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Trump administration rescinds congestion pricing for New York City
by Evelyn Reynolds 19 February 2025, 19:16
The Trump administration announced on Wednesday it intends to rescind approval of New York City’s congestion pricing program that is designed to reduce traffic in the heart of busy Manhattan and, in the process, raise billions to upgrade New York’s subway train and bus systems.The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), the public-private entity that provides public transportation services in the New York metro area, immediately sued the government in an effort to block its move.The system – the first of its kind in a US city – has only been in operation for a few weeks, starting on 5 January after previously being blocked last year. But Sean Duffy, the US transportation secretary, said the federal government’s move will now halt the program. Donald Trump pledged on the campaign trail to use federal power to revoke approval for the program that was approved in the final months of the Biden administration.On Wednesday, Trump wrote on Truth Social: “CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!”Kathy Hochul, the New York governor and a Democrat, who has been strongly behind the scheme, said earlier that the money raised from charging tolls to drivers would underpin $15bn in debt financing for mass transit capital improvements.But in a letter addressed to Hochul on Wednesday, Duffy said: “I share the president’s concerns about the impact to working class Americans who now have an additional financial burden to account for in their daily lives. Users of the highway network within the CBD [central business district] tolling area have already financed the construction and improvement of these highways through the payment of gas taxes and other taxes.”He added: “The recent imposition of this [congestion pricing program] upon residents, businesses, and commuters left highway users without any free highway alternative on which to travel within the relevant area. Moreover, the revenues generated under this pilot program are directed toward the transit system as opposed to the highways. I do not believe that this is a fair deal.”Duffy also cited concerns expressed by New Jersey’s governor, Phil Murphy, also a Democrat, and the state’s transportation commissioner, Francis O’Connor.On 20 January, the day of Trump’s inauguration, Murphy sent a letter to Trump in which he asked him to re-examine New York’s congestion pricing program. “The resulting congestion pricing plan is a disaster for working and middle-class New Jersey commuters and residents,” Murphy wrote.In Wednesday’s letter, Duffy also said that he believes the “imposition of tolls under the [congestion pricing program] appears to be driven primarily by the need to raise revenue for the Metropolitan Transit Authority system as opposed to the need to reduce congestion”.“I recognize that preliminary project data published by the MTA reports a congestion reduction benefit, but the toll rate that is set … should not be driven primarily by revenue targets, particularly revenue targets that have nothing to do with the highway infrastructure,” he continued.The US transportation department’s decision to rescind approval of the program will put a halt to the city initiative, which imposes a $9 fee on drivers who enter Manhattan below 60th Street between 5am and 9pm on weekdays and 9am to 9pm on weekends.Last May, Trump vowed to end the program, writing on his Truth Social platform: “I will TERMINATE Congestion Pricing in my FIRST WEEK back in Office!!!”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe Guardian has reached out to Hochul’s office for comment.In response to the transportation department’s decision, Jerry Nadler, the US representative of New York, said that the arguments are “utterly baseless and frankly, laughable”.“The notion of revoking approval for a federal initiative of this magnitude is nearly without precedent. I firmly believe that there is no legal basis for the President to unilaterally halt this program,” he wrote, adding: “Mr President, we’ll see you in court.”Duffy gave no date to end the program, and his announcement could bring other legal challenges. New Yorkers had mixed views about the scheme, but proponents of public transport and a cleaner environment were behind it and in the early days there were indications from MTA data that street congestion had eased in central Manhattan, the New York Times reported.The MTA and a New York bridge authority filed a lawsuit in Manhattan against Duffy, saying the department’s decision to withdraw approval of the program is “for blatantly political reasons” to uphold Trump’s campaign promise.“The administration’s efforts to summarily and unilaterally overturn the considered determinations of the political branches – federal, state, and city – are unlawful, and the court should declare that they are null and void,” the suit said.Reuters contributed reporting More
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Trump blindsides Senate Republicans by endorsing rival House budget plan
by Evelyn Reynolds 19 February 2025, 19:13
Donald Trump has derailed Senate Republicans’ budget strategy by endorsing a competing House option, leaving GOP leaders scrambling to save their agenda just weeks before a potential government shutdown.The president’s surprise intervention came just hours after Senate Republicans moved to advance their own two-track proposal, as he declared instead that he wants “ONE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL” through the House’s reconciliation process.“Unlike the Lindsey Graham version of the very important Legislation currently being discussed, the House Resolution implements my FULL America First Agenda,” Trump posted on Truth Social.The announcement forces Senate Republicans to reconsider their carefully planned schedule of votes this week on a slimmer package that was meant to cover defense, border security and energy provisions.While the Senate majority leader, John Thune, admitted being blindsided, he told reporters his side was still full steam ahead on a Thursday vote for its version of a bill.