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India.com
7 days ago
- Politics
- India.com
Trump Cozying Up To Pakistan – Will It Push India Closer To China?
New Delhi: A meeting in Washington last month between former U.S. President Donald Trump and Pakistan Field Marshal Asim Munir sparked concern in New Delhi. Just days earlier, a deadly terrorist attack in Pahalgam, South Kashmir, had killed 26 innocent civilians. India blamed Pakistan after a group linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba claimed responsibility. Foreign policy watchers are now weighing a critical question: could this renewed U.S.-Pakistan engagement unsettle India's fragile equation with China? For years, Beijing has served as the strategic common threat binding India and the United States. Both nations view China as a geopolitical rival and have steadily expanded cooperation to counter its influence. But Trump's warm overtures toward China-backed Pakistan are forcing India to rethink its calculus. Diplomatic experts say India is unlikely to pivot dramatically toward China based solely on the Trump-Munir meeting. Moves to de-escalate tensions with Beijing had already been set in motion months earlier. Still, the symbolism of the meeting and its implications for India's long-term strategy are difficult to ignore. Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington D.C., said the meeting must be viewed in light of recent India-Pakistan military flare-ups during Operation Sindoor. 'It is not that India is suddenly leaning toward China because of Trump's outreach to Pakistan. But the context matters, especially given that Pakistan used Chinese weapons against India for the first time during that conflict,' he explained. He added that uncertainty around U.S.-India ties under Trump remains a major concern in New Delhi. 'There is no clear indication of how Trump plans to deal with China. At times, he talks tough, at others, he calls for cooperation. India is wary of assuming that the United States will always align with its strategic interests on China.' That ambiguity, Kugelman said, is one reason India has begun hedging its bets by stabilising ties with Beijing. A Subtle Thaw Between India and China Since October 2024, signs of a diplomatic thaw have emerged. Border troops from both sides have started withdrawing from several flashpoints along the disputed Line of Actual Control (LAC). Earlier this month, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar met Chinese President Xi Jinping during the SCO foreign ministers' summit, marking his first visit to Beijing in six years. Direct commercial flights between India and China are set to resume. The long-suspended Kailash Mansarovar Yatra has reopened for Indian pilgrims. In a move with economic implications, the government think tank NITI Aayog has proposed allowing up to 24% Chinese equity in Indian companies without special clearance. Foreign policy commentator Indrani Bagchi believes India is proceeding cautiously. 'The government is trying to introduce a degree of stability into its relationship with China. We may see some Chinese investment flowing in, but it's unlikely to go much beyond that,' she said. She also warned against overreacting to Trump's overtures to Pakistan. 'This is not the first time Washington has leaned toward Islamabad. Whenever it does, the trust factor in U.S.-India ties takes a hit. If the United States resumes military aid to Pakistan, it will definitely raise red flags in New Delhi,' she added. At the same time, she noted, India has been attempting to diversify its defense partnerships, gradually reducing dependence on Russia and increasing procurement from the United States. 'If America is using Pakistan as a bridge to reach China, India will be forced to reassess,' she added. What Is Beijing's Game? Some former diplomats argue that if India extends a hand, China will likely respond with caution but openness. Achal Malhotra, a former ambassador, said New Delhi's foreign policy is guided by realism, not alignment. 'Our relations with China stand on their own merit. We are prudent but sovereign in our choices. The United States knows this. Trump's meeting with Munir likely reflects Pakistan's geographic utility in Afghanistan and Central Asia. Unless that directly threatens India, it is not an alarming development,' he said. Strategic analyst Zakir Hussain suggested it is U.S. inconsistency that might be nudging India toward China. 'The way Washington handles its ties with India is part of the reason New Delhi may explore a less confrontational path with Beijing. Economically, some of India's moves may lower tensions. But let us be clear that China will never abandon Pakistan for India,' he said.
