Donald Trump

June 5 (UPI) — NATO defense ministers are proposing a 5% annual investment in defense spending by member nations to enhance defensive capabilities during a meeting in Brussels on Thursday.

The proposed defense investment plan would require member nations to invest 5% of their respective gross domestic products in defense, NATO officials announced.

The change would make NATO a “stronger, fairer, more lethal alliance and ensure warfighting readiness for years to come,” according to NATO.

The ministers’ plan describes “exactly what capabilities allies need to invest over their coming years … to keep our deterrence and defense strong and our one billion people safe,” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said.

U.S. supports increased NATO member spending

Many NATO members currently spend about 2% of their respective GDPs, which President Donald Trump has said is insufficient.

The 5% defense investment by NATO member states is virtually assured, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told media upon arriving for Thursday’s meeting.

“We’re here to continue the work that President Trump started, which is a commitment to 5% defense spending across this alliance, which we think will happen,” Hegseth said.

“There are a few countries that are not quite there yet,” Hegseth added. “I won’t name any names, [but] we will get them there.”

If approved during the upcoming NATO Summit, defense investments would require respective member nations to spend equal to 3.5% of GDP on core defense spending, plus 1.5% in annual defense and security investments, including infrastructure.

The two-day NATO Summit is scheduled to start on June 24 at The Hague.

Ukraine support and nuclear deterrence

An ad hoc NATO-Ukraine Council also met and reaffirmed NATO’s support of Ukraine and agreed that nuclear deterrence is its primary goal.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov and European Union Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Minister Kaja Kallas joined the council to discuss support for Ukraine.

Rutte said NATO allies have pledged nearly $23 billion in security assistance for Ukraine in 2025 and are focused on preventing the use of nuclear weapons by Russia and other nations.

The final meeting of NATO ministers during the summit also affirmed the alliance’s focus on nuclear deterrence.

“Nuclear deterrence remains the cornerstone of alliance security,” Rutte said.

“We will ensure that NATO’s nuclear capability remains strong and effective in order to preserve peace, prevent coercion and deter aggression.”

Trump nominates U.S. general for NATO commander

Trump also nominated U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich to lead combined U.S. and NATO forces in Europe.

If approved during the NATO Summit, Grynkewich would become NATO’s supreme allied commander for Europe and commander of the U.S. European Command.

Trump is scheduled to attend the NATO Summit.

If approved by NATO member states, Grynkewich would replace current Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Chris Cavoli.

Grynkewich is an experienced fighter pilot, and his nomination affirms that the United States would continue to emphasize defensive security for Europe.

A U.S. officer has been NATO’s supreme allied commander since Gen. Dwight Eisenhower first held the post in 1951.

June 5 (UPI) — Former Republican-turned Democrat Rep. David Jolly, D-Florida, has announced his intentions to enter the 2026 race for governor in a state largely dominated by GOP politics.

Jolly acknowledged his political disadvantage running for office in a state where Republicans maintain a fundraising advantage and statistically outnumber registered Democrats, but said he would try to win the support of nonpartisan voters who have been turned off by the highly fractious political climate.

“I’m for lower corporate taxes because I think it leads to greater economic growth,” Jolly said on his campaign website. “But I’m more for gun safety legislation because I think that reduces violence in our state.”

Jolly, who has been an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump and a centrist Republican, said his disagreements with the president were at least partly responsible for his decision to change parties.

Jolly posted on social media that Florida is in a crisis not just of policy, not “right versus left, but right versus wrong.”

Jolly has said he will focus on affordable housing, support a property tax cut, use the state’s tourist and development tax to create housing for the workforce and offer communities more block grants for housing.

He has also proposed restructuring Florida’s catastrophe insurance, replacing private insurance with state dollars in an effort to more effectively help residents who lose property during natural disasters. He said his plan could reduce homeowners insurance costs by as much as 60%.

Jolly flirted with a run for the U.S. Senate in 2016 but abandoned his efforts after Marco Rubio, now the U.S. Secretary of State who was eventually elected to the Senate from Florida, entered the race.

Jolly is the first Democrat to enter the 2026 gubernatorial race. He represented Pinellas County as a Republican in Congress from 2014-2017.

The United States was once Ukraine’s most important ally – supplying arms, funding and political cover as Kyiv fought for its sovereignty. But today, Washington is losing interest. President Donald Trump, more at home on the golf course than in a war room, is pulling away from a conflict he no longer seems to care to understand.

Trump has not hidden his disdain. He has echoed Kremlin narratives, questioned NATO’s relevance and reduced Ukraine’s defence to a punchline. Even his recent comment that Russian President Vladimir Putin has “gone absolutely crazy” does little to undo years of indulgence and indifference.

He has not become a credible peace broker or a consistent supporter of Ukraine. His words now carry little weight – and Kyiv is paying the price.

Just last week, Ukraine launched what it called Operation Spiderweb, a coordinated series of drone strikes deep inside Russian territory. Dozens of aircraft were destroyed at airfields, and key military infrastructure was disrupted. The White House swiftly denied any US involvement. Trump responded by again threatening to “walk away” from the war.

Shortly afterwards, a second round of peace talks in Istanbul collapsed. The only agreement reached was a sombre one: the exchange of the remains of 6,000 fallen soldiers. That may help bring closure to grieving families – but it has done nothing to alter the course of the war.

Trump’s belated proposal – relayed by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt – that he supports direct talks between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Putin sounded more like political theatre than diplomacy. The moment had already passed.

It is Trump – not Zelenskyy – who now lacks leverage. And with the US pulling back from its traditional security leadership, the burden is shifting decisively to Europe.

Despite the brutality of Russia’s invasion in 2022, American officials have frequently treated Kyiv as the side to pressure and Moscow as the side to appease. European leaders pushed back – but mostly with words. They posted pledges of “unwavering support” yet hesitated to take full ownership of Europe’s defence.

Now, as US military aid slows and Trump continues to distance himself from the war, Europe faces a historic reckoning.

For the first time in nearly 80 years, the continent stands alone. The future of NATO – the alliance created after World War II to ensure collective defence – is in question. Ukraine’s ability to resist Russian aggression increasingly depends on European guarantees.

Can Europe meet the moment? Can a loose coalition of willing nations evolve into a durable security bloc? And can it do so without the US?

As of early 2025, Ukraine was meeting roughly 40 percent of its own military needs, according to the Centre for Security and Cooperation in Kyiv. Europe provided 30 percent and the US the remaining 30 percent. To sustain the fight, Europe must now do more – quickly.

The alternative would be disastrous. The Kiel Institute for the World Economy has estimated that if Russia were to occupy Ukraine, it could cost Germany alone 10 to 20 times more than maintaining current levels of support – due to refugee flows, energy instability, economic disruptions and defence risks.

One of Ukraine’s most urgent needs is ammunition – particularly artillery shells. Until recently, the US was the main supplier. As American deliveries decline, Ukraine is burning through its reserves. Europe is now scrambling to fill the gap.

The problem is scale. Europe’s arms industry has long been underdeveloped. It is only now beginning to respond. According to European Union Commissioner for Defence and Space Andrius Kubilius, the bloc aims to produce 2 million artillery shells annually by the end of 2025. This would just meet Ukraine’s minimum battlefield requirements.

A particularly ambitious initiative is a Czech-led plan to procure and deliver up to 1.8 million shells to Ukraine by the end of next year. Confirmed by Czech President Petr Pavel in May and backed by Canada, Norway, the Netherlands, Denmark and other countries, the effort is one of the few on track to make a meaningful impact – if it arrives on time.

Germany has also moved beyond donations. In late May, Defence Minister Boris Pistorius signed an agreement with his Ukrainian counterpart, Rustem Umerov, to cofinance the production of long-range weapons inside Ukraine, tapping into local industrial and engineering capacity.

The United Kingdom remains one of Kyiv’s most dependable allies. On Wednesday, London announced a new 350-million-pound ($476m) drone package – part of a broader 4.5-billion-pound ($6.1bn) support pledge. It includes 100,000 drones by 2026, a substantial increase on previous commitments.

But war is not waged with weapons alone. Financial and economic power matter too.

Trump recently told Fox News that US taxpayer money was being “pissed away” in Ukraine. The remark was not only crude – it was also misleading.

Since 2022, the US has provided about $128bn in aid to Ukraine, including $66.5bn in military assistance. Meanwhile, the EU and its member states have contributed about 135 billion euros ($155bn), including 50 billion euros ($57bn) in military support, 67 billion euros ($77bn) in financial and humanitarian aid, and 17 billion euros ($19.5bn) for refugee programmes. The UK has added another 12.8 billion pounds ($17.4 billion).

