The Sanctions Choir

Washington announced an “economic onslaught” against Iran. China, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and France replied with the diplomatic version of earplugs.

China said its trade with Iran complies with international law and opposed unilateral U.S. sanctions lacking United Nations authorization. Qatar also called the measures unilateral while saying it remains in contact with both Washington and Tehran to revive negotiations. Beijing wants its oil flows protected. Doha wants the strait open long enough to keep everyone paid.

France and Saudi Arabia used gentler language, which is what countries do when their banks, oil markets and security arrangements are all in the room.

Emmanuel Macron and Mohammed bin Salman called for a negotiated settlement on Iran’s nuclear program. They urged Tehran to resume full cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency. They also demanded normal shipping in Hormuz, with no tolls or restrictions.

The Houthis provided the blunt translation. Deputy Foreign Minister Abdulwahid Abu Ras called the sanctions “psychological war” after the failure of the military option. He warned regional governments not to become U.S. “tools” against Iran.

Tehran’s allies say sanctions are useless theater. They also demand that the theater close immediately. China calls the sanctions illegal. Qatar calls them unilateral. Riyadh and Paris call for diplomacy. The Houthis call them a failed war.

Nobody is arguing that pressure does nothing. They are arguing over who gets to control it.

The U.S. sanctions Iran to force a deal. Iran’s friends oppose the sanctions to force a deal. Diplomacy has become a hostage exchange where every side claims to hold the key.

#Iran #Sanctions #China #Hormuz

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The Gulf Calls Its Own Number

Kuwait went to Islamabad and signed a new military cooperation pact with Pakistan. Saudi Arabia sent a senior security delegation to Baghdad for border-control and intelligence talks. The region is buying insurance before the next crisis sends the premium through the roof.

Kuwait’s defense minister, Sheikh Abdullah Ali Abdullah Al-Salem Al-Sabah, signed the agreement with Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif. It builds on a 2023 pact and covers training, capacity-building, border management, operational coordination and military readiness. Kuwait is not replacing the U.S. security umbrella. It is adding a backup generator.

In Baghdad, Saudi and Iraqi officials discussed tighter control of their shared border and more intelligence sharing.

Iraqi delegations had visited Riyadh earlier this month, while Saudi intelligence chief Khalid bin Ali Al-Humaidan met Iraq’s prime minister in Baghdad.

Iraq says it will not allow its territory to be used for attacks on other countries. That sentence becomes more valuable each time it is repeated.

Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf welcomed the withdrawal of U.S.-led coalition forces from Iraq as a “historic achievement” for Iraqis. Washington still has a military footprint in the country, but its partners are building side channels while Tehran celebrates the shrinking of the old order.

The Gulf once outsourced regional security to Washington. Now Kuwait is calling Pakistan, Saudi Arabia is calling Baghdad, Qatar is calling Tehran, and every capital is keeping a second phone.

Israel should read the directory carefully. These agreements do not form an anti-Israel alliance. They do show that the region is preparing for a future in which U.S. guarantees arrive late, with conditions attached.

#Gulf #Pakistan #SaudiArabia #Iraq

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Make It Yourself

Iran’s free-market dollar crossed 200,000 tomans this week. One gram of 18-karat gold traded near 21.7 million tomans. By Aug. 25, the dollar had reached about 204,000 tomans, up 9.4% from 186,500 less than two weeks earlier.

When people buy dollars and gold at the same time, they are not investing in the government’s future. They are buying an escape hatch from the rial, inflation and whatever comes after the next official promise of stability.

A business owner in Shiraz described the household version of the crisis. Rent for his shop rose from 18 million to 32 million tomans. “We are tired,” he said. “This is the end of the story. I don’t think this can continue.” The government’s answer came from Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. He advised people to start making items they need “from homes and neighborhoods.”

Iran has missile plants, drones, regional militias and a state machine that talks about strategic autonomy. But its top security official is telling families to become a kitchen-table manufacturing sector.

This is self-sufficiency, Iranian style. The state handles the war. You handle the soap, spare parts and dinner.

#Iran #Economy #Rial #Sanctions

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Peace Council, War Terms

The Board of Peace has sent Hamas a warning through Egyptian, Qatari and Turkish mediators. Stop every militant act, including kite launches, or face “serious consequences.” The U.S.-backed body wants the ceasefire intact long enough to begin Hamas’s disarmament.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty says Hamas and other Palestinian factions have agreed in principle to hand over all heavy and light weapons. The agreement was announced in Cairo, not Gaza. That is where most peace deals sound strongest.

The Board’s own official also delivered the other half of the message. Israel must comply with the ceasefire. Military action, he said, cannot go beyond a response to “genuine and imminent threats.” That is a hard rule to enforce in a war where every side calls its next strike preventive.

