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      The Guardian view on Ursula von der Leyen’s first 100 days: the steepest of learning curves | Editorial

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      In a press conference on Sunday to mark 100 days since the beginning of her second term as European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen erred on the side of understatement when asked whether she still considered the US to be an ally. The answer was yes, she replied, before adding that “we have our discussion points without question”.Hard to argue with that. Regarding the war in Ukraine, international trade and existential questions concerning the future of European defence and security, the geopolitical landscape bears no resemblance to the one that Ms von der Leyen looked out upon on 1 December. As Mr Trump and his “America first” outriders have confounded cherished assumptions about the transatlantic alliance, they have also sought to encourage authoritarian nationalism in EU member states.In France and Germany, the fabled engine of European integration, this has been uncomfortably akin to knocking at an open door. In Paris, days after Ms von der Leyen reassumed office, Michel Barnier’s shortlived government collapsed when Marine Le Pen pulled the rug from under it. In Germany, well before Elon Musk and JD Vance championed its cause, the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party had reached historically high levels of support that would see it finish comfortably second in February’s snap German election.As Ms von der Leyen put it on Sunday: “Our European values, democracy, freedom, the rule of law are under threat.” The response, from Brussels and in national capitals, needs to be both robust and more expeditious than is often the case in the labyrinthine world of EU policymaking. Happily, the initial signs are positive.The move last week by EU leaders to disapply the bloc’s fiscal rules to military spending, potentially freeing up £670bn, is a significant step towards achieving greater strategic autonomy from Washington. It followed the unveiling of extraordinarily radical proposals in the same week by Germany’s chancellor-in-waiting, Friedrich Merz. Bypassing a constitutional restriction on state borrowing, these are designed to facilitate not only far greater spending on defence, but also on the modernisation of a stagnating economy.After decades in which EU economic policy has been skewed by Berlin’s traditional debt aversion – shared with other “frugal” member states such as the Netherlands and Denmark – this is a very different direction of travel. As Europe exits an era defined by an uncritical commitment to free trade and dependency on the US security umbrella, it is also the right one. Recognising the desire of many member states to formalise common borrowing arrangements introduced following Covid, Ms von der Leyen said “nothing is off the table” in relation to defence. But, as the Draghi report argued last autumn, the same kind of fiscal firepower is required to meet the challenge of the green transition and compete with the US and China for the jobs and future industries of the 21st century.Last month in Brussels, a different kind of centenary was marked when a bust of a former commission president, Jacques Delors, was unveiled. Born in 1925, Mr Delors became the preeminent champion of a “social” vision, in which common EU institutions would deploy pooled resources in order to build a Europe where solidarity and growth were intertwined. That perspective faded from view following the neoliberal turn in the 1980s. As Ms von der Leyen navigates the rest of her five-year term, its time has come again.

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      Sycophancy and toadying are de rigueur in Trump’s court of self-aggrandizement | Sydney Blumenthal

