Donald Trump confirms ‘unusual' UK visit after King Charles' invitation
This will be Mr Trump's first visit in his renewed presidency, as second-term presidents are not traditionally invited to return for a state visit.
The timing is notable as the president will not be able to address the Houses of Parliament due to their break, avoiding potential political backlash from anti-Trump UK politicians, causing controversy in British media.
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Sky News AU
19 minutes ago
- Sky News AU
Donald Trump vows 'billions of dollars' in weapons for Ukraine, 100 per cent 'secondary tariffs' on Russia if no peace in 50 days
President Trump announced Monday the US will send 'billions of dollars' worth of weapons to Ukraine via Washington's NATO allies — and threatened to impose 'secondary tariffs' on Moscow's business partners in 50 days if no peace is agreed to end the 40-month-old war. The weapons will include 'everything,' Trump said during his meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office — though the president did not immediately reveal specifics. The White House also did not provide additional information on the specific weapons sent over to Europe. When asked whether 'Patriot missiles' — officially known as Guided Mulitple Launch Rocket Systems — or 'Patriot batteries' would be sent to Ukraine, the president responded: 'It is all of them. It is a full complement.' 'We will have some within days,' Trump continued. 'A couple of countries that have Patriots will swap over, or replace the Patriots with the ones they have.' 'NATO may choose to have certain of them sent to other countries where we can get a little additional speed, where the country will release something, and it'll be mostly in the form of a replacement,' he added. Later Monday, ahead of a White House faith luncheon, the 79-year-old Trump reiterated that there will be 'weapons of all kinds' sent across the Atlantic, with other members of the alliance paying for them by raising their defense spending to 5% of GDP over the next decade. 'We are going to be sending them weapons and they're going to be paying for them,' Trump said, with Rutte agreeing that European countries should be 'stepping up' and paying for the American-made materiel. 'This is really big,' Rutte, 58, said of the announcement, lauding Trump's leadership in supplying Kyiv with much-needed munitions. 'It will mean that Ukraine can get its hands on really massive numbers of military equipment, both for air defense, but also missiles, ammunition, etc., etc.,' the NATO secretary general and former Dutch prime minister added. Though Trump used the phrase 'secondary tariffs' during his meeting with Rutte, pledging that 'they'll be at 100%,' Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick later clarified that the president meant to announce secondary sanctions on Russia's trading partners. Secondary sanctions are meant to punish individuals or entities who do business with a country. Should those sanctions take effect on Sept. 2, 50 days from Monday, they are meant to put more pressure on Moscow — which has already been hit with direct sanctions — by deterring further business and isolating Russia's economy. A White House official told The Post that 'Russia will face severe sanctions and tariffs if they do not sign a cease-fire deal in 50 days,' without providing more details on the secondary sanctions or weapons. Trump has been hesitant to impose heavy sanctions on Russia, but has grown more frustrated in recent months with a lack of willingness by Russian President Vladimir Putin to get to a peace deal with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. 'I'm disappointed in President Putin, because I thought we would have had a deal two months ago, but it doesn't seem to get there,' Trump told reporters. 'I speak to him a lot about getting this thing done, and I always hang up and say, 'Well, that was a nice phone call.' And then missiles are launched into Kyiv or some other city. And I said, 'Strange.' And after that happens three or four times, you say the talk doesn't mean anything,' he continued. 'My conversations with him are always very pleasant. They say, 'Isn't that good? Very lovely conversation.' And then the missiles go off that night. I go home, I tell the first lady [Melania Trump], 'I spoke with Vladimir today. We had a wonderful conversation.' She said, 'Oh, really? Another city was just hit.' 'So, it's like — look, he's, I don't want to say he's an assassin, but he's a tough guy. He's been proven over the years. He's fooled a lot of people. He fooled [George W.] Bush. He fooled a lot of people, [Bill] Clinton, Bush, [Barack] Obama, [Joe] Biden, he didn't fool me, but what I do say is that at a certain point, you know, ultimately, talk doesn't talk. It's got to be action. It's got to be results.' Zelensky revealed Monday afternoon on X that he and Trump had spoken by phone to discuss the US president's announcement, with the Ukrainian calling it a 'very good conversation.' 'We discussed the necessary means and solutions with the President to provide better protection for people from Russian attacks and to strengthen our positions,' the Ukrainian president wrote on X. 'We are ready to work as productively as possible to achieve peace.' Additional reporting by Caitlin Doornbos in Kyiv. Originally published as Donald Trump vows 'billions of dollars' in weapons for Ukraine, 100 per cent 'secondary tariffs' on Russia if no peace in 50 days
