China and the US heading for trade breakthrough

Just when it looked like an all-out trade war between China and the US, it seems the two sides have had constructive discussions for a deal which means when Donald Trump and Xi Zinping meet this coming week, it should be all smiles and bear hugs. This is the way Trump does business, and the Chinese leader has been copying him. So, initially it was all tariff war, tarrif war and then out of the blue, Washington and Beijing step back and a deal is done. I don't know whether this is the best way of doing business but it seems to work in Trump's case. It was Beijing that dealt the biggest blow when China announced new restrictions on the export of its vast supply of processed rare earth metals which would have had a major negative impact on the production of a huge range of goods, such as mobile phones, electric cars and solar panels. Trump was so angry he started talking about imposing enormous tariffs on China. However, the brinkmanship game has come to an end, and Trump and Xi Zinping will be back to being friends. The poor stock market doesn't know where to look. It's up one moment and then plunging down the next. But the Trump/Xi session during the US president's Asia tour should settle the waters and bring a bit of calm back to the world economy.

The world's biggest carrier goes to the Caribbean

Naval action in the Caribbean, with American or British, warship, has for years been associated with counter-drugs operations. The Royal Navy has often found itself grabbing several tons of cocaine from dodgy boats criss-crossing the seas in the region. But what the US Navy is currently up to in the Caribbean is on a totally different scale. In the latest development, the Pentagon has sent the world's largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R Ford, to the Caribbean, off the shores of Venezeula. This move has very little to do with firing at speed boats piled with bags of cocaine. You hardly need a 100,000-tonne carrier with up 90 aircraft of different sorts on board to attack drugs-carrying boats, or in one case, innocent Colombian fishermen, or so it's claimed in Bogota. The carrier is the mightiest symbol of American military power. So, its presence off Venezuela has a very different purpose. It's all about putting unbearable pressure on Nicolas Maduro, the ghastly dictator of Venezuela and friend of Vladimir Putin, to voluntarily go into exile. He's an accused drugs baron - accused by Washington - and the arrival of the carrier is intended to show him that his days are numbered. But will Trump use the fighter aircraft on board to bomb Maduros's palace in Caracas to provide extra incentive for him to leave the country? He just might, even though he claims not to want US forces to get involved in any wars ever again. Now, with the bust-up between Trump and Putin, I suspect the US president will be even more tempted to do some bombing in Caracas because he knows it will seriously upset the Kremlin boss. It's all politics, with a bit of drug-traffic-bashing on the side.

Putin has seriously misjudged Trump

Vladimir Putin thought he could play Trump along and get the US president to force Ukraine to give him everything he wanted. He thought Trump was his friend, that he would understand why he wanted to destroy Ukraine. He gambled that Trump represented his best chance of defeating Ukraine. But he got that wrong. He miscalculated. He went too far. Worst of all (for him) he has thoroughly annoyed Trump and made him look weak. Now that gamble, has failed. Trump, persuaded by a number of people, especially Mark Rutte, the secretary-general of Nato, has realised that being tough with Putin is the only way forward. He had been reluctant to use the oil sanctions stick although it has been on the table for months. But that phone call between Rubio and Lavrov was the final straw. He knew from that moment that Putin wasn't interested in peace and was just playing him along. Trump must have been very angry. So much for the special relationship he was supposed to have with Vladimir, as he likes to call him. Now the two are at loggerheads and that's bad news for Putin but it's also of course bad bews for Zelensky who will have to prepare his country and his people for another winter of bombings, death and destruction.

