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      Haiti’s Gang Violence Worsens as FAA Suspends Flights From the U.S.

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      The country’s security situation has deteriorated even further since Monday when at least three planes were shot at, forcing the closure of its main airport.Haitian gang leaders took to social media last weekend and promised trouble.They delivered.“If you are reckless in the streets, you will pay the consequences, as of tomorrow,” Joseph Wilson, a gang leader known as Lanmou Sanjou, said Sunday in a widely circulated recorded message.He spoke for Viv Ansanm — a coalition of gangs with the euphemistic moniker “Living Together” — that has sowed terror in Haiti for the past several months, and vowed that they would be “in the streets.”Within 48 hours, at least three U.S. aircraft had been shot at, forcing the closure of Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, and stranding passengers all over the world.The Federal Aviation Administration suspended all U.S. flights to Haiti for 30 days, and American Airlines said it wouldn’t return to the country until at least February. Even United Nations humanitarian flights were grounded.The havoc was not limited to the airport: Dr. Deborah Pierre, a urologist, was shot and killed on Tuesday getting into her car in Port-au-Prince, and her father, a dentist, was wounded, her former boss in South Florida, Dr. Angelo Gousse, said.Doctors Without Borders announced that its employees were pulled over by the police Monday and then tear-gassed by a vigilante mob. Wounded patients they were ferrying in an ambulance — suspected gang members — were killed.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Once They Were Neocons. Now Trump’s Foreign Policy Picks Are All ‘America First.’

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      The Republican Party used to have a label for the kind of foreign policy hawk that President-elect Donald J. Trump named on Tuesday as his national security adviser and is considering as his secretary of state: neocons.But while they once were neoconservatives, over the past few years Representative Michael Waltz and Senator Marco Rubio, both of Florida, have gradually shifted their positions. Sounding less like former Vice President Dick Cheney or John R. Bolton, who served as Mr. Trump’s third national security adviser, they no longer talk about foreign interventions or the prospects of regime change. Instead, they speak the language of the “America First” movement, and fit more comfortably within Mr. Trump’s often erratic worldview, in which deal-making reigns over ideology.The result is that Mr. Trump may end up with a foreign policy team composed of deep loyalists, but with roots in familiar Republican approaches. The shift that the two men have made reflects the broader marginalization of neocons throughout the Republican Party after the disaster in Iraq and the rise of America First.Mr. Trump’s loyalists, and much of the party, have now made a full conversion to that worldview, few more enthusiastically than Pete Hegseth, the Fox News host who was chosen as defense secretary on Tuesday.Mr. Hegseth channels both Mr. Trump’s avowed isolationism and his impulsive interventionism. He has also backed Mr. Trump’s occasional use of force, notably the order to killing a senior Iranian general in January 2020. Mr. Hegseth, a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, described his own conversion to America First to The New York Times four years ago.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      U.S. to Keep Sending Arms to Israel Despite Dire Conditions in Gaza

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      The State Department said Israel needs to take more steps to improve the situation among Palestinians. The United States had given the country 30 days to meet aid criteria.The State Department said on Tuesday that it did not plan to decrease weapons aid to Israel, as a 30-day deadline set by the Biden administration passed without the country substantially improving the humanitarian situation in war-devastated Gaza.Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III had warned in a letter dated Oct. 13 that the United States would reassess its military aid to Israel if it failed to increase the amount of aid allowed to enter Gaza within 30 days.The letter said that the humanitarian situation for the two million residents of Gaza was “increasingly dire” and that the amount of aid entering Gaza had fallen by 50 percent since April.By law, the U.S. government cannot give aid to foreign military forces deemed by the State Department to be committing “gross violations of human rights.”U.N. officials have said Israel’s continued blocking of humanitarian aid and targeting of humanitarian workers constitute violations of international law and could amount to war crimes.Food insecurity experts working on an initiative controlled by U.N. bodies and major relief agencies said last week that famine was imminent or most likely already occurring in northern Gaza. U.N. officials say the entire population of Gaza is facing food insecurity.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Exxon Chief to Trump: Don’t Withdraw From Paris Climate Deal

