Author: PolitCens

WASHINGTON — This week, thousands of conservative politicians, activists and influencers convened outside Washington for the Conservative Political Action Conference, the premier annual gathering of the American right.

The four-day event, hosted by the American Conservative Union since 1974, features U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, among other high-profile speakers from around the world.

Dubbed the “Woodstock for conservatives,” CPAC was once the go-to event for conservative Republicans and presidential hopefuls, with its presidential straw poll serving as a barometer of grassroots support. However, Trump’s political rise in recent years has transformed it into a platform for populism.

Driven by the rise of populist movements globally, the conference has ventured overseas in the past decade. It launched its first international conference in Japan in 2017, expanded to Australia, Brazil and South Korea in 2019, then added Hungary, Mexico and Israel in 2022. Argentina joined the fold last year following the election of populist President Javier Milei.

The international conferences, CPAC says, serve to “unite conservatives from all over the world, strengthen the movement, and challenge globalism.” They are also used for public outreach, recruitment and mobilization, according to a recent paper on CPAC by Grant A. Silverman, a research assistant at George Washington University in Washington.

CPAC’s growing international outreach mirrors a recent surge in far-right populism worldwide. Last year’s foreign speakers included Presidents Nayib Bukele of El Salvador and Javier Milei of Argentina, as well as Prime Minister Victor Orbán of Hungary.

Here’s a look at some of the foreign speakers for this year’s CPAC and what they’re saying:

Javier Milei, Argentine president

Milei, wielding a chain saw, electrified the CPAC crowd Thursday when he shared the stage with billionaire Elon Musk and presented Musk, Trump’s cost-cutting czar, with his signature campaign prop.

“This is the chain saw of bureaucracy,” Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, shouted, waving the tool.

As head of the Department of Government Efficiency, Musk, who made his first CPAC appearance, is spearheading the Trump administration’s massive governmentwide cost-cutting efforts.

This marks Milei’s third CPAC appearance. The self-styled “anarcho-capitalist” campaigned in 2023 on shrinking Argentina’s government, often brandishing a chain saw at rallies.

At last year’s Washington conference, he vowed to eliminate unnecessary government agencies, declaring, “We will not surrender until we make Argentina great again!”

Speaking at CPAC Argentina in December, Milei declared that the “new winds of freedom are sweeping through the world” and called on allies to fight against “lefties.”

“We must stand together, establishing channels of cooperation throughout the world,” he told the crowd.

Jair Bolsonaro, former president of Brazil

Brazil’s former right-wing president is a CPAC regular. After Bolsonaro lost a reelection bid in 2022, his supporters stormed federal government buildings in an alleged attempt to seize power. Banned from seeking office until 2030, Bolsonaro faces charges of plotting a coup.

His son, Eduardo Bolsonaro, organizes CPAC Brazil. At last year’s conference in Balneario Camboriu, the elder Bolsonaro joined Milei and other right-wing politicians from Latin America to hail conservatism’s global rise and expressed hope for Trump’s return to office.

For his part, Milei used the platform to denounce socialism, saying it restricts liberties and breeds corruption.

Robert Fico, prime minister of Slovakia

Robert Fico makes his CPAC debut this year. Though he leads a left-wing populist party, he has drawn controversy for his attacks on journalists, immigrants and LGBTQ+ people.

In October, he called journalists “bloody bastards” and threatened new media restrictions. An opponent of same-sex marriage, he has called adoption by gay couples a “perversion.”

During the Ukraine conflict, Fico has opposed European sanctions on Moscow and echoed Moscow’s messaging, drawing comparisons to Hungary’s pro-Kremlin prime minister.

In May, he survived an assassination attempt by a gunman opposed to his stance against military assistance to Ukraine.

Mateusz Morawiecki, former Polish prime minister

After speaking at CPAC Hungary last year, Morawiecki makes his first U.S. appearance this year. He served as prime minister from 2017 to 2023 and is now a leading figure in the opposition Law and Justice Party.

Despite his party’s strong support for Ukraine, Morawiecki maintains close ties with Hungary’s Orban and Spain’s Santiago Abascal, leader of the conservative Vox political party. Abascal is an invited speaker at CPAC.

Immigration is a unifying issue for Europe’s right-wing populists. At last year’s Hungary conference, Morawiecki called Orban his friend and credited his tough response to Europe’s 2015 migration crisis with preventing “chaos” in Europe.

Liz Truss, former British prime minister

The former Conservative Party leader and prime minister made her second CPAC appearance in a row Wednesday. Calling Britain a “failed state” ruled by a socialist government, she called for a Trump-style MAGA movement to save it.

“We want a Trump revolution in Britain,” she said to applause, praising Trump’s second presidency as “the golden age of America.”

Blaming Britain’s decline on unelected bureaucrats, she urged the dismantlement of the “deep state,” a favorite theme among conference attendees.

“We want Elon and his nerd army of muskrats examining the British deep state,” Truss said.

Truss served just 49 days as prime minister and lost her Parliament seat last year. 
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A total of 177 Venezuelan migrants were deported by the United States from the Guantanamo naval base, where they were detained, in another sign of cooperation between these historically feuding countries.

Click here for the full story in Spanish. 
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Congressman Riley Moore recently wrote an op-ed urging the administration to ban all student visas for Chinese nationals to prevent the CCP from using U.S. academic institutions as platforms for espionage. Experts told VOA Mandarin that due to the number of espionage cases Chinese students in the U.S. involved in, it might be more helpful to close the CCP-sponsored Chinese students and scholars’ associations on U.S. campuses.

