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      The US embrace of Russia is an existential threat to the EU. Germany must step up to save it | Catherine De Vries

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      In February 1945, three world leaders – Winston Churchill, Franklin D Roosevelt and Josef Stalin – met in Crimea for the Yalta conference, to discuss the new world order they would implement after the soon-to-end second world war.Smaller nations were given no say in deciding their fate. The Soviet sphere of influence would infest eastern Europe for decades and US foreign policy dominated the second half of the 20th century. Churchill resisted the end of the UK’s global empire and independence for Britain’s colonies came piecemeal; they were let go with bitterness.Eighty years on, the logic present at Yalta – that large states can impose their will on smaller states – is back. Might is once again right. But history is repeating itself with a striking difference – for this time, there is no European leader at the table. Russian and US delegations have sat down to discuss Ukraine’s future without Ukraine or the EU’s input. Eighty years down the line, Europe is no longer seen as relevant by the great powers.The urgency of Europe’s shifting geopolitical landscape was laid bare last Sunday in London, where European leaders gathered with their counterparts from the UK, Canada, Turkey, the EU and Nato for a high-level defence summit. That meeting came as a result of the very public collapse of White House talks between Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Donald Trump, and Trump’s suspension of military aid to Ukraine.Even if a reported reconciliation between Washington and Kyiv materialises, European officials are still reeling from the rapidity of the transatlantic rupture so early in Trump’s second term. Trump’s defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, last month warned Europe it could no longer rely on US security guarantees. JD Vance, the US vice-president, went further at the Munich Security Conference, calling Europe – not Russia or China – the primary US threat.Pax Americana – the postwar period of relative peace in the western hemisphere, with the US as the dominant economic, cultural and military world power – is over. Europe will quickly have to adapt to the new reality, with the loss of its primary strategic and military partner. What part now will the EU’s largest member state, Germany, play?Despite large gains by the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), which doubled its support in the federal election on 23 February, Germany will be led by Friedrich Merz, head of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU). The chancellor-in-waiting lost no time in declaring that Europe, faced with an increasingly adversarial US, must take its fate into its own hands.“It is my absolute priority to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that we can actually become independent from the US step by step,” Merz said, hours after his election victory. Stark words from a politician who as recently as a few months ago was a bona fide Atlanticist.Merz wants to forge greater unity in Europe and establish an independent European defence capability. It remains to be seen how he will go about achieving this, but he clearly aims to put Germany back into the European driving seat.German leadership has been lacking in recent years. While Paris and Warsaw took increasingly assertive positions on European security, Berlin has remained cautious. After the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, the chancellor, Olaf Scholz, spoke of a Zeitenwende – a turning point in German policy to reflect the new realities of the world. But, in the end, little but hot air was produced.Since the end of the second world war, Germany has invested relatively little in military capacity. Under the Nato umbrella, and with the close partnership with the US, this was not seen as a problem. But the world has fundamentally shifted, and Merz sees that Germany, finally, must change, too.However, an emboldened new Germany, at the head of the EU, faces a harsh world and an even harsher set of realities. The country will not only have to increase its military capacity, bring about bloc-wide military cooperation and perhaps even station troops in Ukraine, but it will also have to pay for all of this.This will require overhauling Germany’s strict ceiling on public borrowing, the so-called Schuldenbremse (debt brake) enshrined in the constitution. Merz has now begun that process; on Tuesday, his party struck agreement with its prospective coalition partners, the SPD, on the creation of a special €500bn (£390bn) fund to boost defence and infrastructure spending that would be exempt from the debt constraint. If approved by the German parliament, this would amount to a dramatic and some critics warn risky loosening of the budgetary straitjacket.Merz will also have to rally the EU (though Trump’s harrying of Europe and Zelenskyy is already pushing European leaders toward his vision), as well as face down Trump-friendly far-right parties, many of them in ascendence across the bloc.At a recent meeting in Madrid of the rightwing radical bloc of the European parliament, the Patriots for Europe, Geert Wilders, leader of the far-right PVV in the Netherlands, praised Trump as a “brother in arms”. Slovakia’s prime minister, Robert Fico, expressed his support for Trump’s pro-Russian policy at the rightwing Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Maryland last month. AfD co-leader Alice Weidel has said that “Trump is implementing the policies that the AfD has been demanding for years”.These rightist politicians seem willing to risk Europe’s security and prosperity for political gain. The US turn toward Russia and away from democracy will be an existential test for the European project and Europe’s commitment to law and democracy. The art of European cooperation has long been to achieve the possible in unforeseen circumstances. Germany, under chancellor-elect Merz, has a steep learning curve ahead. But the task of stepping up to save Ukraine – and Europe – falls to Berlin.

