Trump is nice to the stock market

A few less negative remarks from Donald Trump and the markets around the world breath a sigh of relief and start climbing. It's so volatile that the slightest change in mood from the president and the world takes note. Perhaps that's the way he likes it. This time he has stated that he has no intention of sacking Jerome Powell, the chairman of the US Federal Reserve, although Trump has been pretty rude about him in recent days. That statement boosted the stock market significantly. Then he said that the hugely high tariff rates on Chinese imports will come down. Up up up goes the stock market. Of course this is encouraging but the stock market really doesn't know where it is at the moment. It has been one of the most unpredictable periods since the financial crisis in 2008. What the market wants is a steady-as-you-go economy with signs of green shoots for a big boost to come. But there is no sign of that at the moment, so the market takes what it can get and if Trump is in a happy mood, then that's good for investors. It is certainly a Trump world we live in.

Perhaps the Pope's funeral will lead to some diplomatic breakthroughs

Historically, state funerals have been exploited to draw leaders of the world together to try and do some back stage deals. The Pope's funeral is attracting most of the leaders on this planet with obvoious exceptions, including Putin, Xi Zinping and Kim Jong Un. But both Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky will be there on Saturday and perhaps they could get together and sort something out about the war in Ukraine. Trump will want to get the rare earth minerals deal completed. All the European leaders will be present and they should get Trump to one side and tell him it's high time he demonstrated his devotion to the alliance. That would be a great achievement. Funerals have a way of forging relationships in a way which can't always be achieved in more formal conference rooms.So, watch out for little gatherings here and there. If peace were to emerge out of these chats whether it be to do with the wars in Ukraine and Gaza or the Trump trade war, then Pope Francis in his death will have added to his legacy as a peacemaker. It's a small hope but something positive could emerge from Saturday's funeral.

How much longer can the stock market slump?

Every day it seems to get worse. The stock market is dropping so fast it will go through the floorboards soon. But President Trump is sticking with his tariff war and is now focusing all his ire on the chairman of the US Federal Reserve, calling on him to cut interest rates. If the stock market continues to fall, Trump will blame Jerome Powell and then sack him. Something is going to have to give. The Dow Jones index fell by 1,000 points yesterday. That's staggering. The trouble is, Trump can't back down, not fully anyway, because he has set up his stall and has told everyone that it is the only way to make America great again. So far it has just been short-term suffering on a huge scale. Could it lead to long-term prosperity and jobs for everyone? This is what he is hoping but meanwhile the economic future looks grim for the average American household and for all of us. Trump's popularity is going to vanish and he could find himself under greater pressure than ever to switch tactics. Right now, he is holding firm. This gentleman is not for turning, to use the famous comment by Margaret Thatcher.