These are not gifts. They are strategic investments – meant to prevent far higher costs if Russia succeeds in its imperial project.

Europe has also led on sanctions. Since 2014 – and with renewed urgency since 2022 – it has imposed 17 successive rounds of measures targeting Russia’s economy. None has ended the war, but each has taken a toll.

On May 20, one day after a reportedly warm call between Trump and Putin, the EU and UK unveiled their most sweeping sanctions package yet. It included nearly 200 vessels from Russia’s so-called shadow fleet, used to smuggle oil and circumvent global price caps.

Some estimates, including AI-assisted modelling, suggest the sanctions could cost Russia $10bn to $20bn per year if loopholes are closed and enforcement holds. Even partial implementation would disrupt Moscow’s wartime revenue.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas was clear: “The longer Russia wages war, the tougher our response.” Europe is beginning to back that promise with action.

From drones to shells, sanctions to weapons production, the continent is finally moving from statements to strategy – slowly but steadily building the foundations of Ukrainian resilience and Russian defeat.

But this momentum cannot stall. This is no longer just Ukraine’s war.

The US has stepped aside. Europe is no longer the backup plan. It is the last line of defence. If it fails, so does Ukraine – and with it, the idea of a secure, sovereign Europe.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Published on
06/06/2025 – 6:42 GMT+2

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In three hours on Thursday, shares in Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company plunged by more than 14% in a stunning wipeout, as investors dumped their holdings amid a bitter war of words between the president and the world’s richest man.

By the end of the trading day, $150 billion (€139bn) of Tesla’s market value had been erased — more than what it would take to buy all the shares of Starbucks and hundreds of other big publicly traded US companies.

The disagreement started over the president’s budget bill, then quickly turned nasty after Musk said that Trump wouldn’t have been elected without his help. Trump then implied that he may turn the federal government against Musk’s companies, including Tesla and SpaceX.

“The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts,” Trump wrote on his social messaging service Truth Social. “I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!”

The drop on Thursday partially reversed a big run-up in the eight weeks since Musk confirmed that Tesla would be testing an autonomous, driverless “robotaxi” service in Austin, Texas, this month.

Investors fear Trump might not be in such a rush to usher in a future of self-driving cars in the US, and that could hit Tesla.

“The whole goal of robotaxis is to have them in 20 or 25 cities next year,” Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives, said. “If you start to heighten the regulatory environment, that could delay that path.”

He added that there’s a fear Trump is not going to play ‘Mr Nice Guy’ anymore.

However, Trump’s threat to cut government contracts could be aimed more at another of Musk’s businesses, SpaceX. The privately held rocket company has received billions of dollars for sending astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station, providing launches and doing other work for NASA. The company is currently racing to develop a mega-rocket for the space agency to send astronauts to the Moon next year.

A subsidiary of SpaceX, the satellite internet company Starlink, appears to also have benefited from Musk’s once-close relationship with the president.

On a trip with Trump to the Middle East last month, Musk announced that Saudi Arabia had approved Starlink for aviation and maritime use. Though its not clear how much politics has played a role, a string of other recent deals in Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and elsewhere has followed, as Trump has threatened tariffs and sent diplomats scrambling to please the president.

One measure of SpaceX’s success: A private financing round followed by a private sale of shares in recent months reportedly valued it at $350 billion (around €325bn), up from an estimated $210 billion (about €195.3bn) a year ago.

Now all that is possibly in danger. Tesla shares got an even bigger lift from Musk’s close relationship with Trump, initially at least.

After the presidential election in November, investors rushed into the stock, adding more than $450 billion (€418.5bn) to its value in a few weeks. The belief was that the company would see big gains as Trump eased regulatory oversight of Tesla. They also bet that the new administration would embrace Musk’s plans for millions of cars on US roads without drivers behind the wheel.

After hitting an all-time high on 17 December, the shares retreated as Musk’s time as head of a government cost-cutting group led to boycotts and a hit to Tesla’s reputation. They’ve recently popped higher again after Musk vowed to focus more on Tesla and its upcoming driverless taxi launch.

Now investors aren’t so sure, a worry that has translated into big paper losses in Tesla stock held by Musk personally.

Washington, DC – The ties between United States President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk have seen highs and lows throughout the years.

But it all came crashing down on Thursday after months of what appeared to be an unshakable alliance in the White House.

A disagreement over Trump’s massive tax bill has escalated over the past few days, with Musk going so far as to suggest that the US president should be impeached.

In a series of social media posts, Musk launched personal attacks against Trump, culminating in a claim, made without evidence, that Trump is in the “Epstein files”.

Those documents relate to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and include travel logs and guest lists related to him and his associates. Part of the Epstein files remain secret, sparking curiosity and conspiracy theories about who might be mentioned.

Trump, meanwhile, responded with a social media fusillade of his own. He claimed he asked Musk to leave his White House role and suggested cutting the government subsidies and contracts awarded to the billionaire’s companies.

So how did the partnership between Musk and Trump collapse? And what may come next for the two men often described as the world’s richest and the world’s most powerful, respectively?

The honeymoon phase

A few months before the war of words between Musk and Trump erupted, the two seemed like an inseparable political force.

Musk had spent nearly $200m to elect Trump to a second term in 2024. Days after his successful election, Trump responded by appointing Musk to lead a newly created government cutting agency, called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Even the name of the department reflected the leeway that the billionaire investor had in Trump’s administration. The word “doge” refers to an internet meme of a dog, favoured by Musk, that became popular in 2010.

In the early weeks of Trump’s second term, Musk became one of the most prominent figures in the administration – and a lightning rod for public criticism. Under his leadership, DOGE sacked thousands of federal employees and gutted various agencies, including the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Musk appeared so powerful that some Democrats started to refer to him as “President Elon” to get under Trump’s skin.

But Trump and Musk presented a united front. During a Fox News interview in February, the US president and his then-adviser appeared side by side and heaped praise on one another.

“He gets it done. He’s a leader,” Trump said of Musk.

“I love the president. I just want to be clear about that,” Musk said of Trump.

Musk, who is originally from South Africa, started espousing right-wing views over the past few years and grew vocally critical of Democrats and progressives.

Those views became more prominent after he bought the social media platform Twitter, now X, in 2022. As he started to tilt rightward, he used the platform to bash irregular migration and efforts he believed aimed to police free speech, particularly with regards to identity politics and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Even during Musk’s political realignment, however, he and Trump exchanged stern criticism. For example, in July 2022, Musk posted that Trump was getting to be “too old to be chief executive of anything”, much less the presidency.

He also initially backed Trump’s Republican rival in the 2024 presidential race, Ron DeSantis, even hosting the Florida governor’s campaign launch on X.

But the failed assassination attempt against Trump would cement Musk’s shift in allegiance. After a bullet grazed Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July 2024, Musk announced he would “fully endorse” the Republican leader.

He even joined Trump for a return to Butler in September of last year.

The unravelling

The cliche in politics is that there are no permanent enemies or permanent allies, only permanent interests. That appears to be the case for Trump, who has a history of firing advisers and disavowing former friends.

Musk is only the latest high-profile rupture – and one that might not come as a surprise to political observers.

The unravelling of Trump’s “bromance” with Musk comes at the tail end of a rocky few months, as rumours swirled about closed-door clashes between the billionaire and the president’s inner circle.

In April, Musk announced that he would be spending less time at DOGE. By that time, his role appeared to be diminishing, with the billionaire no longer dominating headlines or regularly appearing in the Oval Office.

Late in May, Musk criticised the White House-backed tax and budget proposal, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

“I was, like, disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not decrease it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,” Musk told the TV programme CBS Sunday Morning.

The bill cuts electric vehicle (EV) subsidies that boost Musk’s Tesla car company. But Musk has maintained his opposition to the bill lies in its increases to the national debt and its byzantine provisions: The bill clocks in at more than 1,000 pages.

The notoriously confrontational Trump, who had pinned his vision for the economy on the bill, kept his cool amid Musk’s early criticisms. He even acknowledged to reporters, “I’m not happy about certain aspects of [the bill].”

The two men made a public appearance together afterwards in the Oval Office, where Trump celebrated the end of Musk’s role as a special government employee. Even then, Trump insisted that Musk was “not really leaving” his team.

