World

Trump’s Return Has Unnerved World Leaders. But Not India.

Published

10 months ago

January 19, 2025

Trump’s Return Has Unnerved World Leaders. But Not India.

Over the past year, a pair of legal bombshells have put India’s growing relationship with the United States to one of its biggest tests yet.

Just as the two sides were announcing unprecedented expansions in defense and technology ties, U.S. prosecutors accused Indian government agents of plotting to assassinate an American citizen on U.S. soil.

Months later, the Justice Department filed fraud and bribery charges against India’s most prominent business mogul, whose enterprises have soared to dizzying heights on the back of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s power.

Still, the relationship has held. After decades of mutual suspicion between the two countries, said Eric Garcetti, the departing U.S. ambassador to India, the fact that now nothing seems to derail their ties is proof of their strength.

“I don’t think there is anything out there big enough to threaten the trajectory of the U.S.-India relations,” Mr. Garcetti said on Saturday in an interview at the embassy in New Delhi, two days before President Biden leaves office and Donald J. Trump is sworn in as his successor.

“This is incredibly resilient and almost inevitable,” Mr. Garcetti added. “It’s really the pace and the progress that’s not inevitable, like how quickly we get there.”

The Biden administration’s doubling down on the relationship with India came after nearly two decades of efforts to shed Cold War-era suspicions that had culminated with U.S. sanctions on India’s nuclear program in 1998.

Washington sees great potential in India as a geopolitical counterweight to an increasingly assertive China. Already the world’s largest democracy, India took over from China as the world’s most populous nation in 2023. India’s demographic advantages and growing technological capacity could help diversify global supply chains away from China, a priority of the United States and other major powers.

Now comes Mr. Trump’s second presidency, with its America-first orientation and threats of steep tariffs on trading partners. While leaders of many countries are unnerved, Indian officials insist that they are not among them.

S. Jaishankar, the foreign minister, has said India enjoyed “a positive political relationship with Trump” that it hopes will only deepen. As he attended the opening of a U.S. Consulate on Friday in the tech hub of Bengaluru, also known as Bangalore, Mr. Jaishankar quoted Mr. Modi as saying that the two countries were overcoming “the hesitations of history.”

Mr. Modi has enjoyed a strong rapport with Mr. Trump, an important factor because of the incoming president’s personal approach to international relations. During Mr. Trump’s first term, Mr. Modi hosted him at a grand rally in his home state of Gujarat, as well as at a large gathering in Texas of the Indian diaspora — an increasingly crucial extension of the Indian influence in American politics.

But some analysts cautioned that Mr. Trump’s unpredictability and transactional approach could pose risks for India.

Two issues in particular are bound to test the relationship, and most likely soon. During the campaign, Mr. Trump criticized India as gaining an unfair advantage in trade by maintaining high tariffs. And India could be swept up in the controversy if Mr. Trump follows through on his promise of mass deportations of illegal immigrants.

Indians make up the third-largest group of illegal immigrants in the United States, according to the Pew Research Center. If Mr. Trump sends large numbers of Indians back to their home country, it could be a major embarrassment for Mr. Modi.

Amita Batra, a New Delhi-based economist and trade expert, said that India should see warning signs in Mr. Trump’s threat of higher tariffs even against America’s traditional allies, as well as his stated willingness to unravel deals with countries like Mexico and Canada that his own first administration had put in place.

“You may say we are on great terms with Trump, we have an easy relation with the United States, but how Trump views that at a particular time is a different question altogether,” Dr. Batra said at an event at the Center for Social and Economic Progress in New Delhi. “India has to be very cautiously approaching Trump 2.0.”

During the interview, Mr. Garcetti described the bilateral relationship as “the most compelling, challenging and consequential” for both countries.

A former Democratic mayor of Los Angeles, Mr. Garcetti arrived in New Delhi in April 2023, after the mission had remained without an ambassador for two years. His confirmation process had hit a wall over accusations that he had overlooked complaints of sexual harassment by an aide when he was mayor.

He made up for the time lost with a burst of energy and outreach like that of a politician in campaign mode.

