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      in US Politics

      Boris Johnson tried to persuade Donald Trump to back Ukraine on US tour

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      Boris Johnson has held discussions with Donald Trump about Ukraine during his tour of the US, in an apparent attempt to make the Ukrainian case to the sceptical former US president.Johnson met Trump “to discuss the situation in Ukraine and the vital importance of Ukrainian victory”, his spokesperson said. It is understood that they held the talks on Thursday.The former prime minister – who faces continued questions at home over allegations about lockdown-breaking parties at Chequers and No 10 – has been in Dallas, where he met Greg Abbott, the Republican governor of Texas, and Las Vegas, where he made the latest in his recent sequence of highly lucrative corporate speeches.The discussions with Trump, the location of which has not been divulged, probably centred on Johnson, a vehement international cheerleader for the Ukrainian cause, trying to impress his ideas on the former president.Trump, who is the favourite to win the Republican nomination and take on Joe Biden in next year’s presidential election, has repeatedly praised Vladimir Putin and appears agnostic on the issue of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.During a question-and-answer session aired on CNN earlier this month, Trump declined to say whether he wanted Ukraine to win the war. “Russians and Ukrainians, I want them to stop dying,” he said. “And I’ll have that done. I’ll have that done in 24 hours.”Speaking earlier, Keir Starmer said Johnson has questions to answer about the Chequers allegations, despite the public being “fed up to the back teeth” with stories about his lawbreaking.The Labour leader said there were people who were feeling hurt and fed up about the continuing saga, but there were “questions now about why these allegations have not come out before”.Starmer weighed in on the controversy after the Cabinet Office passed fresh allegations of wrongdoing to the police this week. They did so after seeing diary entries about guests who visited Chequers during the pandemic, which Johnson handed to lawyers representing him as part of the Covid inquiry.Police fined Johnson more than a year ago in relation to an event in June 2020 to mark his birthday. More than 100 fines were handed out to others over events held in and around Downing Street.The Partygate saga contributed to the demise of Johnson’s premiership, but he has since been mulling whether a comeback is possible. Johnson is still facing an inquiry by the privileges committee of MPs into whether he misled the House of Commons by saying all Covid rules were followed in Downing Street.On Friday, Starmer told broadcasters: “I think people are fed up to the back teeth with stories about Boris Johnson. The heart of this is a simple truth that, across the country, people made massive sacrifices during Covid.“Some people not going to the birth of their baby, not going to the funeral of one of their close family members. These are deeply personal things, and increasing revelations about Boris Johnson, I think, just add to that sense of hurt, and people are fed up with it.“I do think there are questions now about why have these allegations not come out before … Obviously, there will be investigations, I understand that. The core of this is a very human feeling of one rule for us, which we obey, another rule for Boris Johnson and those at the top of the Tory party.”The diaries, showing about a dozen events at both the prime minister’s grace-and-favour mansion, Chequers, and No 10, between June 2020 and May 2021, were provided to Johnson’s government-appointed lawyers.However, the Cabinet Office, which paid for the lawyers, also received the diaries, and officials then decided that under the civil service code, they should refer the matter to the police.Downing Street denied that Johnson was the victim of a politically motivated “stitch-up” after his allies reacted with fury to the news of the latest police involvement.No 10 stressed that Rishi Sunak had no involvement in the decision to hand over Johnson’s pandemic diaries, saying he had “not seen the information or material in question” and that ministers had “no involvement in this process and were only made aware after the police had been contacted”. More