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      Darren Woods was one of only a few Western oil executives attending a global climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan.Darren Woods, the chief executive of Exxon Mobil, cautioned President-elect Donald J. Trump on Tuesday against withdrawing from the Paris agreement to curb climate-warming emissions, saying Mr. Trump risked leaving a void at the negotiating table.Mr. Woods, speaking at an annual U.N. climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, described climate negotiations as opportunities for Mr. Trump to pursue common-sense policymaking.“We need a global system for managing global emissions,” Mr. Woods said in an interview with The New York Times in Baku. “Trump and his administrations have talked about coming back into government and bringing common sense back into government. I think he could take the same approach in this space.”Mr. Woods also urged government officials to create incentives for companies to transition to cleaner forms of energy in a profitable way.“The government role is extremely important and one that they haven’t been successfully fulfilling, quite frankly,” he said.Mr. Woods’s presence in a stadium teeming with diplomats is all the more noteworthy because of who is not here in Azerbaijan, a petrostate on the Caspian Sea that was once part of the Soviet Union. Many heads of state, including President Biden, have taken a pass, as have the leaders of several big oil companies like Shell and Chevron.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Blinken Heads to NATO as Alliance Prepares for Trump’s Return

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      Officials meeting in Brussels will discuss Ukraine’s war against Russia amid concerns that the new administration will slash U.S. support for Kyiv.Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken is set to depart on Tuesday for Brussels, where he will attend meetings with NATO and European officials to discuss Ukraine’s war against Russia, the State Department announced.Mr. Blinken’s trip, a late addition to his schedule before a trip to Latin America, comes amid grave concern among Ukraine’s supporters that the new Trump administration will slash U.S. support for Kyiv.The Biden administration and NATO officials also fear that President-elect Donald J. Trump may try to undermine the military alliance and even seek to withdraw the United States from it.The State Department said Mr. Blinken would meet NATO and E.U. counterparts “to discuss support for Ukraine in its defense against Russia’s aggression.”Mr. Blinken plans to travel on to Peru and Brazil, where he will join President Biden for the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit and the Group of 20 Leaders’ Summit. More

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      Trump Expected to Name Marco Rubio as Secretary of State

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      The president-elect appears to have settled on the Florida senator to be the nation’s top diplomat.President-elect Donald J. Trump is expected to name Senator Marco Rubio of Florida as his secretary of state, three people familiar with his thinking said on Monday, as Mr. Trump moves rapidly to fill out his foreign policy and national security team.Mr. Trump could still change his mind at the last minute, the people said, but appeared to have settled on Mr. Rubio, whom he also considered when choosing his running mate this year.Mr. Rubio was elected to the Senate in 2010, and has staked out a position as a foreign policy hawk, taking hard lines on China and Iran in particular.He initially found himself at odds with those Republicans who were more skeptical about interventions abroad, but he has also echoed Mr. Trump more recently on issues like Russia’s war against Ukraine, saying that the conflict has reached a stalemate and “needs to be brought to a conclusion.”Mr. Rubio was a loyal surrogate for Mr. Trump during the campaign even after being passed over as the vice-presidential pick.A spokesman for Mr. Rubio declined to comment, and a spokesman for Mr. Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Mr. Trump has made his choice for a number of other national security roles. He has selected Representative Michael Waltz, Republican of Florida, to be his national security adviser, and Representative Elise Stefanik, Republican of New York, to be ambassador to the United Nations.Mr. Rubio was he was first elected to the Senate in 2010 as part of a new generation of conservative Tea Party leaders. But some conservatives considered him wobbly on immigration, an issue that caused him political problems when he ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016 against Mr. Trump and others.During that campaign, Mr. Trump belittled him as “Little Marco,” and Mr. Rubio responded with acerbic attacks.But after Mr. Trump’s 2016 victory, Mr. Rubio went on to patch things up with him, serving as an informal foreign policy adviser and helping to prepare him for his first debate against President Biden in 2020.Under Florida law, Gov. Ron DeSantis can temporarily appoint a replacement to Mr. Rubio’s seat who will serve in the Senate until the next regularly scheduled general election is held. After last week’s elections, Republicans are set to hold at least 52 seats in the chamber.Catie Edmondson More

