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Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, on Feb. 7, 2025.
The Kremlin-White House call marked the end to Washington’s three-year-long effort to isolate Russia and Putin, signaling that ceasefire discussions could be coming soon – and that Ukraine will be entering negotiations under pressure from its biggest military backer. After the call, Trump said that he planned to tell Volodymyr Zelensky to “start negotiations immediately.”
To increase his leverage, Zelensky has offered to trade Ukraine’s critical minerals in exchange for continued US support, an offer that Trump has smiled upon, but not clarified whether it would be in exchange for future or past aid. The Ukrainian leader has also made the domestically controversial decision to begin recruiting men aged 18-24 through hefty bonuses to the tune of $48,000 over a year – a sum that would take 10 years for most to earn in Ukraine. This is an attempt to make up for Ukraine’s manpower deficit and to appease Trump, who has criticized the country for keeping the conscription age at 25.US President Donald Trump speaks during an executive order signing in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on Feb. 10, 2025. He ordered a 25% tariff on steel and aluminum imports, escalating his efforts to protect politically important US industries with levies hitting some of the country's closest allies.
US inflation rose to 3% in January, surpassing the expectations of many economists. This increase is driven at least in part by a sharp jump in egg prices, the result of an avian flu outbreak. But there may be other pressures at play that can create serious political challenges for President Donald Trump and two of his policy priorities.
Eurasia Group, our parent company, warned in its Top Risks report for 2025 that Trump’s use of tariffs would put upward pressure on the prices Americans pay for goods and services. When US consumers face fewer affordable options on many goods, the report warned, inflation will rise again, leaving interest rates higher and slowing growth.
But Trump’s immigration policy, which could deport up to 1 million people in 2025 and as many as five million over his four-year term, could be even more inflationary. Mass deportations, the report warns, “will shrink the US workforce, drive up wages and consumer prices, and reduce the productive capacity of the economy.”
If this forecast is correct, investors will put downward pressure on stock market performance in the coming months in anticipation that higher inflation will encourage the US Federal Reserve Bank to leave interest rates higher for longer — and perhaps even to raise rates late in 2025.
History shows that when inflation rises, stock prices fall, and interest rates are high, US presidents see a drop in their approval ratings. If the inflationary pressures reflected in January’s inflation numbers have staying power, and tariffs and deportations really do make inflation much worse and send Trump’s approval numbers south, will the president alter policy course on two of his signature campaign promises? That’s a question that will be watched closely by governments around the world.
An explosion is pictured at an exploration site of the company Greenland Anorthosite Mining of an anorthosite deposit close to the Qeqertarsuatsiaat fjord, Greenland, on Sept. 11, 2021.
Greenlanders are set to go to the polls next month as US President Donald Trump increases pressure on Denmark to transfer sovereignty of the semi-autonomous Arctic island to the United States.
Australia-based Energy Transition Minerals, the mining company that holds the license for controversial rare earths and uranium deposits, is hoping the social-democratic Siumut Party – currently the second-largest contingent in the Greenlandic parliament, known as the Inatsisartut – will oust the ruling left-wing environmentalist Inuit Ataqatigiit Party in the March 11 election. The two parties are currently in a governing coalition together, with IA in the top position, but Siumut has attracted attention by pledging to hold a referendum on independence from Denmark this year.
After taking power in 2021, the IA banned uranium mining, effectively halting exploration of what Energy Transition Minerals bills as potentially the largest deposit of rare earth oxides in the world. Rare earths are a family of 17 metallic minerals needed for the batteries and magnets used for electric cars, power plants, and fighter jets. China dominates the supply chain, controlling roughly 70% of all mining and 90% of refining capacity.
The IA opposed the mining because of the high density of uranium mixed into the ore, which it feared would generate radioactive pollution along the island’s southwest coast, where much of the mostly indigenous population of roughly 57,000 lives.
Now, Energy Transition Minerals is betting Siumut, under whose rule the mining project was originally approved, will win and lift the moratorium to help generate more income for Greenland to achieve economic self-sufficiency and open the door to a long-sought breakaway from the Danish kingdom.
Awkward technicalities: With 7% of the company, Energy Transition’s largest shareholder is China’s Shenghe Resources, but the firm has vowed to supply the West with its metals. Thanks to America’s trade deals with the European Union and Australia, however, arcane Treasury rules may mean the Melbourne-headquartered company’s rare earths qualify for lucrative US tax credits. With the stock price trading at a fraction of a penny per share, however, Wall Street has doubts about the mining firm’s future.Palestinians walk through the destruction caused by the Israeli air and ground offensive in Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip on February 12, 2025. Donald Trump has called for the expulsion of Gazans and the redevelopment of the enclave as a US-controlled "riviera."
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has reportedly signalled he will scrap an upcoming visit to the White House if President Donald Trump’s plan to expel Palestinians from Gaza and redevelop the enclave as a US-controlled “riviera” is on the agenda.
Trump wants to resettle Gaza’s roughly 2 million people in Arab countries, mainly Jordan and Egypt. Both countries have rejected this plan, which could destabilize their own societies, invite the risk of future Israeli strikes, and legitimize the ethnic cleansing and dispossession of the Palestinians.
Trump has threatened to cut off crucial US aid unless they comply. Cairo and Amman each receive about $1.5 billion annually in military and other aid from Washington. Egypt alone has received more than $80 billion in US military and economic aid since the late 1970s, in exchange for making peace with Israel.
On Tuesday, Jordanian King Abdullah II was visibly uncomfortable during a White House visit, where he offered to accept 2,000 sick Palestinian children but punted on the broader plan.
