Putin starts new six-year term with challenge to the West

Russian President Vladimir Putin began his fifth term as Russian leader at a glittering Kremlin inauguration, setting out on another six years in office after destroying his political opponents. (AP)
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Updated 07 May 2024
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Putin starts new six-year term with challenge to the West

  • Putin is sworn in for fifth term
  • US and many EU states stay away
  • Putin says he’s not ending dialogue with West

MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin said it was up the West to choose between confrontation and cooperation as he was sworn in for a new six-year term on Tuesday at a Kremlin ceremony that was boycotted by the United States and many of its allies.
More than two years into the war in Ukraine, Putin said he wanted to “bow” before Russia’s soldiers there and declared in his inauguration speech that his landslide re-election in March was proof the country was united and on the right track.
“You, citizens of Russia, have confirmed the correctness of the country’s course. This is of great importance right now, when we are faced with serious challenges,” he told dignitaries in a gilded Kremlin hall where a trumpet fanfare sounded to greet his arrival.
“I see in this a deep understanding of our common historical goals, a determination to adamantly defend our choice, our values, freedom and the national interests of Russia.”
At 71, Putin dominates the domestic political landscape. Leading opposition figures are in prison or exile, and his best known critic, Alexei Navalny, died suddenly in an Arctic penal colony in February.
Yulia Navalnaya, the late dissident’s wife, urged supporters in a video on Tuesday to keep up the struggle against Putin. “With each of his terms, everything only gets worse, and its’ frightening to imagine what else will happen while Putin remains in power,” she said.
On the international stage, Putin is locked in a confrontation with Western countries he accuses of using Ukraine as a vehicle to try to defeat and dismember Russia.
Putin told Russia’s political elite after being sworn in that he was not rejecting dialogue with the West, including on nuclear weapons.
“The choice is theirs: do they intend to continue trying to restrain the development of Russia, continue the policy of aggression, incessant pressure on our country for years, or look for a path to cooperation and peace?” he said.
With Russia’s troops advancing gradually in eastern Ukraine, the top US intelligence official said last week that Putin appeared to see domestic and international developments trending in his favor and the conflict was unlikely to end anytime soon.
It remains unclear how far Putin will seek to press the war and on what terms he might discuss ending it — decisions that will depend in part on whether Joe Biden or Donald Trump wins the US presidential election in November. Ukraine says peace can only come with a full withdrawal of Russia’s troops, who control nearly 20 percent of its territory.
Western absentees
Putin, in power as president or prime minister since 1999, will surpass Soviet leader Josef Stalin and become Russia’s longest-serving ruler since 18th century Empress Catherine the Great if he completes a new six-year term. He would then be eligible to seek re-election again.
He won victory by a record margin in a tightly controlled election from which two anti-war candidates were barred on technical grounds. The opposition called it a sham.
The United States, which said it did not consider his re-election free and fair, stayed away from Tuesday’s ceremony.
Britain, Canada and most EU nations also decided to boycott the swearing-in, but France said it would send its ambassador.
Ukraine said the event sought to create “the illusion of legality for the nearly lifelong stay in power of a person who has turned the Russian Federation into an aggressor state and the ruling regime into a dictatorship.”
Sergei Chemezov, a Putin ally, told Reuters before the ceremony, that Putin brought stability, something which even his critics should welcome.
“For Russia, this is the continuation of our path, this is stability – you can ask any citizen on the street,” he said.
Nuclear tensions
Russia’s relations with the United States and its allies are at their lowest point since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when the world came to the brink of nuclear war.
The West has provided Ukraine with artillery, tanks and long-range missiles, but NATO troops have not joined the conflict directly, something that both Putin and Biden have warned could lead to World War Three.
Underscoring the rise in nuclear tensions, Russia said on Monday it would practice the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons as part of a military exercise, after what it said were threats from France, Britain and the United States.
One of the decisions awaiting Putin in his new term will be whether to seek to renew or replace the last remaining treaty that limits Russian and US strategic nuclear warheads. The New START agreement is due to expire in 2026.
In line with the constitution, the government resigned at the start of the new presidential term. Putin ordered it to remain in office while he appoints a new one which is expected to include many of the same faces.


