Latest news with #USNationalSecurity
Telegraph
2 days ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
Trump's ‘made-for-TV' security chiefs iced out from Iran inner circle
Donald Trump didn't even bother to conceal his contempt of Tulsi Gabbard's assessment of Iran's nuclear ambitions. 'She's wrong,' the US president said on Friday, speaking to media en route to his Bedminster golf course in New Jersey. Mr Trump has assembled an unusual team for his White House and Cabinet, drawing on close loyalists, Fox News presenters and veterans of Capitol Hill. But with tensions boiling over in the Middle East he has made the unusual move of sidelining two key national security figures, relying instead on old friends and military insiders. It means Ms Gabbard, the national intelligence director, and Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, both surprise picks who had impressed Mr Trump with lively performances on Fox News – have found themselves on the outside of discussions. Instead, he has turned to JD Vance, the vice-president, Marco Rubio, and Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, John Ratcliffe, the CIA director, and Steve Witkoff, the Middle East envoy. Mr Hegseth, who was confirmed to the Cabinet by a single vote in the Senate, has seen his stock with Mr Trump fall in recent months. The 45-year-old accidentally leaked US military plans to bomb Yemen's Houthi rebels after a journalist was added to a group chat on Signal, the messaging app. In the wake of 'Signalgate', he sacked three close advisers over a Pentagon leak investigation, and his chief of staff resigned shortly afterwards. Mr Trump was also rumoured to have scolded his defence secretary after being underwhelmed by his military birthday parade.
Bloomberg
4 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Bloomberg Surveillance: Fed and Middle East
Watch Tom and Paul LIVE every day on YouTube: Bloomberg Surveillance hosted by Tom Keene & Paul Sweeney June 18th, 2025 Featuring: 1) Jack Devine, founder at The Arkin Group, joins to discuss what US involvement in the Middle East conflict could look like and how US national security could weigh striking Iran. An overnight meeting between President Trump and his national security team has raised speculation that the US may join Israel's attacks against Iran. Trump has posted demands for Iran's "UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER" and threatened a possible strike against the country's leader, while Iran has reiterated its intention to respond with force if the US gets involved. 2) Michael Darda, Chief Economist at Roth Capital Partners, joins for a look ahead to the Fed and talks about the outlook for inflation and markets. Socks and bonds posted small gains as investors waited for the Federal Reserve's monetary policy decision and new economic forecasts. The Fed's latest projections for growth, unemployment, and interest rates will be closely watched. 3) Win Thin, Global Head: Markets Strategy Brown Brothers Harriman & Co., reacts to jobless claims and looks ahead to the Fed and potential for more inflation in the US. Fed policymakers face heightened uncertainty as geopolitical tension add to the inflation and labor market risks that are tied to the Trump administration's tariff policies. 4) Leslie Palti-Guzman, founder at Energy Vista, talks about rapidly rising oil prices and if there will be any let up as Middle East fighting continues. Oil prices pulled back from a near five-month high, with Brent crude trading below $76 a barrel, as markets awaited news on US involvement in the Middle East conflict. Middle Eastern oil that loads outside the Persian Gulf and Malaysian crude are gaining popularity among Asian buyers due to the Israel-Iran conflict threatening the Strait of Hormuz. 5) Lisa Mateo joins with the latest headlines in newspapers across the US, including an NYT story on Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders getting a 400% pay raise and a WSJ story on private space stations racing to be the next popular travel destination.
