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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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      Hundreds of US diplomats decry dismantling of USAid in letter to Rubio

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      Hundreds of diplomats at the state department and US Agency for International Development have written to the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, protesting against the dismantling of USAid, saying it undermines US leadership and security and leaves power vacuums for China and Russia to fill.In a cable expected to be filed with the department’s internal “dissent channel”, which allows diplomats to raise concerns about policy anonymously, the diplomats said the Trump administration’s 20 January freeze on almost all foreign aid also endangers American diplomats and forces overseas while putting at risk the lives of millions abroad that depend on US assistance.More than 700 people have signed on to the letter, a US official speaking on the condition of anonymity said.“The decision to freeze and terminate foreign aid contracts and assistance awards without any meaningful review jeopardizes our partnerships with key allies, erodes trust, and creates openings for adversaries to expand their influence,” said the cable, a copy of which was seen by Reuters.The Republican president, pursuing what he has called an “America first” agenda, ordered a 90-day pause on all foreign aid on his 20 January return to office. The order halted USAid operations around the world, jeopardizing delivery of life-saving food and medical aid, and throwing global humanitarian relief efforts into chaos.“The freeze on life-saving aid has already caused irreparable harm and suffering to millions of people around the world,” the letter said, adding that despite statements on waivers being issued for life-saving programs, the funding remained shut.The president tasked billionaire and adviser Elon Musk with dismantling USAid as part of an unprecedented push to shrink the federal government over what both say is wasteful spending and abuse of funds.“Foreign assistance is not charity. Instead, it is a strategic tool that stabilizes regions, prevents conflict, and advances US interests,” the letter said.A state department spokesperson, when asked about the cable, said: “We do not comment on leaked internal communication.”In fiscal year 2023, the United States disbursed $72bn of aid worldwide, on everything from women’s health in conflict zones to access to clean water, HIV/Aids treatments, energy security and anti-corruption work.Upon evaluating 6,200 multiyear awards, the administration decided to eliminate nearly 5,800 of them worth $54bn in value, a 92% reduction, according to a state department spokesperson. USAid fired or put on administrative leave thousands of staff and contractors.The cable said the government’s failure to pay outstanding invoices to contractors and implementing partners has severe economic repercussions.“The resulting financial strain not only undermines confidence in the US government as a reliable partner, it also weakens domestic economic growth at a time of mounting global competition,” the cable said.Organizations and companies that contract with USAid last month sued the administration, calling the dismantling of the agency unlawful and saying funding had been cut off for existing contracts, including hundreds of millions of dollars for work that was already done.The US supreme court declined on Wednesday to let the administration withhold payments to foreign aid organizations for work they had already performed for the government, upholding a district judge’s order that called on the administration to promptly release payments to contractors. More

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      Trump administration eliminating 2,000 USAid positions in US, notice says

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      The Trump administration on Sunday said it was placing all but a handful of USAid personnel around the world on paid administrative leave and eliminating about 2,000 of those positions in the US, according to a notice sent to agency workers and posted online.“As of 11:59 p.m. EST on Sunday, February 23, 2025, all USAid direct hire personnel, with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and/or specially designated programs, will be placed on administrative leave globally,” the notice said.“Concurrently”, the notice added, the agency is “beginning to implement a Reduction-in-Force” affecting about 2,000 USAid personnel in the US.The White House did not immediately respond to request for comment.Billionaire Elon Musk has boasted that he is “feeding USAID into the wood chipper” as his so-called “department of government efficiency” has led an effort to gut the main delivery mechanism for American foreign assistance, a critical tool of US“soft power” for winning influence abroad.On Friday, a federal judge cleared the way for the Trump administration to put thousands of USAid workers on leave, a setback for government employee unions that are suing over what they have called an effort to dismantle it.The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, was appointed acting USAid administrator by Donald Trump earlier this month. The unsigned notice came from “the office of the administrator”.Two former senior USAid officials told Reuters that a majority of some 4,600 agency personnel, career US Civil Service and Foreign Service staffers, would be placed on administrative leave.