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      Sycophancy is the coin of the realm. In Donald Trump’s court, flattery is the only spoken language. He does not need an executive order to enforce it. Fear is the other side of the coin. Loyalty must be blind. Obedience is safety. Cronyism secures status. His whim is dogma. Criticism is heresy. Debate is apostasy. Expertise is bias. Objectivity is a hoax. Truth is just your opinion. Lies are defended to the death as articles of faith. New ones are manufactured on an industrial scale by his press office for social influencers to spread. Denying facts proves fealty. The rule of law is partisan. Russia is our trusted ally. Britain and France are “random counties”. Retribution is policy.The deeper the submission to madness, the greater his supremacy. The subjugation is more thorough if the things people are forced to accept are irrational or, better, the reverse of what they had believed. When previously held beliefs are abandoned to conform to their opposite, like the secretary of state Marco Rubio’s formerly adamant support of Ukraine, which went to his core as the son of refugees from Castro’s Cuba, the more Trump’s dominance is demonstrated. Rubio has gone full circle, from his family fleeing one kind of tyranny to Trump sneering at him as “Little Marco” to ambitious embrace of his tormentor. He finds himself as a supplicant to Trump complaining about Elon Musk’s mindless wreckage of the state department. Formally the ranking constitutional officer of the cabinet, Rubio is below Musk in Trump’s hierarchy.Each of the concentric rings of Trump’s court require different nuances of servility. At mid-level, the ethos is to mimic the irrational impulses of the ruler in order to be seen as his willing helper. In 1934, a middle-rank German minister explained that “it is the duty of everybody to try to work towards the Führer along the lines he would wish.” “Working toward the Fuhrer” – auf den Führer hinarbeiten – became the governing style, or else.At the cabinet level, Rubio’s renunciation is an essential conversion to prove subservient allegiance to the Fuhrerprinzip. “The higher one rose in the hierarchy, the more servile one became,” wrote Albert Speer, Hitler’s war manufacturing minister, in his memoir. At the height of power, in the innermost circle, at the leader’s right hand, sits JD Vance, who taunts and threatens on the leader’s behalf, demanding obsequious “respect” while slyly deploying his sycophancy to goad the leader.Upon passing through the gates of Trump’s White House, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, entered into a domain that would have been intimately familiar to him. It would have been reminiscent of the claustrophobic despotism in Ukraine under communism. It would have been a reminder of what was called “the Family” of kleptocratic oligarchs, lackeys and political operatives surrounding the Putin-backed Ukrainian ruler Viktor Yanukovych before he fled the country during the popular uprising of 2014 – a gangster culture that included the US consultant Paul Manafort, also Trump’s 2016 campaign manager, whom he would pardon for a host of criminal felonies.A western world shocked at Trump’s orchestrated humiliation of Zelenskyy should have seen the staged event as the culmination of hundreds of similar transgressions since he became president again. The difference between the rest of his rampage and his denigration of Zelensky was only in its momentousness. But not even Elon Musk systematically shredding the federal government approached the historic scale of Trump’s crime against Ukraine, which reduced the United States through a few insults to the lowest ebb of its international power and prestige since a century ago, when, in a spasm of partisan isolationism, the Senate rejected joining the League of Nations after the first world war. But, for the appalled and disoriented Europeans who must pick up the pieces as they adjust to the reality of an American president discarding them in order to forge a grand alliance with Russia, the revealing signs of Trump’s malignancy have been present in a never-ending series of less than world historical but dramatically squalid scandals.“I wouldn’t believe Donald Trump if his tongue were notarized,” New York mayor Ed Koch once quipped. Now, Trump tried to erase the infamy of being a figure of ridicule in New York by planting his hooks into the current mayor, Eric Adams. A predator recognizes vulnerability. After ordering the Department of Justice to drop its corruption charges against Adams, Trump’s precipitate action prompted the resignation of the acting US attorney for the southern district of New York, Danielle Sassoon, who stated that it was “a quid pro quo” in exchange for supporting the Trump administration’s “enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed”, and which was followed by the resignations of seven prosecutors from the justice department’s public integrity unit, who refused to participate in the deal.With Adams under his heel, Trump next crushed the Republican Senate through the confirmation process of his unqualified collection of quacks for his cabinet. Intimidation and smears did the work of cowing the august senators. Then, through his installation of his largest donor, Elon Musk, as his self-advertised “Dark Maga” overlord, Trump launched the massacre of the entire federal government. Off with their heads everywhere. The purges have no trials. Tick off the execution list of Project 2025. Let the courts slowly try to catch up to the devastation.Trump’s repetitive compulsion to create disorder allows him to present himself as its would-be master. He can’t temper his impulses. His bedlam provides his only arena for self-validation. He must always fabricate scenes for the exaltation of himself through the humiliation of others to confirm that he is strong. Musk magnifies his abuse.In two speeches, one by the secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, and the other by the vice-president, JD Vance, the Trump administration shifted the ground under Ukraine and the western allies to Russian advantage. On 12 February, at the Ukraine Contact Group in Brussels, Hegseth conceded conditions to Russia before any negotiations had begun. He stated the return of occupied territory “unrealistic”, opposed Nato membership and rejected US participation in a security force. Two days later, on 14 February, Vance delivered a second shock, reciting the talking points of the far-right parties in Europe in a virtual endorsement a week before the German election of the neo-Nazi Alternative for Germany Party.Some Republicans appear to have a good idea about the agents of influence floating around the Trump administration. Senator Roger Wicker, Republican of Mississippi, said after Hegseth’s speech, “I don’t know who wrote the speech – it is the kind of thing Tucker Carlson could have written, and Carlson is a fool.” The former Fox News talkshow host, now with his own podcast, has deep ties to the regimes of Putin and Orbán of Hungary. A fount of Russian disinformation, he is at the center of a circle that includes Donald Trump Jr and JD Vance, bonded as lost boys, abandoned in childhood, and who persuaded Trump to name Vance as his running mate. Hegseth and Tulsi Gabbard, a pro-Russian echo chamber, now the national director of intelligence, were brought into their orbit.Tucker Carlson’s son, Buckley Carlson, is Vance’s deputy press director. Jack Posobiec, a far-right conspiracy monger of Pizzagate and white supremacist, was invited to travel with Hegseth, to whom he is close, and has traveled with the secretary of the treasury, Scott Bessent, on his trip in February to Ukraine to meet with Zelensky.In 2017, according to a report of the Atlantic Council, Posobiec was a key player in aiding the Russian “coordinated attempt to undermine Emmanuel Macron’s candidacy, with a disinformation campaign consisting of rumors, fake news, and even forged documents; a hack targeting the computers of his campaign staff; and, finally, a leak – 15 gigabytes of stolen data, including 21,075 emails, released on Friday, May 5, 2017 – just two days before the second and final round of the presidential election”.In 2024, Posobiec addressed the Conservative Political Action Committee: “Welcome to the end of democracy. We are here to overthrow it completely. We didn’t get all the way there on January 6, but we will endeavor to get rid of it.”Making nice with Trump has never proved to be a winning strategy. If Zelensky had bent to shine Trump’s shoes under his desk, he would still have been in a trap. Obsequious gestures to neutralize Trump have been repeatedly tried and failed. If anyone could cajole Trump, it would have been David Rubenstein, the billionaire founder of the Carlyle Group who built his firm with a bipartisan board. Rubenstein has been a pillar of the Washington community, who cherishes the constitution and has lent the National Archives his copy of the original Bill of Rights, personally paid for the restoration of the Washington Monument, and is a patron of the arts, the longtime chair of the Kennedy Center. He recently bought the Baltimore Orioles. Rubenstein wined and dined Donald and Melania Trump, attempted to ingratiate himself and bring them into his charmed circle. Rubenstein’s civilizing mission ran aground.Rubenstein presented Trump with a golden opportunity to gain the kind of acceptance he had sought for a lifetime. He has nursed his injury over rejection by the great and the good in New York, where his crudity, vulgarity and narrow greed constantly undermined his social ambitions. He was also a spectacular failure in the New York real estate market. But Trump still harbored resentment from the 2017 Kennedy Center Honors, when two of the recipients, choreographer Carmen de Lavallade and legendary TV producer Norman Lear, declined to attend a reception at the White House. Trump never appeared at any of the Kennedy Center Honors during his first term. He never came to a single of the thousands of the wide variety of cultural events there, not one. He was not boycotting; he had no interest in theater, music, dance, anything. He is a void.On 12 February, Trump unceremoniously fired its entire board, claimed that the national centerpiece of the performing arts in the capital was “woke” and a “disgrace,” denounced Rubenstein, who does “not share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture”, and announced as his replacement “an amazing Chairman, DONALD J. TRUMP!” Rubenstein was privately stunned and surprised at his shabby treatment. But Trump cared less for Rubenstein’s diplomatic approach than for acting out his endless drama of victimization and self-promotion.Trump’s interim director inserted at the Kennedy Center, Ric Grenell, a rightwing activist who was universally despised in Germany when he was ambassador there in the first Trump term, declared that to “make the arts great again” the Kennedy Center would stage a biblical pageant about the birth of Jesus. Trump named Melania’s former modeling agent, Paolo Zampolli, to the board. He held forth to an Italian newspaper, Il Foglio, about