Fed up with Putin, Trump offers Ukraine arms and tariffs
A FTER HIS first post-election call with Vladimir Putin in February, Donald Trump gushed about the 'great benefits' of a rapprochement with Russia and seemed to relish the prospect of visiting the Kremlin. On July 14th he lost patience, announcing that America would resume supplies of Patriot air-defence missiles and other weapons, and threatening secondary tariffs of 100% on countries doing business with Russia if there was no peace deal within 50 days. 'We're very unhappy with Russia,' Mr Trump declared.
Heat, drone attacks and recruitment drives are shrinking harvests
Building walls, one brick at a time
The NATO member is reconsidering its defences in the age of Trump
The idea of renting prisons may be catching on
Christian Stocker hopes competence will restore the centre-right's popularity
Apart from Poland, central Europe's Visegrad Four face a slowdown
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The Independent
24 minutes ago
- The Independent
Whitmer says 'massive economic uncertainty' is to blame on semiconductor project failure in Michigan
Plans to build a semiconductor manufacturing plant in Michigan have fallen through and Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said Wednesday that 'massive economic uncertainty' is to blame. Bringing the company to Michigan was a key goal for Whitmer, a Democrat and potential 2028 presidential candidate who is in her final years as governor of the battleground state. Domestic manufacturing is a priority of President Donald Trump 's second administration and the president has leveraged tariffs as a way to incentivize companies to build and stay in America. While Whitmer did not mention Trump by name in her remarks, she pointed the finger at his tariffs that have shaken up the economy periodically this year. 'Their board came to this decision amid national economic turmoil, which is at risk of worsening amid threats of even higher tariffs,' Whitmer said in a statement. Whitmer did not name the company but state records show California-based technology firm Sandisk Corp. was considering the sprawling 1,300-acre site near the city of Flint and forecasted 9,400 jobs and 5,000 construction jobs as a result. Sandisk declined to comment on Wednesday. The news quickly set off dueling political statements from Republicans and Democrats in the state. The Trump administration is using tariffs and other tactics to bring manufacturing in critical areas like semiconductors back to the U.S., White House spokesperson Kush Desai said in a statement in response to Whitmer's remarks. Desai pointed to new semiconductor development in Texas and Arizona this year as wins garnered by the Trump administration in the chips and technology industry. Other Democrats were quick to attribute the loss in Michigan to Trump's economic policies Wednesday. 'Trump's abandonment of long-term investments and chaotic tariff practices are not only raising costs, they just killed 10,000 good-paying jobs,' U.S. Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet, a Democrat who represents the area, said in a statement. 'This could have been a game-changer for mid-Michigan's economy.' Michigan House of Representatives Speaker Matt Hall, a Republican, said he supports Trump's strategy of relying on tariffs and incentives in the tax and spending bill to bring manufacturing development to America, not overseas. 'We simply need state leaders who are focused on making sure Michigan is the best possible place to build and grow,' he said. Sandisk, known for making flash drives and memory cards, was looking to break ground on the project in 2025, according to documents provided by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation. Michigan offered Sandisk $1.925 billion in cash grants, $250 million in workforce development funding and about $3.76 billion in tax breaks, according to documents dated to August 2024. Congress passed the CHIPS and Science Act incentivizing technology development about halfway through former President Joe Biden 's term. Even as Trump and Republican lawmakers have since threatened to put an end to the act, the Department of Commerce was collaborating with Sandisk on securing federal incentives through the package. Whitmer in her statement said that the company is no longer looking to build a semiconductor facility anywhere in the U.S. In a speech in May, Whitmer said she had been advocating with the Trump administration directly to help bring a chip plant to the state.
