Author: PolitCens

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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PANAMA CITY — A group of migrants deported from the U.S. to Panama last week were moved on Tuesday night from a hotel in the capital to the Darien jungle region in the south of the country, a lawyer representing a migrant family told Reuters on Wednesday.

Susana Sabalza, a Panamanian migration lawyer, said the family she represents was transferred to Meteti, a town in the Darien, along with other deported migrants.

La Estrella de Panama, a local daily, reported on Wednesday that 170 of the 299 migrants who had been in the hotel were moved to the Darien.

Panama’s government did not respond to a request for comment.

The 299 migrants have been staying at a hotel in Panama City under the protection of local authorities and with the financial support of the United States through the U.N.-related International Organization for Migration and the U.N. refugee agency, according to the Panamanian government.

The migrants include people from Afghanistan, China, India, Iran, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Uzbekistan and Vietnam, according to Panama’s president, Jose Raul Mulino, who has agreed with the U.S. to receive non-Panamanian deportees.

The deportation of non-Panamanian migrants to Panama is part of the Trump administration’s attempt to ramp up deportations of migrants living in the U.S. illegally.

One of the challenges to Trump’s plan is that some migrants come from countries that refuse to accept U.S. deportation flights, due to strained diplomatic relations or other reasons. The arrangement with Panama allows the U.S. to deport these nationalities and makes it Panama’s responsibility to organize their onward repatriation.

The process has been criticized by human rights groups that worry migrants could be mistreated and also fear for their safety if they are ultimately returned to violent or war-torn countries of origin, such as Afghanistan.

Sabalza said she had not been able to see her clients while they were held at the hotel in Panama City and said she is seeking permission to visit them at their new location. She declined to identify their nationality, but said they were a Muslim family who “could be decapitated” if they returned home.

Sabalza said the family would be requesting asylum in Panama or “any country that will receive them other than their own.”

Mulino said previously the migrants would be moved to a shelter in the Darien region, which includes the dense and lawless jungle separating Central America from South America that has in recent years become a corridor for hundreds of thousands of migrants aiming to reach the United States.

Panama’s security minister said on Tuesday that more than half of the migrants deported from the United States in recent days had accepted voluntary repatriations to their home countries.

On Wednesday morning the hotel in Panama City where the migrants had been held appeared quiet, according to a Reuters witness.

On Tuesday some migrants had been seen holding hands and looking out a window of the hotel to get the attention of reporters outside.

Migrants in the hotel were not allowed to leave, according to media reports.

On Wednesday, Panama’s migration service said in a statement that a Chinese national, Zheng Lijuan, had escaped from the hotel. It asked that she return and accused unspecified people outside the hotel of aiding her escape.
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WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Republicans will push ahead on Thursday with a measure to kickstart President Donald Trump’s agenda on immigration, energy and defense, Majority Leader John Thune said on Wednesday, after Trump called on them to drop the plan in favor of a sweeping resolution prepared by House Republicans.

Trump came down firmly in favor of the House of Representatives’ plan for one sweeping bill that would also include trillions of dollars in tax cuts. House Republicans fear that the Senate’s “skinny” plan could diminish their chances of extending Trump’s tax cuts later in their own chamber, where the party holds a narrow and fractious 218-215 majority.

“We need both Chambers to pass the House Budget to ‘kickstart’ the Reconciliation process, and move all of our priorities to the concept of, ‘ONE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL’,” the president wrote on social media on Wednesday morning.

After a lunch meeting with Vice President JD Vance and his own Senate Republicans, Thune told reporters that he would still go ahead with the smaller bill.

“In the end, we’ll be able to, whether it’s one bill or two bills, to get all the things that the president’s outlined — his objectives — across the finish line,” said Thune, adding that he expected the Senate to vote on its own blueprint on Thursday.

Some Republicans said they were confused about the plan to proceed after Trump’s message.

“It seems a little strange to me,” Senator Josh Hawley said.

“If the president supports it and … I have some assurance of that, I’ll support it,” the Missouri Republican added. “But it just seems a little bizarre to me. I can’t quite figure out what we’re doing.”

Meanwhile, Democrats promised a long, drawn-out fight.

“Senate Democrats will expose Republicans’ reconciliation budget bill exactly for what it is: a sinister front for clearing the way to cut taxes for Donald Trump’s billionaire buddies,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said.

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. Republicans say the plan would offset the higher spending with funding cuts in other areas.

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.

‘FULL agenda’

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.

Republican lawmakers in recent weeks have backed away from concerns that extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts could add to the nation’s fast-growing $36 trillion in debt. The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated that Trump’s full tax cut agenda could cost more than $5 trillion over the next decade.

House Republicans welcomed Trump’s intervention as they try to forge unity for a floor vote on their own budget blueprint expected next week.

“@realDonaldTrump is right! House Republicans are working to deliver President Trump’s FULL agenda – not just a small part of it. Let’s get it done, @HouseGOP!” tweeted House Speaker Mike Johnson, Thune’s Republican counterpart.

The difference between the House and Senate strategies comes down to Trump’s proposed tax cuts.