Trump piles on oil sanctions against Putin

President Trump has announced new oil sanctions against Russia after Moscow’s refusal to consider a ceasefire in Ukraine with the battlelines frozen as they stand today. Which Russian oil companies will be targeted? They have been named as Rosneft and Lukoil, Russia’s two biggest oil companies. Rosneft is responsible for nearly half of Russian oil production. It is also the largest independent gas producer in Russia. Lukoil is the second largest oil company in Russia. The two companies combined account for more than three million barrels of Russian crude oil exported every day. Which countries still buy oil from Rosneft and Lukoil? A The two biggest importers of Russian oil are China, with about two million barrels a day, and India with 1.6 million barrels each day. But other countries still trading in oil with Russia include Turkey, Germany, Hungary, Slovakia, South Korea, Brazil and Japan. Why does Germany still buy oil from Russia? Rosneft has stakes in several key German refineries. The German government took control of the refineries under a special trusteeship to safeguard energy supplies after Russia invaded Ukraine in February, 2022. The trusteeship allows Berlin to manage Rosneft’s stakes in the refineries. When the UK announced fresh sanctions against Rosneft and Lukoil this month, a special licence was issued allowing banks and businesses to continue working with the German subsidiaries of Rosneft because they were under state control. How much money does Russia make from these companies? The Russian economy is dependent on the exploitation of its huge natural resources, particularly oil and natural gas. Rosneft announced in August that its net income had fallen by 68 per cent to $3 billion for the first half of the year due to weak oil prices. Lukoil has also suffered from changing markets. In 2024, the company declared that net profits were down by 26.5 per cent to $10.12 billion. QWill this impact ordinary Russians? The main impact of the new sanctions is aimed at harming Russia’s war economy which has been created by President Putin to finance the war in Ukraine. But the sanctions will cause rising oil prices and this will affect the price of petrol across the country. This will be a double blow for the Russian people who have already been forced to join long queues at petrol stations because of a shortage of fuel following Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian oil refineries. Are Tomahawks off the table? A For the moment, Trump has said he will not be considering supplying Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine because of the fear of escalating the war. But the request from President Zelensky remains on the table. Trump is likely to see how the new oil sanctions work in forcing Putin to negotiate an end to the war before returning to the Tomahawk issue. Which targets has Ukraine been striking inside Russia? A Even without long-range Tomahawks, Ukraine has successfully targeted oil refineries deep inside Russia, deploying home-made drones and cruise missiles. In recent months, helped by targeting data supplied by US and British intelligence systems, Ukraine has hit more than 20 of Russia’s 38 large oil refineries since January. This week, Ukraine used Britain’s Storm Shadow missiles to hit a Russian chemical plant which produces gunpowder, explosives and rocket fuel. The plant was in an industrial complex in Bryansk, about 240 miles southwest of Moscow. What other leverage does the US have left? The fresh oil sanctions will be a huge blow to Russia’s economy. But Trump could also further target countries still buying Russian oil by applying much larger secondary tariffs on China and India, the two biggest purchasers of Russian oil. India, in particular, could be forced to turn to the US for oil imports which would have a long-term impact on the Russian economy. BUY MY NEW SPY THRILLER, AGENT REDRUTH, PUBLISHED BY ROWANVALE BOOKS AND AVAILABLE FROM AMAZON.

Putin not interested in peace

Well that didn't last long. All the razzmatazz and heightened expectations of a big, beautiful summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine blown to pieces by the Kremlin's total indifference. The phone chat between Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, and Sergey Lavrov, the crusty Russian foreign minister, sounded like a repeat of a very old record. Instead of talking ceasefire and peace, Lavrov just spouted the usual mantra about resolving the "root causes" of the reason for Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Lavrov still refers to the "Nazi" regime in Kyiv, like he hasn't come to terms with the fact that Ukraine has been a democratic country now for years. So with Rubio and Lavrov getting nowhere, it was clear to Trump that a second summit with Putin, this time in Budapest, would be a waste of time. Trump is right. Putin has set his face against any deal with Zelensky unless it gives him absolutely everything he wants and probably a lot more. He's not going to do anything just to please Trump, and certainly not the Europeans who remain steadfast supporters of Zelensky. So the missiles and drones will keep flying. Putin doesn't want to talk about concessions, so Kyiv has little option but to keep attacking targets inside Russia which will further damage Putin's war economy. Whether that will force Putin to the negotiating table I seriously doubt. The war will go on and on. Meanwhile, Trump should focus all his energy on ensuring the Gaza ceasefire progresses towards a full peace settlement, and the faster, the better.

