Expert warns more military action possible against Tehran
An expert on Middle East affairs says prospects for negotiations between the US and Iran are not good, and there could be further military confrontation ahead.
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Senior Israeli official to visit US amid continued fighting in Gaza
A high-ranking Israeli official is reportedly set to visit the United States to discuss matters, including a ceasefire with Hamas, as Israel continues its assault on Gaza. Intense Israeli airstrikes on Gaza came after Israel's military issued a fresh evacuation order for residents in the north on Monday. A Palestinian media outlet reported that at least 33 people were killed in an Israeli strike on a seaside cafe in the city. Health authorities in Gaza said 56,531 people have been killed since the conflict began in October 2023. Amid a continued rise in civilian casualties, US President Donald Trump pressed both Israel and Hamas to agree to a ceasefire, writing on social media, "MAKE THE DEAL IN GAZA." Israeli media outlet Haaretz reported that Israel's strategic affairs minister Ron Dermer, a confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is set to visit Washington on Monday for talks with senior White House officials. The talks will reportedly cover ending the fighting in Gaza. According to Haaretz, a new proposal brokered by the US involves the release of hostages held in Gaza in two phases, in exchange for a 60-day ceasefire. It remains to be seen whether there will be any progress in the talks. Observers say there is still a large gap between the two sides: Israel aims for the destruction of Hamas, while Hamas wants a complete end to the conflict.
Japan Times
12 hours ago
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Japan-U.S. trade negotiations deadlocked after months of fruitless talks
Trade negotiations between Japan and the United States remain at an impasse despite months of dialogue and earlier suggestions by Japan that progress was being achieved, with some analysts forecasting a breakthrough only after duties hit the U.S. economy in the fall and force a settlement. Central to the stalemate are tariffs on automobiles. Japan wants them lowered, while the United States has said that the 25% additional duty put into place by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump is not up for discussion. It insists that the main subject of talks now are "reciprocal" tariffs set to kick in on July 9, which, if implemented, would take tariffs on most Japanese goods to 24% from the current 10%. In comments Sunday in the United States, Trump indicated that the United States is dissatisfied with the state of trade with Japan and suggested that there is little interest in retreating from the initial negotiating position. 'I'm going to send letters. That's the end of the trade deal,' Trump said in a Fox News interview. 'I could send one to Japan. 'Dear Mr. Japan, here's the story: You are going to pay a 25% tariff on your cars.' They won't take our cars, and yet we take millions and millions of their cars into the United States. It's not fair. And I explain that to Japan, and they understand it.' Ryosei Akazawa, Japan's chief tariff negotiator, declined to comment on Trump's remarks after returning to Tokyo on Monday afternoon. 'Continuing to face a 25% tariff in this area would cause serious harm and economic losses,' he said in discussing the duties on autos, while dodging questions about Japan's current demands. Trump's remarks were broadcast while Akazawa was in Washington for the seventh time since mid-April to discuss tariffs. He was engaged in the first high-level talks between the two countries since Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and Trump met in Canada earlier this month and failed to achieve any tangible results during a 30-minute discussion. Akazawa met with Commerce Secretary Howard Luntick for about 65 minutes on Friday and followed up with two 15-to-20-minute phone calls a day later. A statement by the Japanese government summarizing the discussions did not mention any concrete progress achieved during the talks. Takahide Kiuchi, executive economist at Nomura Research Institute, wrote in a Monday report that public dissatisfaction with the Trump administration is likely to grow if tariffs push up prices, and the United States might be compelled to lower the tariffs as early as this fall. 'Should that happen, ongoing bilateral tariff negotiations — including those with Japan — may effectively dissolve on their own,' Kiuchi wrote, while warning that even if the tariffs were to be lowered, a weaker dollar policy might come next as a new source of pressure for Japan. So far, prices have been relatively stable in the United States, with key inflation indicators running in the 2% range and at or near multiyear lows. 'I think we'll start seeing worse numbers from June onward,' said Masamichi Adachi, UBS Securities' chief economist for Japan. 'I think it's clear the U.S. economy is heading downward. I don't know how bad it will get or how long the weakness will last, but the direction is unmistakable — things are turning worse.' But he is skeptical about the assessment that weakness in the United States will force Trump's hand in tariff negotiations. 'That's only going to happen after the economy worsens or stock prices crash,' Adachi said. 'So I don't share the current optimism in the market — the idea that if we just wait, the U.S. will lower tariffs on its own. I really don't think it's that simple.' Japan is already feeling the effects of U.S. tariffs. Exports to the U.S. declined by 11% year-on-year in May, with automobile exports down 24.7%. In terms of volume, the decline was only 3.9%, indicating that Japanese automakers may have reduced vehicle prices to mitigate the tariff effects. 'The drag on the Japanese economy from the tariff shock will be inevitable not only through the direct impact of lower export volume, but also the indirect burden of lower profits due to lower export prices,' Adachi wrote in a report published on June 20. 'For Japan to get the U.S. to lower auto tariffs, it would need to have something that America really wants — like China's rare metals, for example. But Japan doesn't have that kind of bargaining chip,' Adachi said. 'The best-case scenario right now would be to keep the reciprocal tariff at 10% and avoid it going back up to 24%. That alone would be a win.' Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who was appointed to lead negotiations with Japan, has signaled that extensions to the July 9 deadline to Sept. 1 might be possible.