“This administration and Secretary Rubio are shortsighted in cutting into the expertise and unique crisis response capacity of the US”, said Marcia Wong, one of the former officials. “When disease outbreaks occur, populations displaced, these USAid experts are on the ground and first deployed to help stabilize and provide aid?” In a post on Musk’s social-media platform, Wong was even more blunt, calling the job cuts “a shortsighted, high risk and frankly stupid act”.“Unsigned notices like this are not self-implementing. They must be followed up by an individual personnel action or at least an approved leave slip, properly executed by someone with that authority”, a second former official, who asked not to be further identified, told Reuters.The US president ordered a 90-day pause on foreign aid shortly after taking office, halting funding for everything from programs that fight starvation and deadly diseases to providing shelters for millions of displaced people across the globe.Trump, his press secretary and Musk have all tried to justify the cuts by pointing to wildly mischaracterized or wholly invented spending on overseas aid projects.The administration has approved exceptions to the freeze totaling $5.3 billion, mostly for security and counter-narcotics programs, according to a list of exemptions reviewed by Reuters that included limited humanitarian relief.USAid programs received less than $100 million in exemptions, according to the list. That compares to roughly $40bn in USAid programs administered annually before the freeze.Trump’s ally, the prime minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, joined the campaign to smear USAid, posting video on Musk’s social media platform of a speech in which he attacked the agency in conspiratorial terms for supporting “pseudo-civil organizations” to promote democracy and human rights.“USAID was the heart of a robust financial and power machine. A monster created to crush, crumble and erode the freedom and independence of nations so that the liberal-globalist empire could thrive,” Orban wrote. Trump, he added, “drove a stake through the heart of the empire”. More

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      Tracking Trump cabinet confirmations – so far

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      Senate confirmation hearings are under way for Donald Trump’s cabinet nominations.All cabinet-level positions require a majority vote of senators to be approved. With a current 53-seat Republican majority, Trump’s more fraught nominees can only afford to lose three Republican senators, assuming Democrats are uniformly opposed.Marco Rubio was the first cabinet appointee to win confirmation in a unanimous vote in his favor. Controversial picks including Pete Hegseth, Kristi Noem, Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F Kennedy Jr have also secured confirmation for key roles in the cabinet.ConfirmedKash PatelRole offered: FBI directorConfirmed by the Senate on 20 FebruaryView image in fullscreenAfter being nominated by Trump, the “deep state” critic Kash Patel was confirmed as FBI director, a role that handles oversight of the nation’s premier law enforcement agency. He has declined to explicitly say whether he would use his position to pursue the US president’s political opponents.Patel was confirmed in a 51-49 vote, a reflection of the polarizing nature of his nomination.Kelly LoefflerRole offered: administrator of the Small Business AdministrationConfirmed by the Senate on 19 FebruaryView image in fullscreenTrump named former senator Kelly Loeffler to head the Small Business Administration. He said she will use her business experience to “reduce red tape” and “unleash opportunity” for small businesses.Loeffler was confirmed in a 52-46 vote.Robert F Kennedy JrRole offered: Secretary of health and human servicesConfirmed by the Senate on 13 FebruaryView image in fullscreenRobert F Kennedy Jr was Trump’s pick for secretary of health and human services, a choice that sparked outrage and concern over RFK Jr’s vaccine skepticism.RFK Jr was confirmed in a 52-48 vote in the Senate, with all Republicans other than the Kentucky senator Mitch McConnell voting in support. He will now oversee the country’s vast federal health infrastructure, giving him oversight of the very agencies he has spent years battling through lawsuits and public campaigns.Brooke RollinsRole offered: Agriculture secretaryConfirmed by the Senate on 13 FebruaryView image in fullscreenAs agriculture secretary, Brooke Rollins will lead a 100,000-person agency that would carry out an agenda with implications for American diets and wallets, both urban and rural.Rollins was president of America First Policy Institute, a group helping lay the groundwork for Trump’s second administration.The Senate confirmed Rollins in a 72-2 vote.Tulsi GabbardRole offered: National intelligence directorConfirmed by the Senate on 12 FebruaryView image in fullscreenTulsi Gabbard is a former Democratic member of Congress and was Trump’s pick to be director of national intelligence.Gabbard, who has been publicly questioned over her affinity for foreign dictators and promoting conspiracy theories, was confirmed by the Senate in a 52-48 vote.Russell VoughtRole offered: Office of management and budget chiefConfirmed by the Senate on 6 FebruaryView image in fullscreenRussell Vought, the OMB chief during Trump’s first term in office, has been deeply involved in Project 2025.During a 15 January hearing, Vought declined to fully commit to distributing congressionally approved funds, specifically US military aid to Ukraine.Vought was confirmed in a 53-47 vote on 6 February.Scott TurnerRole offered: Department of Housing and Urban Development secretaryConfirmed by the Senate on 5 FebruaryView image in fullscreenScott Turner is a former