Nickolay Mladenov, the Board’s Gaza envoy, told the U.N. Security Council that every weapon Hamas keeps and every tunnel it operates gives Israel’s advocates for renewed war another argument. He also warned that continued Israeli strikes are killing civilians and pushing the ceasefire toward a “point of no return.”

Meanwhile, Uganda has agreed to contribute troops to the proposed international stabilization force. Burundi is considering a role after military officials from both countries visited Israel last week, according to the Associated Press.

The plan is to bring African troops to Gaza to oversee disarmament after three years of war and decades of failure by everyone already in the neighborhood.

Hamas promises weapons. Israel demands proof. The Board demands restraint. Uganda may send soldiers.

Peace has now entered the outsourcing phase.

#Gaza #Hamas #Israel #PeaceCouncil

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Trump’s Iran Victory Tour: One Problem — The Victory


Six months ago, Trump promised Iran a quick lesson in the consequences of challenging the United States. The bombs arrived. The missiles flew. Iranian military and nuclear infrastructure was hammered. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed. The message from Washington was unmistakable: this would be decisive.

And then, rather inconveniently, Iran failed to read the script.

Six months later, Tehran is battered but still standing. Its economy is under extraordinary pressure, inflation is soaring, food prices have exploded, military infrastructure has been badly damaged — and yet Iran has not surrendered, signed the deal Trump wanted, or simply gone home.

Instead, the Strait of Hormuz has become Tehran’s favorite bargaining chip, turning a narrow stretch of water into one of the most consequential pieces of real estate in global politics. Nothing says “quick and easy victory” quite like a war in which everyone suddenly starts worrying about the price of oil.

Washington’s response? More sanctions.

When military pressure failed to produce the desired political outcome, the administration turned increasingly to economic coercion — the familiar instrument of a government discovering that destroying an adversary is considerably easier than persuading it to surrender.

The original promise was simple: overwhelming American power would force Iran to capitulate. The reality has proved considerably messier.

Iran has taken extraordinary punishment, but it has also demonstrated the classic survival skill of an embattled regime: refusing to cooperate with the enemy’s definition of victory.

Diplomacy has not exactly been a triumph either. The June ceasefire and subsequent negotiating effort failed to produce a lasting settlement.

Mediation efforts involving Oman, Pakistan and Qatar have gone nowhere. Washington and Tehran continue to disagree over sanctions, the blockade, the Strait of Hormuz and the fundamental terms of any agreement.

Trump now faces the strategic question that every president eventually encounters after starting a war: How do you get out?

It is a particularly awkward question for a president who built much of his political identity around ending America’s endless wars.

The irony is difficult to miss. Trump promised to use American strength to prevent another Middle Eastern quagmire. Six months later, the United States is trying to turn military devastation into political leverage, economic pressure into surrender, and a war that was supposed to be short into something resembling an exit strategy.

Iran has certainly paid an enormous price. There is no serious argument otherwise.

But Iran has not collapsed.

And Washington has not yet produced the clean political victory that all those missiles were supposed to buy.

So perhaps the most revealing measure is not how many Iranian targets were destroyed, but how many months later we are still asking the same question: When exactly does the victory begin?

Because at the moment, Trump has won the bombing campaign. Iran has won the irritating privilege of still being there.

Time and again, the Middle East has once again declined to follow the PowerPoint presentation.

#trump #iran #war #strait #hormuz

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Trump’s Oil Protectorate

The Trump administration is negotiating for a long-term U.S. stake in 17 Venezuelan oil fields containing about 90 billion barrels of crude. That is roughly one-third of Venezuela’s proven reserves and could more than double the oil reserves available to the United States.

The deal under discussion is not a clean market investment. Washington would secure ownership or long leases, possibly lasting up to 100 years, then invite U.S. companies to develop the fields. Venezuela would keep a share of revenue. The United States would get the risk, the contracts and the part where the flag goes on the map.

There is a small engineering issue. Several of the 17 fields lack pipelines, treatment plants or transport access. Others have been stripped by neglect and theft. Private firms would need billions of dollars, security forces and a lawyer with a high pain tolerance. Venezuela’s oil output has risen only about 200,000 barrels in the past year despite promises that Maduro’s removal would unleash a drilling boom.

Marco Rubio and Energy Secretary Chris Wright reportedly hope to announce a deal in Venezuela early next month. But the interim government of Delcy Rodríguez may lack the constitutional authority to hand over strategic assets. Banks see a contract. Venezuelans may see a century-long invoice from a country that arrived promising democracy.

Trump built his foreign policy around “America First.” Now America may become a minority shareholder in the world’s messiest oil company.

