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A photovoltaic power station with a capacity of 0.8 MW covers an area of more than 3,000 square metres at the industrial site of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, Kyiv region, Ukraine, on April 12, 2025.
Two months after their infamous White House fight, the US and Ukraine announced on Wednesday that they had finally struck a long-awaited minerals deal.
What’s in this deal? It creates a joint US-Ukraine investment fund to invest in the development of Ukraine’s rare earth minerals – which are used in electric vehicle batteries and other consumer and military technology – as well as oil and gas. Future US military support for Ukraine will be counted as part of Washington’s investment in the fund. Revenue from the natural resources extraction will be split 50/50 between the two countries. None of the proceeds of the fund will be used to reimburse the US for the roughly $120 billion in aid it has sent so far.
Will the deal help end the war? Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has argued the deal would give Washington a stake in Ukraine’s peaceful future, making it less likely that Trump would halt all US support for Ukraine’s defense against Russian invaders. Trump prides himself on his ability to cut big deals and will protect an agreement once signed. The president noted during a press event at the White House yesterday that the US presence in Ukraine “will keep a lot of bad actors out of the country.” That’s clearly what Kyiv is hoping for. The text of the deal recognizes a “free, sovereign, and secure Ukraine.
But this deal, however lucrative for the US and useful for a Ukraine desperate to keep Trump onside, doesn’t change the reality that Kyiv and Moscow’s visions for Ukraine’s future are fundamentally incompatible. That said, anything that keeps Washington invested in Ukraine’s defense will be greeted as good news in Kyiv.
One last step. Ukraine’s parliament must still ratify the framework for the deal before it becomes law.Visite d’Etat de M. XI Jinping, Président de la République populaire de Chine, en France en presence de Ursula Von der Leyen
5: China lifted sanctions on five European Union lawmakers on Wednesday as Beijing seeks to balance the growing trade war with the United States by warming ties with Europe. The sanctions were originally imposed on members of the European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Human Rights in relation to European condemnations of human rights abuses against Uyghur minorities in Xinjiang.
500: Two Harvard University reports on anti-Muslim and antisemitic sentiment on campus released Monday stretched to over 500 pages cumulatively, noting that sizable minorities of Muslims (47%) and Jews (15%) did not feel physically safe. The reports, which were commissioned before the Trump administration took office, also showed that 92% of Muslims and 61% of Jews feared professional and academic repercussions for expressing political beliefs.
18: Turkish police have arrested 18 municipal employees in Istanbul as part of a growing crackdown against city Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu, who was imprisoned last month. Imamoğlu is widely considered the only opposition figure able to go toe-to-toe with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the next presidential election, but legal obstacles may effectively bar him from running. The municipal employees were among a group of 52 detained over the weekend, and are accused of taking bribes and participating in criminal conspiracy.
1 billion: Argentines deposited $1 billion in US dollars into their bank accounts over the last eight business after the government lifted restrictions on buying US currency following five years of strict controls. The dollar’s relative value has been sliding under the Trump administration and hit a three-year low last week after the president repeatedly criticized the chair of the Federal Reserve.
350,000: What stretchy inanimate thing killed 350,000 people in 2018? One word. Are you listening? Plastics. More specifically, chemicals that are added to the plastics that we encounter in everyday items like food packaging, lotions, and shampoos. A new study suggests that these “phthalates,” as they’re called, contributed to hundreds of thousands of deaths from heart disease, especially in emerging economies where middle-class consumption has grown rapidly in recent decades.
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: It is a hundred days of President Trump's second administration. How's he doing? And the answer is not so well, certainly not if you look at the polls. Worst numbers for first a hundred days of any president since they've been taking those polls. Markets, of course, down, global economy also down, so much of this self-imposed. And it's not the big-picture policy ideas. The things that Trump says he wants to do are not only popular, but they're also sensible policy: end wars, secure the border, and fair trade. Running on those three planks would work for pretty much anyone in the United States, the things that Trump is committed to, the things that previous administrations, including Biden and the promise of Harris, had not been particularly effective at. But the implementation has been abysmal. The lack of interest in policy specifics, lack of ability to effectively execute, and the dysfunction inside the Trump team/teams, economy, national security has been really challenging.