Once out of the government, though, Musk not only voiced discontent with the budget bill; he appeared to be lobbying against it. The bill had narrowly passed in the House of Representatives, only to face similarly steep odds in the Senate.

“I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination,” Musk wrote on X on Monday.

“Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.”

The US president shot back on Thursday, starting with an appearance in the Oval Office with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

“ I’m very disappointed because Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better than almost anybody sitting here,” Trump said. “ He had no problem with it. All of a sudden, he had a problem.”

Trump told the assembled reporters that Musk’s reaction was a backlash to his EV policies. He also speculated that Musk would have preferred to stay in the White House.

“ I’ll be honest, I think he misses the place,” Trump said. “ It’s sort of Trump derangement syndrome. We have it with others, too. They leave, and they wake up in the morning, and the glamour’s gone. The whole world is different, and they become hostile.”

Afterwards, Trump took his criticisms to his social media platform, Truth Social.

“Elon was ‘wearing thin,’ I asked him to leave, I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went CRAZY!” Trump wrote in a social media post.

All the while, Musk had been posting on social media, criticising Trump’s bill and taking credit for his re-election campaign.

“Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate,” Musk wrote. “Such ingratitude.”

What’s next, and who will win?

What happens next remains unclear. Although Musk has gained popularity within the Republican base, his political rise was partly due to his association with Trump.

He may now find himself loathed by both Democrats and Trump loyalists.

The US president, on the other hand, has a track record of surviving public scandals, including criminal charges.

Trump has also shown apparent willingness to use the government’s power against his rivals, most recently ordering an investigation into the administration of his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden.

Already, Trump has warned of risks to Musk’s businesses, including the rocket company SpaceX and the communications firm Starlink. “The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts,” Trump wrote.

Still, Musk can also hurt Trump’s agenda. In his inauguration speech, Trump envisioned planting a US flag on Mars, but on Thursday, Musk said he plans to decommission a SpaceX rocket that the US uses to reach the International Space Station, as retaliation for Trump’s words.

Musk could also align with fiscally conservative lawmakers to block Trump’s signature tax bill in the Senate.

Despite Musk going on the offensive against Trump on Thursday, the US president used one of his later social media posts to shift the focus to his One Big Beautiful Bill.

“I don’t mind Elon turning against me, but he should have done so months ago. This is one of the Greatest Bills ever presented to Congress. It’s a Record Cut in Expenses, $1.6 Trillion Dollars, and the Biggest Tax Cut ever given,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“If this Bill doesn’t pass, there will be a 68% Tax Increase, and things far worse than that.”

Harvard University has broadened its existing lawsuit against the administration of President Donald Trump to fight a new action that attempts to stop its international students from entering the United States.

On Thursday, the prestigious Ivy League school filed an amended complaint that alleges Trump’s latest executive order violates the rights of the school and its students.

Just one day earlier, Trump published an executive order claiming that “it is necessary to restrict the entry of foreign nationals who seek to enter the United States solely or principally” to attend Harvard.

He called Harvard’s international students a “class of aliens” whose arrival “would be detrimental to the interests of the United States”. As a result, he said that he had the right under the  Immigration and Nationality Act to deny them entry into the country.

But in Thursday’s court filing, Harvard dismissed that argument as the latest salvo in Trump’s months-long campaign to harm the school.

“The President’s actions thus are not undertaken to protect the ‘interests of the United States,’ but instead to pursue a government vendetta against Harvard,” the amended complaint says.

It further alleged that, by issuing a new executive order to restrict students’ entry, the Trump administration was attempting to circumvent an existing court order that blocked it from preventing Harvard’s registration of foreign students.

The complaint called upon US District Judge Allison Burroughs in Massachusetts to extend her temporary restraining order to include Trump’s latest attack on Harvard’s foreign students.

“Harvard’s more than 7,000 F-1 and J-1 visa holders — and their dependents — have become pawns in the government’s escalating campaign of retaliation,” Harvard wrote.

Trump began his campaign against Harvard and other prominent schools earlier this year, after taking office for a second term as president. He blamed the universities for failing to take sterner action against the Palestinian solidarity protests that cropped up on their campuses in the wake of Israel’s war on Gaza.

The president called the demonstrations anti-Semitic and pledged to remove foreign students from the US who participated. Protest organisers, meanwhile, have argued that their aims were non-violent and that the actions of a few have been used to tar the movement overall.

Critics have also accused Trump of using the protests as leverage to exert greater control over the country’s universities, including private schools like Harvard and its fellow Ivy League school, Columbia University.

In early March, Columbia — whose protest encampments were emulated at campuses across the country — saw $400m in federal funding stripped from its budget.

The school later agreed to a list of demands issued by the Trump administration, including changes to its disciplinary policies and a review of its Middle East studies programme.

Harvard University was also given a list of demands to comply with. But unlike Columbia, it refused, citing concerns that the restrictions would limit its academic freedom.

The Trump administration’s demands included ending Harvard’s diversity programmes and allowing the federal government to audit its hiring and admissions processes to “establish viewpoint diversity”. When those demands were not met, it proceeded to strip Harvard of its federal funding, to the tune of billions of dollars.

Trump also threatened to revoke the school’s tax-exempt status and barred it from receiving future federal research grants.

But the attack on Harvard’s international students has threatened to drive away tuition revenue as well. Nearly a quarter of Harvard’s overall student body is from overseas.

In May, the Department of Homeland Security announced it would revoke Harvard’s access to a system, the Student Exchange Visitor Program, where it is required to log information about its foreign students.

That would have forced currently enrolled Harvard students to transfer to another school, if they were in the country on a student visa. It would have also prevented Harvard from accepting any further international students.

But Harvard sued the Trump administration, calling its actions “retaliatory” and “unlawful”.

On May 23, Judge Burroughs granted Harvard’s emergency petition for a restraining order to stop the restriction from taking effect. But since then, the Trump administration has continued to exert pressure on Harvard and other schools.

Earlier this week, for example, the Trump administration wrote a letter to Columbia University’s accreditor, accusing the New York City school of falling short of federal civil rights laws.

Washington, DC – Donald Trump’s travel ban is the latest instalment in the United States president’s anti-immigration push, which plays to his right-wing base, advocates say, stressing that the order is not about public safety.

The decree, released late on Wednesday, bars and restricts travellers from 12 countries, including Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.

While Trump has argued that the ban was put in place to protect the US from “foreign terrorists”, many believe the president has other motivations for implementing it.

“The latest travel ban is absolutely part and parcel of the administration’s agenda to weaponise immigration laws to target people who are racial and religious minorities and people with whom they disagree,” said Laurie Ball Cooper, vice president for US legal programmes at the International Refugee Assistance Project.

Abed Ayoub, executive director at the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), said that while the administration is presenting the ban as related to vetting travellers, the move aims to “placate” Trump’s supporters.

“It’s the ‘tough on immigration’ stance that this administration has taken on a number of issues since coming into office,” Ayoub told Al Jazeera.

Since his inauguration in January, the Trump administration has gutted the US refugee programme, aggressively stepped up deportations and targeted foreign students critical of Israel – in some cases, pushing to remove them from the country.

Immigration experts said they had been anticipating the travel ban since Trump signed an executive order in January that paved the way for it.

That order directed US officials to compile a list of nations “for which vetting and screening information is so deficient as to warrant a partial or full suspension on the admission of nationals from those countries”.

Trump said in the statement announcing the ban that the targeted countries “remain deficient with regards to screening and vetting”.

2025 ban vs 2017 ban

This is not the first time Trump has ordered a travel ban. Wednesday’s order has several predecessors – multiple iterations of a ban that the US president imposed during his first term as president.

One week after taking office in 2017, Trump barred citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries, an order that became widely known as the “Muslim ban”.

As a candidate in 2015, he called for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States”, and the 2017 proclamation appeared to be a reflection of that proposal.

However, there are key differences between the latest order and the one implemented in 2017, which sparked disorder and protests at airports and initially applied to legal permanent residents and people who already had visas.

Wednesday’s order lists specific exemptions, including for existing visa holders, who will still be able to come to the US using their visas, which will remain valid. Immediate relatives of US citizens will also be able to apply for and obtain visas.

Trump has also ordered it to go into effect on Monday – five days after the executive order was signed – whereas the original “Muslim ban” was implemented immediately and chaotically as soon as he announced it.

Moreover, the latest travel ban targets countries with people from different religious backgrounds across four continents, making it difficult to argue religious bias in any court challenge.

