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      Putin Calls on U.S. to ‘Negotiate’ on Ukraine in Tucker Carlson Interview

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      In a two-hour interview, President Vladimir Putin of Russia was more direct than usual about how he sees his Ukraine invasion ending: not with a military victory, but a deal with the West.President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has worked for decades to win allies in the West, using his spy agencies to interfere in elections and deploying diplomats to build links with Kremlin-friendly politicians.On Thursday, the world witnessed a new, verbose chapter in those efforts: Mr. Putin’s two-hour interview, taped in a gilded hall at the Kremlin, with one of America’s most prominent and most divisive conservative commentators.Speaking to Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host, Mr. Putin called on the United States to “make an agreement” to cede Ukrainian territory to Russia in order to end the war. He sought to appeal directly to American conservatives just as Republican lawmakers are holding up aid to Ukraine on Capitol Hill, echoing the talking points of politicians like former President Donald J. Trump who say that the United States has more pressing priorities than a war thousands of miles away.“Don’t you have anything better to do?” Mr. Putin said in response to Mr. Carlson’s question about the possibility of American soldiers fighting in Ukraine. “You have issues on the border, issues with migration, issues with the national debt.”He went on: “Wouldn’t it be better to negotiate with Russia?”Much of the interview constituted a familiar Kremlin history lesson about Russia’s historical claim to Eastern European lands, beginning in the ninth century, that Mr. Putin made little effort to distill for American ears. He opined on artificial intelligence, Genghis Khan and the Roman Empire. He also laid out his well-worn and spurious justifications for invading Ukraine, asserting that Russia’s goal was to “stop this war” that he claims the West is waging against Russia.But Mr. Putin was more direct than usual about how he sees his Ukraine invasion ending: not with a military victory, but through an agreement with the West. At the interview’s end, Mr. Putin told Mr. Carlson that the time had come for talks about ending the war because “those who are in power in the West have come to realize” that Russia will not be defeated on the battlefield.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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      Tucker Carlson Urges Putin to Release American Journalist

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      The Russian president was noncommittal after Mr. Carlson asked about Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter who has been held in a Moscow prison for nearly a year.In an interview released on Thursday, Tucker Carlson urged President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to release an American reporter for The Wall Street Journal who has been held in a notorious Moscow prison for nearly a year.Mr. Carlson’s appeal on behalf of the reporter, Evan Gershkovich, was only the second time that Mr. Putin directly addressed a case that has galvanized press freedom groups and strained diplomatic relations with the United States.Large portions of the two-hour interview were taken up by Mr. Putin’s recounting hundreds of years of Russian history. But in the final minutes, Mr. Carlson asked, “as a sign of your decency,” if he “would be willing to release him to us and we’ll bring him back to the United States.” Mr. Carlson added: “This guy’s obviously not a spy. He’s a kid, and maybe he was breaking your law in some way, but he’s not a superspy, and everybody knows that.”Mr. Putin was noncommittal in his response. “We have done so many gestures of good will out of decency that I think we have run out of them,” he said, according to a translation of his remarks by Mr. Carlson’s team.Pressed about the case by Mr. Carlson, Mr. Putin later added: “I also want him to return to his homeland at last. I’m absolutely sincere. But let me say once again, the dialogue continues.”The Russian leader suggested that he wanted additional concessions from American officials before he would consider releasing Mr. Gershkovich. Mr. Putin suggested that he might be willing to trade the reporter for Vadim Krasikov, a Russian citizen sentenced to life in prison in Germany for the 2019 murder of a Chechen former separatist fighter in Berlin.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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      For First Time in Two Decades, U.S. Buys More From Mexico Than China

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      The United States bought more goods from Mexico than China in 2023 for the first time in 20 years, evidence of how much global trade patterns have shifted.In the depths of the pandemic, as global supply chains buckled and the cost of shipping a container to China soared nearly twentyfold, Marco Villarreal spied an opportunity.In 2021, Mr. Villarreal resigned as Caterpillar’s director general in Mexico and began nurturing ties with companies looking to shift manufacturing from China to Mexico. He found a client in Hisun, a Chinese producer of all-terrain vehicles, which hired Mr. Villarreal to establish a $152 million manufacturing site in Saltillo, an industrial hub in northern Mexico.Mr. Villarreal said foreign companies, particularly those seeking to sell within North America, saw Mexico as a viable alternative to China for several reasons, including the simmering trade tensions between the United States and China.“The stars are aligning for Mexico,” he said.New data released on Wednesday showed that Mexico outpaced China to become America’s top source of official imports for the first time in 20 years — a significant shift that highlights how increased tensions between Washington and Beijing are altering trade flows.The United States’ trade deficit with China narrowed significantly last year, with goods imports from the country dropping 20 percent to $427.2 billion, the data shows. American consumers and businesses turned to Mexico, Europe, South Korea, India, Canada and Vietnam for auto parts, shoes, toys and raw materials.Imports from China fell last yearU.S. imports of goods by origin