Tariffs, of course, so far have been the big problem, big internal fight on what it was that Trump should do and for what purpose. In terms of the purpose of these tariffs, you had so many ideas, and a lot of them were mutually contradictory. You're meant to raise revenue and lower taxes and reshore manufacturing and balance deficits and decouple from China and improve national security and on and on and on. These tariffs were going to be a panacea for absolutely everything, and you can't accomplish all of it. And that means that all of the fights that are going on, these countries don't know what the Trump administration actually wants. Bessent, the secretary of treasury, came in with one idea, and Peter Navarro, who initially won, came in with a second, the senior trade advisor in the White House, and Lutnick sort of had a third, and now Bessent is in charge for now, nominative.
Of course, Trump is really in charge, and Trump isn't interested in the specifics. He just wants deals. He wants wins. And he's saying, "Well, you guys, you other countries, you tell us what you're going to do. Well, it's not our job to tell you what we want, even though we're the ones that are expecting these deals to come together." And of course, it's happening with the Americans picking fights with all of these countries, literally everybody in the world simultaneously. And the impact that's going to have on the American economy is going to be dramatic. It's going to be long-lasting. It'll be, in many ways, as big as the pandemic, but completely self-imposed.
And even if deals were put together tomorrow, and they won't be, with the Europeans, with the Mexicans and Canadians, with the Chinese in particular, you'd already have a massive long-term disruption because the supply chains, the tankers, the contracts have already been severed for a period of time. And every day this goes on is a day that it's going to get worse. So that's going to lead to a lot of inflation in the United States, going to lead to a lot of bankruptcies and need for stimulus in other countries around the world, and the average voter's not going to be happy about that at all, which does help to explain why they did Liberation Day the day after elections in the US, special elections in Wisconsin and Florida and elsewhere.
Ending wars, Gaza did have a ceasefire early on, but not now. And now Trump is planning his trip to the Gulf and doesn't have Israel on the schedule, at least not yet, because there's more fighting happening between the Israeli Defense Forces and what's left of Hamas. And that fighting is not something Trump wants to see. Let's see how successful he is at bringing it to a ceasefire.
More important for everyone right now in the United States is the Russia-Ukraine War. The Americans are pushing to end that war, and Trump has had some success in getting the Ukrainians to the table because they understand that the or else is their intelligence and defense support from the US will be shut down, as it was suspended, so they're taking it very seriously. But the Russians are not because Trump has not displayed much of an or else for the Russians, hasn't said directly that if Russia refuses to do a ceasefire, that the US will provide more support for Ukraine, even though Trump advisors were saying that before he became president, has said, "Well, maybe there'll be secondary sanctions." But Trump is not making this very serious for Putin, and so Putin isn't taking it very seriously. Nobody thought he was really going to end the war in a day, but it's been a couple of months of effort, and clearly now Trump and team are losing patience and it's looking increasingly that they might walk away, which is why they're engaging with the Iranians and why, heck, Kim Jong Un probably is going to get a call at some point, right? Because Russia-Ukraine not working so well. So much for ending those wars.
And then on the border front, where Trump is having much more success in terms of policy, you don't see illegal immigrants coming into the US at anywhere close to the numbers they were under Biden or during Trump first term, and that has been a response to effective US policy. But there's also been overreach in terms of refusal to carry out the rulings of federal justices and even the Supreme Court, and that overreach is something that most Americans oppose. So even in the area where Trump is doing the best, his numbers are actually not as favorable as you might otherwise expect because of the dysfunction and because of the overreach of a more revolutionary Trump orientation.
Look, even DOGE, where I was kind of hoping in the early days that DOGE was certainly going to be effective at taking a lot of the corruption and the overspending out of the US government, but much less has been done on that front. There's been lots of claims of fraud, but very little evidence of actual fraud. There's been lots of claims that they were going to take two trillion, then one trillion, then maybe 150 billion, and now looks like less of that with Elon in charge of DOGE. And the focus that they have had has been much more politicized, much more ideological. Anything that looks like DEI or woke, let's just remove all of it and not necessarily do it with a scalpel, but more with a sledgehammer or a chainsaw, which means a lot of important programs get caught up, along with programs that no Americans should be funding.
