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      Trump 100 days: ‘unpredictable’ US alienates allies and disrupts global trade

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      For US foreign policy, Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office were the weeks when decades happened.In just over three months, the US president has frayed alliances that stood since the second world war and alienated the US’s closest friends, cut off aid to Ukrainians on the frontlines against Vladimir Putin, emboldened US rivals around the world, brokered and then lost a crucial ceasefire in Gaza, launched strikes on the Houthis in Yemen and seesawed on key foreign policy and economic questions to the point where the US has been termed the “unpredictable ally”.The tariffs Trump has unleashed will, if effected, disrupt global trade and lead to supply chain shocks in the United States, with China’s Xi Jinping seeking to recruit US trade allies in the region.The pace of the developments in the past 100 days makes them difficult to list. Operating mainly through executive action, the Trump administration has affected nearly all facets of US foreign policy: from military might to soft power, from trade to immigration, reimagining the US’s place in the world according to an isolationist America First program.“The shake-up has been revolutionary, extraordinary. It’s upended 80-some years of American foreign policy,” said Ivo Daalder, president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and a former ambassador to Nato.The Trump presidency has ended the relative peace in the western hemisphere since the end of the second world war underwritten by US economic, military and diplomatic influence, Daalder said.“The foundation of the Pax Americana was trust, and once you break trust, it’s extraordinarily difficult to restore,” he said. “And restoring trust – trust in America, trust in American institutions, trust in American voters – it takes a long time to rebuild.”The US’s key foreign policy and national security making institutions are in crisis. The Pentagon is mid-meltdown under the leadership of Pete Hegseth, whose erratic and unsteady leadership has been reflected in score-settling among his senior staff, while a leaked Signal chat embroiled the national security adviser, Mike Waltz, and others in scandal. The state department under Marco Rubio is undergoing a vast shake-up, and the US’s diplomats are being sidelined in favour of envoys such as Steve Witkoff with little background in foreign policy. Critics say the gutting of USAID will cut back on US soft power for generations.“There’s no better way to get us into a war, perhaps a catastrophic war, than essentially poking out your eyes and numbing your brain, and you’re left with Donald Trump and a few people sitting in the White House winging it, and they’re not competent to wing it,” said Steven Cash, a former intelligence officer for the CIA and Department of Homeland Security, and the executive director of the Steady State, an advocacy group of former national security professionals. “And so we’ve seen that with the tariffs. We’ve seen that with Nato. We’ve seen that with Ukraine, and we’re gonna see a lot more of it.”After assuming office in 2021, Joe Biden declared: “America is back.”“The world now knows America is not back,” Daalder said. “America is gone again.”In a recent interview with the Zeit newspaper, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, expressed similar sentiments, saying: “The west as we knew it no longer exists.”View image in fullscreenIn Munich, JD Vance delivered a landmark speech openly pandering to Europe’s far right, accusing European leaders of “running from their own voters” and saying: “America can do nothing to help you.”A backlash has begun. Last month the EU presented an €800bn ($913bn) plan on the future of European defense, a putative step in what would be a herculean task to overcome internal divisions and onshore European defense manufacturing. The UK and other US allies have considered other efforts, such as limiting intelligence-sharing with the US. “We still need America now, but there is a vision [of a time] when we won’t any more,” said one European diplomat.Meanwhile, the Trump effect is beginning to sway elections as well – though not as he might hope.In the western hemisphere, Trump has terrorised US neighbours and tacitly declared what some have compared to a new Monroe doctrine, saying the White House planned to “take back” the Panama canal and annex Greenland, while regularly calling Canada the future 51st state.In an extraordinary bit of election-day meddling, Trump wrote a social media post suggesting that he was on the ballot in Canada’s vote, repeating that Canada should become the 51st state in order to avoid tariffs and reap economic awards.Canadians responded by duly electing the liberal candidate Mark Carney, completing a 30% swing in polling that has largely been explained by opposition to Trump’s tariff war and territorial menaces.In Europe, populist parties seen as Trump’s ideological allies are also on the defensive. While Trump was popular in terms of his ideological and anti-woke agenda, the trade war has made him “quite toxic, just in the last month or two, with a lot of the populist voting bases”, said Jeremy Shapiro, the research director of the European Council on Foreign Relations and a former special adviser to the assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia.Nowhere has the shift in US foreign policy been felt more acutely than in Ukraine, where the sudden cutoff in US military and intelligence sharing confirmed the Trump administration’s goals of pressuring Ukraine to accept a deal with the Kremlin, rather than the other way around. Those frustrations boiled over into an Oval Office meltdown fueled by Vice-President JD Vance that one former US official close to the talks called “disgraceful”.Trump has swung wildly on the war, on certain days targeting Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a “dictator” and then quickly pivoting to call out Putin for continuing to rain down missiles on Ukrainian cities. His theatrics have produced symbolic moments, including a sudden recognition that “maybe [Putin] doesn’t want to stop the war” after speaking with Zelenskyy this weekend in the baptistry of St Peter’s Basilica. But in terms of hard results, Trump has not fulfilled a promise to end the war within 24 hours or produced a clear path to peace many months later.View image in fullscreenThe Russians have said they largely tune out what he says in public.“We hear many things coming from President Trump,” said Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, during a television appearance this weekend. “We concentrate, as I said, on the real negotiations which President Trump supports and instructed his people to continue to engage in these negotiations.”Key among those people is Witkoff, a neophyte diplomat who has spent hours in conversation with Putin, often with no other adviser present. One person close to the Kremlin said that Witkoff was viewed as a reliable negotiator in Moscow with “a chance to make an agreement”, but added: “There is a chance it will pass by.”Much of the burden of international diplomacy now rests on Witkoff, who is also running point on other key negotiations. Trump has tasked him with reaching a deal to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, in effect renegotiating the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that he scuttled in 2018. Both the US and Iran have played up the talks, although “differences still exist both on major issues and on the details”, the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, told state television this week.And then there is the Middle East, where the Trump administration scored its greatest early success by negotiating a ceasefire in Gaza but then failed to prevent its collapse, with Israel cutting off new aid to Gaza as the fighting continues.“There now seems to be less focus on ending the devastating conflict,” wrote Stefanie Hausheer Ali, a non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs. “Trump’s threat in February to Hamas to release the hostages or ‘all hell is going to break out’ has, in practice, meant Israel restarting the war and blocking humanitarian aid from entering Gaza. Without an alternative to Hamas rule, the militant group may hang on and continue to fight as an insurgency, replenishing its ranks by recruiting desperate people.”Trump’s most extreme remarks have turned out to be bluster: he stunned the world when he claimed that he would turn the Gaza Strip into beachfront condos and said that the local Palestinian population would be forcibly removed. Months later, the initiative is largely forgotten.While attempting to close three landmark negotiations at once, the Trump administration has also launched a trade war with the entire world, establishing sweeping tariffs on all foreign imports before abruptly reversing course and cutting tariffs to 10% save for those against China.With so many major efforts ongoing, observers say that the government is largely paralysed to deal with smaller but still crucial issues in foreign policy and national security. As part of a blanket ban on refugees, tens of thousands of Afghans who assisted US troops against the Taliban are left waiting for relocation to the United States, a promise that was extended by previous administrations.“The lack of clarity and the chaos are the things that are causing so much pain,” said Shawn VanDiver, the founder and president of #AfghanEvac, a group that works with the state department to help resettle Afghans.He said he was critical of both the Biden and Trump administrations for failing to relocate the tens of thousands of Afghans who were far enough along in the vetting program to be relocated before Trump came into office.“The truth is, is that when America makes a promise, you should be able to trust our word,” he said. “If our flag waving over an embassy in Tunisia or Baghdad or Kabul, or Kyiv doesn’t mean this is the place where there’s truth, where there’s justice … well, then what are we even doing here?” More