Zelensky falls foul of Trump's changing moods

Keeping abreast of President Trump’s changing moods has never been so challenging, especially for Volodymyr Zelensky, his Ukrainian counterpart. Judging by reports emerging of their meeting last Friday in the Oval Office, Trump made it clear in somewhat candid language that Zelensky should give up the eastern Donbas region of his country or face destruction by Russia. Gone was the sunny prediction made by Trump only three weeks or so earlier that if Zelensky pursued the war with Russia, backed by Europe and Nato, he could win a famous victory and drive the Russians out of all the occupied territories. The sudden about-turn followed Trump’s two-hour phone call with President Putin last Thursday in which apparently the Russian leader stipulated that if the whole of Donetsk, one of two provinces in Donbas, was ceded to Russia he would consider a ceasefire. There was nothing new in Putin’s “solution” to end the war, but it seems Trump was persuaded that land-for-peace really was the answer, and he told Zelensky as much when the embattled Ukrainian leader flew to Washington, supposedly to argue his case for the US to supply him with 1,500-mile-range Tomahawk cruise missiles. European diplomats briefed on the Friday meeting told the Financial Times the volte face led to a “shouting match” between the two men, reminiscent of the public scolding Zelensky received at the hands of Trump and Vice President JD Vance in the White House in February. The US president, it was claimed, resorted to cursing and at one point threw aside maps of Ukraine which Zelensky had brought with him to underline a few geographical facts of life. The Tomahawk question was effectively dismissed by Trump as too escalatory, and Zelensky left Washington with nothing to show for his latest bout with the president other than an earful of “get-real” warnings. Poor Zelensky. All he could do was order his foreign ministry to set up an urgent meeting with the European coalition-of-the-willing partners and get them to have another go at trying to persuade Trump that conceding territory to Putin would be disastrous not just for Ukraine but for the stability and security of the whole of Europe. This second blow-up between Trump and Zelensky does not augur well for Ukraine. The two leaders hold directly divergent views about Putin’s intentions. Trump is convinced that Putin wants to end the war because of the damage it is doing to Russia’s economy, while Zelensky is adamant that the Russian president has no inclination to stop the fighting and that he is cunningly exploiting the US president to get what he wants. The planned summit between Trump and Putin in Budapest may well be promulgated as a last chance to reach a ceasefire and end the war. But judging by the revelations of the verbal bashing Zelensky received at the Friday meeting with Trump, Putin will feel confident that his demand for Donetsk will be at the top of the agenda. On Air Force One on Sunday, Trump denied to reporters that he and Zelensky discussed surrendering the whole Donbas region. “We think that what they should do is just stop at the battle lines. You have a battle line right now. The rest is very tough to negotiate,” he said. He added:” I said, ‘stop the battle, go home, stop fighting, stop killing people’.” Why does Putin want Donetsk so badly? The Russian president has been trying to seize control of the Donbas region, made up of two provinces, Donetsk and Luhansk , ever since 2014 after Moscow’s bloodless annexation of Crimea. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February, 2022, Putin announced the annexation of four territories in southeastern and southern regions: Donetsk and Luhansk, as well as Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. However, the declared annexations were premature. Today, although Luhansk is in Russian hands, Ukrainian forces still control key areas of Donetsk, around the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, and about 25 per cent of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. Fighting in these areas has been remorseless, with Russia making small gains. Donbas has strategic significance for Moscow. The port of Mariupol, for example, has access to the Black Sea. The region is also heavily industrialised and has rich farmland and mineral resources. A large proportion of the population are Russian speakers which Moscow claims is justification for the region to be Russian, not Ukrainian. This, of course is disputed. To counter Russian military advances in the east, Ukraine has devoted huge effort to building up its defences in the areas still controlled by Kyiv, and Zelensky has repeatedly said he would never agree to ceding Donbas to the Russians. On the face of it, there was every reason for Zelensky to return to Kyiv from his White House drubbing in a mood of gloom and despondency. He reportedly agreed that fighting should stop on current battlelines. But as the basis for a ceasefire, it seems unlikely that Putin will go along with it. Now all eyes will be on next week’s meeting of high-level Russian and American officials whose remit will be to find a formula for progress which can then be taken up by Trump and Putin at their Budapest summit. However, the omens are not good. Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk summed up the dilemma succinctly in a post on X on Sunday when he wrote: “None of us should put pressure on Zelensky when it comes to territorial concessions. We should all put pressure on Russia to stop its aggression. Appeasement never was a road to a just and lasting peace.” BUY MY NEW SPY THRILLER, AGENT REDRUTH, AND READ ABOUT REBECCA STRONG, SPY EXTRAORDINAIRE (AMAZON, ROWANVALE BOOKS, WATERSTONES)

The Gaza ceasefire is dangerously fragile

Donald Trump has already switched his attention to Russia and Ukraine, while mayhem breaks out in Gaza. He believes the ceasefire will hold, but both the Israelis and Hamas need to be reminded that the people who live in Gaza (not counting Hamas) need to be protected from any more violence. Hamas gunmen are marching round the Strip like they still own the place and are testing Israel's defences. Israel claims Hamas fired shells at Israeli troops still occupying about 53 per cent of the territory, killing two soldiers. In response Israel launched airstrikes to hit Hamas wherever they were. Whether this was proportionate or not is a matter of debate because at least three dozen people were reportedly killed, by no means all of them Hamas gunmen. But then the ceasefire was reinstated and just about managed to hold. Ths is is going to be the way of things over the next few weeks. The slightest burst of violence is going to lead to mass retaliation. This is why it is so crucial for the second phase of the Trump 20-point peace settlement is launched as fast as possible. This includes the disarming of Hamas and the introduction of a security monitoring force from Muslim countries. But this could be weeks or months away, and in the meantime, this precious ceasefire in Gaza is going to be tried and tested, and, tragically, more people are going to die.

Are we any closer to a deal to end the war in Ukraine?

Zelensky left Washington with one message from Donald Trump: you and Putin must bring this terrible war to an end. But, despite planned meetings between high-level American and Russian officials, due very soon, and then the summit between Putin and Trump in Budapest at some point, there is absolutely no indication that the Russian president has changed any of his demands. What he wants today is what he has always wanted - annexation of large chunks of Ukraine, a demilitarised Ukraine, an end to any exzpectation of Ukraine joining Nato and, preferably, a Russian-appointed leader in Kyiv. Even then, he won't move any of his troops out of the occupied regions of Ukraine and any time he likes, he can launch barrages of missiles and drones at Ukraine to try and subjugate the people to his will. Zelensky thought he was going to get Tomahawks from Trump but left Washington empty-handed. So, as usual, everything is going well for Putin. At the summit in Budapest Putin can promise all kinds of things but if he doesn't get exactly what he wants, he won't agree to a ceasefire, or he might agree to a ceasefire but then will instantly accuse Kyiv of violating it and the bombings will restart. The bombings have already restarted in Gaza, so that won't help Trump's ambition to follow up a Gaza triumph with a Ukraine peace settlement. How wonderful it would be if one's natural scepticism actually proves to be misplaced and we have peace in Gaza AND Ukraine.

