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Europe
Hungary
March 8, 2025 Hungary and the United States will agree on an economic cooperation package. According to Reuters, Hungarian PM Orbán stated that the economic package would expand the existing political alliance between the two countries. PM Orbán, who has supported U.S. President Trump since his previous term, said that such an economic agreement would help Hungary even if a trade war between the U.S. and the European Union breaks out. Last week, President Trump stated that his administration would soon announce a 25 percent tariff on goods from the EU, which he described as having been created to “screw” the United States. “Hungary will suffer losses [in a trade war], just like all European Union member states. We do not yet know its extent, but we can be sure that it will happen,” Orbán said at the annual conference of the Hungarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. He added that Hungary has a good chance of reaching an agreement with Washington and that the package may restrict or entirely negate the effect of a possible trade war within Hungary. Hungarian officials are currently negotiating with the U.S. to renew a tax treaty that the previous American administration terminated, according to Orbán. ’Hungary is isolated,’ President of the European Council Costa declared in 6 March, at the end of a special EU summit that saw Viktor Orbán voting against the approval of joint conclusions in support of Ukraine, forcing leaders to go ahead with an attached „extract” endorsed by 26. We respect Hungary’s position, but it’s one out of 27. And 26 are more than one, Costa said after an EU summit focused on Ukraine’s future. The concluding text of the summit speaks about ’peace through strength,’ military assistance and security guarantees for Kyiv, all of which Orbán opposed. Before the summit, the Hungarian prime minister publicly signaled his intention to veto the proposed language, arguing that it ran contrary to U.S. President Trump’s deal-making initiative, to which Orbán has firmly aligned himself. After disengaging Hungary from the EU Council decision to continue offering military assistance to Ukraine, Orbán believes that the possible tax treaty with the U.S. will help Hungary “offset, at a national economic level, the losses caused by U.S. tariffs imposed on Europe and will provide compensation both in monetary and real economic terms.” (Source: Greek Reporter – the international Greek news network)
By Chrysopoulos
Asia
Gaza
March 8, 2025 After receiving pushback from the U.S. and Israel, the $53 billion Arab-backed Egyptian plan for the reconstruction of Gaza has garnered support from France, Germany, Italy and the U.K. The plan was meant to counter Trump's Gaza takeover proposal. 'The plan shows a realistic path to the reconstruction of Gaza and promises – if implemented – swift and sustainable improvement of the catastrophic living conditions for the Palestinians living in Gaza,' the foreign ministers wrote in a joint statement. The foreign ministers called for a post-war plan based on'"a solid political and security framework,' but reiterated the need for Hamas to not be able to govern Gaza. Additionally, the European leaders said that they are supportive of the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) 'central role' in a post-war Gaza and 'the implementation of its reform agenda.' /Photo/ (Source: Fox News - U.S.)
North America
Caribbean
Mar 09, 2025 The past few decades have seen a dramatic increase in Chinese economic and diplomatic influence across the the Caribbean, with one foreign policy expert telling that Beijing wants to "turn the Caribbean Sea into a Chinese lake." Chinese trade with the Caribbean went from $1 billion in 2002 to $8 billion in 2019, when $6.1 billion worth of Chinese exports and $1.9 billion in imports were recorded. While individual Chinese companies primarily have commercial objectives, Beijing is keeping a close eye on the wider strategic picture. As of 2022, ten Caribbean countries had signed up to Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative: Cuba, Suriname, Guyana, Trinidad & Tobago, Grenada, Barbados, Dominica, Antigua & Barbuda, Dominican Republic and Jamaica. China is funding major Chinese projects, including the development of a $3 billion deep-water port on Grand Bahama, just 55 miles from the U.S. mainland, a $600 million investment to improve the Dominican Republic's electricity grid, $2.1 billion worth of projects in Jamaica and $773 million in Suriname. "On a per capita basis, there is no other part of the Western Hemisphere that receives the quantity of trips for its police and defense force officials two Chinese military institutions, gifts of police and military vehicles and material, visits by Chinese hospital ships, and other [People's Liberation Army] military diplomacy as does the Caribbean," Ellis, a research professor at the U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute who specializes in the relationship between Latin America and China, said. "The Trump administration could easily employ a carrot and stick approach to roll this back however, by offering trade and investment inducements of its own while making clear the consequences of ignoring a generous offer", Mendoza, executive director of the London-based security think tank the Henry Jackson Society, told. Five of the 12 countries in the world that were recognizing Taiwan, were in the Caribbean and Central America. In a victory for the U.S. president earlier this month, CK Hutchison Holdings, the Hong Kong-based company that owned two ports by the Panama Canal, announced it had sold them to an American BlackRock-led acquisition in a $23 billion deal. China and Russia've got a number of dumpster fires basically on the doorstep of the United States. Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba, and of course Haiti now. What they're counting on Latin America for is being able to lock down a theater of operations. We're talking about reducing the operations of the United States in the theater of conflict. The Biden administration requested $2.2 billion in USAID assistance for the Caribbean and Latin America in the 2025 fiscal year, so these cuts could significantly impact U.S. influence in the region. (Source: Newsweek - U.S.)