“If the House can produce one big, beautiful bill, we’re prepared to work with them to get that across the finish line,” Thune said. “But we believe that the president also likes optionality.”The House proposal Trump is backing would add $4.5tn to the deficit through tax cuts while demanding enormous cuts to federal benefits programs. Under the plan’s strict rules, Republicans must either slash $2tn from mandatory programs (which could include Medicare, Medicaid and food assistance) or scale back their proposed tax breaks by an equal amount.The timing is already tight, as Congress is barreling down a 14 March deadline to pass the bill that would avoid a shutdown forcing hundreds of thousands of federal employees to go without pay. Although Republicans control both chambers, the majorities are so thin they will need Democratic votes to pass any funding measure.In the Senate, where Republicans hold 53 seats, at least 60 votes are needed to overcome a filibuster. The House speaker, Mike Johnson, working with a slim 218-215 majority, faces similar math problems and internal drama.Johnson immediately claimed victory over Trump’s endorsement of the House plan, saying on X that House Republicans are “working to deliver President Trump’s FULL agenda – not just a small part of it”.But his proposal faces resistance from Republicans worried about proposed entitlement cuts – cuts Trump himself rejected on Tuesday on Fox News, saying: “Medicare, Medicaid – none of that stuff is going to be touched.”“If a bill is put in front of me that guts the benefits my neighbors rely on, I will not vote for it,” the freshman Republican congressman Rob Bresnahan said on X.The White House dispatched the vice-president, JD Vance, to meet Senate Republicans on Wednesday afternoon, attempting to smooth tensions as both chambers grapple with how to advance Trump’s agenda. But it’s clear that some senators will be hard to convince.“I’m not sure [the House budget could] pass the House or that it could pass the Senate,” the Wisconsin senator Ron Johnson told reporters.The House remains in recess until next week, leaving Senate Republicans alone on Capitol Hill to plot their next move. More
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Love, rockets and media attacks: Trump and Musk bring their toxic bromance to Fox News
by Evelyn Reynolds 19 February 2025, 13:59
The British dancer Debbie McGee was once asked in an interview: “What first ever attracted you to the millionaire Paul Daniels?” Hopefully some day Donald Trump will be asked in an interview: “What first ever attracted you to the billionaire far-right sympathizer Elon Musk?”Alas, the question was not put by the Fox News host Sean Hannity when he conducted a joint interview with the world’s most powerful man and Trump at the White House on Tuesday.Even so, viewers were treated to a treacly display of the toxic bromance currently wrecking America and large swathes of the world. Who can resist three Maga men shooting the breeze about the size of Elon’s space rockets?The commander-in-chief and oligarch-in-chief sat side by side like a breathless young couple announcing their engagement on live TV. Trump wore a blue suit, white shirt and blue tie; Musk wore a T-shirt saying “tech support” under a black jacket. The orangeness of Trump’s face threw the paleness of Musk’s complexion into sharp relief and vice versa.Musk, the Tesla, SpaceX and X supremo who recently tweeted he loves Trump “as much as a straight man can love another man”, confirmed he is indeed mad about the boy. “Well, I love the president,” he said. “I just want to be clear about that.”Sounding like he empathises, Hannity asked: “You love the president?”Musk said: “I think President Trump is a good man.”Trump was moved, like a man whose wife has not said that in many a long year. He interjected: “That’s the way he said that. You know, there’s something nice about.”Musk went on: “The president has been so unfairly attacked in the media. It’s truly outrageous. And I’ve spent a lot of time with the president and not once have I seen him do something that was mean or cruel or – or wrong. Not once.”Last month Trump exploited a deadly plane crash to blame his predecessors’s efforts to include people of colour in the federal workforce, but OK. Hannity took his chance to outdo Musk by boasting that he has known the president for 30 years and never known anyone deal with so much adversity, culminating in two assassination attempts.Musk acknowledged that the first shooting, when a bullet grazed Trump’s ear at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, accelerated his decision to endorse Trump’s re-election bid. The president sounded like a fiancee learning a sweet secret about their first date.“Nice”, Trump said: “I didn’t know that.”Musk added: “Yeah, it just – it sped it up, but I was going to do it anyway.”Like Romeo and Juliet, these star-crossed lovers are tragically misunderstood, in this case by vile media. “They want a divorce,” Hannity declared. “They want you two to start hating each other. And they try – ‘Oh, President Elon Musk’, for example. You do know that they’re doing that to you?”Trump concurred. “Actually, Elon called me. He said: ‘You know they’re trying to drive us apart.’ I said: ‘Absolutely’.”Then Hannity sounded like Oprah Winfrey interviewing Meghan and Harry. He said: “I want people to know the relationship and know more about you. What is the relationship, Mr President?”Trump replied: “Well, I respect him. I’ve always respected him. I never knew that he was right on certain things, and I’m usually pretty good at this stuff. He did Starlink. He did things that were so advanced and nobody knew what the hell they were.”He went on: “I think, you know, something that had an effect on me was when I saw the rocket ship come back and get grabbed like you grab a beautiful little baby. You grab your baby.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMusk chimed in: “Just hug the rocket.”Hannity too: “You hug the rocket. You hug the rocket.”Steady on!Speaking of space, Trump and Musk seized their chance to lie about Joe Biden, blaming him for astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams having been stuck on the International Space Station for eight months.Musk said: “Yes, they were left up there for political reasons, which is not good.”Trump added that Biden “was going to leave them in space … Yeah, he didn’t want the publicity. Can you believe it?”Can we believe that Biden was as ruthless and calculating as Hal 9000, casting astronauts into the cold abyss of space? No, we can’t.Musk went on to mock “Trump derangement syndrome”, recalling how, at a friend’s birthday party in Los Angeles, he mentioned the president’s name, “and it was like they got shot with a dart in the jugular that contained, like, the methamphetamine and rabies”.Some would say that fate is preferable to the hour of television that Fox News served up in prime time, a desperate attempt to justify Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency”, currently laying waste to the federal government. It is as if Trump said: ‘You had me at dismantling the administrative state.’ More
