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First Post
3 hours ago
- Politics
- First Post
Are Trump's America and Europe heading for divorce?
While the trans-Atlantic alliance was central to US foreign and defence policies for seven decades, the United States and Europe have diverged sharply under US President Donald Trump. From geopolitics to trade, Trump's assaults on European countries risk total breakdown of trans-Atlantic ties. read more For more than seven decades, the trans-Atlantic alliance with Europe had been central to US defence and foreign policies, but that's not the case anymore. In his second term, US President Donald Trump has not just withdrawn the commitment to European security but has increasingly aligned the United States with Russia, the principal adversary of Europe. It's not just in the security domain that the United States and Europe have diverged under Trump, but it extends to tariffs, the broader geopolitics, and even domestic politics. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Here we highlight four areas of divergence that suggest the United States and Trump might be headed towards a divorce under Trump. Trump threatens to kill Nato in Europe In the run-up to the 2024 presidential election, Trump said that he would encourage Russia to invade more European countries like Ukraine if they would not do his bidding. He said that he would tell Russia to do 'whatever the hell they want' with Nato allies. Trump's disdain for Nato dates back to his first term when he repeatedly trashed allies for not spending enough on defence. As a result, at last month's Nato Summit, the allies committed to raising their defence spending to 5 per cent that Trump had asked for. But there is no guarantee that Trump would stay committed to the collective defence principle that is at the foundation of Nato. Moreover, Trump has consistently refused to commit US backstop to a European peacekeeping force in Ukraine. As a result, there are concerns that Russia could use Trump to essentially kill Nato. In the absence of US support, there are fears that European members of Nato would not respond to a Russian aggression and that would essentially mean the death of Nato and open vast swathes of Europe for Russian advance. Russia is likely to attempt such aggression against smaller Nato members that rely most on Nato's protective umbrella. If these nations fail to respond on their own or fellow Nato nations fail to mobilise militarily to their defence under the collective defence principle, Nato would be essentially dead as there would be essentially no Nato without the collective defence principle, Jamie Metzl, a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, previously told Firstpost. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD 'If Putin gets anything resembling a victory in Ukraine, what he is going to do next is to needle a Nato member, such as Lithuania, and even if Russia goes just 50 feet inside Lithuania, the country is understandably going to invoke Article 5. If Nato fails to mobilise in Lithuania's support, then the collective defence principle of Nato would be dead and Putin would have defeated Nato with just a minor incursion with perhaps a small contingent of 'little green men' that he used in Crimea,' said Metzl, who previously served in the White House National Security Council. Trump & Europe's opposite take on geopolitics For Europe, Russia is the biggest security threat. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has plunged Europe into the worst security crisis since the World War II. For Trump, however, Russia is not an adversary. He has sought a partner in Russian leader Vladimir Putin, whom he has fawned over for decades. While European leaders have pressed him for sanctions on Russia, Trump has sought a reset in political and economic ties with Russia. He has sought joint initiatives with Russia in the energy sector. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Trump has also parroted Russian propaganda and falsely blamed Nato, former US President Joe Biden, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for starting the ongoing war with Russia. The divergence is not just limited to Europe. It extends to other conflicts as well, most notably the war in the Gaza Strip. While Europe has often criticised the Israeli war in Gaza and has worked to improve the humanitarian situation in the Palestinian enclave, Trump has completely endorsed Israeli war that has killed tens of thousands of people and levelled the majority of enclave. As per Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's own assessments, civilian casualties are more than double of terrorists' in Gaza. Trump has not just completely endorsed Netanyahu's policy, but has also vowed to annex Gaza and expel all Palestinians in what amounts to ethnic cleansing. He has said he would develop Gaza into a resort town. Trump's tariff war on Europe Trump has also waged a tariff war on Ukraine, slapping 30 per cent tariffs on the European Union (EU). The EU is the largest US trading partner. EU Maros Sefcovic has said that such tariffs will make the existing trade 'almost impossible to continue'. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD 'If [the tariff] stays 30 [per cent]-plus, simply trading as we know it will not continue, with huge negative effects on both sides of the Atlantic. I will definitely do everything I can to prevent this super-negative scenario,' Sefcovic further said. Trump's regime change juggernaut Trump and his allies have been openly interfering in domestic politics of European countries. They have openly supported far-right parties in various countries and have worked against moderate parties. Trump has openly endorsed far-right, neo-Nazi party AfD in Germany. He also endorsed right-wing nationalist Karol Nawrocki in Polish presidential election. He has also put his weight behind the far-right National Rally in France. Trump's former ally, Elon Musk, has also personally endorsed AfD in Germany and vowed to oust the Labour Party in the United Kingdom and replace it with far-right Reform Party.