Also, the early bans of Trump’s first term were struck down by federal judges before the Supreme Court eventually upheld the third and last version his administration issued.

“It seems like a lot more thought went into this, a lot more reasoning from their end,” Ayoub said. He added that in some ways, the ban is “not as bad” as the 2017 one and it will be difficult to challenge.

With the courts unlikely to block the order, Ayoub said he hopes the administration will issue more exemptions and work with the targeted countries to take steps that would remove them from the list.

Cooper said the impact of the ban will be devastating.

For example, the exemption on immediate relatives does not include the parents and children of permanent residents – people who have followed the rules and may have been waiting for years to get their immigration interviews to join their loved ones in the US.

“There are still people on the cusp of reuniting with their families, on the cusp of arriving to safety in the United States who will be cut off from that family reunification and from that access to safety by this travel ban,” Cooper told Al Jazeera. “Families will be kept apart.”

Why now?

The timing of Wednesday’s decree also differs from the original “Muslim ban”. It came more than five months into Trump’s second term.

Trump has tied the travel ban to an attack on Sunday that US authorities attributed to an Egyptian asylum seeker. They accused him of using a makeshift flamethrower and Molotov cocktails to injure 12 people who were protesting in Boulder, Colorado in support of Israeli captives held in Gaza.

However, Egypt is not on the list of banned countries, and when asked why not on Thursday, Trump told reporters that the country is a US ally that has “things under control”.

“And why now? I can say that it can’t come soon enough, frankly,” Trump said.

“We want to keep bad people out of our country. The Biden administration allowed some horrendous people, and we are getting them out one by one.”

Cooper said the Trump administration is “exploiting the tragedy” in Colorado by rolling out the order in its aftermath.

“Ultimately, if you look at the travel ban and the way that it operates, I am not convinced that this is a response to that,” she said.

“But even if it were, even when there is a tragedy, even when something awful happens, punishing groups of people based on their nationality because of what one other person allegedly did is not the right answer.”

Cooper added that the order is “arbitrary”, noting that it includes exemptions for athletes competing in next year’s World Cup and the 2028 Summer Olympics but not for students.

Some Democrats have accused Trump of imposing the ban now to distract from his issues at home, including an enormous tax bill advancing through Congress and his feud with his former billionaire aide Elon Musk.

“Anytime you ban people coming to the United States from other countries, it has a real impact,” Senator Chris Murphy told MSNBC.

“But it is chiefly in service of trying to get us all talking about that … instead of talking about the centrepiece of this story, which is this bill to make the rich even richer at the expense of everybody else.”

The administration of President Donald Trump has followed through with a threat to sanction officials on the International Criminal Court (ICC), naming four judges whom it accuses of taking “illegitimate and baseless actions” against the United States and its allies.

On Thursday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions in a sharply worded written statement.

“The ICC is politicized and falsely claims unfettered discretion to investigate, charge, and prosecute nationals of the United States and our allies,” Rubio wrote.

“This dangerous assertion and abuse of power infringes upon the sovereignty and national security of the United States and our allies, including Israel.”

The four sanctioned judges include Solomy Balungi Bossa of Uganda, Luz del Carmen Ibanez Carranza of Peru, Reine Adelaide Sophie Alapini Gansou of Benin and Beti Hohler of Slovenia.

As a result of the sanctions, the judges will see their US-based property and assets blocked. US-based entities are also forbidden from engaging in transactions with them, including through the “provision of funds, goods or services”.

The ICC quickly issued a statement in response, saying it stood behind its judges and “deplores” the Trump administration’s decision.

“These measures are a clear attempt to undermine the independence of an international judicial institution which operates under the mandate from 125 States Parties from all corners of the globe,” the statement said.

“Targeting those working for accountability does nothing to help civilians trapped in conflict. It only emboldens those who believe they can act with impunity.”

Who are the judges?

In a fact sheet, the State Department explained that Bossa and Ibanez Carranza were sanctioned for authorising an investigation into US troops in Afghanistan in 2020, during Trump’s first term as president.

Previously, the ICC had blocked a request to probe alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Afghanistan, where the US had been leading a slow-grinding war from 2001 to 2021.

But it reversed course the following year, granting a prosecutor’s request to investigate US forces and members of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for war crimes in “secret detention facilities” in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Afghanistan, the court noted, was a member of the Rome Statute, which includes the 125 countries where the ICC has jurisdiction.

But the Trump administration at the time blasted the court’s decision, calling the ICC a “political institution masquerading as a legal body”. It has long argued that the US, which is not party to the Rome Statute, lies outside the ICC’s jurisdiction.

Another country that is not a member of the Rome Statute is Israel, which has used similar arguments to reject the ICC’s power over its actions in Palestine.

The second pair of judges named in Thursday’s sanctions — Alapini Gansou and Hohler — were sanctioned for their actions against Israeli leaders, according to the US State Department.

The US is Israel’s oldest ally, having been the first to recognise the country in 1948. It has since offered Israel strong support, including for its ongoing war in Gaza, which has killed an estimated 54,607 Palestinians so far.

Experts at the United Nations and human rights organisations have compared Israel’s military campaign in Gaza to a genocide, as reports continue to emerge of alleged human rights abuses.

In November 2024, those accusations spurred the ICC to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, who have both been accused of war crimes in Gaza, including intentional attacks on civilians.

Alapini Gansou and Hohler reportedly took part in those proceedings.

Has this happened before?

This is not the first time that the US has issued restrictions against an ICC official since Trump returned to office for a second term on January 20.

Shortly after taking office, Trump issued a broad executive order threatening anyone who participates in ICC investigations with sanctions. Critics warned that such sweeping language could pervert the course of justice, for example by dissuading witnesses from coming forward with evidence.

But Trump argued that the recent arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant necessitated such measures.

He also claimed that the US and Israel were “thriving democracies” that “strictly adhere to the laws of war” and that the ICC’s investigations threatened military members with “harassment, abuse and possible arrest”.

“This malign conduct in turn threatens to infringe upon the sovereignty of the United States and undermines the critical national security and foreign policy work of the United States Government and our allies, including Israel,” the executive order said.

Under that order, the US sanctioned ICC prosecutor Karim Khan, who had petitioned the court for the arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant. That, in turn, slowed the investigation into Israel’s actions in Gaza, and Khan later stepped away from his role amid allegations of sexual misconduct.

But Trump has a history of opposing the ICC, stretching back to his first term. In 2019, for instance, Trump announced his administration would deny or yank visas for ICC officials involved in investigating US troops in Afghanistan.

Then, in 2020, he sanctioned ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and a court official named Phakiso Mochochoko for their involvement in the investigation. Those actions were later overturned under President Joe Biden.

Critics, however, warn that Trump’s actions could have dire consequences over the long term for the ICC, which relies on its member countries to execute orders like arrest warrants. The court itself has called for an end to the threats.

June 5 (UPI) — President Donald Trump and former Department of Government Efficiency Director Elon Musk are slinging accusations after an apparent end to their short-lived friendship.

Trump on Thursday accused Musk of going “crazy” after the president canceled the federal electric vehicle mandate imposed by the Biden administration.

“I took away his EV mandate that forced everyone to buy electric cars that nobody else wanted,” Trump said in a Truth Social post on Thursday. “He just went crazy!”

Trump also has threatened to end all government contracts with the Musk-founded Tesla and suggested that would be a fast way to reduce government spending.

The president’s threat likely resonated with investors as Tesla share prices declined by more than 14% on Thursday and shed $152 billion in value from the EV maker.

Trump said he asked Musk to leave his advisory position with DOGE, although Musk was scheduled to exit the position at the end of May.

Musk earlier said Trump would not have won the Nov. 5 election without his help.

He contributed an estimated $250 million to Trump’s campaign effort.

“Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate,” Musk said Thursday morning in a post on X.

Musk has criticized the proposed “one big, beautiful” federal government budget bill as increasing the nation’s debt and negating his work with DOGE.

The entrepreneur opposes the spending bill that the House has passed and is before the Senate because it removed tax credits and subsidies for buying EVs, Trump claimed.

“I don’t mind Elon turning against me, but he should have done that months ago,” Trump said in a subsequent Truth Social post on Thursday afternoon.

“This is one of the greatest bills ever presented to Congress,” he continued. “It’s a record cut in expenses, $1.6 trillion dollars, and the biggest tax cut ever given.”

If the measure is not passed, Trump said it will trigger a 68% tax increase, “and things far worse than that.”