Click here for the full story in Mandarin.  
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Politicians, media personalities and conservative activists gathered outside Washington on Friday for the second day of a conference featuring a range of political allies of President Donald Trump.

Speakers at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) heralded the Trump administration’s first month in office, with dozens of executive orders that have proposed sweeping changes to a wide range of government policies and positions on international issues.

Mike Waltz, the president’s national security adviser, told the CPAC audience Friday that the Trump administration’s efforts to end the Ukraine war are certain to include U.S. investments in Ukraine’s mineral assets as part of a plan to recoup some funding for Ukraine’s defense.

Earlier this week, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rejected a proposal that would grant American companies 50% ownership of Ukraine’s rare earth minerals, but Waltz on Friday said the Ukrainian leader “is going to sign” a revised U.S. offer.

Waltz also said the Trump administration plans to “unleash holy hell” on drug cartels. On Wednesday, the State Department designated several Mexican drug cartels as terrorist groups.

Journalist-turned-politician Kari Lake, whom Trump said in December he would like to see lead Voice of America, spoke about what she sees as the president’s wins in his first month in office, and her views on legacy media.

“Watching what President Trump has accomplished and done in one month is so incredible,” Lake said, referring to actions by the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency and the State Department to search for corruption and curtail spending, including by ending foreign aid funding.

A former TV journalist in Arizona for nearly 30 years, Lake spoke of how she quit journalism because of what she felt was disinformation about the coronavirus pandemic.

“We’re still surrounded by too many fake journalists out there,” Lake said, adding that she believes the “purpose of the mainstream media is no longer to inform us, it’s to manipulate us.”

She criticized Associated Press reporting on government officials and independent bodies who validated the results of the 2020 election, saying, “They still pretend the 2020 election was the most secure election in all of history.”

Lake also said that she is honored that Trump named her to lead VOA, and said she will focus the news agency on producing “accurate and honest reporting.”

“VOA has been telling America’s story to the world for 83 years this Monday. Sometimes the coverage has been incredible and sometimes it’s been pitiful,” Lake said. “We are fighting an information war, and there’s no better weapon than the truth, and I believe VOA could be that weapon.”

Among those who have called for the network to be cut is Musk.

“We won’t become Trump TV,” she said, “but it sure as hell will not be ‘TDS TV.’ You can find all the Trump Derangement Syndrome that you want over on CNN, MSNBC, PBS, ’60 Minutes,’ The Washington Post and The New York Times.”

Trump is expected to address the CPAC gathering on Saturday.
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The measles outbreak in rural West Texas has grown to 90 cases across seven counties, the state health department posted online Friday, and 16 people are hospitalized. 

In neighboring eastern New Mexico, the measles case count is up to nine, though state public health officials said Thursday there’s still no evidence this outbreak is connected to the one in Texas. 

The West Texas cases are concentrated in eight counties in West Texas.  

Texas state health department data shows that most of the cases are among people younger than 18. Twenty-six cases are in kids younger than 4 and 51 are in kids 5-17 years old. Ten adults have measles, and three cases are pending an age determination. The Ector County Health Department told the Odessa American its case was in a child too young to be vaccinated. 

State health officials have said this outbreak is Texas’ largest in nearly 30 years. Health department spokeswoman Lara Anton said last week that cases have been concentrated in a “close-knit, undervaccinated” Mennonite community — especially among families who attend small private religious schools or are homeschooled. 

In New Mexico, all of the cases are in Lea County, which borders Gaines County in Texas. The state health department has said people may have been exposed at a grocery store, an elementary school, a church, hospital and a pharmacy in Hobbs, New Mexico. 

Measles is a highly contagious respiratory virus that can survive in the air for up to two hours. Up to 9 out of 10 people who are susceptible will get the virus if exposed, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Most kids will recover from the measles if they get it, but infection can lead to dangerous complications like pneumonia, blindness, brain swelling and death. 

The vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella is safe and highly effective in preventing measles infection and severe cases of the disease. 

The first shot is recommended for children between 12 and 15 months old and the second between 4 and 6 years old. The vaccine series is required for kids before entering kindergarten in public schools nationwide. 

Before the vaccine was introduced in 1963, the U.S. saw some 3 million to 4 million cases per year. Now, it’s usually fewer than 200 in a normal year. 

There is no link between the vaccine and autism, despite a now-discredited study and health disinformation. 

In communities with high vaccination rates — above 95% — diseases like measles have a harder time spreading through communities. This is called “herd immunity.” 

But childhood vaccination rates have declined nationwide since the pandemic and more parents are claiming religious or personal conscience waivers to exempt their kids from required shots. 

The U.S. saw a rise in measles cases in 2024, including an outbreak in Chicago that sickened more than 60.  

Gaines County has one of the highest rates in Texas of school-aged children who opt out of at least one required vaccine, with nearly 14% of K-12 children in the 2023-24 school year. Health officials say that number is likely higher because it doesn’t include many children who are homeschooled and whose data would not be reported. 

Health workers are hosting regular vaccination clinics and screening efforts in Texas, as well as working with schools to educate people about the importance of vaccination and offering shots. 