Fear and chaos at the Pentagon

Pentagon officials are living “in fear” of being forced to take polygraph tests to prove they are not leaking sensitive information to the media. An email warning of the potential use of lie-detector testing has created an atmosphere of intimidation, according to one US defence source. The source said the Pentagon was currently a “Pandora’s box” of uncertainty, following the sacking of three top officials and the departure of two more high-ranking civilians in the last week, leaving Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary, without key advisers. “The extraordinary thing is that lie detector tests are being threatened, not to uncover potential anti-President Trump civil servants but to catch political appointees suspected of leaking classified or sensitive information,” the source said. There are also concerns that the Pentagon will follow the example of the Department of Homeland Security where some officials have been ordered to hand over their phones to check on their political loyalty and their social media activity. “Pentagon officials are living each day in fear of being sacked. This is all causing a huge distraction and I would be shocked if Hegseth is still defence secretary for much longer,” the source said. Hegseth himself is still being investigated by the Pentagon’s inspector general for his involvement in the Signal group chat last month between top Trump national security officials about the upcoming air strikes on Houthi rebels in Yemen. One of those in the text-messaging group was Geoffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of the Atlantic magazine, who had been inadvertently invited to participate. Now he is facing further investigation after The New York Times revealed Hegseth had also discussed the airstrikes on the Houthis with a second Signal chat group which included his wife, Jennifer, a former Fox News producer, his brother Phil and Tim Parlatore, his personal lawyer, both of whom work in some capacity in the Pentagon. Sean Parnell, Pentagon spokesman, denied in a reply on social media that any classified information had been discussed in either of the Signal chats. Underlining the reported chaos at the Pentagon, one of the officials ousted last week has spoken out in public about the damage being created by the recent sackings. John Ullyot, appointed top spokesman by Hegseth, was asked to resign following an outcry over the removal from the Pentagon’s website of the military service record for Jackie Robinson, a black baseball legend and civil rights hero. It was removed as part of the Trump administration’s order to stop promoting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). The website entry on Jackie Robinson was restored. Following Ullyot’s ousting, three top Hegseth officials were accused of leaking classified information to the media and were summarily sacked: Dan Caldwell, a senior adviser to the defence secretary, Darin Selnick, deputy chief of staff, and Colin Carroll, chief of staff to Stephen Feinberg, the deputy defence secretary. Then Joe Kasper, Hegseth’s chief of staff, was also removed, creating five vacancies in “front office” roles in just a week. “The [Pentagon] building is in disarray under Hegseth’s leadership,” Ullyot wrote in an opinion piece in the Politico magazine. “The dysfunction is now a major distraction for the president, who deserves better from his senior leadership,” he wrote. Ullyot wrote that the Pentagon was in “total chaos” and he also doubted whether Hegseth would survive as defence secretary. He accused Hegseth’s office of “falsehoods” about the three officials who were sacked for leaking information including the decision to send a second aircraft carrier to the Middle East. On Saturday the three sacked officials penned a post on X (formerly Twitter) in which they claimed they had been slandered. “Hegseth is now presiding over a strange and baffling purge,” Ullyot wrote. “More firings may be coming, according to rumours in the building.” Ullyot was in charge of communications at the National Security Council during Trump’s first term as president.

Will Trump's nuke deal with Iran look like Obama's?

Donald Trump was scathing about Barack Obama's nuke deal with Iran signed in 2015. He said it was weak and failed to include any limitations on Tehran's sponsorship of terrorism in the Middle East. When he became president in 2017 he axed the deal, or at least he opted the US out of the deal which had also been signed by the other four permanent members of the UN Security Council - UK, France,China and Russia - plus Germany. But without the US on board, the deal fell apart. Now Trump is desperate to negotiate a new deal with Iran to avoid having to resort to military action to try and destroy the clandestine nuclear weapons programme facilities. But are the new talks also addressing Iran's state-sponsorship of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, or are they sticking exclusively to the nuke issue? If it's the latter, it's ironic that the Trump administration is trying to emulate the Obama deal which Trump hated. One of the great drawbacks of the Obama deal was that it only covered a limited period which meant Iran only had to bide its time before renewing its efforts to build a bomb, and in the meantime the sanctions on Iran would have been lifted immediately, effectively pouring billions of dollars into Tehran's coffers to continue nuclear research and support its proxy terrorist forces in the Middle East. If the Trump deal is going to be more effective. Ever, not just delayed for ten years.

Easter ceasefire in Ukraine announced by Putin

It was only last month that Vladimir Putin announced that he had instructed his military commanders to stop targeting Ukraine's energy installations as part of an agreement for a 30-day ceasefire. Neither the ceasefire itself nor the end to bombing power plants actually materialised. No ceasefire and the bombs and missiles kept on hitting these infrastructure sites. So what was the purpose behind Putin's promise? Now we have an Easter ceasefire announced by Putin, to last 30 hours. One can only look at this latest gesture with a degree of cynicism. Even if it worked and there was no shooting or bombing for 30 hours, it would presumably start all over again as soon as the 30 hours are up. But in reality the Easter ceasefire will probably not work out because no one in Ukraine trusts Putin to keep his word. In fact Zelensky claimed there were Iran-supplied Shahed armed drones even at that moment in the sky over Ukraine to hit targets. So what sort of ceasefire exactly is being offered? It's a clever move by Putin who claimed it was a humanitarian gesture. But humanitarian gestures are pretty meaningless in a war which has lasted more than three years and shows no sign of ending.

