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Thursday briefing: What’s going on with Trump’s board of peace?

Good morning. Donald Trump wants to be the supreme leader of the world. That may sound hyperbolic, but it is difficult to read the latest plans for his so-called “Board of Peace” as anything else. What was initially framed as a narrow mechanism to oversee Gaza’s reconstruction has quietly shifted into something far larger. In Trump’s most recent announcement, Gaza barely features at all. Instead, the board is being positioned as a standing global body, chaired by Trump himself, operating in parallel to the United Nations. The chair sets the agenda, calls meetings at will and can issue resolutions unilaterally. More than 60 world leaders have reportedly been invited to participate. Those interested in doing so would have to cough up $1bn if they want their membership to last more than three years. During a marathon speech at Davos, European leaders were relieved to hear Trump rule out using force against Greenland or imposing crippling tariffs. He later announced a “framework for a future deal” to settle the issue, a move met with profound scepticism in the Arctic territory. While Trump continues to consume much of the world’s oxygen, it’s worth not losing sight of his plans for Gaza. I speak to Palestinian-American historian Rashid Khalidi about what this moment means, and where it leaves the Palestinian national movement. Five big stories Davos | Donald Trump dropped his threat to impose tariffs on eight European countries, claiming he had agreed with Nato “the framework of a future deal” on Greenland. Danish, Greenlandic and other European officials pushed back on Trump’s claim, pointing out Nato has no authority to make such a deal. New Zealand | Emergency services in New Zealand are searching for several people, including a child, believed missing after a landslide hit a campsite during storms that have caused widespread damage across the North Island. Media | Prince Harry has accused the publisher of the Daily Mail of wanting to drive him “to drugs and drinking” by placing his life under surveillance, as he told the high court that it continued to “come after” him and his wife. Reform UK | Nigel Farage apologised for 17 breaches of the MPs’ code after failing to declare £380,000 on time, describing himself as an “oddball” who does not do computers. South Korea | Former PM Han Duck-soo has been sentenced to 23 years in prison for his role in an insurrection stemming from former president Yoon Suk Yeol’s failed martial law declaration. In depth: ‘We are going back to a pre-first world war era of naked imperialism’ The “board of peace” is part of Trump’s 20-point plan to end the war in Gaza. But it’s worth noting that despite a ceasefire announced in October, Israel has killed 464 Palestinians since then. The board now taking shape bears little resemblance to what many diplomats believed they were signing up to last autumn. Resolution 2803, passed by the UN security council in November, was sold as a way of lending UN legitimacy to a Trump-brokered ceasefire in Gaza. The negotiations and the text itself were focused squarely on the war. Though the idea of placing Gaza under the authority of a Trump-run board for two years raised alarm, European and Arab diplomats believed it was a price worth paying to keep Trump focused on Gaza, and to prevent a return to full-scale war. But what was presented as a temporary mechanism now looks like an experiment in executive control, with Gaza as its first testing ground. When I asked Rashid Khalidi if we’re shifting to a new era of corporate colonial control, he pushed back on my use of the word new. “I don’t think we’re shifting at all. I think the masks are being dropped. If you go back to 19th-century South Africa, you had the mining magnates dictating British policy. The money, the gold, and the diamonds drove it. Today, it’s the investments in oil and the billionaires who are driving it,” he says. While he doesn’t see a huge difference in terms of the broader picture, there is something notable about what Trump is doing. “We are going back to a pre-first world war era of naked imperialism with a lot of what Trump is up to; not just in Palestine, but in Venezuela, Canada, and Mexico.” *** Israeli and American domination The charter for the Board of Peace that has been circulated among global leaders recasts the body as a permanent, global institution charged with promoting peace and “good governance” worldwide. Under the new structure, the board would sit atop an executive body, alongside a Gaza-specific executive board. The White House announced last week that the executive group would include US secretary of state Marco Rubio; former British prime minister Tony Blair; Trump’s special envoy, the property developer Steve Witkoff; World Bank president Ajay Banga; and the president’s son-in-law and long-time adviser, Jared Kushner. Below that would be a “national committee for the administration of Gaza” (more on that below), the highest rung at which Palestinians are allowed a role. Security would be handled by an international stabilisation force under the command of a US major general. But what does this mean for Palestinians on the ground? “Previously, Palestinians were subject to Israeli control. Now, there’s a sort of joint ‘condominium’ between the American government and the Israeli government. There’s going to be an interesting struggle between them as to who makes the final decisions. As of this moment, it seems to be the Israelis, but that could change depending on the whims of how Trump wakes up tomorrow morning,” Khalidi says. The Israeli government has firmly opposed any element of the second phase of the ceasefire that would bring Palestinian governance back to Gaza, or one that gives any other nation a stake or a role in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Nethanyhu, had publicly objected to the participation of certain countries, including Turkey and Qatar – though he did go on to accept a position on the board. For Khalidi, Trump’s so-called peace plan is the clearest iteration yet of the US being a partner in Israel’s war on Palestine. He argues the US has abandoned the pretence of being an honest broker. He tells me they now openly flaunt being an administrator. Khalidi served as an official adviser to the joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation, and then the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) delegation during the Middle East peace conference in Madrid and the ensuing Israeli-Palestinian-American negotiations in Washington in 1991 and 1993. “The United States, as one of the diplomats involved described it, was Israel’s lawyer. That goes back for decades. The beauty of it is now that it’s completely transparent. The idea that the United States stands in a different position to Israel as far as the basics are concerned has been blown away,” he says. He continues: “Now, while there are some important tactical differences between them, Israel cannot do what it does without the United States. Every single Israeli warplane is American. Every single Israeli combat helicopter is American. The United States refilled Israel’s arsenal to the tune of over $20bn during the two years of genocidal war. Without that, Israel stops.” *** Entry, denied Last October, the main Palestinian factions said they had agreed that an independent committee of technocrats would be in charge of the day to day running of the Gaza Strip. The committee met in Egypt last week. Could their formation mark the first tentative steps towards Palestinian self governance? Khalidi pointed to a report in Haaretz that said the Israelis had barred the committee from entering Gaza as the answer to that question. “The people who make the decisions are not a bunch of technocrats chosen by outside powers. They’re the outside power – the United States and Israel – who have the power of life and death over Gaza.” He adds that despite the huge fanfare over the ceasefire, “Palestinians are being killed every day, children starving to death or killed by hypothermia”. Khalidi described the technocrats as “administrators of an externally controlled