The White House says it wants energy security. Caracas gets a new supervisor. U.S. taxpayers get to find out whether 90 billion barrels can cover the cost of owning the headache.

#Trump #Venezuela #Oil #USA

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The Empire Runs Low

The United States is still the world’s biggest armed creditor. But its current war portfolio looks expensive, politically toxic and short on inventory.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe flew to Moscow this week. He met Russian intelligence officials, not Vladimir Putin. Reports say he warned Moscow against any move against NATO’s Baltic members and pressed Russia to reduce support for Iran. The man running America’s spies went to the Kremlin to prevent another front from opening.

At the same time, Washington is trying to keep pressure on Iran. The Pentagon has told defense firms to accelerate output of critical weapons. Officials deny a shortage. The production orders say something else. A country with endless munitions does not demand emergency plans to make more.

The domestic math is worse. Trump’s approval rating stands at 33%. Just 31% of Americans support the Iran war.

Eighty-three percent expect it to drag on. Midterm elections are coming, and voters rarely reward a president for discovering that “short war” was a marketing term.

Meanwhile, China protects its Iran trade, Qatar brokers Hormuz, Saudi Arabia and France demand diplomacy, and Turkey sells its own regional map.

This is not a disciplined anti-American bloc. It is more dangerous for Washington. It is a room full of states that want America’s money and security but refuse to buy its war.

Israel sits inside that room with fewer exits. It needs U.S. interceptors, intelligence and political cover. Yet Washington now has to ration weapons, calm Iran, keep Russia from testing NATO and win an election.

The old U.S. formula was simple. Send the carrier. Everyone adjusts.

Now the carrier sails, the CIA flies to Moscow, Qatar flies to Tehran, and the White House checks the polls.

#USA #CIA #Iran #Russia

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NATO’s Red-Line Customer Service

Washington arms Ukraine against Russia, then sends the CIA director to Moscow to warn Russia against touching NATO. The message is familiar. Russia may absorb the escalation. NATO must remain outside the invoice.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Moscow on Tuesday for talks with Russian intelligence officials. He reportedly warned them against any attack on NATO territory, especially in the Baltic region, and urged Moscow to cut military and economic ties with Iran. The Kremlin said Ratcliffe did not meet Vladimir Putin and rejected Western claims of Russian plans to attack NATO.

Moscow answered with its own warning. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Russia could strike British military sites and equipment inside Ukraine and beyond if Ukraine uses British long-range missiles against Russian territory.

Britain has agreed to transfer classified technology that would allow Ukraine to manufacture Storm Shadow cruise missiles. France has also been accused by Moscow of helping Kyiv build long-range strike capacity.

Britain and other NATO members arm Ukraine because they see Russian expansion as a direct threat to European security. But weapons transfers also make the line between “supporter” and “participant” politically useful for Moscow and dangerously elastic for everyone else.

That is the trap. Washington says NATO must not become a party to the war. It is simultaneously expanding Ukraine’s capacity to strike deep inside Russia with NATO-origin technology.

On Thursday, a Russian serviceman was killed and his wife injured when a car bomb exploded outside St. Petersburg. Russian authorities said an explosive device had been planted in the vehicle. No public attribution has been made.

The CIA came to Moscow to draw a red line. Russia replied that the red line already runs through British missiles, Ukrainian factories and a burning car outside St. Petersburg.

In this war, every capital calls its own weapons “defense.” The other side’s weapons are the opening shot of World War III.

#Russia #Ukraine #NATO #CIA

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Trump’s China Dividend

Donald Trump has done what China’s diplomats spent years failing to do. He made Beijing look like the calmer option.

A Pew survey found China viewed more favorably than the United States in 25 of 36 countries surveyed. Xi Jinping also outranked Trump on trust in Britain, Canada, France and Australia. Tariffs, territorial threats and America First insults gave Beijing the cheapest image campaign in modern history. [web:None]

But this is a dividend, not a marriage. China’s favorable ratings in France and Germany remain only in the low-to-mid 30s. Japan, South Korea, India and the Philippines still view the United States more favorably. They live close enough to China to read the fine print. [web:None]

India shows the real model. Trump punished New Delhi over Russian oil and restricted visas. Narendra Modi answered with smiles for Xi and Putin, then strengthened trade and defense ties with Europe, Japan, Australia and the Philippines. India is not joining China. It is building more exits.

Europe is doing the same. Emmanuel Macron attacks American “vassalization” and Chinese economic coercion in the same breath. France wants strategic autonomy, not a Chinese landlord.

The Gulf buys weapons from several suppliers. Canada fights U.S. tariffs while keeping its defense system tied to NATO. Everyone is hedging. Nobody is converting.