Now Trump could walk away from a Ukraine deal

You never know quite where you are with the Trump administration. Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, came out of a meeting with Europeans on Ukraine and said unless there was a sign in the next few days that a deal to end the war was genuinely on the cards, the US could walk away fromn Ukraine. In other words, the US would stop supporting Ukraine and leave it to the Europeans and that would be it. It's probably just a negotiating tactic but it shows that there is not a lot of patience around in the White House. Trump wants to get shot of Ukraine but preferably by brokering a deal to stop the death and destruction. A good objective, except there is one person who is not interested in making any deal except on his terms. That's Vladimir Putin. So with the US threatening to walk away that just hands Putin what he wants. He is not going to make any deal with the Europeans, so the war will go on and on and on. Europe will get increasingly immersed in the war and it will bankrupt us all. This is a disastrous moment.

Trump still confident he can get a deal to end the war in Ukraine and stop an Iranian nuke

One thing that can be said about the Donald Trump administration is that it is still suffused with confidence that it can end the war in Ukraine and stop Iran from building a nuclear bomb. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran now has all the ingredients to make a nuclear bomb and it could be done in weeks if the ayatollahs approved. It's maximum brinkmanship. On the war in Ukraine question, although there are no signs of any imminent or foreseeable deal with Moscow, there are a lot of talks going on and something might suddenly emerge to give hope of a ceasefire. But in the meantime, Putin is hammering Ukraine like he expects the war to continue until the whole country is destroyed. Right now, Ukraine and a Tehran nuke are the biggest issues for the White House to resolve. The administration appears to have effectively given up on bringing a ceasefire in Gaza and is allowing Israel to do what it feels it needs to do. So all the diplomatic efforts are focusing on Moscow and Tehran. If the diplomacy, backed up by threats and warnings, fail to deliver, then there is a strong chance the war in Ukraine will continue for years, and Tehran will go for the nuke and suffer the consequences - bombing by Israel and backed up by the US. This, I believe, is the last thing Trump wants. He doesn't want another war and certainly not one that involves the US. So I anticipate a massive diplomatic effort to stop Iran before catastrophe arrives.

Joe Biden on the war path against Trump

For Trump it's a bit like being hit by an old daddy-long-legs insect. But at least Joe Biden has spoken out finally to attack the new administrations' assault on the social security system which he believes provides the vital safety net for the poorer members of American society. Biden also attacked the current administration for causing such chaos in the short time it has been in power. Obama has been weighing in as well. But there has been little criticism from other past presidents, such as Bill Clinton and George W Bush. Meanwhile, the only Democrats stirring it up are Bernie Sanders who could be described as a truly veteran old campaigner and the fiery Alexandria Occasio Cortez who one day, years hence, could run for the presidency. They are a travelling duo and attracting huge crowds but America is now Trump's America, and any noises from the Democrats are being swamped by the daily announcements from the White House. Something new and dramatic appears to happen every day. So whatever Joe Biden says is unlikely to have much, if any, impact.

Risk of letting China take over UK critical infrastructure

David Cameron and his chancellor George Osborne were the ones who set this country on the path of maximum partnership with China. They thought it would lead to a huge boost to the economy and lay the foundations for a successful and beneficial business alliance. It was all high-vision stuff, but no one at the time really thought through the dangers of allowing Beijing to take a control of parts of the UK's criticial infrastructure. Now, here we are, with a Chinese company trying to shut down the Scunthorpe steel works because it's losing £700,000 a day. So much for Chinese business acumen, but, far more seriously, the country's steel-manufacturing business was set to be cast onto the scrapheap by the Chinese until the government of Sir Keir Starmer stepped in and as good as renationalised the Scunthorpe works. What a farce. Of course the jobs have to be saved and this vital industry has to survive. The UK makes very few things these days. Let's hang on to our specialisesd steelmaking. But the truth is, having handed over this plant to a Chinese company, successive governments left all the decision-making to a foreign power and when the money ran out all they wanted to do was close it down, never mind the social and human repercussions. So the government had no choice but to spend the money and keep the plant alive. When the Chinese come calling to buy up other parts of the UK's critical infrastructure, the answer should be "Bu xiexie". No thank you.

