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      Republicans Will Regret a Second Trump Term

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      Now is the summer of Republican content.The G.O.P. is confident and unified. Donald Trump has held a consistent and widening lead over President Biden in all the battleground states. Never Trumpers have been exiled, purged or converted. The Supreme Court has eased many of Trump’s legal travails while his felony convictions in New York seem to have inflicted only minimal political damage — if they didn’t actually help him.Best of all for Republicans, a diminished Joe Biden seems determined to stay in the race, leading a dispirited and divided party that thinks of its presumptive nominee as one might think of a colonoscopy: an unpleasant reminder of age. Even if Biden can be cajoled into quitting, his likeliest replacement is Vice President Kamala Harris, whose 37 percent approval rating is just around that of her boss. Do Democrats really think they can run on her non-handling of the border crisis, her reputation for managerial incompetence or her verbal gaffes?In short, Republicans have good reason to think they’ll be back in the White House next January. Only then will the regrets set in.Three in particular: First, Trump won’t slay the left; instead, he will re-energize and radicalize it. Second, Trump will be a down-ballot loser, leading to divided and paralyzed government. Third, Trump’s second-term personnel won’t be like the ones in his first. Instead, he will appoint his Trumpiest people and pursue his Trumpiest instincts. The results won’t be ones old-school Republicans want or expect.Begin with the left.Talk to most conservatives and even a few liberals, and they’ll tell you that Peak Woke — that is, the worst excesses of far-left activism and cancel culture — happened around 2020. In fact, Peak Woke, from the campus witch hunts to “abolish the police” and the “mostly peaceful” protests in cities like Portland, Ore., and Minneapolis that followed George Floyd’s murder, really coincided with the entirety of Trump’s presidency, then abated after Biden’s election.That’s no accident. What used to be called political correctness has been with us for a long time. But it grew to a fever pitch under Trump, most of all because he was precisely the kind of bigoted vulgarian and aspiring strongman that liberals always feared might come to power, and which they felt duty bound to “resist.” With his every tweet, Trump’s presidency felt like a diesel engine blowing black soot in the face of the country. That’s also surely how Trump wanted it, since it delighted his base, goaded his critics and left everyone else in a kind of blind stupor.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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      Election Results in Europe Suggest Another Reason Biden Has to Go

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      There’s a dollop of good news for Democrats from the British and French elections, but it’s bad news for President Biden.The basic lesson is that liberals can win elections but perhaps not as incumbents. The election results abroad strike me as one more reason for Biden to perform the ultimate act of statesmanship and withdraw from the presidential race.The U.K. elections on July 4 resulted in a landslide for the Labour Party, ending the Conservative Party’s 14 years in power. Keir Starmer, the new Labour prime minister, achieved this result in part by moving to the center and even criticizing the Conservatives for being too lax on immigration. He projected quiet competence, promising in his first speech as Britain’s leader to end “the era of noisy performance.”But mostly, British voters supported Labour simply because they’re sick of Conservatives mucking up the government. The two main reasons voters backed Labour, according to one poll, were “to get the Tories out” and “the country needs a change.” A mere 5 percent said they backed Labour candidates because they “agree with their policies.”British voters were unhappy with Conservatives for some of the same reasons many Americans are unhappy with Biden. Prices are too high. Inequality is too great. Immigration seems unchecked. Officeholders are perceived as out of touch and beholden to elites. This sourness toward incumbents is seen throughout the industrialized world, from Canada to the Netherlands and Japan.Frustration with incumbents was also a theme in the French election, where President Emmanuel Macron made a bet similar to the one that Biden is making — that voters would come to their senses and support him over his rivals. Macron basically lost that bet, although the final result wasn’t as catastrophic as it might have been.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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      Ukraine’s President Pleads for More Weapons With Fewer Restrictions