Malay Mail
14-06-2025
- Politics
- Malay Mail
Global powers eye Greenland's rare earth minerals and strategic Arctic position
COPENHAGEN, June 15 — Greenland, which President Donald Trump wants to annex for US national and international security needs, is an ice-covered self-governing Danish territory in the Arctic. Today, French President Emmanuel Macron will become the first foreign head of state to visit the strategically important 2.1 million square kilometre island, which holds vast untapped mineral resources, since Trump's annexation threat. Closer to New York Greenland, which has a population of about 57,000 people, is an autonomous territory but Copenhagen controls its law enforcement, monetary policy, foreign affairs, defence and security policy. However, with its capital closer to New York than Copenhagen, Greenland is in the United States' 'zone of interest', historian Astrid Andersen, of the Danish Institute of International Studies, told AFP. During World War II, when Denmark was occupied by Germany 'the US took over Greenland. In a sense they have never left,' she explained. The United States has one active military base there. The Pituffik space base was used during the Cold War as a warning post for possible Soviet attacks and is still an essential part of the US missile defence infrastructure. Greenland's location puts it on the shortest route for missiles between Russia and the United States. Washington has 'legitimate complaints about the lack of surveillance of the airspace and submarine areas east of Greenland,' said Ulrik Pram Gad, also of the Danish Institute of International Studies. Also its strategic position for when new shipping lanes are freed up due to melting ice adds importance, but Pram Gad believes Trump is using 'exaggerated terms'. Trump in 2019, during his first term in office, floated the idea of a US purchase of Greenland, but that was rebuffed. Potential mining sector Since 2009, Greenlanders have been in charge of deciding how their natural resources are used. Access to Greenland's resources is considered crucial by the United States, which signed a cooperation memorandum for the sector in 2019. The EU followed four years later with its own agreement. Greenland's soil is well-explored, which has enabled a detailed map of resources to be drawn up. The EU has identified 25 of the 34 minerals on its official list of critical raw materials in Greenland, including rare earths. 'As the demand for minerals is rising, there is a need to go and look for untapped resources,' said Ditte Brasso Sorensen, an analyst at Think Tank Europa. 'Actors are more and more aware they need to diversify their sources, especially when it comes to the dependence to China on rare earth elements.' Adding to this is the fear that China will get its hands on the mineral resources, she explained. Yet mining in Greenland is currently largely non-existent. There are only two mines on the island — one for rubies, which is looking for new investors, and the other for anorthosite, a rock containing titanium. Financially dependent Economically, the territory, which is seeking to move away from Danish rule, depends on annual subsidies from Copenhagen — which account for a fifth of its GDP — and on fishing. The population's hopes are partly pinned on the opening of an international airport in the capital, Nuuk, in November to help develop tourism in the Arctic region. Infrastructure is also a key issue for the development of the mining industry. 'When it comes to extractive industries, Trump is putting Greenland on the mining map in discourse but it's hard to say how it could evolve as there is a lack of investors,' noted Lill Rastad Bjorst, an associate professor at Aalborg University specialising in Greenland. Sorensen also stressed the inherent difficulties of extracting resources in Greenland, with its 'very harsh weather conditions, a protected environment and lots of costs with the need to develop the physical and digital infrastructure'. Public opposition to uranium mining in southern Greenland prompted legislation banning the extraction of radioactive products. Another potential resource to be exploited is oil but this is at a standstill. 'The government of Greenland has paused their commitment to oil exploration in Greenland and sees a great potential in hydropower,' Rastad Bjorst said. — AFP
New York Times
22-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
An Unstable Panama Could Be a Disaster for the United States
There's a country in Latin America that's not even as big as South Carolina, but on which the United States' economy and national security depend: Panama. Every year, 40 percent of all U.S. container traffic, valued at $270 billion, passes through the Panama Canal. So does an estimated 5 percent of all seaborne trade in the world. If conflict were to break out between China and Taiwan, the U.S. Navy would have to move submarines and other warships quickly to the Pacific through the canal. Since December, President Trump has mentioned Panama numerous times in speeches, interviews and on Truth Social, repeatedly threatening to 'take back' the Panama Canal, which the United States controlled from 1914 to 1999. Since these expansionist demands started, he has extracted a growing list of concessions from Panama's conservative president, José Raúl Mulino, including opening negotiations to compensate U.S. Navy vessels for fees they pay to use the canal and permitting U.S. military personnel to deploy to Panama-controlled bases throughout the country on a rotating basis. (The last permanent U.S. military base closed in 1999, a decade after the U.S. invasion of the country.) Some of Mr. Trump's demands are aimed at deterring China, which has gained commercial influence in Panama since the country broke ties with Taiwan in 2017. When Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited Panama in February, he told Mr. Mulino that Chinese influence on the canal was potentially in violation of a U.S.-Panama treaty. After speaking with Mr. Rubio, Mr. Mulino said Panama would exit China's Belt and Road Initiative — a move that China said stemmed from U.S. 