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      Ukraine and U.S. Sign Agreement in Lead-Up to Full Minerals Deal

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      The signed memorandum of understanding was thin on details, and the White House did not comment. But President Trump has said he expects to sign a minerals deal with Kyiv soon.Ukraine and the United States signed a memorandum of understanding late on Thursday as a “step toward a joint economic partnership agreement,” according to Ukraine’s economy minister, bringing both sides closer to a minerals deal that has gone through multiple, contentious rounds of negotiations.The agreement was thin on details. While it referred to the creation of a fund that would invest in reconstruction in Ukraine — which has been devastated by the war Russia has waged since a full-scale invasion in 2022 — it did not specify the source of such revenue.There was no immediate comment from the White House. But the Ukrainian minister, Yulia Svyrydenko, who is also deputy prime minister, announced the agreement in a post on Facebook, after signing it on a video call with the U.S. Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, who was in Washington. Ms. Svyrydenko said the agreement would “benefit both our peoples.”Mr. Bessent, in his own comments on Thursday afternoon, did not mention he had signed the memorandum but said he expected a full deal next week.Yulia Svyrydenko, the Ukrainian economy minister, announced the signing of a memorandum of agreement with the Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent.Angelo Carconi/EPA, via ShutterstockEarlier drafts of a minerals deal had swiveled between what critics called a brazen extortion of Ukraine by the Trump administration and versions that included points sought by Ukraine, such as references to U.S. support for post-settlement security guarantees.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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      Senator Chris Van Hollen Heads to El Salvador to Check on Deported Immigrant

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      Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, is on his way to El Salvador on Wednesday to press for the release of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran immigrant and Maryland resident who was mistakenly deported by the Trump administration and remains imprisoned in his native country despite a federal court order calling for his return to the United States.Mr. Abrego Garcia was removed from the United States last month in what immigration officials have since acknowledged was an error. Although the Supreme Court has instructed the government to facilitate his return, both U.S. and Salvadoran authorities have so far refused to comply.Mr. Van Hollen said he hoped to visit Mr. Abrego Garcia at the maximum security prison where he is being held, known as CECOT, about an hour outside the country’s capital. The senator also said he hoped to talk to Salvadoran officials about securing Mr. Abrego Garcia’s release.“Following his abduction and unlawful deportation, U.S. federal courts have ordered the safe return of my constituent Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States,” Mr. Van Hollen said in a statement before his departure. “It should be a priority of the U.S. government to secure his safe release.”The trip comes shortly after President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador traveled to Washington, D.C., this week for a meeting with Mr. Trump. Mr. Van Hollen had requested a meeting with Mr. Bukele during the visit, but received no response.Mr. Trump and Mr. Bukele had appeared side-by-side in the Oval Office, with Mr. Bukele saying he had no intention of releasing Mr. Abrego Garcia and Mr. Trump saying he was powerless to seek his return.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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      Shein and Temu Will be Hit by Trump’s China Tariffs. Americans Are Worried.

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      The Trump administration’s plan to add steep fees to packages from China will deal a blow to Temu, Shein and some TikTok Shop sellers, worrying American consumers.Tamika Johnson, a 44-year-old in Chicago, posted videos to TikTok this month about her orders from Shein, the Chinese e-commerce giant. She was nervous about potential delivery delays in the face of upcoming tariffs.Her 213,000 followers chimed in as she shared status updates on her purchases of clothing and suitcases, detailing their own plans for last-minute orders and sharing concerns about their shipments.“People are very worried,” Ms. Johnson, who posts to TikTok under the handle @TammyTheBlackPrepper, said in an interview. “I’m trying to stock up on clothes now and the things that I need.”Ms. Johnson is one of many American consumers who have been posting anxiously to TikTok and Reddit about a coming Trump administration-induced change for the Chinese e-commerce companies Shein and Temu, which sell inexpensive items like $8 dresses and $14 wagons. Starting on May 2, the Trump administration is poised to end a trade loophole that enabled the delivery of ultra low-cost goods from Chinese factories straight to Americans’ doorsteps without being subject to duties. That will add steep new fees to packages from Shein and Temu.At least some sellers on TikTok Shop, the popular app’s growing marketplace, and AliExpress, another Chinese e-commerce site, will also take a hit.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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      Trump’s Dilemma: A Trade War That Threatens Every Other Negotiation With China

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      President Trump is staking everything on winning by imposing tariffs on China. But the fight threatens to choke off negotiations about other issues like Taiwan, fentanyl, TikTok and more.President Trump came into office sounding as if he were eager to deal with President Xi Jinping of China on the range of issues dividing the world’s two biggest superpowers.He and his aides signaled that they wanted to resolve trade disputes and lower the temperature on Taiwan, curb fentanyl production and get to a deal on TikTok. Perhaps, over time, they could manage a revived nuclear arms race and competition over artificial intelligence.Today it is hard to imagine any of that happening, at least for a year.Mr. Trump’s decision to stake everything on winning a trade war with China threatens to choke off those negotiations before they even begin. And if they do start up, Mr. Trump may be entering them alone, because he has alienated the allies who in recent years had come to a common approach to countering Chinese power.In conversations over the past 10 days, several administration officials, insisting that they could not speak on the record, described a White House deeply divided on how to handle Beijing. The trade war erupted before the many factions inside the administration even had time to stake out their positions, much less decide which issues mattered most.The result was strategic incoherence. Some officials have gone on television to declare that Mr. Trump’s tariffs on Beijing were intended to coerce the world’s second-largest economy into a deal. Others insisted that Mr. Trump was trying to create a self-sufficient American economy, no longer dependent on its chief geopolitical competitor, even if that meant decoupling from the $640 billion in two-way trade in goods and services.Shipping containers in the port of Tianjin, China, last month. Beijing has matched every one of Mr. Trump’s tariff hikes, trying to send the message that it can endure the pain longer than the United States can. 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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      Trump Administration Memo Proposes Cutting State Department Funding by Nearly Half