The U.S.-led order is no longer loved. China is still not trusted enough to replace it.

Trump gave Beijing a public-relations miracle. Xi still cannot turn it into a security alliance.

#China #Trump #USA #Geopolitics

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The Senate Campaign’s Costume Party

Mike Collins wants Georgia’s Senate seat. His campaign keeps producing a cast that looks less like a governing coalition than a deleted scene from the internet’s worst group chat.

Preston Parra, a former Collins intern and paid consultant, posted an image of himself in apparent Klan robes and a swastika made from the word “twink.”

He called it satire. He also told The Washington Post: “I do think that the white race contributes more to the world.” His firm received $7,700 from Collins’s leadership PAC in May 2025.

Parra is not the whole problem. A former Collins chief of staff faced an ethics review over alleged misuse of taxpayer-funded internships. Another former chief of staff joined a group chat with Nick Fuentes and Richard Spencer.

A former digital director hurled antisemitic insults at Rep. Mike Lawler in a bar. Collins’s son-in-law has also posted Nazi imagery online, according to CNN.

Collins says he condemns antisemitism and racism. His campaign says the staffers’ conduct was unauthorized or personal. That may be true in each case. But campaigns are judged by the people they hire, promote and keep near the microphone.

Georgia Republicans see the problem. “You lay down with dogs, you get up with fleas,” conservative activist Debbie Dooley told The Post. “Mike Collins has got a lot of fleas on him.”

Collins’s campaign calls the strategy “casual trolling.” Voters may call it a Senate race run by a content farm that forgot to install adult supervision.

The GOP wants to take a Democratic-held Senate seat. It may first need to stop confusing shock value with a staffing plan.

#USA #Georgia #Senate #Politics

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Carney Against Trump: Canada Strikes Back 🇨🇦


Carney has the support of most Canadians after breaking off trade talks with the U.S., but widespread approval of his pushback against Trump could disappear within months as the ​consequences of the trade war sink in.

Carney's negotiating position could also weaken if Republicans retain power in Congress after November U.S. midterm elections and reinforce American protectionism under Trump.

Carney ‌is one of the few global leaders to retaliate against U.S. tariffs, despite Canada's dependence on U.S. buyers for about 70% of its exports.

On Tuesday, his government announced dollar-for-dollar counter-tariffs on $20 billion of U.S. goods, as well as a C$7.5 billion ($5.41 billion) package of economic support measures.

“Carney’s leverage will start to diminish if this escalating trade war starts to show up in palpable increases in unemployment, factory shutdowns and declining income,”

said Julian Karaguesian, a former adviser at Canada’s Finance ​Ministry and economics professor at McGill University.

“Canada cannot win an economic war of attrition with the U.S.”

The U.S. economy is 13 times larger than Canada's, a country with a population roughly ​the size of California's.

Carney's office did not respond to a request for comment.
The additional tariffs — from both sides of the border — along with Trump’s renewed threats ⁠to Canada’s sovereignty, mark one of the most acrimonious moments in modern Canada-U.S. relations.

Trump’s actions have prompted an outpouring of support for Carney, who has urged middle-power nations to band together to form a ​new global order and pursued new trade and security alliances to disentangle Canada from its reliance on the U.S.

The U.S. introduced last-minute changes to its tentative trade deal with Canada, adjusting U.S. auto tariffs, ​curtailing French-language requirements and restricting Canada's ability to pursue trade agreements with other countries, Carney said on Saturday.

Carney invoked military language to describe the trade dispute, saying Canada had been “attacked.” An Angus Reid poll showed on Sunday 76% of Canadians approved of Carney's decision to suspend trade talks. But the same poll showed 40% of Canadians are worried their jobs are at risk.

Dan Arnold, a former ​research director for ex-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, said Canadians are aligned with Carney’s approach toward Trump.

“It’s like any kind of war mentality where you see people are willing to make sacrifices to press back ​against the U.S.,”

he said.

“Politics is about storytelling and there is the greatest cartoon villain ever in the form of Trump,”

said Arnold, who now works at the polling firm Pollara.

Trump has accused Canada in recent days of ripping off the United States for decades and threatened to change the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America.

Expected job losses, inflation and cost-of-living ⁠pressures will ultimately ​limit Carney’s ability to push back against the U.S., Karaguesian said. Canada has the highest rate of food inflation among all Group ​of 7 industrial countries and has been facing a housing affordability crisis for years.

“Canada can push out more exports to the rest of the world, but Carney’s clock is already running out,”

he said.

“At some point when more and more people are losing ​their jobs and visiting food banks, the public will say, ‘we know this is not your fault, but go make a deal with Trump.’”