New Mexico health officials are also hosting several vaccination clinics in Hobbs next week. 
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LOS ANGELES — Six weeks after the most destructive wildfire in city history, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass ousted the city’s fire chief Friday amid a public rift over preparations for a potential fire and finger-pointing between the chief and City Hall over responsibility for the devastation.

Bass said in a statement that she is removing Chief Kristin Crowley immediately.

“Bringing new leadership to the Fire Department is what our city needs,” Bass said in a statement.

“We know that 1,000 firefighters that could have been on duty on the morning the fires broke out were instead sent home on Chief Crowley’s watch,” Bass disclosed. She added that the chief refused a request to prepare an “after-action report” on the fires, which she called a necessary step in the investigation.

The Palisades Fire began during heavy winds Jan. 7, destroying or damaging nearly 8,000 homes, businesses and other structures and killing at least 12 people in the Los Angeles neighborhood.

Another wind-whipped fire started the same day in suburban Altadena, a community to the east, killing at least 17 people and destroying or damaging more than 10,000 homes and other buildings.

Bass has been facing criticism for being in Africa as part of a presidential delegation on the day the fires started, even though weather reports had warned of dangerous fire conditions in the days before she left.

In televised interviews this week, Bass acknowledged she made a mistake by leaving the city. But she inferred she wasn’t aware of the looming danger when she flew around the globe to attend the inauguration of Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama. She faulted Crowley for failing to alert her to the potentially explosive fire conditions.

Crowley has publicly criticized the city for budget cuts that she said made it harder for firefighters to do their jobs.

Crowley was named fire chief in 2022 by Bass’ predecessor at a time when the department was in turmoil over allegations of rampant harassment, hazing and discrimination. She worked for the city fire department for more than 25 years and held nearly every role, including fire marshal, engineer and battalion chief.
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WASHINGTON — U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent traded policy complaints with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng on Friday, with Bessent telling Beijing to do more to curb fentanyl trafficking and rebalance its economy, and He voicing concerns about President Donald Trump’s new tariffs, the two governments said.

The top economic officials from the world’s two largest economies agreed to keep up communications, the Treasury said in a readout of the introductory video call.

“Secretary Bessent expressed serious concerns about the PRC’s counternarcotics efforts, economic imbalances, and unfair policies, and stressed the Administration’s commitment to pursue trade and economic policies that protect the American economy, the American worker, and our national security,” the Treasury said, using the acronym for China’s official name, the People’s Republic of China.

Earlier, Chinese state media reported that He expressed concerns to Bessent over U.S. tariffs and trade restrictions on China during the call.

The two sides had an “in-depth” exchange of views on important issues in China-U.S. economic relations, and both agreed to keep communicating on matters of mutual concern, according to a readout released by Chinese state media.

He, the lead China-U.S. trade negotiator on the Chinese side, and Bessent recognized the importance of bilateral economic and trade relations, the readout said.

More tariffs

China and the United States are seeking to manage their relationship as they stand on the precipice of a renewed trade war.

Trump imposed 10% tariffs on all Chinese goods in early February, citing China’s failure to stanch fentanyl trafficking.

Beijing retaliated by imposing targeted tariffs of up to 15% on some U.S. imports, including energy and farm equipment, and put several companies, including Google, on notice for possible sanctions.

Trump has also planned further reciprocal tariffs for all countries that tax U.S. imports, a move that is likely to further escalate global trade tensions. During his election campaign, Trump threatened 60% tariffs on all Chinese imports.

Trump said earlier this week he expected Chinese President Xi Jinping to visit the U.S., without giving a timeline for such a trip.

Bessent said on Thursday he would tell his Chinese counterpart that China needed to rebalance its economy and rely more on domestic consumption for growth and less on investment and exports.

“They are suppressing the consumer in favor of the business community,” Bessent told Bloomberg Television.

Similar arguments

The U.S. had a $295.4 billion goods trade deficit with China in 2024, down from a peak of $418.2 billion in 2018, the year Trump began imposing new tariffs on some $370 billion of Chinese imports.

But last year’s deficit rose $16.3 billion from 2023 as Chinese exporters rushed to beat a new round of Trump tariffs.

Bessent’s predecessor, former Treasury secretary Janet Yellen, met several times with He in recent years and lodged similar complaints about China’s state-led economic policies.

She argued during a trip to China last year that those policies were leading to excess production capacity that was threatening the viability of firms in the U.S. and other market economies, a warning that laid the groundwork for former President Joe Biden’s steep tariff hikes on electric vehicles, semiconductors and solar products.

He and other Chinese officials never accepted U.S. excess capacity assertions, arguing that China’s EV and other key industries are simply more competitive.
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WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump is pushing for a peaceful resolution to Russia’s now three-year war in Ukraine. VOA examined several approaches floated by think tanks recently aimed at achieving a lasting peace to the war.

Maximum pressure strategy

A plan by the Center for European Policy Analysis, or CEPA, titled “How to Win: A Seven-Point Plan for Sustainable Peace in Ukraine,” calls for “a maximum pressure strategy to bring Russia to the negotiating table in good faith.”

It proposes that the U.S. and its allies:

“Should provide immediate materiel support to Ukraine without caveats, aiming to wear down Russia’s military and thereby improve Ukraine’s negotiating position.”
“Should increase sanctions on Russian financial institutions and energy sector entities, release frozen Russian assets to support Ukrainian defense and reconstruction and enact secondary sanctions to intensify economic pressure not only on Russia but also on the authoritarian regimes of China, Iran, and North Korea.”

