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EVIAN-LES-BAINS, France — Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is heading home from the G7 summit this Wednesday without a formal bilateral sit-down with U.S. President Donald Trump, even as the future of a major free trade agreement between the two countries hangs in the balance.

While it has long been customary for Canadian leaders to hold one-on-one meetings with U.S. presidents at gatherings of the world’s top industrialized democracies, Carney pushed back on any interpretation that the absence of such a meeting was a diplomatic slight.

“I wouldn’t take a big message from that,” Carney said. “I had seven or eight discussions with President Trump over the course of last 36 hours. I’ll have more today, a wide range of subjects from the economy, relations, his birthday, artificial intelligence, Ukraine, obviously Iran.”

The timing is significant. The North American free trade pact — which has linked the economies of Canada, the United States, and Mexico since the early 1990s — is due for renewal on July 1. Trump indicated last week that he may choose not to renew the agreement, raising alarms for Canada, which sends roughly 75% of its exports to the American market.

On the trade negotiation front, Canada’s minister responsible for U.S. trade, Dominic LeBlanc, along with Canada’s chief negotiator Janice Charette, held talks at the summit with U.S. Trade Ambassador Jamieson Greer. LeBlanc reported that the discussions moved forward productively. He has previously expressed concern that the Trump administration may push for annual reviews of the trade deal, deliberately keeping its long-term status uncertain.

Among the G7 leaders, French President Emmanuel Macron — who is hosting the summit — was the only one to secure a formal bilateral session with Trump. Trump also held separate one-on-one meetings with leaders from Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and India, none of which are G7 members. Carney acknowledged that the host nation traditionally meets individually with the U.S. president.

Despite the absence of a formal meeting, Carney found moments to connect with Trump on trade issues, sometimes using humor. At one point, a microphone picked up the two leaders joking about stealing Macron’s watch. The conversation then shifted to a more serious topic — Chinese electric vehicles entering the Canadian market.

A recording captured Carney explaining to Trump that Canada had capped Chinese electric vehicle imports at fewer than 49,000 cars, representing less than 3% of Canada’s market, following a deal struck with Beijing.

“It’s a cap, we capped, a hard line,” Carney told Trump. “I thought you’d actually like that.”

“That’s good, I like it,” Trump replied.

Earlier this year, Canada broke from the U.S. approach by agreeing to reduce its 100% tariff on Chinese electric vehicles in exchange for lower Chinese tariffs on Canadian agricultural products. Carney said he raised the subject with Trump on two separate occasions during the summit.

“I’m not surprised that the president of the United States doesn’t follow every detail of every agreement that Canada has, and he likes the structure. Actually, we had a follow-up conversation about it as well,” Carney said.

Peter Boehm, a Canadian senator who has overseen multiple G7 summits on Canada’s behalf, said Carney likely had ample opportunity for meaningful exchanges with Trump throughout the event.

“I wouldn’t see it as a snub,” Boehm said. “It’s amazing how much time leaders can actually have to have conversations.”

NAIROBI, Kenya — Taiwan is accusing Kenya of committing human rights abuses against Taiwanese nationals who traveled to Mombasa for a global oceans conference, and is pointing the finger at China for pressuring the East African nation into taking action.

According to Taiwan’s foreign ministry, the scholars had their passports and mobile phones taken away and were held in detention for more than 20 hours before ultimately being expelled from the country.

Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Taipei released a statement saying it “strongly protests and condemns China’s pressure on the Kenyan government to refuse Taiwanese scholars’ attendance at the international ocean academic exchange conference, as well as the barbaric acts of confiscating passports, mobile phones, and restricting personal and communication freedoms — actions that violate human rights and international norms.”

Kenya, however, stood by its decision to remove the Taiwanese nationals. The country’s Foreign Ministry Principal Secretary Korir Sing’oei stated that Kenya’s foreign policy “recognizes only one China.”

Sing’oei went on to say, “Any person purporting to hold a Taiwanese passport would ordinarily not be allowed through our borders for lacking proper documentation and would not in any event be part of a formal state meeting convened by Kenya government.”

Kenya is currently hosting the annual oceans conference, an event centered on tackling pressing ocean-related challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution.

The conference has drawn hundreds of delegates from across Africa, the United States, the European Union, and climate-vulnerable nations in the Caribbean and Pacific islands. Event organizers have worked to highlight Africa’s role — as the first-ever host of the gathering — as a leading voice in global ocean governance.

The tension between Taiwan and China stretches back to 1949, when the two sides split following a civil war. For decades, China has maintained that Taiwan is part of its territory and has insisted the island must eventually come under its authority, by force if necessary.

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced Wednesday that leaders from the world’s top industrial nations, gathered at the Group of Seven summit in France, have made important new commitments to support Ukraine in its war against Russia.