NFL player and White House aide. He ran the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council during Trump’s first term.Turner was confirmed in a 55-44 vote.Pam BondiRole offered: Attorney generalConfirmed by the Senate on 5 FebruaryView image in fullscreenPam Bondi, the first female attorney general of Florida and a lawyer for Trump during his first impeachment trial, replaced the president’s first pick, Matt Gaetz, to head the justice department.At her 15 January hearing, Bondi, 59, insisted she would ensure the justice department would remain independent. At the same time, she failed to say that Trump lost the 2020 election.Bondi was confirmed by the Senate in a 54-46 vote.Doug CollinsRole offered: Veterans affairs secretaryConfirmed by the Senate on 4 FebruaryView image in fullscreenDoug Collins, the former Georgia representative who defended Trump during his first impeachment trial, was nominated by Trump to be secretary of veterans affairs.During his 22 January hearing, Collins pledged to “take care of the veterans” should he succeed in the confirmation process.Collins was confirmed on 4 February in a 77-23 vote.Doug BurgumRole offered: Interior secretaryConfirmed by the Senate on 30 JanuaryView image in fullscreenTrump named Doug Burgum, governor of North Dakota, as his pick for secretary of the interior. His directive from Trump is to make it even easier for energy companies to tap fossil fuel resources, including from public lands, which has alarmed environmentalists.Burgum was confirmed in a 79-18 vote with more than half of Senate Democrats joining Republicans.Lee ZeldinRole offered: Environmental Protection Agency administratorConfirmed by the Senate on 29 JanuaryView image in fullscreenTrump named the former New York congressman Lee Zeldin to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. Zeldin said he would work to “restore American energy dominance”.Zeldin was confirmed on 29 January in a 56-42 vote.Sean DuffyRole offered: Secretary of transportationConfirmed by the Senate on 28 JanuaryView image in fullscreenTrump named Sean Duffy, a former Republican congressman and co-host on Fox Business, to serve as the secretary of transportation. Duffy will oversee billions of dollars in unspent infrastructure funds and has promised safer Boeing planes, less regulation and help for companies developing self-driving cars.Duffy was confirmed in a 77-22 vote.Scott BessentRole offered: Treasury secretaryConfirmed by the Senate on 27 JanuaryView image in fullscreenTrump named Scott Bessent, a prominent Wall Street investor and Trump fundraiser, to be his nominee for treasury secretary. He has praised Trump for using tariffs as a negotiating tool.The Senate voted 68-29 to confirm Bessent as treasury secretary on 27 January.Kristi Noem Role offered: Homeland security secretaryConfirmed by the Senate on 25 JanuaryView image in fullscreenTrump selected South Dakota’s governor, Kristi Noem – a staunch ally who has little experience on the national security stage – to serve as the next secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. She will oversee everything from border protection and immigration to disaster response and the US Secret Service.Noem was confirmed on 25 January.Pete HegsethRole offered: Secretary of defenseConfirmed by the Senate on 24 JanuaryView image in fullscreenTrump nominated the former Fox News host and army veteran Pete Hegseth to be defense secretary, a surprise decision that stunned the Pentagon.During his hearing, Democrats asked Hegseth pointed questions about allegations of sexual misconduct and claims that he was frequently intoxicated in the workplace when he led two different non-profit organizations. Democratic senators and several Republicans expressed concerns that he was not qualified to lead the country’s largest government agency.He was confirmed in a late-night vote on 24 January, with a tie-breaking vote from JD Vance.John RatcliffeRole: CIA directorConfirmed by the Senate on 23 JanuaryView image in fullscreenTrump loyalist John Ratcliffe previously served as director of national intelligence during the final months of the president’s first term.Ratcliffe was confirmed by the Senate on 23 January in a 74-25 vote, with 20 Democrats and one independent joining Republicans in backing the nomination.Marco RubioRole: Secretary of stateConfirmed by the Senate on 20 JanuaryView image in fullscreenSenator Marco Rubio, 53, was confirmed as the first Latino to serve as secretary of state on 20 January. It was widely expected Rubio would secure confirmation, as senators largely viewed him as one of the least controversial of Trump’s cabinet picks.Rubio received 99 votes, becoming the first member of Trump’s cabinet to win Senate approval.Not yet confirmedElise StefanikRole offered: UN ambassadorView image in fullscreenThe New York representative Elise Stefanik was selected by Trump to be the ambassador to the UN. Floated as a possible Trump running mate, Stefanik is the highest-ranking woman in the Republican conference in the House of Representatives.During her confirmation hearing, Stefanik endorsed Israeli claims of biblical rights to the entire West Bank, aligning herself with positions that could complicate diplomatic efforts in the Middle East.Chris WrightRole offered: Energy secretaryView image in fullscreenTrump named Chris Wright, an oil and gas industry executive with no political experience, to lead the US Department of Energy.During a 15 January confirmation hearing, Wright faced criticism for disputing the ties between climate change and more frequent or severe wildfires, and for calling wildfire concerns “hype” and dismissing their connection to climate policies.Howard