CEPA says that “Ukraine and Europe” must be included in any peace talks with Russia, that the U.S. should support “a European-led coalition of the willing” to enforce any “ceasefire line with an international force,” and that “European allies must make consistent and as rapid as possible progress toward Ukraine’s accession to the European Union.”

One of the report’s authors, Catherine Sendak, CEPA’s director for transatlantic defense and security, told VOA’s Ukrainian service that the United States should enter talks with Russia only having “equipped Ukraine with the strongest possible means” and using its toughest “diplomatic tools.”

She added that the issue of Ukraine’s possible membership in NATO should not be included in talks with Russia. “To discuss that with a non-NATO member … I don’t believe it is advantageous to any negotiation,” Sendak said, noting that it would give Russia “veto power, if you will, over … choosing members to join the alliance or not.”

Negotiating tactics

Josh Rudolph, a German Marshall Fund senior fellow and head of its Transatlantic Democracy Working Group, worked on Russian and Ukrainian policy at the National Security Council during the first Trump administration.

Last month, he offered policy recommendations to the current Trump administration on ending the Ukraine conflict.

Among them:

“Approach [Russian President Vladimir] Putin from a position of strength. Whereas Putin looked tough and capable at the outset of Trump’s first term, his blunder in Ukraine has left him diminished. … As the dominant partner in this relationship, Trump, not Putin, can set negotiating terms.”
“Know when to walk away. A critical moment in the negotiations will come when Putin refuses to make major concessions. Trump must be prepared to walk away.”
“Combine sanctions with lower oil and gas prices. The best way to make Putin to see that pressing on in Ukraine would spell disaster for his rule is to pressure Russia financially. … Harnessing his warmer relationship with Saudi Arabia than [former President Joe] Biden enjoyed, Trump should flood the fossil fuel market, which would make the sanctions sustainable, starve Russia’s war machine, and generate political stability risks in Moscow.”

Rudolph also recommended arming Ukraine “to the hilt”; giving it “all $300 billion of Russia’s frozen assets”; making Europe “pay more for weapons” and provide 100,000 troops as “peacekeepers”; enabling “American companies to rebuild Ukraine”; and inviting Ukraine to join NATO should Putin refuse to accept “reasonable” peace deal terms.

Rudolph told VOA that Trump could convince those in the U.S. now skeptical of continuing to arm Ukraine that doing so as part of a peace deal would benefit American workers.

“[H]e tells them, OK, now we’ve got a good deal, it’s secured by rare earth [minerals], it has ended the war, and in order to hold it together, we’re going to need to provide a continued stream of good old American-made weapons, which by the way, create all of these American jobs and facilities and factories across red states.”

Touting economic benefits

In a report titled “Dollars and Sense: America’s Interest in a Ukrainian Victory,” Elaine McCusker, Frederick W. Kagan and Richard Sims of the American Enterprise Institute looked at the cost of ending support for Ukraine, concluding that this would lead to Ukraine’s defeat and Russia’s advance farther into Europe, forcing the U.S. to surge its presence in Europe.

Among the report’s conclusions:

“Supporting Ukraine to victory against Russia is in the best interest of the United States.”
“A world in which Russia prevails would be more dangerous and more expensive for America — requiring an estimated increase of $808 billion in defense spending over five years.”
“Alternatively, an increased and accelerated multinational commitment to Ukraine and the conclusion of the war in the near term would result in a vibrant and free Ukraine with a newly modernized and battle-tested military and a thriving industrial base, which would help stabilize Europe.”

In an interview with VOA, Frederick Kagan said a Russian victory in Ukraine would be a victory for Iran, China and North Korea, encouraging adventurism in their respective regions, and allow Russia to rebuild its army by obtaining additional human and material resources within Ukraine.

A Russian takeover of Ukraine would send a wave of refugees into Europe, further destabilizing the continent, Kagan said.

“They’ve committed atrocities on the Ukrainian population in the areas they occupy. I would expect that would get worse the further west the Russians move and the more they move into the hardest traditional anti-Russian, pro-Western areas of western Ukraine. The horrors will be unspeakable,” he predicted.

He said surged assistance to Ukraine would turn it into a bulwark for European peace and security — a country with a battle-tested army and rapidly developing military industry — thereby allowing the U.S. to focus on other regions.

Middle road approach

The Heritage Foundation’s “Project 2025 Presidential Transition Project” includes policy recommendations concerning the Russia-Ukraine war.

It noted that the American conservative movement is split over Ukraine — one side supports Kyiv, the other favors walking away — and offered a middle road.

Among Project 2025’s recommendations:

"With respect to Ukraine, continued U.S. involvement must be fully paid for; limited to military aid (while European allies address Ukraine’s economic needs); and have a clearly defined national security strategy that does not risk American lives.”
“Regardless of viewpoints, all sides agree that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is unjust and that the Ukrainian people have a right to defend their homeland. The conflict has severely weakened Putin’s military strength and provided a boost to NATO unity and its importance to European nations.”
“The next conservative president has a generational opportunity to bring resolution to the foreign policy tensions within the movement and chart a new path forward that recognizes Communist China as the defining threat to U.S. interests in the 21st century.”

James Carafano, a national security expert at The Heritage Foundation who is responsible for its defense and foreign policy team, told VOA that it is in the U.S. interest to have a free and independent Ukraine that can defend itself.