The Hill
4 days ago
- Politics
- The Hill
African leader says taking U.S. deportees was ‘discussed' with Trump
The president of Guinea-Bissau on Thursday said that the country would only take back its own citizens who are deported from the U.S., rejecting requests from the Trump administration to take in deported migrants whose home countries refuse them or are slow to accept them. President Umaro Sissoco Embaló, one of five West African leaders who met with Trump at the White House on Wednesday, said the president raised the issue of third countries taking in migrants but added that Trump didn't specifically ask for the African nations to agree to accept deportees. 'He talk about that, but he didn't ask us to take immigrants back in our country. Just to be clear on that,' Embaló said during an event at the Atlantic Council, in response to a question from a reporter from The Africa Report. 'If they are our citizen of Guinea-Bissau, if they are illegal here, if they want to go back to Guinea-Bissau, of course they are going back home. But if they are another citizen, why we going took them? No, our policy don't accept that.' The Wall Street Journal reported that ahead of the high-profile White House summit with African leaders, the State Department sent requests to each of the five countries to take in third-country migrants whose home countries refused or delayed accepting them. The five leaders present at the summit included the presidents of Liberia, Senegal, Mauritania, Gabon and Guinea-Bissau. At the meeting, Trump described making progress on 'the safe third country agreements.' It's not entirely clear how the administration views the policy. The U.S. and Canada have a 'safe-third-country' policy. The general definition of the term provides for a country to deport an asylum seeker to a country the person has already transited through, given that the country is deemed safe and provides adequate protection. Sitting with Trump at the lunch meeting was Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff and the main force behind Trump's deportation campaign. The Trump administration has deported approximately 200 Venezuelan's to El Salvador, and in an agreement with Panama, the U.S. has deported over 100 migrants from a variety of nations. The Wall Street Journal reported that the administration is seeking similar agreements with Libya, Rwanda, Benin, Eswatini, Moldova, Mongolia and Kosovo. Legal challenges to the deportations have failed to block the Trump administration's actions. The White House and State Department did not immediately return a request for comment. Embaló was the unofficial leader of the West African delegation and has developed a personal rapport with Trump. Embaló said he last met with Trump in Paris during the rededication of the Notre Dame Cathedral, where the president extended the visit to Washington. 'He was there also in the cathedral of Paris, of course we talk about, about Africa – it was not the first time he was inviting me' to the U.S., Embaló said. Describing his impressions of Trump, Embaló said he was straightforward in the meeting Wednesday. 'President Trump… he knows what he want, he said, 'What I give you? What you give me?' It's the win-win partnership, this is for me is important.'
Mint
07-07-2025
- Politics
- Mint
Trump and Netanyahu to meet as new Middle East tests loom
When President Trump meets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Monday, the Middle East will look far different from how it did only months ago. A region that was awash in conflict and risk seems to be ripe for diplomacy. At first glance, it appears to be a rare opportunity for Trump's brand of dealmaking. Israel and Hamas have resumed indirect talks on a cease-fire in Gaza after months of heavy Israeli military action. Iran, battered by the U.S. and Israeli strikes, is sending signals that it might be willing to resume nuclear negotiations, albeit on its own terms. And the White House is reaching out to Syria's new government, hoping for improved ties between Damascus and Israel. Trump and Netanyahu's White House meeting is partly aimed at claiming credit for these shifts and partly to discuss next moves. But the durability and scope of the diplomacy remains in question. Trump's efforts to claim the mantle of a 'president of peace," as Secretary of State Marco Rubio has called him, are likely to be tested by lingering differences with Netanyahu, the question of Palestinian statehood, a wounded Iran and the president's improvisational style. A two-month fighting pause in Gaza is critical for Trump and Netanyahu to have any hope of making eventual progress toward a prize they both seek: the normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. An even more ambitious goal of Trump's is to ease decades of animosity between the U.S. and Iran. 'On ending the war in Gaza, building on the strikes against Iran and expanding normalization, Trump and Netanyahu face a real moment of possibility," said Daniel Shapiro, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel and Pentagon official who is now at the Atlantic Council. 'Hopefully, they will seize it." But he added: 'If the Gaza war drags on after a 60-day pause, if Iran hides its highly enriched uranium and threatens to enrich it further, or if Netanyahu's political calculations stymie key decisions, the moment could pass with little to show for it." Of all the issues on their agenda, a Gaza cease-fire is the most achievable outcome. Netanyahu has repeatedly balked at calls for a permanent end to the conflict without an end to Hamas's role, but Israeli officials and Hamas's leaders have resumed indirect talks in Qatar on a possible deal. Israel's top general, Eyal Zamir, told the government that he prefers moving toward a hostage deal as further operations will threaten the lives of hostages while the benefit of further weakening Hamas is unclear, according to a person familiar with the matter. As he boarded the plane to Washington on Sunday, Netanyahu said he wouldn't relinquish his goal of seeing Hamas removed from power and disarmed even as spoke about the promise of expanding Israel's relations with Muslim-majority countries and his commitment