regime – if they are allowed into Gaza by Israel.” He wasn’t even shocked that the technocrats who sit on the board in which Israel was given veto powers when the original choices were being made were not allowed into Gaza. He points out that Israel has complete economic, military and political control across Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories – with the founding charter of the Likud Party Program stating “Between the sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.” “Israel just bulldozed the Unrwa headquarters in Jerusalem yesterday,” Khalidi says. Earlier this month, Israel moved to start construction on a vast illegal settlement in the heart of the West Bank, in a bid to “bury the idea of a Palestinian state”. Does he feel frustrated that for years in the western media, there appeared to be a greater focus on protesters chanting “from the river to the sea”, than what many human rights organisations and figures now describe as an entrenched one-state reality where Israel controls the lives of millions of Palestinians, without equal rights or equal representation? “No, I think that increasing numbers of people are now seeing reality and are not taken in by the nonsense being promoted by the mainstream media and by the politicians,” he says. And while he admits there is an enormous backlash trying to clamp down on the movement for Palestinian rights across the western world, he believes it will make little difference. “People have changed. They’ve seen what cannot be unseen.” *** Where next for the Palestinian national movement? A significant sticking point on moving on to the next phase of the ceasefire agreement is whether Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups in Gaza agree to disarm. Israeli media has reported on an apparent offer by Hamas to decommission its heavier weapons, specifically missiles and rockets, which mediators are trying to sell to the United States. But Khalidi doesn’t believe the strip will ever be demilitarised. “The complete disarmament of the Gaza Strip has never been achieved. Israel couldn’t do it in 1956 or 1967,” he says. If the Americans take Hamas’s offer, Khalidi adds, the Israelis are going to be unsatisfied because Hamas would retain huge capabilities even if it does hand over or decommission its rocket missile arsenal. However, he believes this scenario is unlikely. “The other alternative is that Israel resumes the war. This also seems to me somewhat unlikely because it would go against the wishes of the US president. He doesn’t want the war to restart,” Khalidi says. “But that could change. He could wake up the day after tomorrow and unleash the Israelis once again. That would not lead to the disarmament of Hamas. It would just lead to the killing of many, many Palestinians.” And what of the Palestine Authority (PA) whose president, Mahmoud Abbas, has declared 2026 as the year of Palestinian democracy. “The PA are behaving as what they are: toadies of the people who control and pay them, which is the Americans, the Israelis, and various Gulf and European countries. They represent no one but themselves and their private interests. They don’t represent Palestinians. They are acting as subcontractors for the Israeli occupation. The Israeli army is extremely happy with their performance in handing over information,” Khalidi says, pointing to a Haaretz article in which Israeli military officials praise increased cooperation with the PA. He describes this era as “one of the worst periods in Palestinian history” but adds: “If you travel around Palestine, you see villages not moving, people refusing to move and sticking to their land despite enormous harassment and sometimes attacks by Israeli settlers and the military.” In Gaza, where Israel has killed more than 70,000 people, people are also not going anywhere, Khalidi says. “In an interview in Egypt, I was asked: ‘Is it cruel to not allow Palestinians to leave Gaza?’ And I said if there were a mass demand for Palestinians to leave Gaza, then yes that’s absolutely cruel. “But you don’t have such demands. They know they would be even more miserable as refugees in Egypt or in exile elsewhere than they are today, living under the rain, without proper tents, suffering hypothermia and hunger. And that is a fact that Israel can’t change.” What else we’ve been reading I genuinely will never ever tire of hearing my colleague Robyn Vinter tell of the time she went out to do a bit of reporting and got snowed in at a pub for four days. Martin Davos is an irrelevance in today’s world, Larry Davies writes, so it was apt that Trump was there to deliver the “coup de grace” to the international rules-based order. Aamna Paula Cocozza correctly identifies Minecraft – where I first encountered them – as a factor in the axolotl craze sweeping the globe. So, so cute. Martin Jacket potatoes were once an uninspiring lunch option. But as Sammy Gecsoyler notes in his amusing feature, their moment has arrived. Aamna For The Face, Phin Jennings profiles Jack Anderton, the 25-year-old behind Nigel Farage’s social media efforts to reach young voters as a “straight-talking, cigs-and-pints aficionado uncle”. Martin Sport Football | Mohamed Salah went straight back into Liverpool’s team in a 3-0 win in Marseille that boosts their hopes of automatic qualification for the Champions League last 16. Newcastle, pictured, took early control against PSV but Bruno Guimarães went off injured early in the second half of their 3-0 win. Moisés Caicedo’s late header ensured a 1-0 victory for Chelsea against Pafos despite the Cypriot side causing plenty of frustration for their hosts. Full Champions League coverage Australian Open | Novak Djokovic has eased into the third round with a clinical win over Francesco Maestrelli 6-3 6-2 6-2. Emma Raducanu refused to be too critical of herself after crashing out in the second round. Women’s sport | A survey has found widespread sexual misconduct in elite UK sport, with 88% of women saying they were targeted in the past five years. The front pages “Trump claims that ‘framework future deal’ on Greenland agreed” is how the Guardian headlines its top story of the day. The Times has “Trump hails Greenland deal ‘for all Nato nations’” and the Mail runs with “Trump: I’ve struck a deal for my big, beautiful piece of ice”. The Telegraph says, incorrectly, “Trump strikes Greenland deal”. The Financial Times’ take is “Trump rules out seizing Greenland by force but demands negotiations”. The Mirror focuses instead on the “Delusional president’s rant” at Davos, dubbing him “Daddy fool”. “Trump’s boy saves my life with 999 call during attack” – rather strange Metro story about Barron Trump supposedly saving a woman he was FaceTiming in the UK from her violent Russian boyfriend. The Express alights on “Our struggling pubs will face years of tax”. Today in Focus Will Trump’s board of peace replace the UN? Trump’s board of peace includes Putin, Netanyahu and Tony Blair. What on earth will it do? Julian Borger reports Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings The Upside A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad A chance encounter at a protest in southern Russia revealed the quiet reach of Ored Recordings, a label preserving endangered Circassian music. Its co-founder Bulat Khalilov documents chants, laments and family songs recorded in kitchens and at gatherings – a practice he calls “punk ethnography”. “As kids, we carried a kind of internalised self-doubt, shaped by Soviet and post-Soviet attitudes that framed local culture as backward,” Khalilov explains. The label releases music each year in May on the Day of Mourning, linking history to the present. Now based in Germany, the label continues to connect diaspora communities, showing how music can carry memory, identity and hope across borders. “Over time, we realised that it’s not trauma or a victim narrative that gives value to the music – it’s the stories behind it. If we want anything to change, we must speak about it.” Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday Bored at work? And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow. Martin Belam’s Thursday news quiz Quick crossword Cryptic crossword Wordiply

