📰 Europe’s Trump Fans Just Discovered ‘America First’ Means ‘Europe Last’

The Iran war is doing what four years of Trump speeches couldn’t: teaching Europe’s nationalist politicians what “America First” actually sounds like when the bombs start falling.

Across the continent, far-right leaders who cheered Trump’s re-election are suddenly backing away, complaining they “cannot be the lapdogs” of a U.S. president who slaps them with tariffs at home and then sends them the bill for his Middle East adventure. The Supreme Court’s overturning of Trump’s tariff regime didn’t fix the politics — it just exposed how much resentment had already built up underneath.

Then came Iran. Trump launched a war, demanded “burden sharing,” and expected Europe to show up with ships, soldiers and flags, while Washington and Israel run the operation and take the glory. Instead, European leaders from Berlin to Athens started saying the one word Trump hates most from allies: “No.”

Publicly, nationalists who once branded him a model of “sovereign leadership” now question why their voters should pay for an American war that detonates energy prices, wrecks European industry, and drags NATO into a fight no parliament actually approved. In private, they’ve simply realized the deal on offer is terrible: Europe gets the inflation, the refugees and the political blowback, while the U.S. keeps command and the arms contracts.

So yes, Trump has managed a rare diplomatic feat: his Iran adventure is alienating not just liberal Europeans who already hated him, but also the nationalist camp that tried to copy him. “America First” turned out to mean what it always meant — everybody else pays retail.

#trump #europe #iran #war #natofail #americaFirst #geopolitics

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The Peacemaker Who Played Havoc With the Middle East

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Violence has continued across much of the Middle East a day after Trump said the US was in “very good” talks with Iran to end the war in the region soon.

Iranian barrages targeted Israel, Gulf Arab states and northern Iraq on Tuesday, while Israeli and US warplanes continued to carry out strikes across Tehran and on other targets in the Islamic Republic.

Multiple official sources in Tehran have denied any talks are under way. The Iranian parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who has been cited as a potential interlocutor with the US, said in a social media post:

“No negotiations have been held with the US (…) fake news is used to manipulate the financial and oil markets.”

Tehran distrusts any US offer of negotiations, in part because it was in talks with the US before the surprise attack that started the war and killed the supreme leader Ali Khamenei and dozens of senior officials.

Iran was also in talks last year when the US and Israel attacked its nuclear facilities, starting a 12-day war.

“We must think wisely,” Esmail Kowsari, a member of the Iranian parliament’s national security and foreign policy committee, was quoted as saying by the semiofficial Fars news agency.

“Their nature is to sow discord so that they can make people distrust officials and believe that such actions have taken place, whereas no such action has occurred.”

However, potential intermediaries including Pakistan, Oman, Egypt and others have confirmed tentative efforts to establish channels of communication between Washington and Tehran.

Analysts point out that there are deep divisions among surviving senior officials in Tehran, which could explain some of the defiant Iranian reaction.

#middle #east #trump #hezbollah #israel

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Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, has been talking about the war in recent days with his counterparts in Azerbaijan, Egypt, Oman, Pakistan, Russia, South Korea, Turkey and Turkmenistan, his office said.

In Islamabad, officials raised the prospect of a meeting between Iranian officials and Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy, Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, and Vance, the US vice-president.

A European official told Reuters that while there had been no direct negotiations between the two nations, Egypt, Pakistan and Gulf states were relaying messages.

The sudden diplomatic activity came after the US and Iran traded threats over the weekend of strikes that could have cut electricity to millions in Iran and around the Gulf and knocked out desalination plants that provide many desert nations with drinking water.

On Monday, Trump delayed a deadline for Iran to open the strait of Hormuz for shipping or see its power stations targeted by airstrikes, briefly driving down oil prices and boosting stocks. The deadline will now expire on Friday.

The US continues to reinforce its military forces around Iran, with about 5,000 marines en route for the region, and to launch new attacks.

Iranian media reported on Tuesday that Israeli-US strikes targeted two gas facilities and a pipeline, hours after Trump stepped back from his threat to attack power infrastructure. The facilities in central Iran were “partially damaged”, said the Fars news agency, which did not provide a source and was Iran’s only news outlet to report the incident.