'coercion.' Panama also audited two Chinese-controlled canal-side ports, following Mr. Trump's accusations of Chinese interference in the canal. Mr. Trump is not unreasonable to be concerned about growing Chinese influence in Panama, which had the Biden administration on high alert, too. But it isn't clear what, if anything, Panama will receive in return for these concessions. And that's making many Panamanians, already angry with their government and the country's political class, even angrier. Mr. Trump's latest demand — which Mr. Mulino has rebuffed for now — is free passage for U.S. commercial vessels through the canal, an emblem of national pride and the source of roughly 7 to 10 percent of Panama's annual government budget. Students, labor unions, environmentalists and Indigenous activists have held demonstrations across the nation, rallying against their government's policies and a general sense, justified or not, that Mr. Mulino is caving to pressure from Mr. Trump, instead of defending Panamanian sovereignty. Mr. Trump may not intend or realize it, but by pushing Mr. Mulino for repeated concessions, he is weakening an ally and rolling the dice on what comes next. A politically, economically and socially unstable Panama would be worrying for the United States. If it puts the canal at risk, it could lead to disaster. As a writer and researcher who has lived throughout Latin America, I never used to include Panama on my shortlist of countries that might erupt. From 1970 to 2019, it was the 16th fastest growing economy in the world in per capita terms. Poverty fell considerably during those years. Over the past decade, Latin America's economies grew on average at a sluggish 0.9 percent per year; roughly around the same time period, Panama's average yearly real gross domestic product growth more than quadrupled that rate. This was thanks to a boom in finance, construction, private investment and Panama's professional management of the canal — which it modernized, expanded and administered apolitically in the years after 1999, when the United States handed over control. Among the beneficiaries were Panamanian and U.S. businesses, especially U.S. energy exporters, which took advantage of the canal's doubled capacity to ship more liquid natural gas to Asia. But within Panama, the benefits of all this growth were highly unequally distributed. In the 2000s and 2010s, the government routinely spent less on public education, as a percentage of G.D.P., than the Latin American average. Students performed worse on standardized tests than many regional peers, according to 2022 data. And a 2023 census reported that a full quarter of homes still lacked access to drinkable water 24 hours a day during Panama's dry season. Also in 2023, the top-earning fifth of Panamanians received over half of the income in the country. Meanwhile, the bottom-earning fifth got just 3.5 percent. Within Latin America, Panamanians are among the most dissatisfied with democracy, political parties and public services. In October 2023, that frustration boiled over. Unions, public school teachers and protesters shut down major roads for 25 days over a copper mining contract, in the largest mass mobilization in decades. At the heart of the uprising was the widespread perception that the government habitually favored opaque private and foreign interests over ordinary people. During the protests, at least four people died. The demonstrations also cost Panama the equivalent of 2.3 percent of the previous year's G.D.P. Now, that same sense of frustration risks overflowing — this time, inflamed not just by domestic grievances like corruption and inequality, but also by a sense that Mr. Mulino is prioritizing appeasement of Mr. Trump over Panama's interests. In January, 51 percent of Panamanians thought the Mulino government was doing well, but by March, just 26 percent did. The discontent was palpable when I visited Panama several weeks ago. 'Protests like those of 2023 could reignite with one gross act of injustice,' Alonso Illueca, a lawyer and academic, told me. In March, Mr. Mulino passed a controversial law to increase employee contributions to the public pension system, which was quickly running out of cash. On April 23, several public school teachers' unions and a large construction workers' union started a strike, protesting the pension changes, moves to reopen a controversial copper mine, and the agreement Mr. Mulino made with the U.S. defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, to allow U.S. military personnel to position themselves on bases around the canal on a rotational basis. Two runners-up for the presidency, once rivals, joined civil society leaders for a press conference denouncing the deal with the United States. Then, in May, after Mr. Mulino implied the country's largest public university was a den of terrorists, thousands of Panamanians, led by students, took to the streets in what appeared to be this wave of unrest's biggest demonstration yet. Now Mr. Mulino is facing calls from the private sector to take control of the streets and clear roadblocks of protesters, which have paralyzed the Bocas del Toro province. He's pledged, 'No matter the cost, this country will not be shut down.' But if the protests escalate and the government weakens further, Mr. Mulino won't be as successful in addressing U.S. concerns on China or the canal's water supply, whose susceptibility to climate change and drought have already at times decreased the traffic through the canal and raised costs for U.S. exporters. A weaker Mulino government is the most likely outcome if Mr. Trump and his administration continue to push hard — and publicly — for new concessions. On Wednesday, the U.S. ambassador to Panama visited the canal and posted on X that he would work to ensure the passage of U.S. government vessels for free. A quieter diplomatic approach would advance U.S. interests more effectively and with lower risk. Unfortunately, Mr. Trump has already learned that maximalist threats like 'retaking the canal,' directed against a small country like Panama instead of Canada or Denmark, can actually work, even as the public's mistrust of government deepens with each demand. If Mr. Trump wants to fully retake the canal and engage in a new era of U.S. territorial expansion, a destabilized Panamanian government plays in his favor. A serious bid to take back the canal — using tariffs, imposing sanctions or other tools to pressure the government into a handover — would ignite the country. For Panama, the United States and the world, that may be the ultimate risk.
Al Jazeera
05-03-2025
- Business
- Al Jazeera
Security official confirms US cut intelligence sharing with Ukraine
US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz said that the US 'had taken a step back' with sharing intelligence with Ukraine, adding that the two countries were engaged in talks to move forward a minerals deal. Published On 5 Mar 2025