He was everywhere, from cricket grounds to cafeterias to cultural programs. Sporting a leather jacket, he even got behind the piano to open for the jazz legends Herbie Hancock and Dianne Reeves, who had come to perform at the Piano Man Jazz Club in New Delhi.

But by the time Mr. Garcetti tried his hand at dancing to a viral Bollywood tune at a Diwali celebration, relations between the two countries had hit major obstacles.

In India, right-wing trolls had seized on the U.S. allegations of Indian government involvement in a plot to assassinate an American citizen advocating a separatist cause in India. That, along with the U.S. indictment of Gautam Adani, the business mogul, was evidence that the United States was trying to dampen India’s inevitable rise, the nationalist online voices argued.

The Biden administration appeared intent on addressing the assassination episode quietly with New Delhi, demanding accountability without allowing it to become a major diplomatic sore point.

“On Capitol Hill, within the White House, I think with those in the know it was a real moment of reflection and pause,” Mr. Garcetti said of the assassination case. “It didn’t pause the momentum — you know, relations between countries are always multifaceted and simultaneous and not just between governments. But I think it was an immediate gut check.”

Mr. Garcetti said that the Biden administration had been reassured by India’s response. New Delhi had accepted the U.S. demand, he said, “not just for accountability but for systemic reform and guarantees that this will never happen again.”

An Indian government inquiry that concluded last week recommended legal action against an unnamed person with “earlier criminal links.” It said that the action “must be completed expeditiously,” in what analysts saw as an attempt to begin the Trump era with a clean slate.

“If we want to cooperate in other areas that are important to us, intelligence sharing, et cetera, trust is the basis of everything,” Mr. Garcetti said. “But I’ve been pretty blown away with how trust can deepen through a challenge.”

One question hovering over the deepening ties between the two countries is whether India can truly emerge as an alternative to China in global supply chains — something that Mr. Garcetti also wondered.

India has reaped only a small part of the windfall from the moves away from China, with businesses preferring places like Vietnam, Taiwan and Mexico, where it is easier to set up operations and where tariffs are lower.

Mr. Garcetti said India had made dramatic leaps after opening up its economy only in the 1990s, years after China. He picked up his iPhone to illustrate a widely highlighted recent success: About 15 percent of iPhone manufacturing now happens in India, a figure that could continue growing rapidly, he said.

More broadly, though, India still struggles to attract foreign investment, despite improvements in infrastructure and some streamlining of regulations. Manufacturing is not growing quickly enough to bring India the jobs it desperately needs.

“Where India’s leaving a lot of progress and jobs and growth on the table is figuring out a better way to make it seamless and frictionless to invest here for export,” Mr. Garcetti said. “Because it’s still, you know, for so many components of manufacturing, one of, if not the, highest tariffed economies.”

“They’re not wrong to look and say it used to be 95 percent worse,” Mr. Garcetti said. “But if that 5 percent is still double your competitor or 10 times your competitor — companies, you know, are like water. They flow where gravity takes them.”

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World

Trump officials’ meeting with Russian in Miami spurs questions about latest Ukraine proposal

Published

5 hours ago

November 22, 2025

Press Room

Trump officials’ meeting with Russian in Miami spurs questions about latest Ukraine proposal

WASHINGTON, Nov 22 (Reuters) – U.S. officials and lawmakers are increasingly concerned about a meeting last month in which representatives of the Trump administration met with Kirill Dmitriev, a Russian envoy who is under U.S. sanctions, to draft a plan to end the war in Ukraine, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.

The meeting took place in Miami at the end of October and included special envoy Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Dmitriev, who leads the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), one of Russia’s largest sovereign wealth funds.

A close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Dmitriev has taken a leading role in talks with the U.S. about the war and has met with Witkoff several times this year. The Trump administration has issued a special waiver to allow his entry, one senior U.S. official told Reuters.

Dmitriev and his fund were blacklisted by the U.S. government in 2022 following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The sanctions effectively bar American citizens and companies from dealing with them.