No Tomahawks for Zelensky

As soon as Putin made a phone call to Donald Trump, Zelensky must have known he was not going to get the US president to provide him with Tomahawk cruise missiles. And so it proved to be. Trump said it would be too escalatory, especially after Putin had agreed to meet up in Budapest. So Zelensky left Washington with nothing, and not for the first time. As it is, he is now relying on Europe to buy American weapons to pass on to him. And that has been a slow business. Arms deliveries to Ukraine have slowed by a significant margin because it all has to go through a system known as the Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List (PURL). Sixteen Nato countries are currently sigbned up to it and more than $2 billion has been spent so far, The UK, for reasons of its own, hasn't yet joined but is still sending more arms to Ukraine than most European nations, without using the US as broker. But Zelensky desperately wanted Tomahawks in order to pile the pressure on Moscow. There is absolutely no doubt that Putin would not have wanted to face Toamhawks hurtling over the border deep into Russia. So the phone call with Trump sorted that out. He offered to meet up and Trump couldn't resist it. Poor Zelensky, he doesn't know which way to turn. He has spent so much time flattering Trump, he hoped he had done enough to get the Tomahawks. But Trump prefers the glamour of a summit with Putin to risking escalating the war with a batch of 1,500-mile range Tomahawks. BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER, FROM AMAZON, ROWANVALE bOOKS, wATERSTONES, ETC.

Putin makes a smart move, again

All the talk was about Trump possibly offering Tomahawk cruise missiles to Zelensky at their meeting in the White House today. Then suddenly, all change. Putin and Trump had a two-hour chat on the phone and the Russian president agreed to have a summit with Trump in Budapest to try and arrange a ceasefire and potentially an end to the war. In one brilliant stroke, the Tomahawk issue was pushed to one side. Trump will say that his announcement that he was considering giving Zelensky Tomahawks was what forced Putin to cave in. But actually Putin's chat with Trump was all about stopping the US president from going ahead with providing the 1,500-mile-range missiles. Trump could hardly declare he had decided to give Tomahawks to Ukraine only hours after he had announced a "peace" summit with Putin. The summit will probably lead to very little. If there is a ceaefire agreed, judging by previous ceasefire pledges, it won't last long and the war will carry on. Let's hope this is too cynical, and Trump will get his way. But Putin knows how to outsmart Trump.

Would Tomahawk be a game-changer for Ukraine?

Moscow boasts it has the largest drone factory in the world, churning out nearly 3,000 long-range attack models every month to strike fear and death across Ukraine. Production lines at the Alabuga factory, located in Russia’s Tatarstan region, around 600 miles east of Moscow and 800 miles from the border with Ukraine, are at full stretch. Some reports claim the maximum output could be as high as 5,500 a month. The drones in question are the Russian-adapted, Iranian-designed Shahed-136, renamed Geran-2, which when first introduced on the battlefield in Ukraine in September, 2022, raised the level of threat to the country’s energy infrastructure by a factor of ten or more. Tomorrow (Frid) on a visit to Washington, President Volodymir Zelensky, Ukraine’s embattled leader, will plead for American ground-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles, which with a range of 1,500 miles could hit the Alabuga plant and potentially cause enough damage to set back Moscow’s warfighting strategy. The red lines imposed initially by President Joe Biden, restricting the use of US-supplied long-range weapons to Russian targets within the territorial confines of Ukraine, have long been crossed. Trump has stated on a number of occasions that he is ready to be persuaded to sell Tomahawks to Zelensky. The Friday meeting in the White House could make up Trump’s mind. Tomahawks have a high-profile combat-proven reputation and Zelensky seems to have been won over by its unique capabilities. His military have aimed long-range, domestically-produced strike drones at the Alabuga plant but without halting the production lines. Tomahawk, with its ability to fly in at low altitude and evade air defences by switching route-to-target at the last moment could pose a bigger threat. Ukraine is focusing its drone and missile strikes inside Russia at the network of oil refineries and has already succeeded in reducing production levels by up 20 per cent. But a significant hit on the Alabuga plant with a Trump-donated Tomahawk would not only be a bold, escalatory step, it would also demonstrate the US president’s willingness to take on Putin and call his bluff. Whenever, the US and Europe have delivered more advanced weaponry to Kyiv in the past, Putin has threatened to resort to counter-measures, even hinting at the potential use of non-conventional systems, a euphemism for tactical nukes. Would the arrival of Tomahawks on the battlefield push Putin to more extreme measures? The Kremlin so far has adopted a distinctly uncowed approach. Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov, said Tomahawks would not change the dynamics. The US and the West in general have already learned that one specific weapon system cannot transform the battlefield in Ukraine’s favour. America’s M1A1 Abrams tanks, Atacms and Himars longer-range missiles systems, Patriot anti-missile batteries and F-16 fighter aircraft have all played their part in helping Ukraine defend itself against the Russian invaders but they haven’t given Zelensky victory. Tomahawk, capable though it is, is also unlikely to force Putin and his generals to give up the fight. “Tomahawk land-attack missiles are not terribly difficult to intercept. They fly at subsonic speeds and are not stealthy,” Andrew Krepinevich, a former senior Pentagon official, said. “Also, they are equipped with 1,000-pound warheads. As the missile’s cost is roughly $2 million, that’s not a lot of bang for the buck,” he said. He also pointed out that stocks of Tomahawks were “paper thin”. “So, it’s unlikely that we will be able to provide the number of Tomahawks it would take to make a big difference in the war. If the Alabuga factory is considered a critical target, I would suspect the Russians would have provided it with advanced air defences in the form of interceptor aircraft and surface-to-air missiles.” AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER, IS FOR SALE NOW.