House Republicans fear the two-step Senate approach could lead to a stalled standalone tax cut bill if lawmakers cannot agree on offsetting cuts in spending. Senate Republicans worry that the rush for all-encompassing legislation may not provide enough time to adequately handle the intricacies of the tax component.

Senate Republicans began moving forward with their own budget resolution last week in response to what they described as a plea for border and immigration funding from Trump “border czar” Tom Homan and White House budget director Russ Vought. 
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While the U.S. is holding off on imposing 25% tariffs on Canada, a new poll shows Canadians are angered by U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat of tariffs against Canada and his comments about making their nation the 51st U.S. state.  

Observers believe that once the U.S. tariffs are implemented, it will hit the Canadian economy hard and may also allow China to reap the benefits. However, some Chinese American entrepreneurs in Canada say the U.S.-Canada tariff war has limited impact on their business. 

Click here for the full story in Mandarin.
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WASHINGTON — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has identified over 600 energy and other infrastructure projects that could be fast-tracked under President Donald Trump’s National Energy Emergency declaration, according to data posted on its website. 

Among the projects on the list were Enbridge’s Line 5 oil pipeline under Lake Michigan, several natural gas power plants, and liquefied natural gas export terminals proposed by Cheniere and Venture Global. 

The Army Corps posted the list, without sending a public notice, last week, marking the projects as eligible for emergency permitting treatment. 

Trump had ordered the Army Corps to issue permits enabling the filling of wetlands and dredging or building in waterways as part of the “National Energy Emergency” he declared in a day-one executive order. 

The Army Corps was not immediately available for comment. 

The fast-tracking of these projects could trigger legal fights over many of the permits that will be issued, with environmental groups warning they are flouting federal laws. 

“This end-run around the normal environmental review process is not only harmful for our waters but is illegal under the Corps’ own emergency permitting regulations,” said David Bookbinder, director of Law and Policy at The Environmental Integrity Project.

Courts may be unwilling to weigh in on the president’s criteria for what constitutes a national energy emergency but will more likely weigh how individual projects adhere to the language of the executive order, he said. 

Companies with projects awaiting key permits applauded the move to “streamline” the review process. 

“Line 5 is critical energy infrastructure,” said Enbridge spokesperson Gina Sutherland, saying the company has been awaiting a permit for building a Great Lakes Tunnel under Lake Michigan for nearly five years. 

“We are very encouraged to see this action to expedite review for responsible critical mineral development projects,” said Jon Cherry, CEO of Perpetua Resources, which is developing a U.S. antimony and gold mine in Idaho with financial support from the Pentagon and U.S. Export-Import Bank. 

The Biden administration had issued the mine a permit, but it still needs a wetlands permit, which Cherry said he expects to receive by July. 

The Army Corps has in the past issued emergency designations to skip over environmental reviews in cases in which the project addressed poses a threat to human life. 

Environmental and watchdog groups say that most of the projects marked as emergencies on the list do not meet the Army Corps’ definition of an emergency. They also question the Trump administration’s justification for declaring a national energy emergency.  

“It is laughable to see Line 5 on this list,” said Debbie Chizewer, managing attorney for the Midwestern office of Earthjustice, which represents the Bay Mills Indian Community in opposition of the project. “It’s a pipeline that carries crude oil from Canada to Canada and will not increase U.S. capacity or respond to Trump’s declared energy emergency.” 

Other projects do not relate to energy production, including a home-building project built on land owned by oil giant Chevron in California, as well as an aerial electrical distribution line to private waterfront residences in Alabama. 

There are at least five dozen solar energy projects on the list. Solar and wind energy were excluded from the definition of energy in Trump’s energy emergency order. 

West Virginia has the largest number of projects on the list at 141. There are 60 in Pennsylvania, 57 in Texas, 42 in Florida, and 41 in Ohio, according to the Environmental Integrity Project, which is tracking the permits. 

Officials at Venture Global and Cheniere were not immediately available to comment.
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Inflation in the United States increased in January as prices of food, gasoline and housing, among others, continued to rise. VOA correspondent Veronica Balderas Iglesias talked to economists about what the Trump administration can do to bring prices down.
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MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s president said Wednesday that U.S. drone flights were part of a collaboration that has existed for years between the two countries, after U.S. media reported increased cross-border aerial surveillance of drug cartels.

“There is nothing illegal, and it is part of a collaboration and coordination,” Claudia Sheinbaum said at her morning news conference.

“It is a coordination and collaboration protocol that has existed for years between the United States and Mexican governments,” she said.

According to The New York Times, Washington has stepped up secret drone flights over Mexico in search of fentanyl labs as part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign against drug cartels.

The CIA has not been authorized to use the drones to take lethal action, and any information collected is passed to Mexican officials, the Times said, adding that the covert program began under Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, but had not been previously disclosed.

Last week, Mexico’s government said U.S. military aircraft may have spied on drug cartels during recent flights near Mexican territory.

Mexico was aware of two such U.S. military flights in late January and early February that were in international airspace, Defense Minister Ricardo Trevilla said.
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U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoy for Ukraine and Russia said Wednesday the United States understands the needs for security guarantees for Ukraine, as he visited the country for talks with Ukrainian officials.