Ceasefires in Ukraine and Gaza are history

It doesn't seem that long ago when there was new hope of a ceasefire in Ukraine and Gaza. Now, it's like it never happened. The one in Gaza lasted a short time before collapsing in violence and death. The promised one in Ukraine never happened at all despite vague promises from Moscow. Now it's all about the new tariff wa, and who is caring about the appalling destruction continuing in Ukraine and Gaza? Keith Kellogg, the retired lieutenant-general who is supposedly Donald Trump's envoy to Ukraine, condemned Putin for hitting a city in Ukraine on Palm Sunday with a ballistic-missile strike and killing more than 30 people including children. But who is Kellogg? He's not a top adviser to Trump in reality. His words of condemnation made only a sideshow. As for the killing of yet more Palestinians in Gaza, it was the usual story. Israel said the target was a hospital because it contained a Hamas command centre. Nothing has changed. It's a pretty bleak moment in 2025. All the hope of an end to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza is fading fast.

The mirrors game in the US/Iran nuke talks

The first talks between the US and Iran on Tehran's nuke programme since Donald Trump became president were described as being constructive but in terms of presentation and form they were another bizarre example of how previously broken-down relationships begin slowly to merge once agaiun. The talks were indirect which meant one US negotiator, Steve Witkoff, the ever-faithful deal-broker Trump envoy, and the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, sat in separate rooms in a building in Oman and used an Oman mediator to switch from one room to the other carrying messages. This formula has been used many times over the years in all kinds of past diplomatic disputes but it still seems bizarre. Does even "Good morning, how are you?" have to go back and forth before the real issues begin? Anyway, the fact that Iran and US are talking at all on the nukes subject is at least positive. But the other bizarre aspect of this particular diplomatic impasse is that the Supreme Leader in Iran, the present one and the former one, never actually admitted to ever wanting to build a nuclear weapon. Indeed, they consistently said it was against the Muslim faith to consider going down that path. So what is all the fuss about? Basically, no one in Washington has ever believed them. And for good reason, because the Iranian atomic scientists are pushing ahead with developing more and more highly-enriched uranium with the clear goal of being in a position to produce weapons-grade material if the ayatollahs suddenly decide to go for it and have a bomb. Meanwhile, it's all smoke and mirrors and sitting in adjoining rooms.

Putin and his new friend Steve Witkoff

We're getting used to it now, but after so long with Vladimir Putin being Washington's bete noire, it still seems extraordinary to see him shaking hands with an American envoy and smiling at each other. Steve Witkoff, Donald Trump's go-anywhere special envoy and Mr Tough Negotiator, is with Putin today in St Petersburg. Putin knows that Trump is getting increasingly irritated by his failure to sign a full-time ceasefire in Ukraine. In fact Putin right now is doing exactly the opposite, bombing and pounding Ukraine as much as he can. At some point soon, Trump will get seriously angry with his old mucker. But for the moment he has sent Witkoff to batter Putin with ultimatums and warnings and delivering a message that his president is exasperated. Will Putin care? I absolutely don't think so. Putin has all the cards and he will play themk to the bitter end. Even if he loses Trump as a friend he still has China's Xi Zinping on his side and that will give him the confidence he needs - not that he really needs it - to carry on fighting. I doubt Witkoff will come away with any breakthrough because Putin is still talking about doing nothing until the "root causes" of the invasion of Ukraine have been resolved. ie Ukraine existing at all!