New Zealand storms: people missing after landslide hits campsite as minister compares east coast to ‘war zone’

Emergency services in New Zealand are searching for several people, including a child, believed missing after a landslide hit a campsite during storms that have caused widespread damage across the North Island. Emergency minister Mark Mitchell told RNZ that parts of the east coast looked like “a war zone”, with helicopters deployed to rescue families sheltering on rooftops from flooding, and local states of emergency declared in five regions across Northland and the East Cape due to days of record-breaking torrential rain. The landslide struck on Thursday morning at a campground in the tourist hotspot of Mount Maunganui on the east coast. Mitchell confirmed that a young girl was among those unaccounted for. “It’s a fluid and sensitive issue at the moment,” he said. “Everyone is working as hard as they can to get the best possible resolution possible, but in no doubt at all it is a very difficult and challenging situation.” Fire and Emergency NZ spokesman William Pike said the first people on the scene heard calls for help from inside the landslip. “Members of the public ... tried to get into the rubble and did hear some voices,” he said. “Our initial fire crew arrived and had the same were able to hear the same.” Footage from Mount Maunganui revealed overturned camper vans and upturned trees. Witnesses told local news outlets they heard an incredibly loud noise before seeing a large chunk of hillside hit the campsite. Alister McHardy, a fisherman who was nearby, told the NZ Herald said he heard “rolling thunder and cracking of trees”, before looking up and seeing “the whole hillside gave way”. “There were people running and screaming and I saw people get bowled. There are people trapped,” he said. Tauranga – the closest city to Mount Maunganui – received 295mm of rain in the 30 hours to 6am, before the landslide hit around 9.30am. Mount Maunganui’s population booms over summer as holidaymakers flock to the area’s beautiful beaches. The mountain, a volcanic dome at the end of peninsula, attracts tens of thousands of visitors during the same period. An Australian man, Sonny Worrall, narrowly escaped the landslide while swimming in a nearby pool. “As I’m swimming I heard this huge landslide behind me, trees cracking, there was a caravan that almost hit me. I had to dive in the next pool,” he told news outlet Stuff. “It was the scariest thing I’ve ever felt in my life,” he said. In Papamoa, south of Mount Maunganui, one person suffered serious injuries and another two people are missing after a landslide hit a home at 4am on Thursday. Police are resuming efforts to find a man in his 40s who was swept away at a river crossing near Warkworth, north of Auckland, on Wednesday. Images soon began circulating showing flooded houses, farmland and community centres and roads cut off by landslides, and stories of harrowing escapes and incredible rescues are emerging. A community came to the aid of a 94-year-old man trapped by flood waters in Coromandel, while a woman was rescued by kayak as neck-high, fast-flowing water surrounded her home. Tairāwhiti Fire and Emergency said it had rescued people from rooftops. Its photos showed houses inundated with logging waste, mud and water, and cars and fences largely buried. “These are not training images,” the department wrote. “This is Punaruku, Te Araroa, this morning.” Prime minister Christopher Luxon said the government was doing everything it could to support those affected by the extreme weather and thanked emergency crews for their efforts. “All those who are putting themselves in harm’s way to keep Kiwis safe, the whole country is grateful,” he said. A tropical low is expected to bring more heavy rain on Thursday, the National Emergency Management Agency said. “Rain is falling on ground that’s already saturated, meaning impacts like fallen trees, landslides, flooding and dangerous river conditions are more likely.”