The meeting resulted in a 28-point plan for ending the war, two people familiar with the situation said. The plan, which was made public earlier this week by Axios, came as a surprise to U.S. officials in various corners of the administration and has stirred confusion at embassies throughout Washington and in European capitals.

It has also prompted criticism from the Ukrainians and their allies for appearing heavily tilted toward Russian interests, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy vowing on Friday that he would not betray Ukraine’s interests.

The document, which calls for major concessions from Ukraine, appears to run counter to the tougher stance the Trump administration has lately taken toward Moscow, including with sanctions on its energy sector.

It’s unclear whether Dmitriev came to the meeting in Miami with certain Russian demands and whether those were incorporated into the peace plan.

Two people familiar with the meeting said Rustem Umerov, Secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, was also in Miami early this week to discuss the plan with Witkoff.

One source familiar with the situation said that Witkoff told Umerov about the plan during that visit and that the United States gave the plan to Ukraine via the Turkish government on Wednesday, before directly presenting it in Kyiv on Thursday.

Umerov has described his role as “technical” and denied that he discussed the plan in substance with U.S. officials.

Dmitriev and the Ukrainian embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a statement that any peace plan “must offer security guarantees and deterrence for Ukraine, Europe and Russia” and offer economic incentives to both Ukraine and Russia.

“This plan was crafted to reflect the realities of the situation, and to find the best win-win scenario, where both parties gain more than they must give,” she said.

Trump said on Friday that he expected Zelenskiy to sign onto the plan by the Thanksgiving holiday. The U.S. has warned Ukraine it could curb military assistance if it does not sign, Reuters has reported.

SOME OFFICIALS CAUGHT OFF GUARD

Many senior officials inside the State Department and on the National Security Council were not briefed, the two people familiar with the plan said. Special Envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg, who had been working with the Ukrainians on negotiating an end to the war and plans to step down in January, also was cut out of the talks led by Witkoff and Dmitriev, they said.

One senior U.S. official said Secretary of State Marco Rubio was read in on the 28-point plan, but didn’t clarify when he was briefed.

“Secretary Rubio has been closely involved throughout the entire process of developing a plan to end the war in Ukraine. Any insinuation otherwise is completely false. That includes speaking with both sides of this conflict – many times – to facilitate the…exchange of ideas to establish a durable peace,” said State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson Tommy Pigott in a statement.

U.S. officials and others consulted by Reuters disputed that characterization.

“There was no coordination, no one at State had seen this, not Rubio,” another U.S. official said. The official added that the plan contains material that the secretary of state had previously rejected.

Item 1 of 3 Head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund and Russian special presidential envoy for economic cooperation with foreign countries, Kirill Dmitriev, talks to U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff during a meeting in Saint Petersburg, Russia April 11, 2025. Sputnik/Vyacheslav Prokofyev/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

[1/3]Head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund and Russian special presidential envoy for economic cooperation with foreign countries, Kirill Dmitriev, talks to U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff during a meeting in Saint Petersburg, Russia April 11, 2025. Sputnik/Vyacheslav… Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab Read more

The situation has sparked worries inside the administration and on Capitol Hill that Witkoff and Kushner skirted the interagency process and that the discussions with Dmitriev have resulted in a plan that favors Russian interests.

It includes demands that Russia has previously made – that Ukraine give up some of its territory in the eastern part of the country that it still controls, recognize Crimea as Russian and pledge not to join NATO.

“This so-called ‘peace plan’ has real problems, and I am highly skeptical it will achieve peace,” said Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “Ukraine should not be forced to give up its lands to one of the world’s most flagrant war criminals in Vladimir Putin.”

Experts also criticized the proposed deal.

“Putin said today the plan he saw is a ‘basis’ for a future agreement — likely a signal they plan on asking for inclusions and revisions on top of what is already a disadvantageous proposal for Kyiv,” said Dara Massicot of the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “One week seems ambitious for resolution.”

CONCERNS ABOUT DMITRIEV

The administration’s discussions with Dmitriev have also worried some inside the intelligence community, one U.S. official familiar with the matter said.