LutnickRole offered: Commerce secretaryView image in fullscreenTrump nominated Howard Lutnick, co-chair of his transition team, to be his commerce secretary. Lutnick has uniformly praised the president-elect’s economic policies, including his use of tariffs.Lori Chavez-DeRemerRole offered: Labor secretaryView image in fullscreenTrump tapped the Oregon Republican for labor secretary, a position that would oversee the department’s workforce and its budget, and would put forth priorities that affect workers’ wages, health and safety, the ability to unionize and employers’ rights to fire workers, among other responsibilities.Linda McMahonRole offered: Education secretaryView image in fullscreenTrump named Linda McMahon, co-chair of his transition team, his pick for education secretary. Trump, who previously promised to dismantle the Department of Education, said McMahon would work to “expand ‘choice’” across the US and send education “back to the states”.Jamieson GreerRole offered: US trade representativeView image in fullscreenTrump lauded Jamieson Greer for his role enacting the USMCA, a revamped trade pact between the US, Mexico and Canada, and imposing tariffs on China. If confirmed, Greer will be tasked with reining in the trade deficit and opening up “export markets everywhere”.Mehmet OzRole offered: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administratorView image in fullscreenTrump tapped Dr Mehmet Oz to serve as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator, adding that he would work closely with Robert F Kennedy Jr.Brendan CarrRole offered: Chair of the Federal Communications CommissionView image in fullscreenTrump tapped Brendan Carr to be the chair of the Federal Communications Commission, the independent agency that regulates telecommunications.In a statement, Trump said Carr “is a warrior for Free Speech, and has fought against the regulatory Lawfare that has stifled Americans’ Freedoms, and held back our Economy”. More

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      Vance to meet Zelenskyy as European leaders call for unity over Ukraine

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      The US vice-president, JD Vance, will face calls for greater consultation and coherence when he meets European leaders, including the president of Ukraine, at a security conference in Munich.The timing of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s meeting with US officials, initially scheduled for Friday morning, remained unclear because the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, had to change his flight from Washington when the plane experienced a mechanical fault.The expected showdown came after 48 hours in which senior members of the Trump administration, including the president, unleashed a volley of contradictory positions on how and when negotiations with Russia about Ukraine’s future would be conducted.In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Vance tried to quell criticism that Donald Trump had made a series of premature and unilateral concessions in a phone call with Vladimir Putin on Wednesday.He said the US would still be prepared to impose sanctions on Russia if Moscow did not accept a satisfactory deal. “There are any number of formulations, of configurations, but we do care about Ukraine having sovereign independence,” he said.Vance added the option of sending US troops to Ukraine if Moscow failed to negotiate in good faith remained “on the table”. He said there were “economic tools of leverage, there are of course military tools of leverage” the US could use against Putin.Before being nominated as vice-president, Vance said he did “not really care about Ukraine’s future, one way or the other”.Rubio added that the US had an interest in the long-term independence of Ukraine, remarks intended to imply some form of security guarantee for Ukraine.Trump has also insisted that any deal would be in consultation with Ukraine, but he has been less emphatic about the involvement of Europeans – an omission that has infuriated leaders of the continent, who believe any Ukrainian settlement will have profound consequences for European security.Trump reiterated that it would not be possible for Ukraine to ever join Nato since Putin would not accept it. In his view, Ukraine is aware of this. “I think that’s how it will have to be,” Trump said.Instead, he foresaw Russia rejoining the G7 group of wealthy countries as part of its reintegration into western economies.The US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, who was due to meet his Polish counterpart in Warsaw on Friday, said the US was not making premature concessions.European leaders have long expected Trump would slash US support for Ukraine, but have been shocked by the lack of planning by the administration and the absence of consultation with allies.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe French president joined the chorus of politicians demanding the US adopt a more careful and coordinated approach. “A peace that is a capitulation is bad news for everyone,” Emmanuel Macron said.“The only question at this point is whether President Putin is sincerely, sustainably … prepared for a ceasefire on that basis,” he said, adding that Europe would have a “role to play” in regional security discussions.The most angry response from a senior European politician came from Kaja Kallas, the new EU foreign policy chief and former Estonian president.“Why are we giving them [Russia] everything they want even before the negotiations have started? It’s appeasement. It has never worked,” she said, adding that Nato membership for Ukraine was the “strongest” and “cheapest” security guarantee available.She suggested the war would continue with European support if Zelenskyy was cut out of the talks. “If there is agreement made behind our backs, it simply will not work,” Kallas said. “The Ukrainians will resist and we will support them.”Hegseth also downplayed the relevance of European values to security policy: “We can talk all we want about values. Values are important. But you can’t shoot values. You can’t shoot flags and you can’t shoot strong speeches. There is no replacement for hard power.” More