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We are on the road for democracy and justice | Bernie Sanders
by Evelyn Reynolds 19 February 2025, 11:21
I will be doing town meetings in Omaha, Nebraska, this Friday night and Iowa City, Iowa, on Saturday morning. Further, in the coming weeks and months, I and other progressives will be holding grassroots events from coast to coast.Why, at this moment, are we doing town meetings around the country – especially in conservative areas? The answer is obvious.Trumpism will not be defeated by politicians inside the DC beltway. It will only be defeated by millions of Americans, in every state in this country, coming together in a strong, grassroots movement which says no to oligarchy, no to authoritarianism, no to kleptocracy, no to massive cuts in programs that working people desperately need, no to huge tax breaks for the richest people in our country. And that’s what these events are about.Further, there are a number of congressional districts where Republicans won by only a small number of votes. With the Republican party in the House having only a three-vote majority we can defeat draconian, anti-working-class legislation if just two Republican members of Congress vote no. And they will vote no if we rally their constituents to demand that they vote no.Can Trumpism be defeated? Absolutely! But, if we’re going to make that happen, we need to know exactly what we’re up against and how we can best go forward. Here’s just some of what we need to know:Trumpism has an unlimited amount of money to throw into its efforts. Elon Musk, the wealthiest man on earth, put more than $270m into Trump’s campaign, a tiny portion of his fortune. Other multibillionaires will join Musk in spending whatever it takes.Trumpism has significant control over large parts of the media from which millions of Americans get their information. Fox and Musk’s platform X, among others, are not normal media outlets. Their basic function is not to cover the “news” but to spread rightwing extremist ideology.Trumpism is utilizing the concept of the “big lie” in a way that has never, in this country, been seen. Day after day, blatantly dishonest statements and conspiracy theories are propagated – and repeated over and over and over again.Trumpism does not believe in democracy or the rule of law. Trump recently posted: “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.” In other words, Trump believes that he can do anything he wants for any reason. He can ignore Congress or the courts. He is above the law.But, while Trump consolidates power into his own hands, there is another reality going on.Today, 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck; millions are earning starvation wages; 85 million are uninsured or under-insured; young people are unable to afford the cost of college; 25% of seniors live on $15,000 a year or less; we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on earth, and we have a major shortage in low-income and affordable housing.Oh, and by the way, we’re losing the struggle against the climate crisis – an existential threat to the future of the planet.And here’s the kicker. While Trump moves us away from democracy, while the middle class continues to decline, the wealthiest people in the country have never ever had it so good. Today, the three major oligarchs, Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, are worth $905bn – that is more wealth than the bottom half of American society – 170 million people. And, incredibly, since Trump’s election their wealth has grown by $217bn.Our struggle, the American people’s struggle, is to protect democracy and the rule of law. Equally important, we must end oligarchy and create an economy that works for all, not just the few. We are the wealthiest country on earth and AI, robotics and other new technologies will only make our country wealthier. It is absurd, unjust and inhumane that virtually all of that new wealth being created goes to the people who need it the least.While Trump now “floods the zone” and occupies most of the political oxygen, it is imperative that we never lose sight of the progressive vision – a nation and world based on human cooperation and compassion, not greed and a “survival of the fittest” mentality. What we are fighting for is not “utopian”, or unachievable. Much of it already exists in other countries, and poll after poll shows that it is exactly what the American people want.In the richest country in the history of the world we must establish that:
Healthcare is a human right and must be available to all regardless of income.
Every worker in America is entitled to earn a decent income. We must raise the minimum wage to a living wage and make it easier for workers to join unions.
We must have the best public educational system in the world, from childcare to vocational training, to graduate school – available to all.
We must address the housing crisis and build the millions of units of low-income and affordable housing that we desperately need.
We must create millions of good paying jobs as we lead the world in combating the existential threat of climate change.
We must abolish all forms of bigotry.
Not only must we continue to fight for a nation based on the principles of economic, social, racial and environmental justice, we must also lead the effort against Trump‘s reactionary legislative agenda.In the coming weeks the Republicans in Congress will be bringing forward a major piece of legislation, a “reconciliation” bill, that encapsulates the value system of greed and their obedience to oligarchy. It is the economic essence of Trumpism.At a time of unprecedented income and wealth inequality, this legislation will provide trillions of dollars in tax breaks to the richest people in our country. It will make the rich even richer. At a time when the working class of this country is struggling to put food on the table and pay for housing, this legislation will make savage cuts to Medicaid, housing, nutrition, education and other basic needs. It will make the poor even poorer.We cannot allow this to happen. This legislation is enormously unpopular. It is exactly what the American people do not want. It must not be passed by Congress.It must be defeated and we can defeat it.This is a perilous moment in American history. Let us go forward together.