Gen. Keith Kellogg told reporters in Kyiv that he was in Ukraine “to listen,” hear the concerns of Ukrainian leaders and return to the United States to consult President Trump.

Kellogg said the United States wants the war in Ukraine to end, saying that would be good for the region and the world.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters ahead of an expected meeting with Kellogg that while U.S. officials have said there will be no U.S. troops deployed as part of any potential post-war peacekeeping mission, there are still other ways it can help, such as providing air defense systems.

“You don’t want boots on the ground, you don’t want NATO,” Zelenskyy said. “Okay, can we have Patriots? Enough Patriots?”

The discussions in Kyiv come amid a flurry of diplomatic efforts focused on Russia’s war in Ukraine, including French President Emmanuel Macron hosting European leaders Wednesday for a second round of talks about the conflict and European support for Ukraine.

Kellogg also met earlier this week with European leaders, and on Tuesday U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio held talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Saudi Arabia.

Rubio said both Ukraine and Russia would have to make concessions to achieve peace.

“The goal is to bring an end to this conflict in a way that’s fair, enduring, sustainable and acceptable to all parties involved,” Rubio told reporters. No Ukrainian or European officials were at the table for the talks.

Zelenskyy objected to being excluded from the meeting, a position that drew criticism from U.S. President Donald Trump.

“Today I heard, ‘Well, we weren’t invited.’ Well, you’ve been there for three years,” Trump said of Ukraine’s leaders. “You should have never started it.”

Russia began the war with its February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Zelenskyy added Wednesday that while he has “great respect” for Trump, the American leader is living in a Russian-made “disinformation space.”

Zelenskyy postponed a trip to Saudi Arabia that had been scheduled for this week, suggesting that he wanted to avoid his visit being linked to the U.S.-Russia negotiations.

The United States and Russia agreed to “appoint respective high-level teams to begin working on a path to ending the conflict in Ukraine as soon as possible,” State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said in a statement. Bruce characterized the meeting as “an important step forward” toward peace.

Rubio said Ukraine and European nations would have to be involved in talks on ending the war. He said that if the war is halted, the United States would have “extraordinary opportunities … to partner” with Russia on trade and other global issues.

European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said she and other European foreign ministers spoke to Rubio after the U.S.-Russia meeting, and she expressed support for a Ukraine-led resolution.

“Russia will try to divide us. Let’s not walk into their traps,” Kallas said on X. “By working together with the US, we can achieve a just and lasting peace — on Ukraine’s terms.”

Russia now controls about one-fifth of Ukraine’s internationally recognized 2014 territory, including the Crimean Peninsula that it unilaterally annexed in 2014, a large portion of eastern Ukraine that pro-Russian separatists captured in subsequent fighting, and land Russia has taken over since the 2022 invasion.

As the invasion started, Moscow hoped for a quick takeover of all of Ukraine. But with stiff Ukrainian resistance, the war instead evolved into a grinding ground conflict and daily aerial bombardments by each side.

Zelenskyy has long demanded that his country’s 2014 boundaries be restored, but U.S. officials have said that is unrealistic, as is Kyiv’s long-sought goal of joining NATO.

Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan told U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio that the UAE rejects “any attempts to displace the Palestinian people from their land” as Rubio made a visit Wednesday to Abu Dhabi.

UAE state media reported the comments and said the president highlighted the need to prevent an expansion of the conflict in Gaza.

“He also underscored the importance of linking Gaza’s reconstruction to a path that leads to a comprehensive and lasting peace based on the two-state solution, as the only manner of ensuring stability in the region,” the report said.

Arab leaders have rejected plans suggested by U.S. President Donald Trump that Palestinians leave Gaza for other countries in the region, and that the U.S. take over and rebuild the Palestinian enclave.

Rubio’s visit was part of a multi-nation tour that also included talks with leaders in Israel and in Saudi Arabia, which came as the first phase of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip moved into its final weeks.

Hostage release

A top Hamas leader said Tuesday that the militant group plans to release six more living Israeli hostages from their Gaza captivity on Saturday and the bodies of four others on Thursday.

Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya made the surprise announcement in a recorded statement, an apparent response to the Israeli decision to allow long-requested mobile homes and construction equipment into the Gaza Strip.

The six living hostages are the last set to be freed under the first phase of the ceasefire that expires in early March, with Hamas believed to be holding about 70 more captives, half of them living. Four more bodies of hostages are set to be returned next week.

So far during the ceasefire, Hamas has released 24 hostages, and Israel freed more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.

The warring sides have yet to negotiate the second and more difficult phase of their truce, in which Hamas says it will only release the remaining hostages in exchange for a lasting halt to the fighting and a full Israeli troop withdrawal from Gaza.

Meanwhile, Israel has not backed off its goal, supported by the United States, of eradicating any military or governing role for Hamas in Gaza.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Tuesday that Israel was ready to open negotiations on the details of the second phase. Those talks were supposed to have started two weeks ago, according to the ceasefire deal.

In his remarks, Hayya said the “Bibas family” would be included in the handover of the four bodies, apparently referring to Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, Ariel and Kfir, who for many Israelis embody the captives’ plight.