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      Government workers sue Trump and Rubio over ‘catastrophic’ USAid cuts

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      The largest US government workers’ union and an association of foreign service workers sued the Trump administration on Thursday in an effort to reverse its aggressive dismantling of the US Agency for International Development.The lawsuit, filed in Washington, DC federal court by the American Federation of Government Employees and the American Foreign Service Association, seeks an order blocking what it says are “unconstitutional and illegal actions” that have created a “global humanitarian crisis”.President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent are among the named defendants, but the text of the suit focuses extensively on actions, and statements on social media, by Elon Musk and his “department of government efficiency” initiative.“The humanitarian consequences of defendants’ actions have already been catastrophic,” the plaintiffs said. “USAid provides life-saving food, medicine, and support to hundreds of thousands of people across the world. Without agency partners to implement this mission, US-led medical clinics, soup kitchens, refugee assistance programs, and countless other programs shuddered to an immediate halt.”Among the actions called illegal are Trump’s order on 20 January, the day he was inaugurated, pausing all US foreign aid. That was followed by orders from the state department halting USAid projects around the world, agency computer systems going offline and staff abruptly laid off or placed on leave.The White House and the departments did not immediately respond to requests for comment.The gutting of the agency has largely been overseen by Musk, the world’s richest man and a close Trump ally spearheading the president’s effort to shrink the federal bureaucracy and replace career civil servants with politically loyal appointees. On Monday, Musk wrote on X, the social media platform he owns, that he and his employees “spent the weekend feeding USAid into the wood chipper”. That statement was presented to the court as an example of the reckless destruction of an agency created by congressional statute.As the Guardian has reported, Musk has also promoted a campaign of misinformation about the agency’s spending to tarnish its image, even sharing a hoax news report linked to a Russian influence operation that claimed, falsely, more than $40m was paid to Hollywood actors to visit Ukraine. Records from the USAid website that were used to debunk Musk’s false claim that the US planned to spend $50m on condoms for Gaza were removed along with almost the entire web history of the agency.“Not a single one of defendants’ actions to dismantle USAid were taken pursuant to congressional authorization,” the lawsuit said. “And pursuant to federal statute, Congress is the only entity that may lawfully dismantle the agency.”The agency’s website now states that as of midnight on Friday “all USAid direct hire personnel will be placed on administrative leave globally, with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and specially designated programs”.The Trump administration plans to keep fewer than 300 employees, out of more than 10,000, sources told Reuters earlier on Thursday.“The agency’s collapse has had disastrous humanitarian consequences,” Thursday’s lawsuit said, including shutting down efforts to fight malaria and HIV. “Already, 300 babies that would not have had HIV, now do. Thousands of girls and women will die from pregnancy and childbirth.”Samantha Power, a former USAid administrator argued in a New York Times opinion article on Thursday that the damage to American prestige was a boon for its foreign adversaries.“I am not surprised that the attacks are being cheered by Moscow and Beijing,” Power wrote. “They understand what those seeking to dismantle the agency are desperate to hide from the American people: USAid has become America’s superpower in a world defined by threats that cross borders and amid growing strategic competition.”Trump’s foreign aid freeze and the shutdown of USAid have also crippled global efforts to relieve hunger, leaving tons of food worth $340m in limbo.“We already see the shutdown’s cost,” Atul Gawande, a surgeon who led global health programs for USAid wrote on X. “Kids with drug-resistant TB, turned away from clinics, are not just dying – they’re spreading the disease. People around the world [with] HIV, denied their medicine, will soon start transmitting virus. The damage is global.”Gawande added that one one veteran foreign service officer told him: “Our government is attacking us. This is worse than any dictatorship where I’ve worked.”The lawsuit alleges that dissolving USAid, which was established as an independent agency in a 1998 law passed by Congress, is beyond Trump’s authority under the constitution and violates his duty to faithfully execute the nation’s laws.It seeks a temporary and eventually permanent order from the court restoring USAid’s funding, reopening its offices and blocking further orders to dissolve it. More