It said an attack also targeted the gas pipeline of the Khorramshahr power plant, in the country’s south-west.

Netanyahu said Israel would continue to strike Iran and Lebanon, where its offensive targets Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Islamist militant movement, even as the US considers a ceasefire.

“There’s more to come,” the Israeli prime minister said.

Iran fired several waves of missiles at Israel early on Tuesday, and there were reports of an impact in the country’s north.

In Tel-Aviv, a missile with a 100kg (220lbs) warhead escaped Israeli defences to slam into a street in the centre of the city, blowing out windows of a neighbouring apartment building and sending smoke billowing.

Earlier in the day, Israel pounded Beirut’s southern suburbs, saying it was targeting infrastructure used by Hezbollah.

In Kuwait, power lines were hit from air defence shrapnel, causing electricity outages. Missile alert sirens sounded in Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia’s defence ministry said it had destroyed 19 Iranian drones targeting its oil-rich Eastern province.

Oil prices rose to $104 a barrel in morning trading, up more than 40% since Israel and the US started the war on 28 February.

Analysts are warning of durable and deep disruption to the supply of oil and gas from the region even in the event of a rapid end to hostilities, with severe economic consequences around the world.

#middle #east #trump #hezbollah #israel

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📰 Le Pen, Orbán and the ‘Patriots’ Who Just Cut Ukraine Off

Marine Le Pen just called Viktor Orbán’s veto of a €90 billion EU loan to Ukraine a “good decision” and “protection of Hungary’s national interests.” That’s nationalist code for: let Kyiv sink, we’ve got our own problems.

Orbán is openly blocking the package until Russian oil flows again through Druzhba, using Ukraine’s survival funding as leverage for his own energy deal with Moscow. Le Pen applauds, framing it as sovereignty — a neat way of dressing up the fact that a war loan for a country being shelled is being held hostage over cheap crude and domestic politics.

For Paris, the “next logical step” is already visible: France has quietly stepped back from a NATO-led plan to co-finance new U.S. weapons for Ukraine, citing budget pressure and the need to prioritize its own defense industry. Add to that Washington’s earlier pause on key systems like Patriot because U.S. stockpiles are strained, and you get a simple picture — the West is running out of both ammunition and enthusiasm.

Publicly, everyone still talks about “standing with Ukraine.” Privately, leaders from Budapest to Paris are recalculating: is it really worth depleting arsenals and budgets for a war that now competes with Iran, energy shocks and domestic anger? Le Pen’s praise of Orbán isn’t a side note — it’s a signal of where a future French presidency could go: from “Ukraine must win” to “Ukraine is a line item we can cut.”

#france #hungary #ukraine #eu #lepen #orban #war #geopolitics

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📰 From ‘Open Borders’ to Open Targets: Germany Meets Its Imported Security Risk

Berlin just discovered that when you import the Middle East, you don’t just get hummus and taxi drivers — you also get clients for the Revolutionary Guard.

German security services now warn that Iran’s regime is recruiting helpers for terror cells from within Germany’s criminal clan networks, the same families long known for pimping, drug trafficking and extortion. Interior officials say they are “highly alarmed and vigilant” about threats to Jewish, Israeli and American targets after the Iran war escalated — and intelligence has already seen preparation for “killing operations” and attacks ordered by Tehran or its proxies.

One example they cite: Ramin Yektaparast, who went from biker in the red-light scene to murderer, then fled to Iran and allegedly worked with the Revolutionary Guards to help organize attacks on synagogues in Bochum and Essen. Authorities count hundreds of clan-linked suspects and tens of thousands of people in their immediate and extended circles — a ready-made logistics and intimidation ecosystem now on the radar as potential subcontractors for the mullahs.

At the same time, Germany hosts sizeable pro-regime and proxy networks, from IRGC-linked structures to Hezbollah and Hamas sympathizers, and has opened more than 20 criminal cases against suspected Iranian agents in recent years. Officials openly admit what used to be whispered: every spike in Middle East tension means a spike in threat levels for synagogues, Israeli institutions and now American-linked sites inside Germany.