The assembled leaders agreed to boost Ukraine’s air defense systems, safeguard the country’s energy infrastructure, and ramp up economic pressure on Moscow through additional sanctions — all as Ukraine’s battle against Russia’s full-scale invasion pushes into a fifth year with no clear end on the horizon.

Zelenskyy, who attended the summit in person, posted on X that the gathering produced meaningful outcomes. “The G7 Summit in France delivered important results for Ukraine. Most importantly, we agreed on additional strengthening of Ukraine’s air defense,” he wrote.

He added that allied nations would continue backing Ukraine’s military and energy stability, saying, “Our partners will ensure support for our defense and energy resilience,” and confirming that new sanctions against Russia would follow.

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, Zelenskyy has worked tirelessly to build international backing for Ukraine while working to diplomatically isolate Russian President Vladimir Putin on the world stage.

Following the G7 gathering, Zelenskyy was set to travel to Brussels on Thursday for a European Union summit. Ukraine formally began EU membership talks on Monday, kicking off what is expected to be a lengthy process even as the country remains at war.

The ongoing conflict in Iran has pulled Washington’s attention away from its largely unsuccessful year-long push to bring the Ukraine war to an end. Zelenskyy used the G7 gathering — where key European leaders were also present — to engage directly with U.S. President Donald Trump.

Putin, meanwhile, has attempted to sideline both Europe and Kyiv, seeking to negotiate Ukraine’s fate in direct talks with Washington alone.

In a joint statement released overnight, the leaders of Japan, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, and the United States expressed their backing for Ukraine. “We commend Ukraine for its resilience and progress on the battlefield in recent months and emphasize there is now a new momentum” in Kyiv’s resistance, the statement read.

Western officials and analysts have noted a marked improvement in Ukraine’s battlefield performance in recent months, despite facing a much larger Russian military force.

Advanced Ukrainian drones have been effective at pinning down Russian troops along the front lines, disrupting supply routes in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory, and striking oil production facilities deep within Russia — a key source of revenue for Moscow. These developments have brought the war into sharper focus for ordinary Russians and increased pressure on Putin.

However, Ukraine is facing a critical shortage of American-made Patriot air defense missiles, partly due to U.S. stockpiles being drawn down by the conflict in the Middle East. That shortage leaves Ukraine exposed to the ballistic missiles Russia deploys in its strategic bombing campaign against Ukrainian cities and infrastructure.

The G7 joint statement pledged additional air defense capabilities for Ukraine, though it did not specify which types of weapons systems would be provided.

Leaders also indicated they would look into allowing Ukraine to obtain licenses to produce Western weapons domestically. Kyiv has specifically requested permission to manufacture Patriot missiles on its own soil.

Among the attacks reported Wednesday, a Russian drone hit a children’s equestrian sports school in Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region overnight, striking a stable and killing horses. Oleh Hryhorov of the Sumy regional military administration said school staff were unharmed, based on preliminary information.

Russia’s Defense Ministry, meanwhile, reported that its air defenses intercepted 157 Ukrainian drones between late Tuesday and early Wednesday.

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin has opened a two-day summit in Kazan with leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, aiming to deepen business and diplomatic ties between Russia and the regional bloc.

The Russia-ASEAN summit is focused on expanding what Russia calls a “strategic partnership” with ASEAN’s member nations, which include Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, East Timor, and Vietnam.

ASEAN has long maintained relations with Moscow as a “dialogue partner,” with top-level meetings held annually. This year’s gathering in Kazan carries added significance as it commemorates the 35th anniversary of the Russia-ASEAN relationship.

In remarks to participants at a business forum running alongside the summit, Putin expressed confidence that the event would “create new opportunities for expanding mutually beneficial trade, investment, and industrial cooperation, while also strengthening direct dialogue between our business communities.”

Kremlin foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov outlined the summit’s agenda, saying it would include discussions on global and regional issues as well as a review of progress in Russia-ASEAN relations. He noted that participants are expected to reaffirm their commitment to “forming a just and democratic multipolar world order based on the principles of international law and the United Nations Charter.”

Ushakov also confirmed that Putin planned to hold one-on-one meetings with individual ASEAN leaders throughout the summit.

The member nations of ASEAN vary widely in their global alignments. The Philippines, which currently holds the bloc’s rotating annual presidency, is considered closely aligned with the United States. Other members maintain significant trade and security ties with both China and Russia.

Several ASEAN countries — including the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam — have either already purchased Russian crude oil or expressed interest in doing so, following a sharp rise in global fuel prices in the aftermath of the war in Ukraine.

A weeks-long leadership battle inside the Philippine Senate came to an end Wednesday when a Duterte-aligned senator was ousted from the chamber’s top position — just as the body prepares to put the former president’s daughter on trial.

