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    GOP lawmaker pulls measure to allow Marco Rubio to revoke US passports

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    The chair of the House foreign affairs committee moved to cut a contentious provision from legislation that would have granted the secretary of state sweeping powers to revoke US citizens’ passports over allegations of supporting terrorism.Representative Brian Mast, a Florida Republican, filed an amendment to eliminate the measure from his department of state policy provisions act, a bill meant to reform the state department in the Trump administration’s image, after widespread criticism from civil liberties advocates, according to the Intercept.The original language would have given Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, the power to deny or revoke passports for individuals the department determines have provided “material support” to terrorist organizations. Given similar language employed by the Trump administration in other contexts, it is believed to have been intended to target pro-Palestinian activists specifically.Since Rubio became secretary of state, he has overseen efforts to deport pro-Palestinian international students and deploy an AI-powered “Catch and Revoke” system to target foreign nationals government authorities allege support Hamas. The US also recently announced it will look for “anti-American” views when assessing visa applications.But the new measure would have significantly escalated these efforts by targeting US citizens. Mast had initially defended the broader legislation, saying it “ensures every dollar and every diplomat puts America First and is accountable to the president’s foreign policy” when the House foreign affairs committee introduced the package last week.However, a committee spokesperson told the Intercept the committee would not allow the passport revocation amendment to “overshadow the bipartisan effort to restore command and control of the State Department to the Secretary”.A committee spokesperson did not respond to the Guardian’s request for comment on Mast’s decision to remove the provision.Among other provisions, the bill package also includes a proposal to create a new “state sponsor of unlawful or wrongful detention” designation to penalize foreign governments that detain US nationals and require stronger accountability measures in those cases.The episode unfolded as Rubio wrapped a trip to Israel, Qatar and the UK to discuss Israel’s war in Gaza, ahead of the UN general assembly meeting in New York next week.The amendment to remove the passport provision still requires approval at a committee hearing scheduled for Wednesday. Even without it, the broader state department reform package faces uncertain prospects in the Senate. More

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      Rubio calls Russian drones over Poland ‘unacceptable’ but declines to say it was intentional

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      The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, on Saturday said the incursion of Russian drones into Polish airspace this week was unacceptable but that it remained unclear whether Russia had deliberately sent the drones into Polish territory. Nato announced plans to beef up the defense of Europe’s eastern flank on Friday, after Poland shot down the drones that had violated its airspace, the first known shots fired by a member of the western alliance during Russia’s war in Ukraine.“We think it’s an unacceptable and unfortunate and dangerous development,” Rubio told reporters before departing on a trip to Israel and Britain.“No doubt about it: the drones were intentionally launched. The question is whether the drones were targeted to go into Poland specifically.“Rubio said that if the drones had been targeted at Poland, “if the evidence leads us there, then obviously that’ll be a highly escalatory move”.“There are a number of other possibilities as well, but I think we’d like to have all the facts and consult with our allies before we make specific determinations,” he added. On Friday, Poland rejected Donald Trump’s suggestion that the incursions could have been a mistake, a rare contradiction of the US president from one of Washington’s closest European allies. Its foreign minister told Reuters that Poland hoped Washington would take action to show solidarity with Warsaw. At the United Nations on Friday, the US called the airspace violations “alarming” and vowed to “defend every inch of NATO territory”.Russia has said its forces had been attacking Ukraine at the time of the drone incursions and that it had not intended to hit targets in Poland. More

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      US conducts ‘lethal strike’ against drug boat from Venezuela, Rubio says