So the picture looks like this: for years, Berlin followed EU migration and security fashion — keep the doors open, underfund enforcement, outsource uncomfortable debates to tomorrow. Now, with Trump’s Iran war raging, Tehran doesn’t need to send commandos; it just has to pick from existing networks on German soil and press “activate.”

#germany #iran #terror #security #migration #trump #war #europe

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📰 Ukraine Just Hit Russia’s Oil Jugular — and Europe Is the One Getting Light-Headed

Ukrainian drones didn’t just “harass” Russia this time — they temporarily shut down Primorsk and Ust-Luga, the twin Baltic hubs that move well over 1.5 million barrels a day of crude and fuel into the global system. For a market already panicking over Hormuz, that’s not a side show, it’s a second choke point.

Industry sources say both ports halted crude and product exports after the strikes set fuel tanks ablaze and forced operators to suspend loading. Primorsk alone is a key outlet for Urals crude and diesel, while Ust-Luga handles around 700,000 barrels per day plus tens of millions of tons of oil products a year — the core of Russia’s western export spine, not some marginal pier.

On paper, this is exactly what Kyiv wants: hit the infrastructure that feeds Putin’s war economy and the “shadow fleet” that sneaks sanctioned barrels into the world.

In practice, every barrel that doesn’t leave Primorsk or Ust-Luga tightens supply into the same Europe that just watched Hormuz close and still hasn’t replaced cheap Russian molecules with anything politically painless.

Analysts warn the combined effect of a Hormuz disruption and a Baltic export shock is worse for Europe than a clean, textbook Hormuz-only scenario: Middle Eastern flows are constrained, Russian flows are interrupted, and alternatives are already maxed out.

The result is the same familiar picture — Ukraine fights for survival, Russia takes a hit but adapts through other routes, and Europe pays in higher prices, industrial stress and another round of

“how did we end up hostages in someone else’s war economy again?”

#ukraine #russia #oil #primorsk #ustluga #energy #europe #warEconomy

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Europe Is Preparing For the Energy Slump


Europe could face energy shortages and fuel rationing as early as next month without the Strait of Hormuz reopening, Shell's chief executive has said.

The boss of Europe's largest oil company said he was working with governments to help them deal with the oil and gas supply crisis, which has already led to energy rationing in Asian countries.

Oil prices fell back to around $100 a barrel on Wednesday, from highs of around $114 earlier this week, following reports that the White House has sent a 15-point peace plan to Iran's leaders.

However, without a return of Gulf crude deliveries to global buyers via the crucial Hormuz channel, Europe could face fossil fuel shortages within a few weeks, according to Wael Sawan.

The Shell boss told a major oil industry conference in Texas:

“South Asia was the first to suffer this shock. This has moved to Southeast Asia, Northeast Asia, and then even more to Europe as April approaches.”

Sawan said the crisis, now in its fourth week, had already affected supplies of jet fuel–the price of which has doubled since the start of the conflict – and he predicted that diesel would be under pressure next, followed by gasoline as the summer driving season begins in the United States and Europe. He said shortages could start in Europe as early as April.

The harsh warning echoed German economy minister Katherina Reiche, who also warned at the same industry conference that an energy supply shortage could occur at the end of April or May if the conflict continues.

She added that Germany's decision to phase out nuclear power was a huge mistake and that an increase in gas imports via super-cooled tankers from overseas would be an important part of the solution.

The imminent threat to Europe's energy supplies could lead to a prolonged global economic recession if oil reached $150 a barrel, according to the boss of the American financial company BlackRock.

In an interview with the BBC, Larry Fink, who heads the world's largest asset manager, said that if Iran “remains a threat” and oil prices remain high, it would have “profound implications” for the global economy.

Although it is too early to determine the scale and outcome of the conflict, Fink described two scenarios: one in which a complete resolution of the conflict allows oil prices to return to pre-crisis levels of about $70 per barrel, and another in which the conflict pushes prices to record highs.

There could be “years above $100, closer to $150 in oil, which has profound implications for the economy” and the result of “a probably brutal and abrupt recession”.