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      The Trump administration could cut nearly 50 percent of the State Department’s funding next fiscal year, according to an internal memo laying out a downsizing plan being given serious consideration by department leaders, said two U.S. officials. The plan was drawn up as the White House pressures agencies to make significant budget cuts.The memo, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, proposes eliminating almost all funding for international organizations like the United Nations and NATO, ending the budget for supporting international peacekeeping operations and curtailing all of the department’s educational and cultural exchanges, like the Fulbright Program.It also proposes cutting funding for humanitarian assistance and global health programs by more than 50 percent despite Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s pledges that lifesaving assistance would be preserved.It was not clear if Mr. Rubio had endorsed the cuts outlined in the memo, which was dated April 10. Pete Marocco, who oversaw the gutting of government foreign aid programs before abruptly leaving the department, and Douglas Pitkin, who is in charge of the department’s budget planning, prepared the document. It was also not clear how seriously the proposed cuts would be entertained in Congress, which appropriates federal dollars.But, according to a U.S. official familiar with the department’s review, it is likely that the White House will send Congress a budget proposal this spring that is substantially similar to what the memo outlines in an effort to press lawmakers to formalize downsizing efforts that are already underway.Agencies are facing a deadline this week to submit detailed reorganization plans to the White House explaining what cuts they will make to help further shrink the federal government. While many departments have already announced or begun carrying out their planned cuts, the State Department has yet to publicly detail complete plans for downsizing. The memo is part of a process involving the White House budget office and the State Department trading proposals and suggestions.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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      Ecuadorean President’s Opponent Contests His Re-Election Win

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      In a divisive election season, Daniel Noboa pledged to bring law and order. His opponent immediately contested the results.Ecuador’s president, who unexpectedly surged in the polls to secure a shortened term in 2023, was declared the victor of the presidential election with a decisive lead on Sunday in a race that showed voters’ faith in his vows to tackle the security crisis with an iron fist.Daniel Noboa, 37, defeated Luisa González, 47, the handpicked successor of former President Rafael Correa.Both candidates accused the other of electoral violations throughout the election season, and Ms. González said she would not recognize the results of the election, in a speech from the headquarters of her party, Citizen Revolution.“I want to be very clear and emphatic: The Citizen Revolution has always recognized a defeat in the last elections when polls, tracking and statistics have shown it,” Ms. González said. “Today, we do not recognize these results.”Mr. Noboa celebrated his victory from the coastal town of Olón.“This day has been historic,” he said. “There is no doubt who the winner is.”The day before the election, Mr. Noboa declared a state of emergency in seven states, most of them González strongholds, raising fears that he was trying to suppress the vote among her supporters. The declaration restricts social activities and allows police and military to enter homes without permission.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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      Trump officials renew opposition to ruling on Maryland man wrongly deported to El Salvador

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      The Trump administration on Sunday evening doubled down on its assertion that a federal judge cannot force it to bring back to the United States a Maryland man who was unlawfully deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador last month.In a brief legal filing, the Justice Department reiterated its view that courts lack the ability to dictate steps that the White House should take in seeking to return the man, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, to U.S. soil, because the president alone has broad powers to handle foreign policy.“The federal courts have no authority to direct the executive branch to conduct foreign relations in a particular way, or engage with a foreign sovereign in a given manner,” lawyers for the department wrote. “That is the ‘exclusive power of the president as the sole organ of the federal government in the field of international relations.’”The position taken by Trump officials was not the first time they had tried to defy efforts compelling them to seek Mr. Abrego Garcia’s return from El Salvador. Still, their continued recalcitrance meant that Mr. Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old father of three, would for now remain at the CECOT prison in El Salvador, where he was sent with scores of other migrants on March 15.The administration’s stubbornness was also likely to heighten tensions between the White House and the judge overseeing the case, Paula Xinis. Judge Xinis has scheduled a hearing to discuss next steps in the matter on Tuesday in Federal District Court in Maryland.The conflict has persisted even though the Supreme Court last week unanimously ordered the administration to “facilitate” Mr. Abrego Garcia’s release from Salvadoran custody. Trump officials have in fact already admitted that they made an “administrative error” when they put Mr. Abrego Garcia on the plane to El Salvador in the first place.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. ‘Continues to Delay, Obfuscate and Flout’ Courts in Return of Deported Man, Lawyers Say

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      Lawyers for a Maryland man who was unlawfully deported to a prison in El Salvador assailed the Trump administration on Friday for trying to delay its explanation for how it plans to bring him back, calling the move a “stunning display of arrogance and cruelty.”“The government continues to delay, obfuscate and flout court orders, while a man’s life and safety is at risk,” the lawyers wrote in court papers filed in the case.On Thursday evening, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Trump officials needed to “facilitate” the return to the United States of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old Salvadoran migrant who flown from Texas to El Salvador on March 15.The officials have already acknowledged that they made an “administrative error” when they put Mr. Abrego Garcia on the plane despite a previous court order that had expressly prohibited sending him back to his homeland.As part of its ruling, the Supreme Court told the administration that it should be prepared to “share what it can concerning the steps it has taken” to get Mr. Abrego Garcia back on U.S. soil as well as “the prospect of further steps” it intends to take.Echoing the justices’ demand, Judge Paula Xinis, who is handling the case in Federal District Court in Maryland, told the Justice Department to submit to her by 9:30 a.m. on Friday a written declaration of what the administration had already done and what it planned to do in its efforts to retrieve Mr. Abrego Garcia from El Salvador. Judge Xinis also set a hearing for 1 p.m. on Friday to discuss the next steps in the case.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