Trump declaration of Greenland framework deal met with scepticism amid tariff relief

Donald Trump’s announcement of a “framework of a future deal” that would settle the issue of Greenland after weeks of escalating threats has been met with profound scepticism from people in the Arctic territory, even as financial markets rebounded and European leaders welcomed a reprieve from further tariffs. Just hours after the president used his speech at the World Economic Forum to insist he wanted Greenland, “including right, title and ownership,” but backed away from his more bellicose threats of military intervention – Trump took to social media to announce “the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland” and withdrew the threat of tariffs against eight European countries. He later called it “a concept of a deal” when he spoke to business network CNBC soon after Wall Street closed. “The day ended better than it started,” said Danish foreign minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen. “Now, let’s sit down and find out how we can address the American security concerns in the Arctic while respecting the red lines of the Kingdom of Denmark,” he said. Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, also welcomed Trump’s decision, but Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte, who negotiated Wednesday’s deal with Trump, issued a note of caution, saying there remained “a lot of work to be done”. When asked by Fox News if Greenland would remain a part of the Kingdom of Denmark under the deal, Rutte said the issue had not come up, and offered few further details about the agreement. A Nato spokesperson later stated that Rutte did not propose any compromise on Greenland’s sovereignty during his talks with Trump. Trump himself gave few further details on the agreement, but said talks were continuing concerning a US missile defence shield that would be in part based in Greenland. But there was anger from some Danish MPs, including Sascha Faxe who was angered by Greenland’s exclusion from Wednesday’s negotiations. “It’s not real negotiations; it’s two men who have had a conversation,” she told Sky News. “There can’t be a deal without having Greenland as part of the negotiations.” According to media reports, the compromise deal could see the US granted sovereignty over small pockets of Greenland where military bases are located, with unnamed officials in the Telegraph comparing the proposal to the UK military’s bases in Cyprus, which are regarded as British territory. The US already has extensive access to the territory, and under the terms of multiple agreements – some going back decades – has the option to widen that access by building bases and carrying out military activities. The framework would also potentially allow the US to mine for rare earth minerals, without seeking permission from Denmark, according to the Telegraph. It remains unclear whether Denmark has signed up to the deal, but on Wednesday night Aaja Chemnitz Larsen, a Greenlandic member of the Danish parliament, said that the idea that Nato should have anything to say about the territory’s sovereignty or minerals was “completely out of the question”. After days of ratcheting tensions which signalled the deepest rupture in transatlantic relations in decades – and saw Canadian prime minister Mark Carney issue a stirring eulogy for the rules-based order on Tuesday – Trump’s reasons for apparently backing down remain unclear. Sweden’s minister for foreign affairs, Maria Stenergard, said the work of Europe’s allies has “had an effect” and she reiterated that they would not be “blackmailed”. The Dutch prime minister, Dick Schoof, called Trump’s decision to waive threatened tariffs against European allies a sign of “de-escalation”. Trump had threatened Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands and Finland with tariffs of 10% from 1 February over their opposition to the US takeover of Greenland. Others pointed to wobbles on the financial markets, after Trump’s more hawkish comments on Greenland on Tuesday led to a sharp selloff on the US share markets. Global markets rebounded on Wednesday after Trump’s announced the framework deal and reneged his threat of tariffs. “The market bounced when he said we wouldn’t use force,” said Mark Hackett, chief market strategist at Nationwide in Boston, while financial analyst Matthew Smart said “uncertainty just got priced out.” Others noted that Trump has a history of making escalating threats, only to pull back when financial markets start falling. After he reined in his global trade war in April last year, following a rout in the markers, the Financial Times came up with the acronym “Taco” – “Trump Always Chickens Out” – to describe the phenomenon. US publication Semafor reported that Trump appeared frustrated by the turn in the markets this week, and noted that his antagonism towards European allies came with huge risks. “Countries like the UK, Belgium, and France hold trillions of dollars in US assets like treasuries. If they decide to sell those, it could send interest rates skyrocketing,” Semafor reported. In Greenland however, Trump’s announcement was greeted with serious scepticism. “He’s lying,” said one main in the capital Nuuk, who was interviewed by the AFP news agency. That sentiment was shared by care worker Anak, who told AFP “Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders.”

