Zelensky Fights, Khamenei Cowers
Elliot Kaufman draws a contrast between two leaders in his op-ed 'Benjamin Netanyahu vs. Qassem Soleimani' (June 23). I can't help but think of another: Volodymyr Zelensky vs. Ali Khamenei. They're fighting in different wars, to be sure, but their responses underscore the ideals of the free world vs. those of tyranny. One man bravely stayed to face his enemy. The other cowers in a bunker.
Wayne Gradman
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Yahoo
28 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Even as markets rally, Trump's policymaking causes market angst
By Suzanne McGee (Reuters) -As Wall Street puts April's tariff shakeout in the rearview mirror and indexes set record highs, investors remain wary of U.S. President Donald Trump's rapid-fire, sometimes chaotic policymaking process and see the rally as fragile. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq composite index advanced past their previous highs into uncharted territory on Friday. Yet traders and investors remain wary of what may lie ahead. Trump's April 2 reciprocal tariffs on major trading partners roiled global financial markets and put the S&P 500 on the threshold of a bear market designation when it ended down 19% from its February 19 record-high close. This week's leg up came after a U.S.-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Iran brought an end to a 12-day air battle that had sparked a jump in crude prices and raised worries of higher inflation. But a relief rally started after Trump responded to the initial tariff panic that gripped financial markets by backing away from his most draconian plans. JP Morgan Chase, in the midyear outlook published on Wednesday by its global research team, said the environment was characterized by "extreme policy uncertainty." "Nobody wants to end a week with a risk-on tilt to their portfolios," said Art Hogan, market strategist at B. Riley Wealth. "Everyone is aware that just as the market feels more certain and confident, a single wildcard policy announcement could change everything," even if it does not ignite a firestorm of the kind seen in April. Part of this wariness from institutional investors may be due to the magnitude of the 6% S&P 500 rally that followed Trump's re-election last November and culminated in the last new high posted by the index in February, said Joseph Quinlan, market strategist at Bank of America. "We were out ahead of our skis," Quinlan said. A focus on deregulation, tax cuts and corporate deals brought out the "animal spirits," he said. Then came the tariff battles. Quinlan remains upbeat on the outlook for U.S. stocks and optimistic that a new global trade system could lead to U.S. companies opening new markets and posting higher revenues and profits. But he said he is still cautious. "There will still be spikes of volatility around policy unknowns." Overall, measures of market volatility are now well below where they stood at the height of the tariff turmoil in April, with the CBOE VIX index now at 16.3, down from a 52.3 peak on April 8. UNSTABLE MARKETS "Our clients seem to have become somewhat desensitized to the headlines, but it's still an unhealthy market, with everyone aware that trading could happen based on the whims behind a bunch of" social media posts, said Jeff O'Connor, head of market structure, Americas, at Liquidnet, an institutional trading platform. Trading in the options market shows little sign of the kind of euphoria that characterized stock market rallies of the recent past. "On the institutional front, we do see a lot of hesitation in chasing the market rally," Stefano Pascale, head of U.S. equity derivatives research at Barclays, said. Unlike past episodes of sharp market selloffs, institutional investors have largely stayed away from employing bullish call options to chase the market higher, Pascale said, referring to plain options that confer the right to buy at a specified future price and date. Bid/ask spreads on many stocks are well above levels O'Connor witnessed in late 2024, while market depth - a measure of the size and number of potential orders - remains at the lowest levels he can recall in the last 20 years. "The best way to describe the markets in the last couple of months, even as they have recovered, is to say they are unstable," said Liz Ann Sonders, market strategist at Charles Schwab. She said she is concerned that the market may be reaching "another point of complacency" akin to that seen in March. "There's a possibility that we'll be primed for another downside move," Sonders addded. Mark Spindel, chief investment officer at Potomac River Capital in Washington, said he came up with the term "Snapchat presidency" to describe the whiplash effect on markets of the president's constantly changing policies on markets. "He feels more like a day trader than a long-term institutional investor," Spindel said, alluding to Trump's policy flip-flops. "One minute he's not going to negotiate, and the next he negotiates." To be sure, traders seem to view those rapid shifts in course as a positive in the current rally, signaling Trump's willingness to heed market signals. "For now, at least, stocks are willing to overlook the risks that go along with this style and lack of consistent policies, and give the administration a break as being 'market friendly'," said Steve Sosnick, market strategist at Interactive Brokers. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
35 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Final battle damage assessment of US strikes on Iran will be key in US push for Iran nuclear deal
As the Trump administration looks to quickly pivot from military strikes to a diplomatic deal on Iran's nuclear program, the final military and intelligence assessment on the recent US strikes will be critical in informing what the Trump administration needs to accomplish in future Iran negotiations. Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff will need to use that final battle damage assessment – including a detailed summary of the facilities' damage and the locale of the nuclear material – to help formulate the US strategy for diplomatic efforts to completely halt the regime's ability to develop a nuclear weapon in the future, current and former US officials explained. 'You're not going to the negotiation assuming that the other side is going to tell you everything you need to know about the state of their program,' explained Pranay Vaddi, a former senior official for nonproliferation at the National Security Council. 'We need to have a baseline that is established by the US intelligence community before that,' Vaddi added. 