Free Republic

Summary EU seeks mutually beneficial trade deal with Washington U.S. demands unilateral concessions to cut goods trade deficit EU Commission says leaders' call has given new impetus to talksBRUSSELS, May 26 (Reuters) - The European Union may have won a reprieve from U.S. President Donald Trump's threatened 50% tariffs, but it remains unclear how the bloc will square its push for a mutually beneficial trade deal with Washington's demands for steep concessions. Trump backed away from imposing the levies on EU imports from June 1 after a call with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, restoring a July...

Donald Trump said Sunday that he had a “very nice call” with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and he has agreed to delay his threatened 50 percent tariff until July 9 at her request. The EU wants to negotiate, Trump said:That agreement came after a call Sunday with Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, who had told Trump that she "wants to get down to serious negotiations," according to the U.S. president's retelling."I told anybody that would listen, they have to do that," Trump told reporters on Sunday in Morristown, New Jersey, as he...

Vice President J.D. Vance came face-to-face with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for the first time since their Oval Office showdown earlier this year. The two attended Pope Leo XIV's first Sunday mass after being elected the new leader of the Catholic Church – and the first American to ever hold the top post in Vatican City. After the service, Secretary of State Marco Rubio joined Vance and Zelensky in Rome for talks aimed at advancing the goal of ending the war between Russia and Ukraine. 'The leaders discussed their shared goal of ending the bloodshed in Ukraine and provided updates...

No one is going to defend you for free if you are not willing to fight for yourself. About ten years ago, I spoke with a friend from Austria. They were visiting the U.S. and we had the typical "Second Amendment" conversation that we usually have with Europeans. Then we talked about NATO and how Europe has been riding for free, i.e. very low, if any, military spending. I politely pressed them and they admitted that they couldn't afford all that "free stuff" if they had to build their military. And then the lady joked about depending on the U.S....

The European Commission was wrong to refuse to release text messages sent by Ursula von der Leyen to the head of Pfizer during negotiations to secure Covid-19 vaccines, the EU's top court has ruled. The General Court said the commission had not given a plausible explanation as to why the exchanges between its president and Pfizer's Albert Bourla could not be made public when an investigative journalist requested them in 2021. That year, Pfizer signed billions of euros in vaccine contracts with the EU, including a deal for 1.8bn extra doses. The content of the messages between von der Leyen...

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...

Trump must pull the USA out of NATO now, to stop the probable destruction of civilization!

During what was supposed to be a cordial meeting, followed by a lunch and a joint press conference between President Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, fireworks erupted when Vice President JD Vance urged diplomacy and called Zelenskyy out for “trying to litigate this in front of the American media” and pointed out that he is “going around forcing conscripts to the frontlines because [he] has manpower problems.” After making a veiled threat to the United States, claiming we don’t “feel it” now because we have a “nice ocean” around us but “will feel it in the future,” President Trump inserted himself...

Keir Starmer has hit back at US Vice President JD Vance after he accused the UK of "infringements on free speech". The comment was made during a question and answer session between the politicians and reporters at the Oval Office. Turning bright red, Mr Vance said: "Look, I said what I said, which is that we do have, of course, a special relationship with our friends in the UK, and also some of our European allies, but we also know that there have been infringements on free speech that actually affect not just the British – of course what the...

Freedom of speech is a virus! And censorship is a vaccine!" Ursula von der Leyen called for “vaccinating” society against uncomfortable information .

Whatever you say I will do. Fidias Panayiotou Member of the European Parliament from Cyprus.

The keynote speaker of the World Economic Forum’s 2024 annual conference in Davos was Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission President. She stated the top global risk for the EU is disinformation and misinformation, declaring disinformation destroys trust and limits the ability to “tackle the big global challenges.” In plain English, trust can only be restored by censoring inconvenient facts and evidence. Below is a short clip (1:39) highlighting her disinformation sermon. The top risk in the WEF’s 2024 Global Risk Report is disinformation. If not controlled, societies will be polarized, elections will be disrupted, and there will be mistrust...

