Wartime NATO summits have focused on Ukraine. With Trump, this one will be different

(L-R) U.S. President Donald Trump, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen depart following a group photo in front of the Canadian Rockies at the Kananaskis Country Golf Course during the G7 Leaders' Summit on June 16, 2025 in Kananaskis, Alberta. (AFP)
(L-R) U.S. President Donald Trump, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen depart following a group photo in front of the Canadian Rockies at the Kananaskis Country Golf Course during the G7 Leaders' Summit on June 16, 2025 in Kananaskis, Alberta. (AFP)
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Updated 23 June 2025
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Wartime NATO summits have focused on Ukraine. With Trump, this one will be different

Wartime NATO summits have focused on Ukraine. With Trump, this one will be different
  • Then at the Group of Seven summit in Canada, Trump called for Russia to be allowed back into the group; a move that would rehabilitate Putin on the global stage
  • Zelensky had traveled to Canada to meet with him. No meeting happened, and no statement on Russia or the war was agreed

BRUSSELS: At its first summits after Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, NATO gave President Volodymyr Zelensky pride of place at its table. It won’t be the same this time.
Europe’s biggest land conflict since World War II is now in its fourth year and still poses an existential threat to the continent. Ukraine continues to fight a war so that Europeans don’t have to. Just last week, Russia launched one of the biggest drone attacks of the invasion on Kyiv.
But things have changed. The Trump administration insists that it must preserve maneuvering space to entice Russian President Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table, so Ukraine must not be allowed steal the limelight.
In Washington last year, the military alliance’s weighty summit communique included a vow to supply long-term security assistance to Ukraine, and a commitment to back the country “on its irreversible path” to NATO membership. The year before, a statement more than twice as long was published in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius. A new NATO-Ukraine Council was set up, and Kyiv’s membership path fast-tracked. Zelensky received a hero’s welcome at a concert downtown.
It will be very different at a two-day summit in the Netherlands that starts Tuesday. NATO’s most powerful member, the United States, is vetoing Ukraine’s membership. It’s unclear how long for.
Zelensky is invited again, but will not be seated at NATO’s table. The summit statement is likely to run to around five paragraphs, on a single page, NATO diplomats and experts say. Ukraine will only get a passing mention.
If the G7 summit is anything to go by ...
Recent developments do not augur well for Ukraine.
Earlier this month, frustrated by the lack of a ceasefire agreement, US President Donald Trump said it might be best to let Ukraine and Russia “fight for a while” before pulling them apart and pursuing peace.
Last weekend, he and Putin spoke by phone, mostly about Israel and Iran, but a little about Ukraine, too, Trump said. America has warned its allies that it has other security priorities, including in the Indo-Pacific and on its own borders.
Then at the Group of Seven summit in Canada, Trump called for Russia to be allowed back into the group; a move that would rehabilitate Putin on the global stage.
The next day, Russia launched its mass drone attack on Kyiv. Putin “is doing this simply because he can afford to continue the war. He wants the war to go on. It is troubling when the powerful of this world turn a blind eye to it,” Zelensky said.
Trump left the G7 gathering early to focus on the conflict between Israel and Iran. Zelensky had traveled to Canada to meet with him. No meeting happened, and no statement on Russia or the war was agreed.
Lacking unanimity, other leaders met with Zelensky to reassure him of their support.
Questions about US support for Ukraine
Trump wants to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. He said he could do it within 100 days, but that target has come and gone. Things are not going well, as a very public bust up with Zelensky at the White House demonstrated.
Trump froze military aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine’s armed forces for a week. The US has stepped back from the Ukraine Defense Contact Group that was set up under the Biden administration and helped to drum up weapons and ammunition.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth skipped its last meeting; the first time a Pentagon chief has been absent since Russian forces invaded in February 2022.
Addressing Congress on June 10, Hegseth also acknowledged that funding for Ukraine military assistance, which has been robust for the past two years, will be reduced in the upcoming defense budget.
It means Kyiv will receive fewer of the weapons systems that have been key to countering Russia’s attack. Indeed, no new aid packages have been approved for Ukraine since Trump took office again in January.
“The message from the administration is clear: Far from guaranteed, future US support for Ukraine may be in jeopardy,” said Riley McCabe, Associate Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a US-based policy research organization.
Cutting aid, McCabe warned, could make the Kremlin believe “that US resolve is fleeting, and that time is on Russia’s side.”
“Putin has less incentive to negotiate if he believes that US disengagement is inevitable and that Russia will soon gain an advantage on the battlefield,” he said.
What the summit might mean for Kyiv
Trump wants the summit to focus on defense spending. The 32 allies are expected to agree on an investment pledge that should meet his demands.
Still, the Europeans and Canada are determined to keep a spotlight on the war, wary that Russia could set its sights on one of them next. They back Trump’s ceasefire efforts with Putin but also worry that the two men are cozying up.
Also, some governments may struggle to convince their citizens of the need to boost defense spending at the expense of other budget demands without a strong show of support for Ukraine — and acknowledgement that Russia remains NATO’s biggest security threat.
The summit is highly symbolic for Ukraine in other ways. Zelensky wants to prevent his country from being sidelined from international diplomacy, but both he and his allies rely on Trump for US military backup against Russia.
Concretely, Trump and his counterparts will dine with the Dutch King on Tuesday evening. Zelensky could take part. Elsewhere, foreign ministers will hold a NATO-Ukraine Council, the forum where Kyiv sits among the 32 allies as an equal to discuss its security concerns and needs.
What is clear is that the summit will be short. One working session on Wednesday. It was set up that way to prevent the meeting from derailing. If the G7 is anything to go by, Trump’s focus on his new security priorities — right now, the conflict between Israel and Iran — might make it even shorter.

