logo
Trump's mission is to bring peace to Europe, says JD Vance

Trump's mission is to bring peace to Europe, says JD Vance

South Wales Argus11 hours ago
JD Vance also described the UK and US' relationship as 'a beautiful alliance', during a speech at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire.
It comes after Mr Vance and the US president joined a call with Sir Keir Starmer and leaders from across Europe, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, to discuss the war in Ukraine.
During the call on Wednesday, the Prime Minister said Mr Trump's interventions over the Ukraine war have created a 'viable' chance of a ceasefire.
Mr Vance met Foreign Secretary David Lammy earlier on Wednesday, where he said they 'worked on one of our most important shared security goals in Europe, which is the end of the war between Russia and Ukraine'.
The vice president has previously criticised Europe over its defence funding, with leaked messages from a US Signal group chat showing Mr Vance saying he hated 'bailing Europe out'.
He also criticised the UK in February, over a legal case in which a former serviceman who silently prayed outside an abortion clinic was convicted of breaching the safe zone around the centre.
US vice president JD Vance visited RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, which is home to troops from the US Air Force's 501st Combat Support Wing and the 99th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron (Ben Birchall/PA)
At the time, Mr Vance said that the US' 'very dear friends the United Kingdom' appeared to have seen a 'backslide in conscience rights'.
Speaking to American troops stationed in the UK on Wednesday, Mr Vance said: 'We've got a beautiful country here. We've got a beautiful alliance.
'And I think every single one of you know that for over 100 years, we have worked with our friends from the United Kingdom to achieve great victories.
'And if you look at the long sweep of history, every time something big happens for the world, every time a great victory is won for freedom and for peace and for prosperity, it is almost always the Brits and the Americans that do it together, and we win every single time we go to war together.
The vice president has previously criticised Europe over its defence funding (Ben Birchall/PA)
'You guys know that as well as anybody.
'But it's not just about going to war, and it's not just winning when we do.
'When we work together, when we fight together, when we make it clear that we always approach every situation with an open hand – but if things go poorly, we're willing to do what we have to do, we make it easier to achieve peace and prosperity all over the world.'
He added: 'I started the week in a place called Chevening, with the Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom (David Lammy), further south in the country, in a county called Kent.
'And what we did is we worked on one of our most important shared security goals in Europe, which is the end of the war between Russia and Ukraine.
'The president of the United States came in six months ago, and I just talked to him right before I came on the stage, and he said very simply that we are going to make it our mission as an administration to bring peace to Europe once again.
'But as you all know, it is impossible to bring peace anywhere, unless the bad guys are also worried that we've got a hell of a fine air force, and a hell of a fine military, to back up the peace to begin with.'
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Highlanders have the right to be angry over explosion of wind farms
Highlanders have the right to be angry over explosion of wind farms

