EU leaders in intense push for Ukraine's rights ahead of Trump-Putin summit
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has invited Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as well as the French,
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1News
34 minutes ago
- 1News
Trump and Putin's high-stakes summit on Russia-Ukraine war looms
US President Donald Trump is meeting face-to-face with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska for a high-stakes summit that could determine not only the trajectory of the war in Ukraine but also the fate of European security. The sit-down on Friday (local time) offers Trump a chance to prove to the world that he is both a master dealmaker and a global peacemaker. He and his allies have cast him as a heavyweight negotiator who can find a way to bring the slaughter to a close — something he used to boast he could do quickly. For Putin, a summit with Trump offers a long-sought opportunity to try to negotiate a deal that would cement Russia's gains, block Kyiv's bid to join the NATO military alliance and eventually pull Ukraine back into Moscow's orbit. There are significant risks for Trump. By bringing Putin onto US soil, the president is giving Russia's leader the validation he desires after his ostracization following his invasion of Ukraine three and a half years ago. The exclusion of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky from the summit also deals a heavy blow to the West's policy of "nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine" and invites the possibility that Trump could agree to a deal that Ukraine does not want. Any success is far from assured, especially as Russia and Ukraine remain far apart in their demands for peace. Putin has long resisted any temporary ceasefire, linking it to a halt in Western arms supplies and a freeze on Ukraine's mobilisation efforts — conditions rejected by Kyiv and its Western allies. ADVERTISEMENT Trump said that even more important than his summit with Putin would be a subsequent meeting that also includes Zelensky, something he suggested could even happen before he departs Alaska — a possibility that Russia hasn't agreed to. Trump said in a Fox News radio interview that he didn't know if there would be "an immediate ceasefire" but he wanted a broad peace deal done quickly. That seemingly echoes Putin's long-time argument that Russia favours a comprehensive deal to end the fighting, reflecting its demands, not a temporary halt to hostilities. The Kremlin said Trump and Putin will first sit down for a one-on-one discussion, followed by the two delegations meeting and talks continuing over "a working breakfast". They are then expected to hold a joint press conference. US President Donald Trump, left, and Russian President Vladimir Putin shake hands at the beginning of a meeting at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki, Finland, July 16, 2018. (Source: Associated Press) Trump's shifting explanations for his meeting goals In the days leading up to the summit, set for a military base near Anchorage, Trump described it as "really a feel-out meeting". But he's also warned of "very severe consequences" for Russia if Putin doesn't agree to end the war and said that, although Putin might bully other leaders, "he's not going to mess around with me". Trump's repeated suggestions that a deal would likely involve "some swapping of territories" — which disappointed Ukraine and European allies — along with his controversial history with Putin have some sceptical about what kind of agreement can be reached. ADVERTISEMENT Ian Kelly, a retired career foreign service officer who served as the US ambassador to Georgia during the Obama and first Trump administrations, said he sees "no upside for the US, only an upside for Putin". "The best that can happen is nothing, and the worst that can happen is that Putin entices Trump into putting more pressure on Zelensky," Kelly said. George Beebe, the former director of the CIA's Russia analysis team who is now affiliated with the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said there's a serious risk of blown expectations or misunderstandings for a high-level summit pulled together so quickly. "That said, I doubt President Trump would be going into a meeting like this unless there had been enough work done behind the scenes for him to feel that there is a decent chance that something concrete will come out of it," Beebe said. Zelenskyy has time and again cast doubts on Putin's willingness to negotiate in good faith. His European allies, who've held increasingly urgent meetings with US leaders over the past week, have stressed the need for Ukraine to be involved in any peace talks. Political commentators in Moscow, meanwhile, have relished that the summit leaves Ukraine and its European allies on the sidelines. Dmitry Suslov, a pro-Kremlin voice, expressed hope that the summit will "deepen a trans-Atlantic rift and weaken Europe's position as the toughest enemy of Russia". ADVERTISEMENT European leaders who consulted with Trump this week said the president assured them he would prioritise trying to achieve a ceasefire. Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and U.S. President Donald Trump give a joint news conference at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki, Finland, July 16, 2018. (Source: Associated Press) Summit could have far-reaching implications Foreign governments will be watching closely to see how Trump reacts to Putin, likely gauging what the interaction might mean for their own dealings with the US president, who has eschewed traditional diplomacy for his own transactional approach to relationships. The meeting comes as the war has caused heavy losses on both sides and drained resources. Ukraine has held on far longer than some initially expected since the February 2022 invasion, but it is straining to hold off Russia's much larger army, grappling with bombardments of its cities and fighting for every inch on the over 1000km front line. Andrea Kendall-Taylor, a senior fellow and director of the Transatlantic Security Program at the Centre for a New American Security, said US antagonists like China, Iran and North Korea will be paying attention to Trump's posture to see "whether or not the threats that he continues to make against Putin are indeed credible". ADVERTISEMENT "Or, if has been the past track record, he continues to back down and look for ways to wiggle out of the kind of threats and pressure he has promised to apply," said Kendall-Taylor, who is also a former senior intelligence officer. While some have objected to the location of the summit, Trump has said he thought it was "very respectful" of Putin to come to the US instead of a meeting in Russia. Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin Moscow-based analyst, observed that the choice of Alaska as the summit's venue "underlined the distancing from Europe and Ukraine". Being on a military base allows the leaders to avoid protests and meet more securely, but the location carries its own significance because of its history and location. Alaska, which the US purchased from Russia in 1867, is separated from Russia at its closest point by less than 5km and the international date line. Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson was crucial to countering the Soviet Union during the Cold War. It continues to play a role today, as planes from the base still intercept Russian aircraft that regularly fly into US airspace.
RNZ News
3 hours ago
- RNZ News
Trump administration weighing refugee cap of 40,000 with focus on white South Africans
By Ted Hesson , Reuters US President Donald Trump. Photo: AFP / Pool / Christopher Furlong US President Donald Trump's administration is discussing a refugee admissions cap of around 40,000 for the coming year with a majority allocated to white South Africans, according to two US officials briefed on the matter and an internal refugee program email, reflecting a major shift in the US approach to refugees. Angie Salazar, the top refugee program official at the US Department of Health and Human Services, told state-level refugee workers that she expected the cap to be 40,000, according to an email summary of an 1 August meeting reviewed by Reuters. The two officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said some 30,000 of the 40,000 spaces would be devoted to Afrikaners, a largely Dutch-descended minority in South Africa that Trump has prioritized for resettlement. Trump's focus on resettling Afrikaners could upend the precedent around the refugee program, which for decades had bipartisan support. The 40,000-person cap would be a sharp drop from the 100,000 refugees brought in by former US President Joe Biden in fiscal year 2024, but higher than the record-low 15,000 person ceiling Trump set for fiscal 2021 before ending his first term. A separate person familiar with the matter said that in addition to the 40,000 figure, a cap as low as 12,000 had also been discussed. There are 37 million refugees worldwide, according to a United Nations estimate. Trump immediately froze refugee admissions after taking office in January, but weeks later launched a program for Afrikaners, saying the white minority group suffered racial discrimination and violence in majority-Black South Africa, claims that were rejected by South Africa's government. The Trump administration has wrestled internally over whether non-white South Africans could qualify for the refugee program, Reuters reported in July. In addition to Afrikaners, the Trump administration expects to bring in some Afghans who aided the US government during the conflict in Afghanistan and is weighing whether to resettle Ukrainians, the email said. Some spaces would remain unallocated to potentially be filled by other nationalities, the email and officials said. White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly stressed that no decisions were final until Trump issued his determination for fiscal year 2026, which begins on 1 October. "President Trump has a humanitarian heart, which is why he has welcomed these courageous individuals to the United States," Kelly said. "Refugee admission caps will be determined next month, and any numbers discussed at this point are pure speculation." A senior State Department official pointed to the department's recent human rights report, which raised concerns about "inflammatory racial rhetoric against Afrikaners and other racial minorities" in South Africa. HHS referred questions related to the refugee cap to the White House. Salazar did not respond to requests for comment. The first group of 59 South Africans arrived in May, but only 34 more had come as of early August, a White House official said. The US State Department laid off many refugee program staffers in major workforce reductions in July. To compensate