Donald Trump blinks first

So the Big Man has blinked.Only 24 hours ago he was promising to stay the course and let every country beg for mercy and offer fancy trade deals to benefit the United States. Then suddenly, he got the message loud and clear that the US economny was heading into an abyss and recession unless he backed off. So he backed off and suspended all the high tariffs he had imposed on everyone. He made onoly one other change, he increased the tariffs against China to 125 per cent just for good measure to try and show that he was still holding the stick against his biggest rival. But everyone else went down to 10 per cent. Will this puncture Trump's bombast or will he negotiate his way out of a humiliating pullback by claiming he has got some wonderful deals. On the face of it, however, Trump has done a Liz Truss. Banked all his plans and dreams into one big pot and then found it was cracking from top to bottom. Truss was forced to resign and accept her legacy of ignominy. Trump will survive but the battering ram approach may now be put back in the cupboard where it belongs.

Does Trump want a war with China?

Two things have occurred at the same time which raises the concern that the new administration in Washington is heading for a war with China: a trade war has already started, a military war could be ahead in the not too distant future. This is scary stuff. The two things are the 104 per cent tariffs put on all Chinese goods entering the American market, and a warning from a very senior US military commander that the armed forces need to carry out a full, across-servce military exercise to preoare for war in the Pacific (with China). He says there have been lots of studies on jont-arms requirements but no proper actual exercise. So watch out for a mammoth exercise in the Pacific in the future involving every aspect of the army, navy, air force, marines and special forces. Can Trump really want a war with China? The concequences for the region and for the world would be catastrophic. If it's all bluster and just about giving China a kick in the teeth and putting them in place, then it's a dangerous gamble. China is the one country in the world unlikely to back down against Trumpian pressure. The trouble is, Trump can't afford to back down either. It's back to the bad old days of brinkmanship.

Trump vows to stick to his tariff plan

It hasn't taken long for the doubters in the Republican party in the US to start voicing their concerns about Donald Trump's world tariff war. As they see their invstments plummet in value, it's hardly surprising that even Trump supporters are beginnning to worry that the president has an obsession rather than a policy. But it seems nothing will sway Trump from his course of action. He seems to believe that at some point in the future - who knows when? - the benefits from the tariff war will start to bring benefits for the US economy and for the American people. He better be right because the reason, or one of the main reasons, why millions voted for him and not for Kamala Harris was because he promised to make America great again and that, to them, meant the economy up and the cost of living down. So far it has been the opposite. Growth in the economny has stagnated and the cost of living rises every day. How long will everyone's patience last? Trump doesn't seem remotely bothered. He has said he is enjoying what's going on and doesn't mind about the stock market dropping faster than a malfunctioning rocket. And everyone in the White House, from the press secretary to Trump's economic advisers, are pushing the same line, that all will come right in the end. It doesn't look very hopeful so far.

Trump deadline to Iran on nuke deal gets closer

Donald Trump certainly knows how to up the ante. He gave Tehran until May to start negotiating a deal to suspend or end its nuclear programme and the time is drawing fast. Meanwhile he has sent six B-2 Spirit bombers to Diega Garcia in preparation for what one can only imagine is a potential massive attack on Iran's nuke facilities. The fact that Benjamin Netanyahu is in Washington today means the two men will talk about Iran and what their two countries can do together to strike at Iran. At the moment the extraordinary presence of six B-2s in Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean is clearly aimed at putting maximum pressure on Tehran to start negotiations....or else. With the world's financial markets in chaos over Trump's tariff war the last thing the planet needs is a new war in the Middle East. But that's the way it's being played from the White House. I can see Trump's thick pen poised for his next big venture. Joe Biden did nothing about Iran's nuke programme. Trump is not going to let it go. It's possible that the ayatollahs will get the message.

