilians means that it needs to put genuine pressure on Russia to negotiate rather than indulge the Kremlin. More

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      In the face of Trump’s mayhem, Europe is the direction to which the UK must turn – and Keir Starmer knows it | Tom Baldwin

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      Keir Starmer was back at the Emirates Stadium on Tuesday to watch Arsenal’s 3-0 win over Real Madrid, a result that far exceeded expectations of his team’s chances in Europe. And, over the next few days, I wouldn’t be surprised if he tries to snatch a short Easter break in the warmth and sunshine of that same continent.Football and family holidays offer him some much needed relief from the grim reality of a faltering economy, towering public debt and terrifying global insecurity, which are all being made worse on a daily – sometimes hourly – basis by Britain’s closest ally of the previous 80 years.But that mayhem being caused by Donald Trump’s extended stag party in the White House means that Europe is much more than an occasional distraction for the prime minister. Slowly, if not always surely, it is once again becoming the direction towards which Britain must turn.This is not exactly where Starmer thought he would to be. For all his talk of an EU “reset”, the plan had been to “make Brexit work” within self-imposed “red lines” ruling out joining the single market or a customs union, blocking freedom of movement and appearing to allow only some minor mitigation of the damage done by Boris Johnson’s deal.In the immediate aftermath of Trump’s inauguration, new horizons on the other side of the Atlantic briefly seemed rather more exciting. There was genuine interest in, if not admiration for, this insurgent disruptor of the US’s stuffy political establishment. There was also a prospect that Britain might gain advantage over the EU from a repurposed special relationship being gilded by inviting Trump to hang out with the royals.And, even now, securing some sort of US trade deal that might save thousands of British jobs, or the promise of the minimal military cooperation needed to maintain European security, are still prizes worth having. It’s silly to blame Starmer for trying to win them, or to expect him to strike poses against Trump for the sake of cheap headlines and not much else.What’s changed, however, is a recognition around the cabinet table that the US president is much more of a problem than part of any solution. Gone are the days when a government source would brief it had more in common with Maga Republicans than US Democrats, or Rachel Reeves could tell Britain to learn from Trump’s optimism and “positivity”. Nowadays ministers say it has become almost futile to anticipate his next move because “he’s only ever reliable in his unpredictability”. Whatever happens next, this is a US administration that can’t be regarded as a stable ally either on the economy or security.Those who think Starmer, in his repeated calls for “cool and calm heads”, is still being excessively polite have perhaps been too busy complaining to have noticed a subtle shift in his language. For instance, when the Times last week ran the headline: “Why Keir Starmer hopes Trump’s tariffs could be good news for the UK”, the rebuttal came from the prime minister himself, with an article in the same newspaper the next day, which began by stating: “Nobody is pretending that tariffs are good news.”View image in fullscreenOne well-placed Downing Street adviser now describes how Trump “wants to destroy the multilateral institutions” that Starmer believes are essential “to span divides and bring the world together”. Another mentions polling evidence that apparently shows even if a big US trade deal can be done, British voters would still prefer closer links to the EU because they don’t trust Trump to deliver.Certainly, efforts to reset those relations have been pursued with more vigour over recent weeks. These began with Starmer’s “coalition of the willing” to replace the military support for Ukraine that Trump appears so intent on taking away, and will continue ahead of the EU-UK summit on 19 May. More focus on shared interests and values and less on “red lines” should mean a security and defence pact is agreed. Also within reach is a so-called veterinary deal to make agricultural trade easier, while legislation is already going through parliament that would enable UK ministers to align with EU regulations in other areas to the benefit of small exporters.There may yet be a workable youth mobility scheme for those aged 18-30, which some EU members, notably Germany, regard as a test of whether this government is really different to the last one. Although the proposal was hastily ruled out during last year’s general election, the Treasury is increasingly sympathetic to it because, by some estimates, it could do more for growth than planning reform and housebuilding combined. At the same time, new cooperation on North Sea windfarms and negotiations to align the UK and EU carbon trading scheme could increase investment, improve energy security and generate billions of pounds in additional revenue.But there are still limits to this revived EU-UK relationship and it will never go far enough or fast enough to satisfy the many Labour supporters convinced that Brexit was a catastrophic mistake. Those close to Starmer emphasise he’s less interested in “relitigating old arguments from the previous decade” than in finding new ways to pursue the national interest now that “the era of globalisation is over”. Downing Street believes that part of the appeal of both Trump and our homegrown strain of rightwing populism lies in how institutions like the EU became too detached from the people they were meant to serve. In short, they’re determined not to be seen defending the status quo.The UK wants any security pact to include data-sharing on illegal immigration, which the EU, for its own arcane reasons, may be unwilling to accept. The government will insist that any defence deal must also allow British industry to bid for contracts from a massive new European rearmament fund. That agreement, in turn, could yet be held up by rows with a French government demanding concessions over fish quotas. The hope is that our political leaders prove big enough to hurdle such obstacles. But economic nationalism is not confined to the White House and making meaningful progress in Europe has never been easy.Though Arsenal’s Champions League victory will have been the high point of Starmer’s week, he may reflect that his team haven’t yet reached the semi-final stage of the competition. In politics, as in football, there is much to play for in Europe, and a long way to go.