Trump walks back Greenland tariffs threat, citing vague ‘deal’ over territory

Donald Trump has walked back his threat to impose sweeping US tariffs on eight European countries, claiming he had agreed “the framework of a future deal” on Greenland. Four days after vowing to introduce steep import duties on a string of US allies over their support for Greenland’s continued status as an autonomous Danish territory, the president backed down. The US will not hit Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands and Finland with tariffs of 10% from 1 February after all, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. Over the weekend, he had also threatened to lift the tariffs to 25% from 1 June. The threat had prompted widespread apprehension; criticism from senior European politicians, who declared they “will not allow ourselves to be blackmailed”; and warnings from economists. After what he called a “very productive” meeting with the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, on Wednesday, Trump claimed he had formed “the framework” of a deal over Greenland, without providing more information. “Based upon this understanding, I will not be imposing the Tariffs that were scheduled to go into effect on February 1,” the president said. Trump did not give further details of the agreement, but said talks were continuing concerning a US missile defense shield that would be in part based in Greenland. The deal would be in force “for ever”, he claimed at the Davos economic forum in Switzerland. “We have a concept of a deal. I think it’s going to be a very good deal for the United States, also for them,” Trump told CNBC, the financial news network. “It’s a little bit complex, but we’ll explain it down the line.” A Nato spokesperson, Allison Hart, said: “Discussions among Nato allies on the framework the president referenced will focus on ensuring Arctic security through the collective efforts of allies, especially the seven Arctic allies. She added: “Negotiations between Denmark, Greenland, and the United States will go forward aimed at ensuring that Russia and China never gain a foothold – economically or militarily – in Greenland.” But Rutte, secretary general of the alliance, sounded a note of caution. “I think it was a very good meeting tonight,” he told the AFP news agency. “But there’s still a lot of work to be done.” Denmark’s foreign minister said Trump had sent positive signals by saying he would not use military force to seize Greenland. “Trump said that he will pause the trade war. He says: ‘I will not attack Greenland.’ These are positive messages,” Lars Løkke Rasmussen told Danish public television DR. Trump “also had a good conversation with the Nato general secretary”, he said, without giving details. At a Nato meeting on Wednesday, military officers from member states of the transatlantic alliance discussed a compromise through which the US would be granted sovereignty over small pockets of Greenland, the New York Times reported, citing three unnamed senior officials. Two of the officials compared the proposal with the UK’s military bases in Cyprus, which are regarded as British territory, it said. Aaja Chemnitz Larsen, a Greenlandic member of the Danish parliament, wrote on Facebook Wednesday night that, despite Trump’s claim of having struck an agreement over her homeland with Nato, the military alliance has no mandate to negotiate anything about Greenland. “Nothing about us, without us,” she wrote. Amid rumors that a mineral deal might have been discussed by Trump and Rutte in Davos, Chemnitz Larsen called the idea that Nato should have anything to say about Greenland’s sovereignty or minerals “completely out of the question”. Sascha Faxe, a member of Denmark’s parliament, said in an interview with Sky News on Wednesday evening, that the deal Trump claims to have struck with Nato over Greenland is “not real”. “The thing is, there can’t be a deal without having Greenland as part of the negotiations, first of all,” Faxe said. She went on to reference Chemnitz Larsen’s earlier comments, saying: “I have heard from the Greenlanders that I know – so we have a Greenlandic MP in Denmark – and she’s very clear that this is not a prerogative of Rutte and Nato; they can’t trade the underground in Greenland, or Greenlandic security without Greenlanders being part of it. “And they are very clear: Greenland is not for sale, they are not up for negotiations,” Faxe added. “So it’s not real negotiations, it’s two men who have had a conversation,” she said. “It’s definitely not a deal.” Hours before climbing down on tariffs, during a rambling speech in Davos, Trump said the US would not use force to seize Greenland, but stressed that he still planned to wield his nation’s economic and diplomatic power to obtain it – and extolled the benefits of US tariffs. “You’re all party to them – in some cases, victims to them,” he told the assembled delegates from around the world. “But in the end, it’s a fair thing, and most of you realize that.” Yet the US president has repeatedly backed down from his most extreme threats on tariffs – most notably last spring, when he hailed the start of a new era for the US economy, only to shelve a vast wave of tariffs. Concern over Trump’s aggressive trade strategy is not just international, but domestic. His tariffs have repeatedly raised fears for the US economy. Wall Street suffered its worst day since October on Tuesday, the first day it traded after Trump’s threat to attack Nato allies with tariffs over Greenland. The US president pays close attention to stock-market movements, and mentioned them several times in his speech on Wednesday. He claimed credit for the fact they had hit a series of record highs since he returned to office, but acknowledged they dipped this week “because of Iceland”, apparently meaning his pursuit of Greenland. Trump’s recent obsession with Greenland, after the US toppled the regime of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, has rattled global officials in recent weeks. Trump claims that Denmark owes Greenland to the US because it helped defend the territory during the second world war, which has been debunked, and that the US needs the territory for national security purposes. In his speech at Davos, Trump said the US would not use military force to take Greenland but demanded “immediate negotiations”. “We want a piece of ice for world protection, and they won’t give it,” Trump said. “We’ve never asked for anything else.” His climbdown on tariffs came hours after the European parliament suspended indefinitely the ratification of the US-EU tariff deal sealed last summer, in a move that showed politicians were, for the first time, willing to face Trump down.

