Europe’s 'appeasement' strategy with Trump has failed. So what comes next?
CBC
Looking typically earnest, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer stepped up to the podium on Monday morning and made a compelling case for respectful, deliberate diplomatic engagement with Donald Trump over the Greenland crisis, warning the U.K. has too much at stake economically and militarily to be driven by emotion.
"The right way to approach a discussion of an issue this serious is calm discussion between allies," he said.
Even Starmer's adversaries in Britain's right-wing populist parties had to agree his cool-headed response — which involved praising the U.S.'s historic leadership role while taking issue with the president's coercion — was the right way to go.
Then, within hours, it all blew up in Starmer's face.
In a social media post overnight on Tuesday, Trump called Starmer's unrelated decision to relinquish Diego Garcia, a U.K.-controlled island in the Indian Ocean that's part of the Chagos Islands, "an act of great stupidity."
"Shockingly, our ‘brilliant' NATO ally, the United Kingdom, is currently planning to give away the island of Diego Garcia, the site of a vital US military base to Mauritius, and to do so FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER," Trump wrote.
Trump appeared to suggest the U.S. can't trust weak allies when it comes to protecting its security interests, implicitly linking the Chagos Islands decision to his pressing need to acquire Greenland.
Never mind that just a few months ago, Trump's Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the British government's return of Diego Garcia to Mauritius — in exchange for a long-term lease for the military base there — "a monumental achievement."
Also never mind that Trump's own people were involved in negotiating that deal.
Trump's desire to make Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark, part of the United States has grown into an obsession that threatens the NATO alliance and the entire postwar order.
Yet despite the fact that Prime Minister Starmer rolled out multiple red carpets for Trump on a recent state visit to Britain hosted by King Charles and has resorted to all kinds of diplomatic niceties to try to achieve favourable trade outcomes for the U.K., the U.S. president showed no restraint in deliberately humiliating Starmer when it suited him.
"It's time for the government to stand up to Trump; appeasing a bully never works," Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey posted on social media Tuesday.
Gavin Newsom, the governor of California who aspires to be the next Democratic presidential nominee, went even further on Tuesday while attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He urged European leaders to "grow a backbone," suggesting Europe got what it deserved by trying to play nice with a president who is inherently unreasonable.
"I can't take this complicity," said Newsom. "Get off your knees and grow a spine."
Erfan Soltani, a 26-year-old Iranian man, has been sentenced to death in Iran, according to human rights groups. It comes amid widespread protests in the country and a deadly government crackdown.
The United States is telling its citizens to leave Iran, as Washington maintains its pressure on Tehran to cease its crackdown on protesters and U.S. President Donald Trump threatens to strike the Iranian government over the issue.
U.S. President Donald Trump said the United States may meet Iranian officials and was in contact with the opposition as he weighed a range of strong responses, including military options, to a violent crackdown on Iranian protests, which pose one of the biggest challenges to clerical rule since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
A crackdown on nationwide protests in Iran has killed at least 538 people and even more are feared dead, activists said Sunday, while Tehran warned that the U.S. military and Israel would be "legitimate targets" if America uses force to protect demonstrators.
For years, many of Venezuela’s exiles in Spain — leading opposition figures and citizens — have hoped for a day when ousted president Nicolás Maduro would no longer be in power.
The U.S. attack on Venezuela has shifted the ground for guerrilla groups operating across the country's borderlands with Colombia, raising fears of possible betrayal by Venezuelan regime officials, while opening the door to a wider conflict should U.S. boots ever hit the ground, local security experts say.
Protests sweeping across Iran neared the two-week mark on Saturday, with the country’s government acknowledging the ongoing demonstrations despite an intensifying crackdown and as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world.
Russia didn’t just use a hypersonic missile to target a site in western Ukraine near the border with Poland, in the European Union, but high ranking officials then went on to boast about the power of the nuclear-capable weapon, in what some saw as a clear warning to the West.
The official White House narrative of how a U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) officer shot and killed a U.S. citizen in her vehicle in Minneapolis is bumping hard up against what can be seen in videos of the incident.
A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent shot and killed a Minneapolis motorist on Wednesday during the Trump administration's latest immigration crackdown on a major American city — a shooting that federal officials claimed was an act of self-defence but that the city's mayor described as "reckless" and unnecessary.
When Marco Rubio took the lectern at Mar-a-Lago shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump announced the country had captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, it was the culmination of a decade of effort from the secretary of state and a clear sign that he had emerged as a leading voice within the Trump administration.
The catchphrase going into Tuesday's coalition of the willing meeting on Ukraine in Paris appears to be: expect the unexpected.
Deposed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro pleaded not guilty on terrorism and drug-trafficking charges during his first appearance in a New York court on Monday.