Who is in charge of Gaza's future?

After all the razzmatazz and the wonderful sight of the hostageas being handed over to their families, you do have to ask: what happens now? Who is actually in charge of making sure that the next phase of the Donald Trump peace settlement is put into action? Not Trump, presumably. He's back in Washington and will have lots of other things on his mind and in his in-tray. Not Marco Rubio. As secretary of state and national security adviser, he also has other things to worry about. Will it be Egyptian President al-Sisi, or the Qataris, or Turkey's President Eerdogan? There's talk of having an Arab peace-monitoring force in Gaza, but that is nowhere near off the ground yet? Then there's the Trump-chaired board to oversea Gaza's future but that isn't set up and, again, no one is specifically in charge. It can't be the Israelis because they are supposed to be withdrawing in stages? It's not going to be the UN because their only role is humanitarian right now. So who is at this very minute rushing around getting phase two sorted out? I haven't a clue and I have a bad feeling no one else does. If this peace deal is going to work it will need a huge momentum of decision-making and negotiations. Meanwhile, law and order in Gaza is left to Hamas and the assortment of militia who are like street gangs. I just feel desperately sorry for the Palestinian families who have been promised peace but still don't know whether they are safe to return to their homes, or more likely the rubble of their homes. Who is in charge?

It's Trump's best day

Today will go down as Donald Trump's best day since returning to the White House for a second term. Everyone he met in Israel and then in Egypt congratulated him, and all European leaders, even the most sceptical, praised him. The twenty surviving Israeli hostages were all released on time and a new future for Gaza and the Middle East was plotted by twenty world leaders at the summit in Egypt. So, all in all, everything went according to plan and now we have to wait and see whether the rest of the Trump 20-point plan works out. It took seven years from the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 for the Provisional IRA finally to hand over all their weapons. By the time they had discarded their weapons, there were 1,000 rifles, two tons of Semtex explosive, dozens of heavy machineguns, seven should-launched anti-air missiles, 90 handguns and an assortment of other weaponry including flame-throwers and grenades. Hamas has much more than the IRA ever had. So it could take a long time for them to disarm, if they ever actually agree to do it. This is still one of the unknowns. But if they fail to disarm, the whole peace effort will crumble. I doubt Trump will allow that to happen and ruin his chances of winning the Nobel Peace Prize next year. In which case, today is the beginning of the end of Hamas as an armed organisation.

Trump to get hero's welcome in Tel Aviv

Donald Trump will fly into Israel tomorrow on the day the remaining 20 surviving hostages are released by Hamas in Gaza. He will get a hero's welcome not just from the families of the hostages but probably from the whole of the Knesset which he will address. I wonder whteher this will please Benjamin Netanyahu. It was his promise and his reponsibility to get all the 250 hostages returned safely to Israel but it took the efforts of the United States, and in particular Donald Trump, to finally win the release of the lat 20. So the plaudits will go to Trump, not to Netanyahu. In fact when his name is mentioned in public he receives boos, not cheers. Tomorrow will be Trump's day - and of course the hostages - but not Netanyahu's. Of the 48 hostages still in Hamas hands, 26 are known to be dead and two more may be dead, although their life or death status has not been confirmed. Many of the other hostages died. So, although hopefully by tomorrow there will no longer be a hostage crisis, it will not be seen as a triump for the Israeli leader. Netanyahu depends for his survival as political leader on the success of the peace settlement devised by the Trump administration, and if things go wrong and he has to order Israeli troops back into Gaza to fight Hamas, then his political future will look even more tenuous. Meanwhile, he has to take second place as Trump receives the adulation of the Israeli people.

