Peace negotiations between the United States and Iran, facilitated by Russia, have resulted in a dramatic turn of events.

Washington could support the creation of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East, following the proposal presented by Iran in 2010 to the United Nations. This proposal itself echoed an idea put forward by Alfonso García Robles and Alfredo Jalife-Rahme in 1985.

However, today, Iran does not have a military nuclear program, while Israel already has numerous atomic bombs.

While Sun Tzu was storming Wall Street [1], on a very special Thursday for the stock market, the United States and Russia were negotiating constructively in Istanbul [2], and the next day, Steve Witkoff (SW), Trump's special envoy for the Middle East and Russia, held a successful four and a half hour meeting with President Putin and Kirill Dmitriev, the Kremlin's top economic advisor [3].

Trump recently slammed Ukraine's Vladimir Zelensky for refusing to even consider relinquishing claims over the peninsula.

European leaders have rejected a US proposal to recognize Russia's sovereignty over Crimea as part of a draft peace deal on the Ukraine conflict, the Financial Times reported on Thursday. European officials told the outlet that such a move could cause a rift within NATO and force Kiev's backers to choose between sticking with Ukraine or siding with Washington.

According to the report, US President Donald Trump's team has presented Ukraine with a take-it-or-leave-it deal that includes Washington formally recognizing Crimea as Russian territory. US Vice President J.D. Vance has also suggested freezing the conflict along the current lines of control.

A senior European diplomat told the FT that it would be "impossible" to accept the US proposal, while one EU official claimed that "Crimea and future NATO membership aspirations are red lines for us."

Ukraine's Vladimir Zelensky has also refused to even consider conceding Crimea, stating that the country's constitution prohibits such a move.

Canada has one of the most protectionist economies among developed nations. It particularly targets American farmers, media, and manufacturers. That may be why Donald Trump launched his counterattack on trade offenders with a 25% tariff on many imports from Canada and Mexico, and 10% on Canadian energy.

Unhelpfully, Trump claimed authority to do so under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act because of an "extraordinary threat" posed by "unchecked drug trafficking." The White House failed to explain how this applied to Canada. And, while his goals are entirely correct, his April 2 "Liberation Day" global strike, imposing 10% baseline tariffs on almost all nations, and so-called reciprocal tariffs on friends and foes alike, roiled markets and aligned the world against us. That's why Trump rapidly retreated, suspending reciprocal tariffs, except for China.

Clever countries are waging trade war on us. Despite this, America has the world's strongest economy. Except where there are national security considerations that mandate pulling our punches, the U.S. can win every time - if we play chess, not Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots. When it comes to using tariffs as a weapon, Trump should focus on two or three targets at a time, take them down, and then move on to the next. I nominate China, the European Union (see here) and Canada.

Russia's Deputy Chairman of the Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, sparked controversy by comparing German politician Friedrich Merz to Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels and accusing Europe of reviving dangerous militarism.
He can even call Germany's Friedrich Merz a goose-stepping clone of Hitler's propaganda minister if he so choses. However, it is fair to question whether or not Russia's former Prime Minister is justified in doing so.

Fascist Apples

Тhe myth that Germans no longer harbor the same views as Hitler and his minions is simply untrue

To begin with, Friedrich Merz's grandfather, Josef Paul Sauvigny, was one of the Sturmabteilung (SA, or Brown Shirts) who helped Adolf Hitler come to power in the 1930s. Sauvigny was not just marching along with these early stormtroopers; his role and character are well documented. This PDF (in German) by Peter Bürger portrays a man who would do anything to cling to political power and who would ultimately manipulate his way into a full pension from the West German government even though he was an Oberscharführer of the SA in the Nazi era. The document also reveals a sort of de ja vu foreboding, given the proclivities of the new head of the CDU. But is Mr. Medvedev correct? Is Friederich Merz a new propaganda chief like Joseph Goebbels?