#сanada #сarney #additional #tariffs

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“Russia Will Not Hit NATO Or Any Of the Baltic States”


European officials are certain there is no evidence that Russia is preparing for a conventional military attack against NATO or any of the Baltic states.

They are “pushing back” on media reports that preventing an attack on NATO was the focus of CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s visit to Moscow this week.

“Topics on the visit would likely have included ending the war against Ukraine, reaffirming the strength of NATO’s Article 5 commitment in the face of a potential attack, and the Iran war, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue,” Reuters writes.

“None of the officials had been briefed by the U.S. on the details of Ratcliffe’s meeting, and their assessments were based on their own intelligence and their understanding of how the United States typically operates.”

One Bloomberg source said the visit to Moscow was also likely intended to prevent an excessive Russian response to U.S. economic measures against Iran that could affect Russia, and to persuade Moscow to stop supporting Tehran.

Western intelligence and government officials have warned in recent months that Russian security services are exploring options for sabotage against infrastructure and false-flag operations in the Baltic states and Poland.

At the same time, the sources said the latest intelligence did not indicate any changes in Russia’s conventional military posture.

Western intelligence services routinely maintain communication channels with their Russian counterparts, officials said. However, people familiar with the trip suggested that it was notable that Ratcliffe appeared to want his Moscow visit to become public.

#ratcliffe #moscow #NATO #evidence

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Bill Gates Is Terrified of AI — and Says We’re Not Ready for What’s Coming

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Bill Gates, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft, is loudly warning that artificial intelligence poses a grave threat to jobs and human life, and that urgently addressing the risks should be “the world’s top priority.”

In an hourlong interview with The New York Times last week, Gates said the tech industry was knowingly downplaying those threats because there was too much money on the line.

“In private, people who understand how good this stuff is, and how much better it’s getting, they’re very worried,” he said. But few tech executives, Gates said, are willing to publicly admit that. “They’re now saying to each other: ‘Hey, man, don’t say that. It’s bad for us — the next trillion dollars we’re trying to raise.’”

On Wednesday, Gates published a nearly 6,000-word essay on his personal website laying out his concerns about A.I. and offering solutions, such as new taxes and bans. He said he was motivated to speak now because recent improvements in A.I. had far surpassed his expectations and because the industry had ignored technology milestones — like A.I.’s escaping the control of its creators or making recipes for bioweapons — that it once said would warrant more caution.

Gates had to pull out of an A.I. conference in February, and testified for six hours in June before a House committee. Disclosures of his infidelity, combined with his 2021 divorce, have also badly damaged his reputation. He acknowledged that they were all “mistakes” of his own doing.

He appears more willing to step back into the spotlight after answering every question from the House Oversight Committee. “I think people understand what I did do, what I didn’t do and that I learn when I make mistakes,” he said in the interview.

Gates conceded that he also might be a flawed messenger simply because of his vast wealth and history as Microsoft’s aggressive chief executive. In a landmark federal case, Microsoft was found in 2000 to have repeatedly abused its monopoly during his watch.

While Gates avoided criticizing Microsoft or other companies by name, he argued that he was uniquely positioned to work on the A.I. issue. He is a technologist and industry insider who is no longer driven by the profit incentives of running a company, and he has spent decades addressing inequality through his philanthropic foundation.

“The irony of ‘innovation lover is scared and says we’re not ready and we’re crossing thresholds,’ maybe it’s even more poignant,” he said.

#bill #gates #AI #microsoft #anthropic

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Gates said technological advances had truly stunned him three times: In 1980 when he first saw a graphical user interface, which led to the modern personal computer. In 2022 when the leaders of OpenAI came to his house to demonstrate what would soon become ChatGPT. And this year when he looked closely at the advances being made by Claude Code, Anthropic’s A.I. tool.

Coding, Gates said, is the subject he knows best, and Claude’s abilities shocked him. “The idea that now these things are in a meaningful sense better than I am is like: What the hell?” he said.

The A.I. era is “utterly, absolutely, completely, totally different,” he said. He acknowledged that this unpopular opinion (in tech circles) was “a hell of a claim, and I’m staking everything I know — everything — saying, ‘Are you kidding?’”

He said mass job losses, if not addressed, were inevitable because A.I. would spread across the economy and leave little room for one industry to absorb the refugees from another. The biggest tech companies in the world, including Microsoft, are racing to help corporate customers adopt A.I., which could replace many workers.

Gates said that companies were just responding to market incentives, but that those incentives might conflict with what was best for society.

He proposed a new tax on A.I. use, known as a “token tax,” to make it more expensive to replace people and provide money to help those who do lose work. A token is a basic unit of A.I. computing. The idea of taxing it has gained some traction, including on Wall Street, as a way to increase the cost of using machines instead of human labor.