Israel has not confirmed their deaths, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office urged the public not to distribute “photos, names and rumors.” Israel has said it was gravely concerned about the Bibas family, while Hamas said they were killed in an Israeli airstrike early in the war. Yarden Bibas, the husband and father, was kidnapped separately and released this month.

Kfir, who was 9 months old at the time, was the youngest hostage taken in Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack on Israel that triggered 15 months of fighting. Video footage of the abduction showed Shiri swaddling her redheaded boys in a blanket and being whisked away by armed men.

“In recent hours we have been shaken after the Hamas spokesman’s announcement was published about the return of our Shiri, Ariel and Kfir this coming Thursday as part of the movement to release kidnapped civilians,” the family said in a statement. “It is important for us to say that we are aware of the reports but have not yet received an official update on the matter.”

“Until we receive certainty, our journey will not end,” the family said.

An Israeli official said Netanyahu had agreed to allow the mobile homes and construction equipment into Gaza to accelerate the hostages’ release. Hamas last week threatened to hold up the release of more hostages, citing the mobile home issue and other alleged violations of the truce.

Israel is expected to continue releasing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, including many serving life sentences for deadly attacks, in exchange for the hostages.

Hamas, a U.S.-designated terror group, killed about 1,200 people in the October 2023 attack and took about 250 as hostages. More than half the captives have been released in ceasefire agreements and other deals, while eight were rescued in military operations.

Israel’s air and ground war killed more than 48,200 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were combatants. The Israeli military says the death toll includes 17,000 militants. The offensive destroyed vast areas of Gaza and displaced most of its population of 2.3 million.

Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.

 
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MANILA, Philippines — The United States condemned the “dangerous” maneuvers of a Chinese navy helicopter that endangered the safety of a Philippine government aircraft patrolling a disputed shoal in the South China Sea, its ambassador to Manila said on Wednesday.

In a post on X, Ambassador MaryKay Carlson also called on China “to refrain from coercive actions and settle its disputes peacefully in accordance with international law.”

The Philippines said late on Tuesday it was “deeply disturbed” by the Chinese navy’s “unprofessional and reckless” flight actions and that it will make a diplomatic protest.

Manila’s coast guard said the Chinese navy helicopter performed dangerous flight maneuvers when it flew close to a government aircraft conducting surveillance over the Scarborough Shoal, endangering the lives of its pilots and passengers.

China disputed the Philippines’ account, saying on Tuesday its aircraft “illegally intruded” into China’s airspace and accused its Southeast Asian neighbor of “spreading false narratives.”

Named after a British ship that was grounded on the atoll nearly three centuries ago, the Scarborough Shoal is one of the most contested maritime features in the South China Sea, where Beijing and Manila have clashed repeatedly.

“The Philippines has undeniable sovereignty and jurisdiction over Bajo de Masinloc,” its maritime council said in a statement, using Manila’s name for the shoal.

China claims sovereignty over almost the entire South China Sea, a vital waterway for more than $3 trillion of annual ship-borne commerce, putting it at odds with Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam.

A 2016 arbitration ruling invalidated China’s expansive claims but Beijing does not recognize the decision.
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WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate on Tuesday voted to advance the nomination of Kash Patel to be the director of the FBI, putting a staunch ally of President Donald Trump and a critic of the bureau on track to run the most prominent U.S. law enforcement agency.

The Senate voted 48-45 along party lines on a procedural measure setting the stage for a final confirmation vote on one of Trump’s most controversial nominees later this week.

Patel, a former intelligence and Defense Department official in Trump’s first term, has called for a radical reshaping of the FBI, pledging to expand its role on illegal immigration and violent crime, core Trump priorities.

Patel has been among the most vocal critics of FBI investigations into Trump on issues ranging from Russian interference in the 2016 election, Trump’s retention of classified documents at his Florida club and his attempts to overturn the 2020 election.

Democrats have called Patel unfit to lead the FBI, pointing to his embrace of false claims about voter fraud in the 2020 election and FBI agents fomenting the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. But Patel has attracted broad support from Republicans, who have touted him as a reformer.

A Senate panel voted 12-10 along party lines last week to send his nomination to the full Senate.
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Measles is making a comeback in the United States. 

Fifty-eight cases of the highly contagious disease were reported Tuesday by health officials in rural West Texas, while eight cases were confirmed in neighboring eastern New Mexico.  

Texas officials say the outbreak there, the largest in almost 30 years, is mainly confined to Gaines County, with 45 infections, but four other counties account for an additional 13 cases.   

The Texas measles cases, according to health officials, have occurred mainly among a “close-knit, undervaccinated” Mennonite community. 

Authorities say at least three of the New Mexico cases are in counties that border Texas’ Gaines County. 

Earlier this month, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 14 measles cases across the country.  

Mayo Clinic describes measles as “a childhood infection caused by a virus. Once quite common, measles can now almost always be prevented with a vaccine … measles spreads easily and can be serious, and even fatal, for small children.” 

Measles is a respiratory virus that can survive in the air for two hours. As many as nine out of 10 people who are susceptible will get the virus if exposed, according to the CDC.  

However, in recent years, the necessity and safety of the vaccinations designed to prevent the disease have come under question, with some parents citing a now-discredited study that linked the measles vaccine to autism.  