The short answer is, yes. The Nazi apples of today have not rolled too far from the same fascist trees that have always blanketed Europe. You see, Merz's grandfather was only a mayor, albeit an important one, who hailed Nazism and Hitler from the square in Brilon. One key aspect of the rise of Hitler's Reich was the bribery system that paid high-ranking senior Wehrmacht officers and officials with vast land grants, cash, cars, lifetime tax freedom, and ongoing payments. This fact reminds me of what a World War II German veteran told me in an interview some years ago. The artillery sergeant who finally fought at Normandy said, "It was not Hitler that was so bad, but the little Hitlers who ran Nazisim on the local front."

Friedrich Merz's family on his mother's side were all jurists, politicians, and/or aristocracy since the end of the Holy Roman Empire. Similar cases always arise when you investigate people like Merz, EU Presdent Ursula von der Leyen, and nearly all the rest of the key leadership. I lived in Germany for a decade and was a bit surprised to find a Nazi skeleton in every basement I was invited into. This is common knowledge, though. As for Merz's father's side of the family, not much is available, except that Joachim Merz was a judge. Some stories claim he served in Hitler's Wehrmacht, which would have been mandatory for men between 16 and 60 once the German dictator declared "Total War," in January 1943. Merz the elder would have been 19 at the time. A meaningful, deeper dive into the incoming German chancellor's ancestry is elusive, at best. What we do know is that Merz denied his maternal grandfather's role in Hitler's rise to power, and then later admitted the truth.

SHANGHAI and HONG KONG - So, predictably, Captain Chaos did blink first. As much as he - and his sprawling media circus - could not possibly admit it.

It all started with "tariff exemptions" - from smartphones and computers to auto parts - on products imported from China. Then it veered towards carefully manicured leaks implying tariffs "could" be reduced to a range between 50% and 65%. And finally a terse admission that if there's no deal, a "tariff number" will be unilaterally set.

China's Ministry of Commerce was unforgiving: "Trying to trade away others' interests for temporary gains is like bargaining with a tiger for its skin - it will only backfire".

And it got fiercer. The Ministry was adamant that any Trump 2.0 claims of any progress on bilateral negotiations have "no factual basis" - de facto depicting the US President as a purveyor of fake news.

Tigers, tigers burning bright: the image does not recall poetry superstar William Blake, but Mao's legendary depiction of the US Empire as a "paper tiger" - a flashback that struck me over and over again last week in Shanghai. If the US Empire was a paper tiger already in the 1960s, the Chinese argue, imagine now.

And the pain will increase, not only for the paper tiger: any dodgy deals made by foreign - vassal - pussycat governments at the expense of Chinese interests simply will be not be tolerated by Beijing.

Last week in Shanghai I was reminded over and over again - by academics and business people - that the weaponized Trump Tariff Tizzy (TTT) goes way beyond China: it is a desperate offense ordered by the US ruling classes against a peer competitor that scares the hell out of them.

The best Chinese analytical minds know exactly what's going on in Washington. Take for instance this essay originally published by the influential Cultural Horizon magazine breaking down the "triangular power structure" of Trump 2.0.

We have all-power Trump forming a "super-establishment"; Silicon Valley money politics, represented by Elon Musk; and the new right-wing elite represented by VP J.D. Vance. End result: a "governance system that is almost parallel to the federal government."

European chihuahuas - caught in the crossfire of Trump 2.0 - are simply incapable of such synthetic and precise conceptualization.

Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Asif has called out the West - and the US in particular - for its role in security tensions in the region. Asked about his country's support for terrorism in an interview with Sky News released on Friday, Asif admitted that Islamabad did "the dirty work" for the Western powers for decades.

"We have been doing this dirty work for the United States for about three decades, you know and the West, including Britain," Asif told the British broadcaster on Thursday. He added that this "was a mistake" and Pakistan has "suffered for that."

"If we had not joined the war against the Soviet Union and the war after 9/11, Pakistan's track record would have been unimpeachable," Asif said. He was referring to the Soviet-Afghan war, during which the US covertly supported anti-communist insurgents, and the US-led 'War on Terror' that was launched by then-President George W. Bush following the September 11, 2001 attacks and which targeted the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

Asif claimed the West has long used terrorist groups as proxies, noting that many now labeled as terrorists were once welcomed in Washington.

While US negotiators trade smiles with Tehran, internal rifts and foreign pressure reveal just how fragile Washington's position has become.

