Tag: Trump

• By Marianna Kozintseva

US President Donald Trump has recently shifted his stance on the war in Ukraine, voicing strong support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity and calling Russia a “paper tiger.” After meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the United Nations, Trump stated that with the backing of NATO and the European Union, Ukraine could “fight and win all of Ukraine back in its original form.”

Does this imply that we will soon see the end of the war in Ukraine?

The answer to that is complex. “Ending the war” can mean very different outcomes – ranging from a negotiated ceasefire to full territorial restoration – and Trump’s vision may not fully align with Ukraine’s goals or the EU’s strategic priorities.

Trump’s influence centers on three areas: exerting pressure on allies and adversaries to shape negotiations, expanding US military aid to Ukraine to strengthen its position on the battlefield, and imposing sanctions on Russia and its trading partners to raise the economic costs of the war.

All these actions, however, require coordination with multiple players, and some also face potential escalation risks.

Since assuming his second presidency in January 2025, Trump has urged Europe to take greater responsibility for the war. This included reducing direct US military aid while continuing to supply weapons through NATO, publicly pressuring EU leaders to increase military and financial contributions, and criticizing European energy imports from Russia as “funding the war against themselves.”

Nobel laureate Oleksandra Matviichuk joins Canada’s ambassador to Ukraine for a powerful talk on justice, truth, and documenting war crimes amid Russia’s war and Ukraine’s fight for freedom.

His approach is already bearing fruit. According to the Kiel Institute, by June 30, 2025, Europe had allocated €167.4 billion ($195 billion) in aid to Ukraine (including €80.5 billion [$94 billion] in military support) – 1.5 times more than the total US allocation.

In a clear break with earlier attitudes, Europe is now aggressively procuring weapons, debating repurposing €300 billion ($350 billion) in frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine’s war and reconstruction, and drafting a proposal to accelerate the phase-out of Russian natural gas imports ahead of the original 2027 deadline.

Bringing Russia to the negotiating table, however, will be impossible without buy-in from China and India, both of which remain Russia’s largest trading partners and the largest purchasers of Russian hydrocarbons, blunting the impact of Western sanctions.

According to the Russian Fossil Tracker, Russia sold over €949 billion ($1.1 billion) in oil, natural gas, and coal globally between February 2022 and September 2025, with 45% of the exports going to China and India.

President Trump has imposed tariffs ranging from 50% to 100% on select Chinese imports since taking office – including on electronics, machinery, and dual-use goods suspected of reaching Russia’s defense supply chain – and raised tariffs on Indian imports to 50%.

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Both sets of tariffs are among the steepest the US has applied to any major trading partner and are framed as part of a broader campaign to “squeeze Moscow” by targeting its key economic allies.

Trade connections cut both ways, however,

China is the US’s third-largest trading partner after Mexico and Canada, with a total trade volume of $582 billion in 2024, near a record high. The United States is reliant on China for key raw and processed rare earth materials, which are essential for semiconductor production, electric motors, wind turbines and even missile guidance systems.

China also dominates the global refining of lithium, cobalt, nickel and graphite, making it vital to the supply chains of EV batteries and energy storage. It is also the world’s second-largest holder of US Treasuries after Japan, with approximately $775 billion as of June 2025.

Russia’s willingness to negotiate hinges on a mix of military realities, economic endurance and elite cohesion. Despite battlefield setbacks and mounting costs, Moscow has shown little appetite for compromise, largely because the war remains framed domestically as existential – both for Russia’s security and for the legitimacy of its leadership.

Key turning points that could shift Russia’s stance include Ukraine’s advances toward Crimea, US permission for strikes deep inside Russia using US-supplied weapons, or NATO air cover over part of Ukraine.

Any defense escalation from the US or NATO side will, of course, carry the risk of Russian retaliation ranging from cyberattacks on Western infrastructure to energy supply disruptions or even military strikes against NATO assets outside its territory.