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      What will Trump 2.0 mean for the global world order? | Stephen Wertheim

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      Many assumed that Donald Trump’s second term as president of the United States would turn out like his first. But this time looks to be different. In his opening weeks, the US president has taken a flurry of actions he never attempted before, wielding sweeping tariffs against the US’s neighbors, upending portions of the federal workforce, and attempting to change constitutionally enshrined citizenship laws through executive order.The early signs on foreign policy are no exception. In his inaugural address, Trump said next to nothing about the issues that have dominated US foreign policy for decades – matters of war and peace in Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Instead, he spoke of expanding US territory in the western hemisphere (and going to Mars), harking back explicitly to the 19th-century tradition of manifest destiny. Astoundingly, Trump mentioned China solely for the purpose of accusing it, inaccurately, of operating the Panama canal. When he turned beyond the Americas, Trump’s most telling line signaled restraint: “We will measure our success not only by the battles we win but also by the wars that we end – and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into.”Then Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, made even more pointed and intriguing remarks. Rubio ran for president in 2016 vowing to usher in a “new American century”, the mantra of post-cold war neoconservatives. But days ago, sitting for his first lengthy interview as America’s chief diplomat, he emphasized the need for a foreign policy grounded in the US national interest and said:“So it’s not normal for the world to simply have a unipolar power. That was not – that was an anomaly. It was a product of the end of the cold war, but eventually you were going to reach back to a point where you had a multipolar world, multi-great powers in different parts of the planet. We face that now with China and to some extent Russia, and then you have rogue states like Iran and North Korea you have to deal with.”For a US secretary of state to announce that the world is now “multipolar”, or is inevitably heading in that direction, is historically significant. Hillary Clinton also used the m-word in 2009 at the start of her tenure in the same role, but she invoked it less than affirmatively: Clinton professed a desire to move “away from a multipolar world and toward a multipartner world”. Rubio, by contrast, meant that a world of multiple poles or powers is to be accepted, not resisted. He also implied that US foreign policy had long been off course, having taken unrivaled American dominance to be a normal or necessary condition when in fact it was destined to disappear. At the end of the cold war, Rubio explained: “We were the only power in the world, and so we assumed this responsibility of sort of becoming the global government in many cases, trying to solve every problem.”The message: no longer.Still, no longer could lead down any number of roads. Read against the Trump administration’s Americas-centric start, Rubio’s comments have provoked dread – or excitement, depending on the perspective – that the United States will radically reduce its political-military role beyond the western hemisphere even as it asserts its power within the Americas.For traditional figures in Washington, the fear is that Trump 2.0 will give China and Russia a free hand to command “spheres of influence” in their regions, so long as they permit the United States to police its own sphere. For advocates of US restraint overseas, the hope is that Trump will deliver on his promises to end the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, shift more responsibility for defending Europe on to the shoulders of European allies, and seek to find a stable if competitive mode of coexistence with China. If Rubio thinks the world is now multipolar, presumably it follows that the United States should abandon the approach it pursued in the bygone age of unipolarity – a grand strategy of “primacy” or “hegemony”, as scholars call it.Perhaps. Rubio, though, was not nearly so conclusive. Throughout the interview, he referred to the governments in Moscow and Beijing in adversarial terms, which hardly suggest a willingness to grant them spheres of influence. Nor is there a straight line from acknowledging the loss of unipolarity to abandoning primacy. Even in a crowded, competitive landscape, the United States could try to remain militarily stronger than every rival, retain all its globe-spanning defense commitments, and maintain a large troop presence in Asia, Europe and the Middle East simultaneously. Those are the elements of primacy. Rubio did not renounce any of them. The United States, in short, could still pursue primacy without enjoying unipolarity.Indeed, in associating multipolarity with the existence of “multi-great powers”, Rubio may have meant to affirm the outlook of the first Trump administration, which adopted “great power competition” as a watchword. For Trump 1.0, as for the Biden administration that followed, the rise of China and the assertion of Russia did not compel Washington to pare back its military commitments and presence. Quite the contrary. Over the two presidencies, Nato enlarged to four new countries, the US military presence in the Middle East (excluding Afghanistan) remained stable, and the United States deepened security cooperation with Ukraine, Taiwan and others.So far, the appearance of formidable rivals has done less to discipline US ambitions than to furnish US global primacy with a new rationale – to stand up to the