Bernie Sanders is a US senator, and chair of the health education labor and pensions committee. He represents the state of Vermont and is the longest-serving independent in the history of Congress More
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Trans military members on the feared ban: ‘I would meet Trump to show how we’ve served our country’
by Evelyn Reynolds 19 February 2025, 11:00
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View image in fullscreenFor Bree Fram, an active-duty colonel in the US space force with 22 years of military experience, the last few weeks have been “incredibly challenging”.“Like thousands of other transgender military personnel, I am doing my job every day, while feeling fear and uncertainty of what is coming next,” said Fram.Fram and other trans servicepeople are awaiting word on what they fear may be a blanket ban by the Trump administration on transgender people serving in the armed forces. This would affect not only those who wish to join and those within the military who are transitioning and require medical treatment but also service members who have already transitioned and been working in the armed forces for many years.“This is not a place where we expected to be after a decade of open service,” Fram said. “The ban makes me sad for myself and my transgender colleagues, and also concerned for America’s national security. We have thousands of transgender service members who have served openly and honorably, and their loss would leave a massive hole in our country’s military capabilities.”Lt Cdr Geirid Morgan, who has served in the navy for 14 years, said: “An all-out ban would mean the rapid termination of thousands of transgender service members, many of whom are mid-career like myself,” adding: “Many trans service members are senior-enlisted or at officer rank, with 10-plus years of service, multiple deployments, and millions of dollars invested in their lives and careers.” (Fram and Morgan, like the other trans servicepeople featured in this article, emphasized that they were speaking in a personal capacity, and not officially representing the Department of Defense and US government.)View image in fullscreenOpen service for trans people in the US military was introduced in 2016. In announcing the revival of a ban he initiated in his first term of office (later revoked by Joe Biden), Donald Trump said in a 27 January executive order: “The Armed Forces have been afflicted with radical gender ideology to appease activists unconcerned with the requirements of military service like physical and mental health, selflessness, and unit cohesion.”In Trump’s executive order, as with a slew of measures targeting trans people in recent weeks in areas such as healthcare provision and sports, the administration made clear it did not recognize trans identities – rather only two sexes, male and female: “Expressing a false ‘gender identity’ divergent from an individual’s sex cannot satisfy the rigorous standards necessary for Military Service.”CPO Ryan Goodell, a signal analyst with the navy, said: “That isn’t true. The requirements for service are the same for trans people as their cisgender counterparts.” He continued: “Let our service speak for itself. I’ve been dedicated to my career for 13 years and would like to continue doing it.”On 7 February, as first reported by the Hill, the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, issued instructions for the military to cease employing new trans recruits and suspend medical treatments existing trans recruits may have been receiving, claiming that allowing trans people to serve openly undermined military capability.However, a 2016 Rand study found the opposite, showing that the cost for the military of medical transitions was comparatively minor and unit cohesion was unaffected by the presence of trans service members.Some fellow trans service members have already had medical treatments canceled, Goodell said. “This has caused them distress, but there is also a lot of resilience and determination. I’ve no idea what the obsession with the transgender community is, and it’s very disheartening to watch this campaign to erase the transgender community. We haven’t harmed anyone. We’re not enemies of the state, or anything crazy like that. We’re citizens of the United States. We want to show up in our daily lives, and live our lives.”View image in fullscreenA Department of Defense official did not respond to specific questions about when official policy regarding transgender troops would be announced and what would be included in its sweep, or to charges that the ban was discriminatory and unfair.The official said: “The Department of Defense will fully execute and implement all directives outlined in the Executive Orders issued by the President, ensuring that they are carried out with utmost professionalism, efficiency, and in alignment with national security objectives. We will provide status updates as we are able.”Alexandria Holder, a master sergeant with the US air force, said it was “extremely stressful” to work in a climate of such governmental hostility and lack of clarity.“I have served my country for 20 years, and have a family to support,” Holder said, referring to her wife, Brittanie, and their four children. “It makes it very difficult to plan for the future. I’m scared, but I continue to do my job, and do it well. My service is core to my identity.”“People forget this doesn’t just impact us as service members, but also our loved ones and families,” said Fram, who has a wife, Peg, and two children. “The impact goes far beyond us and has major effects on all those people we care about.”The trans military ban, like other Trump administration measures targeting trans people, is already the subject of legal challenges – one by Lambda Legal and the Human Rights Campaign, and the other by the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) and GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (Glad Law).View image in fullscreenThe organizations are representing trans plaintiffs from the army, navy and air force with many years of decorated service behind them. The plaintiffs include the navy Cdr Emily “Hawking” Shilling, the president of Sparta, an organization representing an estimated 15,000 active and reserve transgender troops.“The language in the executive order and other things is so rabid that we 100% think the final order will go after all trans people – the intention is all-out erasure,” said the senior attorney Sasha Buchert, director of Lambda Legal’s Non-Binary and Transgender Rights Project.Of the pending legal cases, the defense department official told the Guardian: “As a matter of policy, the department does not comment on ongoing litigation.”The charge that trans service members are weak and disruptive “doesn’t resonate with my and my friends’ experiences”, said Morgan. “My engagements with colleagues and leadership only improved when they were interacting with me as my authentic self. I have had two of the most productive years of my professional life since beginning my transition. I am able to trust and depend on people as I have never been able to before. That’s not an exception, that’s a general rule for all my trans colleagues. Being able to be ourselves has made us better service members.”