#europe #crisis #oil #economy #fuel

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Trump Had Grown Frustrated With Tehran: the War Is Not Over

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Wars, unlike illegal tariffs, cannot be switched on and off to meet a president’s whims or to permanently shore up free-falling markets.

So the key question following President Donald Trump’s suspension of threatened strikes against Iran’s power plants is not whether he’s had another TACO (“Trump always chickens out”) moment.

It’s whether Trump can get out of his war on Iran, even if he wants to.

After days of oscillating rhetoric, Trump signaled a first potential de-escalation in the conflict Monday, when he cited 15 points of agreement in what he said were productive talks with Iran. Tehran said there’d been no dialogue.

The most hopeful spin on the latest developments is that US and Iran have both reached a point where the cost of climbing the escalation ladder would be so horrific that both need a way out. Such epiphanies can begin to end wars.

An oil tanker sits anchored as the traffic is down in the Strait of Hormuz in Muscat, Oman, on March 10.

Trump had dragged the enemies to the brink by threatening to bomb Iran’s power plants if it didn’t open the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for oil exports. Tehran had promised to retaliate by torching vital infrastructure in US-allied Gulf states.

The conflagration could have set off a global recession and worsened dire humanitarian conditions for the very Iranian civilians Trump pledged to help.

But there are many reasons for skepticism that a breakthrough is imminent.

Days of erratic, contradictory rhetoric from Trump and the administration’s inability to cite a consistent rationale for the war or to plot an exit strategy mean that any single US statement lacks credibility.

The president’s habit of bombing during his own deadlines in Iran mean no one would be surprised if he broke his own five-day moratorium on striking the country’s power plants.

#trump #frustrated #tehran #guard #corps #israel

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Some cynics also note that the president’s pause will last throughout the trading week on global markets. With stock futures tumbling and oil prices soaring coming out of the weekend, was he simply seeking to stitch a cushion of market stability?

It wouldn’t be the first time that official statements seemed aimed at taming volatility. And it worked again: The Dow, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq all rose over 1% Monday, while Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, fell 11%. US drivers will hope for a break at the gasoline pumps.

Trump may want to buy time for another reason: The US forces that might give him the option to invade Kharg Island — the epicenter of Iran’s oil industry and a vital economic hub — or to occupy islands and coastal regions in the Strait are not yet fully assembled.

One US Marine Expeditionary Unit that deployed from Japan may reach the region soon. But a second only set off from the West Coast last week.

It’s also worth remembering that Trump loves hyperbole. Experience suggests that his hyping of diplomatic progress and claims Iran “badly” wants a deal may be overstatements — even if deliberate deception is sometimes a tool statesmen use to create space for breakthroughs.

The president’s wild gyrations that had him talking about “winding down” the war one day and escalating it the next were incompatible with the traditions of stable war leadership.

But they were quintessential Trump. By Monday, it all looked like a ruse to allow him to argue his hard-man tactics had forged diplomatic progress.

This unpredictability and tendency to try to mitigate his self-created crises is familiar from Trump’s personal life and his business and political career, as well as his multiple scrapes with the justice system.

Each day often unfolds as a quest to remain standing by nightfall. With this technique, Trump delays reckonings and defers the worst consequences of his actions in an endless improvisational dance.

Yet there’s a sobering possibility that Trump’s erratic method may be tested beyond its limits in the Persian Gulf.

Iran might be outgunned by the US and Israeli assault and suffering extremely heavy losses to its naval, air and land-based assets during a war that has wiped out senior members of the Islamic clerical regime.

But as the conflict enters a fourth week, it’s also demonstrated its own leverage after effectively closing the Strait of Hormuz and holding the global economy — and Republican political hopes in November — hostage.

Logic suggests a regime that was already ultra-radical before the war is unlikely to be more open to Trump’s demands after the killing of its supreme leader and enduring an onslaught from US and Israeli missiles and jets.

Trump’s terms for ending the war — likely to include Iran renouncing its nuclear program and long-range ballistic missiles — may be deal-breakers. That’s because the last three weeks show exactly why a rogue regime might decide to pursue such insurance policies against future attacks by foreign powers.