Israel cuts Gaza into slices

The Israel Defence Forces have now carved three security corridors across Gaza in the hope and expectation of finshing off Hamas once and for all. There's the Philadelphi corridor that runs on the Gaza side of the border in the south with Egypt, the Netzarin corridor that splits the territory between the north, including Gaza City, and the south, and now a new one, the Morag corridor, that separates the southern town of Rafah from Khan Yunis. These are the two towns, especially Rafah, where the IDF's 36th Division is currently focusing most of its offensive action against Hamas. The carve-up is aimed at putting maximum pressure on Hamas, and the population of Gaza has to fit in wherever it's less dangerous. But there's nowhere that can be described as safe for civilians in Gaza, as the continuing casualty rate demonstrates. Benjamin Netanyahu will be in Washington tomorrow, being feted by Donald Trump at the White House, so he will feel invigorated that he has the US fully back on side. He never really knew where he stood with Joe Biden. Joe worried a lot about civilian deaths and even at one point stopped supplying Israel with the heaviest 2,000lb bombs because of their indiscriminate explosive power in built-up areas. I am not aware of any such reservations expressed by the new administration, so Netanyahu will get what he wants from Trump when he has his chat in Washington tomorrow. For the Palestinian people, the war continues in a daily unrelenting way.

Putin won't back down

There is no rasson why Vladimir Putin will ever back down, even if it means annoying Donald Trump. He will see how the world has reacted against Trump over his global tariffs war and he will be happy that he can dictate the way the war in Ukraine will go whatever Trump does or says. Right now, Trump probably thinks he looks strong and unbeatable by taking on the world over trade. But Putin will feel confident that it will soon put Trump on the defensive and that that will make him weak. Once again, Putin will win. He won't budge over his demands that there will be no ceasefire in Ukraine until the so-called "root causes" of the Ukraine issue are dealt with. In other words, he wants Ukraine to become the equivalent of a territorial eunachy, a non-country with no army and no future and no friends and allies. Meanwhile he will keep pounding Ukraine every day, further crushing the will power of the Ukrainian people to fight on. Trump's grand master plan to end the war in Ukraine, bring peace to Gaza, and make America Great Again with tariffs on everything being imported into the country could all go horribly wrong.

Tariff war chaos in the markets

I don't know whether Donald Trump anticipated all the chaos that would follow his declaration of global tariffs on all foreign goods coming into the country. But if he did, then he probably thought it was fine because in the end, he hopes, the United States will blossom and bloom and be the richest nation on earth bar none. So he won't mind that China has retaliated with 34 per cent tariffs on all American imports and he won't care if the European Union smacks 20 per cent tariffs on American goods. It's all part of the disruption strategy, or turmoil tactics, which he hopes will turn the globalised world upside down and convert the US into a Fortress economy. Foreigners keep out. And he's prepared to wait for this to happen, even if companies go under, the cost of living rises, and the world's trade patterns go to pot. But, of course, he won't be able to wait for ever. Sometime in the next six months, there is going to be an explosion of resentment and anger in the US, as prices continue to rise and rise. Trump loves, in facts needs, to be popular and if the polls show he is fast becoming the most unpopular president since, say, Nixon, then he might have to to change his tune and start backing down. But right now, it's full steam ahead.

Tariffs to the left and tariffs to the right

Right now it's very difficult and confusing to work out exactly what Donald Trump's plan is. The basic goal is relatively simple. To make tariffs on imported goods so high that US businesses and industry will all be forced to buy American to survive which would encourage manufacturers to expand and employ more people to meet the huge new demand. Thus, in Trump's dream plan, the United States of America, already one of the richest countries in the world, will become even wealthier. Never mind other countries, especially the poor ones. But there are a lot ifs and buts here. What if US companies just stick with their foreign customers and pay the extra for the time being in the hope that the tariffs will go away. At the moment, the whole world is up in arms, condemning Trump's tariff war and if there is a mighty backlash against his policy, there could be a massive disruption in trade which will affect American businesses as much as anyone else's. Countries such as China, in fact especially China, as well as the European Union, are going to retaliate with their own tariffs on American goods. It's a vicious circle with no end.

