Douglas Macgregor: Trump's Lack of Strategic Focus & Failure to End the Ukraine War (clip24.04.2025)
Douglas Macgregor: Trump's Lack of Strategic Focus & Failure to End the Ukraine War (clip24.04.2025)
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Qatar Tribune
5 hours ago
- Qatar Tribune
Investors shift focus to Europe amid US trade war uncertainty
Agencies Peter Roessner is feeling both sides of U.S. President Donald Trump's shaky trade war. While tariff risks mean the CEO of Luxembourg-based hydrogen firm H2Apex can no longer rely on U.S. suppliers for its more than 200-million-euro ($235-million) project in Lubmin, Germany, investor interest in European projects is rising. 'Investors in the hydrogen sector are now focusing more on the European market due to the absolute uncertainty and planning insecurity in the USA,' he told Reuters, adding this included both local and U.S. players. 'The framework conditions in Europe are not ideal, but they are stable.' Roessner's comments are indicative of a trend that has taken hold in recent months: Investors and companies are increasingly turning to Europe, drawn by an infrastructure- and defense-led spending push that offers stability at a time when Trump's erratic tariff policies have made the U.S. market a less safe bet, according to more than a dozen interviews with executives and fund managers. The shift has also been fueled by Trump's tendency to make sweeping tariff threats and announcements that are then often delayed or revised, and to issue executive orders that have tested the limits of his presidential power. 'The U.S. is coming from a very capital market-friendly and stable environment. Now there is political intervention and also an attempt to expand power,' said Christoph Witzke, who heads the CIO office at Deka, one of Germany's largest investment funds. 'This creates uncertainty that some kind of intervention ... could come at any time,' he said, adding that Europe had become the center of attention in the most recent investor conferences as a result. With a July 9 deadline for a trade deal less than two weeks away – and Trump saying he will impose 50% tariffs on all EU goods without a deal – investors have started shifting their money. Data from LSEG's Lipper Funds show that more than $100 billion has flowed into European equity funds so far this year – up threefold from the same period last year – while outflows from the U.S. more than doubled to nearly $87 billion. 'All that is an indication that at least market forces, investors, those who move real money around, actually see value and have confidence in Europe,' ECB President Christine Lagarde said earlier this month. This shift in focus was also illustrated by the weak market debut of Holcim's North American spin-off, Amrize, in late June. Amrize was announced to much fanfare in early 2024, at a time when the lure of U.S. valuations also excited some of its rivals. In contrast, the share price of Holcim itself, now squarely focused on Europe, Latin America and North Africa, soared 15%. Siemens Energy, which makes more than a fifth of its sales in the U.S., has noted a shift in sentiment, finance chief Maria Ferraro said, on the back of a recent U.S. road show and an 84% rise in the group's share price year-to-date. Apart from the improved market outlook, additional investments are also crucial in efforts to revive the EU's economy and narrow its competitiveness gap compared to other regions, most notably China and the United States. Closely watched foreign direct investment flows into Germany, the bloc's largest economy, more than doubled to 46 billion euros in the first four months of 2025, according to the most recent data from the Bundesbank, marking the highest level since 2022. It also shows that German companies even withdrew money from the U.S. in three of the first four months of the year, with their balance of foreign direct investments in April at a negative 2.38 billion euros. Negative balances emerge when companies either divest more than they invest in a foreign country or decide against extending credit lines to local counterparts. But the picture is not all rosy, with several investors pointing out that Europe is now under pressure to act faster, create better regulation and make good on its spending pledges.'This sentiment can quickly turn again. This should be both a warning and an incentive to use the momentum now and consistently implement the planned agenda,' said Stefan Wintels, head of German state-backed lender KfW. This chimes with comments from Hajo Kroesche, a partner at private equity firm Altor, who said, 'The window of opportunity will not stay open forever' for Europe to attract capital. Having recently traveled to Qatar, Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia, Deutsche Bank CEO Christian Sewing last week said investor interest in Europe and Germany was huge, while still cautioning that conditions needed to be stable in the long term. 'These are not people who invest within two days. But of course, they see what is happening in the world right now.'