aggressive and revisionist activities of America’s adversaries. As Rubio put it: “China wants to be the most powerful country in the world and they want to do so at our expense, and that’s not in our national interest, and we’re going to address it.”But Rubio did signal more restraint than a continuation of business as usual. Just after his remarks on multipolarity, he noted that the second world war ended 80 years ago and that “if you look at the scale and scope of destruction and loss of life that occurred, it would be far worse if we had a global conflict now.” Since the end of the cold war, US leaders have invoked the second world war almost exclusively to exhort the country to lead the world. Rubio, by contrast, did so to caution against the dangers of overreach. He continued:“You have multiple countries now who have the capability to end life on Earth. And so we need to really work hard to avoid armed conflict as much as possible, but never at the expense of our national interest. So that’s the tricky balance.”Quite so. In recent years, the risk of conflict between major powers has grown acute. The war in Ukraine – in which one major power is fighting directly on its borders and the other heavily arming its opponent – had no parallel during the cold war. A US-China military conflict over Taiwan would be ruinous. In a country unused to paying noticeable costs for foreign policy choices, and a world that no longer remembers the last general war, Rubio delivered a salutary message.The policy test, however, is still to come. If the new administration is serious about avoiding catastrophic wars, without exposing core US interests to great power predation, it will make a determined, sustained diplomatic effort to end the war in Ukraine and minimize the risks of escalation if initial talks do not succeed. It will explore politically difficult ways to reach a modus vivendi with China, including by offering assurances that the United States does not seek to keep Taiwan permanently separate from the mainland, a red line for Beijing.The new administration’s opening moves suggest some intention to find a more sustainable and less confrontational approach toward the world’s major powers. But if unipolarity is dead, the lure of primacy remains very much alive.

      Stephen Wertheim is a senior fellow in the American statecraft program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a visiting lecturer at Yale Law School and Catholic University More

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      Trump cabinet criticized as hodgepodge team unified only by ‘absolute fealty’ to him

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      During Donald Trump’s first administration, his vice-president became the target of an angry mob amid calls for him to be hanged. His top diplomat was fired via Twitter and branded “dumb as a rock”. His first attorney general was given his marching orders and called “very weak” and “disgraceful”.Despite it all, Trump has had no trouble recruiting a team eager to serve when he returns to the White House in January, even if his initial pick for attorney general, Matt Gaetz, was forced to back out amid allegations of sexual misconduct.Trump’s cabinet for his second term is nearly complete just three weeks after his stunning election victory over Kamala Harris. To his Maga (Make America great again) followers it is a team of all the talents, poised to enforce an agenda of mass deportations, gutting the federal bureaucracy and “America first” isolationism.To critics with memories of Trump’s first cabinet, however, it is an ideological hodgepodge glued together only by unquestioning fealty to the incoming 78-year-old commander-in-chief. Some have compared it to the gathering of exotic aliens in the Star Wars cantina. Others predict they will soon be fighting like rats in a sack as different factions compete for Trump’s attention.“The same thing that happened last time will happen this time,” said Rick Wilson, co-founder of the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group. “He cannot resist chaos. It is his drug. He will eventually start doing what he always does and turn on different people and start sandbagging his own choices for these various jobs.“It’s that pattern he has. He comes out one day and says, ‘I love so and so,’ and then the next he’s talking to his friends saying, ‘Hey, you think Tillerson’s doing a good job or is he screwing me over?’ Those things are patterns we’ve seen in Trump’s personal life, his business life and his prior administration. An 80-year-old man is not going to be a changed person.”Eight years ago, Trump arrived in Washington as a political neophyte in need of a helping hand. He appointed a cabinet that included traditional conservatives of whom he knew little. This time, he returns as a former president who has transformed the Republican party and prioritises unwavering loyalty and adherence to his agenda over qualifications and experience.This was most obvious sign of this was the selection of Gaetz for attorney general, a position key to Trump’s plans to deport undocumented immigrants, pardon January 6 rioters and seek retribution against those who prosecuted him over the past four years. Gaetz’s replacement, Pam Bondi, is a longtime ally who declared after Trump was criminally charged that the “investigators will be investigated”.View image in fullscreenThere was a similar motivation behind the choice of Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News host, for defence secretary despite him having no track record in government. Hegseth fits with a drive to purge perceived “woke” policies from the military. He has denied allegations made in