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      Donald Trump, beware – this is what a global liberal fightback looks like | Timothy Garton Ash

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      Liberals of all countries, unite! Just as anti-liberal powers outside the west are becoming stronger than ever, the assault on everything we stand for has been joined by the United States. Against this massed onslaught of anti-liberal nationalists we need a determined fightback of liberal internationalists. Canada’s election this week can contribute a strong mounted brigade.A core insight of liberalism is that, if people are to live together well in conditions of freedom, power always needs to be dispersed, cross-examined and controlled. Faced with the raw, bullying assertion of might, whether from Washington, Moscow or Beijing, we now have to create countervailing concentrations of power. In the long history of liberalism, a free press, the law, labour unions, a business community kept separate from political power, NGOs, truth-seeking institutions such as universities, civil resistance, multilateral organisations and international alliances have all served – alongside multiparty politics and regular free and fair elections – to constrain the men who would be kings.In rallying everyone who believes in equal individual liberty to this fight, we liberals have a problem of our own making. Policies associated in many people’s minds with liberalism over the last 40 years have themselves fed the reservoirs of popular discontent from which nationalist populists continue to draw support. Neoliberalism, hypercharged through a globalised financialised capitalism, has led to levels of inequality not seen for a hundred years. An identity politics intended to remedy the historic disadvantages of selected minorities has left many other members of our societies – especially white, male, working and middle class – feeling themselves culturally as well as economically neglected. Both these approaches reneged on liberalism’s central promise, lucidly summarised by the philosopher Ronald Dworkin as “equal respect and concern” for all.Neoliberalism has also turned the world’s most powerful democracy into something very close to oligarchy. The separation of private wealth and public power – a precious and fragile innovation of modern liberal democracy – has been reversed. Insatiable plutocrats such as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg are now supporters of Donald Trump’s political power, while he promotes his own and his rich pals’ economic interests. With the help of the media and platforms the plutocrats control, Trump persuades many ordinary Americans that their suffering is entirely due to foreigners (immigrants, China), while in reality it is more likely to be the fault of people such as Musk, Bezos and Zuckerberg.So we have to fight simultaneously on two fronts: with the enemies of liberalism and the problems created by liberalism itself. Unity will be strength. If we each try to negotiate separately with the bullies, be they in Washington, Moscow or Beijing, they will pick us off one by one.These coalitions of counter-power will be composed of states, but also of civil society actors and active citizens. At least half the population of the United States is with us. Electoral authoritarian states such as Turkey and Hungary also have lots of would-be-free citizens. The world’s largest example of applied liberal internationalism, the 27-country European Union, will be crucial to the fightback. So will major individual democracies including Britain, Canada, Japan and Australia.We need to do many things at once. Promoting free trade against Trumpian beggar-thy-neighbour protectionism is an obvious starting point. It’s also easier said than done, since mutually beneficial trading arrangements take time to craft. Yet there are some accessible immediate wins. A trade agreement between the EU and the Mercosur group of Latin American states only awaits ratification by all relevant parties. Britain and the EU should be more ambitious at their upcoming summit on 19 May. The EU doesn’t need anyone else’s involvement for it to create a single digital space and unified capital markets, nor to build up European defence industries, which would also be a neo-Keynesian economic stimulus.The monopolistic platforms and mega-wealth of the American oligarchs are a danger to all other countries. If the EU were prepared to use its regulatory superpower, coordinated with the efforts of other liberal democracies, we could do more to curb them. But regulation and taxation alone are not enough.Whether in Europe, Canada, Australia or Japan, our entire digital infrastructure is effectively American. Imagine one day your iPhone and iPad stopped working, along with your cloud provider, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Twitter (AKA X-itter). What would be left? TikTok! “And Bluesky”, you may add, referencing the liberal social platform of choice. But that too is American. This is not only about infrastructure. It’s about how we create the digital public sphere essential for the future of liberal democracy.Civil society initiatives can also help. Why, for example, haven’t we already seen a major statement of solidarity with embattled US universities from universities across the liberal world?So can consumer protests. The impact of a largely spontaneous boycott of Tesla cars is pushing Musk to return to his business activity, cutting the leisure time he can spend on vandalising his country’s administrative state. Canadians now have the BuyBeaver app on their phones, so they can avoid US-made goods. (I hope they boycott Russian ones too.)It’s also a matter of fighting style. Anti-liberal nationalists use the bludgeon, we the rapier. When they go low, we go high. When they go ape, we stay cool. When they lie through their teeth, we stand by the facts.In foreign policy, the most urgent challenge is to save Ukraine, which Trump is throwing under the bus. The fact that he is pressing the Ukrainians to abandon even their legal claim to Crimea being part of Ukrainian sovereign territory shows how supporting Ukraine is now essential to defending fundamental principles of liberal international order.What emerges after this hurricane will not be the same as before. It will be transformed both by us learning from our own mistakes, so as to build back better, and by the revolutionary impact of Trump. A liberal democratic constellation that is not fundamentally secured by the US “liberal leviathan”, in the Princeton scholar John Ikenberry’s striking phrase, will be something very different from what we knew between 1945 and 2025.Even the geography will change. Canada, for example, which once seemed – in the nicest possible way – somewhat peripheral to world affairs, comfortably tucked up there between a friendly America and a frozen Arctic, now suddenly looks like a frontline state. One of the world’s most liberal countries is, beside Ukraine, one of the most directly threatened by Trump’s anti-liberal assault. And the thawing Arctic is a major new theatre of international competition. Fortunately, it looks as if Canada is going to have a government that is not just Liberal in name but also combatively liberal in nature.A quarter-century ago, when the United States was attacked by Islamist terrorists on 11 September 2001, the editor of Le Monde wrote a famous banner headline: “We are all Americans!” Today, friends of liberty the world over should say: “We are all Canadians!”