 


Son of kingpin ‘El Chapo’ to plead guilty to drug trafficking in US

Son of kingpin ‘El Chapo’ to plead guilty to drug trafficking in US
Updated 13 sec ago
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Son of kingpin ‘El Chapo’ to plead guilty to drug trafficking in US

Son of kingpin ‘El Chapo’ to plead guilty to drug trafficking in US

NEW YORK: A son of Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman has agreed to plead guilty to drug trafficking in the United States as part of a plea deal, court documents show.
Ovidio Guzman is accused of conspiring to ship cocaine, fentanyl, heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana into the United States, via a faction of the notorious Sinaloa Cartel founded by his father.
Federal court documents dated June 30 and signed by Ovidio Guzman, alias “Raton” , say he wishes to plead guilty to settle the case and to waive trial in Illinois, where he is being held.
According to documents from the Chicago court hearing his case, a plea hearing is scheduled for July 9 before Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman. After that hearing, the judge will sentence him at a date yet to be determined.
US authorities accuse Ovidio and his three brothers of leading Los Chapitos, a faction of the Sinaloa Cartel designated by the Trump administration as a global “terrorist” organization.
The United States accuses the four of trafficking fentanyl into the United States, where the opioid epidemic is linked to tens of thousands of deaths.
Ovidio Guzman was extradited to the United States in 2023 to face narcotics charges, joining his father, one of the world’s most infamous drug traffickers, who is serving a life sentence in a US prison.
The Sinaloa cartel is one of six Mexican drug trafficking groups designated terrorist organizations by US President Donald Trump.
Another son, Joaquin Guzman Lopez, was arrested after arriving in the United States last July in a private plane with cartel co-founder Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, who claimed he had been kidnapped.
The arrests sparked cartel infighting that has left more than 1,200 people dead and 1,400 missing in Sinaloa state, located in northwestern Mexico.
On Monday, the bodies of 20 people, several of them decapitated, were found on a highway bridge in a part of Mexico where factions of the Sinaloa drug cartel are fighting, authorities said.


Federal judge halts the Trump administration from dismantling the US African Development Foundation

Federal judge halts the Trump administration from dismantling the US African Development Foundation
Updated 12 min 49 sec ago
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Federal judge halts the Trump administration from dismantling the US African Development Foundation

Federal judge halts the Trump administration from dismantling the US African Development Foundation
  • Congress created USADF as an independent agency in 1980, and its board members must be confirmed by the US Senate