Sherwin Gatchalian, an ally of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., secured the Senate presidency after winning the backing of 13 out of 24 senators. His opponent, Alan Peter Cayetano — a key supporter of former President Rodrigo Duterte — acknowledged the loss after one of his own allied senators switched sides, handing the rival faction a clear majority.

“It’s a relief,” said Jean Franco, a political professor at the state-run University of the Philippines. However, she cautioned that the country’s democracy, “with its weak and fragile institutions,” still faces significant challenges ahead.

The Senate power struggle has widely been viewed as an extension of the bitter political feud between Marcos and Vice President Sara Duterte. The two were once political partners before a very public and acrimonious falling out — a conflict that highlights the deep divisions and turbulent nature of Philippine politics.

Vice President Duterte has held Marcos responsible for her father’s arrest and his transfer to the International Criminal Court in The Hague last year. The elder Duterte is set to face trial before the global court beginning in November on charges of crimes against humanity.

Those charges are rooted in the violent anti-drug campaign he carried out while in office, during which thousands of mostly low-income drug suspects were killed. Rodrigo Duterte has denied ever ordering extrajudicial killings.

Cayetano had originally seized the Senate presidency on May 11 after his faction gained a narrow majority when Sen. Ronald dela Rosa resurfaced following months out of public view to cast a supporting vote. Dela Rosa, who once served as Rodrigo Duterte’s national police chief, has been identified by the ICC as a co-perpetrator in the widespread killings of drug suspects. An ICC arrest warrant for dela Rosa was unsealed on May 11, after which he went back into hiding and has not been found.

A separate blow to Cayetano’s faction came on June 1, when another allied senator, Jinggoy Estrada, was arrested and jailed following an indictment on a plunder charge. Estrada is accused of accepting large kickbacks connected to a flood control project — an allegation he denies.

Control of the Senate carries enormous significance. The chamber is expected to begin the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte in July, after the House of Representatives voted last month to impeach her. The charges against her include unexplained wealth and publicly threatening to have President Marcos assassinated.

The House of Representatives is largely controlled by Marcos allies. The vice president has denied all of the allegations. Her supporters argue the charges were fabricated to block her from running for president when Marcos’ six-year term concludes in 2028.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Leaked copies of a tentative agreement between the United States and Iran indicate that Tehran will immediately move to reopen the Strait of Hormuz once the deal is officially signed, and will be permitted to sell its oil without any restrictions, according to officials who say the leaked text closely reflects the actual document.

The agreement is scheduled to be formally signed at a ceremony in Switzerland on Friday. Under its terms, the U.S. would work to secure at least $300 billion to help rebuild Iran following the war, and would pursue the removal of all American and United Nations sanctions against Tehran — provided a final agreement on Iran’s nuclear program is eventually reached.

The U.S. concessions — including immediately allowing Iran to sell oil freely and the eventual lifting of all sanctions — go further than the terms Iran received under its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. U.S. President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of that earlier agreement during his first term, calling it the “worst deal ever.” The new accord is expected to face sharp criticism in Washington and appears to be a significant blow to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who launched the war alongside Trump on Feb. 28.

The agreement also calls for an immediate halt to all fighting in Lebanon between Israel and the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah. That provision is among the most sensitive in the deal, as Israel has insisted it retains the right to defend itself and continues to occupy large portions of Lebanon. Iran has stated that Israel must withdraw under the terms of the deal, though the leaked versions contain no specific language about a withdrawal.

Both sides are expected to begin 60 days of negotiations aimed at reaching a final agreement — one that the Trump administration says will permanently prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. The generous U.S. offers appear designed to draw Iran into striking a longer-term deal.

In the near term, however, Iran appears to be receiving significant benefits upfront while giving up relatively little. Much of the interim agreement would restore conditions to what they were before the war began, including the cessation of hostilities and the reopening of the strait — a critical passage for global oil and natural gas supplies whose closure triggered a historic energy crisis.

Other major concessions to Iran — including reconstruction funding, full sanctions relief, and the release of frozen assets — appear tied to the outcome of future negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.

A person briefed on the memorandum of understanding after it was signed, and another who reviewed a copy beforehand, both said the leaked text largely matched what was published by Saudi-owned broadcaster Al Arabiya, which reported details of the deal on Tuesday. Both individuals spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter. Two additional officials in the Middle East, also speaking anonymously for the same reason, confirmed that versions published by Al Arabiya and Bloomberg broadly matched the final agreement.

The White House and other American officials have not released the terms of the deal and did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Iran has also not published an official version. Iran’s semiofficial Tasnim news agency, which has close ties to the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, claimed Wednesday that Bloomberg’s version was missing sections, without providing a complete accounting of what was absent.