Another unfortunate development in the fight against measles happened during the COVID-19 pandemic when many children missed their vaccinations. Los Angeles Cedars Sinai said in a statement in February 2024 that 61 million fewer doses of the measles vaccine were distributed nationwide from 2020 to 2022.  

Before the MMR vaccination, which addresses not only measles, but also mumps and rubella, was introduced in the U.S. in 1963, there were 3 million to 4 million measles cases every year.   

Now there are usually fewer than 200 cases per year, but pockets of measles persist in areas that still resist the vaccinations. The shots are first given to toddlers between 12 and 15 months and then again at 4 to 6 years of age.   
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WASHINGTON — Top U.S. and Russian officials wrapped up their meetings Tuesday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to discuss a pathway to end the war in Ukraine, days before Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is set to convene a summit with leaders from Egypt, Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to discuss an Arab response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s vow to take over Gaza.

The two separate talks reflect the growing role of the prince in Trump’s efforts to fulfill his campaign promise to end the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

On Tuesday, Trump again declared he would swiftly end fighting.

“I have the power to end this war,” Trump said from Mar-a-Lago, his residence in Florida, dismissing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s concern that Kyiv was excluded from the Riyadh meeting.

“Well, you’ve been there for three years, you should have ended it,” he said of Zelenskyy in response to a reporter’s question. “I could have made a deal for Ukraine that would have given them almost all of the land.”

Trump did not clarify which part of land would remain Ukrainian. Russia began its full-scale invasion in February 2022 and now controls parts of the Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia regions, and fighting has been ongoing at the borders of Kharkiv and Mykolaiv. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.

The Saudi talks signaled a major détente between Washington and Moscow and an abrupt end of U.S. policy under former President Joe Biden to isolate Russia and support Ukraine “for as long as it takes.”

Instead, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio dangled the prospects of “the incredible opportunities that exist to partner with the Russians” on trade and other global issues when the war ends.

Arab response to Gaza plan

Later this week, Prince Mohammed will bring together leaders from Egypt, Jordan, Qatar and the UAE to discuss an Arab response to Trump’s vow to take over Gaza and create a “Riviera in the Middle East” by expelling Palestinians from Gaza to neighboring countries.

Trump’s plan has angered regional leaders, who are now scrambling to come up with a counteroffer that they will discuss in Riyadh ahead of a broader Arab League gathering in Cairo next week.

One of the Arab proposals being discussed is an Egyptian-led plan that involves forming a national Palestinian committee to govern Gaza without Hamas and raising up to $20 billion from Arab and Gulf states over three years for reconstruction.

As Saudi Arabia makes a play for the diplomatic mainstage, Prince Mohammed is motivated to be proactive rather than reactive, to counsel pragmatism rather than rigidity, said Laura Blumenfeld, a senior fellow and Middle East analyst at the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies.

Blumenfeld told VOA that the prince could pair his approach with a language that Trump likes to speak: investments.

On Wednesday, global financiers and tech executives will gather in Miami, Florida, in a conference hosted by the Future Investment Initiative Institute, a nonprofit arm of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund — the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund led by the prince. Trump is scheduled to deliver an address at the event.

“Trump is a peacemaker in a hurry, with his eye on the Nobel Prize. [The prince] is a dealmaker in a hurry, with his eye on the Saudi Vision 2030 economic diversification plan,” Blumenfeld added. “The two men are a match made in transactional heaven.”

Prince Mohammed the power broker

With his efforts focused on Ukraine and Gaza, the 39-year-old de facto leader of Saudi Arabia has emerged as a power broker that Trump leans on for his foreign policy goals.

Prince Mohammed has done this in part by leveraging close ties during Trump’s first term, maintaining business ties while Trump was out of office, and further expanding the relationship since the president’s inauguration last month.

Saudi Arabia was Trump’s first foreign trip in 2017, where he signed several deals, including a $110 billion arms deal, which could expand up to $350 billion over 10 years.

Trump spoke openly about the transactional nature of the visit, telling reporters days after his second inauguration in January that the reason he chose Riyadh for that first visit was because “they agreed to buy $450 billion worth of our products.”

Trump suggested on the day of his last inauguration that he would again make Saudi Arabia his first destination in return for Saudi funds, and days later, the prince told him during a phone call that he planned to invest $600 billion or more in the U.S. over the next four years.

In 2021, Saudi Arabia invested $2 billion with a firm that belonged to Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and former aide. The Trump Organization has also expanded its real estate presence in the region, announcing it had leased its brand to two real estate projects in Riyadh in December after launching the Trump Tower project in Jeddah.

As Prince Mohammed cultivated his political and business ties with Trump, he maintained a relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin amid Biden’s effort to isolate the Russian leader following his 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

“The crown prince has been making the argument for the last five years that it’s in America’s interest that Saudi Arabia maintains very good ties with Russia and China,” said Ali Shihabi, author and commentator on the politics and economics of Saudi Arabia.

“Saudi Arabia was insisting on maintaining a multipolar policy while maintaining very strong ties with the United States,” he told VOA.