A federal judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from dismantling a US federal agency that invests in African small businesses.
US District Judge Richard Leon in Washington, DC, ruled that Trump violated federal law when he appointed Pete Marocco the new head of the US African Development Foundation, or USDAF, because Marocco was never confirmed by Congress. As a result, Marocco’s actions — terminating most of the agency’s employees and effectively ending the agency’s grants — are void and must be undone, the judge found.
Congress created USADF as an independent agency in 1980, and its board members must be confirmed by the US Senate. In 2023, Congress allocated $46 million to the agency to invest in small agricultural and energy infrastructure projects and other economic development initiatives in 22 African countries.
On Feb. 19, Trump issued an executive order that said USADF, the US Institute of Peace, the Inter-American Foundation and the Presidio Trust should be scaled back to the minimum presence required by law. Trump also fired the agency’s board members and installed Marocco as the board chair.
Two USDAF staffers and a consulting firm based in Zambia that works closely with USADF sued on May 21, challenging Marocco’s appointment and saying the deep cuts to the agency prevented it from carrying out its congressionally mandated functions.
The staffers and consulting firm asked the judge for a preliminary injunction, saying Marocco’s “slash-and-burn approach” threatened to reduce the agency to rubble before their lawsuit is resolved. They said the Federal Vacancies Reform Act prohibited Marocco’s appointment to USADF, and that the same law requires that any actions done by an unlawfully appointed person must be unwound.
“This is a victory for the rule of law and the communities that rely on USADF’s vital work,” said Joel McElvain, senior legal adviser at Democracy Forward, the organization representing the USDAF staffers and consulting firm in their lawsuit. “We will continue fighting against these power grabs to protect USADF’s ability to fulfill the mission that Congress gave it to perform.”
US Attorney Jeanine Pirro had written in court documents that the Federal Vacancies Reform Act doesn’t apply to USADF, and that the president has the authority to designate acting members of the agency’s board until the Senate confirms his nominees. Any claims about the cuts themselves, Pirro said, must be handled in the Court of Federal Claims, not the federal district court.
The judge found in a separate case that Trump had the legal authority to fire the previous members of the USADF board. Pirro wrote in court documents in that case that the president also has the legal authority to appoint someone to run the USADF, consistent with Trump’s policy goals, until the Senate could confirm his nominees.


Greece, EU to press Libya on migrant crossings as Mediterranean numbers surge

Greece, EU to press Libya on migrant crossings as Mediterranean numbers surge
Updated 02 July 2025
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Greece, EU to press Libya on migrant crossings as Mediterranean numbers surge

Greece, EU to press Libya on migrant crossings as Mediterranean numbers surge
  • Greece recently announced plans to send warships to international waters in the region following a surge in crossings from Libya to the southern Greek island of Crete — a more perilous route than the more frequently used passage between Turkiye and nearby

ATHENS, Greece: The European Union ‘s commissioner for migration says Europe will take a “firm” approach with authorities in Libya following a spike in illegal migration across the Mediterranean.
Commissioner Magnus Brunner plans to travel to Libya next week with government representatives from Greece, Italy and Malta, seeking tougher measures from Libyan authorities to stop boats carrying migrants from leaving for Europe.
“That is actually a question which bothers us quite a lot at the moment. Libya is, of course, at the top of the agenda, and we’re traveling together to Libya next week because we have to be fast, I think, and firm,” Brunner said Tuesday at a conference in Athens.
Brunner, who discussed the upcoming visit at a meeting with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, said the delegation would meet with representatives from both the United Nations-recognized government in western Libya and a rival authority in the east.
Greece recently announced plans to send warships to international waters in the region following a surge in crossings from Libya to the southern Greek island of Crete — a more perilous route than the more frequently used passage between Turkiye and nearby Greek islands.
In 2023, hundreds died when the fishing trawler Adriana, carrying migrants from Libya to Italy, sank off Greek waters. ___
 

 

 


US won’t send some weapons pledged to Ukraine following a Pentagon review of military assistance

US won’t send some weapons pledged to Ukraine following a Pentagon review of military assistance
Updated 02 July 2025
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US won’t send some weapons pledged to Ukraine following a Pentagon review of military assistance

US won’t send some weapons pledged to Ukraine following a Pentagon review of military assistance
  • The Pentagon review determined that stocks were too low on some items previously pledged, so pending shipments of some items won’t be sent, according to a US official

