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Biden Announces $800 Million in Military Assistance for Ukraine

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Biden Announces 0 Million in Military Assistance for Ukraine

WASHINGTON — America will ship a further $800 million value of army and different safety assist to Ukraine and step up intelligence sharing, American officers introduced on Wednesday, as Russian forces gave the impression to be getting ready for a brand new offensive within the nation’s east.

President Biden promised that the help would come with extra of the weapons that the USA has beforehand given Ukraine, in addition to new capabilities. The expanded intelligence sharing will make obtainable extra details about Russian troops in Crimea and the jap Donbas area, components of the nation that Russia and Russian-backed separatists have occupied since 2014 or 2015.

Mr. Biden delivered the information in regards to the arms bundle to President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine throughout an almost hourlong phone name on Wednesday, in keeping with White Home officers. In a press release, Mr. Biden vowed to proceed efforts to help Ukraine, which has been pummeled by Russian artillery over the previous month.

“As I assured President Zelensky, the American individuals will proceed to face with the courageous Ukrainian individuals of their battle for freedom,” Mr. Biden mentioned.

The difficulty of what army help to ship Ukraine, and how briskly to ship it, has taken on better urgency because the conflict has develop into a collection of grinding battles between the Ukrainian and Russian armies. Mr. Zelensky has pleaded for extra subtle weapons from the USA and its allies.

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The Biden administration has responded with antitank weapons, together with Javelin missiles, and different weapons that Ukrainian troopers have used to repel Russian forces, particularly within the north of the nation. America has up to now resisted serving to Ukraine purchase fighter jets and different weaponry that might be used towards targets inside Russia.

Mr. Biden mentioned on Wednesday that the extra assist for Ukraine would come with extra subtle weaponry, corresponding to artillery programs and armored personnel carriers.

High Pentagon officers met with the leaders of the most important U.S. army contractors on Wednesday to debate the stream of arms to Ukraine and what further capabilities would assist the nation defend itself.

However the USA can be taking a look at superior weapons in European stockpiles that Ukrainian troops already know the right way to use.

Mr. Biden mentioned the USA would switch further helicopters as effectively, although he didn’t point out whether or not they would come straight from the USA or from one other nation. America beforehand supplied Ukraine with 5 Russian-designed Mi-17 helicopters that the Afghan army had as soon as used.

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America can be offering 18 155-millimeter howitzers, the primary time it has despatched that weapon to Ukraine, and 40,000 artillery rounds.

Final week, Slovakia agreed to ship Ukraine a Soviet-era S-300 air protection system after the USA dedicated to positioning a extra trendy Patriot system in Slovakia. America has additionally helped European nations switch Russian-designed T-72 tanks to Ukraine.

Russian forces didn’t take Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, after attempting for a number of weeks and now look like regrouping in jap Ukraine, together with within the Donbas area. Western officers say they count on the Kremlin to mount a serious offensive there.

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Impartial analysts have mentioned that Russia hopes to destroy Ukraine’s military after which may assault Kyiv from the south. European intelligence officers mentioned President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia wished to make important battlefield positive aspects forward of Might 9, when he’s set to ship an annual speech commemorating the Soviet Union’s victory in World Battle II.

John F. Kirby, the chief Pentagon spokesman, mentioned the most recent weapons cargo authorized by Mr. Biden can be despatched to Ukraine as quickly as potential.

“We’re conscious of the clock,” he mentioned at a information convention on Wednesday. “And we all know time isn’t our pal.”

Because the battle in Ukraine has developed, intelligence businesses have adjusted their method to make sure officers have flexibility “to share detailed, well timed intelligence with the Ukrainians,” a U.S. intelligence official mentioned, talking on the situation of anonymity to debate the dealing with of categorized materials.

Biden administration officers have mentioned they’ve been giving Ukraine probably the most related data at any given second. Nonetheless, the administration has been reluctant to assist the Ukrainians goal Russian forces in Russia, and Republican lawmakers mentioned that concern by the administration had prolonged to Russian forces in Crimea and the Donbas.

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The stepped-up intelligence sharing was reported earlier by The Wall Avenue Journal.

U.S. officers have defended their intelligence sharing with Ukraine. On Tuesday, Kathleen H. Hicks, the deputy secretary of protection, mentioned that “the intelligence help that we’ve got supplied has been important.” And he or she mentioned the data given to Ukraine had been “high-end.”