Miami Herald
17-07-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
Russia's Oil Prices Lag Behind Target
Oil prices in Russia remain below government targets, according to Reuters, adding pressure on an already turbulent wartime economy. Russia's oil blend is more than 11 percent below the Russian government budget target, the news agency reported, citing as a factor, the strong ruble, the country's currency. Price issues with Russia's most lucrative export come amid a rise in the country's budget deficit and a worker shortage fueling high inflation. Newsweek has contacted the Russian finance ministry for comment. Fossil fuel revenues form the backbone of Russia's economy, which has been buffeted by sanctions following Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But measures tackling Russian energy exports, including imposing a $60 price cap on seaborn oil, have been largely circumvented by Moscow's shadow fleet, which is a target of further EU sanctions. However, Russia's budget, which has earmarked record levels of military spending, is facing increasing pressure as oil prices dip as a result of global economic uncertainty and increased output from OPEC+ oil producing countries. Reuters reported the average price in the Russian currency of Russia's oil blend calculated for taxation purposes, was 4,701 rubles ($60.01) per barrel in the first two weeks of July. This was in keeping with June's level but 11.1 percent below the updated government targets of 5,281 rubles per barrel. The dollar denominated price is set at $56 per barrel. Reuters said the lower oil price was largely the result of the rising ruble, which has increased by about 45 percent this year, in part because of tight monetary policy by Russia's Central Bank. It comes as Russia's finance ministry grapples with an increased budget deficit which reached 3.69 trillion rubles ($47.31 billion), in the first half of 2025, the same as expected for the whole year, Reuters noted. This has been driven by Putin's spending plans for the military as he continues his aggression in Ukraine, with defense outlays increasing by a quarter this year to 6.3 percent of GDP, the highest level since the end of the Cold War. The Russian economy faces a sharp slowdown with coal mines, the construction industry and car manufacturers among sectors that have reported temporary shutdowns and transitioned to shorter working weeks. Boris Grozovski, an expert on the Russian economy at the Wilson Center told Newsweek earlier in July that Russia's military sector continues to grow because it is financed by increased spending levels but output is declining in civilian industries and the government has a difficult decision over whether to continue prioritizing defense spending. Reuters reported on Wednesday that "the average Russian oil price calculated in rubles has stayed below the federal budget's target for 2025." Boris Grozovski, an expert on the Russian economy at the Wilson Center, said: "There is no extra money in the budget - it all went to the war effort. Therefore, in recent months, the government has also been trying to save money for the war. Overall, the government has a difficult decision to make." Russia's oil revenues will face increasing pressure from lower global prices. Adding to concerns for Moscow is the prospect of new sanctions being considered by the EU that would include a reduced oil price cap. Related Articles China Reacts As Russia Floats New Geopolitical Power Bloc With IndiaRussia Issues Nuclear Warning After Trump's Weapons for Ukraine PlanPutin Warned of Russian Demographic CrisisU.S. Spy Plane Tracked Near Iran 2025 NEWSWEEK DIGITAL LLC.
Mint
23-06-2025
- Politics
- Mint
Iran tries to buy time to weigh its response to US strikes
With the U.S. joining Israel to strike Iran's main nuclear sites, Iran's clerical leaders face a tough choice: hit back quickly and risk expanding a devastating war, or return to nuclear talks where they would likely have to cede to American demands. Iranian officials may have bought themselves some time to maneuver Sunday by saying they had minimized the impact from the U.S. strikes to their nuclear program. State media said damage at the key Fordow enrichment facility was limited to the entrance tunnel and that important equipment had been moved out before the bombings. The United Nations' nuclear agency also said there hadn't been radiation leaks. That could reduce the public pressure to retaliate immediately and instead provide the regime room to come up with a plan to deter future U.S. and Israeli strikes. Iran's choice could prove pivotal, determining not only the stability of the broader region and its energy exports to the rest of the world, but potentially the survival of the theocracy in Tehran. 'Iran is facing a dilemma," said Mohamed Amersi, a Middle East expert on the Global Advisory Council of the Wilson Center, a Washington think tank. He said it could respond with symbolic strikes against Western assets while trying to negotiate a cease-fire with Israel in exchange for relief from the West's economic sanctions. Or it could choose to raise the stakes by targeting more substantive Western targets in Iraq, Lebanon and Syria, along with strategic locations in Israel and strikes in oil-producing regions of the Persian Gulf. 