The reopening of the Strait of Hormuz represents a major victory for the global economy. The narrow waterway at the mouth of the Persian Gulf once carried a fifth of all oil and natural gas traded worldwide before the war began. Iranian attacks on shipping and threats to vessels effectively shut down the strait, driving up energy prices globally and making everyday goods — including food — more expensive. Iran allowed some vessels to pass after paying tolls, an unprecedented practice in the strait, which sits in the territorial waters of Iran and Oman and has long been regarded as an international waterway. The U.S. later provided military assistance to help other tankers through, but traffic never returned to prewar levels.

Under the deal, the U.S. would lift a blockade on Iranian ports, and the strait would be expected to return to its prewar traffic levels within 30 days. The agreement also acknowledges that Iranian mines may still be present in the waterway and will need to be cleared.

While full sanctions relief for Iran will depend on future negotiations, the U.S. will immediately issue waivers allowing Iranian oil sales to proceed. Granting those waivers at the outset of the 60-day talks removes a significant point of leverage for the U.S. In the years leading up to the 2015 nuclear deal, Iranian oil faced international sanctions that sharply limited sales, and those sanctions were only lifted upon the completion of that overall agreement.

The interim deal also opens the possibility of ending all sanctions Iran faces from both the U.S. and the United Nations — though the timeline for that would be determined in later talks. That goes well beyond the 2015 deal, which only lifted certain sanctions in exchange for Iran significantly scaling back its uranium enrichment and stockpile.

The accord would also provide Iran with at least $300 billion for reconstruction following an intensive U.S. and Israeli bombing campaign. U.S. Vice President JD Vance has said Gulf Arab nations would supply that amount in the form of investments in Iran.

The interim deal establishes a 60-day window — which can be extended — to negotiate limits on Iran’s nuclear program, a topic that has been discussed across multiple rounds of talks during Trump’s second administration without a breakthrough. Iran maintains its nuclear program is peaceful, though the International Atomic Energy Agency has said Iran possesses enough highly enriched uranium to construct multiple atomic bombs if it chose to do so.

In the interim deal, Iran reaffirms that it will never produce nuclear weapons — a pledge it also made in the 2015 accord. Iranian diplomats have long pointed to statements from the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that Iran would not build an atomic bomb. Whether Iran’s new Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, will uphold that position remains uncertain.

Trump has cited varying goals for the war at different points, including vowing to eliminate Iran’s nuclear and missile programs, end its support for Hezbollah and other proxy groups, and at times suggesting the conflict could lead to the fall of the Iranian government. The interim deal falls short of all of those objectives.

The negotiations have also exposed a growing rift between Netanyahu and Trump — Netanyahu’s closest and most powerful international ally — at a time when Netanyahu is facing a reelection campaign and heavy domestic criticism over the emerging deal. Despite that pressure, Netanyahu will find it difficult to oppose Trump given Israel’s deep dependence on U.S. diplomatic and military support.

The United Nations World Food Programme announced Wednesday that it is welcoming an $800 million contribution from the United States — a major infusion of cash that comes after the Trump administration had previously slashed the agency’s American funding.

The WFP said the money would be used to scale up food assistance and respond quickly to emerging crises at a time when global hunger has reached record levels and the number of people facing severe food shortages is expected to climb further this year.

The United States is the WFP’s largest donor, but its contributions dropped by more than half between 2024 and 2025, falling to roughly $2 billion. The new $800 million grant would allow the agency to stockpile food supplies in advance, expand cash assistance programs, and keep supply chains running in crisis zones including Lebanon, Haiti, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The broader picture of U.S. humanitarian aid has also shifted dramatically. Overall U.S. humanitarian funding to the United Nations fell from $14.1 billion to approximately $3.38 billion in 2025 following significant spending cuts.

Just one day earlier, on Tuesday, the U.S. State Department announced a separate $218 million assistance package for UNICEF, the UN’s children’s agency.

The WFP is currently operating under temporary leadership as the United States works to install another American at the top of the organization. That search follows the resignation of Cindy McCain, who stepped down for health reasons.

LONDON (AP) — UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer stepped forward Wednesday to condemn the crew of a Russian warship for what he called reckless behavior, after the vessel fired warning shots near a British sailboat in the English Channel — though he suggested the situation was less alarming than it might appear.

The 40-foot sailboat involved, named Bright Future, was making its way across the English Channel toward Cherbourg, France, early Tuesday morning when its owners say they encountered a Russian warship that fired shots in their direction. Russia’s account confirms that the crew of the frigate Admiral Grigorovich discharged rounds into the air after the sailboat reportedly ignored repeated warnings to alter its path.

Nobody aboard was hurt, but the confrontation has drawn fresh attention to the growing friction between the United Kingdom and Russia.

Starmer, speaking from the G7 summit being held in France, described the incident as “deeply concerning,” while also noting that British defense officials had determined the shots were not “anything more sinister” than an attempt to prevent a collision between the two vessels.

“That doesn’t take away from the fact that clearly Russia is aggressive across Europe,” Starmer said.