Egypt insists that Gaza be reconstructed for the Palestinians. A five-way Arab summit including Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar is set for the end of this month.
El-Sissi’s move raises the stakes considerably, as it directly defies Trump, who earlier said of Arab refusal to accept Palestinians: “They say they won’t accept, I say they will.”
Meanwhile, Saudi puts Bibi on blast. The kingdom’s state-overseen media launched an uncharacteristically furious attack on Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, reflecting broader Arab anger at Trump’s plan, which Netanyahu supports.
Saudi Arabia has for years been exploring a US-brokered normalization deal that would entail formal recognition of Israel in exchange for US security guarantees. But Riyadh’s one stipulation has been that Israel must take irreversible steps toward creating a Palestinian state. Trump’s “riviera” plan for Gaza is, to say the least, not that.
Musk and Trump announce new executive order to reduce federal workforce
Elon Musk carries X Æ A-12 as President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 11, 2025.
Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday mandating federal agencies comply with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to slash their workforces – ordering agency heads to hire no more than one employee for every four who leave or are fired. The order does not apply to public safety, immigration, or law enforcement personnel.
The order was announced in a press conference between Trump and Musk on Tuesday night, where the world’s richest man faced questions about DOGE’s transparency and his own conflicts of interest. Musk rejected both accusations and claimed without evidence that he had uncovered billions of dollars of waste and fraud during his audit. At a minimum, eliminating 25% of federal employees would cut the federal budget by about 1%.
When it came to the judicial branch – which has stalled Trump’s “deferred resignation plan” and limited DOGE’s access to some of the government’s payment systems – Trump criticized the rulings but said that he would “always abide by the courts” though he is likely to appeal their findings up to the Supreme Court if they don’t go his way.
President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Jordan's King Abdullah attend a meeting in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, on Feb. 11, 2025.
As for the rest of the population, the monarch said he would “wait for Egypt,” which has been leading negotiations so far, to weigh in. “I think we have to keep in mind there is a plan from Egypt and the Arab countries,” Abdullah said. “I think the point is, how do we make this work in a way that is good for everybody?”
Trump had threatened to withhold aid from Egypt and Jordan unless they receive Palestinians but suggested on Tuesday that “I do think we’re above that.” Trump’s vision for the territory remains unchanged, however: “[W]ith the United States being in control of that piece of land … you’re going to have stability in the Middle East for the first time.”
Meanwhile, in Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet unanimously endorsedTrump’s deadline for the release of the remaining hostages: The US president said Monday that all hostages must be returned by Saturday, or “Let all hell break out; Israel can override it.” Trump’s deadline came in response to Hamas saying it would delay the next hostage release, set for Saturday, and accusing Israel of violating the ceasefire.
Who’s gained ground – and who’s lost? According to Eurasia Middle East analyst Greg Brew, Jordan’s placating of Trump was “a win for Abdullah, who depends on US aid, and who has adamantly rejected the idea of displacement. This doesn't mean Trump has given up, only that we shouldn’t expect mass displacement of Gazans to Jordan any time soon.”
And despite Trump’s stark message about the hostages, Brew believes there is still room to maneuver. “It’s possible Hamas and Israel get through this latest impasse,” he says, “but it points to the fragile nature of the ceasefire and the unpredictable role Trump is playing.”
The first U.S. military aircraft to carry detained migrants to a detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, who Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin called "highly dangerous criminal aliens," is boarded from an unspecified location on Feb. 4, 2025.
On Sunday, Judge Kenneth J. Gonzales of the Federal District Court for New Mexico granted a temporary restraining order on jurisdictional grounds barring three Venezuelan men from being moved to the US military base at Guantánamo Bay.
It’s the first legal challenge to the Trump administration’s plan to use the base – best known as a prison holding detainees from the “War on Terror” – to house non-citizens to be deported. So far, around 50 people, all believed to be men, have been moved to the base from the US. But the agencies overseeing the flights and detentions haven’t released critical information about the people being held, including their identities or the status of their immigration cases.
The three men, Abrahan Barrios Morales, Luis Perez Parra, and Leonel Rivas Gonzales, all scheduled for deportation since 2023, have been held at the Otero County Processing Center in New Mexico since November 2023. They are part of a case challenging their indefinite detention at the center, a case that is also being overseen by Judge Gonzales.
“There’s only one purpose to bring [migrants] to Guantánamo,” Seton Hall law professor Jonathan Hafetz says. “To try to extinguish or limit rights that [migrants] have; to have greater secrecy, and fewer protections for migrants.”
This is not the first time that migrants hoping to settle in the US have been held at the base. But the earlier cases differ from those under Trump’s policy because they never made it to the US in the first place; migrants held at Guantánamo were typically coming from Haiti or Cuba and interdicted before they could get to the mainland. Trump is sending people already in the US to Guantánamo, which migrants and advocates see as a legal black hole.
The “War on Terror” made Guantánamo synonymous with human rights abuses and indefinite detention. And while there have been significant legal battles over the “War on Terror” detainees’ constitutional rights, Hafetz says the current situation is more clear-cut.
“Anyone who’s in the United States – and even if they're moved out – you cannot take away someone’s constitutional rights by moving them into an offshore prison,” he says. Furthermore, ICE has no congressional authority to hold migrants at the base; there’s no legal foundation for the plan, according to Hafetz.
Thus far, there are no legal challenges to the new administration’s policy – the lack of information about who’s been moved makes that difficult. But the American Civil Liberties Union and other legal aid and human rights groups have requested immediate access to and information about the people being held there, indicating that bigger legal challenges are coming.