Last Saturday, the second round of US-Iran nuclear talks took place in Rome, following an initial meeting held a week before in Muscat, Oman. Both sides had described the talks as "constructive," but that optimism quickly collided with a wave of conflicting signals from the Trump administration. Despite the encouraging tone, it remained unclear whether a new nuclear agreement was truly within reach.

At the outset of negotiations, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz - an outspoken Iran hawk - laid down a hardline condition: Iran must completely dismantle its uranium enrichment program if it wanted any deal with the US. But after the Muscat meeting, Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, who led the US delegation, struck a very different note. In an interview with Fox News, he suggested that Tehran might be allowed to maintain limited uranium enrichment for peaceful energy purposes - something that would have been a nonstarter just days earlier.

Witkoff emphasized the importance of strict verification protocols to prevent any militarization of Iran's nuclear capabilities, including oversight of missile technology and delivery systems. Notably absent from his remarks? Any mention of "dismantlement." This shift hinted that the administration might be considering a modified return to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) - the very agreement that Trump tore up in 2018, branding it a "disaster."

But the pivot didn't last. Just one day later, Witkoff reversed course in a post on X, doubling down on the demand for full dismantlement of Iran's nuclear and weapons programs. So what triggered the rhetorical whiplash?

A garden without a gardener: Western Europe drifts as the world rebuilds.

The defining trait of today's Western Europe is not unity or strength - it is the complete absence of a vision for the future. While the US, Russia, China, India, and even Latin America actively shape and debate their long-term direction, Western Europe remains stuck in nostalgia. Its politicians are not building tomorrow but clinging to yesterday's comforts. The continent's political imagination seems limited to one goal: Maintaining the status quo of a world that no longer exists.

This backward-looking mentality has transformed the EU into what can best be described as a "terrarium of like-minded people" - an ecosystem where each actor competes for influence, all the while privately despising the others. In theory, the EU was designed to create a shared geopolitical force. In practice, that unity has been reduced to cynical self-interest and mutual sabotage.

Germany wants to preserve its economic dominance, sending constant signals to Washington that it alone is a stable transatlantic partner. France, despite its limited military capabilities, flexes what remains of its armed forces to assert superiority over Germany and southern Europe. Britain, once an outsider, is suddenly interested in being part of "Europe" again - but only to stir division and feed the fires of confrontation with Russia.

Kiev needs to scrap its own self-imposed ban on talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin if it hopes to facilitate future bilateral talks regarding the Ukraine conflict, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

On Monday, Putin declared he was ready to discuss a potential unilateral halt on civilian infrastructure strikes in a bilateral format with Kiev. This came after Ukraine's Vladimir Zelensky floated the idea of a halt on long-range strikes on non-military targets by both sides in a social media statement on Sunday.

In a press briefing on Tuesday, the Kremlin spokesman was asked if Ukraine's ban on direct talks with Russia could be an obstacle to negotiations on the matter.

"If the Ukrainian side is willing and open, some steps should probably be taken to legally clear these obstacles on the path to such contacts, if there is such a willingness. President Putin's statement was yet another show of Moscow's readiness to solve issues via diplomacy."

Peskov, in a statement to Russia TV 1 journalist Pavel Zarubin, said:

"So far, we have a de facto/de jure situation, when the Ukrainians themselves have banned such contacts, and no action has been taken to lift this ban."

The Trump administration "seeks to rebalance global trade" with "friends like India," according to the American vice president.

US Vice President J.D. Vance has announced that the US and India have agreed on terms for bilateral trade negotiations, calling it a roadmap to a final deal.

Vance is currently in India, where he has held meetings with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other key officials. Washington and New Delhi aim to substantially increase bilateral trade, with a goal of exceeding $500 billion by the end of the decade. The target was announced by President Donald Trump and Modi during the latter's visit to the US in February.

Tuesday in the city of Jaipur, Vance said:

"I believe this is a vital step toward realizing President Trump's and Prime Minister Modi's vision, because it sets a road map toward a final deal between our nations."

The US also wants a deeper defense partnership with the South Asian power, the vice president stated, including co-production of munitions and equipment such as javelins and striker combat vehicles.