At the opening of the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called for increased cooperation between governments and private businesses to enact tech censorship in the face of “industrial scale disinformation”.Following in the example of WEF Chairman Klaus Schwab’s ‘Global Risk Report’, EU chief Ursula von der Leyen used her address in Davos on Tuesday to highlight the supposed risks of allowing the free flow of information in light of the alleged threat of “disinformation and disinformation”. (snip) Going into the election year, Brussels will have also have more censorship powers...

'Our freedom comes with risks,' European Union (EU) President Ursula von der Leyen told the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos. 'The top concern is ... disinformation and misinformation [as] the boundary between online and offline is getting thinner and thinner.' The European Commission’s pursuit of digital ID on a global scale became none more apparent than during President Ursula von der Leyen’s remarks to the globalist elite at the World Economic Forum (WEF). "The top concern for the next two years is not conflict, or climate, it is disinformation and misinformation," she said in Davos, Switzerland on January 16....

President Michael D. Higgins has strongly criticized the head of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen for comments on the Middle East conflict which she made on a visit to Israel last Friday. Ms. von der Leyen did not include a call for Israel’s retaliation to conform with international law. President Higgins said he agreed with those who criticized the intervention of the European Commission President. He said: “I don’t know where the source of those decisions was. I don’t know where the legitimation for it was, and I don’t know where the authority for it is, and I...

We have seen an increase in calls for a negotiated solution of the war in Ukraine. From the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, from progressive members of Congress and from leading international relations scholars, a growing number of voices urge the United States to invest in negotiations between Russia and Ukraine and to give peace a chance. According to some reports, the Biden administration is also warming up to the thought.It’s a dangerous idea.Fears of nuclear escalation between Russia and NATO drive many to argue for negotiations, and although the impetus is well-intentioned, the suggestion is naive and impractical. In...

Ursula von Der Leyen’s did the unthinkable today — she told the truth. During a speech condemning Russia for committing war crimes, she noted in passing that 100,000 Ukrainian “officers” (sic) have been killed since the start of the SMO.Ukraine was not happy:Ukraine has hit back at a claim by the European Commission’s president that 100,000 of Kyiv’s troops have been killed since Russia’s invasion in February.Ursula von der Leyen used the number in a video address, prompting Kyiv’s armed forces to state that the death toll was “classified information.” Footage of her speech has since been edited to cut...

Russian troops in Lyman and those who retreated took heavy losses, including an elite GRU unit. The town of Lyman quickly became the center of attention as Ukrainian forces partially surrounded it in the final days of September, trapping a large Russian garrison in there. Lyman is a key logistical node commanding an important road over the Siverskyy Donets River in Ukraine's Donetsk region. Its loss compounded Russian setbacks in the final weeks of summer and stoked further anger among pro-war commentators in Russia. British military intelligence assessed after the battle that the Russian force defending Lyman was a hodgepodge...

Can Brussels raid the tens of billions of euros in Russian assets frozen by the European Union to pay for Ukraine’s recovery? This thorny legal question is currently under examination by the EU Commission as the cash-strapped bloc looks for potentially €18 billion ($18 billion) next year to keep Ukraine afloat as it fends off Moscow’s invasion. Ursula von der Leyen, the EU Commission's president, told reporters on Tuesday in Berlin that she had set up a task force to both map what assets exist as well as the preconditions that must be met to seize them. “The will is...

European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen said deliberate disruption would meet the "strongest possible response". The EU has previously accused Russia of using gas supplies as a weapon against the West over its support for Ukraine. But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed accusations of sabotage as "predictable, stupid and absurd The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he thought the leaks would "not have a significant impact on Europe's energy resilience". Neither pipeline is transporting gas at the moment, although they both contain gas. Mr Blinken did not directly accuse Russia - but said it would be in...