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      “America doesn’t shy away from its friends,” Volodymyr Zelensky said in a speech in Washington as leaders gathered in the city for a NATO summit.President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine arrived in Washington on Tuesday with words of gratitude and praise for American support, and pleas for more weapons and fewer restrictions on using them in his country’s war against Russia.Mr. Zelensky credited American missiles — and permission to fire them across the border into Russia — with helping his forces hold off an attack on the city of Kharkiv, stopping a Russian offensive this spring.But he asked for other restrictions to be lifted, so that Ukraine could fire at Russian military bases hundreds of miles inside Russia to destroy aircraft that fire weapons and drop bombs that he said were killing civilians and children.With more American assistance, he said, Ukraine can continue to strike against Russian targets in Crimea and help “push the occupiers” out of the southern part of the country.There were questions of which version of Mr. Zelensky would show up in Washington as leaders of NATO members gathered for a summit. Last year, he flew to the NATO summit in Lithuania after making an angry social media post criticizing alliance members for failing to offer a timeline for Ukraine to join the alliance, prompting complaints from the Biden administration and other allies.There was no sign of anger this year. Mr. Zelensky praised the United States for its early support in the war and pushed back against those who have started to think that “it’s better to delay than act.”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. Creates High-Tech Global Supply Chains to Blunt Risks Tied to China

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      The Biden administration is trying to get foreign companies to invest in chip-making in the United States and more countries to set up factories to do final assembly and packaging.If the Biden administration had its way, far more electronic chips would be made in factories in, say, Texas or Arizona.They would then be shipped to partner countries, like Costa Rica or Vietnam or Kenya, for final assembly and sent out into the world to run everything from refrigerators to supercomputers.Those places may not be the first that come to mind when people think of semiconductors. But administration officials are trying to transform the world’s chip supply chain and are negotiating intensely to do so.The core elements of the plan include getting foreign companies to invest in chip-making in the United States and finding other countries to set up factories to finish the work. Officials and researchers in Washington call it part of the new “chip diplomacy.”The Biden administration argues that producing more of the tiny brains of electronic devices in the United States will help make the country more prosperous and secure. President Biden boasted about his efforts in his interview on Friday with ABC News, during which he said he had gotten South Korea to invest billions of dollars in chip-making in the United States.But a key part of the strategy is unfolding outside America’s borders, where the administration is trying to work with partners to ensure that investments in the United States are more durable.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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      Wayne S. Smith, a Leading Critic of the Embargo on Cuba, Dies at 91

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      A former State Department official, he resigned in protest in 1982 over Cuba policy, then spent decades trying to rebuild relations with the island nation.Wayne S. Smith, a veteran Cuba expert at the State Department who, after resigning in protest over America’s embargo against the island nation in 1982, spent nearly four decades leading efforts to rebuild relations between Washington and Havana, died on June 28 at his home in New Orleans. He was 91.His daughter, Melinda Smith Ulloa, said the cause was complications of Alzheimer’s disease.For more than 24 years after he joined the Foreign Service in 1958, Mr. Smith was America’s man in Havana, whether he was physically in the Cuban capital or dealing with it from a desk in Washington.Later, after leaving the State Department, he used his extensive experience to carry out a sustained campaign against America’s strategy of isolating Cuba, while also leading private and congressional delegations to the island in an attempt to build avenues of dialogue.“He was one of the foremost spokespeople in favor of normalizing relations,” William LeoGrande, an expert on Cuba affairs at American University in Washington, said in an interview.A witty and nimble writer, Mr. Smith turned out scores of opinion pieces, journal essays and books, including a memoir-cum-history, “The Closest of Enemies: A Personal and Diplomatic Account of U.S.-Cuban Relations Since 1957,” published in 1987.“Cuba seems to have the same effect on U.S. administrations,” he liked to say, “as the full moon once had on werewolves.”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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      New Haitian Leader Visits Washington Seeking Additional Support