Ultimately, a shift in Russia’s strategy is most likely if the war is seen as unwinnable, unaffordable and politically unsustainable.

Ukraine’s resolve also matters. It has shaped the battlefield through grit and innovative warfare, while rallying global support. President Zelensky has consistently articulated a goal of full territorial recovery, including Crimea and the Donbas, framing the war as a fight for sovereignty rather than compromise.

Yet with rising casualties, 69% of Ukrainians now favor a negotiated end to the war as soon as possible, according to a July 2025 Gallup survey.

Finally, there is the US domestic public opinion. According to the July 2025 Nanos poll, inflation, jobs and immigration dominate Americans’ concerns, drawing 17.9%, 15.5% and 10.6% of unprompted mentions, respectively, while foreign policy and wars generated only 3.8%.

Though 62% of Americans support providing more arms to Ukraine (according to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs), helping Ukraine comes second to helping America.

President Trump’s enthusiasm for Ukraine’s victory and his influence over US and global policy have energized Ukraine and its allies, with the ripple effects of his strategy potentially reshaping the future of transatlantic security, global energy markets, and Western deterrence.

Still, actually ending the war will require sustained American commitment and strong international coordination.

·           This article was first published in ww.kyivpost.com

By Ayomide Ibrahim

 The One Big Beautiful Bill Act is now law in the United States and it carries with it not just a set of policy prescriptions but a vision of how the country sees immigrants. Signed on July 4, it arrived wrapped in patriotic symbolism yet its consequences for immigrants, both documented and undocumented are far from celebratory. Laws often read like dry text on paper, but their effects live in the daily struggles of people who work, raise families, and navigate the uncertainty of being welcome yet unwelcome, present yet provisional, necessary yet suspect. The bill does not simply adjust technical details of immigration. It reorders the relationship between immigrants and the state, deciding who counts as part of “us” and who must pay more, wait longer, or do without.

One of the most striking features of this law is its enormous increase in funding for enforcement and detention. Tens of billions of dollars have been channelled toward expanding detention centres, hiring more agents, and building layers of surveillance along the border and inside communities. Enforcement is no longer limited to crossing points. It is embedded in workplaces, schools, health care spaces, neighbourhoods. When detention capacity grows, so too does the appetite to use it. What this means for immigrants is not a more orderly system but a more intimidating one, a system where fear of being stopped or detained shadows ordinary life.

Alongside enforcement, the law places a heavy financial burden on immigrants who are trying to do things the “right way.” Filing fees for asylum, for temporary protected status, for humanitarian parole, and even for renewing work permits have risen sharply. In some cases, these fees are now non-waivable, which means that poverty is no excuse. For families living modestly, the choice between paying hundreds of dollars in legal fees and buying food or paying rent is no choice at all. These costs are not inconveniences. They are barriers that determine whether someone stays documented or slides into precarity. A single missed renewal, a single unpaid fee, can unravel years of effort to remain lawful. The law is structured in such a way that the poorest immigrants bear the heaviest costs, not because they have done wrong but because they cannot pay enough.

The law also cuts deep into access to essential services. Many lawfully present immigrants who are not yet green card holders will see their eligibility for Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, premium tax credits under the Affordable Care Act, and food assistance vanish. For people who fled war or persecution, for survivors of trafficking, for refugees resettled with hope of safety, these changes are devastating. Health care and food are not luxuries. They are foundations of dignity and survival. When a law strips these away, it is not only shaping immigration policy, it is shaping human lives into cycles of hunger, untreated illness, and mounting debt. The cruelty lies not just in the denial of aid but in the indifference it signals: that suffering is permissible if your paperwork is incomplete, that survival is contingent on the timing of your status, that dignity has a price tag.