      Timothy Garton Ash is a historian, political writer and Guardian columnist More

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      In Poland, we know all about fighting illiberal regimes. Here are our lessons for the Trump age | Jarosław Kuisz and Karolina Wigura

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      In 2016, one year after the rightwing populist Law and Justice party won an overall majority in Poland, there was a knock at a door. The mother of a young journalist opened it. To her astonishment, it was the security services looking for her son. No details were provided. Thus began an informal campaign by the authorities against the media and civil society in Poland, including our thinktank, Kultura Liberalna. After hearing the news about the journalist, we called Aleksander Smolar. The legendary anti-communist dissident, who ran his own NGO, told us that the security services were also trying to arrange “informal” meetings with his staff. And he comforted us: “Don’t worry, we’ve had a playbook for this kind of situation since the 1960s.”At that moment, we almost travelled back in time. We spoke about responding to this new regime as if we were once again under communism. What is striking in retrospect is that we all knew what to do. Our eastern European political culture, shaped by historical catastrophes, has developed some antibodies against oppressive power. Over the past centuries, the state has often been wiped off the map or occupied by foreign aggressors. Adversity sparks initiative.So, what advice did the former dissident give us? First, we started speaking publicly about what was happening. Second, we demanded that the security service officers present their actions in writing and with legal justification. As a result, the campaign disappeared as quickly as it appeared.But political harassment continued in other forms. The more emboldened the authorities became, the more elaborate (or crude) the stigmatisation of ideological opponents was. Soon, one thing became clear: as under communism, the political battlefield was everywhere. It touched every area of public life. Founding our thinktank in a democracy, we never imagined having to face political invigilation. That was naive.Our own struggle didn’t end with the Polish liberal opposition’s victory in 2023. What’s more, political attacks now take a transatlantic shape. As US Vice-President JD Vance made clear in his Munich speech in February, in which he attacked European leaders, American rightwing populism has global ambitions.So here is a handful of suggestions for Americans and others who seem disoriented and overwhelmed.First: go beyond digital activism. A wave of anti-Trump street demonstrations recently swept across the US. In the age of social media, that might seem like an outdated or secondary tactic. But it’s not. In a time of effortless communication and online petitions, physical work matters twice as much. It sends a nonverbal message of urgency and sacrifice, and – more importantly – signals an invitation to fellow citizens to join. These protests should be regular and designed for the long haul. They should be citizen-led. Initially, flexible horizontal structures, ready for quick response, turned out to be more effective in practice in our experience.Second: no ageism, please. As our own history shows, opposing populism in power is possible only if intergenerational solidarity takes place. We heard a reporter sneer that the New York, anti-Trump protest crowd skewed old. So did ours in Poland! Yet over time, younger people joined in as the burdens of populism became more personal. Again – diversity matters most. Not just in communication tools, but in the social makeup of the protest movement.Third: it’s always the constitution, stupid. One hallmark of authoritarianism is the erosion of constitutional law. It’s not about abstract legal theories – it’s about changing the rules of the state without formal approval. Donald Trump’s musings about a potential third term are a prime example. The US constitution clearly forbids it. But the very mention signals a willingness to operate outside the legal order. Polish populists broke the constitution almost immediately after taking power. The consequences are still with us. What helped was keeping a detailed record of key legal violations.View image in fullscreenJust as important was documenting the repression of civil society – like the example this article opened with. In an age of short attention spans, civil society must archive the illegality of populism – for rapid and effective accountability afterwards. The constitution is the terrain of the battlefield.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionFourth: don’t leave. Populists in power try to persuade neutral officials, such as public prosecutors, to resign from their government positions. Ideally, they want to rid their political opponents from the country. But don’t let them force you into exile, if you can help it; resistance on the ground will be crucial, just as it was for figures in the anti-communist opposition in eastern Europe before 1989.Fifth: plan ahead. Perhaps the most psychologically difficult task is extending a hand to those with whom you have political disagreements. The facts are hard to ignore: in democracies, populists win through elections. Hardliners won’t change, but the 10-20% of swing voters in the centre can be decisive.Regaining power is possible but requires a dual-track approach. Use social media to shape political narratives. But also, unplug. Switch on to political aeroplane mode. Think long-term. Don’t get caught in the news cycle or buried under the “flood the zone” avalanche of absurdities populists use to wear down their critics.Plan for the next presidential election. It’s not enough to promise justice and institutional repair. You also need a compelling vision – a positive, practical alternative to the populist programme. Without it, the fuel runs out – even if you win an election. And have patience. Ultimately, the fight for democracy is never about just one election. Populism existed even in Periclean Athens. Which is why the struggle for liberal democracy requires a warm heart and a cool head. This is the core of the anti-authoritarian playbook.