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      Haiti’s newly selected prime minister, Garry Conille, met with Democrats on Capitol Hill as well as Biden administration officials, seeking more help to combat the unrest in his country.Top Democrats in Congress met on Tuesday with Haiti’s newly installed prime minister, Garry Conille, and pledged to push for additional American assistance days after a U.S.-backed international police mission arrived on the Caribbean island to restore stability to a country that for months has been under siege by criminal gangs.The Biden administration is planning to release $100 million for the mission, of which the United States is the largest financial backer, doing so over Republican opposition. But Mr. Conille told the Democrats on Tuesday that more money would be needed, and soon.“This is a critical point,” Mr. Conille said in an interview on Tuesday afternoon following meetings with lawmakers and officials at international financial institutions, where he shared appreciation for the support that has already been committed and stressed the dire need for continued investment.“I need to have the funding necessary to quickly implement basic infrastructure, repair basic infrastructure, and make sure that the services are available to people,” he said.“The issues in Haiti are such huge issues and we are making sure that we know what his priorities are and how we can address security and also the economic needs and to make sure the funding is really present,” Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, Democrat of Florida and the only Haitian American member of Congress, said in an interview. “We’ve been wrestling here in Congress since October to make sure the funding is available, because we have a short window for success.”Eight months after the United Nations authorized the use of international forces to be deployed to Haiti, the first wave of forces in the Multinational Security Support Mission, led by Kenya, arrived on June 25 to try to stamp out the violence and regain control of the country.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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      With Macron and Biden Vulnerable, So Is Europe

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      The U.S. presidential debate and Sunday’s snap election in France have emboldened nationalist forces that could challenge NATO and undo the defense of Ukraine.This month, President Biden, flanked by President Emmanuel Macron of France, stood on the Normandy bluffs to commemorate the young men who clambered ashore 80 years ago into a hail of Nazi gunfire because “they knew beyond any doubt there are things worth fighting and dying for.”Among those things, Mr. Biden said, were freedom, democracy, America and the world, “then, now and always.” It was a moving moment as Mr. Macron spoke of the “bond of blood” between France and America, but just a few weeks later, the ability of either leader to hold the line in defense of their values appears more fragile.The United States and France — pillars of the NATO alliance, of the defense of Ukraine’s freedom against Russia and of the postwar construction of a united Europe — face nationalist forces that could undo those international commitments and pitch the world into uncharted territory.A wobbly, wavering debate performance by Mr. Biden, in which he struggled to counter the dishonest bluster of former President Donald J. Trump, has spread panic among Democrats and raised doubts about whether he should even be on the ticket for the Nov. 5 election.Uncertainty is at a new high in the United States, as well as in a shaken, startled France.The country votes on Sunday in the first round of parliamentary elections called by Mr. Macron to the widespread astonishment of his compatriots. He had no obligation to do so at a time when the far-right National Rally, triumphant in recent European Parliament elections, seems likely to repeat that performance and so perhaps attain the once unthinkable: control of the French prime minister’s office and with it, cabinet seats.Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella of the National Rally in Marseille in March. Mr. Bardella is likely to become prime minister if National Rally wins the election. Gonzalo Fuentes/ReutersWe 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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      Russian Casualties in Ukraine Mount, in a Brutal Style of Fighting

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      More than 1,000 Russian soldiers in Ukraine were killed or wounded on average each day in May, according to NATO and Western military officials.May was a particularly deadly month for the Russian army in Ukraine, with an average of more than 1,000 of its soldiers injured or killed each day, according to U.S., British and other Western intelligence agencies.But despite its losses, Russia is recruiting 25,000 to 30,000 new soldiers a month — roughly as many as are exiting the battlefield, U.S. officials said. That has allowed its army to keep sending wave after wave of troops at Ukrainian defenses, hoping to overwhelm them and break through the trench lines.It is a style of warfare that Russian soldiers have likened to being put into a meat grinder, with commanding officers seemingly oblivious to the fact that they are sending infantry soldiers to die.At times, this approach has proved effective, bringing the Russian army victories in Avdiivka and Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine. But Ukrainian and Western officials say the tactics were less successful this spring, as Russia tried to take land near the city of Kharkiv.American officials said that Russia achieved a critical objective of President Vladimir V. Putin, creating a buffer zone along the border to make it more difficult for the Ukrainians to strike into the country.But the drive did not threaten Kharkiv and was ultimately stopped by Ukrainian defenses, according to Western officials.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