Latest news with #foreignAffairs
Washington Post
5 days ago
- General
- Washington Post
Graham has a good bill on Russia. Why don't these senators support it?
The Senate, recently passive regarding its prerogatives and deferential regarding presidential assertiveness, might insert itself into policymaking concerning Ukraine. And the Senate — hopefully with the House concurring — might do so where presidents are most protective of their ability to act unilaterally: foreign affairs. The Senate's contemplated action has been 'coordinated' with the current president, who is a notably aggressive assertor of executive prerogatives.
Japan Times
6 days ago
- Business
- Japan Times
Ishiba and Trump talk tariffs in second phone call this month
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba exchanged views with U.S. President Donald Trump on tariffs, foreign affairs and security during a phone call Thursday night. This was their second call this month, following the one from last Friday . Ishiba described his 25-minute call with Trump as 'a very meaningful conversation' in which further cooperation between the two countries across a wide range of fields was discussed. 'It was a very meaningful conversation — we had a candid exchange of views in a friendly atmosphere, without much time having passed since our previous interaction last week, which allowed us to further deepen our mutual understanding,' Ishiba told reporters after the call. Ishiba confirmed that he initiated Thursday night's conversation, unlike last Friday's. Japan remains opposed to the U.S.' tariff measures against it, Ishiba said Thursday night, adding that the two leaders agreed to have their negotiators continue to engage in more detailed discussions. High-level exchanges have intensified between the two sides since last week, with Japan's chief negotiator Ryosei Akazawa traveling to Washington twice in a week to hold separate meetings with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Amid rising anti-globalism, Baumgartner defends U.S. role in the world
May 28—Four months into a presidential administration that has sharply pivoted into a more aggressive stance with foreign nations, slashed foreign aid and proposed deep cuts to the State Department, Rep. Michael Baumgartner met in Spokane Wednesday with former ambassador Ryan Crocker and retired Vice Admiral Mike LeFever to argue America should not retreat from the world stage — though largely without any pointed criticism of the White House. "America today faces a more complex set of national security challenges, I think, at any time since World War II," Baumgartner said. "There's almost no issue that happens anywhere in the world that doesn't have impacts everywhere else, so, truly, we are all connected." The freshman GOP congressman expressed concern that Americans, including those in Eastern Washington, have become increasingly detached from world affairs, such as the war in Yemen, simmering tensions between Israel and Turkey, counterterrorism operations in Syria, the likelihood of increased refugee emigration in the future and more. The invite-only panel, hosted by the international affairs-focused organization U.S. Global Leadership Coalition, drew a relatively small crowd of business, military, religious, university and political representatives. In info sheets laid out on each guest's seat, the coalition laid out Washington's dependence on international trade — $61.2 billion in exports in 2023 supporting more than 930,000 jobs — and made arguments in support of international aid that appeared tailored to try to appeal to a White House that has gutted USAID, placing nearly all of its staff on leave and terminating 85% of that agency's outstanding grant awards and 80% of its global health awards. "MYTH: All U.S. foreign assistance goes to 'woke' or progressive programs focusing on cultural issues that many partner countries don't want anyway," one pamphlet read. "FACT: The vast majority of U.S. international assistance programs strongly align with Secretary (Marco) Rubio's imperative to make America safer, stronger, and more prosperous." The coalition argues that foreign aid and civilian initiatives can buoy the country's global position alongside its military operations, encapsulated in a banner outside Wednesday's event, in which former Secretary of Defense James Mattis was quoted as saying that cutting the State Department's budget meant the military needed to buy more ammunition. LeFever strongly agreed, saying that U.S. relief efforts in Pakistan following the devastating 2005 Kashmir earthquake had boosted America's approval rating in that country to its highest ever. Crocker noted he still saw the positive impact of that operation in America's standing in that region 20 years later. Baumgartner agreed that foreign aid could be strategically beneficial to the U.S. and argued that Rubio and the White House fundamentally felt the same, but echoed the sentiment that "identity politics" in USAID's programming had burdened the office's budget and caused domestic sentiment to sour on foreign aid. "I mean, I certainly am not in favor of some of the transgender operas in Peru and this sort of thing that the previous administration has done," Baumgartner