WASHINGTON: The US is halting some shipments of weapons to Ukraine amid concerns that its own stockpiles have declined too much, officials said Tuesday.
The munitions were previously promised to Ukraine for use during its ongoing war with Russia under the Biden administration. But the pause reflects a new set of priorities under President Donald Trump.
“This decision was made to put America’s interests first following a (Defense Department) review of our nation’s military support and assistance to other countries across the globe,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said in a statement. “The strength of the United States Armed Forces remains unquestioned — just ask Iran.”
That was a reference to Trump recently ordering US missile strikes against nuclear sites in Iran.
The Pentagon review determined that stocks were too low on some items previously pledged, so pending shipments of some items won’t be sent, according to a US official who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide information that has not yet been made public.
To date, the US has provided Ukraine more than $66 billion worth of weapons and military assistance since Russia invaded in February 2022.
Over the course of the war, the US has routinely pressed for allies to provide air defense systems to Ukraine. But many are reluctant to give up the high-tech systems, particularly countries in Eastern Europe that also feel threatened by Russia.
The halt of some weapons comes after Russia launched its biggest combined aerial attack against Ukraine over the weekend, Ukrainian officials said, in an escalating bombing campaign that has further dashed hopes for a breakthrough in peace efforts championed by Trump.
The US stoppage was first reported by Politico.
Trump met with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky on the sidelines of the NATO summit last week and had left open the possibility of sending Kyiv more US-made Patriot air defense missile systems, acknowledging they would help the Ukrainian cause.
“They do want to have the antimissile missiles, OK, as they call them, the Patriots,” Trump said then. “And we’re going to see if we can make some available. We need them, too. We’re supplying them to Israel, and they’re very effective, 100 percent effective. Hard to believe how effective. They do want that more than any other thing.”
Those comments reflect a change of thinking about providing weapons to Ukraine across the administration in recent months.
In opening remarks at a Senate defense appropriations subcommittee hearing in June, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said he has moved quickly to quash wasteful programs and redirect funding to Trump’s top objectives.
Hegseth said a negotiated peace between Russia and Ukraine, which has been promoted for months by Trump, makes America look strong, even though Moscow is the aggressor in the conflict. He also said the budget includes hard choices and “reflects the reality that Europe needs to step up more for the defense of its own continent. And President Trump deserves the credit for that.”
The defense secretary said during that testimony that some US security spending for Ukraine is still in the pipeline, but provided no details. Hegseth also acknowledged that funding for Ukraine military assistance — which has been robust for the past two years — would be reduced.
“This administration takes a very different view of that conflict,” Hegseth said. “We believe that a negotiated peaceful settlement is in the best interest of both parties and our nation’s interests.”
Last month, Hegseth skipped a meeting of an international group to coordinate military aid to Ukraine that the US created three years ago. Hegseth’s predecessor, Lloyd Austin, formed the group after Russia attacked Ukraine, and Hegseth’s absence was the first time the US defense secretary wasn’t in attendance.
Under Austin’s leadership, the US served as chair of the group, and he and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff attended monthly meetings, which were both in person and by video. Hegseth had previously stepped away from a leadership role of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group — turning that over to Germany and the United Kingdom — before abandoning the gathering altogether.


Pro-Palestinian Georgetown student can remain free, US appeals court rules

Pro-Palestinian Georgetown student can remain free, US appeals court rules
Updated 02 July 2025
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Pro-Palestinian Georgetown student can remain free, US appeals court rules

Pro-Palestinian Georgetown student can remain free, US appeals court rules
  • Suri, 41, was arrested in Virginia in March and then moved by the US government to Texas, where he was released in May after the ruling by Giles
  • The Trump administration has attempted to deport foreign pro-Palestinian student protesters while accusing them of being antisemitic, threats to American foreign policy and extremist sympathizers

WASHINGTON: A pro-Palestinian Georgetown University student from India, detained by President Donald Trump’s administration but then released on a judge’s order, can remain free while fighting deportation efforts, a US appeals court ruled on Tuesday.
A three-judge panel of the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 against the administration’s request that Badar Khan Suri be returned to immigration detention. The 4th Circuit said it found no grounds to overturn the decision by US District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles to order Suri’s release.
“To allow the government to undermine habeas jurisdiction by moving detainees without notice or accountability reduces the writ of habeas corpus to a game of jurisdictional hide-and-seek,” Judge James Andrew Wynn wrote on Tuesday.
Habeas corpus refers to a procedure under which the legality of a person’s incarceration can be challenged in court.
Suri, 41, was arrested in Virginia in March and then moved by the US government to Texas, where he was released in May after the ruling by Giles. Suri is a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown’s Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, part of the Jesuit university’s School of Foreign Service.
The Trump administration has attempted to deport foreign pro-Palestinian student protesters while accusing them of being antisemitic, threats to American foreign policy and extremist sympathizers. Suri has denied the US government’s allegations that he spread Palestinian militant propaganda and antisemitism on social media. Protesters, including some Jewish groups, have said the US government has conflated criticism of Israel’s military assault in Gaza with antisemitism and advocacy for Palestinian rights with support for extremism. Human rights advocates have raised free speech and due process concerns over the administration’s actions toward these students. Other pro-Palestinian students who were arrested by the government and subsequently released under judicial orders include Columbia University students Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi and Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk.
Suri’s wife, Mapheze Saleh, is a US citizen. Saleh is from Gaza, according to the Georgetown University website, which said she has written for Al Jazeera and Palestinian media outlets and worked with the foreign ministry in Gaza. Saleh was not arrested.