We exist. We do incredible things. We are serving in the military with distinction, and we will continue to do so for as long as we are ableBree Fram
Goodell echoed that sentiment: “It’s taken a very long time in my life to come to the realization of who I am, and I am a better person, a better son, a better sailor and a better leader as a result.”Holder serves as flight chief for 43 airmen, supporting operations in the Middle East and North Africa, leading groups of Arabic linguists and intelligence analysts.“I love what I do, especially when it comes to leading,” she said. “There was a lot of stress around the first ban, but this time is different because of the level of demonization of trans people during and after the election campaign, and the number of anti-trans bills at both state and federal levels.“Being able to come out and go through my transition allowed me to be a better leader, and feel better empathy with the people around me,” Holder said. “Being open about who you are should be seen as strength and be celebrated, instead of being demonized and perceived as a weakness. If someone wants to claim I, or any trans service member, is weaker than them, I would challenge them to do what I have done while serving my country and see if they can do the same.”While Hegseth has stated that trans service members “will be treated with dignity and respect”, those who spoke to the Guardian said that having their years of service nullified and careers terminated simply because they are transgender revealed the opposite.Fram said: “When we are told we are not meeting military standards without any evidence, when the language of these executive orders and memos challenges our honor, it is extremely painful to hear – and also to be put in a position where we have to defend our existence and capabilities.”View image in fullscreenHolder said: “I look at all that trans people have achieved in uniform, and would ask President Trump and Secretary Hegseth to look at what we do and achieve rather than what our identities are, and let us continue to serve.” She added: “I would welcome meeting them to tell them about my experiences and my work, and show them how trans people have served our country.”Fram said she had been “overwhelmed” with the support shown by cisgender colleagues. “Their message is, ‘I see you, I support you,’” Fram said. “The question in the military is, ‘Are you with me? Do you have my back?’ When it comes to supporting transgender service members, the answer is ‘yes’. But I don’t want to be in a position where people feel they need to check in on me or offer support. It’s incredibly gratifying to know I have that, but it takes away from the work we should be doing.”Goodell said he would be “forever grateful” to the doctors who helped him transition, especially with his recent final gender-confirming surgery. “I sensed they were frustrated with the prospect of any ban that would forbid them from providing care, because that is what they do, that is their calling. I expressed my sincere gratitude for all they had done for me.”The service members said they remained optimistic, but all are preparing for “the worst-case scenario”, as Fram put it, should they suddenly find themselves thrown out of their jobs.“In a perfect world I would like to continue to serve and do 20 years of service,” Goodell said. “But if that isn’t the case, those of us who have served I hope will be treated with dignity and respect and be afforded the benefits we’ve earned, like veterans’ healthcare.”Fram said: “No proclamations will erase our existence. The only person who gets to judge who we are is ourselves.” She continued: “Trans people are some of the most resilient people out there. We had to dig deep and find who we really are. Nothing that comes out of this government can invalidate that fact. We exist. We do incredible things. We are serving in the military with distinction, and we will continue to do so for as long as we are able.“My hope is that trans people have the opportunity to serve and thrive now and far into the future – to show that trans people belong everywhere.”@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Light.woff2) format(“woff2”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Light.woff) format(“woff”),url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Light.ttf) format(“truetype”);font-weight:300;font-style:normal}@font-face{font-family:Guardian Headline Full;src:url(https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-LightItalic.woff2) 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The US and Europe are at a crossroads. A new world order is emerging
by Evelyn Reynolds 19 February 2025, 10:00
Over the past week, the foundations of US-European relations shifted dramatically.In a series of highly controversial interventions, Donald Trump’s administration outlined a new US approach to Europe. It revolves around negotiating a rapid end to the war between Ukraine and Russia, handing Europe the lead responsibility for its own defense, and forging a new transatlantic alliance of populist forces on the right. After 25 years of working on transatlantic relations, I am aware of the tendency of crisis moments like this to fade and relationships to trend back toward historical norms. But this time is different.At the Munich Security Conference, Trump officials hurled a series of rhetorical bombs at their European counterparts. As the electricity crackled through the cramped rooms of Munich’s Bayerischer Hof hotel over the weekend, the historic stakes were clear. Would Europe manage, after years of talk, to pull together and defend itself or would it simply be a pawn in the US and Russia’s larger game? Would Ukraine avoid being overrun by the Russian army and emerge with its sovereignty intact? For the rest of the world, what would it mean for the west to truly fracture, Russia to be rehabilitated, and the war in Ukraine to end?The reverberations began last Wednesday when the US president announced that he and Vladimir Putin had made a plan to negotiate an end to the war. Europe and Ukraine were frightened to the bone that the future of their security would be decided without them.Meanwhile, Pete Hegseth, the US secretary of defense, said at Nato headquarters in