United States
Sat March 8, 2025 "Vance is a fascinating character. He rose from a hard scrabble upbringing in the Appalachians to the Ivy League. He’s exceedingly smart – one reason why his political positioning is often taken as evidence of nefarious calculation. Vance, who briefly served as an Ohio senator, despises traditional media and Washington elites so he’s a natural fit with Trump’s populism. He’s also a US Marine veteran – so he ought to know better about the contribution of US allies to the war on terror. And he got rich in Silicon Valley and has an in with the big tech barons who’ve moved sharply to the right and embraced Trump in his second term. The vice president made his name with “Hillbilly Elegy” a memoir about his childhood in deprived areas of Ohio and Kentucky. The 2016 book explained how deindustrialization fostered poverty and drug addiction and an eventual political backlash against globalized free trade policies. It became a kind of handbook for understanding Trump supporters in his first term. Given that background, it’s not surprising that Vance produced the campaign’s most eloquent arguments for an America First economic policy. At 40, he’s a potential heir to Trump – although the president amusingly refused to anoint him in a recent interview, unwilling to think about ceding his throne so soon. Vance is the epitome of what many Europeans disdain about America. An isolationist, he sees no vital national interest in Ukraine. His bluntness and hint of smugness irk many foreigners, as does his support for Europe’s far-right – including Germany’s extremist AfD. A day before confronting Zelensky in the Oval Office, he rebuked Keir Starmer over free speech in the UK – although the British PM shut him down. Since Vance is young, ambitious, ideological, and has an apparent chip on his shoulder about establishment intellectuals, there’s one vice president he does remind us of Nixon. When Nixon joined Eisenhower’s ticket in 1952, he’d spent about enough time in the Senate to have a cup of coffee – just like Vance. And like his 21st century successor, he was a new breed of GOP ideologue – while the current VP upbraids “woke” liberals, Nixon hounded supposed communists living in the United States. And like Vance, Nixon had his eye on higher things. His ambitions and penchant for the dark side of politics sometimes caused tensions with his more experienced boss – a possible omen for the relationship between Trump and Vance. Nixon used his eight-year vice presidency as a crash course in global affairs that was key to his success as a statesman after he finally won the big job in 1968. Vance however seems unlikely to emulate Nixon’s long global odysseys – he has political interests back home. (Source: CNN - U.S.)
(Saturday), 08 October 2024 The United States has told its allies that it does not plan to participate in military exercises in Europe, ’according to reports’. Trump’s pivot away from the bloc, would see America pull out of exercises beyond those already scheduled for this year. It means that Nato countries will be forced to plan exercises without the participation of the US military, the largest in the alliance. Yesterday, Mr Trump warned that the US may not defend Nato allies who do not meet the spending target. “When I came to Nato, when I first had my first meeting, I noticed that people weren’t paying their bills at all, and I said I should wait till my second meeting”. “And I did. And I brought that up, and I said, ‘If you don’t pay your bills, we’re not going to participate. We’re not going to protect you.’ “And when I said that, as soon as they said that, it was amazing how the money came in, the money came in, and now they have money. But even now, it’s not enough. They should be paying more.’ The Trump administration is redrawing Nato engagement in a way that favours member countries with higher defence spending. The president is said to be considering prioritising military exercises with member countries that are spending the set percentage of GDP on their defence, officials told NBC. The Telegraph reported on yesterday that Mr Trump is also considering pulling US troops out of Germany and redeploying them to Eastern Europe. He is understood to be weighing up „withdrawing some 35,000 active personnel and moving them to Hungary’. (Source: The Telegraph - United Kingdom)
by Stringer, Deputy US Editor
.5 2 10 16:23