Qatar Tribune
5 hours ago
- Qatar Tribune
US Senate begins nail-biting vote on Trump spending bill
Agencies US senators began voting Monday on Donald Trump's flagship spending bill, as the deeply divisive package — expected to slash social programs for the poor and add an eye-watering $3 trillion to the national debt — entered its frenetic home stretch. Trump wants what he calls the 'One Big Beautiful Bill' to extend his expiring first-term tax cuts at a cost of $4.5 trillion to the budget, boost military spending and fund his plans for unprecedented mass deportations and border security. Yet even as the process reaches its climax, Republican meeting rooms are still reverberating with bitter rows over the deep cuts to welfare programs planned to offset the bill's massive costs. Senators eyeing 2026 midterm congressional elections are divided over savings that would strip some $1 trillion in subsidized health care from millions of the poorest Americans and add more than $3.3 trillion to the nation's already yawning budget deficit over a decade. Trump wants to have the package on his desk by the time Independence Day festivities begin on Friday. 'ONE GREAT BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL, is moving along nicely!' he posted on his Truth Social platform late Sunday. Given Trump's iron grip on the party, he is expected to get what he wants in the Senate where Republicans hold a razor-tight majority, while Democrats will overwhelmingly vote no. It will be a huge win for the Republican leader — who has been criticized for imposing many of his priorities through executive orders that sidestep the scrutiny of Congress. But the vote on final passage will still be a nail-biter and can only take place after a marathon series of attempted amendments. Known as a 'vote-a-rama,' the session allows senators to offer unlimited tweaks to the 940-page text for floor votes, meaning the process can extend well beyond 12 hours. Even then, the Senate bill will have to pass a separate vote in the House of Representatives, where Republicans also have a narrow majority. Trump's heavy pressure to declare victory has put more vulnerable Republicans in a difficult position. Nonpartisan studies have concluded that the bill would ultimately pave the way for a historic redistribution of wealth from the poorest 10 percent of Americans to the richest. And cuts to the Medicaid program — which helps low-income Americans get coverage in a country with notoriously expensive medical insurance — and cuts to the Affordable Care Act would result in nearly 12 million more uninsured people by 2034, independent analysis shows. Polls show the bill is among the most unpopular ever considered across multiple demographic, age and income groups. Senate Democrats are expected to focus their amendments on highlighting the threats to health care, as well as cuts to federal food aid programs and clean energy tax credits. Senate Majority Leader John Thune can only lose one more vote with conservative Rand Paul and moderate Thom Tillis already on the record as Republican rebels. Tillis, who has announced his retirement and no longer has to worry about reelection in 2026, delivered two fiery floor speeches Sunday slamming the phase-outs of clean energy tax credits and accusing Republicans of 'betraying' Trump's promise not to touch Medicaid. A House vote on the Senate bill could come as early as Wednesday. However, Republicans there face an equally tight vote-count, with ultra-conservative fiscal hawks complaining that the bill would not cut enough spending and moderates worried at the defunding of Medicaid. World's richest person and former top Trump advisor Elon Musk — who fell out with the president over the bill — said the Senate text was 'utterly insane' for seeking to gut government subsidies for clean energy. 'It gives handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future,' said Musk, who is the world's richest person, and heads electric vehicle company Tesla and space flight firm SpaceX, among others.
Al Jazeera
11 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Why is Ukraine withdrawing from the Ottawa Treaty banning landmines?