The prince is poised to host a summit between the two leaders that Trump said he agreed to during his call with Putin last week. The summit, Shihabi said, would be an example of how the prince’s gambit has paid off.

“I don’t think there are any leaders in the world that have the relationship that the crown prince has with both Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump,” he said.

There is also a practical reason. The kingdom is not a signatory of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which issued an arrest warrant for Putin in 2023.
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Johannesburg  — South Africa will host a meeting of foreign ministers from the G20 group of major economies later this week, but the chief diplomat for the world’s largest economy, the U.S., is skipping it.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on X earlier this month that he would not attend the meeting, taking place Thursday and Friday in Johannesburg, because he objected to the meeting’s agenda, which he described as anti-American.

He said South Africa was “using G20 to promote ‘solidarity, equality, & sustainability.’ In other words: DEI and climate change. My job is to advance America’s national interests, not waste taxpayer money or coddle anti-Americanism.”

DEI is short for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and in President Donald Trump’s first week in the White House, he signed an executive order to end DEI policies and hiring practices in the federal workforce.

“I think the whole topic of the G20 gathering is one that I don’t think we should be focused on, talking about global inclusion, equity, and these sorts of things,” Rubio later told the press.

He continued by saying the forum should be focused on issues “like terrorism and energy security and the real threats to the national security of multiple countries.”

The G20 is a group of the world’s 19 major individual economies as well as the EU and African Union. This year marks the first time an African country is in the rotating presidency position of the G20.

While Rubio will not attend, the South African government has confirmed the U.S. will still have a presence at the meeting, likely at a lower level.

South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation responded to Rubio in a statement saying: “Our G20 Presidency, is not confined to just climate change but also equitable treatment for nations of the Global South, ensuring an equal global system for all.”

Ronald Lamola, minister of international relations and cooperation, told local TV that the meeting’s agenda had been adopted by all members of the G20 and carries on the themes from previous summits, such as the one in Brazil last year.

Deteriorating relations

Even before the announcement that Rubio would not be taking part in the foreign ministers’ meeting, there had been a swift deterioration in U.S.-South Africa relations under the new administration in Washington.

President Trump accused South Africa’s government of engaging in land grabs and mistreating white minority Afrikaners. He cut U.S. financial assistance to the country.

While the South African government did pass a controversial land reform law earlier this year, no land has been seized. The white minority is still one of the country’s most privileged communities and owns the majority of private farmland.

Response from other G20 members

Several other nations were quick to affirm their attendance at the meeting after Rubio said he will not attend.

Those included EU members Germany, Italy and France, whose ambassadors to South Africa posted a joint video on X saying they were “united in diversity” and shared the South African government’s democratic values.

Russia also confirmed Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will attend.

“The priorities stated by the South African presidency are designed to encourage economic growth, reduce inequality and imbalances, and ensure equitable access to financing for countries in the Global South.,” said Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova.

China likewise confirmed its commitment to the meeting, with ambassador to South Africa Wu Peng meeting foreign minister Lamola just after Rubio’s announcement and posting on X: “I also expressed China’s readiness to support South Africa’s G20 Presidency.”

Last week, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun, said in a press briefing,

“China stands ready to work with all parties to make this meeting a productive one, and send a strong message of supporting multilateralism, strengthening solidarity and cooperation, and jointly responding to global challenges,” he said.

Analysts weigh in

Political analysts said Rubio’s absence could provide space for countries hostile to the U.S. to advance their agendas.

“Will we see the increase of countries like Russia and China pushing their lines, their issues, their perspectives in the absence of the US? That’s entirely possible,” Steven Gruzd, from the South African Institute of International Affairs, told VOA.

Brooks Spector, a retired U.S. diplomat, said Rubio’s boycott of the meeting was “a serious misstep.”

“You get to make your points at a meeting, boycotting it simply means your voice is not heard,” he said. “Calling the meeting “anti-American” is a misunderstanding of the nature of bilateral, international and multi-lateral discussions.”

However, he said he expected Trump would likely still attend the major G20 summit in South Africa in November. In December, the U.S. will take on the presidency of the G20.
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WASHINGTON — The United States has more than doubled the number of detainees — both those deemed to be a “high threat” as well as others slated for deportation — at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. 

As of Tuesday, there were more than 120 of what the administration calls “criminal aliens” under guard at the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, according to a U.S. defense official.  

Approximately 50 other individuals are also being held at the base’s migrant facility, which was being readied to hold nonviolent individuals.  

Separately, a second U.S. defense official told VOA that as of Monday, the U.S. military had sent a total of 13 flights of undocumented migrants to Guantanamo aboard a mix of C-17 and C-130 military cargo jets. 

So far, none of the detainees brought to the facilities at Guantanamo Bay have been deported to other countries. 

Both officials spoke to VOA on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss details of the military’s deportation operation. 

VOA has also reached out to the Department of Homeland Security, which is spearheading the U.S. deportation efforts, as well as Immigration and Customs Enforcement, about the growing number of detainees. 

Last Thursday, the commander of U.S. Southern Command, which oversees operations at the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, told lawmakers there were about 68 detainees at the base’s prison facility. 