The Age
an hour ago
- The Age
Trump wants Europe to surrender to him
It will take years before their commitments to increase their own defence spending might wean them off their reliance on the US for protection from an aggressively expansionist Russia. However, with Trump also announcing at the weekend that he is considering raising the baseline tariff rate to 15 to 20 per cent, they have to take his threat of a 30 per cent tariff – and additional tariffs to match any retaliatory measures they might take – seriously. Trump appears impatient that he hasn't delivered the '90 deals in 90 days' the administration boasted it would deliver, let alone the 200 deals he once said were virtually done. He's also been boosted by the successful passage through Congress of his One Big Beautiful Bill Act and by the buoyancy of US financial markets, which have rebounded from their sell-offs in April, when Trump first unveiled his 'reciprocal' tariffs. In April, he deferred imposition of the tariffs until July (and subsequently deferred them again until next month) because the bond market was 'getting a little queasy.' Now markets have settled, with the sharemarket posting record highs. That may be because investors don't believe he will follow through with the reciprocal tariffs he has threatened – the 'Trump Always Chickens Out' or TACO trade – or because any ill effects from tariffs, most notably increased inflation, have yet to show up in economic data. Loading No one, including Trump himself, it seems, knows what he might post next on his Truth Social, so markets are behaving as if nothing has happened until something actually happens. August 1 – the new deadline for his reciprocal tariffs – could be a wake-up moment for markets. The apparent complacency in markets, in the meantime, is encouraging Trump to be more aggressive and more impatient. There is a risk that, rather than heed, as he has until now, the urgings of calmer voices in his cabinet to negotiate deals, he will follow his personal preference and unilaterally present trade partners with 'take it or leave it' ultimatums. While the EU still appears to believe that Trump's latest threat is a negotiating ploy, they have prepared countermeasures in case it isn't. The EU had drawn up a list of US exports that it could target in response to the baseline tariff and the sectoral tariffs on steel, aluminium and autos, covering about €21 billion ($37 billion) of US exports. Items on that list included chicken, motorcycles and clothing. It has another list, targeting another €72 billion of products, ranging from aircraft to alcohol, with which it could respond to Trump's reciprocal tariffs. It also has what it calls its 'anti-coercion instrument,' or actions that could hit the trade in services, although it is reluctant to deploy that instrument, which it devised in response to a deluge of cheap imports from China. The total trade between the US and EU is worth about $US1 trillion ($1.5 trillion), with the EU enjoying a trade surplus in goods of $US235 billion, but a trade deficit in services of about $US75 billion. The EU, in its negotiations with the US, had sought exemptions from Trump's tariffs for key sectors, such as aircraft and alcohol, in exchange for a promise to buy more US goods, particularly weapons and LNG, that would narrow the US goods trade deficit. Von der Leyen said on Saturday that the EU was ready to continue negotiating but prepared to consider retaliation. Imposing 30 per cent tariffs on EU exports would disrupt essential transatlantic supply chains, harming businesses and consumers on both sides of the Atlantic, she said. The dilemma for the EU is that Trump's view of its non-tariff policies and trade barriers includes its value-added tax and its regulation of digital activity to protect competition and consumers. No nation state – or, in the EU's case, collection of 27 nation states – would surrender its sovereignty and allow Trump to dictate its domestic policy settings. Having seen what Trump has done to Brazil, threatening a 50 per cent tariff rate in response to unfair trade barriers (even though the US has a trade surplus with Brazil) and its trial of former president Jair Bolsonaro – an enthusiastic Trump supporter – for allegedly plotting a coup, the EU would be conscious of the risk that Trump's demands may not be confined to its goods trade. The potential for a trade confrontation is, therefore, quite significant. The EU will have to decide whether it should roll over and accede to Trump's demands, damaging its industries and the sovereignty of its states. Alternatively, it could emulate China and allow the confrontation to escalate to the point where it threatens a trade embargo, which would, as China's tot-for-tat tariffs did, scare the bejesus out of financial market participants and unnerve the White House. Loading Trump's indiscriminate threats of trade sanctions against America's friends and foes alike have ignited a scramble by the EU and others to secure new markets. There is potential for a new trading bloc, spanning Europe, the non-Chinese Asia Pacific and Latin America, to emerge. Trump and much of his hand-picked cabinet are protectionists and isolationists. At the conclusion of his trade wars on everyone, if much of the rest of the world decides to trade freely among themselves, he might get what he wished for.