And so overall, it's been a very challenging first hundred days. This is very much a move fast and break things approach. They are moving very fast. They are breaking a lot of things. There's not a lot of building, at least not yet. And a lot of Americans, while they feel that their government is inefficient and bloated, very few Americans want to see the government be broken further than it already is and less effective than it is, and that is so far what people are seeing. They're seeing it at home and they're seeing it internationally.
And they're not seeing a lot of restraint, even as mistakes are made, not only because Trump is never going to admit to have made any mistakes, of course that is something that you see from pretty much every president, but also, unlike most presidents, he's surrounded by people that don't tell him when he gets things wrong. And that is very different from Trump's first term, and that's a problem because you want to have people, irrespective of how loyal they are to you, you want them to be loyal first and foremost to the country. But Trump doesn't want that. He wants them loyal to him before they're loyal to the country, and that means not giving him information when he screws up because he will retaliate against them. And that's going to get you negative outcomes, I think, not just for the first a hundred days, but also for a much longer period of time in the United States and internationally. I hope I'm wrong. I certainly want to see him succeed, I want to see the country succeed, but that is not the trajectory that we are now on.
That's it for me, and I'll talk to y'all real soon.
Rescuers search for a 17-year-old and his parents near an apartment building hit by a Russian missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, on April 24, 2025.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that this week is “very critical” for Donald Trump’s plan to end the war in Ukraine. Russia’s Vladimir Putin made news on Monday by offering a three-day ceasefire beginning on May 8, a move perhaps motivated by skeptical recent comments from Trump on Russia’s willingness to bargain in good faith.
The list of issues still separating Russia and Ukraine remains long, but the larger reason for doubting the war will end soon is a near-complete lack of trust between Moscow and Kyiv and each government’s hope that it can still improve its position on the battlefield.
For Ukraine, there are new signs of hope. In recent days, reports have emerged that Russia’s wartime economy has begun to sputter – Goldman Sachs reports that Russia’s annualized economic growth has fallen from about 5% at the end of last year to below zero now. The boost that Russia’s shift to wartime production provided the country’s economy appears to be used up. In addition, the lower global oil price is biting into Russia’s export revenues, particularly from economically slumping China.
Ukrainian forces can also take heart from the early successes of its plan to build more and better drones domestically, including smaller exploding models that can be controlled remotely from underground bunkers.
For now, all eyes remain on Trump and his waning patience with a war he’s so far proven unable to stop.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and US President Donald Trump meet while they attend the funeral of Pope Francis at the Vatican on April 26, 2025.
Has the pope’s funeral set the stage for peace in Ukraine? At the Vatican on Saturday, US President Donald Trump sat down with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for a meeting the White House described as “very productive,” and which Zelensky said had the “potential to become historic, if we achieve joint results.” Zelensky also met separately with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and French President Emmanuel Macron, who later claimed that Ukraine was ready for an “unconditional ceasefire”and that it’s “now up to Russia to prove that it truly wants to end this war.”
Trump also threw the ball into Russia’s court – but it landed more like a grenade. After meeting Zelensky, the US President posted to Truth Social that he feared Russian President Vladimir Putin might have been “tapping” – aka, deceiving – him about his willingness to end the war. The evidence? Russia’s continued bombardment of Ukraine, including an attack Thursday that killed 12 people and injured 90. Trump suggested that now Putin must be “dealt with differently,” possibly through banking or secondary sanctions. At the same time, the US president claimed late Sunday that Ukraine was ready to yield Crimea – Zelensky said last week this was a nonstarter.
The response? Hours later, Russia launched a large-scale drone and airstrike assault across Ukraine, killing at least four people and injuring several others. Each country also targeted the other overnight with long-range attacks, though there were no immediate reports of casualties. Mediators are now urging the two sides to the table in what US Secretary of State Marco Rubio described as a “critical week” for resolving the conflict.