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      The US military has conducted “a lethal strike” against an alleged “drug vessel” from Venezuela, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has announced amid growing tensions between Washington and Caracas.Donald Trump trailed the announcement during an address at the White House on Tuesday afternoon, telling reporters the US had “just, over the last few minutes, literally shot out … a drug-carrying boat”.“And there’s more where that came from. We have a lot of drugs pouring into our country,” the US president added. “We took it out,” he said of the boat.Shortly after, Rubio offered further details of the incident on social media, tweeting that the military had “conducted a strike in the southern Caribbean against a drug vessel which had departed from Venezuela and was being operated by a designated narco-terrorist organization”.It was not immediately clear what kind of vessel had been targeted, or, crucially, if the incident had taken place inside the South American country’s territorial waters.“Everything is hinging on where this strike took place,” said Geoff Ramsey, a senior fellow on Venezuela and Colombia from the Atlantic Council’s Latin America Centre.“If this strike took place in Venezuelan waters, I think that will trigger a massive escalation from the Venezuelan side. However, from what I’ve heard … this took place in international waters, and that suggests that ultimately this is about drug interdiction.”Ramsey added: “This is a target-rich environment, after all. There are plenty of go-fast boats transporting cocaine through the southern Caribbean, and I think ultimately Washington is more interested in signalling than in actually engaging in any kind of military action inside Venezuela territory.”Even so, the development will add to fears over a possible military clash between Venezuelan and US troops after the US sent war ships and marines into the Caribbean last month as part of what Trump allies touted as an attempt to force Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, Nicolás Maduro, from power.Officially, Trump’s naval buildup is part of US efforts to combat Latin American drug traffickers, including a Venezuelan group called the Cartel de los Soles (Cartel of the Suns) which Trump officials accuse Maduro of leading.Last month the US announced a $50m reward for Maduro’s capture – twice the bounty once offered for Osama bin Laden. In July, Trump signed a secret directive greenlighting military force against Latin American cartels considered terrorist organizations, including the Venezuelan group.Republican party hawks and Trump allies have celebrated those moves as proof the White House is determined to end Maduro’s 12-year rule. “Your days are seriously numbered,” Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn, declared recently, encouraging Maduro to flee to Moscow.Maduro’s allies have also claimed that a regime-change operation is afoot, with Maduro himself this week warning that White House hardliners were seeking to lead Trump into “a terrible war” that would harm the entire region.“Mr President Donald Trump, you need to take care because Marco Rubio wants to stain your hands with blood – with South American, Caribbean blood [and] Venezuelan blood. They want to lead you into a bloodbath … with a massacre against the people of Venezuela,” Maduro said.But many experts are skeptical the US is planning a military intervention. “The idea of there being an invasion, I don’t believe to be true,” James Story, the US’s top diplomat for Venezuela from 2018 to 2023, said last week. He said Trump generally opposed “meddling militarily in the affairs of other countries”.Ramsey agreed. ”This is not a deployment focused on regime change. This may be an attempt to signal to disaffected elements of the military in Venezuela that now is the time to rise up against Maduro. But we’ve seen that approach be tried and ​fail repeatedly over ​the last 25 years.”Ramsey said the tough talk belied the fact that Trump had actually relaxed its stance towards Venezuela. Sanctions had been softened in recent weeks. The Trump administration was “actively coordinating with ​the Maduro regime on deportation flights”, about two of which are landing at Venezuela’s main international airport each week.​Ramsey believed that the military mobilization was partly an attempt “to throw some red meat to a part of Trump’s base that has been dissatisfied with the reality of sanctions relief” and what it perceived as his soft policy towards Maduro. More

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      Trump administration to review more than 55 million US visa holders for potential rules violations

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      The Trump administration is reviewing the records of more than 55 million US visa holders for potential revocation or deportable violations of immigration rules, in a significant expansion of Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.In a move first reported by the Associated Press, the state department said that all of the foreigners who currently hold valid US visas are subject to “continuous vetting” for any indication that they could be ineligible for the document, including those already admitted into the country. Should such evidence come to light, the visa would be revoked and, if the visa holder were in the United States, they would be subject to deportation.“The State Department revokes visas any time there are indications of a potential ineligibility, which includes things like any indicators of overstays, criminal activity, threats to public safety, engaging in any form of terrorist activity, or providing support to a terrorist organization,” a department spokesperson said.It follows an announcement by the Trump administration on Tuesday that it will look for “anti-American” views, including on social media, when assessing the applications of people wanting to live in the United States.US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), which handles requests to stay in the US or become a citizen, said it would expand vetting of the social media postings of applicants and that “reviews for anti-American activity will be added to that vetting”.“America’s benefits should not be given to those who despise the country and promote anti-American ideologies,” said a USCIS spokesperson, Matthew Tragesser. “US Citizenship and Immigration Services is committed to implementing policies and procedures that root out anti-Americanism and supporting the enforcement of rigorous screening and vetting measures to the fullest extent possible. Immigration benefits – including to live and work in the United States – remain a privilege, not a right.”Historically, the notion of anti-Americanism has primarily focused on communism. But since taking office in January, the Trump administration has moved aggressively to deny or rescind short-term visas for people deemed to go against US foreign policy interests, especially regarding Israel.Indeed, the latest guidance on immigration decisions said that authorities will look at whether applicants “promote antisemitic ideologies”.The Trump administration has accused students and universities of antisemitism and support for terrorism over participation in protests in support of Palestinian rights and against Israel’s military assault on Gaza, charges denied by the activists.In April, the administration revoked or changed the legal status of hundreds of international students, only to reinstate them several weeks later. In May, student visa interviews were temporarily halted, and then, in June, new social media vetting measures were introduced for international students applying to study in the US.Under the new measures, foreign students are required to unlock their social media profiles to allow US diplomats to review their online activity before receiving educational and exchange visas. Those who fail to do so are to be suspected of hiding that activity from US officials.On Monday, the state department said it had revoked 6,000 student visas for overstays and violations of local, state and federal law since the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, took office in January. In the “vast majority” of the cases – approximately 4,000 – visas were revoked because the holders “broke the law” in cases of assault, driving under the influence, burglary and “support for terrorism”. More

