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European leaders may have rushed to Washington ostensibly to throw a protective arm around President Zelensky and head off any repeat of February's Oval Office bust-up. But their real aim is to stop US President Donald Trump threatening long-term European security after his abrupt change of course over how best to end the war in Ukraine. Not only did Trump drop calls for a ceasefire as a prerequisite for talks about long-term peace, he also - diplomats say - made clear he had no intention of imposing further economic sanctions on Russia. In short, the travelling European heads of government...

Sir Keir Starmer will speak to western allies on Sunday ahead of Volodymyr Zelensky’s White House meeting with Donald Trump. The Prime Minister, France’s Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Friedrich Merz will host the meeting of the coalition of the willing on Sunday afternoon. The coalition, made up of 30-plus nations, is prepared to deter Russian aggression by putting troops on the ground in Ukraine once the war is over. The meeting, which is expected to take place at approximately 2pm UK time, comes on the heels of US President Mr Trump’s summit in Alaska with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

President Trump’s sharp criticism of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday is sending chills across Europe, where leaders are working to guard against the worst-case scenario: Trump aligning with Russian President Vladimir Putin to force a bad deal on Kyiv.Trump blew past a deadline last week to impose punishing sanctions on Russia and its primary trading partners in exchange for the face-to-face meeting with Putin, set for Friday in Alaska.And while the president has expressed increased frustration with Putin and Russia’s attacks on Ukraine, he this week reverted to criticisms that Zelensky is to blame for stating the war.“[Trump] is...

The intellectually honest political watcher knows that overall Ukraine represents the largest international money laundering operation to shift wealth from taxpayers to the politically connected institutions, since COVID-19. The money is the motive to continue the conflict.With President Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin scheduled to meet in Alaska for a summit to negotiate a ceasefire, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz quickly organizes a meeting between EU leaders and the U.K to figure out how the keep the war going.As the industrial capital of the EU, Germany has a lot at stake given the nature of their contracting economy. The EU military...

Not for the first time, European capitals are gripped with apprehension that Russian President Vladimir Putin will surgically divide the transatlantic alliance as well as get everything he wants in Ukraine.Ahead of the suddenly announced summit in Alaska on Friday between Putin and US President Donald Trump, one European diplomat, who declined to be named as they were not authorized to speak on the record, told CNN: “We are at risk of being a footnote in history.”In part, European fears are down to just how little is known about what the Kremlin has proposed in order to halt the fighting...

Hamas leaders are likely to be emboldened to carry on fighting by French and British proposals to recognize a Palestinian state in a break with Trump.. Frustrated by the deadlocked peace negotiations between Israel and Hamas, and seeing the chances of a two-state solution slipping away, several European countries led by the United Kingdom and France have now promised to recognize an independent Palestinian state to reaffirm their commitment to a permanent settlement. However, far from encouraging a ceasefire in the conflict that has raged in the Gaza Strip for nearly two years, European efforts will only encourage Hamas to...

Germany's foreign minister said on Thursday recognition of a Palestinian state should come at the end of talks on a two-state solution but Berlin would respond to any unilateral actions, after citing "annexation threats" by some Israeli ministers. Johann Wadephul issued the statement before heading off to Israel and the Palestinian territories on a trip Berlin has billed as a fact-finding mission amid heightened alarm over starvation in Gaza. His remarks marked Germany’s strongest warning yet to Israel as Western nations intensify efforts to exert pressure. In recent weeks, Britain, Canada and France have all signaled their readiness to recognise...

---SNIP--- The government, a major recipient of U.S. military aid that maintains ties with Israel, has arrested and charged 186 activists with threatening state security since the war began, according to the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. Many of them said they were protesting peacefully and collecting donations for Gaza. Still, the severity of the crackdown surprised European activists. Antonietta Chiodo, who traveled to Cairo from Italy, said those awaiting further instruction had been detained, interrogated, treated harshly by Egyptian authorities or deported.

Over the past two decades, a reclusive Swiss billionaire has poured more than $800 million into left-wing causes across America, and now states are fighting back. Hansjörg Wyss, 89, a Swiss national with an estimated net worth of roughly five billion dollars, has quietly become one of the most influential donors on the American left. He has spent more than $800 million bankrolling hundreds of left-wing causes across the United States, donating millions to climate change groups, abortion activists, and the Clinton Foundation. Information about him is sparse, but his sister once wrote that Wyss seeks to “(re)interpret the American...

The European Commission is issuing burner phones to officials traveling to the United States amid fears of espionage in Trump’s America. It’s the kind of security measure typically saved for trips to China or the Ukraine, where the fear of IT surveillance is high. But three European Commissioners will test out burner phones and basic laptops at International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in Washington next week, sources told the Financial Times. The move from the European Commission, the primary executive arm of the European Union, marks a new era of American-European relations, which have all but dissipated since...