Oh and by the way. Though it had been known for some time,North Korea formally acknowledged on Sunday that it has been lending troops to the Russian cause. Separately, the Trump administration is reportedly looking to reopen talks with the North Korean regime, after Trump held a pair of talks with Kim Jong Un during his first term in office.People bathe in the sun under parasols on a beach near the city of Larnaca, Cyprus, on August 11, 2024.
15,000: The United Arab Emirates is literally helping Cyprus navigate troubled waters by providing portable desalination plants to the Mediterranean island free of charge so it can supply enough water to the deluge of tourists set to visit this summer. The Emirati nation’s plants will reportedly produce 15,000 cubic meters of potable water per day. It’s unclear if the UAE is receiving anything in return – it seems happy to go with the flow.
$582 billion: China informed the United States that it must “completely cancel all unilateral tariff measures” if it hopes to begin talks over trade. Beijing had previously said that it was open to talks, without preconditions. However, on Friday, Reuters reported that Beijing would exempt some critical goods from its 125% and is asking its firms to identify imports they need to continue functioning --- though it stopped short of publicly making the first move in trade war de-escalation. Total trade between the two superpowers was $582 billion in 2024, but the sweeping new tariffs that each has slapped on the other is likely to force this number down.
2: In the latest clash between the Trump administration and the courts on immigration, the White House moved a Venezuelan man from Pennsylvania to Texas — possibly preparing to deport him — right after a judge ruled that the government couldn’t remove him from the commonwealth or the United States. The man, who wasn’t formally named, had been employed as a construction worker in Philadelphia for two months before his arrest in February on suspicion of being part of Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang.
77%: The price isn’t right: 77% of Americans expect President Donald Trump’s tariff plan to raise consumer prices, with 47% believing that consumer prices will “increase a lot,” according to an AP-NORC poll. Despite those numbers, 4 in 10 Americans still approve of Trump’s handling of the economy and trade negotiations.
0: In the wake of Trump’s tariffs, Germany announced on Thursday it was downgrading its predicted economic growth rate — the economy depends heavily on manufacturing exports — from 0.3% to 0.0%. If the prediction holds, 2025 will be the third straight year of stagnation for Europe’s largest economy.
217 million: Former South Korean President Moon Jae-in was indicted on Thursday on bribery charges, alleging that he received 217 million won ($151,705) from the founder of a low-cost airline. No, it wasn’t Turkish Airlines but Eastar Jet.A search and rescue operation is underway in the Sviatoshynskyi district after a massive overnight missile and drone attack by Russian troops, Kyiv, Ukraine, on April 24, 2025. At least eight people were killed in the strike, and 77 people sustained injuries.
It’s all Big Smoke and no fire in London, as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio pulled out of Russia-Ukraine peace talks with a coalition of European leaders that were scheduled to take place in the British capital on Wednesday. The decision came right as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky rebuffed the Americans’ peace plan that involved formally recognizing Crimea as Russian territory. US special envoy Steve Witkoff, who also canceled plans to be in London, is instead headed to Moscow for his fourth round of talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Breaking overnight. Russia pounded Kyiv overnight with missiles and drone strikes, killing at least eight people and injuring dozens more. It was the heaviest attack on the Ukrainian capital since July. Zelensky was in South Africa when the bombs hit, but he will cut short the trip and return home early.
The Americans pile on the pressure. Rubio warned last week that the US will “move on” from peace talks if a deal wasn’t eminently “doable.” Vice President JD Vance echoed this sentiment on Wednesday. President Donald Trump pushed the Ukrainians to accept the peace deal on Wednesday, while claiming that Russia was on the verge of accepting it.
Would the terms be enough for Russia? It’s unclear, but Putin reportedly offered to pause fighting on Tuesday in an apparent effort to reach a peace deal. On the other hand, the Russian leader’s past comments suggest he wants more.
“Putin last year said he also expects Ukraine to give up control over the parts of the claimed regions that Russia does not yet control,” said Alex Brideau, Russia director at Eurasia Group. “It may also demand new elections, on the assumption that it would lead a government that is friendlier to Russia.”
“Whether that’s realistic,” Brideau added, “Putin appears unwilling to deviate much from these demands.”