for the fired staff, workers from HHS who normally deal with domestic refugee assistance have been reassigned to the South Africa program, one of the officials said. Thirteen HHS staffers were dispatched to Pretoria on Monday even though the majority had no direct experience screening refugees, the official said. An HHS spokesperson said that trained staff had been detailed to support refugee resettlement but that they were not conducting interviews to determine whether a refugee had experienced persecution. Some South Africans now in the US with refugee status have reached out to HHS to raise concerns about a lack of benefits to support them, one of the US officials said. Trump slashed refugee benefits after taking office, including reducing cash assistance and healthcare benefits that normally last a year to four months. One of the initial group of 59 South Africans brought into the U.S. in mid-May sent an email to HHS refugee office two weeks later pleading for help getting a Social Security number and access to a work permit. The person, who went to Missoula, Montana, said their family had spent thousands of dollars to cover expenses. GǣWe have applied for jobs like crazy but to no avail because we found people here are not keen on hiring refugees without an SSN, one of the family members wrote in a 27 May email to the HHS refugee program reviewed by Reuters. GǣWe have spent about $4000 on Uber, food, Cellphone SIM Cards which don't work. The person was concerned the family would not be able to find housing after a government-funded hotel stay ended in early June. Reuters could not reach the family. The HHS spokesperson said the agency takes complaints seriously and that refugees placed in temporary housing receive support for essential needs, including food. A person familiar with the matter said some South Africans arrived in the US expecting standard refugee benefits that had been paused or reduced by Trump. - Reuters
RNZ News
6 hours ago
- RNZ News
The US and Europe are still doing billions of dollars' worth of business with Russia despite years of war
By Lauren Kent, CNN A ship carrying Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) unloads gas in the port of Bilbao, Spain, on March 10, 2022. Photo: Vincent West/Reuters via CNN Newsource US President Donald Trump is threatening an additional 25 percent tariff on India as well as higher tariffs on other countries that buy Russian oil, in an attempt to pressure Moscow to end the war in Ukraine . But the United States and Europe themselves are still doing billions of dollars in trade with Russia - although that's a fraction of the trade that took place before the war. India has argued that it's being unfairly targeted with the tariff increase, calling it "unjustified" given that other nations also do business with Moscow. Trade between Russia and the US has fallen by about 90 percent since the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but last year, the US still imported US$3 billion worth of goods from Russia, according to the latest data from the US Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) and Census Bureau. Meanwhile, the European Union - which has been the Americans' partner in sanctions against Russia - imported US$41.9 billion of goods from Russia in 2024, data from the bloc's statistics agency shows. "It's significant, but I think the more significant thing is how quickly the EU adjusted to reduce their dependency on Russia," said Kimberly Donovan, director of the Economic Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council, a DC-based think tank. "They're making huge strides to further reduce how much they're getting from (Russia)." EU imports from Russia dropped by 86 percent between the first quarters of 2022 and 2025, according to Eurostat data. "I do think that there is a lot of opportunity for the US and even the EU to increase our trade with countries like Canada and get the products that we need from them," Donovan added. "That's where the trade wars and the negotiations over tariffs are really throwing things for a loop and are reducing our ability to be strategic in how we're approaching the Russia problem." As Trump prepares to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska Friday, a top US official warned that India could see more tariffs coming their way if the talks don't go well. "We've put secondary tariffs on the Indians for buying Russian oil. And I can see if things don't go well, then sanctions or secondary tariffs could go up," US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Bloomberg. These are the areas where economic ties with Russia remain the strongest, for the US and Europe respectively. Fertilizer: The US imported US$927 million worth of fertilizer in the first half of this year, US Census Bureau data shows. Last year, fertilizer imports from Russia totaled more than US$1 billion. The US particularly relies on Russia for imports of three types of chemical fertilizers: urea, urea ammonium nitrate (UAN) and potassium chloride muriate of potash, also called potash. "Unless the US sanctions Russian fertilizer imports, as it does with Belarusian potash, this (level of trade) is likely to continue," said Allan Pickett, head of fertilizer analysis at S&P Global Commodity Insights. "Russia remains one of the most important global fertilizer suppliers and the influence of it has not diminished since 2022." "Urea and potash could be