said, echoing and somewhat garbling a claim made in February by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. A $25,000 grant awarded in 2021 under the Biden administration was for a university to produce an opera that would "raise awareness and increase... transgender representation," though it was in Colombia and not issued by USAID, but by a different office in the State Department. That same office also issued a $32,000 grant to a Peruvian organization to fund a comic book that featured "an LGBTQ+ hero to address social and mental health issues." In 2024, USAID's budget was $21.7 billion. Overall, foreign spending totaled nearly $72 billion, according to the Pew Research Center. As the coalition emphasized in one of its packets, the U.S. international affairs budget accounts for roughly 1% of the federal budget. Baumgartner did praise certain USAID programs, including the 2003 "President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief," or PEPFAR, which the congressman called "the best thing America has done, from an altruistic standpoint, in the last 20 years." "And my early indications from Secretary Rubio or in the administration is that — obviously there's a lot of high-profile political stuff going on, but they fundamentally understand the need to fund assistance as well," Baumgartner said. The Trump administration's February stop-work order initially froze funding for PEPFAR programs, though the State Department did issue a limited waiver specifically for PEPFAR, allowing certain treatment programs to continue but not others, such as HIV prevention and ones for orphans and vulnerable children, according to a May report from health policy organization KFF, formerly known as the Kaiser Family Foundation. Hundreds of other HIV-related USAID grants were terminated. In one of the few critical comments of the event, Crocker argued that the White House's efforts to use Biden-era programs to justify gutting USAID was an example of the "extreme polarization that we're seeing in American politics." "The USAID, like any executive agency, is the tool of the executive," Crocker said. "That's what it exists to do, to carry out the policies of the president of the United States as resourced by Congress." "What we've now gotten ourselves into, I think, and as we look at the wholesale destruction of USAID, I think it is unfortunately the poster child for polarization," Crocker continued. "Those programs were not the creation of USAID, they were the creation of the previous administration. And I greatly fear at this juncture we are doing ourselves great institutional damage by effectively eliminating USAID, and fasten your seatbelts at the State Department; that's happening next." Baumgartner did caution against the "lure of isolationism," which he argued both parties faced. "I think everyone in this room understands that there's some ongoing political challenges for both parties on this lure of isolationism, that if we just come home, we can save money and we won't have to get trapped and everything will be fine," Baumgartner said. "And I think it's just an illegitimate viewpoint and a misunderstanding of the world." The U.S. needs more foreign alliances, not fewer, Baumgartner said — and one way to do that, he argued, is cutting red tape that slows down the sale of military equipment to foreign countries. "We sell equipment to other countries, we bind them to us," he said. "We can work with them, and we help our local economy, and people really want American military equipment." But Baumgartner lamented that "like many things in the U.S. government," the process to sell weapons overseas had become too "bureaucratic and problematic to actually implement," adding that he was working in Congress to make that process speedier.
Zawya
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Zawya
Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Receives Copies of Credentials of Mauritania, Honduras Ambassadors
HE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Sultan bin Saad Al Muraikhi received on Monday a copy of the credentials of HE Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania to the State of Qatar Mohamed Mohamed Abdullah Bebane, and HE Ambassador of the Republic of Honduras to the State of Qatar Blanca I. Zablah Bendeck. HE the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs wished the two ambassadors success in carrying out their duties, assuring them of all support to advance bilateral relations between the State of Qatar and their two countries to closer cooperation in various fields. Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of The State of Qatar.
Asharq Al-Awsat
11-05-2025
- Politics
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Saudi Foreign Minister, Lammy Discuss Latest Developments
Saudi Minister of Foreign Affairs Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah received on Saturday a phone call from Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Affairs of the United Kingdom David Lammy. During the call, the two officials reviewed bilateral relations between Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom. They also discussed the latest developments in the region and the world along with efforts to address them.