Admiral Alvin Holsey also told lawmakers that the base’s migrant facility had the capacity to hold about 2,500 nonviolent detainees. Efforts are underway to allow it house as many as 30,000 nonviolent migrants slated for deportation.  

Holsey said that it was too soon to determine how much it will cost to house the growing number of individuals.  

“We’re working with DHS to understand the flow of migrants,” he said during Thursday’s hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee. “We’re not going to go to 30,000 unless we know that migrant flow will come. So, we’re waiting at this point.”    

Details about the growing population of detainees at the U.S. naval base in Cuba come just a day after the Department of Homeland Security unveiled what it described as a multimillion-dollar ad campaign warning migrants not to enter the U.S. illegally. 

“If you are considering entering America illegally, don’t even think about it,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a video targeting an international audience. 

“If you come to our country and you break our laws, we will hunt you down,” she said. “Criminals are not welcome in the United States.” 

Noem, who visited the prison facility last Friday and oversaw the transfer of a third flight of detainees to the detention center, has repeatedly described the men as “murderers and vicious gang members” from Venezuela and as “the worst of the worst.”   

In one social media post, Noem said that at least one of the migrants sent to Guantanamo Bay had confessed to murder, while others were wanted for attempted murder, assault, weapons trafficking and impersonation. 

One official, speaking to VOA on the condition of anonymity to discuss the deportation efforts, said that all of the individuals held at Guantanamo Bay have been issued final deportation orders. But DHS has not yet provided charging documents or other details regarding the crimes the detainees are accused of committing.   

Last Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union, along with several immigration rights groups, filed a lawsuit against DHS, alleging the detainees being held at the Guantanamo Bay prison facility have been improperly denied access to lawyers.  

DHS has dismissed the lawsuit’s allegations.  

“There is a system for phone utilization to reach lawyers,” said a senior Homeland Security official in a written statement shared with VOA.  

“If the AMERICAN Civil Liberties Union cares more about highly dangerous criminal aliens including murderers & vicious gang members than they do about American citizens — they should change their name,” the official added, responding to the lawsuit only on the condition of anonymity. 
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SUMTERVILLE, FLORIDA — Native American activist Leonard Peltier was released from a Florida prison on Tuesday, weeks after then-President Joe Biden angered law enforcement officials by commuting his life sentence in the 1975 killings of two FBI agents.  

For nearly half a century, Peltier’s imprisonment has symbolized systemic injustice for Native Americans across the country who believe in his innocence. The decision to release the 80-year-old to home confinement was celebrated by supporters.  

“He represents every person who’s been roughed up by a cop, profiled, had their children harassed at school,” said Nick Estes, a professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota and a member of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe who advocated for Peltier’s release.  

But the move just before Biden left office also prompted criticism from those who say Peltier is guilty, including former FBI Director Christopher Wray, who called him “a remorseless killer” in a private letter to Biden obtained by The Associated Press. 

 “Granting Peltier any relief from his conviction or sentence is wholly unjustified and would be an affront to the rule of law,” Wray wrote.  

The commutation was not a pardon for crimes committed, something Peltier’s advocates have hoped for since he has always maintained his innocence.  

Peltier left the prison Tuesday morning in an SUV, according to a prison official. He didn’t stop to speak with reporters or his supporters outside the gates. One of his attorneys, Jenipher Jones, said Peltier was looking forward to going home.  

“We’re so excited for this moment,” Jones said. “He is in good spirits. He has the soul of a warrior.”  

After being released from USP Coleman, a high-security prison, Peltier planned to return to North Dakota, where he is expected to celebrate with friends and family on Wednesday. 

 Biden commuted Peltier’s sentence Jan. 20, noting he had spent most of his life in prison and was now in poor health.  

“We never thought he would get out,” Ray St. Clair, a member of the White Earth Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, said shortly before Peltier’s release. “It shows you should never give up hope. We can take this repairing the damage that was done. This is a start.” 

Peltier, an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians in North Dakota, was active in the American Indian Movement, which beginning in the 1960s fought for Native American treaty rights and tribal self-determination.  

The group grabbed headlines in 1969 when activists occupied the former prison island of Alcatraz in the San Francisco Bay, and again in 1972, when they presented presidential candidates with a list of demands including the restoration of tribal land.  

After they were ignored, they seized the headquarters of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. From then on, the group was subject to FBI surveillance and harassment under a covert program that sought to disrupt activism and was exposed in 1975.  

Peltier’s conviction stemmed from a confrontation that year on the Oglala Sioux Indian Reservation in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, in which FBI agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams were killed.  

According to the FBI, the agents were there to serve arrest warrants for robbery and assault with a dangerous weapon. Prosecutors maintained at trial that Peltier shot both agents in the head at point-blank range.  

Peltier acknowledged being present and firing a gun at a distance, but he said he fired in self-defense. A woman who claimed to have seen Peltier shoot the agents later recanted her testimony, saying it had been coerced. He was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and given two consecutive life sentences. Two other movement members, co-defendants Robert Robideau and Dino Butler, were acquitted on the grounds of self-defense. Peltier was denied parole as recently as July and was not eligible to be considered for it again until 2026.  