'In the second case, Iran should expect the U.S. to re-engage," Amersi said. The immediate aftermath of the American strikes saw Iran limit its response to Israel, firing ballistic missiles at several areas of the country and damaging residential buildings in Tel Aviv, according to Magen David Adom, the country's emergency services agency. At least 16 people were wounded. But should Iran opt to broaden its attacks, its targets could include American bases and embassies in Iraq, Bahrain and other parts of the region. Iran could also try to close the Strait of Hormuz—a transit chokepoint for a quarter of the world's oil—by attacking ships or laying mines. The goal would be to trigger an oil-supply crisis, a surge in prices and a drop in global stock markets in a bet that would pressure Persian Gulf nations and the U.S. to broker a diplomatic outcome. It is a risky course that could instead lead to more U.S. attacks that could threaten the durability of the regime in Tehran. Some analysts expect Iran to play it relatively safe. Iranian Navy soldiers patrolling near the Strait of Hormuz in 2019. Based on past behavior, Iran could 'harass shipping to boost oil prices, which could hurt the U.S. economy, especially under Trump," said Europe-based Mostafa Pakzad, chairman of Pakzad Consulting, which advises foreign companies on Iranian geopolitics. In 2018, after President Trump took the U.S. out of a pact limiting Iran's nuclear program and ordered an oil embargo on the country, Tehran attacked passing vessels using limpet mines in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. Iran's response to the January 2020 U.S. airstrike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Iraq offers further clues to its potential reaction. Soleimani was widely seen as one of the most powerful men in Iran after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran retaliated by launching ballistic missiles at U.S. military bases in Iraq, wounding scores of U.S. troops but not killing any Americans. A key question now is whether Iran even has the military capability to expand the war after 10 days of blistering strikes by Israel that have targeted its weapons systems, senior leaders and military infrastructure. Although Iran continues to strike Israel, its arsenal of missiles is shrinking. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed that Israel has destroyed half of Iran's missile launchers, making it harder to use those that remain. 'Iran, in a conventional contest, is in a much weaker position," said Michael Singh, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. 'But we do know that Iran has other capabilities, whether that's cyber capabilities, terrorist proxies and so forth." Israeli rescue workers at a building in Tel Aviv hit by missiles. The regional militias belonging to Iran's so-called Axis of Resistance, which Tehran has built and supported for decades, have largely remained on the sidelines so far. But Yemen's Houthi militia warned on Saturday that it would target U.S. warships and commercial ships in the Red Sea if the U.S. bombs Iran. Mohammed al-Basha, founder of U.S.-based Middle East security advisory Basha Report, said he anticipates 'measured retaliation from Iranian-backed proxy forces…rather than full-scale warfare," with groups such as the Houthis and Iraq's Kataib Hezbollah targeting American regional interests. He said the attacks would likely resemble Iran's nonlethal response to the Soleimani killing, which he described as a symbolic response by Tehran. Houthi police officers in San'a, Yemen, on Friday. Still, Khamenei warned last week that if the U.S. attacks Iran it 'must know that our people will not surrender, and any military intervention by them will lead to irreparable consequences." And on Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said it isn't clear how much room remains for diplomacy, saying in a post on X that the U.S. strikes 'will have everlasting consequences." He said 'Iran reserves all options to defend its sovereignty, interest, and people." Some members of the Iranian parliament have called for an immediate withdrawal from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Hard-line factions in the government view building nuclear weapons as the best path forward to regain regional influence and deter threats from Israel and now the U.S. Yet with the dust still settling from the U.S. strikes, it is too soon to determine what's left of the country's nuclear program. Write to Sudarsan Raghavan at Benoit Faucon at and Summer Said at
CBC
15-06-2025
- Business
- CBC
Where the G7 came from — and where it might go in the era of Trump
Historian Samuel Beroud has a pet peeve whenever anyone asks him about the origins of the annual Group of Seven (G7) summit. As the well-worn narrative goes, the G7 (originally the G6 before Canada joined In 1976) was set up as a forum among the world's leading industrialized nations following the economic shocks of the early 1970s, including the collapse of the Bretton Woods monetary system and the oil price crisis. The first summit was hosted by French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt in 1975. The two leaders met with the heads of the U.K., Italy, Japan and the U.S. for a fireside chat at the Château de Rambouillet, just outside of Paris. It is said that the gathering was necessary to shepherd the world economy and prevent disputes from escalating into nasty trade wars — but more importantly to reassure the public and the markets that the leaders were in charge and managing things. "I have a very critical interpretation of the G7, because if you look at things, basically the first G7 took place after the recovery of 1975 has already happened," said Beroud, a fellow at the Washington-based Wilson Center and PhD candidate at the University of Geneva. "So there is already like a trick from the politician to say, 'Look, we are solving global economic problems,' when they know already that the recovery has already started." There was, however, geopolitical value in meeting face-to-face and a clear message at the time, Beroud said. "The Western world has gone through a period of tension, but now we are united again and we are ready to face challenges from the outside. So this is the main message of the first G7 summit." Good luck getting there this