Israel goes back to full war against Hamas

Exploiting what the Israeli government sees as growing antipathy towards Hamas among Palestinians in Gaza, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) are to launch a large-scale expansion of its military operations to seize and occupy more territory. It’s the biggest gamble taken by Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, since the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas was agreed on January 17. Outlining the military plan, Israel’ Katz, the defence minister, announced that large areas of the Strip would be seized, with Rafah and Khan Yunis in the south appearing to be the principal targets. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who had made their way back to their homes in southern Gaza after the ceasefire deal was announced are now being ordered to leave in a mass evacuation. They have been told to move to the town of Al-Mawasi, located along the coast, an area about nine miles long and less than a mile wide which had previously been designated as a humanitarian zone. The strategy behind the expanded military ground operation became clear when the defence minister directly called on all Gazans to join with Israel in ending Hamas rule in the enclave. “I call on the residents of Gaza to act now to eliminate Hamas and return the kidnapped,” Katz said in his statement. The aim, he said, was to clear the area of militants and their infrastructure. “This is the only way to end the war,” he said. The new territory targeted would be incorporated into what Katz called “security zones”. Netanyahu and his war cabinet have been encouraged by the recent protests by hundreds of Palestinians against Hamas in northern Gaza. However, there remain 59 hostages out of the 250 kidnapped by Hamas on 7 October, 2023. Of those, only 24 are believed to be alive. Netanyahu who has been under persistent pressure by the families of the hostages to negotiate their release, is gambling that the massive expansion of the war will end the hostage crisis and bring them home. The Hostage Familes’ Forum which represents the relatives of those being held by Hamas, said families were “horrified to wake up this morning” to hear the defence minister’s statement of expanded ground operations. The Israeli government was obligated, the forum said, to free all the hostages and “to pursue every possible channel to advance a deal for their release”. After the failure of an agreement between Israel and Hamas to move to phase two of the ceasefire framework, Israel returned to bombing Hamas targets and ordered ground troops back into Gaza. about two weeks ago. A stretch of land, known as the Netzarim Corridor, separating north from south, from which the IDF had withdrawn in February, was seized back. It was the first sign of Israel’s renewed determination to focus on military action rather than peaceful negotiation to force Hamas to stop fighting and release the remaining hostages. Netanyahu blamed Hamas for the breakdown in the ceasefire talks held in Qatar. Under the ceasefire agreement signed on 19 January with the US, Qatar and Egypt acting as mediators, a three-phase proposal was drawn up. The first phase, leading to the release of 33 hostages in exchange for 1,900 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel was completed on 1 March. The second phase should have included the release of all remaining hostages and the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. When the talks broke down, Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s special envoy, suggested an extended phase one arrangement under which more hostages would be freed., but without any further commitment to ending the war. That so-called “bridging proposal” faltered. Hamas blames Israel for the breakdown in the ceasefire talks. Israel’s response has been to call on the IDF’s 36th Division to launch a major operation against Hamas and to return to mass evacuation of Gazans.