Hong Kong national security trial of three pro-democracy activists to open

The national security trial of three pro-democracy activists who organised an annual memorial in Hong Kong to mark the Tiananmen Square massacre opened on Thursday, in another landmark case brought under the Beijing-imposed law that has practically crushed protests in the semiautonomous Chinese city. Chow Hang-tung, Lee Cheuk-yan and Albert Ho are charged with inciting subversion under Hong Kong’s national security law. Their trial is one of the most high-profile national security cases to be heard in Hong Kong since Beijing imposed the law in 2020. The defendants face a maximum penalty of 10 years’ imprisonment if convicted. The law has a near-100% conviction rate. The three defendants were key members of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, the group that for decades organised the annual vigil for the victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing. As they entered the courtroom, Lee waved at his supporters, who waved back and said “good morning” to him. Ho sat calmly. Chow thanked her supporters for enduring the windy weather during the night and bowed to her supporters. Minutes later, Lee and Chow pleaded not guilty, while Ho entered a guilty plea, which could help him get a sentence reduction. Until the vigil was banned in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic, amid a crackdown on free expression in Hong Kong, it was the only mass memorial event for the massacre on Chinese territory. For decades, it was a symbol of Hong Kong’s autonomy from mainland China, an identity that persisted even after Hong Kong was returned from British to Chinese rule in 1997. Before sunrise, dozens of people had queued outside the court building to secure a seat in the public gallery under a cold-weather warning. Tang Ngok-kwan, a former core member of the alliance, has been queuing since Monday afternoon. He said he wanted to show support for his former colleagues in detention. “They use their freedom to exchange for a dignified defence,” he said. “It’s about being accountable to history.” Critics say their case shows that Beijing’s promise to keep the city’s western-style civil liberties intact for 50 years when the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997 has weakened over time. But the city’s government said its law enforcement actions were evidence-based and strictly in accordance with the law. Chow, an internationally lauded human rights barrister, has been detained for more than four years awaiting trial. Lee and Ho, former Hong Kong legislators, have also been previously sentenced for convictions of unauthorised assembly in relation to protests and vigils held during the 2019-20 pro-democracy movement. Ho was part of a group of activists who were convicted for organising and participating in an unauthorised assembly in August 2019. In 2024, that conviction was upheld by judges on Hong Kong’s top court, a panel which included the British judge David Neuberger. The annual vigil organised by the Hong Kong Alliance attracted tens of thousands of attenders each year. Organisers estimated that 180,000 people attended the 2019 vigil, which was held days before Hong Kong erupted in a series of protests against the Chinese Communist party’s tightening grip on the city. Under increasing pressure from the authorities, the Alliance disbanded in 2021. Three government-vetted judges will preside over the trial, which is expected to last 75 days. Videos related to the alliance’s years of work will be part of the prosecution evidence. The judges had said the court will not allow the trial to become a tool of political suppression in the name of the law. In reading out the case details that Ho pleaded guilty to, prosecutor Ned Lai took issue with the alliance’s call of ending one-party rule. Lai alleged that ending the Chinese Communist party’s leadership was against the constitution, and there were no legal means to do it. In a prosecution opening statement published on the judiciary’s website, it alleged that the Hong Kong alliance had used the pretext of democracy or the “June 4th incident”, alongside negative content targeting the country, to promote its calls. June 4 marks the anniversary of the crackdown. The prosecution alleged the alliance’s core demand of “ending one-party rule” must require acts that violate the Chinese constitution, and that was using “unlawful means” to subvert state power. Although the defendants may not have explicitly mentioned specific plans or means to achieve the illegal goal, the natural and reasonable effect of their words was to aim at ending the party’s leadership, it alleged. Sarah Brooks, Amnesty International’s deputy regional director for Asia, said: “This case is not about national security – it is about rewriting history and punishing those who refuse to forget the victims of the Tiananmen crackdown.” Mark Clifford, the president of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation, said: “The Chinese regime will stop at nothing to erase history and silence those who seek to keep the truth of Tiananmen alive. Chow Hang-tung, Lee Cheuk-yan and Albert Ho are courageous patriots who have devoted their lives to representing Chinese people denied basic rights. Sadly, they are also symbols of how far Hong Kong’s once-respected justice system has fallen, persecuted for demanding that Beijing keep its promises to the people of Hong Kong.”

Sheinbaum defends transfer of Mexican cartel members amid efforts to appease Trump

Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum has defended the latest transfer of 37 Mexican cartel operatives to the US as a “sovereign decision”, as her government strives to alleviate pressure from the Trump administration to do more against drug-trafficking groups. It was the third such flight in the year since Donald Trump returned to the White House, but analysts warn that while it remains an effective pressure valve, the returns may be diminishing. “I think they will have to find other solutions, and the issue of [Mexican] politicians connected to criminal networks is going to have ever more weight,” said Rodrigo Peña, a security expert. “There will be more pressure on the president to confront these networks.” Since Trump returned to White House he has repeatedly stated that Mexico is “run by cartels”, demanding Sheinbaum do more to take them on, under the looming threat of unilateral action. That threat weighs heavier than ever since the US military extracted Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela at the start of the year, and amid ongoing strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats in the Pacific and Caribbean. Since then, the US government has reportedly redoubled its push for the US military to be involved in joint operations on Mexican soil to dismantle laboratories making fentanyl, the potent synthetic opioid behind the US overdose crisis. But the prospect of US boots on the ground in Mexico is a sensitive issue given the history of US interventions in the country, and Sheinbaum has repeatedly rejected the offer as a matter of sovereignty. Sheinbaum has instead offered another planeload of cartel operatives plucked from Mexican prisons, including high-level figures from the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación and Cartel del Noreste, two of the country’s powerful organised crime groups. They also included Pedro Inzunza Noriega, a fentanyl trafficker who in May 2025 was the first person to be charged with narco-terrorism by the US Department of Justice. Experts in Mexico have questioned the legal grounds for the flights, which are being conducted outside the usual extradition process. But Omar García Harfuch, Mexico’s security minister, wrote on X that the people were “high impact criminals” who “represented a real threat to the country’s security” In theory, the 92 cartel figures sent so far are a potential trove for US law enforcement agencies that want to build cases, said Peña. “But I think the security policy of the Trump administration is so aggressive, so unilateral, so war-like, than they are less focused on intelligence work and more on other kinds of pressure – like what we saw in the Caribbean,” he added. The cost of unilateral action in Mexico would be far higher for the US than it was in Venezuela, given the political turmoil it would provoke in Mexico and the near trillion-dollar annual trade relationship the two countries share. But the US-Mexico-Canada free trade deal that binds the three countries is being renegotiated – and the trade and security agendas have become entangled. “The security agenda is no longer separate from trade negotiations – and that could completely pollute or derail those negotiations,” said Diego Marroquín Bitar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a thinktank in Washington DC. To stave off the threat of tariffs, the Mexican government has already helped the Trump administration with another aspect of its security agenda – the US-Mexico border – by suppressing the number of migrants arriving there and receiving deportees. “But that’s not enough for this administration: they expect more,” said Marroquín. “I think what they want is for the Mexican government to go after politicians: people in power who are associated with these [drug-trafficking] organisations. And the question is: ‘Is Sheinbaum willing to go after them?’ Because some of these people are going to be from her own party.”