The president said the “easiest way to save money … is to terminate Elon’s governmental subsidies and contracts” with Tesla.

Later on Thursday, Musk in an X post said it is “time to drop the really big bomb” on the president.

Trump “is in the Epstein files,” Musk said. “That is the real reason they have not been made public.”

Musk did not say in what context Trump allegedly appears in the Epstein files, but ended his post with: “Have a nice day, DJT!”

He made a subsequent post that asks: “Is it time to create a new political party in America that actually represents the 80% in the middle?”

Trump and Musk were very close during the first four months of the Trump administration and often appeared together at high-profile events.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has called on the US to apply more pressure on Russia to end its three-year-old war on Ukraine.

“You know that we gave support to Ukraine and that we are looking for more pressure on Russia,” Merz told US President Donald Trump at the start of their meeting on Thursday at the Oval Office.

Merz emphasised that Germany “was on the side of Ukraine”, while Trump likened the war to a fight between two young children who hated each other.

“Sometimes, you’re better off letting them fight for a while and then pulling them apart,” Trump said. He added that he had relayed that analogy to Russian President Vladimir Putin in their phone conversation on Wednesday.

Asked about Trump’s comments as the two leaders sat next to each other, Merz stressed that both he and Trump agreed “on this war and how terrible this war is going on,” pointing to the US president as the “key person in the world” who would be able to stop the bloodshed.

Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett said that, while the two men agreed that the war needed to end, how that happens “seems to be a point of contention”.

“What we saw there was the German chancellor suggesting and pointing out that … Russia continues to hit back at civilian targets, whereas, when it comes to Ukraine, the focus in the eyes of Germany has been strictly on military targets inside Russia,” she said from Washington, DC.

Halkett added that Trump revealed during the meeting that he “implored the Russian president not to retaliate for that attack that took place over the weekend … and Vladimir Putin said he was going to attack regardless.”

A ‘decent’ relationship

Thursday’s meeting marked the first time that the two leaders sat down in person. After exchanging pleasantries – Merz gave Trump a gold-framed birth certificate of the US president’s grandfather, Friedrich Trump, who immigrated from Germany – the two leaders were to discuss issues such as Ukraine, trade and NATO spending.

Trump and Merz have spoken several times by phone, either bilaterally or with other European leaders, since Merz took office on May 6. German officials say the two leaders have started to build a “decent” relationship, with Merz wanting to avoid the antagonism that defined Trump’s relationship with one of his predecessors, Angela Merkel, in the Republican president’s first term.

The 69-year-old Merz, who came to office with an extensive business background, is a conservative former rival of Merkel’s who took over her party after she retired from politics.

Merz has thrown himself into diplomacy on Ukraine, travelling to Kyiv with fellow European leaders days after taking office and receiving Zelenskyy in Berlin last week.

He has thanked Trump for his support for an unconditional ceasefire while rejecting the idea of “dictated peace” or the “subjugation” of Ukraine and advocating for more sanctions against Russia.

In their first phone call since Merz became chancellor, Trump said he would support the efforts of Germany and other European countries to achieve peace, according to a readout from the German government. Merz also said last month that “it is of paramount importance that the political West not let itself be divided, so I will continue to make every effort to produce the greatest possible unity between the European and American partners.”

Under Merz’s immediate predecessor, Olaf Scholz, Germany became the second-biggest supplier of military aid to Ukraine after the United States. Merz has promised to keep up the support and last week, pledged to help Ukraine develop its own long-range missile systems that would be free of any imposed range limits.

At home, Merz’s government is intensifying a drive that Scholz started to bolster the German military after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In Trump’s first term, Berlin was a target of his ire for failing to meet the current NATO target of spending 2 percent of gross domestic product on defence, and Trump is now demanding at least 5 percent from allies.

The White House official said the upcoming NATO summit in the Netherlands later this month is a “good opportunity” for Germany to commit to meeting that 5 percent mark.

During their meeting on Thursday, Trump described Merz as a good representative of Germany and also “difficult,” which he suggested was a compliment. He said US troops would remain in Germany and said it was positive that Berlin was spending more money on defence.

‘Ok with tariffs’

Another top priority for Merz is to get Germany’s economy, Europe’s biggest, moving again after it shrank the past two years. He wants to make it a “locomotive of growth,” but Trump’s tariff threats are a potential obstacle for a country whose exports have been a key strength. At present, the economy is forecast to stagnate in 2025.

Germany exported $160bn worth of goods to the US last year, according to the Census Bureau. That was about $85bn more than what the US sent to Germany, a trade deficit that Trump wants to erase.

“Germany is one of the very big investors in America,” Merz told reporters Thursday morning. “Only a few countries invest more than Germany in the USA. We are in third place in terms of foreign direct investment.”

The United States and the European Union are in talks to reach a trade deal, which would be critical for Germany’s export-heavy economy, but Trump said he would be fine with an agreement or with tariffs.

“We’ll end up hopefully with a trade deal,” Trump said. “I’m OK with the tariffs, or we make a deal with the trade.”

“Sometimes you let them fight for a little while.” Donald Trump said Russia and Ukraine are like two children fighting in a park and sometimes it’s better to wait before breaking them up. He was speaking in an Oval Office meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz who said America is in a strong position to end the war.

June 5 (UPI) — German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is in Washington on Thursday to meet with President Donald Trump in person for the first time.

Before their meeting, Merz had said that he was looking forward to his first face-to-face meeting with Trump after the two have previously spoken over the phone

“Our alliance with America was, is, and remains of paramount importance for the security, freedom, and prosperity of Europe. The United States is an indispensable friend and partner of Germany,” Merz posted to X Wednesday.

The topics of discussion are expected to range from tariffs and trade to Russia’s war on Ukraine and the state of the Middle East.

Trump and Merz reportedly speak with each other on a first-name basis, however, in a speech given Tuesday, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul described the current tone of German-U.S. relations as being “as rough as it has not been in a long time.”

Trump has also levied tariffs on all member nations of the European Union, Germany included, that will impose a 50% duty on all European goods starting July 9, a deadline that was extended from June 1 to allow more time for trade negotiations. The Trump administration has also upped tariffs on all aluminum and steel imports from 25% to 50%, with only Britain excluded.

Germany announced last week it will provide a nearly $5.7 billion military aid package to Ukraine that will finance long-range weapons to be produced by Ukraine, which Merz announced can be deployed by the Ukrainian military for use inside the borders of Russia. Trump, however, had ordered a pause on military aid to Ukraine in March shortly after his combative February meeting with Zelensky.

It is unclear if Trump has any issue with Germany’s aid for or relationship with Ukraine.

US president previously said it was ‘hard to make a deal’ with the Chinese leader as talks continue over trade.

United States President Donald Trump has spoken with Chinese President Xi Jinping by phone as the two countries continue to clash over trade relations, which Trump has sought to aggressively reshape through a series of tariffs.

The Chinese state media outlet Xinhua reported that the phone call on Thursday took place at the request of the US. Trump had said the day before that reaching a deal with China was proving difficult.

In the first readout of the call, Trump posted on his social media site, Truth Social, “I just concluded a very good phone call with President Xi, of China, discussing some of the intricacies of our recently made, and agreed to, Trade Deal. The call lasted approximately one and a half hours, and resulted in a very positive conclusion for both Countries.”

“There should no longer be any questions respecting the complexity of Rare Earth products. Our respective teams will be meeting shortly at a location to be determined. During the conversation, President Xi graciously invited the First Lady and me to visit China, and I reciprocated,” he added.

Trump also noted the conversation was focused almost entirely on trade and that neither the Russia-Ukraine war nor the Iran nuclear talks were mentioned.

On Wednesday, Trump had posted: “I like President XI of China, always have, and always will, but he is VERY TOUGH, AND EXTREMELY HARD TO MAKE A DEAL WITH!!!”.

For his part, Xi was quoted by Chinese State TV as saying after the call Thursday, the two countries should strive for a win-win outcome and that dialogue and cooperation are the only right choice for both. The two sides should respect each others’ concerns, he added.

Xi also stressed that the US should handle the Taiwan issue very “carefully”.

China and the US reached a 90-day agreement on May 12 to bring down tariffs amid a trade war initiated by the Trump administration, but tensions have remained high since then.

Washington imposed significant tariffs on Beijing, but eventually eased off amid concerns about the potential economic fallout of a sustained trade war between the world’s two largest economies.

Critics have accused Trump of causing enormous disruptions in the global economy and then backing down when China or the European Union hit back forcefully.