      Catherine De Vries is professor of political science at Bocconi University in Milan More

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      Starmer is at his best right now – but he must accept there is no going back with Trump’s US | Martin Kettle

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      Keir Starmer, it turns out, is at his best in a crisis. He has faced two since he became prime minister last year, one domestic, the other international. The first came with the riots that followed the Southport killings, when Starmer’s response was impressive and effective. The second is Donald Trump’s attempt to stitch up Ukraine, where Starmer has been surefooted in trying to hold the line against a sellout to Russia. In both cases, he has looked like the right person in the right place at the right time.There was another example of this deftness on Wednesday in the Commons, when Starmer went out of his way to mark the anniversaries of the deaths of UK service personnel in 2007 and 2012. A total of 642 died in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars alongside their US allies. They would not be forgotten, he said. The name of JD Vance was not mentioned. Nor was the US vice-president’s contemptuous “some random country” insult this week. But Starmer’s reprimand was unerring.It is far too soon to say whether Starmer’s response to Trump’s embrace of Russia and to the US administration’s denunciations of Europe will be effective in the long run. What can be said is that, in public and private, the prime minister has so far led with tact and clarity and has scored one or two apparent successes against the run of play. Nevertheless, these are very early days. Trump boasted to Congress on Tuesday night that he was “just getting started”.Starmer’s ability in a crisis is an unexpected contrast with his leadership in the ordinary business of politics. Since July 2024, Starmer’s calm, methodical, long-game approach has succeeded only in squandering much of Labour’s election-winning goodwill, and in making him seem out of his political depth. But his deployment of these same unflashy tactics at moments of acute crisis, as in the case of Ukraine, could be gold dust. It has at least given the prime minister’s ratings a boost. There are echoes here of the rallying around Boris Johnson at the start of Covid. But remember where that ended up.It is useful to note that this low-key approach marks a notable break. Throughout the postwar period, British leaders faced with international crisis modelled themselves on Winston Churchill in 1940. Margaret Thatcher saw herself this way during the Falklands war. Tony Blair echoed it after 9/11 and over Iraq. Johnson pretended he was Churchill when Russia invaded Ukraine. Starmer’s calm approach evokes Clement Attlee more than Churchill. In every way he is unTrump.Yet Starmer has not got much to be calm about. The world of 2024 no longer exists. Trump has triggered a crisis in the North Atlantic alliance. At stake are two epochal things. First, whether Russia’s main western border will henceforward be with Ukraine, with Poland or with Germany. Second, whether the US accepts any role in ensuring future European stability. These are not small questions.There are three levels on which Starmer can try to deal with Trump, both now and for the coming four years. All of them tacitly and sometimes openly recognise the vast seriousness of the moment. All of them are predicated on the undesirability of what Trump is doing and the need to create alternatives. All of them, however, also rest on a determination not to make an enemy of the US.The first is to firefight the immediate problems that Trump creates. This involves constantly engaging with the US administration by whatever means are available to prevent or mitigate crises. It means building up defence spending. It means working with allies and so-called coalitions of the willing. It means using any leverage to earn a hearing. Essentially, it is an attempt to manoeuvre Trump to follow a different or less extreme course, while avoiding confrontation or denunciation. But it is all done under the pretence that nothing fundamental has changed.View image in fullscreenThis is essentially the strategy that Starmer is now pursuing on Ukraine. It is why he keeps talking to Trump – three times in the past week, perhaps contributing to Trump’s relatively polite mention of Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the speech to Congress. It is why he deploys King Charles’s soft power. It is why, perhaps, he will soon return to Washington with Zelenskyy and Emmanuel Macron in an overwhelmingly important effort to restore military aid and intelligence support to Ukraine.The second approach is to decide to suck it all up for four years, in the hope that things will then get easier. This means accepting the likelihood, though never saying so publicly, that Trump is always going to be destructive and mean-spirited. At the same time, it means working to keep US links – especially military and intelligence links – strong enough to be revived more effectively after 2028, when Trump is due to step down.For Starmer, this could mean a lot of firefighting over the next four years, without any certainty of a post-Trump dividend or British public approval. Such fires could break out on any number of issues, including not just Ukraine but also the Middle East, bilateral trade, Nato, US-EU relations and, judging by this week’s speech, Canada, Greenland and the Panama canal. Much will depend on Friedrich Merz and on Macron’s 2027 successor, too. Starmer and his national security adviser, Jonathan Powell, are also likely to have an intense under-the-radar interest in the candidates vying to succeed Trump.Which leaves the third strategy. This is to accept that Trump’s approach is now the US’s new normal and that there will be no comforting return to past arrangements. Whoever comes after Trump may be friendlier, more rational and less rude. Either way, US exceptionalism, isolationism and disengagement from Europe are likely to be here to stay. So too are the immensely tough consequences for countries like Britain, which can no longer rely on a US security and intelligence shield against Russia or any other hostile states. Rearmament is back. This will require something close to a war economy, and it cannot be created overnight.At present, Starmer has one foot in the first approach and another in the second. But it is the third approach that will loom largest as an option as the next four years unfold. None of these is a soft option, and all of them overlap. Starmer is right, for example, to oppose false binary choices between Europe and the US.Nevertheless, if Trump’s speech to Congress is to be taken seriously, this is a president who has changed sides in the battle of values between democracy and authoritarianism. Starmer may feel he has to tell Europe that Trump will still “have our backs”. But Trump could just as soon stab Europe in the back too. After all, that’s exactly what he just did.

      Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist More

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      Trump administration briefing: president threatens Hamas, leaves Ukraine in the dark and flip flops on tariffs

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      Donald Trump posted a fresh ultimatum to Hamas, telling the group to “release all of the Hostages now, not later, and immediately return all of the dead bodies of the people you murdered, or it is OVER for you”.“‘Shalom Hamas’ means Hello and Goodbye,” he wrote in a social media post on Wednesday, in an apparent reference to the beginning of direct talks with the group.The post came just hours after the White House confirmed that the US had entered direct negotiations with Hamas, potentially to bypass Israel in securing the release of the remaining US hostages.Trump tells Hamas ‘release all of the hostages now’Trump posted a fresh ultimatum to Hamas and reinforced his support for Israel on Truth Social on Wednesday. He also referred to a recent decision to provide billions more in support for Israeli arms sales.“I am sending Israel everything it needs to finish the job, not a single Hamas member will be safe if you don’t do as I say,” Trump wrote.“This is your last warning! For the leadership, now is the time to leave Gaza, while you still have a chance,” he wrote. “Make a SMART decision. RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW, OR THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY LATER!”Read the full storyUS stops sharing intelligence on Russia with UkraineThe US has stopped sharing intelligence with Ukraine after Donald Trump’s suspension of military aid on Monday, in another serious blow to Kyiv in the war with Russia. White House officials indicated that both bans could be lifted if progress is made on peace talks.Ukrainian officials suggested the US would no longer provide information about targets inside Russia, hindering Ukraine’s ability to carry out effective long-range drone strikes.Read the full storyTrump exempts carmakers from Canada-Mexico tariffsDonald Trump has temporarily spared carmakers from sweeping US tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico, one day after an economic strike on the US’s two biggest trading partners sparked warnings of widespread price increases and disruption. The decision came after companies appealed to the White House.A separate call between Trump and Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, did not lead to any larger breakthrough, however. The tariffs were predicted to raise US prices almost immediately, raising questions about Trump’s promises to “make America affordable again”.Read the full storyAgriculture workers to get jobs backThe US Department of Agriculture has been ordered to temporarily reinstate nearly 6,000 employees who were fired as part of Donald Trump’s efforts to downsize the federal workforce. The probationary employees are to be reinstated for a period of 45 days while a federal board continues to investigate the firings.Read the full storyWhite House rejig of Biden internet plan may benefit MuskThe Trump administration is preparing to overhaul a $42.5bn Biden-era program designed to connect tens of millions of rural Americans to reliable and affordable high-speed internet, in a move that is expected to benefit billionaire Elon Musk.Read the full storyImmigration hearing backfires on RepublicansA congressional hearing designed to criticise sanctuary city policies unexpectedly shifted on Wednesday, as a planned attack by Republican lawmakers instead dissolved into a platform that amplified Democratic mayors’ arguments about immigration and urban safety.The House oversight committee sought to portray sanctuary cities – which protect undocumented migrants – as havens for criminal activity and foreign gangs. But instead of cornering the mayors, Republican lawmakers seemed to inadvertently provide them with a national megaphone to sell their approaches to immigration.Read the full storyGreenland hits back at Trump takeover commentsDonald Trump’s claim in his address to Congress that the US will acquire Greenland “one way or the other” was widely condemned in Nuuk as “disrespectful” and was said to present an “unacceptable view of humanity”.Read the full storyPentagon official condemned over tweet about historical lynching of Jewish man The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has condemned a past social media post by Pentagon spokesperson Kingsley Wilson that disputed the innocence of Leo Frank, a Jewish businessman whom most historians agree was wrongfully convicted of killing a 13-year-old factory worker and lynched in 1915 during a wave of antisemitism in the US.Read the full storyHundreds of US diplomats decry dismantling of USAid in letter to RubioHundreds of diplomats at the state department and US Agency for International Development (USAid) have written to the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, protesting against the dismantling of USAid, saying it undermines US leadership and security and leaves power vacuums for China and Russia to fill.Read the full storyCanada goose fights off bald eagle in rare, symbolism-laden battle on iceFor the second time in weeks, a Canadian icon has emerged as the unlikely victor in an existential battle on the ice.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

      Senate Democrats introduced resolutions condemning Russia for the invasion of Ukraine, and daring Republicans to object. A statement from the office of Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said: “The senators’ resolutions are statements of fact and principle, backed by evidence and long-standing American foreign policy.”

      Trump’s veterans affairs chief has defended ‘extraordinarily difficult’ plans to cut 80,000 staff. Doug Collins said the cuts were necessary to make the agency more efficient – though they are likely to affect healthcare for veterans – as the largest federal employee union denounced the plan in a stinging rebuke.

      The administration is dropping an emergency abortion case in Idaho in one of the administration’s first moves on the issue. The justice department filed a motion to dismiss the Biden administration lawsuit in a reversal that could have national implications for urgent care. The lawsuit had argued that emergency-room doctors treating pregnant women had to provide terminations if needed to save their lives or to avoid serious health consequences in Idaho, which has one of the country’s strictest abortion bans.

      The US court of appeals for the District of Columbia sided with the administration on Wednesday, in a ruling that allows the immediate removal of Hampton Dellinger as head of the Office of Special Counsel to proceed while the court battle continues. Dellinger is likely to appeal to the US supreme court.

      “I want to believe that the United States will stand by us. But we have to be ready if that is not the case,” French president Emmanuel Macron said in a TV address on the eve of an EU defence summit in Brussels. In a sign of the gravity of the moment, Macron said France was open to discussing extending the protection offered by its nuclear arsenal to its European partners and said European forces could be deployed after a peace deal was agreed. More

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      Hundreds of US diplomats decry dismantling of USAid in letter to Rubio