Zelenskyy: “He should rebuild Gaza with all the money he stole.”Trump’s meeting with Zelenskyy was preceded two days, earlier on 26 February, by his first cabinet meeting that rehearsed scenes of belittlement, disparagement and deprecation. It was a sham cabinet meeting without any proper presentations by the secretaries of their departmental work, a scene of collective submission. (I had been present in many cabinet meetings during the Clinton administration, where informative review and discussion were the regular order.) Trump’s meeting was a made-for-TV more-than-hour-long reality show with the cabinet as props, two among the 21 Fox News personalities appointed to administration posts.At his cabinet meeting, Trump began by calling on Scott Turner, the secretary of housing and urban development, the only Black person in his cabinet, a former journeyman professional football player, briefly a far-right Texas state legislator and a motivational speaker. “Thank you God for President Trump,” prayed Turner. “So Scott Turner’s a terrific young guy,” said Trump. Turner is 53 years old. “He is heading up HUD and he’s going to make us all very proud, right?” Turner did not speak again in the meeting.Trump introduced Musk, who took control of the meeting, declaring the country would “go bankrupt” if he were not allowed to destroy the government untrammeled. He stood above the cabinet secretaries, wearing all black, a T-shirt reading “Tech Support”, a black Maga cap, and condescended: “And President Trump has put together, I think, the best cabinet ever, literally.” The questions came from the reporters in the room. The nervous cabinet members sat silently, worried about not one but two overlords. Musk was asked questions about his demand that federal employees justify their work every week and wondered how many “you’re looking to cut, total”. Musk gave no answer. Trump intervened: “We’re bloated, we’re sloppy. We have a lot of people that aren’t doing their job. We have a lot of people that don’t exist. You look at social security as an example. You have so many people in social security where if you believe it, they’re 200 years old.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAt the end of the meeting, as the press was led out, Trump jeered, “Thank you. Thank you very much. Pulitzer prize.” JD Vance mocked them with a sarcastic rhetorical question: “Sir, how many peacekeepers are you going to send … ” Trump joined in: “What will you do? How will it be?” Vance continued his mocking merriment. “How will you dress them?” The cabinet members nervously tittered. Vance was the king’s goad and jester. Trump called to one reporter, “Lawrence. Look at Lawrence. This guy’s making a fortune. He never had it so good. He never had it so good. Lawrence, say we did a great job, please. OK? Say it was unbelievable.” The tone for the meeting for Zelenskyy was already on display.That day, Trump banned the traditional press pool chosen by the correspondents that cover the White House. From then on, the pool covering him would be selected by Trump’s press office. The Associated Press and Reuters would continue to be banished altogether for refusing to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, following Trump’s order. Those news organizations had failed to meet the threshold of submission.Both Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer, one after another, arrived in advance of Zelenskyy to butter up Trump without losing their dignity. They treated him with delicacy as a borderline personality. Yet both corrected Trump’s central falsehood that the US had given $350bn to Ukraine while the Europeans gave loans of $100bn for which they were repaid, when in fact the US expended $120bn, most of which went to US weapons manufacturers, and Europe spent $250bn and had not been repaid a euro. Macron touched Trump’s sleeve as he corrected him. Starmer gestured in that direction but never made the physical contact. Trump was undeterred in lying about it afterward.Starmer presented the coup de grace, a handwritten invitation for a state visit from King Charles III to Donald I, royalty to faux royalty. Trump carefully opened the envelope and held up the letter. “Beautiful man, wonderful man,” he said. But there was trouble brewing in paradise when the vision of another man, Vladimir Putin, crossed his mind. His attitude passed from the ecstasy of Charles’s letter to the agony of “the Russia hoax”. “We had to go through the Russian hoax together,” Trump said. “That was not a good thing. It’s not fair. That was a rigged deal and had nothing to do with Russia. It was a rigged deal with inside the country and they had to put up with that too. They put up with a lot. It wasn’t just us. They had to put up with it with a phoney story that was made up. I’ve known him for a long time now.”Trump’s blurted non sequitur after non sequitur was the beginning of his self-revelatory statements about his relationship with Putin, whose actual nature he has devoted decades to covering up. Trump said he had known Putin for “a long time”. How long he did not say. The “phoney story”, which was a true one about Russia’s extensive efforts to interfere in the US election on Trump’s behalf involving hundreds of contacts between Russian agents and the Trump campaign, was stressful not only for Trump but, according to Trump, also for Putin. They went through the “hoax”, the incomplete investigations, “together”. The Mueller report concluded with a referral of 10 obstructions of justice committed by Trump to block its inquiry, but they were never prosecuted. The Senate intelligence committee report contained a lengthy section on Trump’s sexual escapades in Russia creating “compromising information” that could be used by the Russians and “posing a potential counterintelligence threat”. Babbling away about his sympathy for Putin, Trump did not understand that he was engaging in an oblique confession. “Russia, if you’re listening … ”After Trump was shut out of the New York banks, Donald Trump Jr remarked, in 2008, “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.” Trump’s architect Alan Lapidus stated in 2018: “He could not get anybody in the United States to lend him anything. It was all coming out of Russia. His involvement with Russia was deeper than he’s acknowledged.”Trump turned to Deutsche Bank, the only financial institution willing to do business with him. The bank served as a conduit for Russian money-laundering operations and in 2017 was fined $630m by American and British financial regulators for a $10bn scheme. In 2008, the bank sued Trump for non-payment for $40m on a $640m loan, and Trump counter-sued. Contrary to all normal practices, they settled and continued to do business. But after the January 6 insurrection even Deutsche Bank cut ties with him. His debt to the bank was more than $300m.Trump’s plot to switch sides, punish Zelenskyy, ditch the allies and partner with Putin was hatched before Zelenskyy flew to the US grudgingly to sign a deal for raw earth mineral rights in his country. Trump’s initial exorbitant insistence on $500bn may have been a ploy to get Zelenskyy to reject the deal out of hand. No rational leader could agree to such terms. Though the details of the next contract are not publicly known, Zelenskyy’s acceptance and willingness to negotiate might have come as a surprise. Terminating military and intelligence support for Ukraine required a different pretext. If one pretext doesn’t work, another could be contrived, even a flimsy one.After Putin invaded Ukraine, Trump called him a “genius”. He has always admired the Russian strongman as a model. He has been hostile to Zelenskyy personally since Trump’s “perfect phone call” to him in July 2019 to blackmail him into providing false dirt about Joe Biden in exchange for releasing already congressionally authorized missiles: “I would like you to do us a favor, though.” Trump’s attempt at coercion led to his first impeachment.On 18 February, Trump launched into a tirade of old Russian talking points, that Zelenskyy was a “dictator”. You never should have started it,” Trump said about the war. And, he added, “I don’t think he’s very important to be at meetings.” Zelenskyy’s response that Trump’s remarks were “disinformation” helped set the stage for the meeting on 28 February.The meeting was a wide lens on Trump’s small mind, incapable of grasping any ideas and their practical applications, like alliances, coalitions, national sovereignty or the western world. His ignorance of history is fairly complete. He sees the world like a map of Manhattan real estate that his apologists project as the revival of Great Power politics. He’ll take the West Side Highway development. Putin can get an East River stake. Trump is insistent that Ukraine owes the US money. He sees the country is a vulnerable debtor – “you don’t have the cards.” He may be influenced by his losses and liability stemming from the E Jean Carroll sexual assault and New York state financial fraud cases, where he accrued enormous penalties.Trump once again voiced his identification with Putin. “Let me tell you, Putin went through a hell of a lot with me. He went through a phoney witch-hunt where they used him and Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia … You ever hear of that deal?”JD Vance triggered the implosion with his charge that Zelenskyy was “disrespectful”. He scolded Zelenskyy for not “thanking the president”. He accused him of bringing observers to Ukraine for “a propaganda tour”. Vance’s demand for “respect” was a knowing self-abasement to awaken Trump to Zelenskyy’s absence of sycophancy. Vance’s ultimatum that Zelenskyy degrade himself revealed his own posture. But Vance is the corrective to Mike Pence, who failed at the critical moment on January 6 (“Hang Mike Pence!”). Vance ingratiated using Zelenskyy to manipulate Trump.Zelenskyy fell into the trap, trying to explain the rudiments of 20th-century history, that the geographic isolation of the US could not protect it. “Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel,” Trump snapped. “You don’t have the cards right now.” Zelenskyy replied, “I’m not playing cards right now.” Trump repeated a common Russian talking point: “You’re gambling with world war three.” Vance jumped in: “Have you said thank you once?” “A lot of times. Even today,” said Zelenskyy. In fact, he offered thanks six times in the conversation, with a “God bless you”.Trump kept talking about “the cards”. He brought up how he had given Zelenskyy missiles. He clearly wanted Zelenskyy to exonerate him for the high crime of his first impeachment. “You got to be more thankful because let me tell you, you don’t have the cards with us.” And the confrontation wound down. “This is going to be great television. I will say that,” said Trump.So the fate of Ukraine and the western alliance turned on the issue of flattery. Despite Trump’s obliviousness to history, the scene recalled Edward Gibbon’s comment in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: “The emperors, secure from contradiction, were abandoned to the intoxication of unlimited power, which their flatterers encouraged with the vilest servility.”