      Jarosław Kuisz is editor-in-chief of the Polish weekly Kultura Liberalna and the author of The New Politics of Poland: A Case of Post-Traumatic Sovereignty

      Karolina Wigura is a Polish historian and co-author of Post-Traumatic Sovereignty: An Essay (Why the Eastern European Mentality is Different) More

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      Son of CIA deputy director was killed while fighting for Russia, report says

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      An American man identified as the son of a deputy director of the CIA was killed in eastern Ukraine in 2024 while fighting under contract for the Russian military, according to an investigation by independent Russian media.Michael Alexander Gloss, 21, died on 4 April 2024 in “Eastern Europe”, according to an obituary published by his family. He was the son of Juliane Gallina, who was appointed the deputy director for digital innovation at the Central Intelligence Agency in February 2024.The story of how the son of a top-ranking US spy died fighting for Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is an unlikely tale of how homegrown anger at the United States and online radicalisation led from a middle-class Virginia childhood to the killing fields of eastern Ukraine.On a VKontakte page attributed to Gloss, a high school football player born to parents who both served in the military, he described himself as “a supporter of the multipolar world. I ran away from home. traveled the world. I hate fascism. I love my homeland.” He also posted the flags of Russia and Palestine.According to the investigative website iStories, Gloss is one of more than 1,500 foreigners who have signed contracts with the Russian military since February 2022. The database for the enrollment office was later leaked, exposing him as having signed the contract in September 2023. Sources told iStories that Gloss had been deployed with “assault units”, those engaged in harsh frontline fighting, in December 2023. An acquaintance said that he had been deployed to a Russian airborne regiment sent to storm Ukrainian positions near the city of Soledar.“With his noble heart and warrior spirit Michael was forging his own hero’s journey when he was tragically killed in Eastern Europe on April 4, 2024,” his family wrote in the obituary, which did not mention Russia and Ukraine or discuss the circumstances of his death.In university, Gloss was active in gender equality and environmental protest circles. He joined Rainbow Family, a leftwing environmental protest group, and in 2023 traveled to Hatay, Turkey, to assist in the recovery following the earthquake that killed more than 56,000 people. He had also become increasingly angry at the US for its support of Israel and the war in Gaza.While in Turkey, Gloss began expressing a desire to go on to Russia. “He was usually watching videos about Palestine and was so angry at America,” one acquaintance told iStories. “He started thinking about going to Russia. He wanted to war with the USA. But I think he was very influenced by the conspiracy theory videos.”After receiving a visa to Russia, he traveled around the country before arriving in Moscow, where he joined the military shortly before his documents expired. Photographs and videos obtained by iStories showed he was sent to a Russian training camp, where he mostly trained alongside Nepali contract soldiers. Three months after enlisting, an acquaintance said, he was deployed to Ukraine as a member of an assault battalion.A number of acquaintances told the outlet that he had not been interested in fighting, but hoped the army would allow him to receive a Russian passport and stay in the country.The circumstance’s of Gloss’s death are not known. A friend said that his family had been informed by the Russian government of his death but were given little other information. “It was announced that he died within the borders of Ukraine,” the friend wrote. “We do not know whether he participated in the war. They did not provide any other detailed information.”It was not clear whether the Russians performed a background check on Gloss or knew the identity of his mother. The Guardian has approached the CIA for comment on the reports. More

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      Ukraine, Gaza and Iran: can Witkoff secure any wins for Trump?

