The United States and Ukraine announced on Wednesday the creation of a new reconstruction and investment fund, formalizing an economic agreement between the two countries that is intended to give the U.S. access to proceeds from Ukraine’s reserves of rare earth minerals. The agreement concludes months of fraught negotiations over whether the United States will … Read more
On Dec. 27, Bill Gates, the billionaire philanthropist, made a trip to Mar-a-Lago for dinner with Donald J. Trump. Some people around him were surprised that he had decided to go, but Mr. Gates wants to talk to whoever will listen. The dinner lasted three hours, and Mr. Trump seemed to enjoy himself, a person … Read more
The Trump administration on Friday detailed its plans to put the U.S. Agency for International Development, the government’s main agency for distributing foreign aid, fully under the State Department and reduce its staff to some 15 positions. An email to U.S.A.I.D. employees informing them of the impending layoffs, titled “U.S.A.I.D.’s Final Mission” and sent just … Read more
Years before President Trump returned to the White House, his budget chief, Russell T. Vought, began mapping out a plan to shrink the federal government. In Mr. Vought’s design, spending would be slashed by about $9 trillion over the next decade. Entire federal programs — from housing vouchers to student loans — would be eliminated. … Read more
The world’s worst humanitarian crisis today is probably the web of famine, civil war, mass rape and other atrocities in Sudan, a nightmare that the United States has formally described as genocide. Many tens of thousands have been killed, 11 million Sudanese have been displaced, the most lethal famine in decades may be underway, and … Read more
At the Trump Pizza Station in Kyiv, where the internet password is “TrumpLovesYou,” one woman burst into tears when she learned that the United States was suspending military aid to Ukraine. Another sipped a cappuccino with banana milk and lamented that the whole world seemed to be abandoning her country. Most people at the neighborhood … Read more
A day after President Trump ordered the suspension of American military assistance, Ukrainian diplomats and politicians scrambled on Tuesday to find a way to salvage their alliance with Washington while the war weary nation prepared for the possibility that it will have to fight on without U.S. support. With the White House and the Kremlin … Read more
European leaders have dealt with President Trump’s return to office by trying to keep him cooperating on Ukraine while pushing to ramp up their own defense spending so they are less reliant on an increasingly fickle America. But Friday’s meeting in the Oval Office, in which Mr. Trump berated President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, underscored … Read more
An anticipated deal for Ukraine to hand over natural resources revenues to the United States abruptly fell apart during an explosive meeting in the Oval Office on Friday, in a dramatic rupture in relations between the two wartime allies. Mr. Trump and Vice President JD Vance castigated Mr. Zelensky for not being grateful enough for … Read more
Elon Musk is everywhere. He is firing federal employees, gaining access to important government data, popping into the Oval Office, appearing on Fox News alongside President Trump and even attending a White House cabinet meeting. For some, his rampage through the institutions of the American state augurs a replacement by private interests; for others, it … Read more