How Badenoch’s meeting with Mike Johnson led to Trump’s Chagos deal rant

When Kemi Badenoch met Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, on Monday evening, she pressed him on two issues: the Chagos Islands deal and North Sea oil drilling. Neither participant was part of their respective executive branch, and neither issue was at the centre of the crisis that has engulfed transatlantic politics. But before long, the meeting had some very real political consequences. The brief encounter set off a chain of events including a call from Johnson to Donald Trump, a social media blast from the US president against the Chagos deal, and on Wednesday, an unprecedented public rebuff to Trump from Keir Starmer. “President Trump deployed words on Chagos yesterday that were different to his previous words of welcome and support. He deployed those words for the express purpose of putting pressure on me and Britain,” the prime minister told the Commons. “He wants me to yield on my position, and I’m not going to do so … I will not yield. Britain will not yield on our principles and values about the future of Greenland and the threats of tariffs.” The developments of the past 48 hours initially blindsided Downing Street but have resulted in a new, more combative stance from the prime minister. One that, some believe, could fundamentally alter the dynamic in his relationship with Trump and redraw US-UK relations for the foreseeable future. “The future of Greenland is for people of Greenland and Kingdom of Denmark alone, and tariffs to pressure allies is completely wrong,” a spokesperson for the prime minister said afterwards. “This is a significant moment, a national moment.” The Labour government agreed in October 2024 to hand over sovereignty of Chagos to Mauritius. Under the terms of the deal, the UK will maintain an initial 99-year lease of Diego Garcia, where it runs a military base jointly with the US, at a cost projected officially to be £3.4bn. The deal was agreed under pressure from Washington, British officials say, adding that their American counterparts were worried about what would happen to the base if Mauritius won a case at the international court of justice over its sovereignty. Almost immediately, the Reform leader Nigel Farage started warning that the incoming Trump administration did not like the deal, telling the Commons it had been an “enormous mistake” to sign it before the election. Farage’s warnings prompted an intensive lobbying operation from Downing Street. Officials, led by the then ambassador to the US, Peter Mandelson, hurried to reassure Trump’s allies the deal was in US interests. They believed they had been successful when Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, signed a statement last May backing the deal. “Following a comprehensive interagency review, the Trump administration determined that this agreement secures the long-term, stable, and effective operation of the joint US-UK military facility at Diego Garcia,” Rubio wrote. One person involved said persuading Rubio to sign that statement took “a lot of talk, explaining and persuading” from the British side. But while those talks were taking place, British conservatives also kept pressing their case. Last September, a group of prominent right-wingers – including the Conservative MP Iain Duncan Smith, the Labour peer Kate Hoey and the television historian David Starkey – wrote a letter to Trump arguing China and Russia could use the deal to work against US military interests. One of those who signed was the British-American commentator Nile Gardiner, a key intermediary between those close to Farage and the Trump administration. For several months the efforts failed, with no sign of the US administration shifting position. But as Trump has renewed his interest in taking over Greenland in recent days, British right-wingers saw an opportunity to press their case again. On Monday night, according to Tory sources, Badenoch told Johnson that even though the US had welcomed the deal, it was actually weakening British and American interests. The message was repeated to the speaker on GB News by Farage himself, who said: “I don’t know why America has not been more forthright in saying this is a bad idea.” That evening, Johnson was later to tell MPs, he spoke to Trump, where British officials believe he raised the Chagos issue. Hours later, the president’s bombshell dropped on his Truth Social platform. “The UK giving away extremely important land is an act of GREAT STUPIDITY, and is another in a very long line of National Security reasons why Greenland has to be acquired,” he wrote. Some Labour figures believe the government’s position has not been helped by the fact there is no permanent ambassador in Washington to make the counter argument. Christian Turner, Mandelson’s replacement, will not begin until the beginning of February. Starmer argued on Wednesday that Trump’s real purpose was to put pressure on him to acquiesce to the president’s plan to buy Greenland, rather than to unravel the Chagos deal itself. His allies point out the fact that they were mentioned in the same sentence, and insist they will continue to pilot the legislation ratifying it through parliament. While the president’s post about Chagos might have prompted Starmer’s unusually outspoken criticism of the president, the prime minister’s allies say he had been toying with taking a tougher stance since the weekend when Trump began threatening Denmark’s allies with additional tariffs. One ally said the prime minister regarded the threat of tariffs as “completely unacceptable” and made him rethink his previously cautious approach to criticising the president in public. Allies also say he feels particularly aggrieved that Trump has criticised the UK despite its military assistance when the US recently seized a Russian oil tanker in the Atlantic. Starmer was also motivated by domestic political concerns however, hoping to depict Badenoch as supine before the Trump administration, and Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader, as only interested in gesture politics. “Using the use of tariffs to pressure allies is completely wrong,” Starmer’s spokesperson said on Wednesday. “But [the prime minister] also set out the importance of the US-UK relationship, not least for Ukraine, in the face of leaders like Ed Davey reaching for gesture politics over a really serious issue.” Despite all the bluster of this week however, the political realities are unchanged. Starmer is pressing ahead with the Chagos deal, while Trump is threatening Greenland but is promising not to use force to take control of the territory. As Starmer’s official spokesperson told reporters on Wednesday: “The situation remains the same.”