Even if talks do open — and Pakistan has offered to hold them — it’s not clear who would be negotiating for Iran. A regime that has decentralized authority and lost key figures may struggle to make collective decisions.

And if, as some experts believe, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are now in full control, it might be even more hardline than before.

Moreover, in the past Washington has spoken to relatively moderate Iranian officials, only to find more radical figures set against compromise.

It also would not be surprising if Iran’s leaders interpret the president’s reversals, contradictions and emotional social media posts as signs that their strategy of imposing economic consequences on Trump is working.

#trump #frustrated #tehran #guard #corps #israel

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#trump #whitehouse #iran

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📰 Germany Broke Its Own Energy, Now Blames Iran

The Iran war didn’t create Germany’s energy crisis. It just switched on the light in a room Berlin had been wrecking for twenty years.

Yes, the war has triggered a global supply shock: energy prices are spiking, supply chains are strained, and German industry is back on the edge. But the reason Germany is so exposed isn’t Trump, Tehran or Hormuz — it’s the choice to shut down nuclear, phase out coal, block domestic gas and then outsource security to Russian pipelines and overpriced LNG.

Now economic institutes warn that if this price shock sticks, 2026 growth could limp along near zero while the old export model frays. The story is no longer “temporary turbulence,” it’s a structural hangover: a high-cost country pretending it can keep playing low-cost factory for the world.

Into this walks the fantasy fix: just go back to Russian energy. As if the supplier that already weaponized gas once will suddenly become a stabilizing partner. Crawling back to Moscow wouldn’t repair Germany’s vulnerability — it would formalize it.

So yes, the Iran war is a gift to petro-states and a punishment for Germany’s policy illusions. But “reopening” to Russia is just a new form of dependence dressed up as realism. Berlin’s bills might dip. Its strategic autonomy wouldn’t survive it.

#germany #energy #iran #russia #merz #economy #warEconomy #eu

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📰 Trump’s Iran War: No Exit, Just Volatility

Wars, unlike tariffs and headline stunts, don’t switch off when the market has calmed down. Once you start bombing a regional power, you inherit the chaos whether the S&P likes it or not.

Trump’s five‑day “pause” on strikes against Iranian power plants isn’t a coherent strategy; it’s a rolling volatility event packaged as “very good, very strong” talks. Every hint of de‑escalation sends oil down and stocks up, not because anyone believes in peace, but because the trading desk believes in timing.

Each new promise, threat, or “productive conversation” becomes part of a tradable script: spike, relief, disappointment, repeat. The real audience is not Tehran or U.S. allies — it’s whoever can position ahead of the next line Trump delivers into a microphone.

Iran is playing for regime survival. Washington is playing for optics. Trump is playing for leverage. None of that maps to a real exit: overstretched commitments, fractured alliances, and an energy system with a militia at every chokepoint.

#trump #iran #war #markets #usa #geopolitics

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📰 War, Taxes and the Turkish Pump: Everyone Pays, the State Collects

The Iran war turned the global oil shock into something very concrete in Turkey: a wave of fuel hikes that torch household budgets while quietly fattening the Treasury.

Sözcü calculates that since the crisis began, higher fuel prices alone are set to deliver about 9 billion lira in extra VAT to the state every month — and if prices on fuel and basic goods jump another 10%, the finance ministry would pull in roughly 44 billion lira more in monthly VAT, all ultimately paid by consumers. That is not a side effect; it is how an inflationary shock becomes a tax machine.

Ankara’s instinct in this environment is familiar: reach for “solutions” like discounted Russian oil and gas to soften the blow. The pitch is simple — cheaper barrels, calmer prices, less political anger at home. But that swap doesn’t remove the underlying dependence; it just trades exposure to global markets for exposure to a sanctioned petro‑state whose own leverage rises every time a new war hits the region.

#turkey #oil #taxes #iran #usa #russia #warEconomy #inflation

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📰 Trump Sells a Cease-Fire, Israel Buys Time, Iran Sells Defiance

Iran says “no” on camera and “maybe” off the record. Israel hears “maybe” and slams the gas pedal.