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      in US Politics

      China wants to subordinate west, US politician claims on UK visit

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      Beijing wants to “subordinate and humiliate” the west, according to the Republican chair of a newly created China committee in Congress who is leading a delegation of hawkish US politicians on a two-day trip to the UK.Mike Gallagher argued that China, under President Xi Jinping, believed in “the inevitable demise of capitalism”, and said he hoped to better understand how far British politicians of all parties shared his committee’s concerns.Beijing’s goal, Gallagher argued, was “to render us subordinate, humiliated and irrelevant on the world stage and make the CCP [Chinese Communist party] the dominant global power”. He thanked the UK for adopting a “forward posture” in the Indo-Pacific after Britain deployed an aircraft carrier there two years ago.Gallagher was speaking alongside Haley Stevens, the China committee’s lead Democrat. She said the US was overly reliant on the Chinese market, particularly when it came to commodities and green technology. That was “not a preparedness strategy” when thinking about a conflict over Taiwan, she said.Gallagher said he believed the world was “in the window of maximum danger” for “a potential kinetic confrontation” – a possible war – over Taiwan, and he hoped the UK’s commitment to supplying nuclear submarines to Australia would “help prevent world war three before it’s too late”.He said the long-term goal of the US was to “win the competition” with China, which he defined as “reclaiming our economic independence”. Stevens said the US and China both “want access to one another’s markets” but the US-China trade deficit was “egregious”.Xi has accused the US of pursuing a policy of “containment” against China, and has criticised what he describes as the “new cold war” mentality of the west. The Biden administration has introduced a number of policies designed to prevent China from accessing advanced technologies, such as semiconductors, the supply chains of which are concentrated in the US and its allied countries.Gallagher suggested the US should instead pursue a policy of “constrainment”, which “recognises the fact that … we’re not going to totally decouple, but we want to constrain [the CCP’s] worst behaviour”.The Republican, who has not been to China himself, argued against “relentless engagement”, saying “30 years of experimentation with that hypothesis” had proven unsuccessful.He is leading a delegation of eight Republicans and three Democrats, who met Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, for lunch on Friday and the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (Ipac), a cross-party group of MPs and peers concerned about Beijing’s rising assertiveness and treatment of its Uyghur minority.At a joint press conference of the US delegation and Ipac on Friday, MPs criticised the British prime minister for failing to take a tough enough stance on China.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionDavid Alton, a crossbench peer, said: “Only a few months ago, Rishi Sunak himself was saying that he regarded the CCP as a threat to this country.”However, Sunak was now “backing off”, Alton said, adding: “If you go on feeding the crocodiles, then one day the crocodile will come and eat you.”Concern at the rise of China is a rare issue of bipartisan consensus in the US, although some European lobbyists argue that the rhetoric of a clash of civilisations is provocative and risks inching the two sides closer to a new cold war. More

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      in US Politics

      US China hawks to press UK minister for tougher line on Beijing

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      A Republican-led group of China hawks from the US Congress will visit Westminster on Friday where they are expected to meet the defence secretary, Ben Wallace, for lunch and press for the UK to take a tougher line on Beijing.The 11-strong delegation is led by the Republican congressman Mike Gallagher, who chairs a high-profile, newly created China committee. Some fear a strident anti-Beijing tone will alienate centrist and left-leaning politicians in the UK.Gallagher has called for a total ban on the Chinese-owned app TikTok, and argued in the committee’s first prime-time hearing that the US and China were locked in an “existential struggle over what life will look like in the 21st century”.The group of eight Republicans and three Democrats – one senator and 10 from the House – will see Wallace informally in a restaurant away from the Ministry of Defence building, where they are almost certain to lobby him in person.The MoD declined to say whether the meeting meant Wallace supported Gallagher’s anti-China positions. “Ministers routinely engage with elected representatives from different governments to discuss our respective policy positions on the key issues,” an official said.Heavy Republican-led China lobbying has been seen as counterproductive in Europe, where critics of Beijing’s authoritarianism, such as the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (Ipac), want to build a cross-party consensus for firmer action against Beijing.One British-based China expert said: “The US select committee has a reputation for being exceptionally hawkish on China, and it’s clear the energy comes from the Republican side.” They warned there could be a clash with Ipac when they meet.A group of eight British MPs and peers, including members of the Conservatives, Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the SNP, are due to hold a joint event with Ipac on Friday before the lunch with Wallace. They are expected to include the former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith, Labour’s Rushanara Ali and the Lib Dem peer David Alton.A statement released by Gallagher before the visit set out the visiting delegation’s aspirations. “Chinese Communist party aggression is global, and the United States and United Kingdom face common economic, military and ideological threats posed by the CCP,” the congressman began.“For the sake of both our nations and the sake of the free world, we must work hand in hand to stand up to CCP tech theft, united front work [Beijing’s global influence operation], transnational repression and flagrant violations of our sovereignty.”The US delegation’s arrival in the UK comes shortly after the former prime minister Liz Truss began a five-day visit to Taiwan, where she gave a speech calling for an “economic Nato” to tackle Beijing’s authoritarianism and growing military strength.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTaiwan’s independence from China could only be protected by “hard power”, Truss said, arguing that the answer was greater defence cooperation between western nations in the Indo-Pacific.Leaked Pentagon papers from February show that Wallace was considering whether to base one of the UK’s two aircraft carriers in either Japan or South Korea after 2025, which the US said would demonstrate Britain was committed to a previously announced Indo-Pacific tilt in foreign policy.Worries about the economic and military rise of China are a rare bipartisan issue in the US, with the Pentagon closely monitoring the development of Beijing’s armed forces and sabre-rattling over Taiwan. But in the UK, Labour has argued that Britain should show realism and focus on Russia and the Euro-Atlantic rather than the Indo-Pacific. More