Japan Times
12 hours ago
- Japan Times
NATO leaders' price for supporting Ukraine is their self-respect
It was scripted as a lovefest with only one purpose: to prevent the most impulsive and erratic U.S. president in history from throwing NATO's toys out of his pram. No one provoked a tantrum. Last week's summit in the Hague made little pretense of discussing global strategy. It merely showcased the desperate efforts of European NATO members to increase their defense spending. It offered flattery to the U.S. guest of honor in a fashion unprecedented even during the Cold War. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte set the tone with his welcome message before U.S. President Donald Trump's arrival, congratulating the president on his "decisive action' in Iran and promising that he would be "flying into another big success in The Hague.' He even expressed sympathy for the president's public use of four-letter language. National leaders who may have wondered what life was like under a Roman emperor now know from experience. As they struggle to do business with the most powerful man on Earth, they are obliged to abase themselves, to pander, to profess assent when privately many dissent. No one in the room save the principal guest believed his claim that U.S. and Israeli bombs had set back Iran "by decades.' But they kept silent and will continue to do so, lest they provoke his wrath, so easily roused. Some Europeans oppose this posture, arguing that appeasement demeans our continent to no purpose. I disagree. Like it or not, Trump is apparently unchallenged master of the richest nation on Earth. He is being indulged by Congress and the Supreme Court in exercising dictatorial powers for making war and much else. The rest of us must parley with Trump or forfeit his indispensable support. The standout issue is Ukraine, which survives only at his pleasure. He is squeezing U.S. arms deliveries to the country, which he dislikes. He has completely suspended them once and might do so again tomorrow. The Russians are pressing the Ukrainians on the ground and intensifying bombardment of their cities. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's people are running perilously short of air-defense weapons. Their morale will suffer grievously if their armed forces lose the capability to blunt Putin's terror attacks. The Europeans can't provide Zelenskyy with what he gets from the U.S. To have a chance of forcing Putin to negotiate, Washington must intensify economic sanctions and increase weapons deliveries. Every NATO member present at The Hague understood this, recognizing that only their submission and that of Zelenskyy may sustain Ukraine's struggle unless or until Trump abandons his apparent infatuation with Russia's Vladimir Putin. On the wider issue of keeping the U.S. in NATO, most other members are showing willingness to contribute more cash and to support American strategic objectives. A British aircraft carrier has just docked in east Singapore in a swing across the Indo-Pacific, as an sign earnest of solidarity with the U.S. amid Chinese aggression. The British government announced recently that it will buy 12 U.S. F-35A strike aircraft. Rutte messaged Trump at the gathering that all NATO members have signed up to a new target of spending 5% of gross domestic product on defense by 2035. In reality, many of the allies won't even meet the earlier 3.5% target. But the Germans, Europe's most important player, will spend €62.4 billion ($72.5 billion) on the military in 2025, a critical show of intent. Chancellor Friedrich Merz also told the parliament in Berlin late last month: "We are not doing that as a favor to the U.S. and its president. We're doing this out of our own view and conviction, because Russia is actively and aggressively endangering the security and freedom of the entire Euro-Atlantic area.' I am a cynic. I don't believe that most of the NATO nations will seriously attempt to achieve the ambitious spending targets, set for a decade ahead, by which time most of the present generation of national leaders will have quit politics. A game is being played in which none of the parties is being honest. But the Europeans have an honorable purpose — to save Ukraine and to save NATO, not from the Russians but from the Americans. And so to Iran. Most of Europe, like most of the U.S., was appalled by Trump's airstrikes, which were perceived as a dance to a tune written by the deeply feared and mistrusted Israeli leader, Benjamin Netanyahu. As with Iraq in 2003, while nobody likes Iran, few people believe that the country was on the verge of producing nuclear weapons. It seems especially outrageous, to have attacked within days of telling the world that the White House would grant a two-week pause for diplomacy, before resorting to force. Moreover, the real objection to the airstrikes isn't the scale of damage to the nuclear program, which must be considerable, but to the destabilization of the region, with unknowable consequences that could well include an Iranian dash to acquire a bomb. The only people who can achieve successful and durable regime change in any country are its own citizens, as the West should have learned from our several failures to achieve this since the millennium. At The Hague, however, once again truth was subordinated to telling the U.S. president what he wanted to hear. National leaders surely had to do this, but those of us who don't hold public office, and thus aren't constrained by the demands of diplomacy, seem to have a responsibility to be frank. We need not simulate belief in Trump's constant outrageous statements and acts. I chance to have reread recently Giuseppe Lampedusa's great novel "The Leopard," about 19th-century Sicily. In it, his principal character describes the villain: "Free as he was from the shackles imposed on many other men by honesty, decency and plain good manners, he moved through the forest of life with the confidence of an elephant which advances in a straight line, rooting up trees and trampling down lairs, without even noticing the scratches of thorns and moans from the crushed.' What seems especially depressing about such events as this NATO summit and Trump's participation in it is that while others leaders may go home believing that their flattery and deceit will suffice to save the organization, Trump is perfectly capable of returning to the White House and tearing up everything NATO members think has been agreed upon. The game of stroking the president's ego must go on and on, presumably for three years and seven months. Britain has just issued an invitation to the president for a full state visit to London in September. In the past, U.S. leaders have been received here with genuine warmth and gratitude, sometimes even with love. We have always recognized how much we have owed to the greatest nation on Earth, especially during the Cold War. Now, however, it is different. Not one person, including the king and our prime minister, sincerely wants Trump in London. He has been invited solely in hopes of constraining the worst of his elephant-charges against allies, in hopes of sparing the flora and fauna around Buckingham Palace, figuratively echoing Lampedusa. Many of us feel sad that we have shrunk so far that we must make this gesture. But just as Trump has no respect for others, so the rest of us must, I suppose, sacrifice our self-respect to him. If it helps to save Ukraine, it will be worth it. Max Hastings is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. His histories include "Inferno: The World At War, 1939-1945," "Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy 1945-1975" and "Abyss: The Cuban Missile Crisis 1962."