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
‘Surprised' Trump appears to forget he appointed Powell as Fed chair before blaming Biden for keeping him on
Donald Trump appeared not to recall having been the president who first appointed Federal Reserve Board of Governors Chair Jerome Powell to the position he has held since 2018 — the second year of Trump's first term. Trump, who has been flirting with the notion of firing the central bank boss over his failure to cut interest rates, was speaking during an Oval Office press opportunity alongside the Crown Prince and Prime Minister of Bahrain when he was asked whether he was seriously considering the move, as has been reported. He replied with a derisive set of remarks in which he assailed Powell for not pushing the central bank's board to cut interest rates, citing the European Central Bank's multiple rate cuts in recent months, and accusing Powell of only having assented to cuts during last year's election to benefit the Democratic candidate, former vice president Kamala Harris and calling him 'a terrible Fed chair' before expressing surprise that he had been named to the position in the first place. 'I was surprised he was appointed,' Trump said. In his next breath, the 79-year-old president possibly remembered that he was the one who nominated Powell to the job as a successor to Janet Yellen during his first term, and added that he had been surprised by Powell's re-appointment to a second term by his successor and predecessor, President Joe Biden. 'I was surprised, frankly, that Biden put him in and extended him,' he said. The president's apparent gaffe came just one day after he delivered a rambling speech in Pittsburgh in which he claimed that his uncle, a noted physicist who helped develop radar systems during World War II, taught notorious terrorist Theodore Kaczynski at MIT, despite none of it having actually happened. During his meandering remarks at Carnegie Mellon University, Trump invoked his late paternal uncle, Dr. John Trump, who he often describes as the 'longest-serving professor' to ever teach at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, even though the noted physicist did not achieve that distinction despite teaching there for 37 years as a professor and another 12 as a senior lecturer after mandatory retirement. John Trump died in 1985. President Trump called the late Dr. Trump, a pioneer in cancer research who was awarded the National Medal of Science by President Ronald Reagan in 1983, a 'smart man,' citing his multiple scientific degrees, and claimed that one of his students was Kaczynski, a mathematics professor who became widely known as the Unabomber when he was arrested in 1996 for a decades-long string of letter bomb attacks on figures in higher education and other industries. 'Kaczynski was one of his students. Do you know who Kaczynski was? There's very little difference between a madman and a genius,' he said. Trump then claimed to have asked his uncle about the murderous ex-academic. 'What kind of a student was he Uncle John? He said: 'What kind of a student — seriously, good ... he'd go around correcting everybody. But it didn't work out too well for him. Didn't work out too well, but it's interesting in life,' Trump said. The crowd did not show much of a reaction to the story, and it was unclear if the president was confusing Kaczynski, who died in a federal prison in 2023, with someone else. But it's highly unlikely if not impossible that any of what he said about his uncle and the notorious murderer was true. Not only did Kaczynski — whose undergraduate degree was from Harvard and earned his Masters and Doctoral degrees in mathematics from the University of Michigan — never attend MIT, but even if the president's uncle had crossed paths with the future terrorist, he could not have known that Kaczynski had been responsible for 16 bomb attacks between 1971 and 1995. The University of California at Berkeley professor turned murderous recluse was one of the country's most wanted fugitives until 1996, when his brother David Kaczynski, turned him in to the FBI after reading the now-infamous manifesto, Industrial Society and its Future, after The Washington Post published it at the recommendation of then-Attorney General Janet Reno and FBI Director Louis Freeh.
NBC News
an hour ago
- NBC News
Trump can't get his base to move on from Epstein: From the Politics Desk
Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, an evening newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team's latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail. In today's edition, President Donald Trump struggles to turn the page on the Jeffrey Epstein saga while a politically vulnerable senator in Texas appeals to him for an endorsement. Plus, Andrea Mitchell files a dispatch from the Aspen Security Forum. — Adam Wollner Trump struggles to convince MAGA world to move on from the Epstein files By Matt Dixon and Henry J. Gomez President Donald Trump can't get his MAGA supporters to end their obsession with the Jeffrey Epstein files. And now he's taking out his frustration on them. In a blistering post on Truth Social, Trump continued to push his backers to stop talking about an issue that has driven what appears to be one of the most significant rifts between him and the political movement he built. '[M]y PAST supporters have bought into this 'bulls---' hook, line, and sinker,' he said in the post, adding, 'Let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats work, don't even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success, because I don't want their support anymore!' Trump's message Wednesday was a significant escalation, reflecting that his supporters aren't all following his lead and adopting his messaging as they usually do. It's also left MAGA-aligned media at a loss for what to do, torn between much of the base that continues to call for more documents related to Epstein, the late financier and convicted sex offender, and Trump, who insists they should drop the issue. 