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New York Post
4 days ago
- Automotive
- New York Post
Trump has momentum heading into Aug. 1 ‘reciprocal tariff' deadline after Asian trade deals, experts say
WASHINGTON — President Trump has 'leveraged American bargaining power' with three Asian nations this week — and given himself momentum ahead of the looming Aug. 1 deadline for most 'reciprocal tariffs,' experts predict. Trump secured Japan's agreement to pay a 15% tariff on exports to the US while making $550 billion in new investments in America in what he called a 'signing bonus' — while Indonesia and the Philippines said they would accept 19% tariffs on their goods while applying 0% tariffs on US products. 'I was a little bit surprised by the extent to which the US, at least at this stage of the game, has succeeded in striking what seems to me to be quite a hard bargain,' said Pravin Krishna, an economist at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. 3 Experts say President Trump has 'leveraged American bargaining power' with Japan, Indonesia and the Philippines this week — and given himself momentum ahead of the looming Aug. 1 deadline for most 'reciprocal tariffs.' AFP via Getty Images Robert Lawrence, an international trade professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, agreed, saying he was also left stunned that Trump roped in a large Japanese investment in addition to the tariff terms — likening it to his successful demand for a 'golden' US stake in this year's Nippon-US Steel merger deal. 'He's a wheeler-dealer, our president, needless to say, and he's kind of cutting these deals — but he has scared these people, and he's leveraged American bargaining power,' Lawrence said. 'The next one on the block is [South] Korea… for the Koreans, the auto issue is just about as important as for the Japanese.' Wilbur Ross, who served as Trump's commerce secretary during his first term and at one point expressed concern about administration emissaries potentially over-playing their hand, hailed Trump's trio of Asian deals. 'It's very important that people realize why he yoked the three together and announced them at the same time, and I think that's largely to send a message to China that their hope that his tough trade policy would somehow drive the Asian countries to China is simply incorrect,' Ross explained. 'I think the second importance of it is it puts tremendous pressure on the EU to make a deal because they have a great danger of being relatively isolated and relatively stuck with a worse deal.' Trump traveled to Scotland Friday and will meet with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen over the weekend to discuss averting a threatened 50% tariff. 3 President Trump secured a trade agreement with Japan to pay a 15% tariff on exports, while Indonesia and the Philippines will pay 19% tariffs on their goods, with US products not being tariffed. The president previously announced deals with Vietnam, which agreed to a 20% tariff — or 40% on items sourced in China — while breaking down barriers to US imports, as well as a UK deal that features a 10% tariffs — with British steel and car exports also paying 10% rather than Trump's much higher sectoral tariffs, in exchange for promises to open UK markets to American ethanol, beef and chicken. China, meanwhile, brokered a cease-fire with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent — with the US applying a 30% rate on Chinese goods and China applying a 10% rate on American imports. Meanwhile, the impact of Trump's tariffs — which also include 50% on foreign steel and aluminum and 25% on foreign cars — have been slighter than anticipated thus far on inflation, with the annual increase in consumer prices 2.7% in June. 'The same 'experts' that were loudly spewing doomsday predictions are now quietly looking at their portfolios and planning their early retirement or vacation home purchases,' said Arthur Schwartz, a Republican operative with close ties to the administration. Major challenges remain on the horizon for Trump, however, and academics remain divided on the merits of higher tariffs now padding federal coffers. Krishna, the Hopkins economist, said questions remain about whether the Asian nations that just agreed to steep terms are able to ratify them politically due to the fact that Trump seems to have secured such lopsided terms. He also said that India — initially expected to be one of the first nations to ink a trade deal — faces notable trade-talk road bumps due to the potentially devastating effects on poor farmers who comprise about 45% of the labor force. 'It's a very sensitive sector for India. The Modi government itself, a few years ago, tried some reasonably market-oriented reforms in the agricultural sector.. and they were unable to push that through,' he said. 'That is an extremely challenging thing for the Indian government to manage politically,' Krishna said. 'You're talking about survival-level incomes for a large number of farmers. And to mess with that would be, again, politically challenging and even morally questionable from an Indian standpoint. 