The episode unfolded just two days after Britain seized a tanker linked to Russia’s so-called shadow fleet — a network of vessels that Western nations allege is used to dodge sanctions placed on Russian oil following the invasion of Ukraine. The UK has also leveled accusations at Russia of running a campaign of sabotage and disinformation aimed at destabilizing European countries that back Ukraine.

The British couple on board the Bright Future, Jane Kelvey, 68, and her husband Alan, 70, said the shots were fired roughly 20 nautical miles — about 23 miles or 37 kilometers — south of the Isle of Wight, in waters outside UK territorial boundaries.

Jane Kelvey described the moment to the i Paper: “It was a bit scary. I crouched down. I didn’t think our safety was in danger. But it was certainly unusual. As we sailed away, we said to each other, what the hell just happened?”

Russia’s Defense Ministry offered its own version of events, stating that the frigate’s crew had spotted the yacht traveling on what it called a “dangerous course in close proximity with the warship.” According to the ministry, the ship launched flares and sounded audio signals when the yacht failed to respond.

“After the distance had closed to 150 meters (500 feet), the frigate’s commander decided to fire warning shots across the vessel’s bow using small arms,” the ministry stated, adding that the yacht then changed direction and departed the area.

MADRID — Former Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero stood before a judge in Madrid on Wednesday, answering questions tied to his alleged role in a government airline rescue and jewelry uncovered during a police search of his office.

Wednesday’s court appearance marks the first time Zapatero has faced the National Court judge since being placed under investigation last month. He is accused of possible influence peddling, money laundering, and other financial misconduct connected to the Spanish government’s bailout of Plus Ultra airline.

Zapatero, 65, served as Spain’s prime minister from 2004 to 2011. He had been out of public office for roughly a decade when Plus Ultra received 53 million euros — approximately $61.5 million — in public funds in 2021 drawn from a COVID-19 economic recovery program.

Judge José Luis Calama is also looking into potential tax fraud and contraband charges related to jewelry valued at 1.3 million euros that officers found inside a safe when they searched Zapatero’s office in May.

Zapatero has flatly denied any involvement in wrongdoing related to the airline bailout. As for the jewelry, he has stated that the items were either inherited or given to him as gifts.

Despite the legal troubles, Zapatero continues to hold influence within the Socialist party, which is currently led by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. That party has faced a series of corruption scandals over the past two years.

Plus Ultra was an airline focused on routes connecting Spain with South America and had investors based in Venezuela.

Following his departure from office, Zapatero devoted much of his time to maintaining communication with Venezuela’s government, a country that had become largely cut off from Western nations after it moved to suppress its democratic opposition.

Under Spain’s legal system, an investigative judge examines evidence to determine whether suspected crimes warrant a trial. If the evidence is deemed sufficient, the case is forwarded to a separate judge who presides over the trial itself. The entire process can stretch from several months to well over a year.

ULAANBAATAR, Mongolia — A group of demonstrators in Mongolia brought copper exports to a standstill at a major Rio Tinto mining operation on Wednesday, cutting into the flow of a critical material that fuels China’s renewable energy industry.

The demonstrators belong to an organization known as the Radical Reform Movement, which has long pushed for Mongolians to receive a bigger cut of the wealth generated by the country’s mineral resources. Despite sitting atop enormous reserves of valuable minerals, Mongolia continues to struggle with widespread poverty. Copper plays a central role in manufacturing electric vehicles and building solar and wind energy systems — sectors where China holds a dominant global position.

Whether the demonstration would last only a single day as a way of raising awareness, or stretch into a prolonged blockade with serious economic consequences for both nations, remained unclear.

The Radical Reform Movement shared footage on Facebook showing a small number of protesters gathered around a barrier placed across a two-lane road cutting through a remote, open landscape under bright sunshine. A white banner bearing the words “Stop Rio Tinto” in red lettering was stretched across a large tree branch blocking the road, positioned in front of a wall of tires.

The Oyu Tolgoi mine is an enormous operation tapping into one of the world’s largest copper deposits, buried deep beneath the Gobi Desert roughly 80 kilometers — about 50 miles — north of the Chinese border. The site also holds substantial gold reserves and is expected to rank as the fourth largest copper mine on the planet once it reaches full production, according to Rio Tinto. The British-Australian mining company holds a 66% ownership stake in the mine, while the Mongolian government owns the remaining 34%.

The jointly operated mining company confirmed that shipments of copper concentrate were stopped after the road was blocked Wednesday morning. The company noted that the Oyu Tolgoi mine accounts for roughly 9% of Mongolia’s total tax revenue, and cautioned that a week-long disruption could cost the Mongolian government 35 billion Mongolian Tugrik, equivalent to approximately $13.3 million.

