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…
Senior State Department officials have drawn up plans to close a dozen consulates overseas by this summer and are considering shutting down many more missions, in what could be a blow to the U.S. government’s efforts to build partnerships and gather intelligence, American officials say. The department also plans to lay off many local citizens…
The C.I.A. director John Ratcliffe said on Wednesday that intelligence sharing with Ukraine had been paused alongside military aid to pressure its government to cooperate with the Trump administration’s plans to end the country’s war with Russia. Speaking on Fox Business, Mr. Ratcliffe applauded the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s statement on Tuesday praising President Trump…
Inside the White House, Trump officials are embroiled in a debate over whether to carry out military strikes against Mexican drug cartels or instead to collaborate with Mexican authorities to jointly dismantle criminal organizations. On one side, several people familiar with the matter say, some U.S. officials are advocating for unilateral military action against cartel…
The shake-up of the US military leadership is unlikely to change the Trump administration’s strategic focus on China but will leave it with less experience of the region at the top, according to observers. US President Donald Trump dismissed six senior military officers on Friday, including Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman General Charles Brown, the…
The United States has stepped up secret drone flights over Mexico to hunt for fentanyl labs, part of the Trump administration’s more aggressive campaign against drug cartels, according to U.S. officials. The covert drone program, which has not been previously disclosed, began under the Biden administration, according to U.S. officials and others familiar with the…
The great collision has begun. As President Trump’s national security team arrived in Europe this week, very little about their hard-line message came as a surprise. But to the political and diplomatic leaders arriving in Munich on Friday for an annual security conference where fault lines in the Western alliance are always on display, it…
They have been circling each other carefully for seven days now — sending out invitations to talk, mixing a few jabs with ego-stroking, suggesting that the only way to end the Ukraine war is for the two of them to meet, presumably without the Ukrainians. President Trump and Vladimir V. Putin, whose relationship was always…
Poland’s prime minister appeared on Wednesday to confirm the conclusions of western intelligence officials who had warned of a Russian plot to blow up cargo aircraft over western countries. “I can only confirm that Russia planned acts of air terror, not just against Poland but against airlines across the globe,” the prime minister, Donald Tusk,…
Former Hong Kong media boss Jimmy Lai Chee-ying has sought to explain his past statements on the national security law expressed in articles and interviews with foreign media outlets before the legislation took effect, as he returned to court on Tuesday for a ninth day of verbal testimony in his high-profile trial. Lai, 77, has…