“For the practical matter is, the United Europe can defend itself, and the United States can defend Europe if Ukraine’s occupied by Russia. Now, having said that, are we … way, way better off with the Russians on the other side of Ukraine? And the answer is ‘absolutely.’”

In July, VOA published an interview with retired Army Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg, serving as Trump’s envoy for Ukraine and Russia, that focused on his vision of ending the war in Ukraine.

 
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A tearful executive at the U.S. Internal Revenue Service told staffers on Thursday that about 6,000 employees would be fired, a person familiar with the matter said, in a move that would eliminate roughly 6% of the agency’s workforce in the midst of the busy tax-filing season.

The cuts are part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping downsizing effort that has targeted bank regulators, forest workers, rocket scientists and tens of thousands of other government employees. The effort is being led by tech billionaire Elon Musk, Trump’s biggest campaign donor.

Musk was on stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, when Argentine President Javier Milei, known for wielding a chain saw to illustrate his drastic policies slashing government spending, handed him one.

“This is the chain saw for bureaucracy,” said Musk, holding the power tool aloft as a stage prop to symbolize the drastic slashing of government jobs.

Labor unions have sued to try to stop the mass firings, under which tens of thousands of federal workers have been told they no longer have a job, but a federal judge in Washington on Thursday ruled that they can continue for now.

Christy Armstrong, IRS director of talent acquisition, teared up as she told employees on a phone call that about 6,000 of their colleagues would be laid off and encouraged them to support each other, a worker who was on the call said.

“She was pretty emotional,” the worker said.

The layoffs are expected to total 6,700, according to a person familiar with the matter, and largely target workers at the agency hired as part of an expansion under Democratic President Joe Biden, who had sought to expand enforcement efforts on wealthy taxpayers. Republicans have opposed the expansion, arguing that it would lead to harassment of ordinary Americans.

The tax agency now employs roughly 100,000 people, compared with 80,000 before Biden took office in 2021.

Independent budget analysts had estimated that the staff expansion under Biden would work to boost government revenue and help narrow trillion-dollar budget deficits.

“This will ensure that the IRS is not going after the wealthy and is only an agency that’s really focused on the low income,” said University of Pittsburgh tax law professor, Philip Hackney, a former IRS lawyer. “It’s a travesty.”

Those fired include revenue agents, customer-service workers, specialists who hear appeals of tax disputes, and IT workers, and impact employees across all 50 states, sources said. The IRS did not respond to a request for comment.

The IRS has taken a more careful approach to downsizing than other agencies, given that it is in the middle of the tax-filing season. The agency expects to process more than 140 million individual returns by the April 15 filing deadline and will retain several thousand workers deemed critical for that task, one source said.

The Trump administration’s federal layoffs have focused on workers across the government who are new to their positions and have fewer protections than longer-tenured employees.

Meanwhile, the Trump White House is also preparing to dissolve the leadership of the U.S. Postal Service and absorb the independent agency into the Commerce Department, the Washington Post reported on Thursday.

Waiting for dismissal email

At the IRS’s Kansas City office, probationary workers found all functions had been disabled on their computers except email, which would deliver their dismissal notices, said Shannon Ellis, a local union leader.

“What the American people really need to understand is that the funds that are collected through the Internal Revenue Service, they fund so many programs that we use every day in our society,” Ellis told Reuters.

The White House has not said how many of the nation’s 2.3 million civil-service workers it wants to fire and has given no numbers on the mass layoffs. Roughly 75,000 took a buyout offer last week.

The campaign has delighted Republicans for culling a federal workforce they view as bloated, corrupt and insufficiently loyal to Trump, while also taking aim at government agencies that regulate big business — including those that oversee Musk’s companies SpaceX, Tesla and Neuralink.

The small unit within the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that regulates the kind of autonomous cars that Musk says are the future of Tesla is losing nearly half of its staff, the Post reported on Thursday.

Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency team has also canceled contracts worth about $8.5 billion involving foreign aid, diversity training and other initiatives opposed by Trump. Both men have set a goal of cutting at least $1 trillion from the $6.7 trillion federal budget, though Trump has said he will not touch popular benefits programs that make up roughly one-third of that total.

Democratic critics have said Trump is exceeding his constitutional authority and hacking away at popular and critical government programs at the expense of legions of middle-class families.

Most Americans worry the cost-cutting could hurt government services, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Thursday.

Some agencies have struggled to comply with the rapid-fire directives Trump has issued since taking office a month ago. Workers who oversee U.S. nuclear weapons were fired and then recalled, while medicines and food exports have been stranded in warehouses by Trump’s freeze on foreign aid.
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SAN JOSE, COSTA RICA — A group of families and children hailing from Uzbekistan, China, Afghanistan, Russia and more countries climbed down the stairs of an airplane in Costa Rica’s capital Thursday, the first flight of deportees from other nations Costa Rica agreed to hold in detention facilities for the Trump administration while it organized the return back to their countries.

The flight of 135 deportees, half of them minors, added Costa Rica to a growing list of Latin American nations to serve as a stopover for migrants as U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration seeks to step up deportations.

While Costa Rica joins Panama in holding deportees from mostly Asian origin until their repatriation can be arranged or they can seek protection somewhere, Honduras on Thursday also facilitated a handoff of deportees between the U.S. and Venezuela from a flight coming from Guantanamo Bay.