a police report that he sexually assaulted a woman in 2017 at a conference in California.Trump’s selections are sending mixed economic signals. The nomination of the Wall Street billionaire Scott Bessent to head the treasury implies an attempt to reassure markets (it is also notable because Bessent used to work for George Soros, the target of countless rightwing conspiracy theories). But Howard Lutnick, nominated for commerce secretary, has praised the president-elect’s proposed use of tariffs. Vice-president-elect JD Vance is also among those pushing a more protectionist agenda on trade.And Trump’s pick of Lori Chavez-DeRemer, a congresswoman from Oregon, as labor secretary could be one of the rare selections that draws bipartisan support. She is considered one of the most union-friendly Republicans in Congress, and her selection was viewed as a way for Trump to reward union members who voted for him.On foreign policy, Trump made a relatively conventional choice in Marco Rubio for secretary of state. The Florida senator has advocated in the past for a muscular foreign policy with respect to foes including China, Iran and Cuba. But the president-elect also intends to put Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democrat who has previously made statements sympathetic to Russia, as director of national intelligence.Other picks include Brooke Rollins, president of the America First Policy Institute thinktank, as agriculture secretary; Doug Burgum, a wealthy former software company executive, as interior secretary; and Linda McMahon, former chief executive of World Wrestling Entertainment, as education secretary – overseeing an agency that Trump pledged to eliminate.Then there is Robert Kennedy Jr, an anti-vaccine activist and sceptic of established science. Kennedy’s career as an environmental lawyer could put him at odds with Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” philosophy and figures such as Lee Zeldin, set to lead the Environmental Protection Agency with a mandate to slash environmental regulation. Kennedy has also been condemned by Mike Pence, the former vice-president, and other social conservatives for supporting abortion rights.Outside the cabinet, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s “Department of Government Efficiency”, while lacking official authority, signals a strong push for drastic budget cuts and deregulation. And despite campaign trail denials, Trump has embraced Project 2025, a controversial plan from the Heritage Foundation thinktank, by appointing figures such as Russell Vought as director of the Office of Management and Budget.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe person who will have to make sense of it all is Susie Wiles, a longtime Florida political operative who will become the first woman to serve as White House chief of staff. She will hope to avoid the fate of chiefs of staff who failed to last the course of Trump’s first term as, like a sports coach, she seeks to make disparate players gel into a cohesive whole.In an analysis for the New York Times, David Sanger, who has covered five US presidents, identified “a revenge team”, “a calm-the-markets team” and “a government shrinkage team”, commenting: “How these missions will mesh and where they will collide is one of the biggest unknowns of the incoming administration.”But others argue that the cabinet’s range of experiences and worldviews will pale into insignificance when set against their devotion to the Trump cult. Kurt Bardella, a Democratic strategist, said: “Regardless of whatever individual ideological leanings these people have had at varying points in their adult lives, it’s largely irrelevant because the only litmus test we have seen put forward is absolute fealty to Donald Trump.“As we have seen in the Republican party overall, absolute fealty to Donald Trump overshadows any ideological belief. We could take almost every issue that used to be a part of the Republican party and show how the party has moved to a diametrically opposite position. This is not a party governed by ideology any more. It is governed by personality. It is governed by loyalty to Donald Trump.”Bardella, a former Republican congressional aide, added: “They’re all going to get in a room and they’re just going to go: ‘Here’s what we think. What do you think, boss? Oh, OK, well, that’s what we’re all going to do.’ The idea that there’s going to be ideologically rooted debate, vigorous debate happening in the Trump administration is absurd. It’s laughable.”Notably, Trump’s cabinet is more diverse than in his first term, although it again has only three people of colour in secretary positions. Rubio would be the first Latino to serve as America’s top diplomat; Bessent could become the first openly gay Republican cabinet member confirmed by the Senate; Gabbard would be the first director of national intelligence from the Pacific Islander community.But seasoned Trump watchers detect no method in the madness and suspect that the former reality TV star will once again act on impulse and thrive on conflict. Chris Whipple, the author of The Gatekeepers, a book about White House chiefs of staff, said: “I don’t think there’s any evidence that Trump has learned anything about governing since his first term.“There’s a lot of wishful thinking among a lot of commentators that OK, he’s had four years in office, he learned a lot, he’s had all this time to plan with Project 2025 and the America First Policy Institute and he’s got his act together. I just don’t think that’s true. I don’t see any evidence that there’s any sort of plan here other than ‘this guy looks good for that job, and Robert F Kennedy Jr has got a cool last name’.” More