Frustrated Americans await the economic changes they voted for with Trump

Updated 10 sec ago
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Frustrated Americans await the economic changes they voted for with Trump

  • In returning Trump to power, tens of millions of Americans expressed their confidence that he can restore the low prices and economic stability they recall from his first term
  • Inflation has since plummeted and is nearly back to normal. Yet Americans are frustrated over still-high prices

WASHINGTON: Fed up with high prices and unimpressed with an economy that by just about any measure is a healthy one, Americans demanded change when they voted for president.
They could get it.
President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to topple many of the Biden administration’s economic policies. Trump campaigned on promises to impose huge tariffs on foreign goods, slash taxes on individuals and businesses and deport millions of undocumented immigrants working in the United States.
With their votes, tens of millions of Americans expressed their confidence that Trump can restore the low prices and economic stability they recall from his first term — at least until the COVID-19 recession of 2020 paralyzed the economy and then a powerful recovery sent inflation soaring. Inflation has since plummeted and is nearly back to normal. Yet Americans are frustrated over still-high prices.
“His track record proved to be, on balance, positive, and people look back now and think: ‘Oh, OK. Let’s try that again,’ ” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former White House economic adviser, director of the Congressional Budget Office and now president of the conservative American Action Forum think tank.
Since Election Day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has skyrocketed more than 1,700 points, largely on expectations that tax cuts and a broad loosening of regulations will accelerate economic growth and swell corporate profits.
Maybe they will. Yet many economists warn that Trump’s plans are likely to worsen the inflation he’s vowed to eradicate, drive up the federal debt and eventually slow growth.
Trump policies could boost inflation
The Peterson Institute for International Economics, a leading think tank, has estimated that Trump’s policies would slash the US gross domestic product — the total output of goods and services — by between $1.5 trillion and $6.4 trillion through 2028. Peterson also estimated that Trump’s proposals would drive prices sharply higher within two years: Inflation, which would otherwise come in at 1.9 percent in 2026, would instead jump to between 6 percent and 9.3 percent if Trump’s policies were enacted in full.
Last month, 23 Nobel-winning economists signed a letter warning that a Trump administration “will lead to higher prices, larger deficits, and greater inequality.”
“Among the most important determinants of economic success,” they wrote, “are the rule of law and economic and political certainty, and Trump threatens all of these.’’
Trump is inheriting an economy that, despite frustratingly high prices, looks fundamentally strong. Growth came in at a healthy 2.8 percent annual rate from July through September. Unemployment is 4.1 percent — quite low by historic standards.
Among wealthy countries, only Spain will experience faster growth this year, according to the International Monetary Fund’s forecast. The United States is the economic “envy of the world,” the Economist magazine recently declared.
The Federal Reserve is so confident that US inflation is slowing toward its 2 percent target that it cut its benchmark rate in September and again this week.
Americans are deeply unhappy with prices
Consumers, though, still bear the scars of the inflationary surge. Prices on average are still 19 percent higher than they were before inflation began to accelerate in 2021. Grocery bills and rent hikes are still causing hardships, especially for lower-income households. Though inflation-adjusted hourly wages have risen for more than two years, they’re still below where they were before President Joe Biden took office.
Voters took their frustration to the polls. According to AP VoteCast, a sweeping survey of more than 120,000 voters nationwide, 3 in 10 voters said their family was “falling behind’’ financially, up from 2 in 10 in 2020. About 9 in 10 voters were at least somewhat worried about the cost of groceries, 8 in 10 about the cost of health care, housing or gasoline.
“I don’t think it’s either deep or complicated,’’ Holtz-Eakin said. “The real problem is the Biden-Harris team made people worse off, and they were very angry about it, and we saw the result.’’
The irony is that mainstream economists fear Trump’s remedies will make price levels worse, not better.
Tariffs are a tax on consumers
The centerpiece of Trump’s economic agenda is taxing imports. It’s an approach that he asserts will shrink America’s trade deficits and force other countries to grant concessions to the United States. In his first term, he increased tariffs on Chinese goods, and he’s now promised much more of the same: Trump wants to raise tariffs on Chinese goods to 60 percent and impose a “universal’’ tax of 10 percent or 20 percent on all other imports.
Trump insists that other countries pay tariffs. In fact, American companies pay them — and then typically pass along their higher costs to their customers via higher prices. Which is why taxing imports is normally inflationary. Worse, other countries usually retaliate with tariffs on American goods, thereby hurting US exporters.
Kimberly Clausing and Mary Lovely of the Peterson Institute have calculated that Trump’s proposed 60 percent tax on Chinese imports and his high-end 20 percent tariff on everything else would impose an after-tax loss on a typical American household of $2,600 annually.
The economic damage would likely spread globally. Researchers at Capital Economics have calculated that a 10 percent US tariff would hurt Mexico hardest. Germany and China would also suffer. All of that depends, of course, on whether he actually does what he said during the campaign.
Deportations would rattle the US job market
Trump has threatened to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, potentially undermining one of the factors that allowed the United States to tame inflation without falling into recession.
The Congressional Budget Office reported that net immigration — arrivals minus departures — reached 3.3 million in 2023. Employers needed the new arrivals. After the economy rebounded from the pandemic recession, companies struggled to hire enough workers, especially because so many native-born baby boomers were retiring.
Immigrants filled the gap. Over the past four years, 73 percent of those who entered the labor force were foreign born.
Economists Wendy Edelberg and Tara Watson of the Brookings Institution’s Hamilton Project found that by raising the supply of workers, the influx of immigrants allowed the United States to generate jobs without overheating and accelerating inflation.
The Peterson Institute calculates that the deportation of all 8.3 million immigrants believed to be working illegally in the United States would slash US GDP by $5.1 trillion and raise inflation by 9.1 percentage points by 2028
Big tax cuts could swell the federal deficit
Trump has proposed extending 2017 tax cuts for individuals that were set to expire after 2025 and restoring tax breaks for businesses that were being reduced. He’s also called for ending taxes on Social Security benefits, overtime pay and tips as well as further reducing the corporate income tax rate for US manufacturers.
The University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Wharton Budget Model estimates that Trump’s tax policies would i ncrease budget deficits by $5.8 trillion over 10 years. Even if the tax cuts generated enough growth to recoup some of the lost tax revenue, Penn Wharton calculated, deficits would still increase by more than $4.1 trillion from 2025 through 2034.
The federal budget is already out of balance. An aging population has required increased spending on Social Security and Medicare. And past tax cuts have shrunk government revenue.
Holtz-Eakin said he worries that Trump has little appetite for taking the steps — cuts to Social Security and Medicare, tax increases or some combination — needed to bring the federal budget meaningfully closer to balance.
“It’s not going to happen,” Holtz-Eakin said.