      Tom Baldwin is the author of Keir Starmer: The Biography More

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      in Elections

      As Trump Upends Global Trade, Europe Sees an Opportunity

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      President Trump has big ambitions for the global trading system and is using tariffs to try to rip it down and rebuild it. But the European Union is taking action after action to make sure the continent is at the center of whatever world comes next.As one of the globe’s biggest and most open economies, the E.U. has a lot on the line as the rules of trade undergo a once-in-a-generation upheaval. Its companies benefit from sending their cars, pharmaceuticals and machinery overseas. Its consumers benefit from American search engines and foreign fuels.Those high stakes aren’t lost on Europe.Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, the E.U.’s executive arm, has spent the past several weeks on calls and in meetings with global leaders. She and her colleagues are wheeling and dealing to deepen existing trade agreements and strike new ones. They are discussing how they can reduce barriers between individual European countries.And they are talking tough on China, trying to make sure that it does not dump cheap metals and chemicals onto the European market as it loses access to American customers because of high Trump tariffs.It’s an explicit strategy, meant to leave the economic superpower stronger and less dependent on an increasingly fickle America. As Ms. von der Leyen and her colleagues regularly point out, the U.S. consumer market is big — but not the be-all-end-all.“The U.S. makes up 13 percent of global goods trade,” Maros Sefcovic, the E.U.’s trade commissioner, said in a recent speech. The goal “is to protect the remaining 87 percent and make sure that the global trade system prevails for the rest of us.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in US Politics

      China raises tariffs on US goods to 125% as Xi urges EU to resist Trump ‘bullying’