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

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      ‘They brought it on themselves’: a new low in US-Ukraine relations

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      There was an audible gasp in the room at the Council on Foreign Relations as Keith Kellogg, the White House’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, characterised the US decision to cut off intelligence sharing and military aid to Kyiv as like beating a farm animal with a piece of wood.“Very candidly, they brought it on themselves, the Ukrainians,” Kellogg said as the veteran diplomats, academics, and journalists in the room recoiled in surprise. Several held their hands in their faces. “I think the best way I can describe it is sort of like hitting a mule with a two-by-four across the nose,” he continued. “You got their attention, and it’s very significant, obviously, because of the support that we give.”The collapse in US-Ukraine relations since the White House summit between Trump and Zelenskyy has been precipitous. Those around Trump viewed as the strongest supporters of Ukraine – including secretary of state Marco Rubio, national security adviser Mike Waltz, and Kellogg – have become vocal sceptics of continued US support or been sidelined entirely.“We know that [the Maga wing] are just waiting for something they can use to pounce,” said a former senior US diplomat. “And I think that’s where you get the posturing by Rubio, Kellogg and also Waltz, which disturbs people who understand America’s interest in preventing a Putin win in Ukraine.”It has been matched by a rise in the people around Trump who hold vocally Eurosceptic views: Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson, and JD Vance, the vice-president who seized his moment in the Oval Office and provoked a greater conflict between Trump and Zelenskyy.Vance has made several key interventions meant to sow divisions with Europe. He appears to have planned ahead of time. His team briefed European media before he spoke up during Trump’s meeting with Keir Starmer to complain about “infringements on free speech” in the UK. And when Zelenskyy disregarded advice from Kellogg, Republican senators, and others, not to clash with Trump during the White House meeting, Vance once again poured petrol on the fire.“First Zelenskyy needs to keep silent in public about concerns with Trump’s policy moves, even though those concerns are justified,” the former senior official said. “It would be good for him to send a team to the meeting in Riyadh which is not at his level. I think he needs to sign the mineral agreement in any form that the Trump administration wants.”Fiona Hill, a former White House official during Trump’s first term, said the speculation on the part of many European officials was that “this was set up by Vance … that he wanted to sideline the Rubios, the Waltzes, the Kelloggs.”These were supposed to be the adults in the room for this administration. Rubio was confirmed 99-0 by senators who believed he would help keep Trump’s foreign policy on track. Waltz was expected to be a centrist ally as national security adviser. And Kellogg, while sceptical of piecemeal support for Kyiv, was seen as a firm supporter of Ukraine.View image in fullscreenInstead, they have followed Trump into putting pressure on Ukraine. Rubio last week said: “Frankly, it’s a proxy war between nuclear powers – the United States, helping Ukraine, and Russia – and it needs to come to an end.”That was a vision closely aligned with the Kremlin’s. Dmitry Peskov reacted positively to Rubio’s words, saying: “We can and want to agree with it, and we agree with it. That’s the way it is. We have said this repeatedly. We have said that this is actually a conflict between Russia and the collective west. And the main country of the collective west is the United States of America.”That’s not the only way in which the US is adopting Russia’s views on the war. In his speech, Kellogg broke ground in describing how Trump sees the conflict: the US wants to position itself as a neutral arbiter between Russia and Ukraine, and Trump recognises that the US needs to “reset relations with Russia” to secure US national security. “The continued isolation and lack of engagement with the Russians as the war in Ukraine continues is no longer a viable strategy,” he said.That portrayal is a radical realignment of US policy interests in the conflict. For three years, Washington has provided considerable financial and military support to Kyiv to allow it to stay in the fight. But under a new Trump administration, those who supported the previous policy have quickly pivoted to back Trump as he seeks to end the war by putting pressure on Ukraine.“Kellogg has some people around him who do know what they’re doing,” said Hill, who worked with him during the first Trump term. “He’s 80 years old. He fought in Vietnam. He knows his stuff. He’s no fan of Russia. He’s a total cold warrior. He’s trying to thread the needle there but he also works for the commander in chief, so he’s trying to interpret, in the best way that he can, what’s going on here? And he will not stray away from what Trump does or says, that’s why he is still there.”Yet Kellogg was left off the list for a key summit between Ukrainian and US officials this week in Saudi Arabia in an attempt to repair the relationship. Waltz, Rubio, and Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff are set to travel for talks with Zelenskyy’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak and his team. The path forward is unclear – although both pro-Ukraine Americans and European officials believe that there is no alternative to US support in the conflict.European officials are hopeful that Zelenskyy and the Trump officials can manage to hold a meeting that won’t erupt into open conflict. That may lead to a quick renewal of intelligence support, which European officials have not lost hope for.But there are broader discussions about whether or not the US remains a viable longterm partner for the Ukraine. For now, the Ukrainian side has few options except to make amends. More

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      There are 1,000 grotesque memes of JD Vance – and they’re all more likable than the real thing | Marina Hyde

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      You may well be aware that Backpfeifengesicht is the German word for a face that is worthy of being slapped. Even so, how has this not been internationalised? Or at the very least Americanised, where its dictionary definition would presumably be adorned by a picture of the face of US vice-president JD Vance – already faultlessly playing the role of worst American at your hotel. You can immediately picture him at breakfast, can’t you? Every single other guest on the terrace with their shoulders up round their ears, just thinking: “Where is he now? How unbearable is he being NOW?” Next, imagine breakfast lasting four years.I say the Backpfeifengesicht definition would be accompanied by JD Vance’s face … but then again, what is the face of JD Vance? The internet is awash with people suffering an acute case of not being able to remember it any more, having seen so many hideous comic distortions of Vance that those meme versions are not simply the only results on the first page of your own mental Google search, but stretch deep beyond the second and into the third. Somewhere on page four, where you might as well publish the nuclear codes or pictures of Taylor Swift giving cocaine to babies, is an unmodified snap of what JD Vance actually looks like. Or at least what he looks like with eyeliner.Before you get there – and you don’t, really – your synaptic filing systems throw up every variety of Photoshopped Vancefake: swollen manboy, face wearing a Minion suit, a bearded egg … I’m hoping that sooner or later, an American news outlet will accidentally use a modified photo, because even the picture editor has forgotten what the vice-president looks like, and then we can have one of those massively self-regarding legacy media-blow-ups, where the entire staff has to resign after a remorseless investigation by the executive editor reveals Vance isn’t actually a big purple grape. “This is a stain on our newspaper’s history. A big purple stain.”Vance is more meme than man, now, and it is, of course, something of a consolation that he is so extremely online that he can’t help but have noticed this. The VP is like a one-man government troll-feeding programme – please don’t cut him, Elon! – which is probably why people have become so heroically committed to taking the piss. The probability of the vice-president seeing you insulting him is basically one.Just as previous holders of his office like Teddy Roosevelt and Richard Nixon once did, Vance spent a notable amount of this week both denying he suggested Britain and France were random countries that hadn’t fought a war in 40 years, and replying to random X posters called things like “Jeff Computers” to counter the suggestion that he wasn’t loved and feted on his recent skiing holiday.View image in fullscreenOver on this side of the Atlantic, it must be said that the latter vignette in particular serves as a helpful reminder of the cultural differences between our great nations – and indeed between our great anti-elitists. British politicians would rather admit they’d sexually harassed an intern than gone skiing. (You can, of course, do both – and many do.) If a British cabinet minister were to sally forth on to social media like Vance did, and honk that actually, he had a great time on the ski slopes, it would probably be the end of him. Let’s face it, our rightwing politicians still make time twice a week to do a drive-by on “latte drinkers”, seemingly unaware that the only thing left in most high streets, and quite a lot of people’s lives, is a hot milky drink at a Costa. Yet in our country, would-be populists treat having the temerity to order a coffee like it’s Marie Antoinette skiing past a workhouse – which is a useful illustration of why we don’t have growth, and why our many political failures speak to near-empty rooms at conservative conferences in the US.Anyway: Vance. On or off skis – and I would prefer him to sod offski – the vice-president can be judged successful in his deliberately adopted mission to become mesmerisingly awful. On British army talkboards this week, I spent some very enjoyable time watching veterans of the US’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan offer their thoughts on JD, who I believe was some kind of military journalist for about 15 minutes. Though that wasn’t quite how they put it, naturally. Real soldiers can be hilariously creative with their insults, while Vance is drawn towards the artless, perhaps most neatly embodied in his decision to whine at Volodymyr Zelenskyy: “Did you even say thank you?”Then again, while I’m sure that the memes will keep us warm in the event of an unscheduled nuclear winter, it must be said that other forms of digital manipulation are passing notably without the comment they used to, even until very recently. So perhaps the moral slippage has not been entirely one-sided.I noticed this week that people who only a couple of years ago were hand-wringing about the horror AI deepfakes could wreak upon democracy were now cheerfully sharing synthetic scenes of Zelenskyy slapping Donald Trump in the Oval Office, or Trump crying like a baby, or some other eerie piece of fakery that felt qualitatively different from a still of a lollipop-wielding kiddie Vance. I think people used to think this stuff was bad and corrosive and potentially politically dangerous? Maybe they still do – or maybe only when the other side do it.

      Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

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      Europe can’t just hope for the best with Trump. Ukraine needs all the arms we can send | Frans Timmermans

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      After US vice-president JD Vance’s speech in Munich last month, most European leaders came to the conclusion that our world has fundamentally changed. The Pax Americana that long ensured peace, security and freedom in Europe is over. Anyone who still doubted this will hopefully now realise, after the disgraceful treatment Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy endured last Friday at the White House, that we can no longer rely on the Americans for our collective security.We must hope for the best, but hope is not a policy. We – the Netherlands, the EU, and all western countries standing with Ukraine – must prepare for the worst. The question is this: how do we keep Ukraine free and independent, and how do we protect our economy, our freedom and democracy, and our borders?This begins with the awareness that our security is already directly threatened by Russia. Trump wants to do business over our heads with this country. It appears that he and Vladimir Putin have divided Europe into spheres of influence like two mob bosses in a low-budget movie. As the saying goes: if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.The Netherlands is not an island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean; we are fully exposed when geopolitical and economic storms brew on our continent. It is the Russian aggression in Ukraine that has made our energy prices rocket. We cannot batten down the hatches and wait for the storm to pass. We are a medium-sized country with significant European and international interests. It is high time we acted accordingly.But political divisions at the heart of our government are leaving us exposed. The biggest party in the coalition governing the Netherlands, the Party for Freedom (PVV), led by Geert Wilders, has a history of pro-Kremlin rhetoric. While other parties, such as the centre-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), formerly led by Mark Rutte, are staunch advocates of unwavering support of Ukraine. Combined with an unelected prime minister, Dick Schoof, who serves no specific political party, the coalition government is rudderless and unstable.It is abundantly clear that our national scale is far too small to make a real difference. Today, we need the EU more than ever before. We must also work on closer ties with countries that share our sense of urgency and are not EU members, primarily the UK and Norway, but also Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The EU will also need to take a much firmer stance against member states such as Hungary that spare no effort in promoting Putin’s (and Trump’s) agenda.View image in fullscreenThe most urgent priority now is to support Ukraine. We must fill the gaps that Trump is leaving behind. Financially, this should not be too complicated, but in military terms, this is a different challenge. Russia will now intensify its attacks, so all available military equipment must be sent to Ukraine as quickly as possible. With additional financial support, we can also get the Ukrainian defence industry up and running at full capacity.The Russians are struggling more than it appears at first glance; sanctions are damaging the country, the losses are significant, and the war economy is creating large gaps elsewhere. Sanctions need to be scaled up much further, and all frozen Russian assets in the EU must be transferred to Ukraine immediately.EU member states must wake up and stop squabbling over trivial matters. The same goes for the Schoof cabinet. It is all hands on deck now. This means thinking creatively about European war bonds and finding the fastest possible way to bolster our defence in preparation for a confrontation in which the Americans may leave us to fend for ourselves. This requires investing in areas that the Americans currently cover within Nato. Moreover, it is vital for the overall resilience of Dutch society that defence investments do not come at the expense of our social safety net.In the longer term, we must first establish a partnership that provides the collective security guarantee of Nato without having to rely on the US. Crucial to this is the involvement of Britain and possibly Canada, and European countries that are not members of the EU. Therefore, it should go beyond the EU and perhaps also exclude countries, if these, such as Hungary or the nominally neutral Austria and Ireland, for example, do not want to participate.Second, it is of national security interest to make progress on a genuine energy union. High energy prices constitute the primary economic threat to this continent. This requires much more collective investment in energy networks, renewable energy, and also joint procurement of gas for as long as we need it.The Netherlands can play a leading role in all these areas, but it is not doing so. Because the coalition is deeply divided, the prime minister speaks too hesitantly, too late, and too ambiguously. Because the coalition is not allocating additional funds for Ukraine and is implementing utterly nonsensical cuts to the contributions to the EU, the words of support are literally and figuratively cheap. Because the largest coalition party is at best ambiguous and usually sides with Trump – who is now also siding with Putin – our government is adrift.Fortunately, there is still hope. The rudderless government may be on the brink of despair, but the people are not without hope, and our country is certainly not without prospects. The Dutch people see that the world order is changing. In such extraordinary, dangerous times, they deserve a decisive, united government.

      Frans Timmermans is the leader of the leftwing alliance of the Dutch Green party and the Labour party (GroenLinks/PvdA)

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      The US embrace of Russia is an existential threat to the EU. Germany must step up to save it | Catherine De Vries

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      In February 1945, three world leaders – Winston Churchill, Franklin D Roosevelt and Josef Stalin – met in Crimea for the Yalta conference, to discuss the new world order they would implement after the soon-to-end second world war.Smaller nations were given no say in deciding their fate. The Soviet sphere of influence would infest eastern Europe for decades and US foreign policy dominated the second half of the 20th century. Churchill resisted the end of the UK’s global empire and independence for Britain’s colonies came piecemeal; they were let go with bitterness.Eighty years on, the logic present at Yalta – that large states can impose their will on smaller states – is back. Might is once again right. But history is repeating itself with a striking difference – for this time, there is no European leader at the table. Russian and US delegations have sat down to discuss Ukraine’s future without Ukraine or the EU’s input. Eighty years down the line, Europe is no longer seen as relevant by the great powers.The urgency of Europe’s shifting geopolitical landscape was laid bare last Sunday in London, where European leaders gathered with their counterparts from the UK, Canada, Turkey, the EU and Nato for a high-level defence summit. That meeting came as a result of the very public collapse of White House talks between Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Donald Trump, and Trump’s suspension of military aid to Ukraine.Even if a reported reconciliation between Washington and Kyiv materialises, European officials are still reeling from the rapidity of the transatlantic rupture so early in Trump’s second term. Trump’s defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, last month warned Europe it could no longer rely on US security guarantees. JD Vance, the US vice-president, went further at the Munich Security Conference, calling Europe – not Russia or China – the primary US threat.Pax Americana – the postwar period of relative peace in the western hemisphere, with the US as the dominant economic, cultural and military world power – is over. Europe will quickly have to adapt to the new reality, with the loss of its primary strategic and military partner. What part now will the EU’s largest member state, Germany, play?Despite large gains by the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), which doubled its support in the federal election on 23 February, Germany will be led by Friedrich Merz, head of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU). The chancellor-in-waiting lost no time in declaring that Europe, faced with an increasingly adversarial US, must take its fate into its own hands.“It is my absolute priority to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that we can actually become independent from the US step by step,” Merz said, hours after his election victory. Stark words from a politician who as recently as a few months ago was a bona fide Atlanticist.Merz wants to forge greater unity in Europe and establish an independent European defence capability. It remains to be seen how he will go about achieving this, but he clearly aims to put Germany back into the European driving seat.German leadership has been lacking in recent years. While Paris and Warsaw took increasingly assertive positions on European security, Berlin has remained cautious. After the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, the chancellor, Olaf Scholz, spoke of a Zeitenwende – a turning point in German policy to reflect the new realities of the world. But, in the end, little but hot air was produced.Since the end of the second world war, Germany has invested relatively little in military capacity. Under the Nato umbrella, and with the close partnership with the US, this was not seen as a problem. But the world has fundamentally shifted, and Merz sees that Germany, finally, must change, too.However, an emboldened new Germany, at the head of the EU, faces a harsh world and an even harsher set of realities. The country will not only have to increase its military capacity, bring about bloc-wide military cooperation and perhaps even station troops in Ukraine, but it will also have to pay for all of this.This will require overhauling Germany’s strict ceiling on public borrowing, the so-called Schuldenbremse (debt brake) enshrined in the constitution. Merz has now begun that process; on Tuesday, his party struck agreement with its prospective coalition partners, the SPD, on the creation of a special €500bn (£390bn) fund to boost defence and infrastructure spending that would be exempt from the debt constraint. If approved by the German parliament, this would amount to a dramatic and some critics warn risky loosening of the budgetary straitjacket.Merz will also have to rally the EU (though Trump’s harrying of Europe and Zelenskyy is already pushing European leaders toward his vision), as well as face down Trump-friendly far-right parties, many of them in ascendence across the bloc.At a recent meeting in Madrid of the rightwing radical bloc of the European parliament, the Patriots for Europe, Geert Wilders, leader of the far-right PVV in the Netherlands, praised Trump as a “brother in arms”. Slovakia’s prime minister, Robert Fico, expressed his support for Trump’s pro-Russian policy at the rightwing Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Maryland last month. AfD co-leader Alice Weidel has said that “Trump is implementing the policies that the AfD has been demanding for years”.These rightist politicians seem willing to risk Europe’s security and prosperity for political gain. The US turn toward Russia and away from democracy will be an existential test for the European project and Europe’s commitment to law and democracy. The art of European cooperation has long been to achieve the possible in unforeseen circumstances. Germany, under chancellor-elect Merz, has a steep learning curve ahead. But the task of stepping up to save Ukraine – and Europe – falls to Berlin.