'This is a major problem and could hurt turnout in the midterms,' a Republican strategist familiar with Trump's political operation said. 'It signals betrayal to those who believed the president would expose the deep state. His team made promises, then doubled down.' On Capitol Hill: A growing number of Republicans are calling for the release of the Epstein files. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said he found it 'a little difficult to believe, the idea that the DOJ and the FBI who prosecuted cases relating to this don't have any idea who Epstein's clients were.' 'My view is make public, everything you can make public,' he told NBC News. Democrats are continuing to attempt to drive a wedge between Republicans on the issue. As Julie Tsirkin reports, Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., is trying to force a vote on a resolution calling on the Justice Department to release its files related to the Epstein probe. Sen. John Cornyn appeals to Trump as he faces primary headwinds in Texas By Bridget Bowman, Ben Kamisar, Olympia Sonnier, Melanie Zanona and Julie Tsirkin Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, is making his case for the White House to get involved as he tries to fend off a primary challenge from state Attorney General Ken Paxton. But, so far, President Donald Trump is staying on the sidelines. 'I've talked to him about it a number of times. He is not ready to make that endorsement,' Cornyn told NBC News. 'I think as we start advertising and closing the gap in the polls, hopefully he'll see fit to make that endorsement, but we can't wait.' 'I pointed out to him, and he knows this, that if he endorsed me, the race would be over,' Cornyn later added. Some Republicans are concerned that Paxton — a conservative firebrand with no shortage of personal controversies, including some that led to an impeachment push by a number of fellow Republicans in 2023 — could be a problematic general election candidate who would force national Republicans to spend millions to defend the longtime red seat. Behind the scenes: The race came up at a White House meeting last week between Trump; Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D.; staffers with the super PAC Senate Leadership Fund; and other former Trump campaign staffers. A source with knowledge of the meeting said the group agreed that Cornyn and allies need to focus over the summer on improving the incumbent's poll numbers. Paxton's team has also been in touch with the White House political team and sharing polling data, according to a source close to his campaign. The polls: In public surveys, the University of Texas at Tyler found Paxton leading Cornyn by 10 percentage points, 44%-34%, while Texas Southern University found Paxton leading by 9, 43%-34%. Both polls found about a quarter of voters undecided. The money: New campaign finance reports show that Paxton raised $2.9 million from April through June and had $2.5 million in the bank. Meanwhile, Cornyn's campaign raised $804,000 and ended the quarter with $5.9 million on hand, while his joint fundraising committee raised $3.1 million and had $2.7 million on hand. The Cornyn campaign's haul marked its second-worst quarter over the senator's past two election cycles on the ballot (2020 and 2014). Bottom line: This is far from the first time Cornyn has faced issues on his right flank. His most recent challenge came in 2014, when he won 59% of the GOP primary vote. But it may be the most dangerous moment of his Senate career. The impacts of Trump's retreat from the global stage Analysis by Andrea Mitchell At the annual Aspen Security Forum today — listening and learning from U.S. and foreign experts on the Middle East, space defense, energy policy and international trade and aid, among other topics — there is an unprecedented absence of current administration officials. They were invited and only Pentagon officials accepted before canceling at the last minute. Former U.S. Ambassador to China and NATO Nicholas Burns, currently co-chair of the Aspen Strategy Group, lamented the decision. Burns, who began his career as a National Security Council officer under President George H.W. Bush, pointed out that the conference has always been a nonpartisan gathering for the exchange of ideas, and he hopes they will return next year. The national political divide is being felt profoundly by deep cuts at the State Department and other government agencies, some of which Congress is formalizing with a rescissions package lawmakers are advancing. At Foggy Bottom, there were plenty of tears as veteran diplomats' and civil servants' badges were revoked and they turned in their laptops and phones. The climate office to negotiate current and future global agreements was eliminated. The State Department said it was being streamlined to make it more efficient and relevant. Among those also cut: senior intelligence analysts on Russia and Ukraine, hardly irrelevant. The relatively small State Department intelligence bureau — numbering a few hundred — was one of the only agencies dissenting against the false conclusion that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction before the U.S. launched the war in Iraq. And those fired included the East Asia analysts who had just prepared briefing papers on the global competition against China's aggression in the South China Sea for Secretary of State Marco Rubio's trip to the ASEAN summit last week, a top policy priority for the White House. Occasionally, President Donald Trump may discover having experts around can save him from embarrassing moments. One example is last week's luncheon with visiting African leaders, when he praised Liberia's president for his command of the English language and asked, 'Where did you learn to speak so beautifully? Were you educated? Where?' Briefers would have told him Liberia was settled by Americans in 1847 and is an English-speaking country. But the NSC — which had an admittedly bloated 300 staffers — now has approximately 50 staffers.