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      Donald Trump’s version of Pax Americana, the idea that the US can through coercion impose order on the world, is facing its moment of truth in Ukraine, Gaza and Iran.In the words of the former CIA director William Burns, it is in “one of those plastic moments” in international relations that come along maybe twice a century where the future could take many possible forms.The US’s aim has been to keep the three era-defining simultaneous sets of negotiations entirely separate, and to – as much as possible – shape their outcome alone. The approach is similar to the trade talks, where the intention is for supplicant countries to come to Washington individually bearing gifts in return for access to US markets.The administration may have felt it had little choice given the urgency, but whether it was wise to launch three such ambitious peace missions, and a global trade war, at the same time is debatable.It is true each of the three conflicts are discrete in that they have distinctive causes, contexts and dynamics, but they are becoming more intertwined than seemed apparent at the outset, in part because there is so much resistance building in Europe and elsewhere about the world order Donald Trump envisages, and his chosen methods.In diplomacy nothing is hermetically sealed – everything is inter-connected, especially since there is a common thread between the three talks in the personality of the property developer Steven Witkoff, Trump’s great friend who is leading the US talks in each case, flitting from Moscow to Muscat.View image in fullscreenTo solve these three conflicts simultaneously would be a daunting task for anyone, but it is especially for a man entirely new to diplomacy and, judging by some of his remarks, also equally new to history.Witkoff has strengths, not least that he is trusted by Trump. He also knows the president’s mind – and what should be taken at face value. He is loyal, so much so that he admits he worshipped Trump in New York so profoundly that he wanted to become him. He will not be pursuing any other agenda but the president’s.But he is also stretched, and there are basic issues of competence. Diplomats are reeling from big cuts to the state department budget and there is still an absence of experienced staffers. Witkoff simply does not have the institutional memory available to his opposite numbers in Iran, Israel and Russia. For instance, most of the Iranian negotiating team, led by the foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, are veterans of the 2013-15 talks that led to the original Iran nuclear deal.Yuri Ushakov, Vladimir Putin’s chief foreign policy adviser, who attended the first Russian-US talks this year in Saudi Arabia, spent 10 years in the US as Russian ambassador. He was accompanied by Kirill Dmitriev, the head of the Russian sovereign wealth fund who then visited the US on 2 April.In the follow-up talks in Istanbul on 10 April, Aleksandr Darchiev, who has spent 33 years in the Russian foreign ministry and is Russian ambassador to the US, was pitted against a team led by Sonata Coulter, the new deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, who does not share Trump’s benign view of Russia.View image in fullscreenAs to the Gaza issue, Benjamin Netanyahu has lived the Palestinian conflict since he became Israel’s ambassador to the UN in 1984.Richard Nephew, a former US Iran negotiator, says the cuts to state department means the US “is at risk of losing a generation of expertise … It’s beyond tragedy. It’s an absolutely devastating national security blow with the evisceration of these folks. The damage could be permanent, we have to acknowledge this.”One withering European diplomat says: “It is as if Witkoff is trying to play three dimensional chess with chess grandmasters on three chessboards simultaneously, not having played the game before.”Bluntly, Witkoff knows he needs to secure a diplomatic win for his impatient boss. But the longer the three conflicts continue, the more entangled they become with one another, the more Trump’s credibility is questioned. Already, according to a Reuters Ipsos poll published this month, 59% of Americans think Trump is costing their country its credibility on the global stage.The risk for Trump is that the decision to address so much so quickly ends up not being a show of American strength but the opposite – the public erosion of a super power.In the hurry to seal a deal with Iran inside two months, Trump, unlike in all previous nuclear talks with Tehran, has barred complicating European interests from the negotiation room.To Iran’s relief, Witkoff has not tabled an agenda that strays beyond stopping Iran acquiring a nuclear bomb. He has not raised Iran’s supply of drones to Russia for use in Ukraine. Nor has he tabled demands that Iran end arms supplies to its proxies fighting Israel.That has alarmed Israel, and to a lesser extent Europe, which sees Iran’s desire to have sanctions lifted as a rare opportunity to extract concessions from Tehran. Israel’s strategic affairs minister, Ron Dermer, and Mossad’s head, David Barnea, met Witkoff last Friday in Paris to try to persuade him that when he met the Iran negotiating team the next day in Rome, he had to demand the dismantling of Tehran’s civil nuclear programme.Witkoff refused, and amid many contradictory statements the administration has reverted to insisting that Iran import the necessary enriched uranium for its civil nuclear programme, rather than enrich it domestically.Russia, in a sign of Trump’s trust, might again become the repository of Iran’s stocks of highly enriched uranium, as it was after the 2015 deal.Israel is also wary of Trump’s aggrandisement of Russia. The Israeli thinktank INSS published a report this week detailing how Russia, in search of anti-western allies in the global south for its Ukraine war, has shown opportunistic political support not just to Iran but to Hamas. Israel will also be uneasy if Russia maintains its role in Syria.But if Trump has upset Netanyahu over Iran, he is keeping him sweet by giving him all he asks on Gaza.Initially, Witkoff received glowing accolades about how tough he had been with Netanyahu in his initial meeting in January. It was claimed that Witkoff ordered the Israeli president to meet him on a Saturday breaking the Sabbath and directed him to agree a ceasefire that he had refused to give to Joe Biden’s team for months.As a result, as Trump entered the White House on 19 January, he hailed the “EPIC ceasefire agreement could have only happened as a result of our Historic Victory in November, as it signalled to the entire World that my Administration would seek Peace and negotiate deals to ensure the safety of all Americans, and our Allies”.But Netanyahu, as was widely predicted in the region, found a reason not to open talks on the second phase of the ceasefire deal – the release of the remaining hostages held in Gaza in exchange for a permanent end to the fighting.Witkoff came up with compromises to extend the ceasefire but Netanyahu rejected them, resuming the assault on Hamas on 19 March. The US envoy merely described Israel’s decision as “unfortunate, in some respects, but also falls into the had-to-be bucket”.View image in fullscreenNow Trump’s refusal to put any pressure on Israel to lift its six-week-old ban on aid entering Gaza is informing Europe’s rift with Trump. Marking 50 days of the ban this week, France, Germany and the UK issued a strongly worded statement describing the denial of aid as intolerable.The French president, Emmanuel Macron, is calling for a coordinated European recognition of the state of Palestine, and Saudi Arabia is insisting the US does not attack Iran’s nuclear sites.Witkoff, by contrast, has been silent about Gaza’s fate and the collapse of the “EPIC ceasefire”.But if European diplomats think Witkoff was naive in dealing with Netanyahu, it is nothing to the scorn they hold for his handling of Putin.The anger is partly because Europeans had thought that, after the Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s public row with Trump in the Oval Office, they had restored Ukraine’s standing in Washington by persuading Kyiv to back the full ceasefire that the US first proposed on 11 March.View image in fullscreenThe talks in Paris last week between Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, and European leaders also gave Europe a chance to point out it was Putin that was stalling over a ceasefire.But instead of putting any countervailing pressure on Russia to accept a ceasefire, Witkoff switched strategy. In the words of Bruno Tertrais, a non-resident fellow at the Institut of Montaigne, Witkoff is “is now presenting a final peace plan, very favourable to the aggressor, even before the start of the negotiations, which had been due to take place after a ceasefire”.No European government has yet criticised Trump’s lopsided plan in public since, with few cards to play, the immediate necessity is to try to prevent Trump acting on his threat to walk away. At the very least, Europe will argue that if Trump wants Ukraine’s resources, he has to back up a European force patrolling a ceasefire, an issue that receives only sketchy reference in the US peace plan.The Polish foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, addressing the country’s parliament on Wednesday, pointed to the necessity of these security guarantees. “Any arrangement with the Kremlin will only last so long as the Russian elite dreads the consequences of its breach,” he said.View image in fullscreenBut in a sense, Trump and Putin, according to Fiona Hill at the Brookings Institution, a Russia specialist in Trump’s first administration, may already have moved beyond the details of their Ukrainian settlement as they focus on their wider plan to restore the Russian-US relationship.It would be an era of great power collusion, not great power competition in which Gaza, Iran and Ukraine would be sites from which the US and Russia could profit.Writing on Truth Social about a phone call with Putin in February, Trump reported” “We both reflected on the Great History of our Nations, and the fact that we fought so successfully together in World War II … We each talked about the strengths of our respective Nations, and the great benefit that we will someday have in working together.”Witkoff has also mused about what form this cooperation might take. “Shared sea lanes, maybe send [liquefied natural] gas into Europe together, maybe collaborate on AI together,” he said, adding: “Who doesn’t want to see a world like that?” More

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      in US Politics

      Wednesday briefing: Can ​the latest ceasefire ​talks in London ​break the ​stalemate in Ukraine?