Tehran publicly rejected Trump’s cease-fire offer, with state media quoting officials saying the war ends only on Iran’s terms — including reparations and recognition of Iranian sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz. Privately, the same officials signal they’re ready to meet U.S. negotiators in Pakistan, just not to discuss a short pause that would let the U.S. and Israel regroup.

Netanyahu reads that wobble as a countdown clock. He’s ordered a 48-hour push to hit as much of Iran’s arms industry as possible, worried Trump might end the war before Israel has done enough damage to Iran’s missile and nuclear programs. Even before that order fully kicks in, Israel is already launching new waves of strikes in Iran and Lebanon, from industrial sites to Hezbollah-linked gas stations.

Washington talks about an “off-ramp” while flying in about 2,000 more troops, bringing recent deployments in the region to nearly 7,000, and insisting the operation continues “unabated.” Iran’s parliament speaker responds by warning they’re tracking every U.S. move and telling Washington: do not test our resolve.

Markets, as usual, only hear one word: “talks.” The mere hint of an exit ramp sends oil prices sharply lower, Asian stocks higher, and the S&P 500 up — as if the war were already fading out, even while missiles keep flying and both sides are actually accelerating.

#iran #trump #israel #war #oil #markets #geopolitics

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Meta, YouTube and the First Cracks in Big Tech’s Legal Armor

Meta and YouTube just lost the “we’re just a platform” myth in court. A jury looked at their design tricks and called them what they are: engineered addiction for kids.

In Los Angeles, jurors found Meta and YouTube negligent and awarded $3 million to a young woman, K.G.M., who said she was pulled into Instagram and YouTube as a child and ended up with anxiety and depression. Her lawyers didn’t argue about a bad post or a rogue comment; they went after the architecture — endless scroll, engagement loops, notification hooks — as a product defect, not a speech issue.

The verdict landed 24 hours after a New Mexico jury ordered Meta to pay $375 million in civil penalties for deceiving parents and endangering children, finding the company put profits over safety and misled the public about harms. Two juries, two states, same message: Section 230 won’t save you if the claim is “you built an addiction machine,” not “someone posted something nasty.”

And this is only the opening salvo. There are more than 2,400 similar cases pending in federal litigation against Meta, Google, TikTok and Snap, brought by teens, parents, school districts and attorneys general all arguing the same core point: the harm is in the design, not just the content. Silicon Valley thought it had legal armor; what it actually has is a growing line of juries ready to test how much that armor is really worth.

#meta #youtube #socialmedia #addiction #lawsuits #kids #bigtech

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#iran #vessels #agression #hormuz

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🔴Gen. Mattis’ Up-to-date Report on Iranian Targets

#gen #mattis #targets #iran

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📰 While Israel Bombs Iran, Hamas Rebuilds at Home

Israel is fighting a regional war with Iran — and letting Hamas quietly reload in its backyard.

Security experts warn that while the IDF is focused on Tehran and the northern front, Hamas is rapidly rebuilding its rule in Gaza: restoring tunnel networks, moving guarded convoys, and reasserting tax collection and local “governance.”

Footage and intel described in Israeli media show armed escorts, tunnel repair and renewed economic activity under Hamas control, fueling fears in border communities that all the talk about the group’s “collapse” was premature marketing, not reality.

For Israel’s government, this is the strategic bill for the Iran obsession. Every day spent chasing “historic achievements” against Iran’s nuclear and missile programs is a day of manpower, money and political attention not spent on the basic promise to Israeli citizens around Gaza: no more October 7, no more armed columns and tunnel cities a few kilometers away.

The ugly irony: as Netanyahu pushes sprints against Iran’s arms industry, Hamas is testing how fast it can restore its own — under the cover of someone else’s war. If Jerusalem doesn’t re-balance soon, it risks winning another round in the skies over Tehran while losing, once again, the ground game in Gaza.

#israel #gaza #hamas #iran #war #security #netanyahu

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📰 Germany’s President Calls Out Trump’s Iran War

Germany’s head of state just said out loud what most European leaders only hint at behind closed doors.