week. Projecting a sense of calm reassurance as the global economy is upended by the Trump administration's trade war — not to mention hot wars in both the Middle East and Ukraine — would be nice. Hopefully the leaders gathering in the majestic wilderness of Kananaskis, Alta., this week get the memo. Whether that reassurance involves unity on key economic and security questions is in question — even doubtful. Perhaps more so than at any other point in the five-decade history of these summits. As host, the Canadian government seems to have given up on a summit-ending communiqué and appears poised for less comprehensive "action-oriented" statements. We all know why. Aside from a destructive trade war and the routine disparaging of allies, there is little common ground between U.S. President Donald Trump and the other leaders on key economic, environmental and security issues — notably Ukraine. WATCH | Why there likely won't be a leaders' communiqué coming out of the G7: Why won't there be a leaders' communique coming out of next week's G7? | Power & Politics 3 days ago Duration 14:19 Creon Butler, who helped organize Britain's G7 priorities for almost a decade, wrote last fall that with Trump in the picture, the G7 is so hamstrung — the areas of co-operation and agreement so few — that allies would be better off meeting in smaller groups, without the United States. "I think the problem now, frankly, is for all of that to work, you need a level of trust among the members, which despite … quite a few bumpy periods along the way, has always been there," said Butler, who served under former prime ministers David Cameron, Theresa May, and Boris Johnson. "I question now whether that level of trust is there with the U.S. to make it function in the way it has in the past." Questions of relevancy Throughout its existence, there have been other times when the G7 was a loggerheads over either a range of or specific policies, Butler said. But it's never been this stark. In light of its declining collective economic clout, the G7 has also faced existential questions. The arrival of the G20 in the early 2000s and the BRICS alliance raised the spectre of relevance in the face of a changing world. "There was actually a period where people wondered within the G7, do we still need the G7?" said Butler. One of those moments was in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis and before the cascading eurozone debt crisis. "It was the eurozone crisis, which was very fundamentally a G7 crisis — or Europe and other advanced countries — which clearly gave the G7 a continuing purpose," he said. More recently, it found purpose in the need to respond to Russia's attack on Ukraine. After ambling along in the face of the first argumentative Trump administration, the G7 came back in full force as the co-ordinating group for sanctions on Russia following its 2022 full-scale invasion — a time when everyone was on-board. Conversation doesn't always need consensus Given the deluge of events and the speed with which Trump has moved to upend the global order, those days seem very long ago. So what's the purpose now? "The G7s are [to] talk shop at the end of the day, right?" said Phil Luck, a former deputy chief economist at the U.S. State Department, now with the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. "We get together and talk about things. So the question is what use is that? … I think there's always use in talking. I think it tends to not be that costly. And I think, if nothing else, talking can try to iron out disagreements. And that can be helpful." Sen. Peter Boehm, Canada's former G7 deputy minister, agreed there is value in talking — especially now — even if there's no consensus. After watching leaders behind closed doors at several summits, he said there's a lot to be learned from how they tackled their differences in the past. "Inside the room, it's not like everyone is close to fisticuffs or anything like that. It's a very cordial atmosphere," said Boehm, who disagreed with the notion that another forum — without the U.S. — is needed. "You can agree to disagree." When you look at recent history, everyone focuses on Trump's 2018 Air Force One Twitter outburst as torpedoing the consensus at the Charlevoix summit. But Boehm said history has shown there are ways to manage the discussion with the mercurial president — and he believes Prime Minister Mark Carney can keep Trump tuned in. "What I would say is bring him … into the meeting, [bring] President Trump into the conversation — and as often as you can, so that he does not lose interest," said Boehm. "And defer to him, because he is the president of the United States." But history and ego-management can only take you so far, and the bigger question becomes how other leaders respond to both Trump's policies and his potential tantrums. "I think the big challenge for Prime Minister Carney is to ensure that some sort of solidarity is demonstrated," said Boehm. "There won't be consensus on everything. There never has been. "But at least to have a modicum of a consensual view, where the G7 can present itself to the world and say, 'We had a good discussion on topics X, Y and Z, and this is what we propose to undertake.'" As the world's largest economy, nations over the years have grown accustomed to the United States — the so-called G1 — setting the agenda and leading the discussion. As the Trump administration jettisons the country's mantle of global leadership, Luck said it will be up to other G7 members to try to find consensus with the U.S. where they can — and lead on consequential issues that no longer interest America. "I think the world will be waiting for a while for us to show the type of moral leadership that I think people are used to. Or that we like to think that people are used to," he said.