Some jobs, Gates said, should be prohibited from being replaced by A.I. — an idea he called “Human Reserved” — because the role is deeply personal, like a caregiver, or the people in those jobs are unlikely to find new employment.

He argued for new international agreements to set clear criteria to monitor and restrict extreme risks like bioterrorism. He said it could take only a few people with access to advanced A.I. to develop new pathogens.

He said he would happily debate anyone who argued against mandatory reviews of any A.I. system that could be weaponized to make new molecules and unleash a pandemic. Gates added that he was dumbfounded by the kind of voluntary measures that the White House and industry leaders were developing.

Along with global health issues, Gates vowed to make his A.I. concern part of every conversation he had with world leaders. “I only have two issues where I’m going to say, ‘Please think more about this, please care more about this,’” he said.

Gates acknowledged that he was in an odd spot: He has arguably done as much as anyone in the world to evangelize for and shape the modern computer industry. But now he is warning that the technology it is creating presents global risks.

“I don’t like bringing bad news to people, and I don’t like saying that innovation may be a net negative,” he said. “But that’s where we are.”

#bill #gates #AI #microsoft #anthropic

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When Power Stops Working: Trump Faces the Limits of American Strength

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Trump’s presidency rests on the premise that he and the United States are so powerful that allies and enemies alike must submit to his will.

His break with decades of US foreign policy doctrine is laced through his speeches and national security strategies. It was best explained in January by top aide Stephen Miller, who told CNN’s Jake Tapper that “iron laws” dictate a real world that is “governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power.”

But the philosophy faces its most serious tests in deepening showdowns with Iran and Canada.

Iran has defied the might of the US military for six months in a war Trump started but has been unable to end.

Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney, who shut down trade talks with Washington, has meanwhile argued more forcefully than any other Western leader that the US under Trump “has changed.” He told his country Saturday that Trump was using “economic integration as a weapon.”

It is a commentary on the extreme disruption of the Trump era that Canada, one of America’s most loyal friends, has found itself in a similar state of economic warfare with the US as Iran, one of Washington’s worst foes.

But the Trump administration left no doubt Monday what it wants as it fights a trade war with Ottawa and a shooting war with Tehran.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced an “economic onslaught” against Iran’s global financial connections, drawing an analogy with the D-Day invasion that turned the tide in World War II.

Trump, meanwhile warned on social media that “The U.S.A. will always be far bigger, richer, and stronger than Canada.” He added: “Someone should get these clowns to ‘fall in line.’”

Trump hopes to chalk up a lopsided trade deal with Canada and to finally bring about the downfall of Iran’s regime.

But the way forward is uncertain on both fronts because the president often backs down when the economic consequences of his attempts to assert his authority become clear.

Any prolonged US effort to prevail over Canada and Iran — and third-party nations sanctioned in his bid to shut down Tehran’s financial networks — could trigger retaliation that causes energy and food price hikes for US consumers. It could also rattle US markets at a time when some investors fear a bond crisis.

If Monday’s threats are the precursor to more TACOs (“Trump always chickens out”), the president will undermine his own power and the nation’s, and slip closer to lame-duck status as difficult midterm elections loom in November.

What Trump could achieve by strangling Iran’s economy
Bessent’s announcement was the latest US effort to find a new way out of the war with Iran.

But the D-Day analogy seemed tonally off, given the terrible sacrifices made by American soldiers to liberate Europe. And unlike Bessent, allied commander Gen. Dwight Eisenhower didn’t spent days in 1944 previewing a massive attack only to follow through with new threats of sanctions and no timeline.

Still, administration skeptics often ignore the genuine power that Trump could wield by clever use of economic warfare.

#trump #presidency #UnitedStates #power #miller

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A truly global effort to cut off Iran’s pathways to finance and trade could inflict extreme damage on an already devastated economy.

“It can work if we can get the buy-in of our partners,” Max Meizlish, a former senior Treasury official, said on CNN News Central Monday, specifically referring to Bank Melli, an Iranian commercial bank controlled by the government that operates in France, Germany and elsewhere and is a cog in Iran’s efforts to evade sanctions.

Kenneth Rogoff, a former IMF chief economist who is now a Harvard University chair, told CNN’s Richard Quest: “Fundamentally, sanctions work if you can get most of the world behind you. But if they’re not, it’s very hard.”

Trump might have had more success with such an approach before alienating US allies with a war many regard as unwise and illegal.

And the White House may be misreading its capacity to influence events inside Tehran. Signs of disagreement between pragmatists and hardliners over the economy are encouraging. But Washington has for decades over-read such tea leaves and assumed regime collapse would follow.