3 The US is currently charging China a 30% tariff rate on Chinese goods, while they are charging a 10% rate on American imports. AP Keep up with today's most important news Stay up on the very latest with Evening Update. Thanks for signing up! Enter your email address Please provide a valid email address. By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Never miss a story. Check out more newsletters 'It really is a question of how much of a change the US wants in terms of reduction of protectionism and so on, and how much India's willing to give up,' he added. It's also unclear how talks with China will end — with the temporary deal set to expire in mid-August, though it may be extended. 'There's a real question whether we will make a deal with [China],' Ross said. 'It's hard for me to imagine that they're going to make very big concessions, and meanwhile, we're collecting very high tariffs. So it's not so clear to me that there's a big, compelling motive for President Trump to make a deal.' China also may be politically constrained by an upcoming Communist Party congress next month and a housing crash that has sapped the nation economically, Ross noted. Lawrence, of Harvard, said that the disruption of Trump's trade wars remains worrying for certain US industries — with carmakers General Motors and Stellantis reporting quarterly income slumps this week — and that he's skeptical of an ensuing boom in US manufacturing employment. 'I personally think it's damaging our economy … We have to be competitive to make sales abroad, not to bludgeon people through threats of tariffs. That's not the way you win friends, and it's also not the way you retain customers,' he said. But Lawrence noted that Trump's delays in implementing 'reciprocal' tariffs initially announced on April 2 likely make them more palatable for the American public and less stinging on their budgets. 'By dragging out the process, it's kind of like the famous boiling of the frog who doesn't quite notice it. [If the] net effect of these tariffs would be to raise the consumer price index by one percentage point or even two, that would be a huge increase, right? But if I told you it was take place over a couple of years, it is going to work out to half a point, or less a fraction each month. Are you going to notice it itself?' he said. 'From the standpoint of, 'How do you want to distribute the shocks?' I think… whether it's negotiating strategy or it's dithering or it's intuition, it actually serves to cushion the blow.'
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Business Standard
20-06-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
What Happens if Trump Decides to Strike Iran or Assassinate Its Leader?
If President Trump decides to send American bombers to help Israel destroy an underground uranium enrichment facility in Iran, it will likely kick off a more dangerous phase in the war. And if the United States assassinates Iran's supreme leader, as Trump hinted was possible, there are no guarantees he will be replaced by a friendlier leader. Iran's autocratic clerical leadership, which has ruled for nearly half a century since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, has proved its staying power, even in the face of multiple domestic uprisings. Demolishing Fordo, the enrichment site buried deep in a mountain, may not obliterate Iran's nuclear program and could lead the country to broaden the war or accelerate that program. Here are some ways it could play out if the United States enters the war. Iran could negotiate Before Israel launched a surprise attack on Iran's nuclear program and other targets last week, Iran and the United States were discussing limits on Iran's uranium enrichment program. It was rapidly producing fuel close to the levels needed for nuclear weapons, and in exchange for new limits on the program, Iran would win relief from economic sanctions. The two sides were nowhere near a final agreement, but signs of a possible compromise had emerged by early June. When Israel attacked Iran, the negotiations collapsed. Yet Iran has signaled that it remains willing to talk, and even a strike on Fordo would not necessarily wipe out prospects of a return to the negotiating table. If the Trump administration follows an attack on Iran with an enticing offer, such as large-scale sanctions relief or peace guarantees, there is still a chance that Iran would consider making concessions, said Vali Nasr, an Iran expert and a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. 'Is there an offer on the table that the Iranian people in this moment can actually rally around?' he said. 'If it's only a stick, then they're going to fight.' So far, Trump has not extended many carrots. He called in a social media post on Tuesday for Iran's 'UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER.' Iran may lean into nuclear activity All eyes are on Fordo. But it is possible that Iran has secret nuclear sites aimed at producing weapons that the United States and Israel do not know about, though no public evidence has emerged of such places. If they do exist, Iran could use whatever it has left to try to accelerate its nuclear program in the wake an American attack. With the damage Israeli airstrikes have done to nuclear facilities and the killings of top nuclear scientists, Iran probably lacks the capacity to build a nuclear weapon quickly, analysts said. Still, it could move in that direction and would have fresh incentive to do so. 