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      US imposes sanctions on international court officials in ‘flagrant attack’

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      The Trump administration has ramped up its efforts to hobble the international criminal court in what the ICC has denounced as a “flagrant attack against the independence of an impartial judicial institution”.The US state department on Wednesday announced new sanctions on four ICC officials, including two judges and two prosecutors, saying they had been instrumental in efforts to prosecute Americans and Israelis. As a result of the sanctions, any assets that the targets hold in US jurisdictions are frozen.The sanctions were immediately denounced by both the ICC and the United Nations, while Israel welcomed the move announced by the secretary of state, Marco Rubio.It is just the latest in a series of steps the Trump administration has taken against the Hague-based court, the world’s first international war crimes tribunal. The US, which is not a member of the court, has already imposed penalties on the ICC’s former chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, who stepped aside in May pending an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct, and four other tribunal judges.The new penalties target the ICC judges Kimberly Prost of Canada and Nicolas Guillou of France and prosecutors Nazhat Shameem Khan of Fiji and Mame Mandiaye Niang of Senegal.“These individuals are foreign persons who directly engaged in efforts by the international criminal court to investigate, arrest, detain or prosecute nationals of the United States or Israel, without the consent of either nation,” Rubio said.He added that the administration would continue “to take whatever actions we deem necessary to protect our troops, our sovereignty and our allies from the ICC’s illegitimate and baseless actions”.In a separate statement, the state department said Prost was sanctioned for a ruling to authorize an ICC investigation into personnel in Afghanistan, which was later dropped. Guillou was sanctioned for ruling to authorize the ICC’s issuance of arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s former minister of defense Yoav Gallant related to Israel’s war in Gaza.France – whose president, Emmanuel Macron, was in Washington two days earlier – expressed “dismay” over the action.The sanctions are “in contradiction to the principle of an independent judiciary”, a foreign ministry spokesperson said in Paris.Khan and Niang were penalized for continuing Karim Khan’s investigation into Israel’s actions in Gaza, including upholding the ICC’s arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, according to the statement.In response, the ICC issued a statement calling the sanctions “a flagrant attack against the independence of an impartial judicial institution” and “an affront against the Court’s states parties, the rules-based international order and, above all, millions of innocent victims across the world”.A UN spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric, said the ICC had the full support of the world body to carry out its work. The UN was “very concerned” about the US continuing to target the international court, he said.“We firmly believe that the ICC is a key pillar of international criminal justice, and we respect their work,” Dujarric said. “The decision imposes severe impediments on the functioning of the office of the prosecutor in respect for all the situations that are currently before the court.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionNetanyahu welcomed the US move.“This is a firm measure against the mendacious smear campaign against the State of Israel and the IDF, and for truth and justice,” he said in a statement, using an acronym for the Israeli military.Wednesday’s move carries on a history of Trump administration actions against the ICC dating back to his first term in office. During Trump’s first term, the US hit the ICC with sanctions, but those were rescinded by Joe Biden’s administration in early 2021.Danya Chaikel, the International Federation for Human Rights’s representative to the ICC, said the escalation in US sanctions amounted to “a continued attack on the rule of law and a blatant attempt to intimidate those pursuing accountability for atrocity crimes”.She said the new sanctions were a “defining test” for the ICC’s 125 member states. “Will they defend the court’s independence and the rights of victims of international crimes, or allow intimidation by powerful states to dictate who deserves justice?” she added. More