Most damagingly, the Trump administration is sending signals that it may not be serious about its own policy.

There was no immediate action against an array of Chinese banks that facilitate Beijing’s trade in cut-price Iranian oil. China has already said it will defend its interests — code for potential retaliatory reaction against the US that could further raise prices and anger US voters. It showed last year in threatening to curtail rare earth mineral exports critical to the US defense and tech industries that it can counter Trump’s power.

And the US leader also has a big date circled on his calendar — the state visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping next month. It’s hard to see him souring the atmosphere before then.

In a revealing moment, Bessent only reinforced doubts about the administration’s staying power. He was asked why he was not immediately imposing secondary sanctions on entities that deal with Iran.

“Well, we are giving everyone the opportunity to remedy bad behavior; why would I want to blow up the global financial system?” he replied.

Canada sees a showdown that goes beyond a trade dispute
The administration is less wary of sanctioning the manufacturers of Canadian hockey sticks than Chinese banks.

“We have to remember, Canada is a state. Sorry, Freudian slip. That was actually an accident,” Vance said Monday.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford said at a news conference that “I have a lot of real estate on my ass, so (Trump) has a lot of room to kiss my ass.”

But Canadians believe they are embroiled in more than a trade dispute.

Drew Dilkens, the mayor of Windsor, Ontario, just across from Detroit, explained the damage inflicted by Trump’s 51st-state claims. “When you say it the first time, perhaps you can laugh it off, but it was the doubling down and certainly continuing to reinforce that,” he told CNN’s Brianna Keilar.

Ottawa said that, among other disputes, Carney ended trade talks after the US sought to water down its constitutional guarantees of bilingualism. Printing packaging for products sold in Canada in French as well as English is an inconvenience for US firms.

But it’s a validation of the cultural and linguistic diversity that keeps Canada whole. Carney also implied Washington sought to restrict trade deals that his government could make with third countries.

As the smaller economy, Canada would suffer the most harm in a trade war with the US. But it can challenge American power. A long tariff duel could result in the mutually assured destruction of the auto industry on both sides of the border.

And the growing impact of Canadian boycotts could weaken Republicans in key contests in border states Michigan and Maine, which could decide who controls the US Senate next year.

And in seeking to impose his dominance, Trump may have revealed another iron law of power that Miller did not mention back in January.

#trump #presidency

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Hormuz Has Two Owners

Iran says it controls the Strait of Hormuz. Washington says the waterway is open. Tankers offer the less theatrical answer: oil is moving, but nowhere near normally.

The Revolutionary Guards say any vessel that enters without coordination with Iran faces a closed strait. Tehran also says Chinese refineries are still taking about 1.2 million barrels of Iranian oil a day. This is not a blockade in the old sense. It is selective access. Iran closes the door, then sells keys through the side window.

Goldman Sachs estimates that crude and petroleum-product exports from the Gulf have recovered to 15 million to 16 million barrels a day. That is about two-thirds of prewar volumes, but still 7 million to 8 million barrels a day below normal. Traders put crude moving through Hormuz itself at roughly 6 million to 8 million barrels a day.

The numbers puncture both press conferences. Iran does not exercise total control. The United States has not restored normal navigation. Gulf producers are using ship-to-ship transfers, pipelines and alternative routes to move barrels around the choke point. Every tanker now needs more paperwork, more insurance and a better relationship with danger.

Washington is also preparing the legal department for an oil war. The Justice Department is working to revive maritime “prize courts,” an old mechanism that would allow the United States to claim captured Iranian tankers and cargo as war prizes. The oil could then be sold, with proceeds sent to the Treasury. Officials say the plan could help offset the cost of the conflict.

Iran charges for passage in leverage. America may seize cargo in law. Both sides call it security.

The Strait is open enough for oil to move, closed enough for everyone to pay, and dangerous enough for either capital to declare victory.

#Iran #Hormuz #Oil #USA

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Niger’s Coup Regime Is Under Attack — From Within


Niger has also moved closer to Mali and Burkina Faso, with which it withdrew from ECOWAS and established the Alliance of Sahel States, presented as a framework for political and military cooperation based on the sovereignty of the three countries.

This new geopolitical orientation has been accompanied by a drive to strengthen state control over the country’s strategic resources. The uranium sector occupies a particularly important place in this policy. Relations between Niamey and the French nuclear group Orano have deteriorated sharply, while Niger’s authorities are seeking to expand state control over mining activities.

But despite this break with its former alliances, the main problem that the Tiani regime claimed it had come to address remains: security.