'You would begin to see that broader escalation that they've held back on,' said Sanam Vakil, the director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at Chatham House. After all, Iran would have few other options left for deterring future attacks, she added. Iran's Parliament has publicly discussed a withdrawal from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The treaty, of which Israel is not a signatory, currently requires Iran to submit to oversight by the International Atomic Energy Agency and other transparency obligations and to commit to not building a nuclear bomb. So far, the government has reiterated its longstanding insistence that Iran's nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes. But Iran has firmly refused to capitulate to a central American demand that it give up uranium enrichment, saying it has the right to a civilian nuclear program. The war could get bigger and messier Over the past week, Iran has avoided striking American troops or other targets that could pull the United States into the war. Its leaders may still be hoping to make a deal with the Trump administration to end the conflict and wary of taking on the US military on top of Israel's. Though Iran has responded to Israeli attacks with missiles and threats of its own, it has refrained from hitting American troops or bases in the Middle East. It has also not struck Arab countries allied with the United States, such as Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates. Nor has it sent global oil prices soaring by sealing off or harassing traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital oil shipping channel to Iran's south. But at least one Iranian official has warned that Iran could do so if the United States enters the war. And Iran's allied militias in the region, including the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon and armed groups in Iraq, have not joined the fight. Many of them have been seriously weakened over the past two years. But those Iranian allies could still join the fray if the Trump administration decides to strike. If the United States tries to force Iran to capitulate, 'Iran will keep hitting until the end of the missile capabilities,' said Ellie Geranmayeh, an Iran expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations. Talk of regime change Trump said on social media this week that the United States is weighing whether to kill Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but had decided 'not for now.' Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said in a Fox News interview this week that changing Iran's regime 'could certainly be the result' of this war. Even if the United States assassinates Khamenei, however, the religious-military establishment that has tightly held power in Iran for nearly five decades may not fall. With a war raging, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the most powerful branch of Iran's military, could seize control of the country, said Nasr, the professor. They might put in place a more Western-friendly government, or, more likely, replace Khamenei with a more extreme figure who would dig in for a long fight, Nasr added. If the military does not assert itself quickly, some analysts fear that Iran could plunge into chaos or civil war as different factions struggle for control. But they see little chance for Iran's liberal opposition, which has been weakened and brutally repressed by the regime, to prevail. Iran's people could rise up again Netanyahu encouraged the Iranian people last week to capitalize on Israel's attacks on their government and 'rise up' against their 'evil and oppressive regime.' Iranians have staged mass protests against clerical rule several times in recent history, most recently with the 'Women, Life, Freedom' demonstrations of late 2022. Each time, the opposition has faced a harsh crackdown by government security forces. Some Iranians so despise the clerical leaders that they have at times looked to Israel as an ally and openly hoped for the United States to install new leadership. Some Iranian opponents of the regime cheered Israel's initial attacks on Iran, which they saw as more evidence of their government's incompetence and mismanagement. But the growing death toll, the attacks on civilian infrastructure and the panic gripping Iranian cities are hardening many in the country against Israel. Iranian social media platforms have been full of patriotic posts in recent days, expressing unity against foreign intervention, if not exactly support for the regime.
Boston Globe
18-06-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
‘Regime change'? Questions about Israel's Iran goal pressure Trump.