Different officers mentioned that because the Russian army shifted its technique away from the assault on Kyiv to reinforcing the operations within the Donbas, U.S. intelligence businesses started to take a look at whether or not their steerage on what data might be shared wanted to be expanded.

Republicans have been important of the Pentagon and the Workplace of the Director of Nationwide Intelligence, saying they’ve failed to offer sufficient data to Ukraine in regards to the Russian forces and separatist teams which have been stationed in components of Ukraine since 2014 or 2015.

In a letter launched on Monday, Senate Republicans mentioned they had been involved that not sufficient was being carried out to share important intelligence with Ukrainians. The letter, from Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and others, particularly referred to offering intelligence to the Ukrainians to assist them “retake each inch of Ukraine’s sovereign territory, which incorporates Crimea and the Donbas.”

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Helene Cooper contributed reporting.

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Trump Trade Nominee Defends Plan to Reorder International Trade

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Trump Trade Nominee Defends Plan to Reorder International Trade

Jamieson Greer, President Trump’s nominee to be the next U.S. trade representative, defended the president’s plan to impose tariffs on all imported products and told senators he would work to restructure international trading relationships during his confirmation hearing on Thursday.

Mr. Greer, a trade lawyer and former Trump administration official, told the Senate Finance Committee that he believed the United States “should be a country of producers” as well as consumers, and that he would work to open international markets for U.S. farmers and try to “reverse” the deindustrialization of the nation.

Mr. Greer said Mr. Trump’s idea of imposing a universal tariff on all imports should be studied to see if it would reduce the U.S. trade deficit. He also said he would review whether China, along with Mexico and Canada, were complying trade deals they reached with the United States during Mr. Trump’s first term.

“I am convinced that we have a relatively short window of time to restructure the international trading system to better serve U.S. interests,” Mr. Greer said.

Mr. Greer is the former deputy of Robert E. Lighthizer, the trade representative in Mr. Trump’s first term. Mr. Greer negotiated with China, Canada, Mexico and other countries in that role, and supporters say he has an extensive knowledge of trade law.

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His position could be an important one, given Mr. Trump’s proposals to upend global trading relationships with sweeping tariffs. The trade representative will likely help carry out Mr. Trump’s tariff wars, and potentially renegotiate the trade agreement the United States has signed with Canada and Mexico.

But it is unclear exactly how much autonomy the position will have in the current administration, given that Mr. Trump has said he will put Howard Lutnick, his pick for commerce secretary, in charge of his trade policy. Mr. Trump himself also has strong views on trade and once remarked that if elected, he would be his own U.S.T.R.

On Thursday, Senate Democrats questioned that arrangement and denounced Mr. Trump’s trade moves over the past week, in which the president came within hours of imposing a 25 percent tariff on goods from America’s largest trading partners, Canada and Mexico, as he sought concessions related to the border and drugs.

Mr. Trump ultimately chose to pause tariffs on Canada and Mexico, but put an additional 10 percent tariff on all imports from China — more than $400 billion of products — on Tuesday.

Senate Democrats said they would work with the Trump administration to combat unfair trade and open foreign markets, but called the actions against Canada and Mexico “reckless” and “erratic.”

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Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon and the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, said he was concerned about other Trump officials using trade policy to pursue goals that had nothing to do with trade.

“International trade policy is just too important to American families, workers, small businesses, manufacturers and farmers to sacrifice to make headlines on unrelated issues,” he said.

Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat of Nevada, said a small business in her state had a Canadian customercancel a project because of the uncertain trade relationship, costing them tens of thousands of dollars.

“There’s got to be answers for so many businesses that are actually being, unfortunately, victims of this trade war,” Ms. Cortez Masto said.

Republican senators expressed support for Mr. Greer and the president’s actions. But some expressed concern about tariffs increasing input prices for farmers, and retaliation from other countries affecting U.S. exporters.

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Clete Willems, a partner at Akin Gump who worked on trade policy in the first Trump White House, said that Mr. Greer had similar views on trade as those of his former boss, Mr. Lighthizer: that the global trading system had evolved in a way that has not been beneficial or fair to the United States.

Mr. Lighthizer tried “to upend that order and remake a lot of the international trading rules in a way that was more equitable to the United States,” Mr. Willems said. “And I think Jamieson will continue that.”

Mr. Willems said that Mr. Greer would bring to the role years of practical experience and an intimate knowledge of what actions trade laws allow.

“He is going to be at the center of this because they need him,” Mr. Willems said.

