Author: potus

As it moves to transform U.S. relations with Russia, the Trump administration is talking with Moscow about readmitting potentially scores of Russian diplomats into the United States after years of expulsions.But the good-will gesture, which would be reciprocated by Moscow, could be a kind of Trojan horse, experts and diplomats warn, as the Kremlin is likely to dispatch spies posing as diplomats to restore its diminished espionage capabilities within the United States.U.S. and Russian officials met in Istanbul last month to discuss returning more diplomats to each other’s countries after years of tit-for-tat expulsions and the shuttering of diplomatic facilities.…

“The U.S. government hasn’t actually paid us since the end of December. We have about $12 million that we’ve delivered. We wonder if that’s — is the U.S. government still good? Is their word still good?” Just weeks after he took office, President Trump took aim at U.S.A.I.D. “The whole thing is a fraud. Very little, very little being put to good use.” But his mission to cut foreign aid spending could cost thousands of jobs at home. “Here we have sugar coming out of Florida, sometimes from Tennessee. We have peanuts from Georgia, obviously. We have canola oil from…

Durante décadas, uno de los principales objetivos de la Unión Soviética fue “desacoplar” a Estados Unidos de Europa. El desacoplamiento, como se le llamaba, rompería la alianza de Occidente que impedía que los tanques soviéticos rodaran por las llanuras prusianas.Ahora, en cuestión de semanas, el presidente Trump ha hecho a Moscú el regalo que le fue esquivo durante la Guerra Fría y desde entonces.Europa, abandonada, está conmocionada. Estados Unidos, una nación cuya idea central es la libertad y cuya vocación principal ha sido la defensa de la democracia frente a la tiranía, le ha dado la espalda a su aliado…

When military and civilian experts on peacekeeping started meeting in Geneva in the spring of 2022, they insisted on discretion. Their topic was sensitive: how to implement a future cease-fire in Ukraine.Last week, that group of experts went public for the first time, publishing a 31-page paper that delves into the technical details of how a cease-fire along a more than 700-mile front line could be monitored and enforced. The paper was shared last month via another confidential channel: a recurring meeting in Geneva between American, Russian and Ukrainian foreign-policy experts who are close to their governments.The paper, one of…

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — Voters in Honduras will select candidates from the three main parties Sunday to compete in November’s general election for the presidency in a country that remains deeply polarized, but skeptical of leaders from the left and right who have failed to deliver on improving security and the economy.The election comes at a time when President Xiomara Castro — Honduras’ first female leader — of the leftist LIBRE party has a tense relationship with the United States.She had raised the possibility of ending U.S. access to an air base the U.S. military uses for regional operations and…

U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wears an ICE vest during a briefing with law enforcement agents ahead of immigration raids in New York City, U.S., January 28, 2025 in this image obtained from social media. @sec_noem Via ReutersThe Department of Homeland Security has begun performing polygraph tests on employees to determine who might be leaking information to the media about immigration operations, according to four sources familiar with the practice. The department’s plans to perform these tests was first reported by Bloomberg Government.A spokesperson for DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Border czar Tom Homan and Homeland…

The Department of Homeland Security has begun performing polygraph tests on employees to determine who might be leaking information to the media about immigration operations, according to four sources familiar with the practice. The department’s plans to perform these tests was first reported by Bloomberg Government.A spokesperson for DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Border czar Tom Homan and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have blamed lower-than-expected ICE arrest numbers on recent leaks revealing the cities where it planned to conduct operations.In a video posted on X Friday, Noem said, “We have identified two leakers of information here…

Iran’s supreme leader decried “bullying governments” and bristled on Saturday at the idea of negotiating over the country’s nuclear program with the United States in an apparent response to a letter sent by President Trump earlier in the week.Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the leader, indirectly addressed Mr. Trump’s suggestion that Iran negotiate over its rapidly advancing nuclear program or face potential military action, while speaking at a meeting with government and military officials for Ramadan. Though he did not explicitly mention the letter, Mr. Trump or even the United States by name, it was clear he was speaking about Washington’s recent…

In early 2017, American intelligence agencies delivered an unequivocal judgment about why President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had ordered a sprawling effort to sabotage the recent American presidential election.Mr. Putin wanted to cripple the faith Americans have in their own elections, they found, and to undermine a United States-led “liberal world order” that the Russians see as a threat to their security. As a way to achieve this goal, the assessment found, Russia worked to help Donald J. Trump win the election.Eight years later, Mr. Trump sat in the Oval Office for a blustery meeting with President Voldymyr Zelensky…

Starting in late January, President Trump suspended two programs that provide American aid to international nuclear inspectors, potentially undermining his own goal of preventing Iran from developing a nuclear arsenal.Though one of the programs has since been restored, the outcome of the actions has been to weaken confidence in an effort that for decades has exposed Iran’s strides toward the production of nuclear weapons. Some experts now worry that the disruptions will scare away talented professionals from the field of nuclear nonproliferation and hinder the global fight against the spread of nuclear arms.Overall, the freezes have thrown uncertainty and confusion…