The migrants arriving in Costa Rica will be bused to a rural holding facility near the Panama border, where they will be detained up to six weeks and be flown back to their countries of origin, said Omer Badilla, Costa Rica’s deputy minister of the interior and police.

The U.S. government will cover the costs.

The arrangement is part of a deal the Trump administration struck with Costa Rica during U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s visit earlier this month. It comes as Trump has pressured countries across the region to help facilitate deportations at times under the threat of steep tariffs or sanctions.

Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves told reporters Wednesday that his country is helping its “economically powerful brother from the north.”

Similar agreements have been reached with other Latin American nations, but the concept of using third countries as deportation layovers has drawn strong criticism from human rights advocates. Beyond the conditions of their detention in Costa Rica, concerns revolve around international protections for asylum seekers and whether these deportees will be appropriately screened before being returned to their countries or sent to yet another country.

Panama this week became the first such country to accept 299 deportees from other nations, with the government holding them in hotel rooms guarded by police. About one-third of those who refused to voluntarily return to their countries were sent to a remote camp in Darien province bordering Colombia on Wednesday. The rest were awaiting commercial flights back home.

“We’ve thrown out the possibility of a hotel, precisely to avoid a situation similar to that in Panama,” Badilla, the Costa Rican official, told The Associated Press.

Honduras said Thursday it also acted as a brief stopover for a deportation flight of Venezuelans coming from Guantanamo Bay in what it described as a “humanitarian bridge” since there are no direct flights between the United States and Venezuela.

A U.S. flight carrying 170 Venezuelans landed Thursday in a joint U.S.-Honduran military base in central Honduras, and within hours were transferred to a Venezuelan aircraft. An official with Honduras’ foreign ministry said this was not a routine arrangement, but that the Central American nation remains open to facilitating more transfers between the two adversaries.

Badilla said that Thursday’s deportation flight from San Diego is largely made up of families, including 65 children, two pregnant women and an elderly woman. He said Costa Rica was told by the Trump administration that most of the deportees have agreed to voluntarily return to their countries. If they refuse, Costa Rica is open to offering deportees refuge or will work with the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration, IOM, to facilitate travel to another third country.

“Costa Rica is a country that guarantees human rights,” he said. “We are going to guarantee that they are returned to safe countries. We cannot leave that to chance because of an ethical and moral commitment of our country.”

In the meantime, migrants will be detained in the border facility, where they will be accompanied by U.N. officials, the Red Cross and other aid-focused government entities to “guarantee their rights,” Badilla said. The facility being used to hold migrants, a former factory, has faced criticisms for its conditions in the past. During a visit by the AP in October 2023, migrants were fenced off in cramped facilities and said they felt like “prisoners.” Many slept in tents on the ground, where some said liquid from portable toilets leaked.

Badilla said that facilities have since been improved, but the government has denied journalists access to the building. The facility will also be processing a “reverse flow” of migrants from Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador that previously sought asylum in the U.S. and now want to return home.

Badilla said Costa Rica has seen between 50 and 75 migrants headed south entering the country a day. IOM said in a statement to the AP that “we do not have direct involvement in the detention or restriction of movement of individuals” and that it was providing humanitarian support and supporting voluntary returns to their countries and “identifying safe alternatives for others.”
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WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate on Thursday began a debate on a Republican bill to advance President Donald Trump’s priorities on immigration, energy and defense, even after he urged lawmakers to scrap the effort in favor of a House of Representatives bill that would also include trillions of dollars in tax cuts.

Trump this week came down firmly in favor of House Republicans’ plan for a single sweeping bill. Backers of that plan fear that passing an immigration bill first could diminish their chances of extending $4.5 trillion in tax cuts in the House, where Republicans hold a narrow and fractious 218-215 majority.

Senate Republicans said they would nonetheless push ahead with their narrower plan and address tax cuts in a later bill. They are seeking to bypass Democratic opposition in that chamber and secure an early legislative win for Trump.

Democrats lack the votes to stop the bill but have vowed to fight it as long as possible, accusing Republicans of shortchanging American families to benefit the wealthy with tax breaks.

“We’re going to be here all night,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer proclaimed just before voting on amendments that began Thursday evening.

Schumer introduced the first amendment, which seeks to prohibit tax cuts for those earning more than $1 billion. Republicans blocked the amendment.

Democratic Senator Tim Kaine put the Senate on notice that he alone was seeking debate on about two dozen amendments ranging from middle-class tax cuts to measures protecting federal workers from termination and social safety net programs from cuts.

Republican Senate Budget Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham said earlier in the evening that there was an urgent need to beef up border security and the U.S. military. He argued that the higher spending ordered in the legislation would be “offset with $342 billion in cuts in other parts of the government.”

In a rarely used Senate process known as a “vote-a-rama,” amendments can be offered until both parties agree to stop. Normally, the two parties agree upon a narrow set of amendments for debate in the full Senate on legislation.

Republicans, who hold a 53-47 advantage over Democrats in the Senate, were expected to defeat scores of opposition amendments.

Both chambers of Congress need to pass the same budget resolution to unlock the parliamentary tool that would enable Republicans to enact Trump’s legislative agenda in a way that circumvents Democratic opposition and the Senate filibuster.

Democrats made use of this maneuver in the first two years of Joe Biden’s presidency, when they held majorities in both chambers of Congress.