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      Rubio says both Russia and Ukraine ‘have to make concessions’ for peace deal

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      In a combative series of interviews on Sunday, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said that “both sides are going to have to make concessions” for there to be a peaceful resolution to the war that erupted when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.“You can’t have a peace agreement unless both sides make concessions – that’s a fact,” the Trump administration’s top diplomat said Sunday on ABC’s This Week. “That’s true in virtually any negotiation. If not, it’s just called surrender. And neither side is going to surrender. So both sides are going to have to make concessions.”Rubio said the recent talks in Alaska between Russian president Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump toward ending the war had “made progress in the sense that we identified potential areas of agreement – but there remains some big areas of disagreement”.“We’re still a long ways off,” Rubio added. “We’re not at the precipice of a peace agreement. We’re not at the edge of one. But I do think progress was made and towards one.”He declined to go into specific areas of agreement or disagreement, or outline what Trump has described as “severe consequences” for Russia if its aggression toward Ukraine continued.“Ultimately, if there isn’t a peace agreement, if there isn’t an end of this war, the president’s been clear – there are going to be consequences,” Rubio remarked. “But we’re trying to avoid that. And the way we’re trying to avoid those consequences is with an even better consequence, which is peace, the end of hostilities.”US special envoy Steve Witkoff said Putin agreed at the summit to allow the US and Europe to offer Ukraine a security guarantee resembling Nato’s collective defense mandate as part of any peace deal.In an interview on CNN, Witkoff said the US had won the concession that “the United States could offer Article 5-like protection, which is one of the real reasons why Ukraine wants to be in NATO”. He said the concession was “game-changing”.Rubio agreed that no agreement was possible without both sides – including that of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy – being at the table. “You’re not going to reach a ceasefire or a peace agreement in a meeting in which only one side is represented,” Rubio told ABC News. “That’s why it’s important to bring both leaders together – and that’s the goal here.”Rubio confirmed that a ceasefire – or, as Trump now reportedly prefers, a straight-to-peace deal – “is going to be difficult”, despite the White House’s openly demanding one.The war, he said, has been “going on for three and a half years”.“You have two very entrenched sides, and we’re going to have to continue to work and chip away at it,” Rubio said.Separately, on NBC’s Meet the Press, Rubio said a ceasefire was “not off the table”, though he added: “It was agreed by all that the best way to end this conflict is through a full peace deal.”He said the US had advocated for a ceasefire, but “unfortunately, the Russians as of now have not agreed to that.“But the ideal here, what we’re aiming for here is not a ceasefire,” he said. “What we ultimately are aiming for is an end to this.”Soon after Rubio told Meet the Press that “no one is pushing” Ukraine to give up territory, Trump shared a Truth Social post from a supporter that said: “Ukraine must be willing to lose some territory to Russia otherwise the longer the war goes on they will keep losing even more land!!”Nonetheless, Rubio said he doubted that a new set of western sanctions on Russia would force Moscow to agree to any deal.“The Russian economy has basically been turned into a full-time wartime economy,” Rubio told CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday – while pointing out that Russia is estimated to have lost 20,000 soldiers in the last month alone.“That just tells you the price they’re willing to pay,” Rubio said. “Not saying any of this is admirable – I’m saying that this is the reality of the war that we’re facing. It’s become attrition, in some ways. It’s a meat grinder, and they just have more meat to grind.”He also denied that Trump, as critics claim, had merely given the aggressor in the conflict, Putin, an unwarranted place on the world stage.“Putin is already on the world stage,” Rubio said on ABC News. “The guy’s conducting a full scale war in Ukraine.“That doesn’t mean he’s right about the war. That doesn’t mean he’s justified about the war. You’re not going to end a war between Russia and Ukraine without dealing with Putin. That’s just common sense. So people can say whatever they want.”On NBC’s Meet the Press, the Democratic US senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut countered on Sunday that the Trump-Putin “meeting was a disaster”.“It was an embarrassment for the United States,” Murphy said. “It was a failure. Putin got everything he wanted.”Murphy said that Trump had given Putin “that photo-op” he wanted and to “be absolved of his war crimes in front of the world.“War criminals are not normally invited to the United States of America,” Murphy remarked.Secondly, he said, Putin had not been forced to give up anything.“President Trump said he wanted a ceasefire – it appears the ceasefire wasn’t even seriously discussed,” Murphy added. “And then, third, there’s no consequences.“Trump said, ‘If I don’t get a cease fire, Putin is going to pay a price.’ And then he walked out of that meeting saying, ‘I didn’t get a ceasefire. I didn’t get a peace deal, and I’m not even considering sanctions.’”Fiona Hill, a deputy assistant to Trump in his first term, told CBS: “The optics were much more favorable to Putin than they were to the United States. It really looked like Putin set the agenda there, the narrative and in many respects the tone for the whole summit meeting.”The national security adviser during Joe Biden’s presidency, Jake Sullivan, said the prior administration had concluded – based on contacts – that Russia was not in a position to negotiate an end to the war.“We didn’t want to set up a summit where we were literally rolling out the red carpet for Putin in America to have him come and walk away and continue the war without any clear and convincing outcome of the summit,” Sullivan told ABC News.“I think our judgment on that was correct,” he added, saying any summit needs to be “properly prepared to produce an outcome that the American president can articulate in advance and produce in the aftermath”.“The outcome that this American president articulated, a ceasefire or consequences – he did not produce,” Sullivan said. “And that is why I think we find ourselves in a difficult situation today.” More