Advertisement That could leave Trump trying to avoid entanglement in the sort of conflict he has spent years portraying as the definition of insanity. Israeli officials say their attacks are an urgent response to Iran's advances in its nuclear program. But there are growing signs that their aims are expanding. During an interview on Fox News on Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel was asked whether regime change was an explicit goal. 'It could certainly be the result, because Iran is very weak,' he said. He added that 'the decision to act, to rise up, at this time, is the decision of the Iranian people.' But Netanyahu has also appealed to Iran's population — which has risen in protest many times in recent years, only to be brutally repressed — to do just that. 'The time has come for you to unite around your flag and your historic legacy by standing up for your freedom from an evil and oppressive regime,' he said last week. Advertisement In a Monday interview with ABC News, Netanyahu also said that Israel might choose to 'end the conflict' by killing Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. 'This is the name of the game,' said Vali Nasr, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. 'It's not how successful Israel is in taking out Fordo,' the Iranian nuclear facility buried deep in a mountain. 'It is now measured by how successful they can be in taking out the Iranian state.' Nasr noted that Israel has been striking targets with no direct connection to Iran's nuclear program, including a Monday attack on the headquarters of Iran's state broadcasting network. 'They are trying to take away the coherence of the state — not only to conduct the war, but to function,' he said. Trump has so far limited America's known role to the defense of Israel. But in a post on Truth Social on Tuesday, he suggested a willingness to eliminate Khamenei, saying 'we know exactly where' he is hiding. 'We are not going to take him out,' he wrote, adding: 'At least not for now.' And the president associated himself with Israel's war effort, writing in a separate post: 'We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran,' with the support of US military hardware. (Despite Trump's use of 'we,' the United States is not flying missions over Iran, US officials say.) Advertisement A full collapse of the Iranian state, meanwhile, would create new risks — including the need to secure Iran's nuclear material — that would greatly increase the prospects of US involvement in the conflict. Israel's primary goal may be the destruction of Iran's nuclear program, said Michael Makovsky, president and chief executive of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, which has backed military action against Iran. Makovsky added, however, based on his conversations with senior political and military officials there, that Israel has always known that such a campaign could also have broader political consequences. 'They've hoped that, because the regime was so weak, military action could lead to the people bringing down the regime,' he said. Iran's leadership may share that assessment. In April, The New York Times reported that Khamenei agreed to nuclear talks with Trump this year only after top Iranian officials warned him that failure to negotiate could lead to attacks by Israel or the United States. That, they said, could threaten the survival of their government. Even some supporters of using force to seek a change in Iran's government are careful to avoid the catchphrase that was used often during the Iraq War and subsequent Western interventions in the Middle East. They include the 2011 NATO air campaign in Libya that overthrew dictator Moammar Gadhafi but triggered years of chaos and civil war. Trump himself has tried to engineer the fall of at least one foreign government, the leftist dictatorship of Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro, which he choked with economic sanctions in his first term. But he never described his policy as regime change. 'I use the term 'regime collapse,' versus 'change,'' Makovsky said, 'because the term 'regime change' is toxic in Washington. Everyone thinks about 2003.' Advertisement In March of that year, President George W. Bush invaded Iraq and deposed its strongman, Saddam Hussein. The ensuing effort to install a friendly democratic government in Baghdad cost thousands of American lives and hundreds of billions of dollars, and to many, discredited US interventionism. The key distinction, Makovsky said, is that a regime collapse strategy does not presume to remake Iran's government. 'My view is that we shouldn't do that. But our objective should be to pressure the regime every way possible so that the Iranian people bring it down.' For now, Trump has kept some distance from Israel's war. But his supporters are divided on his approach, with some accusing Trump of betraying his principles. On Monday, two of Trump's most prominent supporters, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and former Trump White House aide Steve Bannon vented their frustration on a radio show hosted by Bannon. 'The point of this is regime change,' Carlson insisted, arguing that Trump was being led by Israel into what could become a 'world war.' 'I don't want the United States involved in another Middle East war,' he added. Bannon agreed, citing Netanyahu's comments on Fox and saying, 'This is a total regime change.' 'This thing has not been thought through,' he added. 'It does not have the support of the American people.'