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      Trump to Name Michael Waltz as His National Security Adviser

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      The president-elect has chosen a Republican member of Congress from Florida to oversee national security policy in the White House.President-elect Donald J. Trump has chosen Representative Michael Waltz of Florida to be his national security adviser, two people familiar with the decision said on Monday, turning to a former Green Beret who has taken a tough line on China to oversee foreign and national security policy in the White House.Mr. Waltz is the second Republican House member to be selected by Mr. Trump for a high-level job in his next administration, after his choice of Representative Elise Stefanik of New York for ambassador to the United Nations.Mr. Waltz, 50, has been a member of the Armed Services, Intelligence and Foreign Affairs Committees in the House and would join the Trump administration as it addresses Russia’s war in Ukraine and the conflict in the Middle East and confronts an increasingly aggressive China. His wife, Julia Nesheiwat, was homeland security adviser in the first Trump administration.Even as a congressional freshman, Mr. Waltz caught the eye of the Trump White House with his national security credentials. In 2020, in the days after Mr. Trump authorized the drone strike that killed Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani of Iran, Mr. Waltz was included in a small group of Republicans invited to the White House who received a briefing on the strike.The Wall Street Journal earlier reported the move.Mr. Waltz, who became a fixture on Fox News on matters of foreign policy, is widely regarded on Capitol Hill as a hawk on both China and Iran. He served multiple combat tours in Afghanistan and vociferously opposed President Biden’s withdrawal of troops from there. “What no one can ever do for me, including this administration right now, is articulate a counterterrorism plan that’s realistic without us there,” Mr. Waltz, who also served as a counterterrorism adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, said in an interview in the days after the withdrawal.Mr. Waltz had also opposed withdrawing large numbers of troops from Afghanistan during the Trump administration without stringent conditions, and he introduced legislation to prevent a significant troop drawdown from Afghanistan unless the director of national intelligence could certify that the Taliban would not associate with Al Qaeda.The pick would also whittle down even further what is expected to be a slender Republican majority in the House in the early days of the next congressional session.House Republicans appear on track to win a narrow majority in the next Congress. Special elections would need to be held to replace both Mr. Waltz and Ms. Stefanik, who currently represent safe districts for the party. More

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      Iran Debates Whether It Could Make a Deal With Trump

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      Some in Iran’s new, more moderate government think the result of the presidential election provides an opportunity to make a lasting deal with the United States.President Donald J. Trump pulled out of the 2015 nuclear pact between Iran and world powers, imposed tough economic sanctions on Iran and ordered the killing of its top general. And Iran, federal prosecutors said on Friday, plotted to assassinate Mr. Trump before November’s election.Yet despite that charged history, many former officials, pundits and newspaper editorials in Iran have openly called for the government to engage with Mr. Trump in the week since his re-election. Shargh, the main reformist daily newspaper, said in a front-page editorial that Iran’s new, more moderate president, Masoud Pezeshkian, must “avoid past mistakes and assume a pragmatic and multidimensional policy.”And many in Mr. Pezeshkian’s government agree, according to five Iranian officials who asked that their names not be published because they were not authorized to discuss government policy. They say Mr. Trump loves to make deals where others have failed, and that his outsize dominance in the Republican Party could give any potential agreement more staying power. That might give an opening for some kind of lasting deal with the United States, they argue.“Do not lose this historic opportunity for change in Iran-U.S. relations,” wrote a prominent politician and former political adviser to Iran’s government, Hamid Aboutalebi, in an open letter to Iran’s president. He advised Mr. Pezeshkian to congratulate Mr. Trump on winning the election and set a new tone for a pragmatic and forward-looking policy.President Masoud Pezeshkian in Tehran in September. Some in Mr. Masoud’s government are calling on him to engage President-elect Donald J. Trump.Arash Khamooshi for The New York TimesStill, critical decisions in Iran are made by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and he banned negotiations with Mr. Trump during his first term. In Iran’s factional politics, even if Mr. Pezeshkian wanted to negotiate with Mr. Trump, he would have to get Mr. Khamenei’s approval.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More