Poland to Close Another Russian Consulate Over Sabotage Claims
The decision, announced by Radoslaw Sikorski in an X post on Monday, comes as governments across Europe grapple with the growing threat of Russian-sponsored acts of sabotage. Concerns about hybrid war are keenly felt in Poland, a state on NATO's eastern flank which borders Russia's exclave of Kaliningrad, Belarus and Ukraine.
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New York Post
an hour ago
- New York Post
Ukraine, European leaders counter Russian cease-fire plan ahead of Trump and Putin meeting
European officials have rejected Russian President Vladimir Putin's demands that Ukraine give up its territories annexed during his war, pushing their own proposal instead. The counter-offer demands rock-solid security guarantees for Kyiv, including NATO membership, before any territorial concessions, European officials familiar with the talks told the Wall Street Journal. The European plan – put forward by the UK, France, Germany and Ukraine — also proposes that any land exchange must be reciprocal. If Ukraine gives up some regions, Russia must pull out of others. Advertisement European officials have rejected Russian President Vladimir Putin's demands that Ukraine give up its territories annexed during his war, pushing their own proposal ahead of the meeting between President Donald Trump and the Russian leader. And a cease-fire agreement would need to be reached before any other steps are taken. The deal is meant to serve as a framework for negotiations between Putin and President Trump in Alaska on Friday. APAImages/Shutterstock The proposal was presented Saturday in the UK to senior US officials that included Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Trump's Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg and Middle East Special Envoy Steve Witkoff. Advertisement The deal is meant to serve as a framework for negotiations between Putin and President Trump in Alaska on Friday. 'The future of Ukraine cannot be decided without the Ukrainians who have been fighting for their freedom and security for over three years now,' French President Emmanuel Macron wrote on X.
News24
4 hours ago
- News24
India faces tough choices under US tariff pressure
• For more financial news, go to the News24 Business front page. India faces an ultimatum from the United States with major political and economic ramifications both at home and abroad: end purchases of Russian oil or face painful tariffs. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, leader of the world's most populous nation and its fifth-biggest economy, must make some difficult decisions. US President Donald Trump has given longstanding ally India, one of the world's largest crude oil importers, three weeks to find alternative suppliers. Levies of 25 percent already in place will double to 50 percent if India doesn't strike a deal. For Trump, the August 27 deadline is a bid to strip Moscow of a key source of revenue for its military offensive in Ukraine. "It is a geopolitical ambush with a 21-day fuse", said Syed Akbaruddin, a former Indian diplomat to the United Nations, writing in the Times of India newspaper. How has India responded? New Delhi called Washington's move "unfair, unjustified and unreasonable". Modi has appeared defiant. He has not spoken directly about Trump but said on Thursday "India will never compromise" on the interests of its farmers. Agriculture employs vast numbers of people in India and has been a key sticking point in trade negotiations. It all seems a far cry from India's early hopes for special tariff treatment after Trump said in February he had found a "special bond" with Modi. "The resilience of US-India relations... is now being tested more than at any other time over the last 20 years," said Michael Kugelman, from the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. What is the impact on India? Russia accounted for nearly 36 percent of India's total crude oil imports in 2024, snapping up approximately 1.8 million barrels of cut-price Russian crude per day. Buying Russian oil saved India billions of dollars on import costs, keeping domestic fuel prices relatively stable. Switching suppliers will likely threaten price rises, but not doing so will hit India's exports. The Federation of Indian Export Organisations warned that the cost of additional US tariffs risked making many businesses "not viable". Urjit Patel, a former central bank governor, said Trump's threats were India's "worst fears". Without a deal, "a needless trade war" would likely ensue and "welfare loss is certain", he said in a post on social media. What has Modi done? Modi has sought to bolster ties with other allies. That includes calling Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Thursday, who said they had agreed on the need "to defend multilateralism". Ashok Malik, of business consultancy The Asia Group, told AFP: "There is