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      China has raised its tariffs on US products to 125% in the latest salvo of the trade dispute with Washington, just hours after Xi Jinping said there were “no winners in a tariff war”.Xi made the comments during a meeting with the Spanish prime minister in which he invited the EU to work with China to resist “bullying”, part of an apparent campaign to shore up other trading partners.The Chinese commerce ministry announced on Friday that it was raising the 84% tariffs on all US imports to 125%, again saying that China was ready to “fight to the end”. The statement also suggested it may be Beijing’s last move in the tit-for-tat tariff raises as “at the current tariff level, there is no market acceptance for US goods exported to China”.“If the US continues to impose tariffs on Chinese goods exported to the US, China will ignore it,” it said, flagging that there were other countermeasures to come.Some markets continued to tumble on Friday, as the French president, Emmanuel Macron, described the US president’s 90-day tariff pause – which sets most tariffs at 10% until July – as “fragile”.Asian indices followed Wall Street lower on Friday, with Japan’s Nikkei down nearly 5% and Hong Kong stocks heading towards the biggest weekly decline since 2008. Oil prices were also expected to drop for a second consecutive week.Chinese officials have been canvassing other trading partners about how to deal with the US tariffs, after the country was excluded from Trump’s 90-day pause of the steepest global tariffs. Instead the US president made consecutive increases to duties on Chinese imports, which are now 145%.On Friday, Xi welcomed Spain’s Pedro Sánchez, after also talking to counterparts in Saudi Arabia and South Africa. According to the official Chinese summary of the talks, Xi said “there will be no winners in a tariff war, and going against the world will isolate oneself”, in an apparent reference to the US.“China and the EU should fulfil their international responsibilities, jointly maintain the trend of economic globalisation and the international trade environment, and jointly resist unilateral bullying, not only to safeguard their own legitimate rights and interests, but also to safeguard international fairness and justice, and to safeguard international rules and order,” the summary said Xi told Sánchez.Spain said Sánchez told Xi his country favoured a more balanced relationship between the EU and China based on negotiations to resolve differences and cooperation in areas of common interest.Xi plans to travel to south-east Asia, including Vietnam and Cambodia, next week.Macron wrote on X early on Friday that Trump’s partial tariff suspension, pausing new rates on various countries that would have risen as high as 50%, “sends out a signal and leaves the door open for talks. But this pause is a fragile one.”He added: “This 90-day pause means 90 days of uncertainty for all our businesses, on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond.”Battered financial markets were given a brief reprieve on Wednesday when Trump decided to pause duties on dozens of countries. However, his escalating trade dispute with China, the world’s second-largest economy, has continued to fuel fears of recession and further retaliation.The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, tried to assuage the fears of sceptics by telling a cabinet meeting on Thursday that more than 75 countries wanted to start trade negotiations, and Trump had expressed hope of a deal with China.But the uncertainty in the meantime extended some of the most volatile trading since the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic.The US’s S&P 500 index ended 3.5% lower on Thursday and was now down about 15% from its all-time peak in February. Some analysts believe stocks have further to fall owing to the uncertainty surrounding the US tariff policy.Bessent shrugged off the renewed market sell-off on Thursday and predicted that striking deals with other countries would bring more certainty.The US and Vietnam agreed to begin formal trade talks after Bessent spoke to the Vietnamese deputy prime minister, Ho Duc Phoc, the White House said.The south-east Asian manufacturing hub is prepared to crack down on Chinese goods being shipped to the US via its territory in the hope of avoiding tariffs, Reuters reported on Friday.Taiwan’s president said his government would also be among the first batch of trading partners to enter negotiations. Taiwan, listed for a 32% tariff, has offered zero tariffs as a basis for talks.Japan’s prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, meanwhile, has set up a taskforce led by his close aide that hopes to visit Washington next week, according to local media.View image in fullscreenWhile Trump suddenly paused his “reciprocal” tariffs on other countries hours after they came into effect this week, he did not include China, instead increasing duties on Chinese imports as punishment for Beijing’s initial move to retaliate.Trump had imposed tariffs on Chinese goods of 145% since taking office, a White House official said.Meanwhile, Trump told reporters at the White House he thought the US could make a deal with China, but he reiterated his argument that Beijing had “really taken advantage” of the US for a long time.“I’m sure that we’ll be able to get along very well,” the US president said, referring to Xi. “In a true sense, he’s been a friend of mine for a long period of time, and I think that we’ll end up working out something that’s very good for both countries.”Xi and Trump are not known to have spoken since before Trump’s inauguration. Beijing has said it has no intention of backing down to what it terms as Trump’s “bullying” with the tariffs.“We will never sit idly by and watch while the legitimate rights and interests of the Chinese people are infringed, nor will we sit idly by as international economic and trade rules and the multilateral trading system are undermined,” the Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, Lin Jian, said on Thursday.As well as retaliatory tariffs, Beijing has also restricted imports of Hollywood films, and put 18 US companies on trade restriction lists.The commerce ministry said China’s door was open to dialogue but this must be based on mutual respect.The US tariff pause also does not apply to duties paid by Canada and Mexico, whose goods are still subject to 25% fentanyl-related tariffs unless they comply with the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement’s rules of origin.With trade hostilities persisting among the top three US trade partners, Goldman Sachs estimates the probability of a recession at 45%.Even with the rollback, the overall average import duty rate imposed by the US is the highest in more than a century, according to Yale University researchers.It also did little to soothe business leaders’ worries about the fallout from Trump’s trade dispute and its chaotic implementation: soaring costs, falling orders and snarled supply chains.One reprieve came, however, when the EU said it would pause its first counter-tariffs. More