During a Cabinet meeting, Mongolian Prime Minister Uchral Nyam-Osor directed the minister of justice and internal affairs to uphold the law and pursue accountability for anyone unlawfully obstructing or interfering with business operations that are being carried out in compliance with existing laws and regulations, according to a post on the government’s official Facebook page.

While the Radical Reform Movement has gone so far as to call for foreign investors to be removed from the country entirely, not everyone shares that position. However, there are voices within the Mongolian government who are calling for the country’s agreement with Rio Tinto to be renegotiated so that Mongolia receives a greater share of the financial benefits.

BERLIN — A growing share of German businesses say they would choose a cloud computing solution based entirely within Germany, even if it meant giving up some features, rather than continue relying heavily on foreign providers — especially those based in the United States, according to a survey released Wednesday.

The poll, conducted by German digital industry association Bitkom among 603 companies, found that 85% of respondents believe Germany is too dependent on U.S. cloud providers. That figure is up from 78% just one year ago.

The willingness to accept trade-offs for a Germany-only cloud solution has also grown sharply. Nearly 40% of companies said they would now use a cloud service that keeps all data processing within German borders, even if that came with drawbacks — a significant jump from 27% the previous year.

The survey also found that almost two-thirds of businesses currently using cloud computing feel pressured by U.S. government policies to reconsider how they manage their cloud operations. A year ago, that figure stood at 50%.

Bitkom President Ralf Wintergerst stressed the urgency of the situation. “Germany needs to break free from one-sided dependencies in the cloud sector, particularly in light of the growing importance of AI and data,” he said.

Leaders of the G7 nations gathered at a summit in the French town of Evian-les-Bains on Lake Geneva Wednesday, issuing a joint call for a ceasefire in Lebanon while expressing support for a preliminary agreement between Washington and Tehran aimed at ending the war between the two countries.

The interim deal, a memorandum of understanding signed by the United States and Iran this week, extends a ceasefire that was first announced in April by an additional 60 days. That window is intended to give negotiators time to work toward a lasting peace agreement. The conflict has resulted in more than 7,000 deaths, with most casualties occurring in Iran and Lebanon.

The full details of the agreement had not yet been made public as of Wednesday, but a formal announcement was expected Friday across the nearby Swiss border. In their joint statement, the G7 leaders said: “We underline the need for the negotiation … to address the threats posed by Iran in the region and beyond and ensure that they never obtain a nuclear weapon.”

The summit gave U.S. President Donald Trump an opportunity to present the agreement to key allies — Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan. While those nations broadly share American concerns about Iran’s nuclear activities, they never endorsed the decision to go to war. They have also expressed worry that Tehran gained a degree of leverage by withstanding the military campaign and asserting control over the Strait of Hormuz.

The G7 leaders said they are prepared to help put the agreement into practice. A coalition led by Britain and France is expected to assist in securing shipping lanes once the Strait of Hormuz reopens, which is anticipated to happen Friday.

Critics have noted that the U.S. president appears to have fallen short of several goals he outlined at the start of the conflict. Iran’s government remains in power, its stockpile of highly enriched uranium has not been handed over, its ballistic missile program has not been dismantled, and it has not cut ties with anti-Israel militant groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon. Trump has stated that the agreement affirms Iran will not develop a nuclear weapon — a position Iran has officially held since the 1970s — and U.S. officials say further talks will lead to the removal or destruction of its enriched uranium supply.

Ending the war under these conditions could still draw criticism, including from within Trump’s own Republican Party, as the country heads toward midterm elections in November.

One of the most unresolved issues surrounding the truce involves Lebanon. Israel invaded the country in March in an effort to root out Hezbollah, after the militant group fired across the border in solidarity with Tehran following U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran. Israeli forces continue to occupy a portion of southern Lebanon, where more than one million people have been displaced. Hezbollah has not been defeated.

Iran has insisted that any ceasefire must also bring an end to hostilities in Lebanon and that a permanent agreement must include an Israeli withdrawal. Israel, which was not included in the U.S.-Iran peace talks, has said it will not withdraw and maintains the right to use military force.

That stance has created a visible rift between Israel and the United States. Trump publicly criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying at the summit Tuesday that he was “not happy” with how Israel has conducted itself. He added: “Without us, without the United States, there would be no Israel. Without me, there would be no Israel, because no other president was willing to do what I did.”

In their joint statement, the G7 leaders called for an “immediate robust ceasefire” in Lebanon along with the disarmament of Hezbollah. A Hezbollah spokesperson told Reuters the group believes Iran would not agree to a permanent truce unless the Israeli occupation comes to an end.

The memorandum also includes a $300 billion reconstruction fund, to be financed by neighboring Gulf states, contingent on Iran meeting other terms of the agreement. A senior U.S. official confirmed that the deal includes a waiver on sanctions against Iranian oil, which could bring millions of additional barrels to the global market — though industry officials caution that full recovery of Middle East oil and gas production could take several months.