a signal there, no question." India's national security adviser Ajit Doval met with Vladimir Putin in Moscow, saying the dates of a visit to India by the Russian president were "almost finalised". Modi, according to Indian media, might also visit China in late August. It would be Modi's first visit since 2018, although it has not been confirmed officially. India and neighbouring China have long competed for strategic influence across South Asia. Successive US administrations have seen India as a key partner with like-minded interests when it comes to China. "All those investments, all that painstaking work done by many US presidents and Indian prime ministers, is being put at risk," Malik said. "I have not seen the relationship so troubled since the early 1990s, to be honest. I'm not saying it's all over, but it is at risk." Can Modi change policy? Modi faces a potential domestic backlash if he is seen to bow to Washington. "India must stand firm, put its national interest first," the Indian Express newspaper wrote in an editorial. Opposition politicians are watching keenly. Mallikarjun Kharge, president of the key opposition Congress party, warned the government was "disastrously dithering". He also pointed to India's longstanding policy of "non-alignment". "Any nation that arbitrarily penalises India for our time-tested policy of strategic autonomy... doesn't understand the steel frame India is made of," Kharge said in a statement. However, retired diplomat Akbaruddin said there is still hope. New Delhi can be "smartly flexible", Akbaruddin said, suggesting that could mean "buying more US oil if it's priced competitively, or engaging Russia on the ceasefire issue".
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
Market liberalism is dead — we need a new NATO for trade
For eight decades the West, especially European nations, treated markets as neutral arenas governed by rules—not power. That era is over. The global economy is now shaped by rivalry, coercion, and control. Trade is no longer just trade in a rules-based order, it has become part of geopolitical strategy. And this isn't a temporary disruption. As IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva has warned, the world is fragmenting into competing blocs. The old vision of globalisation has collapsed. What seemed to be a natural setup to many in Europe was, in fact, a historical anomaly: a system built upon an American-led world order power, enforced through institutions like NATO and the Bretton Woods system. That scaffolding is now shaking. The rules-based global market we took for granted is giving way to a world of weaponised interdependence. To navigate it, the West needs a new kind of alliance: a NATO for trade. The end of the 80-year economic illusion After World War II, the US and its allies built an economic system designed to prevent a return to the destabilising chaos of the 1930s. Institutions like the IMF, World Bank, and GATT were established to underpin global capitalism under American leadership. Security was provided by US military power, codified in NATO. Trade flourished. So did Europe, whose post-war recovery and integration were underwritten by American guarantees. When the Cold War ended, the illusion that global capitalism could operate independently of geopolitics deepened. By the 1990s, many believed the market was self-regulating and inherently peace-promoting. Today, with the return of great power competition, that illusion has shattered. Economic liberalism no longer aligns with geopolitical reality. We are entering a war economy mindset—one where national security trumps price efficiency. This shift has been accelerated by two shocks: Russia's invasion of Ukraine and China's economic rise. For example, Europe's dependence on cheap Russian gas left it exposed when Russia weaponised its flows in 2022. Germany, in particular, had bet on market logic rather than geopolitical risk. A 2021 assessment even declared Nord Stream 2 safe just months prior. The result: an energy crisis and a mad scramble for LNG. Far away, while the West clung to free-market orthodoxy, China has spent decades building a war-ready economy. Under the 'Made in China 2025' and 'Military-Civil Fusion' initiatives, it identified key sectors and moved to dominate them, including rare earths, batteries, solar and AI. Today, China produces over 75% of lithium-ion batteries and nearly all the world's gallium. It controls the supply chains for the energy transition—and increasingly, the components of military power. Crucially, China is not afraid to use this market dominance for political ends. In 2010, it cut exports to Japan over a dispute. And its green tech dominance creates dependence in Europe and beyond. Recently, China imposed controls on gallium and germanium, crucial for semiconductor development worldwide. In response to this shift, U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has openly argued for a more strategic form of capitalism, rejecting 'oversimplified' free-market models. Trade is no longer neutral. What matters is not just cost, but control. 