Brussels that Europe would need to provide for Ukraine’s defenses once the war was over – and with only limited support from the United States. Europeans fear they are woefully unprepared for this task. In a reversal of official US policy, Hegseth added that Ukraine would not join Nato. Ironically, it was the Republican George W Bush who had first insisted that it would in 2008 – over the objections of his German and French counterparts, who thought doing so would provoke Russia.When the US vice-president, JD Vance, strode on to the Munich stage, the throng in the Bayerischer Hof thus waited with bated breath. What, exactly, was Trump’s plan for Ukraine? What they got instead will go down as one of the most controversial speeches an American political leader has ever given in Europe.With little discussion of Ukraine’s future, Vance launched into a harangue that alleged that Europe was repressing free speech and undermining democracy by holding back rightwing nationalist movements like the Alternative für Deutschland. This dropped like molten lead. Here was a vision of democracy sharply at odds with his audience’s.Vance clearly aimed to shock. Whether he aimed to insult is unclear, but in the end he did both.Afterward, European leaders hastily rewrote their own remarks to attack Vance’s and call for European unity in the face of American betrayal. Some were more realistic than others about what they might achieve.On the realistic side was Finland’s president, Alexander Stubb, who spoke publicly in many forums about the need to turn a possible Yalta moment, in which Russia and the US remake European security without Europe’s input, into a Helsinki moment, in which the principles for a future peace and detente are put in place.Others, however, still in a state of shock, continued to call for Europe to push back against the US, go its own way, and win the war for Ukraine on its own. Talking points like these worked well three years ago, but their unrealistic nature today risks undermining Europe’s ability to pull together and ensure its vital interests are protected.View image in fullscreenMeanwhile, Asia’s two giants – China and India – watched this remaking of the west with optimism. China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, took a tranquil, almost beneficent tone in his remarks as he surveyed the chasms that had emerged. China, after all, has itself long sought to provoke such divides. India’s foreign minister, S Jaishankar, was perhaps more circumspect, but still optimistic. For these countries, the crackup of the west is only another sign that the rest of this century will be theirs.The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has since met in Saudi Arabia with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, to prepare the way for Putin and Trump’s next discussion on the future of Ukraine – and by extension Europe. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has convened European heads of state in the hope of forging the consensus they will need to protect their world in this moment of crisis. This will be very hard.Years as an observer and participant in the making of Europe’s relations with the US leave me innately wary of ever judging a single crisis to mark a definitive shift. The structural features of the transatlantic relationship are deep and often guide us away from crises toward a median line – whether over Iraq, Libya or Iran. The challenges to negotiating an end to this war are moreover enormous and history could cleave in more directions than one as the process unfolds.The United States is not decoupling from Europe, but this past week must be viewed as the opening salvo in a major US effort to renegotiate the terms of its bond with Europe. How far the Trump administration will get cannot be known, but this foundational relationship of US statecraft, which was born in the moment of the US’s rise to global superpower status, will change in fundamental ways. With it, the future of modern democracy, itself born of Europe and sustained by the transatlantic bond for decades, is in play. A new world order is emerging.
Christopher Chivvis is senior fellow and director of the American statecraft program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He served as the US national intelligence officer for Europe from 2018 to 2021 More
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‘The deification of Trump will be complete’ at CPAC 2025
by Evelyn Reynolds 19 February 2025, 10:00
“I am your retribution.”When Donald Trump made this solemn promise to his supporters at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) two years ago, millions of Americans felt comfortable looking the other way.After all, opinion polls suggested that Trump was a spent force in the wake of the January 6 insurrection, disappointing midterm elections and a lacklustre start to his US presidential election campaign. He was the closing act of a CPAC that critics dismissed as a fringe freak show with obscure speakers addressing a half-empty ballroom.It won’t feel like that this time. CPAC 2025 kicks off at the National Harbor in Maryland on Wednesday with Trump set to return in triumph after regaining the White House and with Republican allies in control of Congress. The conference will be a vivid demonstration of how his “Make America great again” (Maga) movement has gone from the margins to the mainstream.