      Source: U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Bureau of Economic AnalysisBy The New York TimesWe 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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      House GOP Plans Vote on Israel Aid as Senate Tries to Close Ukraine Deal

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      Speaker Mike Johnson pledged Saturday that the House would hold a vote next week on legislation to speed $17.6 billion in security assistance to Israel with no strings attached, a move likely to complicate Senate leaders’ efforts to rally support for a broader package with border security measures and aid to Ukraine.Mr. Johnson’s announcement to members of his conference came as senators were scrambling to finalize and vote on a bipartisan national security bill that has taken months to negotiate. The move could further erode G.O.P. support for the emerging compromise, which was already flagging under criticism from party leaders like Mr. Johnson and former President Donald J. Trump.Mr. Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, has said that the Senate package would be dead on arrival in the House, arguing that its border security measures are not stringent enough to clamp down on a recent surge of immigration. He said the House would instead focus its efforts on the impeachment of Alejandro N. Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary — a vote on which is now expected to take place next week.In a letter to his members Saturday, he said the House would also prioritize its own approach to helping Israel’s war effort against Hamas, regardless of what — if any — related legislation the Senate might produce.“Their leadership is aware that by failing to include the House in their negotiations, they have eliminated the ability for swift consideration of any legislation,” Mr. Johnson wrote, adding that “the House will have to work its will on these issues and our priorities will need to be addressed.”Senate negotiators have been working on a sweeping national security funding bill to address Republican demands that any legislation sending military aid to Ukraine also significantly improve security at the southern border with Mexico. The emerging legislation, which includes measures making it more difficult to claim asylum and increasing both detentions and deportations, would also send more military aid to Ukraine and Israel, dedicate humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in Gaza and fund efforts to counter Chinese threats to the Indo-Pacific region.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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      Germany Braces for Decades of Confrontation With Russia

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      Leaders are sounding alarms about growing threats, but Chancellor Olaf Scholz is wary of pushing the Kremlin, and his own ambivalent public, too far.Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has begun warning Germans that they should prepare for decades of confrontation with Russia — and that they must speedily rebuild the country’s military in case Vladimir V. Putin does not plan to stop at the border with Ukraine.Russia’s military, he has said in a series of recent interviews with German news media, is fully occupied with Ukraine. But if there is a truce, and Mr. Putin, Russia’s president, has a few years to reset, he thinks the Russian leader will consider testing NATO’s unity.“Nobody knows how or whether this will last,” Mr. Pistorius said of the current war, arguing for a rapid buildup in the size of the German military and a restocking of its arsenal.Mr. Pistorius’s public warnings reflect a significant shift at the top levels of leadership in a country that has shunned a strong military since the end of the Cold War. The alarm is growing louder, but the German public remains unconvinced that the security of Germany and Europe has been fundamentally threatened by a newly aggressive Russia.The defense minister’s post in Germany is often a political dead end. But Mr. Pistorius’s status as one of the country’s most popular politicians has given him a freedom to speak that others — including his boss, Chancellor Olaf Scholz — do not enjoy.As Mr. Scholz prepares to meet President Biden at the White House on Friday, many in the German government say that there is no going back to business as usual with Mr. Putin’s Russia, that they anticipate little progress this year in Ukraine and that they fear the consequences should Mr. Putin prevail there.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. Hits Back at Iran With Sanctions, Criminal Charges and Airstrikes