The U.S. trade representative leads a small agency of more than 200 people that has offices in Washington, Geneva and Brussels. The office is charged with carrying out trade negotiations and resolving economic disputes with other countries, as well as working with lawmakers, farmers and business owners to shape trade policy.

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“Jamieson will focus the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative on reining in the Country’s massive Trade Deficit, defending American Manufacturing, Agriculture, and Services, and opening up Export Markets everywhere,” Mr. Trump said in a statement on social media in November.

In contrast to some of Mr. Trump’s other nominees, who have a more antagonistic relationship with their own bureaucracy, Mr. Greer is liked by many of the staff he will be in charge of, current and former U.S.T.R. employees say.

Before his work at the trade representative’s office, Mr. Greer was a lawyer for the Air Force and was deployed to Iraq. Mr. Greer said Thursday that he had grown up in a mobile home with parents who regularly worked several jobs, and that he was “mindful of the struggles that Americans face when they’re cut out of economic growth.”

After the first Trump term, Mr. Greer became a partner in international trade at the law firm King & Spalding.

His financial disclosures showed that he worked for clients including steel firm Cleveland-Cliffs, agricultural organizations like the J.R. Simplot Company and the National Milk Producers Federation, oil and gas company Talos Energy, and a variety of chemical companies, including BASF. He has promised to resign his position at King & Spalding if confirmed.

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Sanctuary city mayors to testify at House Oversight after AG Bondi cuts them off from federal funds

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Sanctuary city mayors to testify at House Oversight after AG Bondi cuts them off from federal funds

Democratic mayors of so-called sanctuary cities that protect undocumented immigrants have agreed to testify before the House Oversight Committee in March after Attorney General Pam Bondi signed a directive cutting those jurisdictions off from federal funding on her first day at the Justice Department (DOJ). 

Bondi, who was sworn in as attorney general Wednesday, issued a number of Day 1 directives, including ordering the DOJ to pause all federal funding for sanctuary cities. 

Bondi also directed litigating components of the Justice Department to investigate instances of jurisdictions that are impeding law enforcement and directing that they be prosecuted when necessary. 

BONDI’S DOJ DAY 1 DIRECTIVES: FIGHT WEAPONIZATION OF JUSTICE, ELIMINATE CARTELS, LIFT DEATH PENALTY BAN

Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a number of Day 1 directives, including ordering the Department of Justice to pause all federal funding for sanctuary cities.  (Michael Brochstein/Sipa USA)

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In late January, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., invited mayors of sanctuary cities to testify before the panel after launching an investigation into sanctuary city policies and their affect on public safety and federal immigration enforcement. 

Comer invited the mayors of Boston, Chicago, Denver and New York City to testify at a public hearing and requested they provide documents and communications related to their policies. 

The hearing initially was set for Feb. 11, but a committee aide told Fox News Digital the committee worked with mayors to accommodate their schedules. The committee received final confirmation from Boston, Denver and New York City earlier this week. It received confirmation from Chicago Wednesday. 

james comer

House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., invited mayors of Boston, Chicago, Denver and New York City to testify at a public hearing and requested they provide documents and communications related to their policies.  (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Now, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston and New York City Mayor Eric Adams will testify at a public hearing March 5. 

ICE ARRESTS UNDER PRESIDENT TRUMP CONTINUE IN MIGRANT ‘SANCTUARY’ CITIES

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“Sanctuary mayors owe the American people an explanation for city policies that jeopardize public safety and violate federal immigration law by releasing dangerous criminal illegal aliens back onto the streets,” Comer told Fox News Digital. “These reckless policies in Democrat-run cities and states across our nation have led to too many preventable tragedies.” 

New York City Mayor Eric Adams departs Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse in New York City

Democratic mayors of “sanctuary cities,” including New York City Mayor Eric Adams, pictured here, have agreed to testify before the House Oversight Committee in March.  (Adam Gray for Fox News Digital )

Comer told Fox News Digital the policies also “endanger ICE agents who are forced to take more difficult enforcement actions in jurisdictions that refuse to cooperate with federal authorities.” 

“The policies in Boston, Chicago, Denver and New York City prioritize criminal illegal aliens over the American people,” Comer added. “This is unacceptable, and their leaders must be held accountable.” 

Comer vowed to “press these mayors for answers and examine measures to enforce compliance with federal immigration law.” 

Since Trump took office in January, ICE has arrested illegal criminal migrants in sanctuary cities across the country. 

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Column: Is Trump shaking up the Mideast to strike the 'ultimate deal' for peace?

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Column: Is Trump shaking up the Mideast to strike the 'ultimate deal' for peace?