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      in US Politics

      What can the White House do to free Evan Gershkovich? – podcast

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      At the end of March, Russian authorities arrested Evan Gershkovich, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, on espionage charges. He is still in a Moscow prison more than a month later, and at the weekend President Biden promised he was ‘working like hell’ to bring Gershkovich, and others detained in Russia, home.
      This week Jonathan Freedland speaks to Polina Ivanova, a reporter for the Financial Times and friend of Gershkovich’s, who breaks down the politics behind his detention

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know More

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      in US Politics

      Ron DeSantis to meet UK ministers on tour to boost foreign policy credentials

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      Ron DeSantis is due to spend Friday in Britain on the last leg of a world tour aimed at enhancing his foreign policy credentials before an expected run for the Republican nomination.Formally, DeSantis will meet the foreign secretary, James Cleverly, and the business secretary, Kemi Badenoch, in his role as governor of Florida, the third most populous US state.Nigel Farage’s new rightwing Reform UK party is also trying to secure a meeting with DeSantis, Politico reported on Thursday.Despite being greeted by the prime ministers of Japan and South Korea on earlier legs of the trip, he won’t meet the British prime minster, Rishi Sunak – in part because it is not standard diplomatic protocol for a prime minister to meet a US governor, UK officials say.There is additionally an issue of logistics, with Sunak in Scotland on a pre-planned trip to the Conservatives’ conference there.DeSantis’s visit is not completely on a pretext. The UK regularly ranks as Florida’s top business partner, and there are more than 600 British businesses in the state, employing more than 50,000 Floridians. However, the timing of DeSantis’s tour, which has also included Japan, South Korea and Israel, has been dictated by the brewing primary contest with Donald Trump. It is a race in which he is trailing badly, though as he pointed out on the Japanese leg of the trip, the numbers could change when he formally declares his bid.The fact he has not officially entered the race has not stopped attacks from the Trump camp, who view him as the only serious challenger. While Trump boasts of his personal rapport with some of the world’s leaders, suggesting it gives him a unique ability to resolve big conflicts around the world, DeSantis’s previous experience abroad is limited to his deployment as a legal adviser to a Navy Seal team in Iraq, and some limited travel as Florida governor. This trip, and the accompanying footage of handshaking with foreign officials, will provide a rebuttal to claims he is too inexperienced in the ways of the world to be president.“It’s an irony that people like him who make the case that America should focus more on itself, also sees it as indispensable to go around and present themselves in a dog and pony show to the world,” Elisabeth Braw, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said.Trump is due to be in the UK next week for a visit to his golf course in Scotland.Such tours are a rite of passage for presidential candidates. In 2008, Barack Obama, who also had a foreign policy experience deficit, visited Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan, Israel, Germany, France and the UK. On the last three stops, Obama met Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy and Gordon Brown. But, unlike DeSantis, he had already secured the nomination at that point.The inclusion of Tokyo and Seoul in DeSantis’s tour is telling, a reflection of how the centre of US foreign policy has shifted.“I think it really does indicate a growing focus in US foreign policy generally, but even in the public consciousness, on the Indo-Pacific, on competition with China,” Emma Ashford, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center thinktank, said. “I think the fact that he chose to go there really does suggest that’s the direction foreign policy is moving.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIsrael has long been a must-do for US presidential hopefuls on tour, though now that is more true of Republicans, who are generally in lockstep with Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-right government, than Democrats. It has been called the “new Iowa” for Republican hopefuls – a primary for the Jewish and evangelical vote.In his speech at the Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem on Thursday, DeSantis repeated a story about how he had used water from the Sea of Galilee to baptise his children. He talked about “Judeo-Christian values” binding the two countries. The only mention of the world “Palestinian” was in a line about terrorism.DeSantis disowned the Biden administration’s criticism of Netanyahu’s efforts to curb the independence of the judiciary, saying: “It shouldn’t be for us to butt in to these important issues”, but there was nothing of substance separating his position from Trump’s.The one area of policy difference with the Republican frontrunner is over Ukraine. DeSantis’s support for a ceasefire and for less US involvement sparked a backlash from the more hawkish end of the Republican party, and Cleverly can be expected to echo those misgivings. DeSantis has tried to hedge his position, potentially opening space between his stance and Trump’s pro-Moscow inclinations.DeSantis’s world tour has come at an awkward time, as support among congressional Republicans has slid towards Trump in his absence, but the fact that he felt he had to leave the US at all, suggests that the maxim foreign policy does not matter in US presidential elections is not always true.“Differences over foreign policy can matter in the team-building phase of the campaign,” Daniel Drezner, professor of international politics at Tufts University, said. “This seems like a box-checking exercise and actually a horribly timed one from DeSantis’s perspective, because the last thing you want to do, when your campaign is faltering, is go overseas.” More