No Nobel for Trump

So he didn't make it this time. Donald Trump, so it is claimed, has been lobbying for the Nobel Peace Prize but it went to a very courageous lady in Venezuela who has been fighting for democracy in a country ruled by a dictator, accused by the US of being a narcotics king smuggler. Maria Corina Machado is in hiding in Venezuela but speaks out against President Maduro. She might have found a willing listener in Trump who, despite losing out to her for the Nobel Prize, looks tempted to overthrow Maduro by force which would be good news for Machado. If Trump replaces Maduro and brings back proper democracy to Venezuela, perhaps that will be another string in his bow to get the Nobel Prize next year. But at any rate, if the Trump peace deal for Gaza lasts the course and the Middle East begins to take a very different and more peaceful shape, then the US leader will have a pretty good chance to get the prize next year. And what if he starts to really put the pressure on Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine? If he succeeds in doing that, it would be another war notch on his belt. He already claims to have stopped seven wars. To be honest, if through force of personality and hutzpah, Trump does manage to end the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, then he will properly deserve all the prizes going. PLEASE BUY AGENT REDRUTH, MY NEW SPY THRILLER. THE PAPERBACK WITH HEROINE REBECCA STRONG IN THE LEAD ROLE, HAS BEEN GETTING RAVE FIVE STAR REVIEWS. ORDER FROM AMAZON, WATERSTONES, FOYLES OR TG JONES.

The bombing stops as Gaza waits for peace

The most extraordinary thing about war is that when the bombing and shelling and gunfire stop, there is an eerie silence which for the first few hours seems unreal. Everyone expects the bombing to start again. There is a sort of joyessness in the streets but a fear that it won't last. All ceasefires are like that for those who have suffered the daily impact of war. But for Gaza, aftr two years of explosions, no one will quite believe that it's over. The celebrations will last only a short time, and then everyone will wait for the next stage in the peace deal to work out. Gaza is a ruined place, not fit for habitation. But it will still be so much better than when the bombs were falling. Even when the last of the 48 hostages have been released by Hamas, ony 20 of them alive, the people of Gaza will dread the next phase. Will Hamas surrender or will the fighting start up again? The Israeli troops are supposed to withdraw to set lines but they will still occupy more than 50 per cent of the territory. Could this lead to further confrontations? There are so many unknowns at this point. But Donald Trump is so convinced the whole of the Middle East is now going to fall into place, with every country reconciled to a peaceful future that it almost seems possible that the settlement might really work. That would have to include Iran changing its ways, Saudi Arabia recognising Israel, the Houthis in Yemen putting away their missiles and drones and Syria going down the democracy path. That's a lot of things that have got to be sorted out before Trump's dream of a new Middle East can even be contemplated.

Would Hamas be prepared to disarm?

Does Hamas want peace? It's a kind of contradcition because as a designated terrorist group their very ideology and reason for existence is to be violent towards Israel, to want Israel exterminated and to help make jihad lkourish in the Middle East. Why would such an organisation even contemplate a "peaceful" settlement with Israel, especially if it meant their total disarmament and exile from Gaza? The only answer to these questions is that they don't want peace and they don't want to do a deal that means reaching some sort of long-term arrangement with the country they want blown off the planet. However, about three-quarters of their fighters have been killed or captured by the Israel Defence Forces, they have the Arab world screaming at them to make peace and they are faced by an American president who has basically said, sign on the dotted line or be prepared to face oblivion. So, maybe, just maybe, Hamas is now under enough pressure to make concessions, one of which would be to disarm. There are reports today that Hamas might be prepared to give up some of its weapons, but not all. Obviously, this will not go down well with either the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu or with Donald Trump. But it's the first sign that Hamas might now be so desperate, and so fed up with struggling to survive against the Israeli onslaught, that for the first time they are envisaging surrender, or at least partial surrender. It seems possible, according to the reports. But I can't get away from the fact that two years ago, Hamas bulldozed and paraglided their way into Israel and slaughtered 1,200 people, including raping and murdering dozens of women. I seriously doubt these are the type of people who would agree to suffer the humiliation of queuing up to hand over their weapons and go quietly into exile. I just don't see it.

West is far behind China on climate-change energy policies

When the United States, UK and other gas-guzzling western countries are coughing on their last drop of fossil fuel, China will reign supreme, thanks to Beijing's headlong rush to switch to solar and wind power. China has made more progress on changing to alternative energy sources than the rest of the world combined. It is hugely impressive and sets an example which very few countries are following. Why is this? Why is China yet again making the smart moves to plan for the future? The US under Donald Trump has gone backwards on energy planning. The president is disnissive of climate-change and global warming and wants oil comanaies to step up its oil drilling. Many of the alternative-energy programmes, supported by President Joe Biden, are still up and running but federal funds are being reduced and the Biden legislation which underpinned the switch to alternative energy is being gradually dismantled. So the US will remain dependent on oil and gas. The UK is almost as bad.The Labour government is theoretically heading for net zero emissions but the plan has come under such criticism that it already looks like the timetable will slip for years and may be never happen. Meanwhile the Conservative opposition party is now following Trump and wants drilling for oil and natural gas to be increased in the North Sea. At least in the UK coal is now being used less for power than alternative sources. But coal is still king in many countries. Actually, it's still a big source of energy in China. But the overall policy momentum in China is towards solar and wind. In the West, however, all those grand hopes of saving the planet from insufferable global warming have fallen by the wayside.