Days after shocking the world with his upset victory in the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump espoused his hope of negotiating the “ultimate deal” between Israelis and Palestinians to resolve the “war that never ends.” As Trump told the Wall Street Journal at the time: “As a dealmaker, I’d like to do … the deal that can’t be made. And do it for humanity’s sake.”

Over eight years later, back in the White House following a Democratic interregnum and with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his side, Trump confirmed his interest in forging the ultimate deal. Crucially, however, Trump’s basic parameters of such a deal will not, to put it mildly, be those long favored by the bipartisan foreign policy establishment.

Before getting into his latest proposal, let’s flash back to Trump’s first term.

From 2017 to 2021, Trump governed as the most pro-Israel American president, by far, since the modern State of Israel was established in 1948. In January 2020, after already taking such measures as withdrawing the U.S. from President Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, and recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, Trump — again standing at the White House with Netanyahu — unveiled his “Peace to Prosperity” plan to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Although imperfect, it was, by far, the most pro-Israel plan for resolving the conflict that an American president had ever proposed.

Because the Peace to Prosperity plan legitimized Israel applying its sovereignty over disputed areas of the Jordan Valley and Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), many of the Palestinians’ traditional Arab backers were piqued. In June 2020, the United Arab Emirates’ ambassador to the U.S., Yousef Al Otaiba, took the unprecedented step of publishing a Hebrew-language op-ed warning Israel not to go forward with claiming any additional sovereignty. Yet only two months later, the UAE became the first Arab country in two and a half decades to establish peace with Israel. Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan soon followed, joining the UAE in the Abraham Accords circle of peace.

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In one fell swoop, Trump and Netanyahu did more to achieve Israeli-Arab rapprochement than all previous American presidents and Israeli prime ministers combined. They debunked the failed consensus — the ruinous shibboleth pushed for decades by Washington’s professional “peace process” cartel — that only further Israeli territorial concessions could yield peace. The peace process-ers pushed their “inside-out” approach: Create a new Palestinian state and then the Arab states will normalize ties with Israel. Trump and Netanyahu inverted the playbook, going for a novel “outside-in” approach.

It worked like a charm. As both leaders recognized, the Hamas-overrun Gaza Strip had already been, ever since Israel’s 2005 unilateral withdrawal, a miniature “two-state solution” in action. And it was an abject disaster.

That brings us up to the present.

Prior to this month, Trump had alluded to the idea that he wanted Egypt and Jordan — the latter of which quite literally was established as the “Palestinian” state under the terms of the European powers’ post-World War I settlement and the British Mandate for Palestine — to absorb the Arab population of Gaza. He has since doubled down. The idea of such a population transfer is unpopular in the Arab world, to put it mildly. But Trump has overcome such resistance before.

Three consecutive presidents — Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama — failed to fulfill the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, which mandated moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, by issuing “national security” waivers every six months. All were scared of the reaction in the proverbial “Arab street.” Trump did it anyway.

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Was there grumbling afterward? Of course. And we should expect more now and in the future. Suffice it to say Jordanian King Abdullah II’s trip to the White House on Tuesday will be interesting.

But it turns out population transfer to Jordan and Egypt is only the first half of what Trump has in mind. He shocked everyone around him — including, it seems, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles — on Tuesday when he casually but assertively stated that the United States intends to “take over” Gaza after Israel’s war against Hamas. The U.S. will “own” Gaza, Trump said, and make it a “Riviera of the Middle East.” If we are taking Trump literally and not just seriously, to alter Salena Zito’s popular 2016 quip, it seems Part 2 of the plan (U.S. ownership of Gaza) is contingent on Part 1 (population transfer of the Arabs there).

Or perhaps we should not take Trump literally. Perhaps this is, much like the Peace to Prosperity plan in 2020, a negotiating chip in a bigger plan — the much-desired entrance of Saudi Arabia into the Abraham Accords alliance, maybe. And there is certainly some early-second-term data in favor of the negotiating chip theory: Trump’s recent deferral of 25% tariffs on both Canada and Mexico in response to those two countries’ leaders agreeing to send troops to their respective borders with the U.S., for instance.

It’s difficult to know exactly what Trump is thinking here. There are real reasons for skepticism — but there are also real reasons for hope. He’s done this before. Let’s be patient and watch the shibboleth-buster in action. He may very well surprise us yet again.

Josh Hammer is senior editor-at-large for Newsweek. This article was produced in collaboration with Creators Syndicate. @josh_hammer

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