Boston Globe
14-06-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
How the Israel-Iran conflict could spiral into more turmoil
Both men appeared to be gambling. In Netanyahu's case, that Israel's barrage of attacks would fatally damage Iran's nuclear program and decapitate its military leadership. And in Trump's case, that the assault would weaken Iran and force it into a diplomatic accommodation with the United States without spiraling into unintended, potentially catastrophic consequences. For other world leaders, including Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain and President Emmanuel Macron of France, those consequences loomed large. They urged restraint, warning of ripple effects in a region that has been at war on multiple fronts, from the Gaza Strip to the Israeli offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon and the attacks of the Houthi rebels on shipping in the Persian Gulf. Advertisement Israel's audacious attack will almost certainly torpedo Trump's attempts to broker a deal curbing Iran's nuclear ambitions. His implication that the Israeli attack could be a lever to soften up the Iranian leadership for diplomacy seemed far-fetched in the wake of images of burning apartment towers in Iran's capital, Tehran. Advertisement Oil prices spiked and stock markets skidded as the prospect of a wider war rattled a world already buffeted by Trump's zigzag course on tariffs. What loomed above all was the uncertainty about what comes next. Among the many questions after the strikes: Will Israel be able to cripple Iran's nuclear program, especially Fordo, one of the most critical uranium enrichment facilities, buried deep in the side of a mountain? Israeli fighter jets struck the site early Saturday, Iranian authorities told the International Atomic Energy Agency. Will the strikes impel Iran to make a dash for a nuclear bomb, presuming it still has the capacity after the attacks on sites and the killing of Iranian scientists? Experts warn that Iran could withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which in turn could set off a regional nuclear arms race. (Israel is not a signatory to the treaty and has never confirmed it possesses nuclear weapons.) Will the United States be dragged into the conflict beyond what it has done to defend Israel from Iran's retaliation? If it is, will that expose U.S. troops and assets in the region to attacks by Iran or its proxies? The United States has moved diplomatic personnel out of vulnerable locations like Iraq. Will the United States be able to prevent the conflict from metastasizing into a regionwide war? If it does spiral, how would that affect the calculus of Russia with its war in Ukraine and China with its designs on Taiwan? Both could exploit a United States preoccupied by another quagmire in the Middle East. Advertisement 'Trump may have calculated that this was a bargaining move,' said Vali R. Nasr, a former dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. 'But it is a big gamble. If the U.S. gets dragged into a war, the entire geopolitical map -- from Paris to Moscow to Washington to Beijing -- will change.' Nasr, who served in the State Department during the Obama administration, said Trump's immediate challenge would be to prevent such an escalation. While Starmer, Macron and other leaders have urged restraint, the U.S. president is the only figure who can play a decisive role. To do that, Nasr said, Trump will have to put pressure not only on Iran, but on Netanyahu, who has left no doubt that he views these strikes as the opening salvo in a sustained operation to extinguish Iran's nuclear threat. A regionwide war, Nasr said, would upend Trump's foreign policy agenda, which is tilted toward trade policy and economic competition with China. During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump presented himself as a peacemaker in Ukraine and the Middle East -- goals that now look more elusive than ever. 'Trump came into office saying the big geopolitical challenge was the rivalry with China,' Nasr said. 'He's being sucked into a conflict he didn't want on an issue that is third or fourth on his list of priorities.' Oil prices soared more than 10% after news of the attacks broke. A wider war would deal a blow to global growth, generating another source of uncertainty at a time when Trump's erratic course on tariffs has disrupted trade flows between the United States and dozens of trading partners. Advertisement Persuading Israel not to strike Iran's nuclear facilities had been an article of faith among U.S. officials dating back more than a decade. Fears of an attack crested during the Obama administration because of Netanyahu's outspoken opposition to the nuclear deal negotiated by President Barack Obama. But the success of Israel's more targeted strikes against Iran in recent months -- as well as their limited spillover in the region -- quelled the anxiety of U.S. officials that an Israeli attack would have calamitous consequences. Some analysts warned that Israel's all-out assault could badly tarnish the credibility of the United States. Unlike a few years ago, when Persian Gulf countries tacitly favored an Israeli strike on Iran, viewing it as a strategic enemy, Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states lobbied against Israeli military action this time. 