      Catherine De Vries is professor of political science at Bocconi University in Milan More

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      Trump touts renewal of rightwing policies in lengthy speech as Democrats jeer, protest and walk out – as it happened

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      Donald Trump spoke for a record-breaking hour and 40 minutes during his address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night, during which he declared that “America is back” and outlined his accomplishment in the first weeks of his second term.Here are some of the key takeaways from his speech:

      Trump touted his administration’s “swift and unrelenting action” and boasted that he had signed nearly 100 executive orders and more than 400 executive actions since taking office six weeks ago. He boasted that he withdrew the US out of the Paris Climate Accord, the World Health Organization and the UN human rights council.

      Trump called his predecessor, Joe Biden, the worst US president in history and criticized Democrats for failing to recognize his accomplishments. “There is absolutely nothing I can say to make them happy,” he said. He blamed Biden for the soaring price of eggs.

      Trump praised the work of his billionaire adviser, Elon Musk, who has led his administration’s efforts to dramatically downsize the federal government through his so-called “department of government efficiency”. He warned that workers who resisted his administration’s policies would be fired.

      Trump said the US would take “historic action to dramatically expand production of critical minerals and rare earths” and said he was working “tirelessly” to end the “savage conflict in Ukraine”. He read from a letter from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy he received earlier in the day, which said Kyiv is “ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer”.

      Trump vowed a tit-for-tat retaliation hours after he launched a trade war against three of the US’s top trading partners: Mexico, Canada and China. “Whatever they tariff us, we tariff them,” he said, adding a caveat that “there’ll be a little disturbance … it won’t be much”.

      Trump said his administration was in the process of “reclaiming the Panama Canal” and repeated his threat to take control of Greenland: “One way or the other, we’re going to get it.” He pledged to put an American flag on the planet Mars.

      House speaker Mike Johnson ordered Texas representative Al Green, a vocal advocate for civil rights and presidential accountability, removed from the House chamber after the congressman repeatedly interrupted Trump’s address, shouting: “He has no mandate.” Other Democrats protested Trump’s speech by holding up signs or walking out of the chamber.
      Donald Trump’s motorcade has left the Capitol and is headed back to the White House.Michigan senator Elissa Slotkin, delivering the Democratic rebuttal to Donald Trump’s speech, said Trump had not laid out a credible plan to tackle the rise in grocery and home prices.Slotkin said the state of the country’s democracy is “worth fighting for”. “It’s easy to be exhausted, but America needs you now more than ever,” she said.“We’ve gone through periods of political instability before,” she said. “Ultimately, we’ve chosen to keep changing this country for the better.”Elissa Slotkin, the Democratic senator from Michigan, has issued the Democratic party’s response to Donald Trump’s speech.Slotkin said Trump is “trying to deliver an unprecedented giveaway to his billionaire friends”. “He’s on the hunt to find trillions of dollars to pass along to the wealthiest in America,” she said.Referencing Trump’s public clash with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Slotkin said the scene in the Oval Office on Friday “wasn’t just a bad episode of reality TV.”“It summed up Trump’s approach to the world,” she said. “He believes in cozying up to dictators like Vladimir Putin and kicking our friends like the Canadians in the teeth.”“As a Cold War kid, I’m thankful it was Reagan and not Trump in office in the 1980s. Trump would have lost us the Cold War,” she said.Donald Trump’s address tonight lasted about an hour and 40 minutes, easily setting the record for the longest address to a joint session of Congress.The previous record was set by Bill Clinton, who spoke for an hour and 28 minutes during his State of the Union address in 2000, according to the American Presidency Project at the University of California at Santa Barbara.Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, issued a statement shortly after Donald Trump finished his address.“Tonight, President Trump made his triumphant return to Congress to share his bold, optimistic vision for renewing the American Dream,” Johnson said.
      After four years of President Biden’s disastrous policies, President Trump has seized the moment and moved rapidly to deliver on the promise of restoring American greatness.
      He said Trump’s achievements since returning to the White House “prove that America First policies make America stronger, safer and more prosperous.”Johnson adds that House Republicans “look forward” to working with Trump to deliver “record-setting success” for the American people.Donald Trump has finished his address to a joint session of Congress, and is shaking hands with his supporters as he slowly exits the chamber.House speaker Mike Johnson declares that the session has now been dissolved.Fact-check: Trump, again, wrongly states that the United States has given Ukraine $350 billion since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, and that Europe has given just $100 billion.In fact, as our colleagues Jakub Krupa and Pjotr Sauer reported last month, the Kiel Institute for the World Economy’s Ukraine Support Tracker shows that Europe – counted as the sum of the EU and individual member states – has allocated nearly $138 billion in help for Ukraine, and the US just $120bn. When the contributions from non EU countries, like the United Kingdom, are included, Europe’s share is even larger.Last week, three visiting world leaders corrected Trump on this false statement while sitting next to him in the Oval Office: the French president, Emmanuel Macron, the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, and Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.Trump says it is time for America to take its destiny into its own hands.He says he will lead the nation to forge “the freest, most advanced, most dynamic and most dominant civilization ever to exist on the face of this earth.”He says America will “conquer the vast frontiers of science” and “lead humanity into space” and “plant the American flag on the planet Mars and even far beyond”.“My fellow Americans, get ready for an incredible future, because the golden age of America has only just begun. It will be like nothing that has ever been seen before,” he says, concluding his address to Congress.Democratic congressman Maxwell Frost from Florida has explained his decision to walk out of Donald Trump’s joint address to Congress.Frost took off his suit jacket during the middle of Trump’s address to show that he was wearing a T-shirt that read “No Kings Live Here”. In a statement, Frost said:
      Donald Trump is many things – a liar, a grifter, a wanna-be-dictator – but no matter how hard he tries and how many Republicans in Congress bend the knee and kiss the ring: he will never be king.
      Tonight, the American people saw a desperate liar stand in front of a podium and spit out excuse after excuse as to why he hasn’t been able to make your life better. Why he can’t make eggs cheaper, why he can’t lower housing costs, why the stock market is tanking under his watch, why innocent immigrants and trans people are to blame. All lies.
      The people of this country are seeing right through the lies. We won’t let up.
      Trump says he “appreciated” the letter from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.He says that “simultaneously, we’ve had serious discussions with Russia”.He says the US has received “strong signals” from Moscow that it is “ready for peace”.“Wouldn’t that be beautiful?” he asks. “It’s time to end the senseless war.”Trump says “a lot of things are happening” in the Middle East, and describes it as a “rough neighbourhood”.He says he is working “tirelessly” to end the “savage conflict” in Ukraine.“Millions of Ukrainians and Russians have been needlessly killed or wounded in this horrific and brutal conflict with no end in sight,” he says.He says he received an “important” letter from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy earlier today which said Kyiv is “ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible”.Zelenskyy has told him that his team stands ready to work “under President Trump’s strong leadership to get a peace that lasts”, Trump says.Trump says Zelenskyy’s letter states that he “really do[es] value how much America has done to help Ukraine maintain its sovereignty and independence”.“Regarding the agreement on minerals and security, Ukraine is ready to sign it at any time that is convenient for you,” Zelenskyy’s letter reads, Trump says.Fact-check: Trump wrongly claimed that one of his invited guests, January Littlejohn from Tallahassee, Florida, had discovered that her 13-year-old child’s middle school had secretly socially transitioned her from female to non-binary.While Littlejohn made that case in a lawsuit, the suit was dismissed by a federal judge, and emails obtained by the Tallahassee Democrat newspaper showed that Littlejohn had written to the school in 2020 to notify a teacher that her child wanted to change pronouns.The emails showed that Littlejohn worked with a teacher to determine how best to navigate the situation, and thanked the teacher for their help. More