“CPAC always been the the ideological north star for the conservative grassroots movement,” said Tara Setmayer, a former Republican communications director on Capitol Hill who used to regularly attend the conference. “Unless you weren’t paying attention, CPAC was the roadmap for what Maga becoming mainstream would look like and what they wanted to accomplish.”The history of CPAC mirrors the recent history of the Republican party. It began in 1974 in the throes of the Watergate scandal and the birth of a new conservative movement. The first CPAC was addressed by Ronald Reagan, then governor of California and destined for the White House. An annual dinner is still held in Reagan’s honour.The event spent years in the wilderness during Barack Obama’s presidency: the further its voices were from power, the louder they shouted. Among the speakers in 2011 was a businessman, TV celebrity and former Democrat from New York named Donald Trump, airing a grievance that America was being ripped off by China.In 2015, CPAC heard from nearly all the major Republican presidential candidates, including Trump and Jeb Bush, but a year later Trump cancelled his planned appearance amid fears that he would be booed by protesters. It did not prevent his hostile takeover of the Republican party by winning both the nomination and the presidency.CPAC impresario Matt Schlapp, a veteran of the George W Bush White House, then made a big bet on Trump as the future. The conference went all-in for Maga, casting Trump as a messianic figure saving America from illegal immigration and woke culture. His 2020 election defeat and the January 6 riot made no difference. A dedicated marketplace inside the event continued to sell Maga merchandise.View image in fullscreenAt last year’s event, as he closed in on the Republican nomination again, Trump described himself as a “proud political dissident” and his myriad legal troubles as “Stalinist show trials” orchestrated by then president Joe Biden. He promised the election would be “liberation day” for his supporters but “judgment day” for perceived enemies who had weaponised the government against him.The old Republican party, meanwhile, was left far behind. Trump has used CPAC to attack its establishment figures as “freaks, neocons, globalists, open border zealots, and fools”. Out are Liz Cheney, Mitch McConnell and Mike Pence; in are far-right nationalists such as Steve Bannon from the US, Viktor Orbán from Hungary and Nigel Farage from Britain.The lineup of speakers announced so far this year includes both Bannon and Farage along with the border czar, Tom Homan; the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, the US ambassador-designate to the United Nations, Elise Stefanik; senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Rick Scott of Florida; the rightwing media personality Megyn Kelly; Mike Lindell, the MyPillow founder; the Argentinian president, Javier Milei; and the British ex-prime minister Liz Truss.CPAC did not respond to an email asking whether this year’s conference will also include Elon Musk, the tech oligarch appointed by Trump to shrink the federal government, or individuals recently pardoned by the president for taking part in the January 6 insurrection.But nothing will top the expected appearance by Trump himself after what has been billed as the greatest political comeback in history. His early efforts to crush illegal immigration, transgender rights and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes are sure to receive ecstatic cheers. His claim that, in surviving an assassination attempt, he was “saved by God to make America great again” will be embraced with religious fervour.Setmayer, who now leads the Seneca Project, a women-led super political action committee, commented: “The deification of Trump will be complete ad nauseam at CPAC this year. We’ve already seen a golden calf-like statue of him. I’m not quite sure what’s next, but they’ll figure it out.”View image in fullscreenOne potential measure of CPAC’s devotion to Trump will be its annual straw poll, which asks attendees to state their preference for the next Republican presidential nominee. Senator Rand Paul topped the poll in 2013, 2014 and 2015 while Ted Cruz prevailed in 2016 with 40% of the vote, ahead of Marco Rubio at 30% and Trump at 15%.Trump has dominated ever since. He is constitutionally barred from running for a third term but has repeatedly hinted that he might try. Congressman Andy Ogles has even introduced a constitutional amendment that would allow Trump to run again. Setmayer believes that next week’s CPAC straw poll will include him – and he will win it again.“They absolutely will do it again and Trump will overwhelmingly win at North Korea-style numbers and he will continue to talk about a third term,” she said. “This is not a joke. He has been talking about this since his first term. He talked about it during the election in ‘jest’ and he’s been talking about it already three weeks into his new term. We need to pay attention to what they are doing concerning our elections.”Trump’s resurrection is a boost for CPAC, which has survived scandals of its own. Schlapp was hit by allegations that he groped a Republican operative’s genitals when the two men were alone in a car after a campaign event in Georgia in 2022. Carlton Huffman’s lawsuit was dropped last year after a reported $480,000 settlement.Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, observed: “They never got him. He was so close. Of course in this day and time nothing matters. Trump has made anything possible.”In recent years Schlapp has sought to ride the nationalist-populist wave by staging CPAC events in Hungary and Argentina. Next week’s return to the National Harbor in Maryland will feel like vindication for a movement that just a few years ago seemed to be heading off a cliff to irrelevance. Now CPAC believes it represents the new political orthodoxy.Steve Schmidt, a political strategist and former campaign operative for George W Bush and John McCain, said: “This is an extremist freak show that retains that quality but has taken political power in the United States. By any reasonable definition, what you’re looking at is a gathering of fascists, political extremists coming together, a fusion of the youth arm, the Christian nationalist arm, the Catholic Maga extremist arm.”Schmidt added: “It is an event that portends what’s coming. These people have immense power. This should all be taken literally and seriously. Millions and millions of Americans who voted for Donald Trump should appreciate that this is what they purchased and what they purchased is now emboldened. There will be a very pungent nationalism present – and extremism lurking below the surface.” More
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Trump’s Gaza takeover won’t happen. But it has already changed the face of Israeli politics | Yair Wallach
by Evelyn Reynolds 19 February 2025, 09:00