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      in Elections

      ‘I’ve never been more optimistic’: Biden’s farewell speech in County Mayo – video highlights

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      Joe Biden concluded his visit to Ireland with a passionate riverside address to tens of thousands of people in his ancestral town in County Mayo. The US president turned his farewell speech in Ballina into a celebration of Irish and American values, saying: ‘My friends, people of Mayo, this is a moment to recommit our hearts, minds and souls to the march of progress.’ Biden landed in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and met the UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, before embarking on a four-day tour More

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      in US Politics

      Arlene Foster ‘wrong’ to say Joe Biden hates UK, says Irish deputy PM

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      Ireland’s deputy prime minister, Micheál Martin, has criticised remarks by the former Democratic Unionist party leader, Arlene Foster, who said Joe Biden “hates” the UK.Martin said Foster was “wrong”, saying her remarks about the US president were “misplaced” as Biden did not hate anyone. “I’m very surprised by that comment,” Martin told RTÉ’s This Morning on Friday.“The one word that you do not associate with Joe Biden is the word ‘hate’. He’s the antithesis of that. He’s the opposite of that. He always speaks about the dignity of every human person. He’s more love than hate by a country mile.”Biden has spoken about the importance of treating everyone with dignity in each of the three speeches he has given on his four-day trip to the island of Ireland.Martin said: “I think it’s a wrong comment by Arlene. In fact, he often references his British heritage as well in terms of his uncle had been involved in the British navy and I think he gave a personal anecdote about that. So I think that was misplaced. He’s not that type of person.”Foster doubled down on her remarks earlier this week, saying on Thursday that the president had “disdain” for the UK.Martin, asked if Foster should withdraw her remarks, said: “Look, people make comments. I just have to say that I would refute it. I don’t have any sense, having met with Joe Biden on quite a number of occasions now, that he hates anybody.”Foster claimed she was reflecting on Biden’s past affinity with the nationalist position in Northern Ireland but others, including the taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, said the US president was proud of his Irish heritage but also of the special relationship with the UK.On Thursday, Biden risked irritating Foster and other critics further when he urged the UK to “work closer with Ireland” on strengthening efforts to sustain peace in Northern Ireland.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe row over Foster’s remarks has marred the three-day love-in Biden is enjoying in the Republic of Ireland.He completes his visit on Friday with another heavy schedule in the west of Ireland, before leaving on Air Force One at about midnight.Before that, he will visit Knock at about lunchtime and pray at the nearby basilica and Marian shrine, an important Catholic pilgrimage site said to mark the apparition by Mary, the mother of Jesus, in 1879.He will then honour his son Beau, who died of brain cancer in 2015, during a private visit to the Mayo Roscommon hospice. The hospice has previously paid tribute to Beau Biden, a former Delaware attorney general. In 2017, Joe Biden travelled to the Mayo town to turn the first sod on the site for the new hospice complex, and he again paid tribute to the €6.3m palliative care centre when it opened two years ago.The US president will then visit a genealogy and heritage centre established to help descendants of Irish people who emigrated to the US, including his ancestors on his father’s side, before a final keynote speech outside a cathedral in Ballina. More