The National

time41 minutes ago

  • The National

Highlanders have the right to be angry over explosion of wind farms

Quite a result for a never previously convened group of volunteers sitting on powerless community councils. But was it a step back for the green transition, a step forward for local democracy or a bit of both? Five hundred people from 56 community councils – representing almost half the Highland population – gathered to highlight the 1305 wind-related infrastructure projects that are either built or going through planning in the Highlands. No-one's denying that's a small avalanche. The big questions are: who is the energy for? (probably not Scots); who benefits financially? (certainly not Scots); who gets to decide? (absolutely not Scots), and how much does net-exporting Scotland or the energy-hungry UK actually need? (Fa kens). READ MORE: Pro-Palestine protesters greet JD Vance as he lands in Scotland It seems Labour and the SNP are bodyswerving all these vital questions, and Highlanders, despite their reputation for feudal cap-doffing and learned silence, have finally snapped, got angry and got organised. So, are they just a bunch of climate-crisis-denying Nimbys? I've been making a film about this unprecedented revolt over the last week and visited folk in straths and glens from Strathdearn near Tomatin to the Dornoch Firth near Strath Oykel. I'm sure there are people who simply hate turbines and are opposed to net zero. I didn't meet any of them. I did meet people from glens with five, seven, or even 13 wind farms already in place who are being told to accept the same again. Without any say. Without any meaningful income. And without the highest energy bills in Europe getting one penny cheaper. They must also watch while those existing wind farms switch off in high wind because the grid can't take their energy. We pay for those constraint payments, and if they are common for existing turbines, how will the new wind farms deliver? (Image: Getty Images) Furthermore, wind farm applications go through planning piecemeal, with complex documents that take hours for community councillors to download and a lawyer's mind to dissect. So far, every application has been approved by the Scottish Government – despite occasional rejection by Highland Council and even a Scottish Government reporter. It feels like a total fait accompli and normally calm people have become stressed, angry, upset and determined not to let this pass. I'm sure some distant pointy heids thought wind farms accepted since 2007 meant Highlanders would be a soft touch. Au contraire. It's a case of once bitten twice, not just shy, but adamant – enough's enough. We met one veteran community councillor who wanted a conversation with the companies, SSEN and the Scottish Government about the totality of wind farms planned for each glen: 'We could negotiate and approve the ones that are completely uncontroversial and try to change or just veto the ones everyone opposes.' If something as reasonable as that isn't even thinkable, what are we saying about local democracy? If Scotland is to house practically all the wind infrastructure for the whole of Britain without any benefit in bills, what does that say about the supposed union of equals? And if all of this happens without opposition by the planning authority, the Scottish Government, we can only assume that they are 100% on side. Or that they worry more about denting the high levels of inward investment to Scotland by placing any restrictions on electricity infrastructure? Or that their green targets and position ahead of the UK will be dented? If so, well done. Every Tom, Dick and Harry (the spivs and speculators from Alex Salmond's era) has a wind company and land on the east coast of the Highlands – near the grid upgrades and the freeports – sitting pretty for the moment when the contracts for difference are awarded and the wind bonanza really begins. No wonder British Energy Minister Michael Shanks declined the invitation to attend the Inverness Convention along with Scottish Energy Minister Gillian Martin and SSEN – the private power company charged with deciding pylon routes and the location of turbines, battery plants and sub-stations. Labour's Western Isles MP Torcuil Crichton did attend and argued for councils to become co-developers of wind cash thereby making money for local services. If it can be done in Stornoway, he argued, why not on the mainland? But he also made no apologies for the huge wind energy targets his government will push through whether local communities like it or not. The audience was not amused. SNP MP Graham Leadbitter drew grumbles for sidestepping responsibility, saying planning is a Holyrood matter and the SNP don't run Westminster. True but unhelpful. SNP MSP Maree Todd prompted snorts of exasperation when she said she was furious about the size of local energy bills and fuel poverty. Fine – why did the SNP not support locational pricing then? And her MSP colleague Emma Roddick was almost shouted down after saying she felt as powerless as the audience and declared the main problem is pitifully low levels of community benefit. They certainly are inadequate – but local opposition has moved way beyond that. Tory MSP Edward Mountain received a roar of approval for saying: 'We in the Highlands are being sacrificed on the altar of net zero. And we need to stop energy companies trying to bribe local communities.' It's supremely ironic. THE Tories are getting ready to clean up in Highland seats in 2026, even though the current situation is almost 100% their fault. Who privatised the energy industry in the 1980s, placing strategic decisions in the hands of private companies like SSE and private operators (many of them the state-owned companies of our European neighbours) – the Tories. Who created a wind energy desert in England that will now be filled with Highland-produced energy – the Tories and their decade-long turbine moratorium south of the border. Who created a devolved settlement that handed energy to Westminster, not Holyrood, unlike every other devolved or federal system – Labour. Who created massive, remote councils like Highland, which has the biggest landmass in the world – the Tories. Who created toothless community councils as a sop to towns, villages and islands when their genuinely local councils were abolished – the Tories. And who's been the implacable opponents of 'Mugabe-style land raids' or for anyone else the overdue process of real land reform that would stop absentee millionaires owning land and taking land use decisions over the heads of local communities – be that for the green transition or any other 'worthy' cause. Yip – the Tories. They've produced chronic disempowerment. Labour have produced the 'ambitious' green energy targets – now set in law – driving the Highland windfarm expansion. And yet it's the SNP who are taking the pounding. Why? Because voters expected them to reverse the tide, stand up for communities, argue, wheedle, deal and protect – and they haven't. Doubtless, some will argue the Scotland Act means they can't. That answer may be right. It may be good law. Great accounting. Satisfactory box-ticking – but it's terrible politics. The Scottish Government believes it must rubber-stamp whatever energy demands the British Government makes of rural Scotland or ... what? If it's a fight where the Scottish Government backs Highland communities, starts a long-overdue process of decentralisation, produces and share an actual strategy and challenges Westminster to do the same and forces Keir Starmer to own an unreconstructed broken, Thatcherite energy market where Scots will never, ever get cheaper bills – then bring it on. Meantime, c'mon the communities.