to freeing Israeli hostages. If Netanyahu's coalition survives until the end of the month, he will likely have at least six more months guaranteed as prime minister. Israel's parliament goes on recess July 27 and won't restart until Oct. 19. Even if his coalition falls apart after the recess, there will be at least three months before any election. Resetting the region, former officials and analysts say, would require a sustained end to the fighting in Gaza that extends well beyond a 60-day respite, an objective that would require additional concessions by Hamas, new Israeli flexibility and support from Arab states in the region. Even a permanent end to the fighting in Gaza is unlikely to be sufficient to revive prospects for Israeli-Saudi diplomatic breakthrough. Saudi Arabia for years has said Israel must agree on a path toward Palestinian statehood before normalization with Israel would be possible. The Saudis will find it even harder to soften that demand after the ill-will toward Israel that the Gaza conflict has engendered in Arab countries, Israeli and Arab analysts say. Yet a large majority of Israelis now oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state, arguing it would be a reward for Hamas's attacks and would threaten Israel's security in the future. Persuading Iran to abandon its plans to enrich uranium also promises to be another uphill struggle. Arab officials are hoping U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi will meet soon on a deal that would offer Tehran a lifting of sanctions in return for nuclear restrictions aimed at closing its option to produce a weapon. Such a meeting has yet to be announced, and there has been no indication that Iranian officials are ready to give up enriching uranium and instead rely exclusively on foreign fuel supplies for the country's civil nuclear program, as Witkoff has demanded. The Pentagon said Wednesday that the U.S. military strike had set back Iran's nuclear program by one to two years. During his May trip to Saudi Arabia, Trump declared that the U.S. would avoid military intervention and nation-building efforts in the Mideast, and pursue his 'dream" that Saudi Arabia would join the Abraham Accords, the 2020 set of agreements that normalized relations between Israel and Muslim-majority countries including the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. In confining U.S. strikes to a one-and-done attack on Iran's nuclear infrastructure while eschewing regime change, Trump has largely hewed to that goal. Though it was Israel that began the strikes on Iran's nuclear infrastructure, Trump's decision to use B-2 bombers and submarine-launched cruise missiles against Iran's most fortified sites has given him additional sway with Netanyahu. But now he faces the question of how to use it. Netanyahu has emphasized that the war in Iran has created diplomatic opportunities for Israel. His statements indicate he thinks he might be able to pursue the war in Gaza and seek normalization with Saudi Arabia at the same time, an assessment at odds with most U.S. analysts. 'The question is can Israel start moving toward normalization without ending the war," said Amir Avivi, a former defense official close with the current Israeli government and security establishment. The impetus behind Trump's seemingly disparate moves, one former U.S. official said, is his determination to be known as the president who finally stabilized the Middle East. But the diplomatic openings he is now seeking to exploit depend on bringing along Netanyahu, along with Hamas and Iran. Some of Trump's initial ideas since returning to the White House have appeared improvisational and didn't get far. His February proposal that Gazans depart the strip so it might be rebuilt was a nonstarter for the strip's residents and Arab states. Other elements of his strategy lack specificity. Any longer-term solution for Gaza, many analysts say, would need to provide for some form of Palestinian governance that is an alternative to Hamas and an Arab security force, as well as reconstruction plans, most of which Trump administration officials have yet to spell out in any detail. 'Trump wants to be seen as a peacemaker but also someone who knows how to use leverage to promote deals," said Dennis Ross, who served as a senior official on Middle East issues in Republican and Democrat administrations. But he added, 'There is not an integrated strategy but Trump is taking advantage of what Israel has done militarily." Write to Michael R. Gordon at and Dov Lieber at
NBC News
04-07-2025
- Politics
- NBC News
Russia launches largest aerial attack on Ukraine's capital as pessimism grows over a Trump ceasefire
The Kremlin said Trump had raised 'the issue of an immediate ceasefire' in the call, their sixth known call since Trump returned to the White House in January, but the Russian leader said he 'will not back down.' 'Vladimir Putin stated that Russia continues to seek a political resolution to the conflict through negotiations,' Kremlin's foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said in a briefing Thursday. But the Kremlin has so far not offered concessions on its central demands that Ukraine should cede territory and give up on joining NATO. While Kyiv or the White House did not say what the call would involve, Zelenskyy is widely expected to renew his calls for more military aid and U.S. sanctions against Russia. Ukraine is still reeling from Trump's decision this week to halt some U.S. military equipment deliveries, which include the vital air defense systems. 'Without truly large-scale pressure, Russia will not change its dumb, destructive behavior,' Zelenskyy said, stressing that it 'primarily' depends on the U.S. to 'change the situation for the better.' Michael Bociurkiw, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank, said Trump's inaction, and his outright blaming of Ukraine at times, is likely seen by Putin as an invitation to press forward on the battlefield. 'Putin sees this as almost an invitation to bomb, bomb the heck out of Ukrainian cities and to grab more territory,' said Bociurkiw said in a telephone interview from the southwestern Ukrainian city of Odessa.