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      Good morning.Representatives from the US, Britain and France are gathering in London today to resume discussions with Ukrainian officials on a possible ceasefire in the war. Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, was scheduled to attend but announced at the last minute he would no longer be present – the White House’s Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, will be there in his place.Overnight, the US website Axios reported that Kellogg is arriving with a full, “final” US-Russia peace plan that reportedly includes official US recognition of Crimea as part of Russia and unofficial recognition of Russian control of nearly all areas occupied since the start of the invasion. Axios cited sources with direct knowledge of the proposal. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has made clear Kyiv has not been privy to any such negotiations and said on Tuesday that “there is nothing to talk about. This violates our constitution. This is our territory, the territory of the people of Ukraine.”This latest phase of talks follows a dubious 30-hour truce and several weeks of intensified Russian bombardment of Ukrainian cities, including a particularly brutal strike that killed at least 35 people in the north-eastern city of Sumy on Palm Sunday.The months of deadlock has frustrated Trump – last week, Rubio threatened that the president might ditch the process altogether if a resolution could not be found soon. “We are not going to continue with this endeavour for weeks and months on end,” Rubio said, adding that the US had “other priorities to focus on”.For today’s newsletter, I spoke with the Guardian’s defence and security editor, Dan Sabbagh, about the status of the peace talks, and what we can expect this week. That’s right after the headlines.Five big stories

      Tariffs | The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned of a “major negative shock” from Donald Trump’s tariffs and has cut growth forecasts for every major global economy. The lender cut the UK’s expected growth from 1.6% to 1.1%, a downward trend mirrored across the world.

      British Steel | Redundancy plans have been halted after the government took control of the Scunthorpe steelworks this month, potentially saving up to 2,700 jobs.

      US | Republican lawmakers have followed Donald Trump’s lead and rallied behind Pete Hegesth, the beleaguered US secretary of defence, who has defended his use of the Signal messaging app to share details of US military strikes on Yemen to a group including his wife and brother.

      UK | Number 10 has said that Keir Starmer no longer argues that trans women are women. Starmer said yesterday that he welcomed the “real clarity” of last week’s supreme court ruling on gender recognition.

      Health | More than 150,000 additional people in England are living with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) – or ME – than previously thought, with the total number thought to be about 404,000.
      In depth: A win-win for Russia?View image in fullscreenLast week, Emmanuel Macron hosted peace talks in Paris in an effort to reassert Europe’s role in bringing an end to the war in Ukraine. “Everyone wants to achieve peace – a robust and sustainable peace. The question is about phasing,” the French president said. The talks suggest Trump, increasingly frustrated by his inability to end the war in the decisive manner he promised, is seeking to involve Europe more directly in the negotiations – though it remains unclear whether any real progress is being made.Russia at the tableThough Vladimir Putin has paid lip service to the idea of peace – even going so far as to express a willingness to engage in bilateral talks with Ukraine for the first time in years – he has not seemed “particularly serious in his desire”, Dan says, in part because Moscow has continued to pursue its maximalist objectives of controlling all of Ukraine’s partially occupied provinces – Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.However, according to a report in the Financial Times, the Kremlin has said that it would halt its invasion of Ukraine along the current frontline if the US agreed that Crimea belonged to Russia. Ukraine has rejected any Russian claim on Crimea and reiterated that discussions should take place around the table, not in the headlines.The overall US proposal, thought to be linked to Trump’s threats to walk away from the table completely, is perhaps the first time since the early days of the war that Moscow is stepping back from its maximalist demands. On top of “de-facto recognition” of most of the occupied territories, the plan reported by Axios also includes assurances to Russia that Ukraine will not become a part of Nato, the lifting of sanctions against Russia and bigger economic cooperation between Russia and the US.In a previous attempt to pressure Kyiv into agreeing to a 30-day ceasefire, Trump has suspended all US military aid to Ukraine and blocked billions in critical shipments. There will likely be renewed pressure to accept these news terms.The change in Russia’s demands comes after Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, whom Ukraine has accused of peddling Russian narratives, met with Putin for several hours last week.What now?After today’s meetings in London, the US is expected to relay Ukraine’s response to Putin, as Witkoff is set to visit Moscow later this week in his fourth meeting with the Russian president.Ukraine’s priority seems to still be a 30-day ceasefire, as opposed to pivoting to this new US-led framework. How this will shake out in negotiations, as Trump grows increasingly tempestuous, is unclear.What if the US walks away?Bringing an end to this war has proven far more difficult than the Trump administration had hoped. Rubio’s suggestion that the US may be willing to withdraw from the talks and remove itself from the situation entirely, represent the most explicit expression of frustration and impatience so far. “To try and bring about peace is an action, but to not be involved is also an action that has consequences, such is the weight of US power,” Dan says.So what might that look like? US military aid and funding to Ukraine has already dropped significantly, with European allies stepping in to try to fill the gap. However, a complete withdrawal by Washington could still have serious consequences. “They could shut off some of the intelligence sharing, make it difficult for Ukraine to operate certain US-supplied weapons systems, which would certainly worsen Ukraine’s position on the battlefield, though it is unclear how much worse it would become,” Dan adds.“In any event, it would affect Ukrainian morale and their determination to resist Russian aggression.”Whether or not Trump ultimately walks away, this is a win-win scenario for Russia, Andrew Roth writes in his analysis: Russia is “either taking a favourable deal with the White House or waiting for Trump to lose patience”.What else we’ve been readingView image in fullscreen

      A global survey has found that 89% of people across the world want stronger action on the climate crisis but trap themselves in a “spiral of silence” because they think they’re in the minority. Damian Carrington spoke to experts who said that making people aware that theirs is the majority view could unlock a “social tipping point”. Annie Kelly

      Now more than ever, it “seems that Congress – with both houses controlled by Republicans – exists to do little else but flatter the man who lives at the other end of the Mall, and ratify his edicts” writes Antonia Hitchens in the New Yorker, in a comprehensive (and chilling) piece that lays bare the extent of the sycophancy and unquestioning loyalty that define the Trump White House. Nimo

      On 27 February 2010, Pedro Niada woke in the middle of the night to find his house being swept into the south Pacific Ocean by a colossal tsunami wave. His story of how he and his family survived is a gripping read by Jonathan Franklin. Annie

      Last month, the government announced plans to get rid of the leasehold system and switch it out with a new law that makes all new build flats commonhold. Jessica Murray and Robyn Vinter helpfully explain what that means in practice. Nimo