The Trump administration has also launched a crackdown on Chinese international students living in the US, threatening to revoke student visas of those associated with the Chinese Communist Party or who the government claims pose vaguely defined threats to US national security. More than 277,000 Chinese students were enrolled in US universities during the 2023-2024 academic year.

China said such steps, along with others targeting China’s technology sector, violate the temporary trade truce reached with the US in May.

“These practices seriously violate the consensus,” the Ministry of Commerce in Beijing said in a recent statement.

While disputes between Washington and Beijing over issues such as trade and technology have been a common feature of their relations for decades, these tensions have ratcheted up as Trump sets out to change what he sees as a global imbalance of commercial exchange between the US and other countries, including China.

Russian and Ukrainian delegations met in Istanbul for the second time in a month on June 2 to explore the possibility of a ceasefire. The talks lasted just over an hour and, once again, produced no meaningful progress. As with the May 16 negotiations, both sides claimed they had laid the groundwork for prisoner exchanges. But despite Ukraine’s offer to hold another meeting before the end of June, a deep and unbridgeable divide remains between Kyiv and Moscow.

More meetings are unlikely to change that. Russia continues to demand Kyiv’s capitulation to the full list of conditions President Vladimir Putin set at the war’s outset: Ukrainian neutrality, a government reshaped to suit Moscow’s interests, and the surrender of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions. Between the two rounds of talks, Putin even raised the stakes, adding a demand for a “buffer zone” in northern Ukraine.

Kyiv, meanwhile, remains resolute. It refuses to cede any territory and maintains that a full ceasefire along all fronts is a non-negotiable precondition for serious negotiations.

Still, both sides appear prepared to continue the diplomatic charade.

That’s because these talks are not truly about achieving peace or securing a lasting bilateral agreement. Neither side is genuinely negotiating with the other. Instead, both are using the forum to send messages to the United States – and to Donald Trump, in particular.

This dynamic persists despite Trump’s recent efforts to distance himself from the war he once claimed he could end within 24 hours of returning to the White House. That shift in rhetoric has been echoed by key figures in his administration. Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who just six months ago represented opposite ends of the Republican spectrum on Ukraine – with Vance nearly endorsing surrender to Putin, and Rubio among the Senate’s most vocal Ukraine hawks – have both signalled that Trump’s White House is no longer interested in mediating the conflict. Reflecting that disengagement, there was no high-level prenegotiation meeting between US and Ukrainian officials in Turkiye ahead of the latest talks, unlike those held in May.

Yet despite Rubio’s apparent reversal – likely intended to align with Trump – Ukraine still enjoys broad support in the US Senate, including from senior Republicans. A bipartisan bill aimed at codifying existing sanctions on Russia and imposing new ones – thereby limiting Trump’s power to roll them back – has garnered 81 Senate co-sponsors. The bill’s authors, Senators Lindsey Graham (R–South Carolina) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut), recently travelled to Kyiv to reaffirm their backing. Graham has suggested the bill could move forward in the coming weeks.

Still, Ukraine knows the bill stands little chance in the House of Representatives without Trump’s blessing. Despite Trump’s enduring animosity towards Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Kyiv has recently adopted a more deferential posture, particularly after their disastrous February meeting in Washington. The Ukrainian government quickly signed and ratified the so-called “minerals deal” that Trump demanded last month. A subsequent meeting between the two leaders – held on the sidelines of Pope Francis’s funeral – was notably more productive.

So far, Kyiv’s strategy of appeasement has yielded little change in Trump’s approach. While Trump has occasionally hinted at taking a tougher stance on Putin – usually in response to particularly egregious Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilians – he consistently deflects when asked for specifics. For months, he has promised to reveal his plan for Ukraine “in about two weeks,” a vague assurance that remains unfulfilled. A new sanctions package reportedly prepared by his own team over a month ago still sits untouched.

Hoping that mounting battlefield violence or bipartisan pressure from the US Senate might force Trump to act, Kyiv presses on with negotiations. Just one day before the Istanbul talks, Russia launched a record-setting overnight assault on Ukraine, firing more than 430 missiles and drones. Ukraine responded forcefully: on June 1, it conducted a large-scale drone strike deep inside Russia, destroying dozens of military aircraft, including airborne command platforms and nuclear-capable bombers.

Yet these high-profile losses have done little to shift Putin’s strategy. He continues to use the negotiation process as a smokescreen, providing Trump with political cover for his inaction. Meanwhile, Russian forces are advancing, making incremental gains in northern Ukraine’s Sumy region – where they hope to establish a “buffer zone” – and pushing forward on the southwestern Donetsk front.

Ultimately, Ukraine’s ability to strike deep inside Russian territory, including potentially vulnerable targets like oil infrastructure, may have more bearing on the war’s trajectory than any outcome from the Istanbul talks. Yet neither military escalation nor stalled diplomacy seems likely to bring a swift end to the conflict.

Trump says he abhors the civilian toll of this war, even if he stops short of blaming Putin for starting it. But it is Trump’s lack of strategy – his hesitation, his mixed signals, his refusal to lead – that is prolonging the conflict, escalating its brutality and compounding its risks for global stability.

Trump’s advisers may call it “peace through strength,” but what we are witnessing is paralysis through posturing. Russia’s delegation in Istanbul was never a step towards resolution – it was a diplomatic decoy, shielding a brutal military advance. If Trump refuses to back a serious escalation in pressure on Moscow – through expanded sanctions and renewed military aid to Kyiv – he won’t just fail to end the war. He will become complicit in prolonging it. The choice before him is clear: lead with resolve, or let history record that under his watch, weakness spoke louder than peace.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

A liberal group and social media users shared posts that say President Donald Trump’s “one big beautiful bill” for tax and spending would let him reschedule or eliminate elections.

“If the Senate passes the ‘one big beautiful bill’ and Trump signs it, that’s it. It becomes law,” said the viral graphic on Meta and X. “And here’s what that really means. He can delay or cancel elections – legally.” The post included a long list of other claims about what the bill would accomplish; for this fact-check, we are focusing on the elections claim.

The group Being Liberal, which calls itself “one of the oldest social media liberal political brands”, took down the graphic after we reached out for comment. The group told us it didn’t create the post and removed it because the elections claim wasn’t accurate.

The earliest reference for the graphic we found online was from an anonymous blog post on May 23.

The bill does not give Trump power to delay or cancel elections, an action that would be unconstitutional.

“The bill would not directly give the president any authority over elections,” said Eric Kashdan, senior legal counsel at the Campaign Legal Center, a group that advocates for voting rights and this year sued the Trump administration over a voter registration executive order.

A spokesperson for House Speaker Mike Johnson, Griffin Neal, told PolitiFact, “The bill obviously does not provide the President of the United States with the authority to cancel or delay elections.”

The US House passed the tax and spending bill May 22 and it now moves to the Senate, where lawmakers could make changes. Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the Senate majority leader, said he hopes the bill can be sent to Trump by July 4.

The bill includes one provision related to democracy and checks and balances; it would expand the executive branch’s power by curtailing judges’ ability to hold people in contempt of court. Provision critics said it could take away the courts’ power to restrain the federal government if it violates the Constitution or breaks the law.

We found no provision in the bill that says the president can delay or cancel an election.

In July 2020, amid the pandemic and a surge in voting by mail, Trump floated the idea of delaying the election. At the time, he was running for re-election.

But the Constitution empowers Congress to set the date by which states must choose their presidential electors, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service found in 2020.

“Since 1845, Congress has required states to appoint presidential electors on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November, which represents the date by which voters in every state must cast their ballot for President,” the report said.

Congress still has that power, said Edward Foley, an Ohio State University constitutional law professor.

The Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022 added a new definition of “Election Day” that makes it clear that a voting extension can occur only through state law specified in advance and under tightly restricted conditions, such as a catastrophe, Foley said.

That means Election Day “cannot otherwise be cancelled or delayed” and the president plays no role in any alteration of Election Day, Foley said.

Congress can change the Election Day date by enacting a new statute, as it did with the Electoral Count Reform Act, Foley said.

Erwin Chemerinsky, a University of California, Berkeley law professor, told PolitiFact nothing in the bill lets Trump cancel or delay elections.

“The Constitution provides that elections for Congress be held every two years and for President every four years,” Chemerinsky said. “There is no constitutional authority to cancel elections.”

Bill provision would make it harder for judges to find Trump in contempt of court

The bill includes a different provision that some experts called a threat to democracy, but not at the ballot box.