Dmitriev has previously used his role at RDIF to make inroads with various Western governments and businesses, even amid American sanctions.

The CIA declined to comment about concerns within the intelligence community about Dmitriev.

During the first Trump administration, Dmitriev established contacts with the president’s team to reset relations between Washington and Moscow.

In a 2017 meeting with Erik Prince, the former CEO of Blackwater and a Trump ally, Dmitriev discussed U.S.-Russia relations, according to a Department of Justice report published by Special Counsel Robert Mueller in 2019. Mueller’s team was investigating ties between the Trump team and Russia.

In a separate meeting with a friend of Kushner’s, Dmitriev drafted a reconciliation plan to strengthen ties between the U.S. and Russia, the report says.

The Mueller team said in its report that it did not establish that the Trump campaign coordinated with the Russians to influence the 2016 election.

Dmitriev also worked directly with Kushner during the first administration. During the pandemic, Dmitriev coordinated with Kushner on the delivery of ventilators to the U.S. The ventilators were provided by RDIF and caused concern among officials at the Treasury Department that the U.S. might be violating its own sanctions, according to a senior U.S. official.

In recent years, Dmitriev has appeared on various American television stations and at events like the World Economic Forum in Davos, to promote the strengthening of trade ties between the U.S. and Russia.

He pushed a similar message at the meeting in Miami, according to public readouts of the meeting.

His visit also included a sit-down with U.S. Representative Anna Luna, a Florida Republican. In the meeting, Dmitriev and Luna spoke about increasing trade ties between the U.S. and Russia. Rep. Luna’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

The meeting between the two was set earlier in the month amid statements by Luna that she had received Russia’s JFK files.

In a video by RIA, one of Russia’s state news agencies, Luna is seen accepting a box of chocolates with Putin’s face inscribed on the front.

The images appear to show Luna and Dmitriev in a conference room at the Faena Hotel in Miami.

The Faena Hotel is owned by Access Industries, a company run by Len Blavatnik, a Russian billionaire, according to the company’s website. Blavatnik made his money partnering with Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian billionaire sanctioned by the U.S. for his ties to Putin. Witkoff’s company, the Witkoff Group, does business with Blavatnik, including in Miami.

(This story has been corrected to fix the reference to Umerov as Secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, not defense minister, in paragraph 9)

Additional reporting by Tom Balmforth in Kyiv and Patricia Zengerle and David Brunnstrom in Washington; Editing by Don Durfee and Diane Craft

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Erin Banco is a national security correspondent focusing on the intelligence community. She covers everything from the wars in Ukraine and Gaza to U.S. covert operations overseas. She previously worked at POLITICO as a national security reporter.
Banco has a long history covering the Middle East region, from Cairo to Baghdad to Aleppo where she’s reported on the Arab Spring and its aftermath, including the civil war in Syria and the rise of ISIS. Her 2017 book, Pipe Dreams, focuses on the development of the oil and gas industry in the northern Kurdistan region of Iraq. Banco attended The University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she majored in Arabic and journalism. She earned a master’s in public administration from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs in 2014.

Gram Slattery is a White House correspondent in Washington, focusing on national security, intelligence and foreign affairs. He was previously a national political correspondent, covering the 2024 presidential campaign. From 2015 to 2022, he held postings in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Santiago, Chile, and he has reported extensively throughout Latin America.

World

Number of children abducted from Catholic school in Nigeria explodes to over 300

Published

7 hours ago

November 22, 2025

Press Room

Number of children abducted from Catholic school in Nigeria explodes to over 300

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Gunmen abducted 303 children and 12 teachers in an attack on St. Mary’s School, a Catholic institution in Nigeria. Initial reports indicated that at least 52 had been kidnapped before the tally was increased to over 200 children and then to its final count of 303.

Most. Rev. Bulus Dauwa Yohanna said in a statement that the total number of kidnapped was determined “after a verification exercise and a final census was carried out,” according to The Associated Press. Yohanna is the chairman of the Niger state chapter of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), who visited the school on Friday. The AP noted that the students who were kidnapped were male and female and ranged in age from 10 to 18.