The Senate’s bill, which leaves the issue of Trump’s desired extension of his 2017 tax cuts to a later date, could serve as a backup in case the House Republicans cannot agree on how to pay for the tax cuts in their bill without slashing funding for popular safety net programs like Medicaid and Social Security or potentially adding to the country’s $36 trillion debt.

The Senate measure, a $340 billion fiscal 2025 budget resolution, would boost spending by $85 billion a year for four years to fund tighter border security, Trump’s deportation of immigrants in the country illegally, energy deregulation, and an increase in military spending.

The House budget resolution includes those same priorities along with $4.5 trillion in tax cuts, while seeking to cover the cost through $2 trillion in spending cuts and accelerated economic growth based mainly on the tax and energy policy changes it would usher in.
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WASHINGTON — Hoping to head off a potential trade conflict, a top European Union official stressed the importance of active engagement and fairness in trade during a four-hour meeting with Trump administration officials.

“The top objective as it was presented to us yesterday by our American partners is reciprocity,” Maros Sefcovic, the European commissioner for trade and economic security, told reporters at a Thursday briefing.

Sefcovic met on Wednesday with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett and Jamieson Greer, President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the U.S. trade representative.

Trump has thrown the decades long partnership between the U.S. and Europe into turmoil by pledging to charge higher taxes on imports from Europe that he says would match the tariffs faced by American products.

But Trump’s plan for fair tariffs would also include the value added tax — which is akin to a sales tax — charged in Europe that could drastically push up import taxes and potentially trigger a broader trade conflict if the EU imposed retaliatory measures. A broader trade war risks both an economic slowdown and higher inflation that could create financial challenges for millions of families and potentially hurt political support for Trump, as voters in 2024’s election specifically wanted him to lower price pressures.

Trump also has proposed separate sectoral tariffs on autos, pharmaceutical drugs and computer chips, in addition to having already imposed 25% steel and aluminum tariffs with no avenues to provide exceptions or exemptions.

Additionally, the U.S. president also has tariffs ready on Mexico and Canada over his claims that more should be done on illegal immigration and drug smuggling, though he suspended those tariffs for 30 days for ongoing talks. The import taxes that could potentially harm the U.S. auto sector and other industries could potentially begin in March.

At Thursday’s White House news briefing, Hassett said that he and Lutnick had talks with a Mexican delegation about resolving the issues.

“We want trade to be fair,” Hassett said.

The EU official tried in his conversation with White House officials to equate the value added tax as similar to a sales tax as its paid by the final consumer, but he said that the issue had not been resolved.

Sefcovic also said they discussed the industrial overcapacity of China, particularly in steel, and that the U.S. and EU should work together to tackle that problem, instead of targeting each other.

He stressed that the meeting ended with a focus on looking for ways to “generate positive momentum,” adding that the EU would like to “see where we can, like, move first and fast, because I really would like to avoid the pain of measures and countermeasures.”

The EU official said it was critical to establish a personal relationship with his U.S. counterparts.

“I’m glad that it happened and that we could have such an intense meeting,” he said. “Now, I think we will both be thinking how to keep the momentum going on and how to hopefully avoid I would say, the pain.”
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Panama has already begun the transfer to Darien of a portion of those deported from the United States. The canal country expressed that the reciprocity measure with the U.S. seeks to avoid a bottleneck of these people in their transit through Central America.

Click here for the full story in Spanish.
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U.S. envoy Keith Kellogg met in Kyiv Thursday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but there was no immediate word on whether they had eased U.S.-Ukrainian relations after U.S. President Donald Trump and Zelenskyy traded barbs this week over Russia’s three-year war against Ukraine.

Kellogg said upon arriving in the Ukrainian capital that he was there to listen to Zelenskyy’s views after officials in Kyiv voiced their anger at being excluded this week when the top U.S. and Russian diplomats met in Saudi Arabia to lay the groundwork for talks to end the fighting.

After Kellogg met with Zelenskyy, the two men were expected to hold a news conference, but the Ukrainian side said the Americans asked that it be called off, and it was.

Trump and Zelenskyy assailed each other this week. The U.S. president, echoing Russian attacks, called Zelenskyy a “dictator without elections,” while Zelenskyy accused Trump of living in a Russian-influenced “disinformation space” when the U.S. leader indicated that Ukraine started the war. It was Moscow that invaded its neighbor three years ago next week.

Ukraine fears that Trump is moving to settle the war on terms more favorable to Moscow. Russia currently controls about a fifth of Ukraine’s internationally recognized territory.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance told a gathering of conservative activists outside Washington on Thursday that Trump “wants the killing to stop” in Ukraine and that “peace is in the interest of the American people.”

He said after the U.S.-Russian talks in Riyadh, “We’re on the cusp of peace.” Vance did not mention Ukraine’s role in settling the conflict, although U.S. officials have said Kyiv and Moscow will both be involved in the settlement and have to make concessions to achieve peace.

European leaders have responded to Trump’s recent remarks about Ukraine by pledging to step up spending on defense, and some are considering a U.S.-backed European peacekeeping force for the country if the fighting ends. The Kremlin says the plan is a major cause for concern, but Zelenskyy and NATO have welcomed it.

“It is vital that … Russia will never again try to take one more square kilometer of Ukrainian land,” NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said, adding that a peace pact would have to entail robust security guarantees for Ukraine.

“While there is much that still needs to be decided, there is no question that Europe has a vital role to play in securing peace in Ukraine,” he told reporters in Bratislava.