Section 70302 would make it harder for judges to find a defendant in contempt of court for ignoring a judge’s orders. Here’s how: The legislation would require plaintiffs to pay a security bond before a judge could find the defendant in contempt of court. That would mean judges could no longer waive the security bond requirement, something that frequently happens in cases against the government.

The section references a federal rule that says a court may issue a preliminary injunction or temporary restraining order only if the plaintiff pays a security bond to cover costs and damages by any party “found to have been wrongfully enjoined or restrained”.

A security bond is an insurance policy to protect someone wrongfully accused of wrongdoing from financial losses during litigation, Kashdan said. The courts can require plaintiffs to pay money that the court holds until the end of the litigation

“If they win, they get their money back,” Kashdan said. “If they lose, and the person they sued had a right to do whatever it was they were prevented from doing during the lawsuit, they get to keep that money to help compensate them for any losses they experienced during the litigation.”

However, “those seeking such court orders generally do not have the resources to post a bond, and insisting on it would immunise unconstitutional government conduct from judicial review,” wrote Chemerinsky for the website Just Security, which publishes a Trump litigation tracker. “It always has been understood that courts can choose to set the bond at zero.”

A March White House memo that criticised organisations for suing the federal government said enforcement of the security bond rule “is critical to ensuring that taxpayers do not foot the bill for costs or damages caused by wrongly issued preliminary relief by activist judges and to achieving the effective administration of justice”.

The House bill provision raised concern among groups that have defended the judiciary’s role to provide a check on Trump’s power.

As of May 23, at least 177 court rulings have temporarily paused Trump administration actions, according to The New York Times.

Our ruling

Social media posts say the Republican tax and budget bill will let Trump “delay or cancel elections – legally”.

We found nothing in the bill that would let Trump cancel or delay elections. A provision would make it harder for judges to hold people in contempt of court, but that is not the same as cancelling elections.

Only Congress can change a presidential election’s date, not the president, and this bill doesn’t change that.

We rate this statement False.

Khadija Mahmoud* is pulling an all-nighter, filled with caffeine and surviving on adrenalin to pack up her belongings so she can catch the train in the morning from Washington, DC to New York City for her summer internship.

Mahmoud is a 21-year old international student who has just finished her junior year at Georgetown University. She is anxious and worried after her immigration lawyer advised against leaving the country for the summer due to the recent border control policies for international students.

On 27 May, the State Department instructed United States embassies around the world to temporarily pause scheduling new student visa appointments, as the Trump administration seeks to expand social media screenings for applicants, the latest in a string of restrictions targeting international students.

“It’s been very turbulent, and equally terrifying with each development that comes,” Mahmoud told Al Jazeera, speaking from her college dormitory in Washington, DC.

Mahmoud isn’t alone in feeling this way. Many other international students say they feel they need to stay under the radar, afraid that even a small issue could get them deported.

1.1 million international students

According to NAFSA, a US nonprofit organisation that focuses on international education and student exchange, over the 2023/2024 academic year there were just more than 1.1 million international students studying in the US.

These international students made up 5.6 percent of the nearly 19 million total higher education students across the US.

Together, students from India and China made up 54 percent of the total, with India leading at 331,602 (29 percent) and China at 277,398 (25 percent).

‘Major loss for the United States’

Fanta Aw, executive director and CEO of NAFSA, who is herself a former international student, says she knows on a personal and professional level how important the cultural exchange between international students and local communities is, especially in today’s hyper connected world.

“I think this is a major loss for the United States; other countries will open their doors and they are already welcoming students,” Aw told Al Jazeera.

“Students want certainty. They want consistency. And they want to know that the system works. And if they continue to see action after action, they’re already losing trust,” she adds.

“Once you continue down this road, you will have years to recover from this, and you may never recover from it. Because by then, more other countries are competing for these same students.”

“We’re seeing Germany. We’re seeing Japan. We’re seeing South Korea. Malaysia has always been a destination for students. The Middle East, with all of the American-style universities – this is what the US is competing with.”

Where are international students studying?

Although many international students are concentrated at major universities on the East and West coasts, a sizeable number also study at prominent universities in the Midwest and other parts of the US.

According to data compiled by Open Doors, during the 2023/2024 academic year, New York City hosted the largest number of international students, with 27,247 at New York University and 20,321 at Columbia University. Northeastern University in Boston follows, with 21,023 international students.

One such student headed to the Midwest is Noor Ali*, a 23-year-old from Karachi, Pakistan, who is embarking on her masters in journalism on a full scholarship from the university.

Ali has requested her identity be concealed and her institution not be named for her security. Despite having already received her student visa, she’s still concerned about entering the US.

“I got my visa the day that India attacked Pakistan and Pakistan retaliated against India,” she laughs as she explains how she ventured out that day when both nuclear neighbours were engaged in an aerial face-off, far above in the skies.

“Miraculously, the appointment did not get cancelled. And I ended up going there for my interview. And I ended up getting the visa, which was like, insane. I didn’t really know how I got it. But I mean, I’ve gotten it now!” Ali beams, her excitement undeniable at her luck.

Although she had the option to study in Europe, she chose the US because of her familiarity with the country through movies and TV shows. Even without having visited, she feels like she understands American life and culture.

“These values of American democracy are about American freedom. And, you know, just a lot of focus on ethics and morality, and it used to be known for its academic freedom, and a lot of focus on diversity.”

Ali’s ideals are not without scepticism or worry. She admits being very scared and has reconsidered her decision several times. Still, she feels encouraged by the pushback the Trump administration’s policies have received lately.

“The core of American democracy or ideals of freedom are getting reinforced,” says Ali.  She feels strongly that the cultural experience will be worth it for her.

Crackdown on pro-Palestine students and staff

The Trump administration’s latest step in its crackdown on US universities has particularly focused on international students who have shown support for Palestinians in Gaza over the past year.

“Georgetown has a pretty large international student population compared to other schools in the US, so you’d think that would translate into a lot more advocacy and more grassroots work going on on campus,” Mahmoud goes on to say.

Mahmoud feels her college hasn’t been a very vocal campus when it comes to the rights of students, nor in providing a proper safety net for freedom of speech.

“I think a massive inflection point on campus was the detention of Dr Badar Suri. I felt the need to have to scrape through my social media, see if I posted anything that could get me flagged,” says Mahmoud.

Dr Badar Khan Suri, a postdoctoral scholar of conflict studies, was arrested on March 17 outside his home in Rosslyn, Virginia and held in immigration detention for two months before being released on May 14, following a federal judge’s order. Suri, whose wife Mapheze Saleh is a US citizen of Palestinian descent, has spoken out against Israel’s war in Gaza.

That particular case became a real turning point on the campus, she says, where a lot of international students had spoken up and taken to social media.

How much money is at stake?

According to NAFSA, the 1.1 million international students studying in the US contributed $43.8bn to the US economy during the 2023–2024 academic year, creating 378,175 jobs nationwide.

That means that for every three international students enrolled, one US job was created or supported.

California hosted the highest number of international students, with 140,858 contributing $6.4bn to the state’s economy and supporting 55,114 jobs. New York followed with 135,813 students, generating $6.3bn and creating 51,719 jobs. Texas came third, with 89,546 international students contributing $2.5bn and supporting 22,112 jobs.

In total, 12 states gained more than $1bn each from the economic contributions of international students. According to NAFSA, international student spending in these 12 states combined to generate 57 percent of the total dollar contribution to the US economy.

“When your enrolment declines, then you’re going to have some economic challenges and that’s going to force institutions to have to make some very difficult decisions and choices,” NAFSA executive director Fanta Aw explains.

“The number of high schoolers that are graduating is on the decline in most parts of the country. So it’s not like they can make that up with American domestic students because that’s already on the decline.”

“So when you cannot have the level of enrollment at the undergraduate level here in the US and that is then compounded with the decline in international students, that’s a perfect storm.”

Aw says many international students who return home contribute to their countries, while those who stay in the US contribute through taxes and help boost the overall economy.

What do international students study?

In the 2023-2024 academic year, among the 1.1 million students, the most popular majors were Math and Computer Science, Engineering, and Business and Management.

International students enrolled in English language programs contributed $371.3m and supported 2,691 jobs.

In terms of degrees, nearly half (502,000) of all international students were registered for postgraduate programmes, 343,000 in undergraduate programmes, 243,000 in Optional Practical Training (OPT), and 39,000 in non-degree programmes.