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      in US Politics

      The big lesson for Europe? Trump backed down under pressure | Alexander Hurst

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      My condolences to everyone who spent days trying to play 5D chess with Donald Trump’s market-exploding tariff mess. Where Trump is involved, there is a cloud of malevolent chaos, and there is grift amid the chaos. What grandmasters there are to be found are almost certainly grandmasters of grift.When markets dump $10tn in three days and then gain trillions back in a single afternoon on the erratic decisions of one deeply corrupt person, you can be sure that a small number of people have made immense sums of money out of that volatility. Were the people responsible for abnormal spikes of buying into the markets (including call options on various indexes and exchange-traded funds) on Wednesday morning – and again, 20 minutes before the tariff announcement went public – extraordinarily lucky? Were they in the right Signal group? Or were they just simply following Trump on Truth Social, where he posted: “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT” –just a few hours before dropping the news that he was kind of pulling back.The first takeaway for the EU – beyond the potential stock tips – is that Trump will back down under pressure. So don’t grovel: the 10% universal tariff is still there, as are last month’s tariffs on steel and aluminum, so why has the EU unilaterally stepped down its retaliatory tariffs without a corresponding step-down from the US?Trump, of course, is spinning his partial U-turn as a result of “these countries … calling me, kissing my ass”, as he bragged to a gathering of congressional Republicans on Tuesday night. I have no doubt that Trump – whom hundreds of mental health professionals have described as having such a striking and serious case of malignant narcissism that they were willing to break a professional rule and diagnose him from a distance – would have loved for that to be true. But let me go out on a limb and say that it wasn’t the ass-kissing or any “deals”. It was that investors and funds the world over were fleeing anything and everything linked to the US – including its sovereign debt.There is a longstanding phenomenon whereby Europe tends to overvalue the US’s power and underestimate its own. Europe neither “kissed ass” nor retaliated over the “liberation day” tariffs; it observed as the market carnage and threat to US Treasury bonds punched a hole in the idea of the US as impregnable. Imagine how much faster the flood away from the US and to safety elsewhere (including the euro) would have been if the EU hadimmediately used its so-called bazooka, the anti-coercion instrument – a powerful new regulation that would allow it to target US services industries such as banking and tech.The second takeaway is that the rest of the world is ready to bypass the US’s chaos and unpredictability – it just needs Europe to be the alternative. What Trump also does not understand is that the US may have a trade deficit, but it was a net exporter of trust – until it blew up an interlocking economic and security order that it had designed, built and maintained over eight decades – and of which it was the primary beneficiary. As a result, the view from Brussels now is that “there is no long-term credibility” with the US, Claus Vistesen, of Pantheon Macroeconomics, told me.Europe, on the other hand, plays by the rules. In the long run the more dents Trump pounds into the rule of law and the idea that the US is stable, rather than erratic, the stronger the euro’s argument for replacing the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Which brings me to the third takeaway.In the face of the Trump administration’s very real animosity towards it, the EU must act as swiftly as possible to shore up its greatest weakness: its dependence on fossil-fuel imports. Sometimes, the animosity is almost laughably tragicomic, such as when US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick ranted that Europeans “hate our beef because our beef is beautiful and theirs is weak”. Other times, it’s more transparent, such as when Trump claimed there would be no negotiations unless the Europeans “pay us a lot of money on a yearly basis, number one for present, but also for past”. As in, in Trump’s mind, $350bn in annual purchases of US natural gas in exchange for lifting tariffs.Over the past few months, the refrain that governments should weaken climate regulation in order to promote growth has picked up. This would be a truly pyrrhic victory – primarily because Europe is acutely vulnerable to climate breakdown, the human and financial costs of which are staggeringly worse at every half-degree of heating, but also because the EU’s dependence on imported fossil fuels – from Russia, or from the US – is a glaring strategic and economic weakness. In fact, the grand irony of Trump’s pro-fossil fuel agenda is that he has exploded the green re-industrialisation that actually was taking place, thanks to Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, leaving the door wide open for someone else.So, to paraphrase the tech bros, if Trump is going to move fast and break things, then let’s move fast and build things.“Europe can turn this into a window of opportunity to further its edge with the US on clean tech,” says Simone Tagliapietra of the Brussels thinktank Bruegel. He advocates for a decarbonisation bank, completing the single market as urged by Mario Draghi, and issuing new eurobonds.The mantra going forward should be “whatever it takes” to fully replace fossil fuels with renewables – designed in Europe, built in Europe – so that it never spends $350bn to import gas from the US, Russia, or anywhere else.