Where is the art of political compromise?

The Republicans and Democrats have shut the American government down but are showing no sign of compromise. The latest French prime minister who has only been in the job for a month has resigned because he says the French parliament is not prepared to comrormise. This is all the rage these days. No one seems to know what compromise is and how important a part it is supposed to play in life, let alone in politics. It's the way of the world right now. No politician wants to back down. America is now more divided than ever before. Donald Trump is not a compromise president. He says what he wants and issue threats and ultimatums if he doesn't get it. Benjamin Netanyahu says he is prepared to compromise to get a peace deal to end the war in Gaza, but he doesn't mean it. He still wants the same things, ie the total dismantling of Hamas and no separate Palestine state. He will never back down from these objectives. The great deals of the past have all involved some give-and-take. That's the way business is supposed to be done. But these days it's all or nothing. Let's hope the Trump deal for peace in Gaza works out. But if Hamas refuses to disarm and tries to hang on to some form of ruling status in Gaza, peace will be a long way off. What happens in France, who knows? Five prime ministers in the last two years! It's as bad as Britain.

Could the war in Gaza end at last?

It has taken very nearly two years to find a formula that might just help to bring the terrible war in Gaza to a close. The second anniversary of Hamas's October 7 atrocity which killed 1,200 Israelis and other nationals and led to the kidnapping of 250 people falls on Tuesday. Could the war come to an end on that day, based on the 20-point peace settlement devised by the Trump administration? The signs are good but also ominous. Hamas has refused to accept dimilitarisation and exit from Gaza, and Israel will never agree to withdrawing all troops from the territory. But there is room for negotiation, and with such momentum as we have at the moment, there has to be a chance that everything will work out. Trump's ultimatum to Hamas is: accept the deal in its entirety or face the full wrath of Israel and a continuation of the bombing, with Trump's blessing. At this stage I can't see the remaining Hamas fighters - 5,000 or so - handing over their weapons and going into voluntary exile, two of the 20 points in Trump's plan. But they know they have been defeated. They may be hanging on inside the ruins of Gaza, but their command and the bulk of their organisation have been eliminated by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF). They know that the US under Trump and certainly Israel under Netanyahu are never going to allow Hamas to stay on in Gaza in any form of ruling body. So, eventually, they will have to leave and find Arab countries willing to take them. But if that ever happens, I doubt they will go quietly. There could still be bloody fighting ahead.

Trump gives Ukraine new intelligence gift

The war between Russia and Ukraine is about to change dramatically in Kyiv’s favour. President Trump has decided to help Kyiv target key energy installations inside Russia with long-range weapons by providing satellite imagery to guarantee precision strikes. Such a bold move, never considered appropriate or justified by the Biden administration, will take the battle further inside Russian territory, and potentially, cause catastrophic damage to President Putin’s war economy. The decision, reported in The Wall Street Journal, follows confirmation from Vice President JD Vance that Trump is also considering giving President Zelensky land-based Tomahawk cruise missiles. With a range of around 1,500 miles, Kyiv would possess one of America’s most successful combat weapon systems, capable of reaching Moscow from any point within Ukraine. Tomahawks, armed with conventional warheads, are normally associated with submarine-launched or ship-fired operations. But there is a ground-launched version developed for the US Army and Marine Corps which, if delivered to Ukraine, would add to Kyiv’s inventory of home-grown long-range weapons which have already been used to target Russian oil refineries. Both the consideration of providing Tomahawks and the reported agreement to hand Kyiv intelligence of Russia’s strategic energy sites have raised the stakes beyond anything contemplated by Trump’s predecessor. President Biden was always wary of giving Ukraine’s President Zelensky the tools for striking deep inside Russia itself, concerned that it would provoke a dangerous escalation with Moscow. Even when he, belatedly, approved the dispatching of the US Army’s ATACMS ballistic missiles with a range of 190 miles, he imposed restrictions on their use if fired over the border into Russia. However, there were no limits placed on the use of US intelligence to help Ukraine pinpoint Russian troop positions, arms depots and tank movements inside Ukraine. US intelligence, both satellite images and electronic signals communications, was part of the package from the moment Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022. In the early days of the war, without this intelligence assistance, Ukraine would never have been able to achieve the battlefield successes which basically halted the Russian invasion force in its tracks. The most notable use of American intelligence during the first stages of the war was the sinking of the guided-missile cruiser, Moskva, the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, on April 14, 2022. US naval intelligence and satellite imagery provided the coordinates for the warship on patrol in the Black Sea, and Ukraine fired two domestically-built Neptune anti-ship missiles which fatally hit Moskva about 80 nautical miles off the port of Odessa. The Pentagon under the Biden administration had one particular reservation about the Ukrainian military’s use of US intelligence inside Ukraine itself. A number of top Russian commanders were killed and it was reported their precise location had been pinpointed by American satellites. However, the Pentagon said this wasn’t the case. John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman at the time, said US intelligence would not have been provided to target individual Russian generals. Nevertheless, the role of intelligence in the more than three years of war has helped to balance out the superiority enjoyed by Russia in terms of both manpower and firepower. The CIA, the National Security Agency (NSA) and the full panoply of America’s intelligence apparatus have been intimately, though secretly, involved in guiding the Ukrainian military and providing advice on targeting policy, and early warning of Russian missile attacks and troop movements. In February last year The New York Times reported that Ukraine had built a special underground bunker, partly financed and equipped by the CIA, in which Ukrainian soldiers were able to track Russian spy satellites and eavesdrop on conversations between different Russian commanders and their units. It was also reported that the CIA helped to set up and support a dozen secret locations along the border with Russia from where Russian troop activity could be monitored. Now, Trump appears to have decided that the gloves should come off in terms of supplying Ukraine with intelligence, specifically aimed at striking Russia’s huge network of energy installations, such as refineries, oil pipelines and power stations. Putin is dependent on the sale of oil and natural gas to still-willing customers, such as China, India and Turkey, to fund the war with Ukraine. Trump dramatically reversed his view on Ukraine’s ability to defeat Russia when, after talking to Zelensky at the United Nations General Assembly in New York last month, he declared that Kyiv could after all seize back all the territory lost to the Russian troops. He said Putin was in deep economic trouble. Trump’s decision to extend the gift of intelligence to Kyiv to cover Russia’s energy infrastructure will be a huge blow to Moscow and could potentially persuade Putin to seek a negotiated settlement to save his war economy from ruin. NB:MY NEW SPY THRILLER, AGENT REDRUTh: buy from Amazon, Rowanvale Books, Waterstones.