Sky News AU
an hour ago
- Sky News AU
Dept of Justice defends bringing case against Ghislaine Maxwell - as AG Pam Bondi faces MAGA firestorm over Epstein files
The Justice Department on Monday defended prosecuting Jeffrey Epstein's madam Ghislaine Maxwell — as US Attorney General Pam Bondi faces a brewing firestorm over files related to the notorious pedophile. The disgraced British socialite was wrong to claim that she was protected by the baffling sweetheart plea deal Epstein struck with the Florida feds in 2007, DOJ lawyers argued. 'That contention is incorrect,' the feds wrote in a legal filing. Maxwell, 63, has asked the US Supreme Court to toss her 2021 conviction for grooming and abusing young women based on that claim. A Manhattan federal jury found the heiress guilty of helping deceased jet-setting financier Epstein — her boss and off-and-on lover — run a sex-trafficking ring of underage girls. Epstein was found dead with a noose around his neck in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 while facing federal charges. Bondi earlier this year suggested in an appearance on Fox News that a stack of newsworthy Epstein files was 'sitting on my desk' and that she planned to release the documents to the public. But the AG last week abruptly changed course, saying that the government would not be releasing the records after all — drawing criticism from across the political spectrum, including from MAGA influencers who had previously supported President Trump. Trump has publicly defended Bondi, and thumbed his nose at those demanding more transparency about the Epstein case. 'Are people still talking about this guy, this creep? That is unbelievable,' the irked president said after The Post asked him about the notoriously headline-grabbing case during a Cabinet meeting last week. In a TruthSocial missive over the weekend, Trump wrote: 'Let's… not waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about.' 'LET PAM BONDI DO HER JOB — SHE'S GREAT!' the president added in all caps. Maxwell, meanwhile, has been cooling her heels in a Florida prison where she's serving a 20-year sentence. Her lawyers have urged the Supreme Court to consider their argument — already rejected by a mid-level federal appeals court — that her bombshell prosecution should have been blocked under the feds' 2007 deal with Epstein. The shocking agreement allowed the convicted predator to serve just 13 months in a county jail where he could come and go during the day, despite several underage victims testifying he raped them. The deal mentioned not bringing future cases against either Epstein or his 'coconspirators,' but prosecutors at the Southern District of New York have successfully argued that the agreement was only binding to Florida federal prosecutors, and not to others around the country. With the 2nd Circuit of Appeals having already rejected Maxwell's appeal, only the Supreme Court is left to potentially review the case. 'I'd be surprised if President Trump knew his lawyers were asking the Supreme Court to let the government break a deal. He's the ultimate dealmaker—and I'm sure he'd agree that when the United States gives its word, it should keep it,' Maxwell's lawyer, David Oscar Markus, told The Post Monday. 'With all the talk about who's being prosecuted and who isn't, it's especially unfair that Ghislaine Maxwell remains in prison based on a promise the government made and broke,' the attorney said. Maxwell was portrayed during her trial as a 'sophisticated predator' who served as Epstein's right hand and abused young girls with him from at least 1994 to 2004. Originally published as Dept of Justice defends bringing case against Ghislaine Maxwell - as AG Pam Bondi faces MAGA firestorm over Epstein files