      Alexander Hurst is a Guardian Europe correspondent More

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      in Elections

      Coalition Deal in Germany Clears Way for Friedrich Merz to Become Chancellor

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      The agreement was concluded relatively quickly but still took about six and half weeks, during which the country had been virtually rudderless at a critical moment for Europe.Germany’s centrist parties announced on Wednesday that they had formally reached a coalition agreement to allow Friedrich Merz, a conservative, to take the reins as chancellor at a tumultuous moment when Europe’s economic and security order is being upended.Since Mr. Merz’s Christian Democrats came out on top in elections in February, he has been under tremendous pressure to get a government moving as the Trump administration batters Europe with tariffs, threatens the NATO alliance and cozies up to an aggressive and expansionist Russia.Sensing the urgency, Mr. Merz took the exceptional step of using the interim period to push measures through Parliament to raise debt limits so that Germany could throw billions more at infrastructure and military spending. The coalition agreement announced on Wednesday was the fastest since 2009, when Angela Merkel won her second term.Nonetheless, Germany, Europe’s largest economy, has been left virtually leaderless during the multiple overlapping global crises.“We don’t yet know which direction the international situation will take, but that is why our message today is all the clearer: In this global change we want to — and we will — help shape Germany,” Mr. Merz told reporters as the coalition plan was presented.Responding to a question from a reporter, Mr. Merz took a moment to address President Trump directly, in English. “The key message to Donald Trump is Germany is back on track,” he said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in US Politics

      Trump is targeting US universities as never before. Here are four ways to help them | Cas Mudde