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      Five key points on how a long-respected US human rights report became a ‘cudgel’ under Trump

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      In May, Donald Trump took to the stage at a business conference in Saudi Arabia’s capital, promising that the US would no longer chastise other governments over human rights issues or lecture them on “how to live and how to govern your own affairs”.With the release this week of the US government’s annual report on human rights worldwide, the president has – in part – followed though on that pledge.The report – compiled by the state department – softens its criticism of nations that have sought closer ties with the US president, while alleging “significant” human rights breaches among traditional allies across Europe, all while vastly scaling back criticism of discrimination against minority groups.Hungary and El Salvador receive softer treatmentThe report’s claims of “no credible” human rights abuses in Hungary and El Salvador sit at odds with the state department’s own report from a year earlier, which described the situation in Hungary as “deteriorating”, while highlighting “arbitrary killings”, “enforced disappearance” and “torture” in El Salvador.In April, a delegation of EU lawmakers warned that the rule of law in Hungary is “rapidly going in the wrong direction” under Viktor Orbán’s government. They highlighted threats to press freedom and targeting of minorities. In June a law banning content about LGBTQ+ people from schools and TV was found to violate basic human rights and freedom of expression by a scholar at the European court of justice.Meanwhile, activists and opposition leaders in El Salvador have warned the country is on the path towards dictatorship after its congress scrapped presidential term limits, paving the way for President Nayib Bukele to seek indefinite re-election. Bukele’s hardline approach to crime has been accompanied by an assault on civil society and democratic institutions.Orbán and Bukele have both positioned themselves as Trump adherents – with El Salvador opening up a notorious mega-prison to detain US deportees. Orbán, who came to power in 2010, was once described as “Trump before Trump” by the US president’s former adviser Steve Bannon.European countries singled outFrance, Germany and the United Kingdom are among the European countries singled out as having seen a worsening human rights situation. The picture is a far cry from the previous report, which saw no significant changes.Criticism over the handling of free speech – in particular relating to regulations on online hate speech – was directed at the governments of the UK, Germany and France.The criticism comes despite the US itself moving aggressively to deny or strip visas of foreign nationals over their statements and social media postings, especially student activists who have criticised Israel.Since being returning to power, Trump and his administration have stepped up criticism of traditional allies – in February the vice-president, JD Vance, accused European leaders of suppressing free speech, failing to halt illegal migration and running in fear from voters’ true beliefs.The report also singles out Brazil, where Trump has decried the prosecution of former president Jair Bolsonaro. Brazil, the report says, has “undermined democratic debate by restricting access to online content deemed to ‘undermine democracy.’”Israel-Gaza warThe report’s section on Israel and the Palestinian territories is much shorter than last year’s edition and contains no mention of the severe humanitarian crisis or death toll in Gaza. It acknowledges cases of arbitrary arrests and killings by Israel but says authorities took “credible steps” to identify those responsible.More than 61,000 people have been killed in Gaza, the Gaza health ministry says, as a result of Israel’s military assault after an attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas in October 2023 in which 1,200 people were killed.Notable omissionsSections within the report highlighting discrimination have been vastly pared back. Any criticism focused on LGBTQI rights, gender-based violence or racial and ethnic violence which appeared in Biden administration editions of the report, appear to have been largely removed.A group of former state department officials called some omissions “shocking,” particularly highlighting the lack of detail on Uganda, which in 2023 saw the passing of some of the harshest anti-LGBTQ+ laws in the world, including the death penalty for some homosexual acts.The backlashFor decades, the report has been used as a blueprint of reference for global rights advocacy – but critics have labelled this year’s edition politically driven.“The report demonstrates what happens when political agendas take priority over the facts,” says Josh Paul, a former state department official, adding “the outcome is a much-abbreviated product that is more reflective of a Soviet propaganda.”In April, secretary of state Marco Rubio wrote an opinion piece saying the bureau that prepares the report had become a platform for “left-wing activists,” and vowed that the Trump administration would reorient it to focus on “western values”.State department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said the report was restructured to improve readability and was no longer an expansive list of “politically biased demands and assertions”.Democratic party lawmakers, however, have accused Trump and Rubio of treating human rights only as a “cudgel” against adversaries, in a statement released this week.Rubio’s state department has “shamelessly turned a once-credible tool of US foreign policy mandated by Congress into yet another instrument to advance Maga political grievances and culture war obsessions,” said Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.With Reuters More