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has announced his country might soon quit the Ottawa Treaty banning antipersonnel landmines amid his country's war with Russia. 'Russia has never been a party to this convention and uses antipersonnel mines with extreme cynicism,' he said on Sunday. This was not a mere rhetorical flourish. In August 2023, Russian soldiers booby-trapped the bodies of their fallen comrades as they retreated to kill the Ukrainian sappers who discovered them. Ukraine needs to even the battlefield, Zelenskyy said, because 'antipersonnel mines … very often have no alternative as a tool for defence.' What is the special role of antipersonnel landmines? Why are they banned in many countries? Why is Ukraine leaving the treaty now, and what will that allow it to do in its own defence? What is the Ottawa Treaty? The Ottawa Treaty of December 1997 is formally known as the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction. The treaty has been ratified by more than 160 countries and is part of the body of international law enshrined in the United Nations. As its name suggests, it aims to abolish landmines. Major powers like China, Russia and the United States have never signed it although the US did agree to stop stockpiling antipersonnel landmines under President Barack Obama, a move reversed by his successor Donald Trump. The rationale behind banning landmines is that they are indiscriminate killers. 'Landmines distinguish themselves because once they have been sown, once the soldier walks away from the weapon, the landmine cannot tell the difference between a soldier or a civilian – a woman, a child,' said Jody Williams, who coordinated the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which led to the Ottawa Treaty. 'While the use of the weapon might be militarily justifiable during the day of the battle, … once peace is declared, the landmine does not recognise that peace,' Williams said when she accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997. 'The war ends. The landmine goes on killing.' They are not the first weapons to be banned. Chemical agents were banned after World War I in the Geneva Convention of 1925 because the use of chlorine gas by the Germans had led to devastatingly painful injuries. Zelenskyy has accused Russia of violating the ban on chemical weapons use as well, a charge Moscow has rejected. How will leaving the Ottawa Treaty help Ukraine defend itself? The treaty prohibits the use, production and stockpiling of antipersonnel landmines. Ukraine, which ratified the treaty in 2005, has already returned to their use. In November, the US supplied Ukraine with landmines. At the time, this was because of a drop in Russian use of mechanised armour and an increase in the use of foot soldiers. 'They don't lead with their mechanised forces any more. They lead with dismounted forces who are able to close in and do things to kind of pave the way for mechanised forces,' then-US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said, explaining the decision. 'So that's what the Ukrainians are seeing right now. And they have a need for things that can help slow down that effort on the part of the Russians.' Leaving the treaty will allow Ukraine to produce and stockpile landmines. The move points towards a scaled-up and more permanent use. The effectiveness of landmines became apparent in June 2023 when Ukraine launched a counteroffensive intended to take back swaths of Russian-occupied territory. The counteroffensive failed largely because Russian defenders had dug themselves into trenches but also because they had planted minefields that went on for several kilometres before their positions. Russian Major General Ivan Popov, commander of the 58th Combined Arms Army of the Southern Military District, said Russian minefields played a 'very important role' in defeating the initial Ukrainian advance. NATO's then-Military Committee chief, Dutch Admiral Rob Bauer, confirmed that mines had been a major obstacle. By July, Ukraine had abandoned efforts to punch mechanised columns through Russian defences and focused on wearing Russian defenders down over time. Why is Ukraine leaving the Ottawa Treaty now? Ukraine's move comes amid a spate of departures from the treaty. Poland and the Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – announced in March that they would leave the treaty, saying the security situation in the region has 'fundamentally deteriorated'. Finland followed the following month to 'prepare for the changes in the security environment in a more versatile way'. All share a border with Russia or with Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave wedged between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic Sea. 'There is a bunch of countries that are already going out from the Ottawa agreement on using these kinds of landmines. It's normal,' said Victoria Vdovychenko, a defence expert at Cambridge University's Centre for Geopolitics. 'It means that these countries are prioritising their national security and they are prioritising that it can be used in the context of potential warfare,' she told Al Jazeera. Keir Giles, a Eurasia expert at the think tank Chatham House, told Al Jazeera these countries being a party to the Ottawa Treaty was a way of proving their political credentials to join Western clubs, such as NATO and the European Union. 'They had to sign up to prove membership of the club,' he said, 'and so were reluctant to do anything which didn't have them as the most forward-leading, liberal, progressive members of that club.' 'Anybody that wanted to sign up to doing what seemed right in the eyes of the global liberal elite would have done things like this whether or not it made long-term strategic sense,' Giles said, 'persuaded, of course, by NATO that they wanted to focus on expeditionary operations and Russia would never be a problem again.' The timing of the Eastern European countries' departure is related to threat assessments shared by NATO countries. NATO's Bauer said in January 2024 that NATO needed to prepare for war with Russia and NATO members were living in 'an era in which anything can happen at any time, an era in which we need to expect the unexpected, an era in which we need to focus on effectiveness'. At the same time, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said a Russian attack on Germany was no longer ruled out. 'Our experts expect a period of five to eight years in which this could be possible,' he said. Since then, other eastern NATO members have said Russia poses a threat to their security. Another element to the timing is the intensified Russian use of combined drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian cities, particularly Kharkiv, Kyiv and Odesa. That implied that Russia may be preparing to drive the ground war towards parts of Ukraine that are currently far from the front lines, Vdovychenko said. 'We are not talking about the front lines. We are talking actually about [rear] areas and even the residential areas of Ukraine, so not so-called red line cities or communities but actually yellow cities and communities, which means slightly farther from the red line zones,' she told Al Jazeera. In recent months, Ukraine has also faced several renewed Russian attempts to open new fronts in its northern regions of Kharkiv and Sumy.
