Intense heat hangs over the sugarcane fields near Cuba’s eastern coast. In the village of Herradura, a blond-maned horse rests under a palm tree after spending all Saturday in the fields with its owner, Roberto, who cultivates maize and beans. Roberto was among those worst affected by Hurricane Melissa, which hit eastern Cuba – the country’s poorest region – late last year. The storm affected 3.5 million people, damaging or destroying 90,000 homes and 100,000 hectares of crops. “Many of us lost everything,” he says. “Fortunately, we have received some…
Tag: US foreign policy
US and Japan unveil $36bn of oil, gas and critical minerals projects in challenge to China
Japan has drawn up plans for investments in US oil, gas and critical mineral projects worth about $36bn under the first wave of a deal with Donald Trump. The US president and Sanae Takaichi, Japan’s prime minister, announced a trio of projects including a power plant in Portsmouth, Ohio, billed by the Trump administration as the largest natural gas-fired generating facility in US history. As a diplomatic row between Japan and China over the security of Taiwan continues, testing the Japanese economy, Takaichi said the projects would strengthen her country’s…
Be ‘prudent’ about supplying arms to Taiwan, Xi tells Trump in call
In their first call since November, Chinese leader Xi Jinping warned US president Donald Trump to be “prudent” about supplying arms to Taiwan, according to a readout of their call provided by China’s foreign ministry. “President Xi emphasised that the Taiwan question is the most important issue in China-US relations,” the readout said. “China must safeguard its own sovereignty and territorial integrity, and will never allow Taiwan to be separated. The US must handle the issue of arms sales to Taiwan with prudence.” Hours later, the self-ruled island’s president, Lai…
Trump unveils $12bn critical minerals stockpile scheme in apparent move to counter China’s dominance
Donald Trump has announced the creation of a critical mineral reserve worth nearly $12bn, a stockpile that could counter China’s ability to use its dominance of the hard-to-process metals as leverage in trade talks. “Today we’re launching what will be known as Project Vault to ensure that American businesses and workers are never harmed by any shortage,” Trump said at the White House on Monday. He compared it to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), which was created in the 1970s when an Arab oil embargo led to a disruptive shortage…
Chinese man who filmed evidence of Xinjiang rights abuses is granted asylum in US
A US immigration judge has granted asylum to a Chinese national who he said had a “well founded fear” of persecution if sent back to China after exposing alleged human rights abuses against Uyghurs there. Guan Heng applied for asylum after arriving in the US illegally in 2021. He has been in custody since being swept up in an immigration enforcement operation in August last year as part of a mass deportation campaign by the Trump administration. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) initially sought to deport Guan to Uganda…
Trump threatens Canada with 100% tariff over possible deal with China
Donald Trump on Saturday said he would impose a 100% tariff on all Canadian imports if the North American country makes a trade deal with China. Beside that tariff threat, another Trump foreign policy maneuver to make news on Saturday involved the president announcing the US had taken the oil that was on recently seized Venezuelan tankers. The US president wrote on social media that if the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, “thinks he is going to make Canada a ‘Drop Off Port’ for China to send goods and products…
China sees an opportunity in Greenland, but not in the way that Trump thinks
According to Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s foreign affairs chief, China and Russia must be having a “field day” about Donald Trump’s plans for Greenland, which Kallas says will divide Nato. But according to Trump, his plans are motivated by a desire to counter the very threat that Kallas identified. “World peace is at stake! China and Russia want Greenland, and there is not a thing that Denmark can do about it,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Saturday. Viewed from Beijing, Trump’s moves on Greenland represent further proof that…
Trump’s imperial measures: inside the 16 July edition of Guardian Weekly
We’re just a couple of weeks into 2026 and already it feels like an eternity has passed. From Venezuela to Greenland, a blitz of revanchist US foreign policy moves by Donald Trump has thrown the world into turmoil. Domestically, it’s little better: in Minneapolis, the killing last week of Renee Nicole Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent – who was defended aggressively by Trump – prompted shock and fury across America. While some argue that recent events simply represent a more honest, open approach towards US policy goals…
Trump’s imperial measures: inside the 16 January edition of Guardian Weekly
We’re just a couple of weeks into 2026 and already it feels like an eternity has passed. From Venezuela to Greenland, a blitz of revanchist US foreign policy moves by Donald Trump has thrown the world into turmoil. Domestically, it’s little better: in Minneapolis, the killing last week of Renee Nicole Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent – who was defended aggressively by Trump – prompted shock and fury across America. While some argue that recent events simply represent a more honest, open approach towards US policy goals…
What would happen if every state acted like Donald Trump’s America? | Kenneth Roth
What is wrong with resurrecting the prerogative of major powers to claim a sphere of influence in which they dictate and others must follow? That idea informs the “Donroe Doctrine” behind the US invasion of Venezuela to seize Nicolás Maduro. Donald Trump seems to believe that, as the world’s strongest military power, the United States should be allowed to invade other countries at will. Trump’s homeland security adviser, Stephen Miller, says “the real world” is “governed by strength”, by “power”, so we should get used to it. There is a…