JD Vance greeted by angry Palestine protesters as he arrives in Scotland for holiday
JD Vance greeted by angry Palestine protesters as he arrives in Scotland for holiday

The Independent

timean hour ago

  • The Independent

JD Vance greeted by angry Palestine protesters as he arrives in Scotland for holiday

As US Vice President JD Vance arrived in Scotland for a family holiday to the UK, he was greeted at the resort by dozens of pro-Palestine protesters, who accused him of supporting a 'genocide' by Israel in Gaza on Wednesday, 13 August. It comes after demonstrators descended on a quiet hamlet in the Cotswolds to protest against the Republican's presence there. Dozens of people gathered in the usually quiet Oxfordshire countryside to tell Mr Vance he was 'not welcome' in the area as he stayed in a Grade II listed country manor in the hamlet of Dean. Local media described a crowd of between 50 to 100 people gathering in the nearby village of Charlbury.

Lithuania wants to teach kids as young as eight to fight Putin with drones
Lithuania wants to teach kids as young as eight to fight Putin with drones

Daily Mirror

timean hour ago

  • Daily Mirror

Lithuania wants to teach kids as young as eight to fight Putin with drones

The first three Lithuanian drone training centres, where kids as young as eight will learn to operate the devices, will open by September with the remainder opening over the next three years Lithuania is planning to teach kids as young as eight how to fly drones to combat the threat of a looming Russian invasion. ‌ Officials plan to open nine drone training centres to teach more than 22,000 of its citizens how to build and fly drones. ‌ Defense Minister Dovilė Šakalienė said the plan would strengthen the country's defences in the event of further Russian aggression in Eastern Europe. ‌ In recent years, drone warfare has become a standout method of l aunching offensives. It is one of the reasons Ukraine has been able to fight off a former superpower that, on paper, should have been able to seize Kyiv in a matter of days if not weeks. In a statement, Šakalienė explained: 'We plan that 15,500 adults and 7,000 children will acquire drone control skills by 2028." The program will be adapted to each of the age groups. The younger groups will be taught how to build and pilot simple drones, while high school students will learn the full design and manufacturing process. They will also learn to fly first-person view (FPV) drones, the type used on the Ukrainian front line, government officials say. The plan is expected to cost just under $4million as the country is expected to purchase advanced FPVs and roll out a mobile app which will guide students. ‌ By the end of September, there will be three drone training centres up and running. Over the next three years, another six facilities will be rolled out. Both Ukraine and Russia have utilised the technology during the conflict, with Ukraine using the drones to wage war on Russian soil, allowing them to strike deep inside Vladimir Putin's territory. Meanwhile, Moscow has used them to pummel Ukraine's military and civilian infrastructure in the war that has raged for three years. ‌ The development in Lithuania comes after Russia rolled out what it called the "world's biggest drone factory", where teens as young as 14 were brought in to construct the killer drones on an assembly line. Lithuania is just one of several Baltic nations becoming increasingly concerned about the threat of Russian aggression since the outbreak of the conflict. Many other NATO member states have been preparing for the worst, like Finland and Sweden where residents have been given guidance on what to do should it happen. The Kremlin threatened both nations, which joined the treaty alliance in 2022, that they could become the target of his world-ending nuclear weapons. In April, tensions heightened even further when the Kremlin built military bases around 100 miles from the border with Finland.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store