Biden, Trump to meet at White House ahead of historic return

Updated 10 November 2024
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Biden, Trump to meet at White House ahead of historic return

  • Biden had promised an orderly transfer of power back to the Republican he beat in elections just four years ago
  • When Biden beat Trump in the 2020 election, the Republican refused to concede defeat, claming falsely that he was cheated

WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden will meet with President-elect Donald Trump at the White House on Wednesday after the US leader pledged an orderly transfer of power back to the Republican he beat in elections just four years ago.
Trump — who never conceded his 2020 loss — sealed a remarkable comeback to the presidency in the November 5 vote, cementing what is set to be more than a decade of US politics dominated by his hard-line right-wing stance.
This type of meeting between the outgoing and incoming presidents was considered customary, but Trump did not invite Biden for one after making unsubstantiated election fraud claims that culminated in the January 6 Capitol riot.
Trump also broke with precedent by skipping Biden’s January 20, 2021 inauguration, but the White House has said the president will attend the ceremony.
The Democrat’s meeting with Trump will take place in the Oval Office, the White House said Saturday, with the clock ticking down to the ex-president’s return to power.
Biden in January will join the tiny club of US presidents to return power to their White House predecessor — with the one previous instance coming when president Benjamin Harrison handed back to Grover Cleveland in the 19th century.
The 78-year-old ex-reality TV star won wider margins than before, despite a criminal conviction, two impeachments while in office and warnings from his former chief of staff that he is a “fascist.”
Exit polls showed that voters’ top concerns remained the economy and inflation that spiked under Biden in the wake of the Covid pandemic.
Biden, who dropped out of the race in July over concerns about his ability to continue at the age of 81, called Trump on Wednesday to congratulate him after his election win.