Tomahawks for Ukraine would be gloves off

Donald Trump says he is considering sending Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles to Ukraine so they can target Russian facilities. This would be a major development, even bigger impact-wise than anything the US has provided in the war so far. It would also mean that US technicians would be needed to help the Ukrainian military fire them. Trump may back off this idea, knowing that Putin would see it as a provocation too far and could lead to a huge escalation. But it just might also force Putin to rethink because support for the war in Russia is dwindling fast, especially now that Ukraine is increasingly targetinbg Russian oil refineries and powqer plants inside Russia, causing long queues for petrol everywhere. Tomahawks have a range of well over 1,000 miles and would give Kyiv the chance to attack sites closer and closer to Moscow. It could be devastating and as they are low-flying cruise missiles as they approach the target, they would be more difficult to shoot down. Trump has effectively given up on doing a deal with Putin and has handed over the war and the West's support for Kyiv to the Europeans. Providing Tomahawks might be Trump's last gauntlet-throwing to force Putin to negotiate. However, judging by Putin's past responses to western weaponry arriving in Ukraine, he is more likely to take the gloves off and attack Ukraine with even more ferocity and send more and more drones and missiles across Nato borders. It's a dangerously pivotal moment.

Watch out overweight American top brass!

No beards, no bellies, no women, no slackers. The US military and especially the 800 high-ranking generals and admirals, are all now on notice that slovenliness is out and fighting warrior stuff is in. Pete Hegseth, the US Secretary of Defence for War, is fed up with seeing overweight generals wandering around the corridors of the Pentagon. He wants them to get fit, do 100 press-ups a day and stop sitting at their desks stuffing themselves with burgers. It's all good fun and his address to the family of generals and admirals at the US Marine Corps base at Quantico in Virginia yesterday was greeted with total silence. My God, inwardly they must have been seething, except for the fat ones of course. They would have been looking around guiltily in case anyone had noticed their bulging bellies. In my time I have met a lot of American generals and admirals and the majority looked pretty fit. In fact the best of them, people like General David Petraeus and General Stanley McChrystal, were and are so lean and fit that they could outrun and outpush-up most soldiers half their age. Some of those who reach the top echelons of the US military do get broader in the beam when they reach their 50s and 60s, especially if they have desk jobs. But from now on they will have to adopt a different lifestyle, a different diet, and join the joggers every morning. It's going to be fun to watch. Hegseth was enjoying himself, especially as he has taken on a rigid fitness regime and looks in good physical shape. His commander-in-chief, however, could definitely lose a few pounds. He may be able to play golf but I can't see him making more than two or three press-ups. As for women and beards, Hegseth basically doesn't want either of them in the armed forces. Beards he sees as somehow degenerate for military personnel (NB Vice President JD Vance has a beard, Mr Secretary for War), and he doesn't think women could ever be strong enough to fight in combat. He's wrong but women from now on will face an even tougher challenge to get into combat units. I wish them well, to prove Hegseth wrong. Meanwhile, generals and admirals with bellies, you have your marching orders. Get rid of the bellies or resign.