readily sourced from elsewhere, although with potash it would further increase US dependence on Canada, which currently has an interesting trade dynamic," Pickett added. The Trump administration recently hiked tariffs on Canada to a minimum of 35 percent - unless goods are compliant with the terms of the US-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement - escalating ongoing trade tensions with its northern neighbor. Palladium: Although palladium imports from Russia have reduced significantly since 2021, data shows that the US still imported US$878 million worth of the metal in 2024 and US$594 million worth in 2025, through June. The silvery metal is used in various electronic and industrial products and it's a key component in the catalytic converters of cars. Uranium and plutonium: The US has imported US$755 million worth of uranium and plutonium from Russia so far this year, according to Census data through June. It imported US$624 million worth of those commodities from Russia in 2024. Oil: Russia was the largest supplier of petroleum to the European Union prior to Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The EU has since imposed a ban on maritime Russian oil imports, as well as refined oil products, like diesel. As a result, oil imports to Europe fell to US$1.72 billion (€1.48 billion) for the first quarter of 2025, down from US$16.4 billion (€14.06 billion) in the same quarter of 2021, according to the most recent data from Eurostat. The top European importers of Russian fossil fuels in July 2025 were Hungary, France, Slovakia, Belgium and Spain, according to an analysis by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, an international research organization. Hungary and Slovakia accounted for the vast majority of crude oil imports, according to the analysis, while the others import mostly liquefied natural gas. Natural gas: The value of natural gas imports from Russia actually increased in the last four years as a result of price increases, growing to US$5.23 billion (€4.49 billion) in the first quarter of 2025, Eurostat data shows. However, the EU has slightly reduced Russia's market share of liquefied natural gas imports since 2021 - from 22 percent down to 19 percent in 2025 - while also greatly increasing the US market share. Iron and steel: Russia's share of iron and steel imports in the EU has dropped sharply. Iron and steel imports amounted to US$850 million (€730 million) in the first quarter of 2025 - about half of what they were in the same quarter in 2021, according to Eurostat. Fertilizer: Sanctions and import duties have not hit the fertilizer industry, and as a result, European imports of Russian fertilizer have changed very little since 2021. In the first quarter of 2025, EU countries imported US$640 million (€550 million) of Russian fertilizer, data shows. Nickel: The EU has diversified imports to rely more on nickel from the United States, Norway, the United Kingdom and Canada. Still, the bloc imported US$300 million (€260 million) worth of nickel from Russia in the first quarter of 2025. Nickel is primarily used to make stainless steel and other alloy steels, as well as batteries. Beyond imports and exports of commodities, many Western companies remain entrenched in Russia. Some notable American-based holdouts continue to operate in Russia, including top 100 companies, according to lists compiled by the Yale School of Management and the Kyiv School of Economics Institute. Dozens of European businesses, including consumer-facing brands, retailers and software companies, have also remained in Russia. The amount of tax revenue that Western companies generate for the Kremlin is relatively small, but analysts say the companies that remain have allowed aspects of normal life to continue for the Russian population. Corporate exits serve to bring the war closer to the Russian people and confront their "complacency," as well as make it more difficult for Putin to paint a picture of a well-functioning economy, said Yale School of Management's Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, whose large team of researchers keeps track of which companies have left. "It's an imploding market - it was never an economic superpower to start with - which is just a lot of smoke and mirrors, a lot of bravado on the part of Putin to try to create an aura of something bigger," Sonnenfeld told CNN. In contrast to the reduction in trade with Moscow seen in the United States and EU, India imported $67 billion worth of goods from Russia in 2024, according to data aggregated by the United Nations. Roughly $53 billion worth of that was petroleum oils and crude oil. Before the full-scale war, in 2021, India imported US$8.7 billion worth of goods from Russia. India's imports of Russian oil and gas have skyrocketed since before the war began. Russian oil now makes up 36 percent of the Indian market, according to Vortexa, an energy data firm, meaning it imports more crude oil from Russia than from anywhere else. China has also ramped up purchases of Russian crude oil following Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Its price fell after Western countries sharply scaled back their imports of Russian fuel. Russia now accounts for 13.5 percent of China's crude imports, according to Vortexa. China imported roughly $130 billion in Russian goods in 2024, including $62.6 billion of petroleum oils and crude, the UN-aggregated data shows. - CNN