Proponents of the law argue that it restores fairness, prevents misuse of public benefits, and secures the border. They speak in the language of order, efficiency, and fiscal responsibility. There is, undeniably, a need for systems to be transparent and accountable, for legal migration to be prioritised, for budgets to be managed. But the balance of this law tilts so heavily toward restriction that it transforms fairness into exclusion. To tighten procedures is one thing. To make access to safety and health contingent on wealth is another.

The human consequences are already clear. Families fear applying for benefits they might still qualify for, unsure of whether it will put them at risk. Parents skip renewing work permits because the fees are too high. Children lose access to health care, which leads to untreated asthma or missed vaccinations. Adults delay routine care until the emergency room is the only option. Food insecurity grows in immigrant communities where SNAP has been cut off. These outcomes carry costs not just for immigrants but for society at large. Hospitals absorb unpaid medical bills, schools struggle with children too hungry to learn, public health suffers when preventive care is out of reach. The idea that denying immigrants benefits saves money ignores the fact that the costs simply shift into other corners of society, often in more expensive and less humane forms.

The law also reshapes perceptions. By embedding immigrants in a framework of costs and enforcement, it reinforces the idea that immigrants are primarily burdens rather than contributors. It suggests that belonging must be purchased, that humanitarian protection is conditional, that compassion is secondary to fees and forms. Laws do not just regulate behaviour. They send signals about who we are and what we value. The One Big Beautiful Bill signals that immigrants are to be tolerated, not welcomed, and that their worth is measured by financial capacity rather than human dignity.

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It is important to acknowledge the counterarguments. Without strong enforcement, the immigration system can falter under backlogs and abuse. Without fiscal discipline, government programs can indeed be strained. There have been instances of fraud, and any system must guard against that. But to construct a law that sweeps so many into hardship in the name of preventing a few from exploiting loopholes is disproportionate. A just system could enforce borders and prevent fraud while still offering affordable pathways, humane treatment, and safeguards for the vulnerable. The problem with this bill is not that it seeks order, but that it achieves it by embracing exclusion.

The chilling effect is profound. When immigrants fear interaction with the state because it may lead to detention, high costs, or loss of services, they withdraw. They avoid health clinics, schools, legal systems. They hide rather than engage. This invisibility does not produce stronger communities or a stronger nation. It produces underground economies, unreported crimes, and neighbours living in silence and fear. A democracy should not cultivate invisible populations. A democracy should seek to integrate and protect, to bring people into the fold of shared responsibility and shared belonging.

What should have been done instead? A balanced approach that maintains the rule of law while keeping humanitarian values intact. That could mean offering fee waivers for those who cannot pay, streamlining legal pathways, providing adequate legal assistance, and ensuring that children and families do not lose access to food and health care. It could mean increasing oversight of enforcement so that detention is not abused and surveillance does not cross into intimidation. It could mean recognizing that immigrant health is national health, that immigrant labour is national labour, that immigrant dignity strengthens rather than weakens the social fabric.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act now defines the landscape of immigration in the United States. For some, it may be manageable, for others devastating, but for all it represents a narrowing of possibility. It replaces welcome with suspicion, compassion with calculation, fairness with fees. The promise of America has always been tested by how it treats those who arrive seeking a chance. Each generation has faced its own wave of newcomers and its own fears of change. History shows that immigrants enrich, build, and strengthen the country. Policy should be crafted to reflect that truth, not obscure it.

This, in the end, is not only about immigrants. It is about who Americans decide to be. Laws are mirrors as much as they are commands. The One Big Beautiful Bill reflects a nation more interested in exclusion than inclusion, in control than community, in cost than care. But laws can change, and voices can rise. The struggle over immigration has never been only about borders. It has always been about identity.

Will the United States define itself as a fortress or a refuge, as a land of opportunity or a land of fear? The answer will be written not just in acts of Congress but in how neighbours treat each other, how communities organise, how citizens and immigrants together demand fairness. The One Big Beautiful Bill is now the law, but it does not have to be the last word.

•Ibrahim, Finserve Pro Chief Executive Officer, writes from Maryland, United States.