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      Universities in the US are under attack. While the Trump administration pretends to punish them for their alleged compliance with or support for “antisemitism” (ie pro-Gaza demonstrations) and “anti-white racism” (ie diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives), the real targets are academic freedom and freedom of speech. Going after the most prominent and privileged universities, such as Columbia and Harvard, kills two birds with one stone: it garners prime media attention and spreads fear among other, far less privileged universities.The rest of the world has taken note and has started to respond, though mostly without knowing much about the specifics of US academia and without asking US-based academics what they need. Obviously, different academics face different challenges – depending on, for example, their gender and race, legal status, the state they live in and the university they work at – but here are some suggestions from a white, male, tenured green-card holder working at a public university in a GOP-controlled state.It is important to understand exactly how the Trump administration is attacking universities. Unlike in countries such as China or Turkey, academics are (so far) not imprisoned, while most universities or their leaderships have not been taken over by the state, as they have been in countries such as Hungary and Turkey. However, public universities are often overseen by heavily politicised boards and there are some individual cases of university takeovers – most notably, the New College of Florida. Rather, the attack is financial, but with clear political motivations.Universities that support – or even tolerate – protests, research or speech that go against the preferences of the Trump administration are investigated and their federal funding is frozen or cut. While DEI initiatives and research on climate breakdown or gender and sexuality are not technically banned, they can lead to heavy financial repercussions for the universities that engage in or tolerate them. And in neoliberal academia, money talks. University administrators are beholden to university boards mostly made up of businesspeople, who value financial growth over academic freedom. It was therefore disappointing, if unsurprising, that the presidents of Columbia and Harvard yielded to Trump’s demands, even if that did save neither them nor their university.Given that the main threat is financial, and the US spends almost twice as much on research and development as the EU, it is clear that other countries can only do so much. Moreover, given that the Trump administration is largely uninterested in dissenting opinions, let alone those from abroad, and the US is too powerful to coerce politically, we should be realistic about what Europeans can do. But even if they cannot stop the attacks on US academia, different groups can help US-based academics in other ways. I will focus on four groups: academics, journalists, universities and governments.Boycotts and petitions are the favourite forms of political protest of academics. On social media, many European academics have already declared that they will no longer travel to the US, for work or leisure, at least while Trump is in power. While these boycotts make sense as a form of self-protection, given the string of recent detentions and deportations, they will do little to support US-based academics. They could instead lend their support by offering to host targeted data and research on open websites in Europe.European journalists have covered the attacks on Columbia and Harvard with as much fervour as they did with the alleged “wokeness” of universities. Covering the attacks on US academia is important, particularly if it moves beyond the Ivy League in the north-east and includes public universities in states such as Florida and Texas. However, this will not sway the Trump administration. What journalists can do, however, is be more sensitive to the situation of US-based academics and administrators when they approach them for interviews.I understand that the plight of my colleagues and me makes an interesting story for you, but it can also create more problems for us. Given that at many public universities communication through official email accounts (and sometimes even through university computers) is subject to “open records” legislation, anything your interviewees write could be made public and used politically and professionally. Hence, at the very least, ask whether your interviewees want to communicate through their official work email or through a private one. And be aware of the potential risks your story might have for that academic – is that “provocative question” really worth the risk for your interviewee?Recently, several European universities, such as Aix-Marseille University in France and Free University Brussels, have set up initiatives to provide a haven to “the biggest victims of this political and ideological interference”. But three-year programmes and one-year postdocs are neither attractive nor structural solutions, particularly if they are meant to attract “outstanding scholars”. In fact, they can seem more driven by self-interest (good PR). If universities want to make a difference, for at least some individual academics, ensure that they can continue their thriving career at your institution. And focus your support primarily on scholars who are individually targeted and who, just like many “top” scholars, are working at public universities rather than Ivy Leagues.Several European countries have also started to discuss plans to bring leading international scientists to Europe. Few have been so blunt as the minister of education, culture and science in the Netherlands, Eppo Bruins, who defended his initiative in classic Dutch mercantile language: “Top scientists are worth their weight in gold for our country and for Europe.” Support for US-based academics should also benefit the supporting countries and institutions, but it should not be at the expense of Dutch and European academics. The Dutch government announced this initiative just days after academics from universities around the country had been striking in protest against the draconic cuts on higher education by that same government.The EU has a phenomenal opportunity to attract some of the best researchers in the world from the US, but these initiatives must be integrated into a much broader strategy for, and investment in, European academia. It might only benefit some individual, high-profile researchers at first, but there will be an economic effect. That might force even the Trump administration to change course.

      Cas Mudde is the Stanley Wade Shelton UGAF professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia, and author of The Far Right Today

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      British and French military chiefs discuss plans to build on ‘formidable capabilities’ of Ukrainian army in peacekeeping talks

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      British and French military chiefs have met their counterparts in Ukraine to discuss how Sir Keir Starmer’s “coalition of the willing” can “build on the formidable capabilities of the Ukrainian army”.Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, the chief of the UK defence staff, was in Kyiv this week for talks on the structure, size and make-up of the Ukraine force, in the event of a peace deal between Volodymyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin. Sir Tony said: “The UK is ironclad in our support for Ukraine, which is why we’re stepping up for a just and lasting peace. “Our meetings looked at how we can build on the formidable capabilities of the Ukrainian army and put them in the strongest possible position to deter Russian aggression.Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Sir Tony Radakin (Andrew Matthews/PA) More