      “Good honest folk in this country are paying for this”; the cost of spiralling energy theft across the UK is laid bare in this report by energy correspondent Jill Ambrose who investigated how cannabis farms and bitcoin miners pile an extra £50 a year on every one of the country’s household bills. Annie
      skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSportView image in fullscreenFootball | Matheus Nunes scored in stoppage time to hand Manchester City a 2-1 victory over Aston Villa and give the hosts a major advantage in the top-five race.Rugby union | England’s most-capped player, Ben Youngs, will be retiring from professional rugby after representing England a record 127 times. Youngs made his professional club rugby debut as a 17-year-old for Leicester and has been a one-club player ever since.Golf | The Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews (R&A) has said it would “love” Donald Trump’s Turnberry golf course to host the golf Open Championship in July, a reversal of its decision in 2021 that Trump’s course would not be used to stage championships after the 6 January attack on the US Capitol.The front pagesView image in fullscreenThe Guardian has for its splash today “IMF blames Trump tariffs for ‘major negative shock’ to world economy”. But, says the Express, “Reeves cannot blame Trump for UK’s growth ‘mess’”. The Times runs with “Slave labour setback to Miliband’s green goals”. “In the arms of God” – the Mirror has a full-page picture of Pope Francis lying in state. “Kemi: PM owes apology to so many women” – fallout from the supreme court sex ruling, in the Daily Mail. The i reports “Dash for cash ISAs: savers scramble to lock in best rates before reforms hit”. “Trump to let Putin keep seized land” says the Telegraph and the Financial Times has “Putin’s offer to halt war at current front line piles pressure on Ukraine”. “Instant sack for bad cops” is the main story in the Metro.Today in FocusView image in fullscreenThe UK supreme court and the definition of a womanA ruling on equality law has caused relief, fear – and confusion. Libby Brooks reportsCartoon of the day | Rebecca HendinView image in fullscreenThe UpsideA bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all badView image in fullscreenWorking with seaweed ink reminded the acclaimed artist Antony Gormley of the “plough mud in West Wittering”, instantly transporting him back to the smell and atmosphere of his childhood.Gormley is one of 16 artists asked to create ocean-inspired artworks using ink made from kelp grown in the waters off the island of Skye to raise money for ocean conservation. The project clearly held great emotional resonance for Gormley who spoke of how he feels most alive “when I am in the embrace of seawater” and his belief that the oceans will endure the devastation humanity is wreaking on them and continue to nurture life on earth.The art created from the Art for Your Oceans project will be sold to raise money for WWF ocean conservation projects in the UK and beyond.Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every SundayBored at work?And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow.

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      in Elections

      Russia and Ukraine, Under Trump Pressure, Signal Openness to Direct Talks

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      Both the Kremlin and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine suggested this week that they would be open to direct negotiations, making new but tentative diplomatic overtures as President Trump pushes for a peace deal.Mr. Zelensky said on social media late Monday that Ukraine was “ready for any conversation” about a cease-fire that would halt strikes on civilian infrastructure. Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, said on Tuesday that there were “nuances” in the Ukrainian proposal “that it makes sense to discuss” with Kyiv.While Mr. Peskov said there were no concrete plans yet for direct talks between Moscow and Kyiv, the unusual public back-and-forth showed how both sides in the three-year war now seem eager to at least appear interested in negotiations — not least because of Mr. Trump’s eagerness for a deal to end the war.The American diplomatic push is expected to continue on Wednesday in London, where Mr. Zelensky said a Ukrainian delegation would meet with U.S. and European officials. Steve Witkoff, a White House envoy who has met with President Vladimir V. Putin three times since February, is expected to visit Moscow again later this week, the Russian state news agency Tass reported.Mr. Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Sunday that he hoped Russia and Ukraine “will make a deal this week,” adding that the United States stood to “make a fortune” as a result. Last week, in a sign of his impatience, the president had warned that if either Moscow or Kyiv “makes it very difficult” to reach a deal to end the war, the United States could decide that “we’re just going to take a pass.”The emerging possibility of direct talks between Russia and Ukraine has added a new vector to the diplomatic maneuvering. The warring sides haven’t held public peace talks since the early weeks of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, though they have engaged behind the scenes, often through intermediaries.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

      Anti-Trump protesters in the US might look to the Czech Republic: ‘We are an example’