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is facing global blowback after announcing a dramatic series of tariffs on countries around the world, with U.S. adversaries and allies alike promising crushing responses that could devastate the American economy.Stock markets in the United States, Europe and Asia plunged in the aftermath of President Trump’s announcement, which included a 10% base rate hike on nearly all foreign imports. Still other countries and trading blocs, including China, the European Union, South Korea and Japan, were hit with higher rates.“We’re now preparing for further countermeasures to protect our interests and our businesses if negotiations fail,” Ursula...

A judge in the United Kingdom has ordered President Trump to pay more than $820,000 in legal fees to the company representing former British spy Christopher Steele after he unsuccessfully sued over a dossier. In 2022, Trump filed a claim against Orbis Business Intelligence, a firm founded by Steele, a former MI6 agent who published a 35-page dossier that featured claims about Trump ahead of the 2016 election. Trump argued the company violated British data protection laws and that he suffered a personal and reputational damage because of the claims. However, in 2024, London Judge Karen Steyn tossed out the...

Germany’s outgoing Chancellor voices the frustrations felt across the European ruling class at President Donald Trump tearing up the status quo on trade, decrying an “attack”.The European Union, which has been hit with tariffs twice as high as post-Brexit Britain given the bloc’s protectionist policies and tariffs on imports, is expressing its distress and even outrage at President Trump’s bid to reform the United States’ trade relationship with the world.Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz who is still technically in power nearly six weeks after he lost the Federal elections in February spoke in defence of the globalist status quo on Thursday....

The response from the EU is exactly what we would expect to see from the end of the 80-year-old Marshal Plan.EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyden has three big concerns with the new trade/tariff reset. I strongly suggest everyone to read the EU concerns slowly to fully absorb decades of hypocrisy now surfacing:#1 The EU will not be able to compete for U.S. market share with 20% general tariffs and 25% auto tariffs.#2 The EU must deploy countermeasures against the risk of losing industrial capacity and manufacturing to the United States.And #3 The EU must defend itself against China...

Key Points “That is what I see, that Donald Trump will buckle under pressure, that he corrects his announcements under pressure,” German economy minister Robert Habeck said Thursday. Elsewhere, outgoing German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he believed the latest tariff decisions by Trump were “fundamentally wrong,” according to a CNBC translation. On Wednesday, Trump imposed 20% levies on the European Union, including on the bloc’s foremost economy Germany. ****************************************************************

Norway boosts spending on Ukraine by NOK 50 billion ($4.6 billion) Has benefited from high gas prices Norway lags Nordic neighbours on Ukraine aid OSLO, March 6 (Reuters) - Norway will more than double its financial pledge to Ukraine this year while also hiking its own defence spending, the prime minister said on Thursday, declaring the Nordic country faced its most serious security situation for 80 years. Norway, home to the world's largest sovereign wealth fund with assets of $1.8 trillion, has seen soaring income from gas sales to Europe as a result of Russia's 2022 Ukraine invasion, and faces...

The Russia-Ukraine War: It Should Never Have Started Three years ago, I went on Fox News to give my assessment of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In that segment, I pointed out to host Trace Galligher that the reason for the invasion was the prospect of NATO expansion into Ukraine. Even as the invasion was mere hours old, I argued that if the Ukrainian government “would finally just make a deal that they’re not going to go into NATO, that will probably be enough for” Putin to end the war. --SNIP-- NATO: The Spark for the Russia vs. Ukraine War?...

Europeans sat aghast after Vice-President J.D. Vance dared to suggest that their socialist democracies have become illiberal, intolerant, authoritarian—and on the wrong side of global populism. Like some addict that knows his habit is killing him, and yet who cannot resist another fix, so the Euros war on fossil fuels and hollow out their middle classes. They keep borders open to massive, illiberal illegal immigration. Yet they know the result bankrupts social services, spikes crime, and turns “diversity” into dangerous ethnic and religious chauvinism and contempt for generous host countries. The recent Euro Ministers in Vance’s audience both publicly and...

President Trump stunned, strangled and humiliated Europe — leaving America's closest continental ally dazed and dumbfounded. The big picture: No amount of "Trump-proofing" could have prepared Europe for the MAGA-shaped hurricane that swept across the continent this week, wreaking torrential havoc on America's closest allies. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth perplexed and perturbed allies on his first visit to NATO by seemingly taking some of Ukraine's bargaining chips off the table before those talks began. He also demanded that Europe take ownership of its own defense so the U.S. could focus on the more urgent threat from China. But it...

"Democracy and free speech are certainly under challenge in many European countries.. The challenge is not coming from governments" "These criticisms are pretty rich coming from a President who is quite uniquely authoritarian" "Democracy and free speech are under challenge in a much bigger way in the United States, and his boss, Donald Trump, is the man who is mainly responsible for that"