'If the Trump administration is committed to some kind of deal still – which it makes statements on – they need to know what they were able to get through military action, compared to what they need to get through the diplomatic process.' President Donald Trump continues to claim that Iran's nuclear program has been 'fully obliterated,' which does not mirror an early assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency, finding that the attack did not destroy the core components of the country's nuclear program. The early assessment has split lawmakers on the effectiveness of the strikes. And Trump's absolutist pronouncements could also complicate Witkoff's job, officials said. Even if the facilities themselves have been badly damaged, it does not mean that the nuclear program itself has been wholly destroyed. Prior to the US strikes, experts and former officials had expressed skepticism about the idea that the nuclear program could be militarily destroyed, noting that there would still be people with the knowledge to support it. 'The basic problem is that the equivalency between the success of the bombing and the success of ending the nuclear program is putting pressure on having this narrative that there isn't a threat,' said Beth Sanner, former deputy director for national intelligence. 'If you think that you've eliminated the nuclear program then you are not dealing with the fact that there is some residual of that program.' And while the final battle damage assessment will be important to take into account, future negotiations with Iran should prioritize getting the UN's nuclear watchdog back on the ground in Iran, said former officials who worked on previous Iran negotiations. 'I don't know that there will be any assessment that I think is fully viable until there are inspectors on the ground,' said a former senior US official who worked on past Iran negotiations. 'We must recreate the kind of intrusive verification and monitoring that was in the 2015 deal.' The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had a presence in Iran before the 2015 nuclear deal signed during the Obama administration – a deal which Trump pulled the US out of during his first term – but the presence of IAEA inspectors in the country drastically increased as a result of that deal. 'The deal meant there were inspectors on the ground 24/7, there was electronic monitoring, there was a process by which – that didn't exist anywhere else in the world – that if there was intelligence about a suspected site, if Iran, over a period of some days, couldn't satisfy the IAEA that there was a reason the IAEA could go and inspect,' the official explained, citing some benefits of the IAEA inspection efforts. But this week the Iranian parliament this week suspended its work with the IAEA, because of the 'regrettable role' played by the agency's chief Rafael Grossi, Iran's foreign minister said. Iran accused Grossi of facilitating the US and Israeli strikes in Iran, citing an IAEA report a day prior to the Israeli strike, which declared Iran was violating its nuclear non-proliferation obligations. This move follows years of Iran making moves to restrict the agency's oversight of it's program. For example, in 2022 Iran responded by removing surveillance cameras from key sites after IAEA censured Iran over uranium particles found at the undeclared sites. The steps that would need to be taken as part of any verifiable deal on Iran's nuclear program would likely include: destroying elements of the program that still exist, monitoring any further activity, blending highly enriched uranium, and declaring parts of the program that are in use. In order to prepare to take those steps, inspectors on the ground would be essential, former officials pressed. 'I think it's been a long time since the US intelligence assessments have been accepted globally as authoritative when it comes to Iran's nuclear program. They would certainly be challenged by Iran. In order to have a successful negotiation everybody needs to at least agree on the source of facts,' said Laura Holgate, the former US Ambassador to the United Nations International Organizations in Vienna. 'The IAEA will be needed to develop a new baseline of what exactly Iran has, where it is, and what its condition is in, and that's going to take time, and it will be based on Iran's cooperation,' Holgate added. With the IAEA access being diminished over the years and virtually nonexistent at this moment, the world now has large gaps in its knowledge of Iran's nuclear inventory. That is particularly true when it comes to the locale of Iran's enriched uranium. Trump administration officials have said in recent days that the stockpile was not moved ahead of the US strikes but the IAEA said Iran may have moved some of the enriched uranium out of the sites before they were attacked. Vice President JD Vance said the day after the strikes that working on what to do about that fuel would be a priority for the US. 'We're going to work in the coming weeks to ensure that we do something with that fuel. And that's one of the things that we're going to have conversations with the Iranians about,' Vance said. Republican Rep. Michael McCaul, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, cited the importance of having 'a full accounting' following an all-member classified briefing on Capitol Hill earlier this week. 'There is enriched uranium in the facilities that moves around, but that was not the intent or the mission,' McCaul said. 'We need a full accounting. That's why Iran has to come to the table directly with us, so the IAEA can account for every ounce of enriched uranium that's there, I don't think it's going out of the country, I think it's at the facilities.' The final US military 'battle damage assessment could take days or even weeks to complete,' multiple sources familiar with the Pentagon's process told CNN. CIA Director John Ratcliffe on Wednesday said the agency underscored that a broad intelligence community effort is ongoing to determine the impact of the US strikes on three of the country's nuclear sites on Saturday. The Trump administration was already working on possible terms to offer Iran to bring them back to the able for nuclear deal talks before the US military strikes occurred. But if they are able to pull Iran back to the table, they will have to then enter into much more technical talks to put a legitimate and verifiable deal into place. 'I think that you want to strike while the iron is hot, to try and get them to the table while they're feeling weak,' Sanner said. 'One of the key requirements for the negotiation is setting mechanisms for cataloging Iran's residual capabilities in order to have that conversation and ultimately a deal that is worth the paper it is written on.'