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      Hundreds of diplomats at the state department and US Agency for International Development have written to the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, protesting against the dismantling of USAid, saying it undermines US leadership and security and leaves power vacuums for China and Russia to fill.In a cable expected to be filed with the department’s internal “dissent channel”, which allows diplomats to raise concerns about policy anonymously, the diplomats said the Trump administration’s 20 January freeze on almost all foreign aid also endangers American diplomats and forces overseas while putting at risk the lives of millions abroad that depend on US assistance.More than 700 people have signed on to the letter, a US official speaking on the condition of anonymity said.“The decision to freeze and terminate foreign aid contracts and assistance awards without any meaningful review jeopardizes our partnerships with key allies, erodes trust, and creates openings for adversaries to expand their influence,” said the cable, a copy of which was seen by Reuters.The Republican president, pursuing what he has called an “America first” agenda, ordered a 90-day pause on all foreign aid on his 20 January return to office. The order halted USAid operations around the world, jeopardizing delivery of life-saving food and medical aid, and throwing global humanitarian relief efforts into chaos.“The freeze on life-saving aid has already caused irreparable harm and suffering to millions of people around the world,” the letter said, adding that despite statements on waivers being issued for life-saving programs, the funding remained shut.The president tasked billionaire and adviser Elon Musk with dismantling USAid as part of an unprecedented push to shrink the federal government over what both say is wasteful spending and abuse of funds.“Foreign assistance is not charity. Instead, it is a strategic tool that stabilizes regions, prevents conflict, and advances US interests,” the letter said.A state department spokesperson, when asked about the cable, said: “We do not comment on leaked internal communication.”In fiscal year 2023, the United States disbursed $72bn of aid worldwide, on everything from women’s health in conflict zones to access to clean water, HIV/Aids treatments, energy security and anti-corruption work.Upon evaluating 6,200 multiyear awards, the administration decided to eliminate nearly 5,800 of them worth $54bn in value, a 92% reduction, according to a state department spokesperson. USAid fired or put on administrative leave thousands of staff and contractors.The cable said the government’s failure to pay outstanding invoices to contractors and implementing partners has severe economic repercussions.“The resulting financial strain not only undermines confidence in the US government as a reliable partner, it also weakens domestic economic growth at a time of mounting global competition,” the cable said.Organizations and companies that contract with USAid last month sued the administration, calling the dismantling of the agency unlawful and saying funding had been cut off for existing contracts, including hundreds of millions of dollars for work that was already done.The US supreme court declined on Wednesday to let the administration withhold payments to foreign aid organizations for work they had already performed for the government, upholding a district judge’s order that called on the administration to promptly release payments to contractors. More

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      Trump’s NIH pick makes pitch for good science – in this administration?