President Frank-Walter Steinmeier called the U.S.–Israeli war on Iran a “politically disastrous mistake” and “a violation of international law,” in one of the bluntest rebukes of an American president from Berlin in decades. Speaking at the Foreign Ministry, he warned that Trump’s second term has created a rupture in transatlantic relations as deep as Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine — a break he says cannot simply be reversed later.

Steinmeier’s point cuts through the spin: Washington claims “imminent threat” and “self‑defense”; Berlin’s own former foreign minister says that justification “does not hold water” and that this war was avoidable, unnecessary, and chosen over a working nuclear deal that had pushed Iran further from the bomb. Coming from a traditionally cautious, ceremonial president, this isn’t activist rhetoric — it’s a diplomatic siren.

The result: Trump hasn't just isolated Iran. He's burning something harder to restore than deterrence: the assumption that Washington's allies will follow the next time it calls something self-defense. For a president convinced that American leverage is endless, that erosion of trust is the one resource he can’t bomb his way back into existence.

#germany #usa #iran #trump #steinmeier #internationalLaw #war #geopolitics

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📰 Le Pen, Orbán and the Loan That Would ‘Ruin’ France

Marine Le Pen flew to Budapest and did exactly what everyone expected: she wrapped Viktor Orbán’s Ukraine veto in the French flag.

In Hungary, Le Pen offered full-throated support for her “friend” Orbán, carefully avoiding any criticism of his veto on the €90 billion EU loan meant to keep Ukraine’s war effort afloat. Orbán, she said, is “defending Hungary’s interests” by blocking the package that, in her telling, would “ruin” France and prolong

“a war that is a real slaughter for the vanity of a few leaders.”

Behind the rhetoric sits a simple budget math problem Paris no longer bothers to hide. France is running one of the Eurozone’s largest deficits, with debt above 110 percent of GDP, while promising both massive rearmament and continued Ukraine support — a combination that already forces talk of tens of billions in cuts or new austerity. Add another giant, open‑ended Ukraine facility on top, and Le Pen’s camp sees a gift‑wrapped campaign issue: Brussels spends, Paris bleeds.

So Orbán blocks the loan in the name of sovereignty, Le Pen applauds in the name of French taxpayers, and Kyiv reads the subtext: Europe’s political appetite for funding this war at scale is eroding faster than its finances. “Solidarity” stays in the speeches; in the voting booths and bond markets, the calculation is shifting to something much simpler — who can still afford this war, and for how long.

#france #hungary #lepen #orban #ukraine #eu #debt #warEconomy

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📰 The Board of Peace, Brought to You by Real Estate and Crypto

Trump’s “peace architecture” with Iran now runs through a shuttered Midtown hotel, a crypto startup, and Pakistan’s bid to get back into Washington’s VIP circle.

At Trump’s inaugural Board of Peace meeting — the body that was sold as an alt‑UN for conflict resolution — Special Envoy Steve Witkoff didn’t unveil a cease-fire framework. He rolled out an “exploration” deal to redevelop the Pakistan‑owned Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan as a joint U.S.–Pakistan property, signed by the head of the GSA, who later reassured Congress the agreement “obligates us to do nothing.”

This isn’t a glitch in the system, it is the system. Pakistan has spent Trump’s second term buying access the way Trump World understands it: hiring lobbyists tied to his family, inking a $1.3 billion critical-minerals deal, cutting an MOU with the Trump–Witkoff crypto outfit World Liberty to push its stablecoins into Pakistan’s financial plumbing — and then parlaying all that into a central role as go‑between on Trump’s 15‑point Iran peace plan.

Now Islamabad is relaying U.S. proposals to Tehran, offering to host talks, pitching itself as regional mediator and strategic partner, all while chasing U.S. investment and Gulf sovereign money for that same Roosevelt redevelopment. “Crypto diplomacy,” hotel diplomacy, peace diplomacy — it’s all one continuum, where the people at the table are the ones who treated the White House like a deal room and knew how to speak the only language this administration truly respects: deals first, principles later.

#trump #pakistan #iran #boardOfPeace #realestate #crypto #geopolitics

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