Democrats have been pointing fingers over who is to blame for Harris’s decisive loss, with Biden himself coming in for much of the blame.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told The New York Times that “had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race.”
“Because the president endorsed Kamala Harris immediately, that really made it almost impossible to have a primary at that time. If it had been much earlier, it would have been different,” added Pelosi, who is reported to have played a key role in persuading Biden to step aside.
As the Democrats weigh what went wrong, Trump has begun to assemble his second administration by naming campaign manager Susie Wiles to serve as his White House chief of staff.
She is the first woman to be named to the high-profile role and the Republican’s first appointment to his incoming administration.
The other frontrunners for a place in the Trump 2.0 administration reflect the significant changes it is likely to implement.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a leading figure in the anti-vaccine movement for whom Trump has pledged a “big role” in health care, told NBC News on Wednesday that “I’m not going to take away anybody’s vaccines.”
The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, could also be in line for a job auditing government waste after the right-wing SpaceX, Tesla and X boss enthusiastically backed Trump.
Trump is expected to axe many of Biden’s signature policies. He returns to the White House as a climate change denier, poised to take apart Biden’s green policies with his pledge to “drill, baby, drill” for oil.
The president-elect announced Saturday that his inaugural committee will be led by close Trump associate Steve Witkoff and ex-senator Kelly Loeffler.
 


Lithuania’s defense minister proposes ways for smoother relations between Europe and Trump

Updated 10 November 2024
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Lithuania’s defense minister proposes ways for smoother relations between Europe and Trump

  • Trump has repeatedly taken issue with US aid to Ukraine, made vague vows to end the war and has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin

PRAGUE: European nations should not repeat the mistake of creating a barrier between them and President-elect Donald Trump but instead cooperate on issues of common interest, Lithuania’s defense minister said Saturday.
Assuming that Trump will again apply what Laurynas Kasčiūnas called “his contract approach to our relations,” Kasčiūnas outlined areas where Europe and the new president could join forces: more investment in defense, European acquisition of American weapons and cooperation on containing China and Iran.
“What we did a little bit wrong last time when he was elected (by defeating) Hillary Clinton, and it was unexpected, we built against him a moral wall,” Kasčiūnas told The Associated Press.
“I think it was not a correct way,” Kasčiūnas said. He was speaking on the sidelines of a three-day gathering in Prague focusing on European and transatlantic military capabilities.
During his first 2017-2021 term, Trump pushed NATO’s European members to spend more on defense, up to and beyond 2 percent of gross domestic product, and to be less reliant on US military cover.
That’s what the allies have been doing. A total of 23 members are expected to meet the 2 percent target his year, compared to just three 10 years ago, according to NATO. Lithuania has already surpassed 2.5 percent with a goal of reaching 4 percent, which would be more than the United States.
Europe’s defense industry managed to increase output of some products after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2022 but European countries also donated their own weapons to Ukraine, and “remain dependent on the US for some important aspects of their military capability,” a report published by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies at the Prague event said.
Lithuania, which borders Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave to the west and Belarus to the east, remains the largest buyer of US arms among the three Baltic states.
The minister, whose country was in a spat with China over Taiwan, also spoke in favor of European Union sanctions on Iran.
However, Russia’s war against Ukraine has been divisive.
Trump has repeatedly taken issue with US aid to Ukraine, made vague vows to end the war and has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Kasčiūnas insisted that Europe’s military aid to Ukraine has to continue and Russia should not dictate the conditions for peace while a limited ceasefire would not make sense because it would only help Russian troops recover from losses and strike again.
“We need a just peace, credible peace,” he said.
During his election campaign, Trump also threatened actions that could have groundbreaking consequences for nations across Europe, from a trade war with the EU to a withdrawal of NATO commitments.

 


Putin orders more efforts in suppressing extremism; signs into law defense treaty with North Korea

Updated 10 November 2024
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Putin orders more efforts in suppressing extremism; signs into law defense treaty with North Korea

  • More work and proactive behavior are also necessary in suppressing extremism," Putin tells Interior Ministry staff

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his interior ministry early on Sunday to increase efforts in suppressing extremism inside the country.
“Today, Russian citizens expect more dedication and new results from you in all key areas of work,” Putin said in a congratulatory message to the interior ministry’s employees on their professional holiday, which is celebrated in Russia on Nov. 10.
“More work and proactive behavior are also necessary in suppressing extremism. It threatens our sovereignty, constitutional order and the safety of people in any form and guise.”