“Leonard Peltier’s release is the right thing to do given the serious and ongoing human rights concerns about the fairness of his trial, his nearly 50 years behind bars, his health and his age,” Paul O’Brien, executive director with Amnesty International USA, said in a statement before Peltier’s release. “While we welcome his release from prison, he should not be restricted to home confinement.”  

Prominent Native American groups like the National Congress of the American Indian have called for Peltier’s release for decades, and Amnesty International considered him a political prisoner.  

Prominent supporters over the years included South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, civil rights icon Coretta Scott King, actor and director Robert Redford, and musicians Pete Seeger, Harry Belafonte and Jackson Browne.  

Generations of Indigenous activists and leaders lobbied multiple presidents to pardon Peltier. Former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, a member of the Pueblo of Laguna and the first Native American to hold the secretary’s position, praised Biden’s decision. “I am grateful that Leonard can now go home to his family,” she said Jan. 20 in a post on X. “I applaud President Biden for this action and understanding what this means to Indian Country.”  

As a young child, Peltier was taken from his family and sent to a boarding school. Thousands of Indigenous children over decades faced the same fate, and were in many cases subjected to systemic physical, psychological and sexual abuse.  

“He hasn’t really had a home since he was taken away to boarding school,” said Nick Tilsen, who has been advocating for Peltier’s release since he was a teen and is CEO of NDN Collective, an Indigenous-led advocacy group based in South Dakota. “So he is excited to be at home and paint and have grandkids running around.” 
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U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday that the United States is working toward a “fair” and “sustainable” solution to end Russia’s three-year war on Ukraine, but that both Moscow and Kyiv would have to make concessions to achieve peace.

Rubio offered his assessment after he and other key U.S. officials met for several hours in Saudi Arabia with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his aides in a first effort toward ending the war and improving the contentious Washington-Moscow relationship.

“The goal is to bring an end to this conflict in a way that’s fair, enduring, sustainable and acceptable to all parties involved,” Rubio told reporters, although no Ukrainian or European officials were at the table for the talks.

Rubio said he was “convinced” that Moscow was willing to engage in a “serious process” to end the war, which Russia started with a full-scale invasion of its neighbor three years ago next week.

Tens of thousands of Russian and Ukrainian soldiers, along with Ukrainian civilians, have been killed in the fighting, Europe’s worst conflict since World War II.

The U.S. and Russia agreed to “appoint respective high-level teams to begin working on a path to ending the conflict in Ukraine as soon as possible,” State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said in a statement. Bruce characterized the meeting as “an important step forward” toward peace.

Rubio said Ukraine and European nations would have to be involved in talks on ending the war. He said that if the war is halted, the U.S. would have “extraordinary opportunities … to partner” with Russia on trade and other global issues.

“The key to unlock that is the end to this conflict,” he said.

National security adviser Mike Waltz and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff joined Rubio for the talks.

Waltz told reporters that negotiations to end the fighting will focus on territory and security guarantees for both Ukraine and Russia.  

“This needs to be a permanent end to the war and not a temporary end, as we’ve seen in the past,” Waltz said.

Russia now controls about a fifth of Ukraine’s internationally recognized 2014 territory. Moscow controls the Crimean Peninsula that it unilaterally annexed in 2014, along with a large portion of eastern Ukraine pro-Russian separatists captured in subsequent fighting and lands the Russian military have taken over since the 2022 invasion.

As the invasion started, Moscow hoped for a quick takeover of all of Ukraine. But with stiff Ukrainian resistance, the war instead evolved into a grinding ground conflict and daily aerial bombardments by each side.  

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has long demanded that his country’s 2014 boundaries be restored, but U.S. officials have said that is unrealistic, as was Kyiv’s long-sought goal of joining NATO, the West’s main military alliance, as part of a negotiated peace settlement.

Zelenskyy has said it will not agree to a U.S.-Russian dictated settlement of the war.

He postponed a trip to Saudi Arabia that had been scheduled for this week, citing the fact that officials from his country were not invited to Tuesday’s U.S.-Russia talks. The Ukrainian leader suggested that he wanted to avoid his visit being linked to the talks and rescheduled the trip for March 10.

Zelenskyy is due to host the U.S. envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, for talks on Wednesday.

Bruce said the Rubio-Lavrov talks, the first extensive discussions between the two countries in more than three years, also laid the groundwork for more talks aside from the negotiations to end the war.

She said the two sides would “establish a consultation mechanism to address irritants to our bilateral relationship with the objective of taking steps necessary to normalize the operation of our respective diplomatic missions.”  

Bruce said the U.S. and Russia would “lay the groundwork for future cooperation on matters of mutual geopolitical interest and historic economic and investment opportunities” once the war is ended.  

The U.S.-Russia engagement sparked concern among European leaders who in recent days have highlighted the need for Ukraine to be involved in discussions about its future, and for European nations to play a role in what they also see as a key development for their own security.  

French President Emmanuel Macron convened a group of European leaders for a Monday session in Paris, where they discussed boosting defense spending and potential security guarantees for Ukraine.  

There was division on the idea of deploying peacekeepers to Ukraine as part of a potential end to the war, with governments such as Britain and Sweden expressing openness to the idea while German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that discussion was premature.  

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.  
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