When President Donald Trump issued an ultimatum to Hamas last week to release all hostages by noon on 15 February, warning that otherwise “all hell [will] break loose”, the Israeli right was ecstatic. Here was a chance to finally move ahead with the complete occupation and annihilation of the Gaza Strip. The families of Israeli hostages were petrified about the prospect of the ceasefire collapsing, yet members of the ruling coalition called to kill the deal. “We have international support, give the order!” demanded the Israeli finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich.But the order never came. Hamas abided by the agreement and freed three hostages; Israel then released hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Trump shrugged and said that it was Israel’s decision. His envoy, Steve Witkoff, who visited Israel on Sunday, signalled that the direction of travel is not towards resuming hostility. Instead, the parties must now move to “substantive” negotiations over the second phase of the ceasefire, he said, leading to peace.In the whirlwind of the last four weeks, it is difficult to make sense of Trump’s approach to the Gaza Strip. On the one hand, the president is widely credited for pushing the parties to a ceasefire agreement, raising hopes among Israelis who want to see a return of the hostages and an end to the war. On the other, Trump embraced the hard-right Israeli vision of ethnically cleansing Gaza, through a forced “relocation” of its 2.2 million Palestinian residents, establishing a US real estate development that would turn the Strip into the “Riviera of the Middle East”.Some suspect this is merely a negotiation ploy that he hopes will pressure Arab states to take responsibility over Gaza, and to force Hamas into relinquishing control and influence. Even if this were the case, Trump’s rhetoric has already damaged international law. For the first time in many decades, the US has publicly proposed the forced displacement of millions of people as a geopolitical solution. As the genocide scholar Dirk Moses recently observed, this may mark the end of the postwar order, which defined such “transfers” of populations as war crimes that were banned by the Geneva conventions. While episodes of forced mass displacement have taken place in the second half of the 20th century, such as those in Yugoslavia or in Syria, these were never endorsed or championed by the White House.The legitimisation of ethnic cleansing could have a lasting impact in Palestine, Israel and beyond. Palestine’s history is instructive: in 1937, the Palestine Royal Commission administered by Britain proposed the forced displacement of over 200,000 Palestinians from the Galilee as part of its partition plan. Mainstream Zionist leaders had long ruled out transfers on this scale as unrealistic. But British backing for this idea gave it legitimacy. David Ben-Gurion, then the leader of the Jewish community in British-ruled Palestine, wrote in his diary: “This is a possibility we did not dream of; that we could not dream of in our wildest imagination.”Ben-Gurion understood that the details of the partition plan mattered far less than the principle of forced mass displacement. In the aftermath of the second world war, “population exchanges” were explicitly or tacitly accepted by the great powers as a necessary evil. Eleven years after the royal commission, Ben-Gurion oversaw the permanent expulsion and dispossession of two-thirds of Palestinians, in the Nakba of 1948.We can already see the effect of Trump’s rhetoric on Israeli society. Since October 2023, rightwing ministers and political activists have been calling for a euphemistic “voluntary emigration” of Palestinians from Gaza, and yet Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had sought to keep a safe distance from such ideas. The idea of forced displacement was broadly considered so beyond the pale that mainstream pollsters did not even pose the question in their Israeli public opinion surveys.Yet shortly after his return from Washington DC, a gleeful Netanyahu lauded Trump’s “revolutionary vision for the day after Hamas”. “We see eye-to-eye with the US administration on … all our war goals”, he told the Knesset. The political commentator and radio host Amit Segal, who has been accused of serving as Netanyahu’s mouthpiece, quoted the Psalms verse: “We were like them that dream.” The verse refers to the return of Jews to Zion; now it was being used to celebrate the looming expulsion of Palestinians from the country.Strikingly, most centrist Israeli parties welcomed the plan. The former defence minister Benny Gantz commended Trump for his “creative, original and interesting thinking”. An opinion poll found that no less than 82% of Jewish Israelis supported the plan in principle; 52% thought it was feasible. Only 3% of Israeli Jews rejected the plan as “unacceptable and immoral”.Yet even if many Israelis favourably view the fantasy plan of a depopulated Gaza, there’s no appetite for the total war that would be required to materialise that plan. Opinion polls showed that Israelis are resolutely opposed to an immediate return to hostilities. After 16 months of war, there is widespread fatigue. The malnourished condition of the hostages that returned most recently, and the reports of torture they faced, was deeply alarming. Two-thirds of Israelis believe the ceasefire agreement should be upheld, and the safe return of the hostages should take priority.We can expect further ultimatums and confusion for the foreseeable future. Even if an immediate return to war has been averted, the risk of one is greater than ever. Trump has let the genie of mass expulsion out of the bottle. The ethnic cleansing of Gaza would require carnage and atrocities even beyond the horrifying scale of the last 17 months. Israel’s peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan are unlikely to survive, and the reverberations would be felt throughout the region. This is a scenario that would not only mean the likely death of the hostages, but an increasingly theocratic Jewish republic premised upon destruction and conquest. If Israel heads down this route, it will not only be destroying Palestinians in Gaza, but condemning itself to an ever escalating war.
Yair Wallach is a reader in Israeli studies and head of the Centre for Jewish Studies at Soas University of London
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