On Saturday, Putin signed into law a treaty on the country’s strategic partnership with North Korea which includes a mutual defense provision.
The accord, signed by Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in June after a summit in Pyongyang, calls on each side to come to the other’s aid in case of an armed attack.
Russia’s upper house ratified the treaty this week, while the lower house endorsed it last month. Putin signed a decree on that ratification that appeared on Saturday on a government website outlining legislative procedures.
The treaty galvanizes closer ties between Moscow and Pyongyang since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Reports from South Korea and Western countries say North Korea has supplied Russia with weaponry. Ukrainian forensic experts say they have found traces of the weapons at sites of Russian attacks.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday that North Korea has sent 11,000 troops to Russia and some of them suffered casualties in combat with Kyiv’s forces Russia’s southern Kursk region.
Russia has not confirmed the presence of the North Korean troops.


The hardest job in Washington? A look at those who have served as chief of staff for Trump

Updated 10 November 2024
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The hardest job in Washington? A look at those who have served as chief of staff for Trump

WASHINGTON: Susie Wiles will be the latest occupant of the hottest hot seat in Washington — Donald Trump’s chief of staff.
It’s a tough job under the best of circumstances, responsible for networking with lawmakers, administration officials and outside groups while also keeping the White House running smoothly.
But it’s been particularly challenging under Trump, who has a history of resenting anyone who tries to impose order on his chaotic management style. Four people served as chief of staff during his first term, and sometimes things ended on acrimonious terms.

This combination photo of President-elect Donald Trump's longtime friends, aides and allies shows Boris Epshteyn, from top row left, Richard Grenell, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Howard Lutnick, from center row left, Linda McMahon, Stephen Miller, Elon Musk, Brooke Rollins and from bottom row left Lara Trump, Dana White and Susie Wiles. (AP)

Will past be prologue? It’s impossible to know. So far, Wiles has fared better than most in Trump’s orbit, and she just steered his presidential campaign to victory.
Here’s a look at who came before her.
Reince Priebus
Priebus chaired the Republican National Committee while Trump ran for president in 2016, and he became Trump’s first chief of staff in the White House. Priebus was symbolic of the awkward alliance between the party establishment and Trump’s insurgency, and he struggled to balance the two.
The White House was plagued by infighting and failed to advance legislative goals such as repealing the Affordable Care Act. Priebus was sometimes viewed as untrustworthy by various factions vying for Trump’s favor. Anthony Scaramucci, who memorably but briefly served as Trump’s communications director, profanely attacked him for allegedly leaking information to the media.
Six months into his first term, Trump pushed out Priebus on July 28, 2017. The decision was announced on Twitter, which was par for the course in those tumultuous years.
John Kelly
Next up was Kelly, who had been Trump’s first Homeland Security secretary. Trump liked the way that Kelly, a former four-star Marine general who had served in Iraq, led his immigration crackdown.
But he soon became frustrated by Kelly’s attempts to impose military-style order on the chaotic White House. Kelly clashed with the president and some of his allies, ultimately becoming more isolated and less influential.
Trump appeared so eager to get rid of Kelly, he announced his departure on Dec. 8, 2018, without having a replacement lined up.
While Kelly served longer in the role than anyone else, his break with Trump was ultimately the most acrimonious. He described his former boss in acidic terms last month, saying Trump met the definition of a fascist and once praised Adolf Hitler as having done “some good things.”
Mick Mulvaney
It took days for Trump to settle on a replacement for Kelly, an unusual delay for a such a critical role. He chose Mulvaney, a former South Carolina congressman who was running the White House budget office at the time.
The decision came with an asterisk — Trump called Mulvaney his “acting” chief of staff, suggesting the position would be temporary.
Mulvaney abandoned Kelly’s strict management approach and decided to “let Trump be Trump.” Instead of managing the seemingly unmanageable president, Mulvaney focused on overseeing the staff and working with lawmakers.
He held the job for a little more than a year, departing on March 6, 2020, after Trump was acquitted in his first impeachment trial.
Mark Meadows
Trump turned to Meadows, a North Carolina congressman and leader of the right-wing House Freedom Caucus, to serve as his fourth chief of staff. It was a challenging time, with the coronavirus spreading in the United States and around the globe.
Long viewed as one of the roadblocks to congressional deal-making, Meadows played a leading role in negotiating pandemic relief legislation. He also proved himself as a loyalist as Trump was running for reelection against Joe Biden. Meadows oversaw a White House awash in conspiracy theories about voter fraud as Trump tried to overturn his defeat.
A former aide said Meadows frequently burned papers in his office fireplace during this time. Meadows refused to cooperate with a House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol, and he was indicted in election-related cases in Georgia and Arizona. He’s pleaded not guilty.