Oil prices dropped again Wednesday in anticipation of the Strait of Hormuz reopening, with Brent crude futures falling below $80 per barrel — their lowest point since the early stages of the U.S.-Iran conflict.

The G7 leaders also pledged to “accelerate the diversification of energy supply routes in order to reduce global vulnerability to the Strait of Hormuz and to increase our energy stocks.” Negotiations on more difficult issues, including the future of Iran’s nuclear program, are expected to resume during the 60-day ceasefire period. Iran’s support for regional militant groups and its missile capabilities do not appear to be part of those upcoming discussions.

BUDAPEST — Hungary has opened an internal investigation targeting its tax authority, counter-terrorism units, and other government agencies following the controversial detention of a Ukrainian bank’s routine cash transport earlier this year.

The incident occurred in March, when seven Ukrainian nationals transporting $82 million in cash and gold aboard two armored vehicles were briefly taken into custody on suspicion of money laundering. The detention took place while the government of Viktor Orban — a Russian ally who has since been removed from power — was in a bitter dispute with Ukraine.

Ukraine’s Oschadbank stated that the employees involved were conducting a standard operation, the same type of transfer the bank had been performing on a weekly basis since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began.

Prime Minister Peter Magyar, who won April’s election by a wide margin, took to Facebook on Wednesday to demand action. He wrote that the prosecutor general “must address the matter without delay.”

During his time in office, Orban had made skepticism toward supporting Ukraine in its war with Russia a cornerstone of his political platform. He blocked new European Union sanctions against Moscow and opposed a financial loan intended for Kyiv.

Before Magyar was officially sworn into office, Hungary returned the seized cash and gold to Ukraine.

Some of the biggest names in artificial intelligence are converging in France on Wednesday, as international pressure mounts over the United States’ commanding grip on the global AI industry.

While the ongoing conflicts involving Iran and Ukraine have been at the forefront of this week’s Group of Seven summit — a gathering of the world’s major industrialized nations — artificial intelligence is set to take the spotlight on the meeting’s closing day.

In an unusual assembly of AI heavyweights, the leaders of three of the most influential companies in the field are expected to sit down together for a working lunch centered on the theme of “Ensuring a safe, rapid and effective deployment of artificial intelligence.” Those attending include OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei.

Joining them are the heads of several smaller AI firms, representing companies from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom, including Cohere AI, Mistral, Black Forest Labs, Domyn, Sakana AI, and Synthesia.

Across Europe, unease about American corporations controlling AI and broader technology infrastructure has been building. The European Commission recently introduced a tech sovereignty package aimed at nurturing homegrown AI development. Meanwhile, the Vatican drew attention last month when the pope called for strong regulation of artificial intelligence.

A recent episode involving Anthropic drew sharp international concern. The company was compelled to pull its two most advanced AI models — Fable 5 and Mythos 5 — offline after a Trump administration directive cited an unspecified national security issue. The order prohibited non-Americans, regardless of their location, from accessing the models, forcing Anthropic to cut off all users worldwide.

That incident underscored how nations outside the U.S. “can be put in an extremely vulnerable position” when their access to cutting-edge AI is suddenly severed, according to Zach Meyers, director of research at CERRE, a Brussels-based think tank.

“There is a general anxiety about the state of Europe, the fact that we’re relying on other countries for quite important strategic infrastructure and a desire to do something about it, whatever that is,” Meyers said.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney referenced the Anthropic situation while traveling to the G7 summit, telling reporters during a stop in Ireland that it underscores the importance of efforts to “build out and diversify.” In a speech delivered in Dublin, he stated that true sovereignty demands “unhindered access to AI.”

Earlier this month, Canada unveiled a plan to help mid-sized and like-minded nations develop AI alternatives to the dominant American players. Just days before that announcement, a U.S. executive order was signed laying out a framework for overseeing advanced AI systems.

The G7 gathering offers an opportunity for both corporate and government leaders to discuss the potential rewards and dangers of AI, as nations work to leverage the technology for economic growth and geopolitical advantage.

Tech independence has long been a priority for French President Emmanuel Macron, who is hosting this year’s summit. His administration has even directed government workers to abandon platforms like Zoom and Microsoft Teams in favor of a domestically developed video conferencing tool.

Aidan Gomez, CEO of Cohere — which acquired German AI startup Aleph Alpha earlier this year — said the company’s goal at the G7 is “to expand our sovereign AI ecosystem partnerships beyond Canada and Germany to include all G7 nations — and companies — establishing a global standard that guarantees ownership of models, data, and local compute.”

The G7 includes France, the United States, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom. Several guest nations, including Brazil, India, Kenya, and South Korea, were also invited to take part in select discussions.

OSLO, Norway — Norway’s Crown Princess Mette-Marit has successfully undergone a lung transplant at an Oslo hospital, according to an announcement made Wednesday by the Norwegian royal house.