'The U.S. now faces a reality where basically the entire region views its closest ally, Israel, as the primary destabilizing force and driver of radicalization in the region,' said Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator who now runs the U.S./Middle East Project, a research group in London and New York. Moreover, he said, the timing of the attack, just days before the next scheduled round of negotiations between Iranian officials and Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, in Oman, raises the risk that other countries will regard U.S. diplomacy as merely a distraction intended to give Israeli warplanes a greater element of surprise. (Iran has said it will not take part in the talks.) If that hardens into conventional wisdom, Levy said, it could encourage other countries to act preemptively in parts of the world that are not in a state of conflict, but where they fear a similarly disruptive United States. Advertisement For Iran, the stakes are no less profound. Israel's waves of aerial attacks, augmented by Israeli intelligence agents operating inside Iran, have exposed, again, the glaring weaknesses in Iran's defenses. 'Iran has a weak hand to play, compared to one year ago,' said Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow and expert on Iran at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think tank in Washington. With Israel having decimated Hamas and Hezbollah, the Iranians would have to rely on Houthi proxies to carry out reprisals against Israel or the United States. And the Houthis themselves have been targeted by the Americans. Iran's choices are all bad, Sadjadpour said. If it attacks oil installations in Saudi Arabia, it risks U.S. military retaliation. If it announces plans to race for a bomb, it faces retaliation from Israel, as well as from the United States, which has long said it would not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapons ability. 'Compounding Iran's vulnerabilities,' he said, 'its key military leaders and strategists who would prepare their retaliation have already been assassinated.' This article originally appeared in
Indian Express
11-05-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
End the bloodbath now!:Trump demands Ukraine meet Putin in Istanbul
US President Donald Trump Sunday urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin for direct negotiations in Istanbul this Thursday, in what could be a pivotal moment in the push to end the war. Writing on Truth Social, Trump said, 'President Putin of Russia doesn't want to have a Cease Fire Agreement with Ukraine, but rather wants to meet on Thursday, in Turkey, to negotiate a possible end to the BLOODBATH. Ukraine should agree to this, IMMEDIATELY.' 'At least they will be able to determine whether or not a deal is possible, and if it is not, European leaders, and the US, will know where everything stands, and can proceed accordingly! I'm starting to doubt that Ukraine will make a deal with Putin, who's too busy celebrating the Victory of World War ll, which could not have been won [not even close!] without the United States of America. HAVE THE MEETING, NOW!!!' he said. Putin has proposed holding direct talks 'without preconditions' on May 15 in Istanbul, saying the aim is to reach 'lasting peace' and to 'eliminate the root causes' of the conflict, now entering its third year. While Zelenskyy welcomed the shift in tone from Moscow, he emphasised that any negotiations must begin with a ceasefire. The Kremlin, however, appears reluctant to commit to a ceasefire before talks. Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin is committed to finding a peaceful resolution but warned that military operations would continue in the absence of serious diplomatic engagement. Peskov accused Kyiv of avoiding negotiations and downplayed the notion of Western-backed peacekeepers, calling it unacceptable. He described Putin's offer for direct talks as 'very serious', aimed at addressing 'the root causes of the conflict,' and insisted it 'confirms a real intention to find a peaceful solution.' For months, Ukraine and its allies have argued that any Russian offer must first be tested through a genuine ceasefire. They've tried to persuade the Trump administration that Moscow's peace overtures are often used as delay tactics or diplomatic cover while the war grinds on. But with Putin's early-morning televised address on Sunday announcing the May 15 meeting, analysts believe Russia is trying to flip the narrative, and the pressure, back onto Kyiv. 'Putin's proposal puts the ball in Ukraine's court,' said Sergey Radchenko, a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Speaking to CNN, Radchenko warned that Zelenskyy could face mounting pressure to accept the invitation. 'Why? Because otherwise, he'll have to deal with Trump, who's going to say, 'Why are you undermining my peace initiative here? Why can't you just talk?,'' Radchenko said. So far, there's no indication that Ukraine will shift its position: ceasefire first, then negotiations. But with Monday's ceasefire deadline looming, and Trump publicly staking his peace credentials on the Istanbul meeting, Zelenskyy may soon face one of the war's most delicate diplomatic choices.