Malay Mail
02-07-2025
- Business
- Malay Mail
Deal or no deal: What happens with Trump's July tariff deadline?
WASHINGTON, July 3 — A week before US President Donald Trump reimposes steep tariffs on dozens of economies, including the EU and Japan, many are still scrambling to reach a deal that would protect them from the worst. The tariffs taking effect July 9 are part of a package Trump imposed in April citing a lack of 'reciprocity' in trading ties. He slapped a 10 per cent levy on most partners, with higher customised rates to kick in later in countries the United States has major trade deficits with. But these were halted until July to allow room for negotiations. Analysts expect countries will encounter one of three outcomes: They could reach a framework for an agreement; receive an extended pause on higher tariffs; or see levies surge. 'Framework' deals 'There will be a group of deals that we will land before July 9,' said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent last Friday on CNBC. Policymakers have not named countries in this group, although Bessent maintains that Washington has been focused on striking deals with about 18 key partners. 'Vietnam, India and Taiwan remain promising candidates for a deal,' Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI) vice president Wendy Cutler told AFP. Without a deal, Vietnam's 'reciprocal tariff' rises from the baseline of 10 per cent to 46 per cent, India's to 26 per cent and Taiwan's to 32 per cent. Josh Lipsky, international economics chair at the Atlantic Council, cited Indian negotiators' extension of their US trip recently in noting that it 'seems like a frontrunner.' 'Japan was in that category, but things have set back a little,' Lipsky said, referring to Trump's criticism Monday over what the president called Japan's reluctance to accept US rice exports. The deals, however, will unlikely be full-fledged trade pacts, analysts said, citing complexities in negotiating such agreements. Since April, Washington has only announced a pact with Britain and a deal to temporarily lower tit-for-tat duties with China. Extended pause Bessent has also said that countries 'negotiating in good faith' can have their tariffs remain at the 10 per cent baseline. But extensions of the pause on higher rates would depend on Trump, he added. 'With a new government, (South) Korea looks well positioned to secure an extension,' Cutler of ASPI said. Lipsky expects many countries to fall into this bucket, receiving an extended halt on higher tariffs that could last until Labour Day, which falls on September 1. Bessent earlier said that Washington could wrap up its agenda for trade deals by Labour Day, a signal that more agreements could be concluded but with talks likely to extend past July. Tariff reimposition For countries that the United States finds 'recalcitrant,' however, tariffs could spring back to the higher levels Trump previously announced, Bessent has warned. These range from 11 per cent to 50 per cent. Cutler warned that 'Japan's refusal to open its rice market, coupled with the US resistance to lowering automotive tariffs, may lead to the reimposition of Japan's 24 per cent reciprocal tariff.' Trump himself said on Monday that a trade deal was unlikely with Japan and the country could pay a tariff of '30 per cent, 35 per cent, or whatever the number is that we determine.' Lipsky believes the European Union is at risk of having tariffs snap back to steeper levels too — to the 20 per cent unveiled in April or the 50 per cent Trump more recently threatened. An area of tension could be Europe's approach to digital regulation. Trump recently said he would terminate trade talks with Canada — which is not impacted by the July 9 deadline — in retaliation for the country's digital services tax, which Ottawa eventually said it would rescind. This week, EU trade chief Maros Sefcovic is in Washington in a push to seal a trade deal, with the EU commission having received early drafts of proposals that officials are working on. — AFP