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      Rubio moves to strip US visas from eight Brazilian judges in Bolsonaro battle

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      The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has reportedly stripped eight of Brazil’s 11 supreme court judges of their US visas as the White House escalates its campaign to help the country’s former president Jair Bolsonaro avoid justice over his alleged attempt to seize power with a military coup.Bolsonaro, a far-right populist with ties to Donald Trump’s Maga movement, is on trial for allegedly masterminding a murderous plot to cling to power after losing the 2022 election to his leftwing rival, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Bolsonaro is expected to be convicted by the supreme court in the coming weeks and faces a jail sentence of up to 43 years.As the day of judgment nears, Trump has been increasing pressure on the court and President Lula’s administration. On 9 July, the US president announced he would impose 50% tariffs on all Brazilian imports as of 1 August, partly as a result of the supposed persecution of his ally. The move triggered an outpouring of nationalist anger in the South American country, with Lula describing it as “unacceptable blackmail”.On Friday, after federal police raided Bolsonaro’s house and fitted him with an electronic tag to stop him absconding, Rubio announced further moves in support of the defendant, who he claimed was the victim of a “political witch hunt”.Writing on X, Rubio said he had ordered visa revocations for the judge leading the investigation into Bolsonaro, Alexandre de Moraes, as well as “his allies on the court” and their family members. Rubio did not name his other targets but the Brazilian newspaper O Globo identified them as Luís Roberto Barroso, José Antonio Dias Toffoli, Cristiano Zanin, Flávio Dino, Cármen Lúcia Antunes Rocha, Luiz Edson Fachin and Gilmar Ferreira Mendes.Two other judges who were nominated to the court during Bolsonaro’s 2019-23 presidency, André Mendonça and Kassio Nunes Marques, reportedly avoided the sanction, as did a third judge, Luiz Fux.Lula denounced what he called “another arbitrary and completely groundless measure from the US government”.“Interference in another country’s justice system is unacceptable and offends the basic principles of national sovereignty and respect between nations,” the president said on Saturday, adding: “I’m certain that no kind of intimidation or threat – from whoever it may be – will compromise the most important mission of our nation’s powers and institutions, which is to act permanently to defend and safeguard the democratic rule of law.”The Trump strategist Alex Bruesewitz welcomed Rubio’s announcement, calling Bolsonaro’s treatment “sick and wrong”.Bolsonaro’s congressman son, Eduardo, thanked Rubio for his decision. “Thank you very much for this fight in favor of free speech, we do believe in the same values,” tweeted Eduardo, who has been living in the US since February and has reportedly been lobbying officials there over his father’s plight.Trump’s interventions have appalled millions of Brazilians who hope to see their former leader held responsible for the alleged coup attempt, which culminated in the 8 January riots in Brasília.Lula’s institutional relations minister, Gleisi Hoffmann, called the visa cancellations “an aggressive and petty retaliation” and “an affront to the Brazilian judiciary and national sovereignty”.Even influential rightwing voices have criticised the US’s attempt to meddle in one of the world’s most populous democracies by imposing 50% tariffs.On Saturday, the conservative Estado de São Paulo newspaper described Trump’s behaviour as “unacceptable external interference in Brazil’s domestic matters”. “Trump has not only attacked our national sovereignty … [but also] stained the history of diplomatic relations between the two largest democracies in the Americas,” the newspaper’s editorial board wrote.While the Bolsonaros have hailed Trump’s actions, they also appear to have grasped how the announcement of tariffs has backfired, allowing Lula to pose as a nationalist defender of Brazilian interests and paint the Bolsonaro clan as self-serving “traitors”.Lula, who had been facing growing public disillusionment and an uphill battle to win re-election next year, has enjoyed a bounce in the polls since Trump launched his trade war, the brunt of which will be borne by coffee producers and cattle ranchers in Bolsonaro-voting regions, such as São Paulo.Celso Rocha de Barros, a political columnist, said he suspected the Bolsonaros had been blindsided by the scale of Trump’s attack.“I think [Bolsonaro] wanted some kind of penalty – something he could use to say: ‘Look, Brazil’s being punished because of Bolsonaro’s persecution. But [the tariffs] went far too far … [they] screwed Bolsonaro’s base,” said Rocha de Barros, pointing to their potential impact on agribusiness.On Friday night, Bolsonaro’s senator son, Flávio, post on X, calling on Trump to suspend the tariffs and replace them with individual sanctions. Soon after, however, he deleted the post. More