80-year illusion over, a new paradigm emerges In summary, we are entering a new, first truly geopolitical-economic paradigm in eight decades. The comfortable post-Cold War interlude — when markets seemed paramount and history had supposedly ended — has given way to a more raw and Hobbesian environment. But unlike the 1930s, the West is not destitute or defenceless; we are wealthy and belatedly awakening to the challenge. We must now leverage our strengths in a clear-eyed way. The task is to update the institutions and mindsets of the 20th-century liberal order to meet the 21st-century's more fraught reality. If we succeed, geoeconomics need not lead to catastrophe, but it will require us to subordinate commerce to strategy — intentionally and intelligently — just as our forebears did in the 1940s when they built the system that delivered peace and prosperity for so long. The EU-US trade agreement highlights this shift The inequity of the recent EU-US trade deal, which saw the bloc swallow 15% tariffs, is a perfect example of this shift. It also demonstrates that Europe's decades-long dependence on the US has become a strategic vulnerability. This episode reinforces the need for Europe and others to structurally diversify our trade relationships and value chains in a world of escalating economic coercion. It must drive us to deepen partnerships beyond the transatlantic axis, without relying too heavily on China. This is not the 1930s. Europe remains a wealthy, democratic, and stable region. But post-war generations have no memory of systemic disruption. We assumed liberalism was permanent. We believed 'it's the economy, stupid.' Now we're learning that strategic power, not market price, determines outcomes. Defence is another case in point. Until recently, most NATO members underspent on their militaries. By 2021, only six met the 2% GDP target. That changed quickly after 2022. But defence industries were caught flat-footed. A plan to send 1 million shells to Ukraine revealed that the EU's manufacturing capacity fell far short. For decades, Europe optimised for efficiency, not endurance. The same applies to trade. Germany's model of Wandel durch Handel—change through trade—is being rethought. Berlin is now screening Chinese investments and reducing dependence on authoritarian suppliers. Across Europe, strategic autonomy is the new watchword. But the mindset shift is only beginning. A NATO for trade: the strategic task ahead Market liberalism assumed that trade would bring peace. But today, trade is a tool of leverage. The new mantra must be resilience—including building domestic capacity, even if it's more expensive. This is not a temporary adjustment. It is the new normal. And this new era demands new institutions. Just as NATO was built to defend shared security, the West now needs a strategic alliance to defend shared economic sovereignty—a NATO for trade—including nations like Japan, South Korea and Australia. Economic security must become a shared goal, not just a national one. The US has already taken steps, with domestic investments in chips and clean tech, and bans on key tech exports to China. Now, the EU is following suit, with the Chips Act and Critical Raw Materials Act. These are necessary but insufficient measures. We must build an economic coalition of the willing, now. That means shared investments, aligned trade rules, and collective protection of critical supply chains. It means accepting higher costs to safeguard long-term freedom. Cheap goods are not cheap if they make us dependent on hostile powers and geopolitical power games. The task is not to retreat from global trade, but to rebuild it on strategic terms. The free market cannot defend itself. Like peace, it must be protected through alliances. Economic liberalism's end, strategy's return Market liberalism is dead. It died when we stopped believing trade was just about price. It died when supply chains became battlegrounds. And it died when autocracies weaponised interdependence while democracies hesitated. If we want to preserve prosperity, we must be willing to defend it—not just with tanks, but with treaties, tariffs, and trusted partners. A NATO for trade is not a metaphor. It is the next necessary institution in a world where commerce is no longer safe from politics. If the West can build it, the collapse of market liberalism need not mean decline; it can be the start of a more resilient and secure economic order. The opinions expressed in commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune. This story was originally featured on Error al recuperar los datos Inicia sesión para acceder a tu cartera de valores Error al recuperar los datos Error al recuperar los datos Error al recuperar los datos Error al recuperar los datos
