ReportWire

Tag: Domestic Politics

  • Opinion | ‘Does India Even Have Any Cards?’

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    Sadanand Dhume writes a biweekly column on India and South Asia for WSJ.com. He focuses on the region’s politics, economics and foreign policy.

    Mr. Dhume is also a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. Previously he worked as the New Delhi bureau chief of the Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER), and as Indonesia correspondent for FEER and The Wall Street Journal Asia.

    Mr. Dhume is the author of “My Friend the Fanatic: Travels with a Radical Islamist,” (Skyhorse Publishing, 2009), which charts the rise of the radical Islamist movement in Indonesia. His next book will look at India’s transformation since the election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014.

    Mr. Dhume holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of Delhi, a master’s degree in international relations from Princeton University and a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University. He lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife, and travels frequently to India.

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    Sadanand Dhume

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  • Trump Officials Ratchet Up Pressure on Israel and Hamas

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    Hamas released the bodies of two more Israeli hostages on Tuesday as the group and Israel came under increasing pressure from the U.S. to avoid escalation that could collapse  the cease-fire in Gaza, according to Israeli and Arab officials.

    U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and President Trump’s son-in law, Jared Kushner, delivered a strong message to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a meeting on Monday: Israel must avoid escalation by ensuring responses to any alleged cease-fire violations by Hamas are proportional. 

    The warnings come amid violent clashes between the two sides that have erupted in recent days. Israel struck dozens of Hamas targets on Sunday following what it said was a Hamas attack that left two soldiers dead. Hamas denied any involvement in the attack and said it was carried out by a rogue cell. Arab mediators have put significant pressure on Hamas’s leadership to ensure that violations of the agreement aren’t repeated.

    The current period is crucial, as mediators work to preserve the fragile cease-fire and move deeper into talks that would permanently end the war.

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    [ad_2] Anat Peled
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  • Opinion | About Trump’s Foreign Investment Funds

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    President Trump moves so fast and announces so much that it’s hard to sort the real from the hype. Cases in point are the invest-in-America promises that foreign governments have made as part of Mr. Trump’s trade deals. They’re so large they’re unlikely to happen, and they raise serious questions about American governance and the power of the purse.

    Mr. Trump heads to South Korea later this month for the annual APEC meetings, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says the Administration is “about to finish up” negotiations over Seoul’s promise to invest some $350 billion in the U.S. In return Mr. Trump cut his tariff on South Korea to 15% from 25%. Japan has also agreed to cut the U.S. a $550 billion check in return for a tariff reduction.

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    The Editorial Board

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  • Opinion | China’s Big London Spy Platform

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    Did Britain’s Labour government torpedo a spying case to appease Beijing? Prime Minister Keir Starmer finds himself on the defensive as the opposition claims his government prioritized economic ties with China over national security. One test will be whether his government approves a proposed Chinese mega-embassy in London despite the espionage risks.

    The political brawl erupted last month after a much-publicized espionage case collapsed on a legal technicality. Prosecutors claimed British teacher and consultant Christopher Berry and parliamentary researcher Christopher Cash passed sensitive details to Beijing in violation of the 1911 Official Secrets Act.

    A 2024 High Court ruling expanded the definition of “enemy” to include any country that poses a national-security threat to the U.K. But the Crown Prosecution Service says the Labour government failed to provide such an assessment about China despite repeated requests, and as a result “the case could not proceed.” Messrs. Cash and Berry denied wrongdoing and the charges were dropped.

    Mr. Starmer has blamed the previous government for failing to issue such a designation against China. Under political pressure, he released statements by deputy national security adviser Matthew Collins outlining the evidence in the espionage case, including that British MPs critical of Beijing were among the targets.

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    [ad_2] The Editorial Board
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  • Opinion | A Mamdani Mayoralty Threatens New York’s Jews

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    By propagating lies about ‘occupation,’ ‘apartheid’ and ‘genocide,’ he helps promote antisemitism.

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    Elisha Wiesel

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  • Sarkozy’s Five-Year Prison Term Starts With Fingerprints and a Mug Shot

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    PARIS—Former President Nicolas Sarkozy began a five-year prison sentence on Tuesday, marking an unprecedented downfall for a French ex-head of state who rose to power as a political outsider with blunt law-and-order rhetoric.