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      Donald Trump’s nominee to run the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Jay Bhattacharya, told senators he was committed to ensuring scientists “have the resources they need” – even as the $48bn agency he hopes to lead has become a focus of the administration’s ideological war and cost-cutting efforts.At a confirmation hearing on Wednesday, Bhattacharya made a pitch for free scientific inquiry and an examination of the chronic disease epidemic, now a cornerstone of Republican health rhetoric, while hoping to serve in an administration that has frightened scientists into self-censorship.“Science should be an engine for freedom – knowledge and freedom. It shouldn’t be pushing mandates for vaccines,” said Bhattacharya, referring to pandemic-era mandates, and articulating a vein of libertarian thinking that has rejuvenated Republican health rhetoric in the time since. “If science is a force for freedom and knowledge, it will have universal support.”Bhattacharya ignored the Republican party’s role in sowing distrust of the scientific establishment, argued “good data” would change minds and, in the words of one senator, strained credulity by asserting the US president would not ask him to do anything illegal.For a man whose pandemic-era rise was built on questioning authority, some assertions landed between wishful thinking and willful blindness. But for all of Bhattacharya’s remarkable answers, dissent was muted.Some in academia now see Bhattacharya as the least bad option to run the NIH. And, after confirming Robert F Kennedy Jr, the nation’s leading vaccine critic, to lead the department of health, there is little doubt Republicans have the votes.“Maybe I’m naive, senator,” Bhattacharya said in response to a question about vaccine skepticism, “but I believe very fundamentally that research, if replicable, if done right, is so persuasive will move people to take actions.”Bhattacharya was at one time a low-profile researcher at Stanford University, himself receiving $3.7m in NIH grants, according to an agency database. His star rose among conservatives when he advocated against lockdowns in 2020. He was ostracized by the scientific establishment and blacklisted by Twitter – only to be invited to the platform’s headquarters by the billionaire Elon Musk.In turn, he became a darling of the right: hosting his own podcast devoted to questioning medical consensus, working as an expert witness in courts (even if courts did not always find him convincing) and often appearing on Catholic radio programs.But Bhattacharya’s pitch for free scientific inquiry is in striking conflict with the administration’s actions. His nomination comes as the research world has been rattled by mass firings, funding freezes, censorship and a measles outbreak that claimed the first American life in nearly a decade.Some of the most pressing questions came from the Republican senator Bill Cassidy, a physician from Louisiana who has steadfastly refused to engage in the anti-vaccine conspiracy theories peddled by some colleagues.“There is now a child who died of a vaccine preventable disease in Texas,” Cassidy said about the measles outbreak.Would the nominee spend even more taxpayer dollars to research a link between vaccines and autism when the idea has been “exhaustively” debunked?“I don’t think there’s a link between the [measles, mumps and rubella] vaccine and autism,” said Bhattacharya. “The only reason I’m not saying wholeheartedly yes” – that federal dollars could be better spent elsewhere – is “there are people who might disagree with me.”“There are people who disagree that the world is round,” Cassidy retorted. “People still think Elvis is alive.”“My sense, my inclination is to give people good data,” said Bhattacharya. “That’s how you address those concerns.”“I’m not sure at what end point we say we have good data,” said Cassidy, appearing unsatisfied.At the NIH alone, the Musk-led “department of government efficiency” (Doge) fired roughly 1,200 workers. Bhattacharya characterized this as “personnel decisions” to which he was not privy. The administration has also frozen grant funding in a probably illegal scheme, is still gumming up orders to thaw funding and is seeking to cut $4bn from grants that primarily go to universities and colleges.Trump touted his campaign to end “the tyranny of diversity, equity and inclusion policies all across the entire federal government” in his state of the union speech only the evening before – a policy that in practical terms is an ideological review of NIH grants.“I wasn’t involved in any decision making at the NIH up to this point,” was a common refrain for Bhattacharya when questioned about whether he would protect research funding.More broadly, the funding freezes and proposed cuts have sown chaos in the research world – academic institutions have frozen hiring, postgraduate researchers are struggling to find placements amid budget cuts, and delayed funding has many researchers worried their projects are on the verge of shuttering.Arguably the most pointed question of the hearing came from the Democratic senator Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire: “If directed by the president to take action that would break the law, would you follow the law or would you follow the president’s directive?”“Senator, I don’t believe the president will ever ask me to break the law,” said Bhattacharya.Hassan said: “Well, that strains credulity given, especially the last few weeks, and it’s a disappointing answer.” More

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      Trump temporarily spares carmakers from US tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico

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      Donald Trump has temporarily spared carmakers from sweeping US tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico, one day after an economic strike on the US’s two biggest trading partners sparked warnings of widespread price increases and disruption.The US president extended his aggressive trade strategy at midnight on Tuesday by targeting the country’s two closest neighbors with duties of 25%.US retail giants predicted that prices were “highly likely” to start rising on store shelves almost immediately, raising questions about Trump’s promises to “make America affordable again” after years of heightened inflation.After a call with top executives at General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, however, Trump approved a one-month exemption from tariffs on “any autos coming through” the US, Mexico and Canada, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, announced on Wednesday.The exemption has been granted “at the request of the companies”, Leavitt told reporters, “so they are not at an economic disadvantage”.While Trump has claimed tariffs will embolden US industry by forcing global firms to build factories in the US, Ford CEO Jim Farley publicly cautioned last month that imposing steep tariffs on Canada and Mexico could “blow a hole” in the country’s auto industry.Shares in large carmakers rose sharply, with GM up 7.2%, Ford up 5.8% and Stellantis up 9% in New York. The benchmark S&P 500 increased 1.1% on Wall Street.A separate call between Trump and Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, did not lead to any larger breakthrough, however. Trudeau “largely caused the problems we have with them because of his Weak Border Policies”, Trump declared on his Truth Social platform after they spoke. “These Policies are responsible for the death of many people!”Trudeau insisted there had been improvements at the border, the US president claimed, adding that he told him this was “not good enough”.During Trump’s joint address to Congress on Tuesday evening, he acknowledged that tariffs would cause disruption. There will be “a little disturbance, but we’re OK with that”, he said.He blamed cost of living challenges on his predecessor, Joe Biden, from whom he claimed to have inherited “an economic catastrophe and an inflation nightmare”.The US economy has, in fact, remained resilient in recent years, and inflation has fallen dramatically from its peak – at the highest level in a generation – three years ago.“Among my very highest priorities is to rescue our economy and get dramatic and immediate relief to working families,” said Trump. “As president, I am fighting every day to reverse this damage and make America affordable again.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump spoke on Wednesday with Trudeau. “Even though you’re a very smart guy, this is a very dumb thing to do,” Trudeau told Trump publicly after the US imposed tariffs this week.Trump had initially pledged to target Canada and Mexico with tariffs on his first day back in office. Upon his return, however, he said he was considering imposing the tariffs at the start of February. Last month, he offered Canada and Mexico a one-month delay at the 11th hour.Trump and his allies claim that higher tariffs on US imports from across the world will help “Make America great again”, by enabling it to obtain political and economic concessions from allies and rivals on the global stage.But businesses, both inside the US and worldwide, have warned of widespread disruption if the Trump administration pushes ahead with this strategy.Since winning November’s presidential election, the president has focused on China, Canada and Mexico, threatening the three markets with steep duties on their exports unless they reduced the “unacceptable” levels of illegal drugs crossing into the US. More