Niger continues to face a serious jihadist threat, particularly in the regions of Tillabéri, Tahoua and Diffa, as well as along its borders with Mali, Burkina Faso and Nigeria. Groups affiliated with al-Qaeda and the Islamic State remain active across the region and continue to carry out attacks against security forces and civilians.

The fact that clashes this time involved military personnel in the heart of the capital gives the incident a particular significance. Until now, the regime had portrayed its main threats as coming from outside: jihadist groups, diplomatic pressure, regional sanctions and tensions with its former international partners.

The attempted uprising on August 29 raises another, even more sensitive question: the cohesion of Niger’s armed forces themselves.

This is a crucial issue for a regime whose power rests primarily on the military. When divisions emerge within the armed forces, the problem goes far beyond a simple mutiny. It can quickly become a threat to the stability of the regime itself.

For now, there is no evidence that this attempted uprising represents a broader movement within Niger’s armed forces. The authorities say the situation is “under control” and that the soldiers involved have been neutralized or arrested. But the exact circumstances of the operation, how extensively it was planned, and whether other military units were involved remain key questions.

The paradox is hard to ignore: a government that came to power through a coup must now prove that it can prevent another coup from emerging from within the military itself.

The coming hours and days will therefore be critical. Beyond restoring order in Niamey, attention will need to focus on reactions within the armed forces, any arrests, possible changes in the chain of command, and how the regime publicly explains what happened.

Because the real question facing Niger now is not simply who controlled the streets of Niamey that night. It is whether General Abdourahamane Tiani still has unquestioned authority over the military that forms the main pillar of his power.

Three years after the overthrow of Mohamed Bazoum, Niger is once again facing a power struggle at the heart of its own political system.

And for a regime born out of a coup, there may be no more troubling signal than the emergence, from within the military itself, of those who could be preparing to seize power themselves.

#niger #niamey #niger #coup #attempt

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Dubai Shuts a Window

Dubai spent decades as Iran’s side entrance to the global economy. Now Washington is putting a bouncer at the door.

The U.S. Treasury says Banque Misr’s UAE branches processed about $1.8 billion for 103 companies that may be part of Iranian shadow-banking networks between January 2024 and June 2026. FinCEN has proposed cutting those branches off from U.S. correspondent banking. Washington also sanctioned Reza Mohammad Taeedi, the manager of Bank Melli’s Dubai branch.

The measure is narrower than its headline. It targets Banque Misr’s UAE operations, not its Cairo headquarters or other foreign branches. Bank Melli and Bank Saderat still operate in the Emirates. Iranian flights still land. Trade routes still function. Dubai is not severing Iran. It is making every transaction more expensive, slower and easier to lose.

Iranian merchants tell the Financial Times that banks are demanding more documents, delaying payments and imposing fines. Some trade is moving through Oman. Some shipments reportedly use paperwork that obscures Iranian origins or destinations. Sanctions evasion has not disappeared. It has changed salons.

President Masoud Pezeshkian says Iran’s imports and exports have fallen by 25% to 35% under sanctions and war pressure. That is the difference between a system that survives and a system that works. Tehran can still move money. It just moves less of it, through more middlemen, at a higher price.

Washington wants to turn Dubai from Iran’s cash register into its compliance department. The Emirates wants American access without losing every Iranian customer.

The gray market is not dead.

#Iran #Dubai #UAE #Sanctions

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The $3 Barrel Miracle

Trump calls it “the biggest oil deal in world history.” Washington says it now has majority control of more than 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan reserves. Caracas says the same arrangement will bring the Venezuelan state more than $209 billion in tax revenue.

That comes to roughly $3.22 per barrel in projected tax revenue. Brent crude has traded around $80 to $90 a barrel. Production costs, transport, taxes and profits matter. But the gap is still large enough to make both victory speeches sound like they came from separate deals.

The agreement covers 17 strategic oil fields and a 100-year concession granted to a private venture backed by the United States. Venezuela says it expects more than $100 billion in private investment. Trump says U.S. taxpayers will pay nothing. So one side gets oil control, the other gets $209 billion, and private companies somehow rebuild old fields for free. This is not an oil deal. It is an Excel sheet with diplomatic immunity.

Marco Rubio called it a “huge win” for Americans and Venezuelans. Delcy Rodríguez called it a path to production growth. Neither side explained the contract’s financial structure, who absorbs the development risk, or how the numbers divide between taxes, royalties, operating costs and profits.

The timing is convenient. Trump can promise cheaper gasoline before the midterms while the U.S. tries to constrain Iranian oil exports and calm markets rattled by Hormuz.

America First has entered its accounting phase. Caracas gets the promise of cash. Washington gets the claim of control. The public gets one number too many and a contract too few.

#Trump #Venezuela #Oil #USA

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