*Name has been changed to protect anonymity

June 4 (UPI) — President Donald Trump on Wednesday issued a proclamation to “fully restrict and limit” entry of people from 12 foreign countries starting at 12:01 EDT Monday.

Citing national security concerns, Trump issued the ban on nationals from Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.

Also, he partially restricted and limited entry from seven countries: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.

Of the 19 named nations, 10 are in Africa.

“These restrictions distinguish between, but apply to both, the entry of immigrants and nonimmigrants,” the order states about the two designations,” the proclamation reads.

There are exceptions for lawful permanent residents, existing visa holders, certain visa categories and individuals whose entry serves US national interests.

Later Wednesday, he posted a video on Truth Social announcing the bans.

“The list is subject to revision based on whether material improvements are made,” Trump said. “And likewise new countries can be added as threats emerge around the world, but we will not allow people to enter our country who wish to do us harm and nothing will stop us from keeping America safe.”

The proclamation reads: “As President, I must act to protect the national security and national interest of the United States and its people. I remain committed to engaging with those countries willing to cooperate to improve information-sharing and identity-management procedures, and to address both terrorism-related and public-safety risks. Nationals of some countries also pose significant risks of overstaying their visas in the United States, which increases burdens on immigration and law enforcement components of the United States, and often exacerbates other risks related to national security and public safety.”

White House deputy press secretary Abigail Jackson wrote on X: “President Trump is fulfilling his promise to protect Americans from dangerous foreign actors that want to come to our country and cause us harm. These commonsense restrictions are country-specific and include places that lack proper vetting, exhibit high visa overstay rates, or fail to share identity and threat information.”

On his first day in office on Jan. 20, Trump signed an executive order that it is the policy of the United States to “protect its citizens from aliens who intend to commit terrorist attacks, threaten our national security, espouse hateful ideology, or otherwise exploit the immigration laws for malevolent purposes.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio was ordered to compile a list of countries “for which vetting and screening information is so deficient as to warrant a partial or full suspension on the admission of nationals from those countries.”

The proclamation said: “Some of the countries with inadequacies face significant challenges to reform efforts. Others have made important improvements to their protocols and procedures, and I commend them for these efforts. But until countries with identified inadequacies address them, members of my Cabinet have recommended certain conditional restrictions and limitations.”

CNN reported Trump decided to sign the proclamation after the antisemitic attack in Boulder, Colo., though the system didn’t come to the United States from the restricted countries.

Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, of Colorado Springs, has been charged with a federal hate crime and he is facing 16 state counts of attempted murder on Monday. Soliman, an Egyptian national who spent time in Kuwait, entered California in August 2022 on a B2 visa that expired in February 2023 and his asylum claim was pending.

Alex Nowrasteh, who works for Cato Institute, a nonpartisan and independent public policy research organization, said the threat of foreign-born terrorists is rare.

“A single terrorist from those countries murdered one person in an attack on US soil: Emanuel Kidega Samson from Sudan, who committed an attack motivated by anti-white animus in 2017,” Nowrasteh wrote. The annual chance of being murdered by a terrorist from one of the banned countries from 1975 to the end of 2024 was about 1 in 13.9 billion per year.”

He also noted that travelers and immigrants from the 12 banned countries have a nationwide incarceration rate of 370 per 100,000 in 2023 for the 18-54 aged population, which 70 percent below that of native-born Americans. The data came from the U.S. Census and American Community Survey Data.

During his first term, Trump banned travel by citizens of predominantly Muslim countries, including Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Amid legal challenges, it was modified and upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018.

When President Joe Biden took office in 2021, he repealed it.

June 4 (UPI) — President Donald Trump on Wednesday ordered a suspension of international visas for new students seeking to attend Harvard University, accusing the school of failing to report “known illegal activity” carried out by its students.

In a proclamation, Trump said the suspension applies only to new nonimmigrant students who travel to the United States solely or primarily to attend the Massachusetts university. International students are allowed to enter the country to attend U.S. schools under the Student Exchange Visa Program.

Trump also gave Secretary of State Marco Rubio the authority to determine whether existing Harvard students in the country on visas should have theirs revoked.

Citing an increase in crime on the campus — which was also reported by The Harvard Crimson in 2023 — Trump said Harvard has failed in disciplinary actions. He said the school reported misconduct by three foreign students and provided “deficient” data on those incidents.

“Harvard’s actions show that it either is not fully reporting its disciplinary records for foreign students or is not seriously policing its foreign students,” Trump said.

The proclamation is the Trump administration’s latest of multiple attempts to block the Ivy League school from enrolling foreign students. He has taken issue with students’ anti-Israel protests over the war in Gaza.

A spokesperson for the university told NBC News it planned to fight the administration’s order.

“This is yet another illegal retaliatory step taken by the administration in violation of Harvard’s First Amendment rights,” the spokesperson said.

In May, U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to deny Harvard to admit international students. At the time Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem canceled the school’s SEVP certification.

“The administration is holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus,” Noem said.

These are the key events on day 1,197 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here’s where things stand on Thursday, June 5:

Fighting

• Russian drones have struck apartment buildings in Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, triggering fires and injuring at least nine people, the city’s mayor said early on Thursday.
• New Ukrainian drone attacks hit energy infrastructure in Russian-occupied parts of the Zaporizhia and Kherson regions in southern Ukraine, Russian-installed officials said. The Russian-appointed governor of the Kherson region, Vladimir Saldo, said the attacks left 97 settlements, with some 68,000 residents, without power.
• Russian forces have taken control of the settlements of Ridkodub in eastern Ukraine and Kindrativka in Ukraine’s Sumy region, the Russian Ministry of Defence said.
• Commenting on Ukraine’s attack on the Crimean bridge – a major Russian-built road and rail bridge linking Russia and the Russian-annexed Crimean Peninsula – the Kremlin said that while there was an explosion, the bridge was undamaged.

Ceasefire talks

• Russian President Vladimir Putin said he does not think Ukraine’s leaders want peace after accusing them of ordering a bomb attack in Western Russia on Saturday, which killed seven people and injured 115.
• Putin described the attack, which struck a highway bridge over a railway line carrying passenger trains, as a “terrorist” action aimed at wrecking the peace talks.
• Putin also told United States President Donald Trump during a phone call that he would have to respond to Ukraine’s Sunday drone attacks, which targeted Russia’s nuclear-capable bomber fleet deep in Siberia and Russia’s far north.
• Yuri Ushakov, a foreign policy aide to Putin, said the Russian leader told Trump on the call that ceasefire talks “on the whole were useful”, despite attempts by Ukraine to “disrupt” them.
• Two unnamed US officials have told the Reuters news agency that Ukraine’s drone attack in Siberia hit about 20 Russian warplanes, destroying about 10 of them, a figure that is about half the number estimated by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
• Trump’s Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, said the risk of escalation from the war in Ukraine was “going way up” after Ukraine’s drone attack over the weekend.
• Zelenskyy has proposed implementing a ceasefire until a meeting can be arranged with Putin. “My proposal, which I believe our partners can support, is that we agree a ceasefire with the Russians until the leaders meet,” he told a briefing in Kyiv.
• Pope Leo urged Russia to take steps towards ending its war on Ukraine when he spoke to Putin for the first time over the phone, the Vatican has said.

International diplomacy

• North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has met Russia’s Security Council secretary, Sergei Shoigu, as he pledged unconditional support for Moscow’s position on Ukraine.
• Ukraine is invited to the NATO summit in The Hague, which will take place in a few weeks, Mark Rutte, the military bloc’s chief, said.
• German Chancellor Friedrich Merz will tell Trump on his upcoming visit that Europe is firmly on Ukraine’s side and that no chance for peace must be passed up, Germany’s foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, has said.
• Wadephul also said that Germany is pushing for new sanctions against Moscow, which should be coordinated with the US, as he accused Russia of not seriously engaging in peace talks.
• Ukraine has discussed with the US how to make a minerals fund operational by the end of the year. The fund’s first meeting is expected in July, Ukraine’s economy minister, Yulia Svyrydenko, who is also a deputy prime minister, said during her visit to Washington, DC.
• Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, met US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington, DC, during his visit there.
• Kyiv’s allies have voiced a willingness to pay for defence manufacturing by Ukrainian companies in allied countries, Ukrainian Minister of Defence Rustem Umerov said after meeting Western counterparts at the Ukraine Defence Contact Group.
• United Kingdom Defence Secretary John Healey said the UK will increase tenfold the number of drones it will deliver to Ukraine, aiming to ship 100,000 of the devices.