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      Drastic cuts under way bending US national security council to Trump’s will

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      The Trump administration started to dramatically overhaul the White House national security council on Friday, preparing to reassign hundreds of staff and consolidating power with aides trusted by the president, according to people familiar with the matter.The changes involved downsizing the NSC to about 150 from 300 staff and cutting a number of committees. Most NSC staff are drawn from other parts of the administration including the Pentagon and the state department, and were expected to be sent back to their home agencies.At the leadership level, the administration appointed the vice-president’s national security adviser Andy Baker and Donald Trump’s longtime policy aide Robert Gabriel to become dual-hatted as deputy national security advisers for the NSC, sources said.The restructuring of the NSC marked the first set of major changes to the White House’s national security coordinating body since Donald Trump last month replaced Mike Waltz as national security adviser with the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who is serving in both roles.It underscored how the NSC is set to be changed from a body that traditionally helped presidents formulate an overarching national security policy into one that implements ideas already held by the president.Trump advisers familiar with the dynamics noted that the addition of Baker and Gabriel, senior aides to JD Vance and Trump respectively, is likely to ensure the White House maintains significant control of the NSC even with Rubio as its titular head.They also suggested it would end the NSC’s traditional bottom-to-the-top approach, where staff filtered policy recommendations through multiple layers before they reached the cabinet level, since Baker and Gabriel are set to use the NSC to focus more on execution of their bosses’ views.In doing so, the new leadership may help solve the lingering problem of Trump’s second term NSC being left without an overarching strategy in the wake of Mike Waltz’s removal.The US strategy for the Russia-Ukraine conflict in particular had remained a work in progress, because Waltz wanted Trump to hit Vladimir Putin with deep, punitive sanctions if the Russian president failed to agree to a peace deal brokered by Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff.That recommendation from Waltz put him at odds with Trump and Vance, who have been more interested in finding ways to normalize relations with Moscow. With Vance’s top national security aide embedded into NSC leadership, implementing policy may be more straightforward.The abrupt nature of the personnel changes, which were communicated in a 4.20pm email sent by the NSC chief of staff, Brian McCormack, before the long Memorial Day weekend, means that some of the dismissals and restructurings are expected to drag on until next week, the sources said.Senior staff leaving the NSC include Alex Wong, who was the principal deputy to Mike Waltz; Eric Trager, who had been handling Middle East affairs; Andrew Peek, who had been handling Europe; and the communications team.The changes come three weeks after Waltz was pushed out in the wake of a series of controversies including mistakenly adding a journalist to a Signal group chat that shared sensitive information about US missile strikes in Yemen before they took place. More