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      In the hours before the United States carried out strikes against Iran-backed militants on Friday, Washington hit Tehran with more familiar weapons: sanctions and criminal charges.The Biden administration imposed sanctions on officers and officials of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Iran’s premier military force, for threatening the integrity of water utilities and for helping manufacture Iranian drones. And it unsealed charges against nine people for selling oil to finance the militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah.The timing seemed designed to pressure the Revolutionary Guards and its most elite unit, the Quds Force, at a moment of extraordinary tension in the Middle East. Although the sanctions have been brewing for some time and the charges were filed earlier under seal, the region has been in turmoil for months.The actions are part of a coordinated governmentwide effort to disrupt Iran’s efforts to use illicit oil sales to fund terrorism, and to push back on the country’s increasingly capable offensive cyberoperations. In the 15 years since the United States mounted a major cyberattack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, the country has trained a generation of hackers and struck back at Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United States, among others. Two American officials said the United States conducted cyberoperations against Iranian targets on Friday but declined to provide details.The effects of sanctions and indictments are hard to measure. Few Iranian officers or officials keep assets in Western banks or travel to the United States, meaning the sanctions may have little practical effect. While the indictments and sanctions have a psychological element, demonstrating to Iranians and their business associates around the world that Western intelligence agencies are often tracking their movements and their transactions, actual arrests and trials are infrequent.“The reason that we bring these cases is, we know that the money Iran obtains from the illicit sale of oil is used to fund its malign activities around the world,” Matthew G. Olsen, who heads the national security division of the Justice Department, said on Friday. “The threats posed by Iran and the destabilizing effects of its actions have only come into sharper relief since the attacks of Oct. 7,” the day of the Hamas attack on Israel that killed roughly 1,200 people.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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      Frozen U.S. Funding for UNRWA in Gaza Is Minimal, State Dept. Says

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      Just $300,000 is on hold after Israeli claims that UNRWA employees joined the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, U.S. officials say.The State Department downplayed the significance on Tuesday of its decision to pause funding for the main U.N. aid agency in Gaza, explaining that it had already provided virtually all the money allocated by Congress for that purpose and that the Biden administration hoped the matter could be resolved quickly.More than 99 percent of American dollars approved by Congress for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, or UNRWA, has been sent to the agency, the State Department spokesman, Matthew Miller, said on Tuesday.The State Department paused the money “temporarily” on Friday after accusations by Israel that a dozen UNRWA employees participated in the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, with some holding hostages within Gaza. At least 17 other donor nations have also suspended their funding to the agency, according to the group U.N. Watch.Human rights groups and progressive Democrats in Congress have denounced the move, saying that it will deprive innocent Palestinians of desperately needed aid. But Mr. Miller said the State Department had sent all but $300,000 of about $121 million budgeted for UNRWA to the agency, suggesting that the near-term effect of the U.S. action within Gaza will be minor.U.S. officials suggested that the real question is how much more money Congress will be willing to approve for an agency that many Republicans condemn for what they call anti-Israel bias and Hamas sympathies. Underscoring that uncertainty, witnesses at a House subcommittee hearing on Tuesday denounced UNRWA and called for its restructuring or replacement.Israel’s government says that at least 12 employees of the agency participated in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, and that UNRWA employs as many as 1,300 Hamas members. Israel estimates that the attack left roughly 1,200 people dead; another 240 people were taken hostage.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?  More

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      Biden Vows to Retaliate After Strike Against American Forces in Jordan

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      President Biden has carefully calibrated his responses to attacks by Iranian-backed militias since Oct. 7. Now he must decide how far he is willing to go after a drone attack killed three American service members.This was the day that President Biden and his team had feared for more than three months, the day that relatively low-level attacks by Iranian proxy groups on American troops in the Middle East turned deadly and intensified the pressure on the president to respond in kind.With three American service members killed and two dozen more injured by a drone in Jordan, Mr. Biden must decide how far he is willing to go in terms of retaliation at the risk of a wider war that he has sought to avoid ever since the Oct. 7 terrorist attack by Hamas touched off the current Middle East crisis.Until now, the president had carefully calibrated his responses to the more than 150 attacks by Iranian-backed militias on American forces in the region since Oct. 7. He essentially ignored the majority that were successfully intercepted or did little to no damage while authorizing limited U.S. strikes focused mainly on buildings, weapons and infrastructure after attacks that were more brazen, most notably against the Houthis in Yemen who have targeted shipping in the Red Sea.The first deaths of American troops under fire, however, will require a different level of response, American officials said, and the president’s advisers were in consensus about that as they consulted with him by secure videoconference on Sunday. What remained unclear was whether Mr. Biden would strike targets inside Iran itself, as his Republican critics urged him to do, saying he would be a “coward” if he did not, as one put it.“The question Biden faces is whether he just wants to react to events in the region or whether he wants to send a bigger message that attempts to restore a sense of deterrence that just hasn’t existed in the region for months now,” said Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute who worked in national security positions under President Bill Clinton.“I’m sure they’re looking for some kind of Goldilocks response here,” he added, meaning “not too hard” that it provokes a full-fledged war, “not too soft” that it just prolongs the conflict “but something that seems just right.”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?  More