The deteriorating state of US relations with Ukraine

Welcome again to White Home Watch. Treasury secretary Scott Bessent will communicate on the Financial Membership of New York at present. For now, let’s get into:

• The US stopping intelligence sharing with Ukraine

• Trump giving carmakers a tariff reprieve

• Why farmers are so annoyed

The Trump administration has furthered its break with Ukraine by asserting that it’s going to cease sharing intelligence with Kyiv, simply days after halting navy support to the war-torn nation.

“[Donald] Trump had a real question about whether [Ukrainian] President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy was committed to the peace process, and he said let’s pause,” John Ratcliffe, director of the CIA, stated of the choice.

He added that there was hope that the assist may very well be restored. “I want to give a chance to think about that, and you saw the response that President Zelenskyy put out,” Ratcliffe stated. “So I think on the military front and the intelligence front, the pause that allowed that to happen, I think will go away.”

US intelligence has been important in serving to Ukraine to establish and strike Russian navy targets.

“If they don’t reverse it soon, it will become really difficult for the Ukrainians because it takes away their battlefield advantage,” stated a senior western official.

After Trump’s heated Oval Workplace conflict with Zelenskyy final week, relations between Washington and Kyiv deteriorated earlier than newer indicators of restore.

Zelenskyy made a present of contrition on Tuesday, saying the assembly was “regrettable” and Ukraine was “ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible”. He expressed readiness to signal a cope with Trump “at any time” that will give the US the rights to revenue from exploiting Ukraine’s pure assets. (Our commodities correspondent breaks down why uncommon earths have been within the highlight.)

Amid halting efforts to cease the combating in Ukraine, UK defence secretary John Healey flew to Washington yesterday for talks together with his US counterpart Pete Hegseth on the “parameters” of a European peace plan for Ukraine.

Healey will intention to persuade Hegseth that the US wants to supply a safety ensures to ensure that the plan to work. “That’s a work in progress,” admitted one British official, with studied understatement.

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Farmers throughout the US are already struggling due to depressed commodity costs. With Trump’s tariffs on Mexico and Canada — and follow-on retaliatory levies — rural America is bracing for impression. [Free to read]

“Contrary to what the president thinks, this means nothing but pain,” stated Aaron Lehman, head of the Iowa Farmers Union. “Our domestic markets aren’t prepared to pick up the slack and that means lower prices for what we grow.”

Whereas farmers supported Trump’s purpose of guaranteeing truthful commerce with different nations, his present plans have been going to harm, stated Zippy Duvall, head of the American Farm Bureau Federation.

“For the third straight year, farmers are losing money on almost every major crop planted,” stated Duvall. “Adding even more costs and reducing markets for American agricultural goods could create an economic burden some farmers may not be able to bear.”

After Washington hit most Canadian and Mexican imports with 25 per cent tariffs this week and outlined plans to double levies on Chinese language merchandise, Beijing responded by threatening 10 per cent to fifteen per cent tariffs on US agricultural items from March 10. Canada has imposed levies on US imports, and Mexico stated it will comply with go well with.

“Farmers are frustrated,” stated Caleb Ragland, president of the American Soybean Affiliation. “Tariffs are not something to take lightly and ‘have fun’ with.”

“Not only do they hit our family businesses squarely in the wallet, but they rock a core tenet on which our trading relationships are built, and that is reliability,” he added.

In the meantime, different nations are properly positioned to step in if commerce tensions immediate importers to show their backs on the US. Brazil and different soyabean producers have been anticipating plentiful crops this 12 months, Ragland stated, and “are primed to meet any demand stemming from a renewed US-China trade war”.

Viewpoints

• Economics commentator Chris Giles has a helpful primer on the ten issues you must learn about Trump’s tariffs however have been afraid to ask.

• Trump’s handle to Congress on Tuesday evening is extra prone to be remembered as a spectacle than for the content material of what he stated, writes Edward Luce.

• Elon Musk is the fox within the henhouse of science, argues Anjana Ahuja, as critics throughout the UK’s Royal Society protest towards fellow member Musk’s function in threatening scientific analysis.

• The Washington technique staff at Jefferies sought to search out out whether or not there’s any fact to Doge’s declare to have saved $105bn. The takeaway: no, writes Bryce Elder in Alphaville.