Washington Post
04-06-2025
- Business
- Washington Post
Ukraine's valor is reminiscent of Britain's in 1940
Ukraine's breathtaking ingenuity, the latest example of which destroyed or damaged dozens of Russia's long-range bombers on bases 2,500 miles from Ukraine, is in the service of an unflagging valor reminiscent of Britain's in 1940, when it was isolated and embattled, with the German army at the English Channel. Ukraine's resilience is inconvenient for those Americans who are eager to proclaim that the geographically largest nation entirely within Europe is inevitably doomed to defeat, dismemberment and domination. Such Americans' unseemly 'realism' has them invested in, and even eager for, Ukraine's disappearance from the map of European nations. Those Americans should remember Winston Churchill's 1941 response to French military 'realists' who had said in 1940 that Britain would soon have its neck wrung like a chicken. Said Churchill: 'Some chicken. Some neck.' Today's faux 'realism' cannot fathom what is at stake in Ukraine. Michael Kimmage can. The director of the Wilson Center's Kennan Institute, writing in Foreign Affairs, says Putin has 'renormalized the idea of large-scale war as a means of territorial conquest.' Putin is, therefore, undoing a war aim enunciated before the United States entered World War II. In August 1941, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Churchill, meeting on warships in Placentia Bay, off Newfoundland, propounded the Atlantic Charter, item two of which looked to a future without 'territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned.' It was to buttress this principle that President George H.W. Bush in 1991 orchestrated a broad coalition of nations for the limited but luminous purpose of forcing Iraq to leave Kuwait. It was for this principle that in 1982 British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher sent British forces to the South Atlantic to undo Argentina's seizure of the Falkland Islands. An Argentine intellectual dismissed this military event as 'a fight between two bald men over a comb.' Actually, it was a fight for a principle that again seems perishable. Vice President JD Vance uses flippancy, as adolescents do, for the fun of being naughty: 'I don't really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other.' He has dismissed as 'moralistic garbage' a distinguished historian's mildly different opinion about Ukraine's prospects. Vance wonders whether Niall Ferguson of Stanford's Hoover Institution is 'aware of the reality on the ground, of the numerical advantage of the Russians, of the depleted stock of the Europeans or their even more depleted industrial base?' Ukraine, says Vance, never had 'any pathway to victory.' Vance's ventriloquist, the U.S. president, has called Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky a 'dictator,' although it is unclear how much disapproval Trump conveys using that term. Trump has said to Zelensky, 'You don't have the cards.' But Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine's minister of foreign affairs 2020-2024, writing May 30 in Foreign Affairs, says: 'In December 2023, Russia controlled approximately 42,000 square miles of Ukrainian territory. In December 2024, that figure had grown only slightly, to around 43,600 square miles …. As of late May, Russia held approximately 43,650 … the country supposedly holding all the cards has gained just 1,650 of Ukraine's 233,030 square miles over the last 16 months. … Moscow has gone from occupying about 18 percent of Ukrainian territory in late 2023 to roughly 19 percent today.' Russia, which Sen. John McCain called a 'gas station masquerading as a country,' has one third of the European Union's population, one tenth of the E.U.'s gross domestic product, and last year had more than half a million more deaths than births. Writing in the Atlantic, Anna Nemtsova, a Daily Beast correspondent who covers Eastern Europe, reports: 'According to one demographer, Russians may have had fewer children from January to March 2025 than in any three-month period over the past 200 years.' Although some people similar to Vance admired British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's 'realism' at Munich in 1938, Dalibor Rohac of the American Enterprise Institute cautions that it is 'misleading and ahistorical' to compare Ukraine's vulnerability in coming negotiations to Czechoslovakia's in the negotiations that presaged Germany's takeover of Czechoslovakia: Czechoslovakia was not forced to acquiesce to a fatal agreement 'after defending itself successfully against Nazi military might for three years.' President Donald Trump finds Russia 'easier to deal with' than Ukraine, perhaps because he agrees more with Russia. Vance says Trump might walk away from peace talks if Putin is not 'serious' about them. So, Vance has notified Putin that simply by being unserious about negotiations, he might provoke Trump to show that among the things he is unserious about is the principle affirmed at Placentia Bay.
