Agency Report
DAILY COURIER - US President Donald Trump is pausing all military aid for Ukraine after a disastrous Oval Office meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, last week.
EU chief Ursula von der Leyen presents plan to mobilise some 800 billion euros ($841.5bn) for European defence, including the provision of “immediate” military support for Ukraine following the US’s suspension.
The US move comes hours after Trump accused Zelenskyy of not wanting peace “as long as he has America’s backing” and is likely to deal a serious blow to Ukraine’s efforts to repel Russia’s invasion.
Trump, who is due to address Congress later on Tuesday, has announced sweeping 25 percent tariffs on Mexico and Canada and promises to add on another 10 percent tariff on goods from China, on top of the initial 10 percent he put in place last month.
US commerce chief says tariffs may cause ‘short-term price movements’
Speaking to CNBC, Howard Lutnick has acknowledged that prices could rise in the aftermath of sweeping tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico going into effect.
However, he sought to downplay their impact, despite economists warning the measures could have lasting domestic blowback.
“There may well be short-term price movements, but in the long term, it’s going to be completely different,” Lutnick said.
Lutnick added that if the countries can stop the “flow of fentanyl” the tariffs could be removed.
Fentanyl smuggled from the country makes up about 0.2 percent of all of that synthetic opioid seized at the US borders.
Sheinbaum calls Trump administration statements ‘offensive, defamatory’
The Mexican president has continued her condemnation of Trump’s decision to impose tariffs, as she vowed to find a negotiated solution.
She took particular issue with a White House “fact sheet” published on Monday, which repeated the claim that Mexican drug trafficking continues because of “an intolerable relationship with the government Mexico”.
Sheinbaum called the claim “offensive, defamatory and without support”, while pointing to several recent actions taken by Mexico’s government. They included seizing more than a ton of fentanyl, dismantling 329 methamphetamine labs, and extraditing 29 drug cartel figures to the US last week.
She added it was “inconceivable” the Trump administration did not “think about the damage this is going to cause to United States citizens and businesses with the increase in prices for things produced in our country”.
Some military analysts we’ve spoken to estimate that it could take months, if not years, for Europe to get its ducks in place.
That’s despite the kind of announcements that we’ve heard from London in the last couple of days.
This four-point plan was announced by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and of course the voices coming out of Brussels today address this potential $800bn amount that is being offered by the EU.
The fact of the matter is that the fighting along the front line is intense, and Ukraine has relied heavily on the best weapons in the world to defend those lines over the last three years, and those are US weapons.
We’re talking about things like Patriot missile systems for air defence – the only defence system that Ukraine has available to it to take down, for example, Russian ballistic missiles.
It also supplies or has supplied Ukraine with tanks, with military fighting vehicles, with we understand around 4.5 million artillery shells.
And when you’ve got heavy fighting going on in places like Kupiansk, Pokrovsk, Chasiv Yar, and these nightly drone strikes that are targeting areas deep inside Ukraine, it is of great concern.
And time is certainly, according to the Ukrainians and their European backers, time is very much of the essence now.
Tim Houston, the premier of the eastern Canadian province of Nova Scotia, has slammed the US president and his tariffs against Canada in a fiery social media post.
“It is impossible to properly describe the uncertainty and chaos that President Trump’s threat of tariffs and now actually imposing tariffs has caused for Canadians,” Houston wrote on X.
In response, the premier said Nova Scotia would immediately limit access to provincial procurement for US businesses, double costs on a toll road for US commercial vehicles, and remove US alcohol from the shelves of the province’s liquor stores.
“We know tariffs are bad for people and businesses on both sides of the border,” Houston wrote.
“Unfortunately, some people need to touch the hot stove to learn, and while we cannot control or predict their behaviour, we can control how we respond.”
Mexico’s Sheinbaum says no justification for tariffs
The Mexican president has joined China and Canada in promising to respond to the 25 percent tariffs imposed by the Trump administration.
“There is no motive or reason, nor justification that supports this decision that will affect our people and our nations,” she said during her daily news conference.
Sheinbaum said she will announce the products Mexico will target at a public event on Sunday in Mexico City’s central plaza.
Source: Al Jazeera and news agencies