Concern over north-east Syria security amid fears IS militants could re-emerge

Concerned western officials said they were closely monitoring the deteriorating security situation in north-east Syria amid fears that Islamic State militants could re-emerge after the Kurdish defeat at the hands of the Damascus government. The US military said it had transported “150 IS fighters” from a frontline prison in Hasakah province across the border to Iraq, and said it was willing to move up to 7,000 to prevent what it warned could be a dangerous breakout. Kurdish sources said the prison involved was Panorama, which holds men from numerous countries – including a handful from the UK – though there was no detail on who had been rendered across the border. The dramatic advance of Syrian government forces, halted by a fragile ceasefire on Tuesday, resulted in prisons holding former IS fighters and a camp of over 23,000 IS women and children changing hands in a chaotic fashion within a few days. Though other high-profile female detainees, such as Shamima Begum, are thought to remain in the still Kurdish-controlled al-Roj camp in the extreme north-east of Syria, reports of escapes and a loss of control remain a source of anxiety in Europe. Reprieve, a human rights campaign group, estimates there are about 55 men, women and children from the UK or with a claim to UK nationality held in north-east Syria, though many – like Begum – have had their British citizenship removed. An estimated 120 IS militants escaped on Monday from the Shaddadi prison after it was seized from Syrian Kurdish forces in a bloody fight, although the Syrian government said that 81 had been recaptured since. Al-Hawl camp, holding more than 20,000 women, originally from about 70 countries, changed hands on Tuesday amid conflicting reports that at least some of the women detained there had been able to leave after Kurdish forces departed. Humanitarian organisations providing food, water and heating materials for al-Hawl, which lies in hostile desert, said they had not been able to visit since Sunday and were concerned that the situation there could become more unstable. European officials warned that many militants in the prisons and camps were considered to be dangerous, though it was unclear how far they would be able to regroup, and whether the Syrian government led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, the president, would clamp down on them as had the Syrian Kurds. IS was territorially defeated in 2019, with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) military led by Kurdish fighters acting as ground troops. Thousands of male militants were detained in prisons, while women and children were moved to camps, from where some have been gradually repatriated while others have remained for years. The SDF remained in control, as an effective government in north-eastern Syria during the final years of al-Assad’s regime in Damascus. But when al-Assad was ousted in December 2024 by al-Sharaa’s Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), it led to an uncertain situation with the SDF unwilling to fully integrate into the new Syria. Nanar Hawach, a Syria expert and analyst with Crisis Group, said there was a danger was “not a reborn caliphate but a dispersed insurgency rebuilding in the cracks”. Prison breaks “may have released experienced operatives into a contested security environment” between Syrian government and SDF forces, he said. On Tuesday, the US signalled it had abandoned its support for the SDF. Tom Barrack, the US special envoy for Syria, said: “The original purpose of the SDF as the primary anti-Isis force on the ground has largely expired” and Washington’s partner in holding down IS was the Damascus government. Though HTS has its origins as an offshoot of al-Qaida, the terror group, it has had a history of opposing IS, and cut its ties with al-Qaida in 2016. Before beginning its offensive on Damascus, al-Sharaa emphasised that HTS had moved on, though there has been sectarian violence targeting Alawite, Druze and Kurdish minorities. Hawach said that the new Syrian government “clearly wants to be seen as a counter-terrorism partner” – but he cautioned that “securing Isis detention facilities, managing camps like al-Hawl, and suppressing sleeper cells across newly acquired territory requires resources, discipline, and institutional capacity that the Syrian government is still building”. A lightning offensive by the Syrian government forces, starting over the weekend, led to rapid gains from the SDF. The city of Raqqa was captured on Sunday and the SDF agreed to hand over the provinces of Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor for a ceasefire. That broke down almost immediately, and government forces made more gains. Al-Sharaa agreed to a fresh ceasefire on Tuesday, a day after he had spoken to Donald Trump. The US president said he had been “trying to protect the Kurds”, though it is unclear if the SDF will agree to al-Sharaa’s demands or risk another round of fighting. The SDF leader, Mazloum Abdi, had been given four days from Tuesday to consult Kurdish leaders over accepting the Syrian government’s demands for close integration with Damascus.