    A motorcade of police escorted the 70-year-old from his home in the tony 16th arrondissement to the gates of Paris-La Santé prison in the heart of the French capital. There, guards took him into custody, leading him down to a basement office where he underwent a search and had his fingerprints taken. He then received an inmate number and had his mug shot taken before guards brought him to his cell in the isolation ward.

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    Noemie Bisserbe

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  • Trump Turns Up Heat on Latin America

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    President Trump’s vow to intervene against drug smugglers in Colombia widened a U.S. counternarcotics campaign in Latin America that began with military strikes on oceangoing boats but is increasingly focused on threatening governments in the region.

    His broadside against Colombia came in a social-media post Sunday morning that branded its president, Gustavo Petro, an “illegal drug leader,” vowing to halt U.S. aid to Bogotá, and to take unilateral action unless Petro closed “these killing fields immediately.”

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    [ad_2] Vera Bergengruen
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  • Trump Says U.S. Is Cutting Aid to Colombia Over Drugs

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    President Trump said the U.S. would stop aid payments to Colombia, for decades a close U.S. ally, because of the country’s drug production.

    Trump, in a social-media post Sunday, escalated tensions with Colombian President Gustavo Petro, calling him “an illegal drug leader.” He said Petro was encouraging drug production and the U.S. wouldn’t give any more payments or subsidies to the country, long the U.S.’s closest ally in the war on drugs.

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    Alyssa Lukpat

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  • The Israeli Politician Who Became Netanyahu’s Top Trump Whisperer

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    TEL AVIV—When President Trump presented his 20-point plan to bring the Gaza war to an end last month from a White House lectern, he interrupted himself twice to talk directly to someone sitting in the front row: “Right, Ron?” he said.

    That man was Ron Dermer, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s closest confidant and the manager of Israel’s relationship with America—and by extension, Trump. Most Americans don’t know his name and he rarely speaks publicly in Israel. But he is one of the most influential American-born Israeli politicians in the nation’s history and has been key to maintaining U.S. support for the war and cutting a deal to end it largely on Israel’s terms.

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    Anat Peled

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  • How Venezuela’s Maduro Became Coup-Proof After Years of Military Purges

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    For years, Venezuelans fighting to unseat President Nicolás Maduro have hoped the country’s military would do the job for them. But even with a menacing U.S. Navy buildup currently offshore, the strongman is virtually coup-proof.

    The leftist leader has purged officers accused of conspiring against him, jailing and sending them into exile. The vaunted intelligence service of close ally, Cuba, has worked to identify plots and renegades, with intelligence officers placed in every unit.

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    Juan Forero

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  • Trump Bets Personal Diplomacy Will Break Ukraine War Logjam

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    WASHINGTON—President Trump is betting that one more round of personal diplomacy will deliver a breakthrough in the more than three-year-long war in Ukraine after months of failed peace negotiations.

    Behind the scenes, Trump’s team is working to back up the president’s leader-to-leader negotiations with more diplomatic leverage than he exerted in his August summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Those efforts will be put to the test when Trump meets with Putin in Budapest in the coming weeks.

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    Vera Bergengruen

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  • Opinion | Give Ukraine the Tomahawks, Mr. President

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    President Trump demurred Friday on whether he’ll send Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, and he clearly hasn’t made up his mind. But the missile threat seems to have captured Vladimir Putin’s attention, and the U.S. interest in driving a durable peace in Ukraine far outweighs the risks of handing over the missiles.

    “Hopefully we’ll be able to get the war over without thinking about Tomahawks,” Mr. Trump said during a meeting at the White House with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. Ukraine’s supporters had hoped for Mr. Trump’s approval to obtain the missiles, which have a range of more than 1,000 miles. But another call with Mr. Putin this week appears to have stayed that decision.

    Mr. Trump’s reluctance seems to involve two concerns, and the first is escalation with a nuclear power. But Mr. Putin has been lobbing cruise and ballistic missiles at Ukraine for years, and there’s nothing escalatory about return fire. Tomahawks could be a force for peace by altering Mr. Putin’s capacity to carry on his grinding war.

    The long-range missiles would let Ukraine do better than simply swatting down hundreds of incoming drones. Instead it could take out Russia’s Shahed drone factory. Mr. Putin has tried to use nuclear blackmail for three years to talk the U.S. out of donating this or that weapon. The empirical record is that it’s bluster.

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    [ad_2] The Editorial Board
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  • Trump Says He’d Rather End War Than Send Tomahawks to Ukraine

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    President Trump said he hoped Ukraine wouldn’t need the U.S. to provide it with long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles as he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House on Friday. 