In a string of comments on his Truth Social platform this week, Trump accused Zelenskyy of refusing to hold elections in Ukraine, which had been scheduled for April 2024 but were delayed after Russia invaded in 2022.

Trump disparaged Zelenskyy as “a modestly successful comedian” and said, “The only thing he was good at was playing [former U.S. President Joe] Biden ‘like a fiddle'” for more U.S. military assistance.”

“I love Ukraine,” Trump said, “but Zelenskyy has done a terrible job, his Country is shattered, and MILLIONS have unnecessarily died — And so it continues.”

Earlier, Trump had scoffed at Zelenskyy’s complaint about not being invited to the Tuesday talks in Riyadh headed by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

“Today I heard, ‘Well, we weren’t invited.’ Well, you’ve been there for three years,” Trump said of Ukraine’s leaders.
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SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA — U.S. President Donald Trump signed an order aimed at ending federal benefits for people in the country illegally, the White House said Wednesday, his latest in a blizzard of moves to crack down on immigration.

The White House said the order seeks to end “all taxpayer-funded benefits for illegal aliens,” but it was not clear which benefits will be targeted. People in the country illegally generally do not qualify except for emergency medical care. Children are entitled to a free K-12 public education regardless of immigration status under a 1982 Supreme Court ruling.

The order notes that a 1996 welfare overhaul denies most public benefits to people in the country illegally but says that law has been gradually undermined. “Over the last 4 years, in particular, the prior administration repeatedly undercut the goals of that law, resulting in the improper expenditure of significant taxpayer resources.”

Trump’s words appear directed at former President Joe Biden’s extensive use of parole authority to allow people in the country temporarily, including more than 900,000 through an online appointment app called CBP One used at border crossings with Mexico and more than 500,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans who flew to the United States at their own expense with a financial sponsor. Trump immediately ended both programs.

Biden also granted parole to nearly 300,000 people from Ukraine and Afghanistan.

People granted parole for at least a year are considered “qualified noncitizens,” making them eligible for some income-based benefits, but only after five years. They include Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which provides coverage to children in families that earn too much money to qualify for Medicaid, according to the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Some states have shortened the five-year wait.

Trump’s order appears to have other targets, some already subjects of earlier edicts and Justice Department lawsuits. It directs all departments and agencies to identify federal benefit spending that is inconsistent with the 1996 welfare law. It also seeks to ensure that state and local governments are not using federal funds for policies that support “sanctuary” policies or encourage illegal immigration.

Trump signed 10 executive orders on immigration on his first day in office. They included ending automatic citizenship for people born in the United States and asylum at the southern border. The birthright citizenship order has been temporarily halted in court.
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SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — North Korean state media on Thursday criticized the United States for a nuclear submarine deal with Australia under the AUKUS partnership signed in 2021, calling it a “threat to regional peace.”

A commentary carried by KCNA said Washington should be wary of consequences for what it said were nuclear alliances, naming AUKUS and the trilateral cooperation with South Korea and Japan.

Australia just made its first $500 million payment to the U.S. under the AUKUS nuclear submarine deal.

Under AUKUS, Australia will pay the United States $3 billion to boost the capacity of the U.S. submarine industry, and Washington will sell several Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines to Australia in the early 2030s.

The KCNA commentary also argued the U.S. sees North Korea as an obstacle to its establishment of hegemony in the region and said nuclear states will not sit idly by, referring to itself.

North Korea has been criticizing the trilateral military cooperation between South Korea, Japan and the U.S. and has called the relationship “the Asian version of NATO.”

South Korea’s defense ministry on Thursday said that a joint air drill was held with the U.S. with at least one B-1B strategic bomber taking part.

The drill was to show extended deterrent capabilities by the United States in response to threats from North Korea’s nuclear and missile program, the ministry said in a statement.
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ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE/ WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he expected Chinese President Xi Jinping to visit the United States, without giving a timeline for his trip.

Trump made the remarks to reporters on Air Force One and said “it’s possible” for the U.S. and China to have a new trade deal. A conversation or interaction between Xi and Trump is seen as crucial to a potential easing or delay of trade tariffs.

“We’ll have, ultimately, President Xi, we will have everybody coming (to the U.S.),” Trump said, while also speaking about other leaders potentially visiting the United States.

Xi last travelled to the U.S. in November 2023, in his fifth visit to the country as Chinese president, for a summit with then U.S. President Joe Biden, resulting in agreements to resume military-to-military communications and curb fentanyl production.

Trump and Xi had spoken just before Trump took office on January 20 and discussed issues including TikTok, trade and Taiwan.

Trump told reporters on Wednesday that he was talking to China about TikTok as the United States seeks to broker a sale of the popular app owned by Chinese parent firm ByteDance.

Trump said last week he had spoken to Xi since taking office as well, but did not offer details on the topics of that conversation. China’s foreign ministry did not directly comment on Trump’s remarks that day and instead referred reporters to their “scheduled” call before Trump took office.

Washington and Beijing have had tense relations for years over differences ranging from trade and tariffs and cybersecurity, and TikTok, Taiwan, Hong Kong, human rights and the origins of COVID-19.

Trump also again told reporters he could make a deal with Russia over the war in Ukraine.

“We can make a deal with Russia to stop the killing,” Trump said, adding he thought the Russians wanted to see the war end.

“I think they have the cards a little bit because they’ve taken a lot of territory, so they have the cards,” Trump said. 
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