‘Building an authoritarian axis’: the Trump ‘envoy’ courting the global far right

Richard Grenell’s shad­ow for­eign pol­i­cy cam­paign is unset­tling diplo­mats and threat­ens to col­lapse US inter­ests For Don­ald Trump, he is “my envoy”, the man appar­ent­ly anoint­ed as the for­mer US president’s rov­ing ambas­sador while he plots a return to the White House. To crit­ics, he is seen as “an online pest” and “a nation­al disgrace” –…

US says no troops to Haiti as country reels from explosion of gang violence

Wash­ing­ton says no despite ‘fran­tic’ talks between diplo­mats, as bod­ies lie in street and army bat­tles gun-tot­ing gang mem­bers What led to the Haiti jail­break – and can democ­ra­cy be restored? The Unit­ed States has said it will not send troops to Haiti after a stun­ning erup­tion of gang vio­lence seem­ing­ly designed to bring down…

Biden’s China summit was a reminder: the US should talk to its rivals more often | Christopher S Chivvis

Biden deserves cred­it for push­ing for the meet­ing despite an often heat­ed­ly anti-Chi­­na polit­i­cal envi­ron­ment in the US Wednesday’s meet­ing between Joe Biden and Xi Jin­ping was a lot hard­er to pull off than the pho­tographs of the two lead­ers ambling around the gar­dens of the Filoli man­sion out­side San Fran­cis­co may have made it appear.…

The US can rebuild trust abroad – by declassifying incriminating intelligence | David Adler and Misty Rebik

We just returned from a del­e­ga­tion to Brazil, Chile and Colom­bia. Each coun­try is still seek­ing answers about the his­to­ry of US inter­ven­tion On the morn­ing of 11 Sep­tem­ber 1973, the Cen­tral Intel­li­gence Agency briefed Pres­i­dent Richard Nixon about the Chilean military’s immi­nent plan to “trig­ger mil­i­tary action against the Allende gov­ern­ment”. By noon, bombs…

Joe Biden calls for stable US-China relationship during south-east Asia tour

The US president’s remarks came after after meet­ing in Viet­nam with Com­mu­nist par­ty offi­cial to secure glob­al sup­ply chain Joe Biden’s nation­al secu­ri­ty tour of south-east Asia reached Hanoi, Viet­nam, on Sun­day, where the pres­i­dent called for sta­bil­i­ty in the US-Chi­­na rela­tion­ship against an increas­ing­ly com­plex diplo­mat­ic pic­ture in the region for his coun­try. “I don’t…

US may restrict visas for Ugandan officials in wake of anti-LGBTQ+ laws

Antony Blinken says he’s look­ing to ‘pro­mote account­abil­i­ty’ for Ugan­dan offi­cials who have vio­lat­ed rights of LGBTQ+ peo­ple The US may restrict visas issued to Ugan­dan offi­cials in its lat­est con­dem­na­tion to the African country’s enact­ment of strin­gent – and high­ly con­tro­ver­sial – anti-LGBTQ+ laws. Antony Blinken, the US sec­re­tary of state, said that Joe…

Joe Biden’s advisers say he doesn’t want to drag Pacific allies into ‘headlong clash’ between US and China

Senior White House offi­cial says pres­i­dent hears region’s con­cerns and ‘does not want con­flict’ with Chi­na Joe Biden’s senior advis­ers have acknowl­edged coun­tries in the Indo-Pacif­ic don’t want to be “tram­pled by a head­long clash” between the US and Chi­na. In a webi­nar with an Aus­tralian audi­ence on Fri­day, senior White House nation­al secu­ri­ty coun­cil (NSC) officials…

Joe Biden’s Ireland trip reinforces narrative of the American dream

US president’s ‘home­com­ing’ vis­it has alchemised pol­i­tics, diplo­ma­cy and the per­son­al into a feel­go­od glow for vis­i­tor and hosts John F Kennedy set the tem­plate for US pres­i­den­tial for­ays to Ire­land with a rap­tur­ous vis­it in 1963 that he called the best four days of his life. Joe Biden’s vis­it this week did not quite match that…

How the Iraq war altered US politics and led to the emergence of Trump

The dri­ve to war was fueled by par­ti­san­ship and served as an accel­er­ant to the extrem­ism that led to Trump and the Capi­tol riot Long shad­ow of US inva­sion of Iraq still looms over inter­na­tion­al order Twen­ty years ago, Lt Col Karen Kwiatkows­ki was work­ing as a desk offi­cer in the Pen­ta­gon, when she became aware of…