    “We’re going to be talking about Tomahawks, and would much rather have them not need Tomahawks,” said Trump. “Would much rather have the war be over, to be honest.”

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    Robbie Gramer

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  • Trump’s Middle East Peace Plan Hits an Early Snag in Gaza

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    TEL AVIV—At the start of the week, President Trump declared the “ historic dawn of a new Middle East” after securing a truce between Israel and Hamas that stopped the war in Gaza. Days later, the peace process is already stumbling.

    The reason: a controversy over Hamas’s failure to return all of the bodies of dead hostages that remain in Gaza. Israel and the Arab mediators in the talks knew Hamas wasn’t able to locate all of them, but the militant group’s initial decision to return only four looked like foot-dragging to Israel and set off a highly political skirmish amid demands the deal be halted until the bodies were back.

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    [ad_2] Summer Said
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  • The Man Threatening Viktor Orbán’s 15-Year Grip on Hungary

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    OROSZLÁNY, Hungary—Jabbing his finger at a life-size cardboard cutout of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Péter Magyar wooed the voters of this coal-mining town with a feisty speech about corruption and economic decline.

    Magyar, Orbán’s main rival in next year’s pivotal election, mocked him as a mafia boss, a Turkish sultan and Ali Baba with 40 thieves. He concluded with the Russian phrase “Tovarishchi, konetz”—or comrades, it’s over—the motto of the 1990 democratic election that ousted Hungary’s Soviet-installed regime.

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    Yaroslav Trofimov

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  • Opinion | The Crisis in Paris Is That No One Recognizes the Real Crisis

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    France’s welfare state is in desperate need of reform, but Macron is obsessing over Marine Le Pen.

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    Joseph C. Sternberg

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  • Trump Says He Will Meet With Putin in Budapest to Discuss End to Ukraine War

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    WASHINGTON—President Trump said Thursday he plans to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Budapest for talks on ending the war in Ukraine, reviving a diplomatic effort after threatening to send new weapons to Kyiv.

    The agreement to hold the meeting in Budapest, at a date yet to be announced, came during a phone call between the two leaders a day before Trump is set to meet at the White House with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

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    Lara Seligman

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  • Opinion | Russia’s Weakness Is Trump’s Opportunity

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    Having just commemorated two years since Oct. 7, 2023, we’re now approaching another grim anniversary—Feb. 24, four years since Russia invaded Ukraine. For all of President Trump’s shortcomings, he deserves credit for recognizing that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was vulnerable after having overreached by bombing Qatar. The president leveraged Bibi’s weakness to force a cease-fire. Russia is in a similarly vulnerable position after the failure of its third offensive against Ukraine, yet Mr. Trump has failed to exploit this weakness. This raises the question: Why is Mr. Trump reluctant to take advantage of Vladimir Putin’s helplessness?

    In February, Mr. Trump berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky: “You don’t have the cards.” Yet from nearly every angle and measure, it’s Russia whose hand is weak. Mr. Putin is more vulnerable today than at any point in his three decades on the global stage. Either Mr. Trump’s sixth sense for using leverage is failing him, or some strange fondness for the Russian president’s strongman persona is preventing him from appreciating the strategic opportunity that lies before him.

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    [ad_2] Rahm Emanuel
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  • Ukraine Wants Tomahawks. Trump Has to Decide if They Would Help End the War.

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    WASHINGTON—The Tomahawk cruise missile that President Trump is considering for Ukraine has been the weapon of choice for decades for U.S. presidents seeking decisive military solutions.

    A highly accurate missile with a powerful warhead that can fly more than 1,000 miles, the Tomahawk can reach targets inside Russia far beyond any of the weapons the U.S. has provided to Kyiv until now. 

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    Michael R. Gordon

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  • Milei’s Radical Overhaul of Argentina Meets Its Match in the Humble Peso

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    BUENOS AIRES—When he ran for president of Argentina, Javier Milei compared the country’s currency to excrement, telling Argentines to forget the peso and vowing to scrap it altogether.

    Now Milei’s government is using its precious few reserves of American dollars to buy pesos and prop up their value, a stark departure from his free-market overhaul of the country’s economy. And he is asking for billions of dollars from the Trump administration to keep the peso from sliding.

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    [ad_2] Ryan Dubé
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