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      Trump to defend trade war in major address to Congress tonight, top adviser says – live

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      Jason Miller, a top adviser to Donald Trump, says the president will defend his trade war to Americans when he speaks to a joint session of Congress tonight.“I would say that he’s going to lean into it and he’s going to talk about how increasing tariffs can actually go and close the trade deficits … [in] January we saw a record trade deficit, particularly when it comes to countries such as Canada, Mexico, China. And how, if we don’t go and do this now, we’re going to be completely wiped out by certain industries here in the United States,” Miller told CNN in an interview.“Ultimately the costs on this are going to be carried by the producers and the foreign countries as opposed to Americans,” he added, repeating a common argument of the administration that economists are skeptical of.Speaking to the former Trump advisor Larry Kudlow on Fox Business this hour, the US commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, said that talks with Canada and Mexico are ongoing, and an announcement on a middle ground solution on tariffs could be announced on Wednesday.“Both the Mexicans and the Canadians were on the phone with me all day today, trying to show that they’ll do better”, Lutnick said, “and the president is listening because you know he’s very, very fair and very reasonable. So I think he’s gonna work something out with them. It’s not gonna be a pause, none of that pause stuff. But I think he’s gonna figure out, ‘You do more, and I’ll meet you in the middle some way’. And we’re going to probably be announcing that tomorrow. So, somewhere in the middle will likely be the outcome. The president moving with the Canadians and Mexicans, but not all the way.”The Fox Business host Kudlow was the director of the National Economic Council during the first Trump administration.In addition to the mass firings of federal workers, the Trump administration’s plan to slash the federal government apparently includes a real estate fire sale.On its website, the General Services Administration, which manages federal properties, said it has identified 443 properties, totaling more than 80 million square feet that “are not core to government operations” now “designated for disposal.”The list of buildings to be put up for sale includes some of the most iconic properties in Washington, including the headquarters of the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Labor Department.Reuters reports that the agency said sales could potentially save more than $430 million in annual operating costs. The move could, however, put federal agencies at risk of exploitation by private landlords.The list also includes the Washington headquarters for the Department of Energy, the Department of Agriculture, the American Red Cross building and the Office of Personnel Management. GSA’s own headquarters were also on the list.It also includes major office buildings in Atlanta, Cleveland, Los Angeles and Chicago, including the landmark Chicago Loop Post Office designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.The largest union of federal workers says that fired probationary employees must be reinstated, after the office of personnel management (OPM) amended a memo that had ordered their termination.“OPM’s revision of its Jan. 20 memo is a clear admission that it unlawfully directed federal agencies to carry out mass terminations of probationary employees – which aligns with Judge Alsup’s recent decision in our lawsuit challenging these illegal firings,” the American Federation of Government Employees president, Everett Kelley, said in a statement.“Every agency should immediately rescind these unlawful terminations and reinstate everyone who was illegally fired.”Here’s more about the Trump administration’s about-face:Democrats have seized on reports that congressman Richard Hudson, who leads the House GOP’s campaign operation, has asked lawmakers to stop holding in-person town halls after several incidences where constituents aired grievances over Donald Trump’s haphazard cuts to the federal government.Politico reports that Hudson made the request in a private meeting today, though lawmakers don’t have to follow it. In response, top Democrats have accused Republicans of trying to hide while supporting unpopular policies. Here’s minority leader Hakeem Jeffries:
      House Republicans have just been ordered to stop holding town hall meetings. They can run from their extreme agenda. We will never let them hide.
      And Katarina Flicker, press secretary for the House Majority Pac, which supports Democratic candidates:
      If you’re going to have the audacity to raise prices and rip away health care from millions of Americans, you should at least have the courage to face your constituents. House Republicans are cowards.
      The nation’s largest union of auto workers said it supported Donald Trump’s tariffs on major US trading partners and was working with its administration “to end the free trade disaster”.The statement from the United Auto Workers comes after it endorsed Joe Biden’s re-election bid and its president, Shawn Fain, campaigned for Democrats last year. The political winds have since shifted, and the UAW says it is in favor of Trump’s tariffs on Mexico and Canada as a way to undo the damage of free trade agreements that it claims undermined American manufacturing. From its statement:
      Tariffs are a powerful tool in the toolbox for undoing the injustice of anti-worker trade deals. We are glad to see an American president take aggressive action on ending the free trade disaster that has dropped like a bomb on the working class.
      There’s been a lot of talk of these tariffs “disrupting” the economy. But if corporate America chooses to price-gouge the American consumer or attack the American worker because they don’t want to pay their fair share, corporate America bears the blame for that decision. The working class suffered all the pain of NAFTA, and we won’t suffer all the pain of undoing NAFTA. We want to see corporate America, from the auto industry and beyond, recommit to the working class that makes the products and generates the profits that keep this country running.
      The UAW is in active negotiations with the Trump Administration about their plans to end the free trade disaster. We look forward to working with the White House to shape the auto tariffs in April to benefit the working class. We want to see serious action that will incentivize companies to change their behavior, reinvest in America, and stop cheating the American worker, the American consumer, and the American taxpayer.
      Earlier in the day, the Detroit automakers’ trade association pleaded for exemptions from the tariffs and warned they would undermine US car manufacturers.Add Republican former senator Pat Toomey to those who don’t think much of Donald Trump’s levying of tariffs on Mexico and Canada.On X, Toomey, who represented Pennsylvania until 2023, said:
      With his multiple rounds of tariffs, and the inevitable retaliations, President Trump has wiped out all of the S & P 500 and Nasdaq 100 gains since his election. Next come higher prices and job losses.
      Democratic lawmakers are split over whether to attend Donald Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress this evening, and the degree to which they should express their dislike of what he will say.Many lawmakers plan to be there, but bring along guests with personal stories that can speak to the risks and failures of Trump’s ideology. Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi said she invited Elena Hung, an advocate for Medicaid, the insurance program for poor and disabled Americans that Trump wants to cut:
      Elena Hung’s courageous daughter, Xiomara, was born with a number of serious medical conditions and is thriving today as a result of access to quality health care – including Medicaid …
      At a time when Medicaid is under assault by those who seek to give tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations, I am honored that Xiomara’s story will be told through Elena’s attendance as my guest to this year’s address to a joint session of Congress.
      Some Democrats want to stage protests during the speech, not unlike the heckling Joe Biden got last year when he gave what turned out to be his final State of the Union address. Axios has more about their plans, which are not popular with minority leader Hakeem Jeffries:
      Some members have told colleagues they may walk out of the chamber when Trump says specific lines they find objectionable, lawmakers told Axios. Criticism of transgender kids was brought up as a line in the sand that could trigger members to storm out, according to a House Democrat.
      A wide array of props – including noisemakers – has also been floated: Signs with anti-Trump or anti-DOGE messages – just as Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) held up a sign during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech last year that said “war criminal.” Eggs or empty egg cartons to highlight how inflation is driving up the price of eggs.
      Finally, some lawmakers are boycotting the address. Among them is progressive Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who said on Bluesky she’d be “live posting and chatting with you all here instead. Then going on [Instagram] Live after.”The magnitude and scale of President Trump’s decision to go ahead with 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico has had economists recalling the Tariff Act (1930) signed by President Herbert Hoover.It saw average tariffs jump by 20% for thousands of different imported goods, as the US tried to protect its depressed agricultural sector from foreign competition.Proposed by senator Reed Smoot and representative Willis C Hawley, the bill, reported in the Manchester Guardian (below) was opposed by more than onethousand economists, who warned Hoover of a dramatic downturn in US trade with other countries, especially from those that retaliated.Nonetheless Hoover signed it into law, with some Congress members, realising the vote was quite close, engaging in logrolling to get something for their constituency in return for their support.The impact of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act was, as predicted, highly damaging to the United States, with estimates of imported goods, many of which were needed by US industry and commerce, plummeting by nearly half.The tariffs also caused shock waves to global trade as other nations deployed protectionist policies, resulting in an estimated half of the 25% decline in world trade.Elon Musk will brief House republicans tonight about criticism of Doge cuts, Bloomberg News and the Hill report. Tonight at 7pm, Musk, who leads the so-called Department of Government Efficiency – which has been slashing the federal workforce and the budgets of federal agencies – will meet in the House basement with Republican lawmakers about complaints from their constituents about the mass firings.Mass firings have taken place at the Department of Veteran Affairs, Defense Department, Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services, the IRS, National Parks, and more.In a message to employees on Monday, the newly confirmed secretary of education, Linda McMahon, a billionaire ex-wrestling executive, laid out the “final mission” for the department as Donald Trump threatens to dismantle the agency.“My vision is aligned with the President’s: to send education back to the states and empower all parents to choose an excellent education for their children,” wrote McMahon, a co-founder of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), the professional wrestling organisation. “This is our opportunity to perform one final, unforgettable public service to future generations of students.”The message comes as Trump is reportedly finalizing plans to issue an executive order to eliminate the 45-year-old US Department of Education and eliminate or reorganize the department’s functions and programs.Workers at the Department of Education called the email a “power grab” focused on privatization at the expense of children with disabilities and from low-income families.“It’s heartbreaking to read such a disingenuous, manipulative letter from the head of the agency,” said one employee who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. “I don’t read the letter to be an end to the department. It reads as a transformation into something sinister, a tool for the president to use to ensure his ideology is implemented by states and local governments at the risk of losing funding. It’s the exact overreach it’s purporting to stop.”You can read more on this story here:Trump took to his social media platform Truth Social to respond to Canada’s announcement of retaliatory measures against the US after Donald Trump imposed his sweeping tariffs plan: “Please explain to Governor Trudeau, of Canada, that when he puts on a Retaliatory Tariff on the U.S., our Reciprocal Tariff will immediately increase by a like amount!”Trump flippantly referring to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as “Governor” in his post underscores the president’s previous comments that he wants to annex Canada and make it the 51st US state.When asked what he would tell his constituents who have federal government jobs and are worried about the so-called department of government efficiency’s cuts to the federal workforce, Republican senator Tommy Tuberville told ABC News: “We’re going to have to suck it up.” He echoed Trump’s calls to “stop the bleeding” and spend less, even though this means it will hurt Americans. Federal employees make up 7.6% of the workforce Huntsville, Alabama. Many of these employees work at Nasa’s Marshall Space Flight Center.In response to the tariffs that went in effect today, which experts say will raise the price of goods, Tuberville said “there’s going to be pain” but that it was the best way forward for the country.Donald Trump has upended the United States’ relationship with three of its top trading partners by following through on his campaign promise to impose tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China. Prime minister Justin Trudeau said the tariffs were “a very dumb thing to do” and announced Canada would impose retaliatory levies, while in Mexico, President Claudia Sheinbaum said she would announce her nation’s response on Sunday. Trump defended the decision as necessary to restore domestic manufacturing, though his commerce secretary acknowledged they could drive prices higher in the short term. The president is expected to elaborate on the decision this evening, when he addresses the first joint session of Congress of his new term.Here’s what else has happened today so far:

      The CEOs of two large US retailers, Target and Best Buy, said they expected prices to go up as a result of Trump’s trade war.

      Ontario’s premier Doug Ford told the Wall Street Journal that he was imposing a 25% export tax on electricity sent to three US states, and might cut it off altogether if the tariffs linger.

      Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he was ready to sign the minerals deal Trump was demanding, and acknowledged his White House meeting last week “did not go the way it was supposed to”.
      The Trump administration has backed down from its demand for federal agencies to fire employees on probation, even after many have already been let go.The decision comes as a federal judge temporarily halted the administration’s move, which was part of a larger effort to thin out the federal workforce and targeted at workers who were newly hired or promoted.In a revised memo, the office of personnel management instead instructed agency human resource chiefs to send them lists of workers on probation and determine whether those employees should be retained, without specifying that they be terminated. It’s unclear what this will mean for workers who have already been fired.The development was first reported by the Washington Post.Jason Miller, a top adviser to Donald Trump, says the president will defend his trade war to Americans when he speaks to a joint session of Congress tonight.“I would say that he’s going to lean into it and he’s going to talk about how increasing tariffs can actually go and close the trade deficits … [in] January we saw a record trade deficit, particularly when it comes to countries such as Canada, Mexico, China. And how, if we don’t go and do this now, we’re going to be completely wiped out by certain industries here in the United States,” Miller told CNN in an interview.“Ultimately the costs on this are going to be carried by the producers and the foreign countries as opposed to Americans,” he added, repeating a common argument of the administration that economists are skeptical of.Back in the US, more business leaders are warning consumers to expect higher prices as a result of Donald Trump’s trade war. Here’s more on that, from the Guardian’s Callum Jones and Leyland Cecco:Americans have been warned to brace for higher prices within days after Donald Trump pulled the trigger on Monday and imposed US tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico, and hiked tariffs on China.Global stock markets came under pressure again on Tuesday, with leading indices falling sharply – and the benchmark S&P 500 losing all its post-election gains – as Canada, Mexico and China vowed to retaliate, and investors balked at the prospect of an acrimonious trade war.US retail giants predicted that prices were “highly likely” to start rising on shelves almost immediately after a 25% duty came into effect on exports from Mexico to the US.Most Canadian exports to the US also now face a 25% duty, with a 10% rate for energy products. The Trump administration imposed a 10% levy on all Chinese exports to the US last month, which has now been doubled to 20%.Trump, who won back the White House after pledging repeatedly to bring prices down, has acknowledged that his controversial trade strategy could lead them to rise. Consumers could face “some short-term disturbance”, the president conceded last month.With US retailers relying heavily on imports from Mexico and Canada to stock their shelves, top executives claimed they would have no choice but to increase prices.Justin Trudeau went on to accuse Donald Trump of seeking to destroy the Canadian economy to make the country easier to annex – something he insisted was “never going to happen”.“What he wants is to see a total collapse of the Canadian economy, because that will make it easier to annex us, is the second half of his thought. Now, first of all, that’s never going to happen. We will never be the 51st state, but yeah, he can do damage to the Canadian economy, and he started this morning,” Trudeau said.The prime minister warned that Americans will suffer in the trade war as well:
      As American families are going to find out, that’s going to hurt people on both sides of the border. Americans will lose jobs, Americans will be paying more for groceries, for gas, for cars, for homes, because we have always done best when we work together. So we are, of course, open to starting negotiations on the customer review, but let us not fool ourselves about what he seems to be wanting.
      Justin Trudeau also said that he did not believe Donald Trump’s insistence that tariffs were imposed in retaliation for Canada’s failure to combat fentanyl trafficking.“We have laid out extensive plans, actions, cooperations, including as recently as the past days in Washington, and they have always been very well received, and the numbers bear that out,” the prime minister said.“I think in what President Trump said yesterday, that there is nothing Canada or Mexico can do to avoid these tariffs, underlines very clearly what I think a lot of us have suspected for a long time, that these tariffs are not specifically about fentanyl, even though that is the legal justification he must use to actually move forward with these tariffs.” More