America's secret war in Ukraine

The US-led “save-Ukraine” military coalition was always more than just a production line of arms deliveries to the Kyiv government. Much of what has been going on over the last three years has been secret: a covert collaboration between Ukraine and the West involving commanders at the highest level, and special forces out of uniform. How much of the clandestine activities that began almost as soon as Russia invaded Ukraine was suspected by Moscow is unknown. But the full range of the extraordinary partnership between Ukraine and the West has now been revealed after a year-long investigation by Adam Entous, a reporter on The New York Times. While the sheer detail of the covert meetings and level of high-powered cooperation provides an insight for the first time into the extent of the military relationship developed between Kyiv and the US, there is an inevitable sense of impending gloom that all this intense partnership-building is going to be thrown away because of the determination of President Trump to end the war with a deal that can only favour Moscow and undermine Ukraine’s security future. The manner in which the 20-year campaign in Afghanistan was negotiated away by the first Trump administration in a deal which favoured the Taliban, and disastrously implemented when President Joe Biden came to power, should have provided a sufficient lesson for avoiding similar humiliations. But the momentum for a deal to end the war in Ukraine, however unrealistic it might seem today, is already having an effect on US/Ukrainian military collaboration. Some elements of the partnership are being wound down. The revelations in The New York Times demonstrate how intimately the US has been involved in operational strategy, targeting policy and command decision-making. The Pentagon would always insist that operational and targeting decisions were a matter for the Kyiv government. But the US, and Britain, were as close to being fellow orchestrators of the battles with Russian forces as could be without actually having boots on the ground. Two months after Vladimir Putin’s invasion force crossed the border into Ukraine on 24 February, 2022, a convoy of unmarked cars drove the 400 miles from Kyiv to the Polish border. Protected by British special forces troops in civilian clothes, the convoy contained two Ukrainian generals. They were driven to Rzeszow-Jasionka airport, flown by C-130 Hercules transport aircraft to Wiesbaden in Germany, home of US Army Europe and Africa., and ushered into the office of Lieutenant-General Christopher Donahue, commander of the 18th Airborne Corps and a former leader of the US Delta Force special forces unit. Donahue, according to the report, proposed a special partnership, and so began what would become a remarkable cooperative relationship to defend Ukraine from the Russian invasion force and to stop Putin from fulfilling his dream of overpowering and neutralising a country whose sovereignty and independence he never acknowledged or recognised. Wiesbaden was the heart of the effort by the western coalition to feed Kyiv with the weapons they needed. After the meeting with Donahue, plans began to supply American M777 artillery batteries and 155mm shells to Kyiv to help Ukraine take the war to the Russian frontlines. Over three years, the Pentagon delivered $66.5 billion of weaponry, including 10,000 Javelin anti-armour missiles, 3,000 Stinger anti-aircraft systems and 76 tanks, all masterminded through Wiesbaden. A Polish general was appointed Donahue’s deputy and a British general was put in charge of the logistics hub. The operation was called Task Force Dragon. The key Ukrainian in this warfighting partnership was General Mykhaylo Zabrodskyi. “My mission [in Wiesbaden] was to find out: who is this General Donahue? What is his authority? How much can he do for us?” he told The New York Times. Later he sent a message back to Kyiv which said: “A lot of countries wanted to support Ukraine. But somebody needed to be the coordinator, to organise everything, to solve the current problems and figure out what we need in the future. We have found our partner.” Wiesbaden was the mission command centre and the place where the Americans provided such a comprehensive intelligence-based picture of the battlefield and the potential targets within it that one European official was quoted in the report as saying: “They [the Americans] are part of the kill chain now.” A team of 20 Ukrainian intelligence officers, planners and communicators arrived in Wiesbaden and every morning they would sit down with the Americans “to survey Russian weapons systems and ground forces and determine the ripest, highest-value targets”. However, if Ukraine wanted to attack targets inside Russia, they were told they would have to use their own intelligence. In mid-2022, using American intelligence and targeting information, the Ukrainians launched rockets at the headquarters of Russia’s feared battle groups of the 58th Combined Arms Army in Kherson, killing generals and staff officers. When the huge Russian army unit moved to another location, the US tracked them and the Ukrainians hit them again. It wasn’t always a smooth partnership. Sometimes, the Ukrainian commanders resented the advice they were being given and went their own way. Increasingly, they also became frustrated by the reluctance of the Biden administration to provide all the weapons they were demanding in the early stages of the war, especially the longer-range rockets, such as the ATACMS systems with a range of 190 miles. Gradually, the Biden administration got bolder and less fearful that Putin might turn to tactical nuclear weapons if he judged the US coalition was crossing a dangerous red line in supporting Kyiv. ATACMS weren’t delivered until October, 2023 but were barred from being used to hit targets inside Russia until nearly a year later. However, while this debate was being argued in the public domain, Washington was secretly approving covert missions to help the Ukrainian military. “Time and again, the Biden administration authorised clandestine operations it had previously prohibited. American military advisers were dispatched to Kyiv and later allowed to travel closer to the fighting. Military and CIA officers in Wiesbaden helped plan and support a campaign of Ukrainian strikes in Russian-annexed Crimea,” the paper’s report said.