Fox News
42 minutes ago
- Fox News
Trump's NATO Turnaround: From threatening to pull US out to 'daddy' of the alliance
President Donald Trump delivered a resounding endorsement of NATO this week, marking a sharp turnaround in his years-long, often contentious relationship with the alliance. Once known for blasting allies over defense spending and even threatening to pull out of NATO altogether, Trump now appears to have had a change of heart. "I left here differently. I left here saying that these people really love their countries," Trump said after the 2025 NATO summit in The Hague. The pivot comes as NATO nations more than doubled their collective defense spending target – raising the bar from 2% to 5% of GDP. The president's renewed embrace of the alliance follows years of friction, high-profile clashes with world leaders and controversial comments. Yet at this year's summit, the tone was strikingly different. Trump was welcomed by Dutch royals, praised by the NATO secretary-general – who even referred to him as "daddy" – and returned home lauding European allies for their patriotism. "It's not a rip-off, and we're here to help them," Trump told reporters. The transformation is as dramatic as it is unexpected. Trump arrived at the NATO summit on a high note, following U.S. strikes that crippled Iran's nuclear infrastructure. According to American and allied intelligence sources, the operation set back Tehran's nuclear ambitions by several years. The strike was widely seen as both a show of strength and a strategic warning – not just to Iran but to NATO adversaries like Russia and China. "He really came in from this power move," said Giedrimas Jeglinskas, a former NATO official and current chairman of Lithuania's national security committee. "Among some, definitely Eastern Europe, Central Europe, Nordic Europe, this attack, the use of those really sophisticated weapons and bombers, was the rebuilding of the deterrence narrative of the West, not just of America." Trump repeatedly called NATO "obsolete," questioning its relevance and slamming allies for failing to pay their "fair share." "It's costing us too much money... We're paying disproportionately. It's too much," he said in March 2016. He criticized NATO for lacking focus on terrorism, later taking credit when it created a chief intelligence post. Trump softened his tone after becoming president. "We strongly support NATO," he said after visiting Central Command. "We only ask that all members make their full and proper financial contribution." He continued to push for members to meet the 2% target by 2024. Trump privately threatened to pull the U.S. from NATO unless allies increased spending. "Now we are in World War III protecting a country that wasn't paying its bills," he warned. Despite the posturing, he called NATO a "fine-tuned machine" after extracting new spending commitments. He also accused Germany of being a "captive of Russia" over the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. The drama continued, this time with French President Emmanuel Macron calling NATO "brain-dead." "NATO serves a great purpose. I think that's very insulting," Trump responded. He also clashed with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau – calling him "two-faced" after Trudeau was caught mocking Trump on camera. Trump ordered 12,000 U.S. troops out of Germany, citing Berlin's defense shortfalls. Trump ignited backlash after suggesting he'd let Russia "do whatever the hell they want" to NATO countries that failed to meet spending obligations. The remark sparked urgent contingency talks among European leaders about the future of the alliance if the U.S. did not step up to its defense. The 2025 summit in The Hague unfolded with surprising calm. Trump's hosts rolled out the red carpet. "He's the man of the hour and the most important man in the world," Jeglinskas said. Jeglinskas credited Trump's blunt diplomacy – however unorthodox – for helping drive real reform "He's brought in tectonic change to the alliance's capabilities by... being himself," he added. "It's a gift for the alliance." Experts agree NATO's recent revitalization stems from two major catalysts: Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine and Trump's relentless pressure on allies to boost defense. "President Trump is riding high this week with two major foreign policy victories," said Matthew Kroenig, vice president at the Atlantic Council's Scowcroft Center, referencing NATO and the recent U.S. strikes on Iran's nuclear program. "It's terrific. I hope he can keep it up." He added, "Every president since Eisenhower has complained that NATO allies aren't doing their fair share." Now, Trump was the one who finally got them to listen, he said.