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      The Guardian view on Israel’s aid blockade: pushing Palestinians toward catastrophe | Editorial

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      Israel’s decision to block aid to Gaza, as ceasefire talks falter, is a devastating blow to 2 million hungry, vulnerable civilians in the shattered territory. As the occupying power, Israel is legally bound to allow relief into Gaza under the Geneva convention. Denying it isn’t just inhumane – it’s a war crime. But Benjamin Netanyahu already faces an international criminal court arrest warrant for “starvation as a method of warfare” and “crimes against humanity”.Mr Netanyahu’s ability to flout international law is thanks to Donald Trump, who remains firmly in his corner. Washington now appears to accept starvation as an Israeli bargaining chip to pressure Hamas into accepting a US-devised truce extension – one that secures hostage exchanges while ensuring Israeli forces remain in Gaza. Hamas, which sparked the war with its 2023 massacre of Israeli civilians, insists Israel honour its commitment to a second phase of Gaza ceasefire negotiations – ending the fighting and withdrawing troops.Palestinians in Gaza are on the brink. Food is running out, hospitals are unable to function and families scavenge for clean water. Any further aid restrictions will turn desperation into catastrophe. It would be far better for a negotiated peace to be worked out that would see the Palestinians stay to rebuild their lives and for the remaining Israeli hostages to return home.After 15 months of war, and having achieved many of its declared objectives, Israel is no closer to peace in Gaza. That view is echoed by Scott Atran of Paris’s Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, who polled civilians in Gaza in January, shortly before the ceasefire came into effect. Prof Atran correctly argues that Israel lacks a political strategy for Palestine’s future and is only fuelling Palestinian anger.From the outset, the Trump administration has pursued an aggressive, unilateral approach to Gaza, aligning firmly with Israeli interests while disregarding Palestinian concerns. According to Nabeel Khoury, a former US state department official, the Abraham accords – Mr Trump’s flagship Middle East initiative – remain central to Washington’s evolving strategy, one that envisions Israeli territorial consolidation and unchallenged regional dominance.Mr Khoury has noted the US’s immediate priority is the wholesale removal of Palestinians from Gaza, followed, if conditions permit, by a gradual takeover of the West Bank. That vision coincides with the Washington visit of Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, a pro-annexationist who has warned Mr Netanyahu that he would collapse the government if Israeli troops withdrew from Gaza under a truce.An Arab-led plan for Gaza’s post-war reconstruction – allowing its 2 million residents to remain – was rebuffed by the US and Israel. Yet it marked an important show of force: a pan-Arab coalition pushing back against the visible Netanyahu-Trump effort to erase Palestinian self-determination. In contrast, reports suggest the Trump administration is in direct talks with Hamas.If true, this would be a striking reversal of US policy. Engaging Hamas – once deemed untouchable – as a US negotiating partner might be pragmatic realism, an example of Trumpian transactional diplomacy or both. The UN estimated in 2019 that oil and natural gas resources in the occupied Palestinian territories could generate hundreds of billions of dollars for development. But Palestinian national aspirations are impossible under occupation.

      Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. More

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      Trump is turning the media into a mouthpiece of the regime | Lawrence Douglas

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      You know we’re in trouble when Fox News emerges as the great defender of freedom of the press. But such was the case when Jacqui Heinrich, a senior political correspondent at Fox, responded to the news that Trump’s White House would now handpick the reporters who get to cover the president in small settings, with the post: “This move does not give the power back to the people – it gives power to the White House.” Heinrich was specifically responding to press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s Orwellian claim that letting Donald Trump choose who would cover him was designed to restore power “back to the American people”.The fruits of the new policy were richly on display during the sickening scene that unfolded in the Oval Office last week. If the president and JD Vance’s disgraceful treatment of Volodymyr Zelenskyy wasn’t bad enough, there was the unprecedented role that the “press” played in the unseemly drama.Here I’m not simply referring to Brian Glenn’s pugnacious demand that the leader of a war-torn nation justify his sartorial decisions – less a question than a provocation that served as a prelude to the pile-on that followed. Trump appeared to wink at Glenn, a correspondent for Real America’s Voice, a far-right cable channel freshly included in the press pool, leading to speculation that Glenn’s question had been scripted in advance, a speculation that is both plausible – I mean, why not? – and irrelevant.For whether scripted or not, these are the kinds of questions we should expect when serious journalists are replaced with mouthpieces of the regime, puppets who perform the role of state propagandists in the guise of reportage. Glenn, who dates Majorie Taylor Greene and describes himself as “100% behind President Trump”, claims not to truck in far-right conspiracy theories – while insisting that January 6t was an antifa-instigated inside job and that a vast mechanism of fraud cost Trump the 2020 election.But before Glenn turned on the Ukrainian president, he had directed an earlier question to Trump: “Mr President, [do] you think ultimately your legacy will be the peacemaker and not the president that led this country into another war … ?” This puffball in the guise of a query gave Trump the opportunity to wax poetic: “I hope I’m going to be remembered as a peacemaker … I’m doing this to save lives more than anything else … Thank you, Brian, for that question. It was a nice question.”But we weren’t done with paeans to the great peacemaker. No sooner had Zelenskyy tersely assured Glenn that he would wear a suit once the war had ended, we were greeted with this question: “Keir Starmer … praised your courage and conviction to lead … What gave you the moral courage and conviction to step forward and lead?”In a properly functioning press corps, we might have expected that the question was directed to Zelenskyy, who, with exceptional fortitude and resolve, has led his countryin a war against a ruthless aggressor. But no. The question was directed to Trump, who responded: “Boy, I love this guy. Who are you with?” The answer was One America News, another network that operates to the far right of Fox, trafficking in conspiracy theories and committed to an unwavering support of Maga politics – and also a beneficiary of the White House’s commandeering of its own press pool.Once again, Trump grew almost wistful – “I like the question … it’s a very good question” – before blaming Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Hamas’s attack on Israel on Joe Biden. From there, as we witnessed, things grew more acrimonious, but lost in the belligerent and belittling treatment of Zelenskyy, particularly at the hands of Vance (“Have you said thank you once, this entire meeting?”) was the Pyongyang-esque quality of Trump’s hand-picked pool reporters using their questions not to challenge or examine, but to burnish and bolster the Great Leader with ever fluffier valentines of adoration.Meanwhile, the Associated Press remained barred from the historic meeting, because it continues to call a body of water that lies almost entirely outside of US jurisdiction by the name it has carried since the 16th century.

      Lawrence Douglas is a professor of law at Amherst College in Massachusetts More