GUNMEN ATTACK CHURCH IN NIGERIA, KILLING TWO AND KIDNAPPING OTHERS

In this photo released by the Christian Association of Nigeria, a man walks past belongings at the St. Mary’s Catholic Primary and Secondary School after gunmen abducted children and staff in Papiri community in Nigeria on Nov. 21, 2025. (Christian Association of Nigeria via AP)

No group has come forward to claim responsibility for the attack, according to the AP. The outlet added that authorities said tactical squads and local hunters were working to rescue the kidnapped children.

After the attack, the state government said that St. Mary’s School reopened despite warnings of increased threats. However, Yohanna denied this claim, the AP reported.

“We did not receive any circular. It must be an afterthought and a way to shift blame,” he said, according to the AP.

This photo released by the Christian Association of Nigeria shows the dormitories of St. Mary’s Catholic Primary and Secondary School after gunmen abducted children and staff in Papiri community in Nigeria on Nov. 21, 2025. (Christian Association of Nigeria via AP)

RAP STAR NICKI MINAJ THANKS TRUMP FOR ADDRESSING PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS IN NIGERIA

The attack at St. Mary’s follows a similar incident earlier this week in which armed attackers kidnapped 25 girls from a boarding school in Nigeria’s Kebbi State and killed at least one staffer. The search for the abducted schoolgirls is still underway.

A woman looks on as she walks past a classroom in Shehu Kangiwa Model Primary School in Argungu, Kebbi State, in northern Nigeria on April 12, 2025. (Leslie Fauvel / AFP via Getty Images)

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Nigeria has seen a series of attacks on Christians and their institutions, prompting President Donald Trump to declare the West African nation a “country of particular concern.” However, the Nigerian government has disputed the U.S.’s claims.

On Tuesday, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz held an event highlighting the ongoing violence in Nigeria. During the event, Waltz called the killings of Christians in Nigeria “genocide wearing the mask of chaos.” He was joined by rap superstar Nicki Minaj, who called for religious freedom for all.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Rachel Wolf is a breaking news writer for Fox News Digital and FOX Business.

World

Brazil’s Bolsonaro arrested days before start of 27-year prison sentence

Published

9 hours ago

November 22, 2025

Press Room

Brazil’s Bolsonaro arrested days before start of 27-year prison sentence

The former president is taken in the capital Brasilia days before starting his prison time for leading coup attempt.

Published On 22 Nov 2025

Brazil’s federal police have arrested former President Jair Bolsonaro, days before he was set to begin his 27-year prison sentence for leading a coup attempt, according to his lawyer and a close aide.

Bolsonaro, who has been under house arrest since August, was transferred to detention on Saturday, his lawyer said.

Sentenced for coup attempt

The 70-year-old former president was taken from his house in a gated community in the upscale Jardim Botanico neighbourhood to the federal police headquarters, Cirino said.

Local media reported that Bolsonaro, who was Brazil’s president from 2019 to 2022, was expected to begin serving his sentence sometime next week after the far-right leader exhausted all appeals of his conviction for leading a coup attempt.

The 70-year-old Bolsonaro’s legal team had previously argued that he should serve his 27-year sentence for a botched coup bid in 2022 at home, arguing imprisonment would pose a risk to his health.

Bolsonaro was convicted in September over his bid to prevent President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking power following the 2022 election, which he lost.

The effort saw crowds of rioters storm government buildings a week after Lula’s inauguration, evoking comparisons with the January 6 riot at the United States Capitol after his close ally, President Donald Trump, lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden.

Trump has branded the prosecution of his far-right ally a “witch-hunt” and made it a major issue in US relations with Brazil, imposing stiff tariffs on the country as a form of retribution.

Trump and Lula held what Brazil described as a constructive meeting on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Kuala Lumpur last month, raising hope for improved relations after stinging US tariffs.

Lula said the meeting with Trump was “great” and added that their countries’ negotiating teams would get to work “immediately” to tackle tariffs and other issues.