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      A former cold war communist dictatorship and component part of the Habsburg empire seems an unlikely source of hope for Donald Trump’s opponents.One such country, Hungary, is often cited as the model for Trump’s no-holds-barred authoritarian assault on US institutions. Viktor Orbán, the central European country’s prime minister, has been a guest at the president’s Mar-a-Lago estate and has won Trump’s praise for transforming Hungary into an “illiberal state” that extols “traditional” values – and for projecting the kind of “strongman” persona the president admires.Now in his fourth consecutive term, Orbán and his Fidesz party have captured state institutions, tamed the media and been successfully re-elected, despite periodic waves of anti-government mass protests – the most recent this week against an attempt to ban the annual Pride march.It seems an ominous portent for Trump critics who took part Saturday in a second weekend of mass demonstrations, organized across 50 states by the 50501 group, following the “Hands Off” rallies staged in 1,000 locations across the US on 5 April.Yet the contrasting political fate of one of Hungary’s neighbours with similar historical antecedents may provide a glimmer of hope for the prospects of mass protest laying foundations for a successful onslaught against Trump, leading to victory at the ballot box.The Czech Republic – once part of what was cold war-era Czechoslovakia and, coincidentally, birthplace of Trump’s first wife, Ivana – is a possible blueprint for how street protest can bloom into a unified electoral strategy that eventually unseats a billionaire leader with autocratic aspirations and apparent scorn for democracy.In 2018, a popular movement, Million Moments for Democracy, began organizing rallies in the Czech capital, Prague, and other cities to protest the anti-democratic tendencies of the country’s prime minister, Andrej Babiš, who had been labelled “the Czech Trump”.View image in fullscreenBabiš, a billionaire oligarch who was the country’s second-richest person, had taken office as head of a coalition that relied on support from the remnants of the Czech communist party after his populist ANO (Action for Dissatisfied Citizens) party won the previous year’s election.Opponents accused Babiš – whose sprawling Agrofert conglomerate controlled vast segments of the Czech economy and two of the country’s biggest newspapers – of fraud and multiple conflicts of interest, while abusing power to further enrich himself. There were also complaints about past ties – upheld in court, despite Babiš’s denials – to the communist secret police, the StB, for which he reportedly acted as an informer.Early protests attracted crowds of up to 20,000, but within months attendances had skyrocketed as rallies were staged more regularly, always climaxing in calls for his resignation. By June 2019 – three months after Babiš was hosted by Trump at the White House in a visit that seemed to boost his international standing – Prague saw its biggest political protest since the 1989 fall of communism, with more than 250,000 turning out in opposition to the prime minister and his close ally, the elderly pro-Russian president, Miloš Zeman.An even greater number turned up in November 2019, ostensibly to mark the 30th anniversary of communism’s collapse – which had itself been triggered by mass protests. The prime minister stood firm, and as the Covid-19 virus forced the country into prolonged lockdown, protests diminished and Babiš’s position seemed more assured, despite widespread discontent over his handling of the pandemic.Yet in 2021 parliamentary elections, Babiš and his lavishly funded party were defeated by a five-party coalition whose ideological differences were superseded by their hostility toward the prime minister.View image in fullscreenThe demonstrations, despite the lost momentum caused by Covid and Babiš’s stubborn refusal to resign even as police lodged criminal fraud charges, had worked by converting discontent into votes at the ballot box.“We certainly had some role in the election results,” said Benjamin Roll, Million Moments for Democracy’s spokesperson and deputy leader at the time. “I believe we in the Czech Republic are an example of how long-term civic-society activities can bring, or help bring, political change.“Those protests gave us all the feeling we have the power, that we were not alone, and we can do something. I think this emotion is really crucial.”It is a potentially decisive factor amid swirling debate about how to respond to Trump as he has smashed long-established norms and assailed institutions at breakneck speed since his inauguration on 20 January.While the leftwing Vermont senator, Bernie Sanders, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive New York representative, have attracted vast crowds on their Fighting Oligarchy road tour that seems to emphasize the value of popular dissent, other Democrats have adopted a less confrontational approach, with some opting not to fight Trump at every turn.The party’s leader in the senate, Chuck Schumer, drew fire from many on his own side for leading a group of fellow Democratic senators in voting for a six-month Republican funding bill last month, averting a government shutdown.The move sharpened criticism that congressional Democrats had reacted too passively to Trump’s authoritarian power grabs.At the same time, the party’s exclusion from power in the White House and on Capitol Hill has prompted questions over the effectiveness of mass protests. The failure of demonstrations to translate into electoral defeat for authoritarian-type leaders in some countries – Hungary, Turkey and Serbia are recently cited examples – has fed such doubts.View image in fullscreenHowever, Steven Levitsky, a politics professor at Harvard University and a specialist on authoritarian threats to democracy, said dismissing mass rallies as futile – which he called “a new conventional wisdom” after years of thinking they guaranteed a dictator’s downfall – was misplaced.“Mass protest is less likely to bring down a government in a place where elections are a viable channel, meaning where it is still a democracy or near-democracy,” he said. “Protest is not going to lead to Donald Trump’s resignation, or Orbán’s, but that doesn’t mean it’s not relevant. Protest can weaken the government, can shape public opinion and the media framing and discourse, which is very important.”At the “Hands Off” rally in Washington DC on 5 April, which drew tens of thousands of people, participants said one aim was to embolden reticent voters and Trump critics who might be intimidated by the president’s blustering tactics.Jiří Pehe, a Czech political analyst who is the director of New York University in Prague, said that message had its echoes in the Czech precedent.“It was this overall, this strategy of waking people up and telling them: ‘Look, you have agency. You can change things. You are not just passive observers of what’s going on, but you can change things, but you have to be active,’” he said.But allowing millions of dissatisfied Americans simply to vent their frustrations would not be enough, Pehe warned. “If the Czech Republic is to be an example, these demonstrations need to happen again and again across the United States and they need to have one or two strong messages. There has to be a very strong message towards the political class because only it can actually change things. And in this case, there should be pressure on the Democrats, saying: ‘Look, it’s your task to stop Donald Trump.’”Speaking to the Guardian at the 5 April Washington rally, Jamie Raskin, a Democratic representative from Maryland who is the party’s top member of the House judiciary committee, said “a popular resistance strategy” featuring protests could only work in harness with “an effective legislative strategy”, a tall order since the Republicans control both the Senate and the House of Representatives.“Ultimately, we’re going to have to win the elections next year, and when we take back the House and the Senate, we will be back in the driver’s seat,” he said.That aim evokes another lesson from the Czech example, observers say: the need for the Democrats to take their cue from the demonstrators and put aside their ideological differences for the sake of unity.“What you’ve seen in the Czech Republic is a broad array of political forces coming together to form a pro-democracy coalition and I think that’s instructive for the US,” said Norm Eisen, a former US ambassador to Prague and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, who called for a “big tent” approach encompassing anti-Trump Republicans.“They were for putting aside particular differences on partisan issues, on ideology. That is one of the critical ingredients for success, and I believe we are seeing that here. In these deportation disputes, we filed a brief at the supreme court by more than three dozen conservatives, [who served in] every Republican presidential administration, from Nixon to Trump 1, and I was the lawyer on that, together with a senior justice department official from the Bush administration.”Levitsky said the US protests had assumed outsize importance given the failure of other institutions and pillars of the establishment – including major CEOs, law firms, the Catholic church and, until this week, universities – to mount a stand since Trump took office.“This emerging protest movement, and the size of the crowds at the Bernie Sanders and AOC events, is going to compel Democratic politicians to become more active, follow their base rather than so as not to lose it,” he said. “What the protest movement can do is contribute to an erosion of Trump’s popularity, and embolden opposition politicians and probably contribute to an electoral outcome in a couple years.“In that sense, these guys are not wasting their time. I think it’s a very, very important step in getting the opposition off the sidelines.”Back in Prague, Roll – recalling the intoxication of the anti-Babiš rallies – had advice for US demonstrators: stay positive and, whatever Trump’s provocations, avoid hateful rhetoric – something he fears the US’s two-party system makes hard to avoid.“The division in the United States is really dangerous because you see the other side as the enemy,” he said. “It’s crucial to remain non-violent and hopeful. Talking in front of lots of people, we realised you have to be careful about your language because if you are too negative or hateful, it can defeat your purpose. Remember that the other side are people. They’re your brothers and sisters.” More