The 52-year-old princess was diagnosed in 2018 with pulmonary fibrosis, a progressive illness that causes damage and scarring to lung tissue, leading to serious breathing difficulties. There is currently no known cure for the condition.

Earlier this month, the royal house revealed that Mette-Marit had been placed on a waiting list for a lung transplant. Wednesday’s statement confirmed she received the transplant at the Rikshospitalet in Oslo.

Are Holm, who heads the hospital’s pulmonary department, said in the statement that “we are very pleased that everything has gone well so far.”

Holm noted that, like other patients who receive organ transplants, the crown princess will need to stay in the hospital for “several weeks.” He explained that “this is standard procedure to adjust medications, manage any complications and conduct rehabilitation.”

The royal house said Crown Prince Haakon, who is next in line to the Norwegian throne, will “adjust his schedule” so he can be by his wife’s side throughout her recovery. The royal house also indicated it plans to provide the next health update when she is released from the hospital.

Mette-Marit’s health has been declining in recent months, a period that has also brought significant personal difficulties.

Her eldest son, Marius Borg Høiby, was sentenced on Monday to four years in prison after being found guilty of two counts of rape — charges he denied — along with other offenses. His attorneys have indicated they will appeal both the rape and domestic abuse convictions.

Høiby, who was born from a previous relationship and holds no royal titles or official duties, became the center of a high-profile six-week trial that drew significant attention to the royal family.

At the same time, Mette-Marit faced renewed public scrutiny regarding her past connections to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, raising questions about her judgment, though she has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

She issued an apology in February for the position she had put the royal family in, as part of a broader expression of regret to all those she felt she had “disappointed.” During a television interview in March, she stated that she had been manipulated and deceived by Epstein and that she felt unsafe during a 2013 meeting with him at his Palm Beach, Florida, mansion.

JOHANNESBURG — The leader of South Africa’s Democratic Alliance, Geordin Hill-Lewis, has formally called on President Cyril Ramaphosa to restructure which members of his party hold cabinet positions, the party announced on Wednesday.

The Democratic Alliance, which serves as the second-largest party within the country’s ruling coalition, released a statement outlining the requested changes. One of the most notable requests involves Hill-Lewis asking Ramaphosa to reassign John Steenhuisen — Hill-Lewis’s predecessor as party leader — from his current post as agriculture minister to a new role as deputy trade minister.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is speaking out after a Russian warship fired warning shots near a civilian yacht flying a UK flag close to British territorial waters, calling the episode reckless and deeply concerning.

The confrontation took place on Tuesday, according to statements released by the defense ministries of both Britain and Russia. Both countries said the shots were intended to prevent a potential collision after the Russian frigate Admiral Grigorovich was unable to make radio contact with the yacht.

Speaking to BBC News while attending the G7 summit in Evian-les-Bains, France, Starmer said, “What happened in the Channel was deeply concerning. It was reckless.” He added that his Ministry of Defence concluded the Russian vessel was “drifting, and they were warning shots.”

“That shouldn’t have happened. It is reckless, and the couple on the yacht must’ve been terrified,” Starmer said.

Russia’s defense ministry stated that the frigate’s crew observed the yacht on a path that posed a collision risk. After repeated radio contact attempts went unanswered, the ship fired warning shots — including small arms fire — in front of the yacht’s path. The yacht subsequently changed course and moved away, according to the Russian ministry.

Britain’s defense ministry characterized the event as “an isolated incident” and stated it had no connection to a separate operation over the weekend in which British commandos intercepted a Russian shadow fleet vessel.

BOGOTA, Colombia — Across some of Latin America’s most powerful economies, right-wing populist politicians are gaining momentum, offering iron-fisted solutions to crime and illegal immigration as a direct counter to the left-leaning movements that dominated the region just a few years ago.

While murder rates across Latin America have generally fallen compared to ten years ago, surges in specific countries — combined with a broader regional uptick in other types of crime — have created fertile ground for conservative politicians. Many are pointing fingers at migrants and borrowing the tough tactics made famous by El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele.

Voters who feel let down by their governments are rallying behind these approaches, even though critics caution that such strategies could open the door to human rights violations and democratic backsliding.

Latin America and the Caribbean saw their combined average homicide rate fall by more than 5% last year compared to 2024, with the median rate landing at roughly 17.6 killings per 100,000 people, according to InSight Crime, a think tank that tracks organized crime across the Americas.

However, there are notable exceptions to that downward trend. Drug-related killings have climbed in Peru and Colombia — the world’s two leading cocaine-producing nations — as well as in neighboring Ecuador, whose major ports have become attractive transit points for traffickers moving drugs to European markets.

Last year, authorities recorded 2,400 homicides in Peru and 14,780 in Colombia, the highest figures in each country since at least 2020. Ecuador saw an even more alarming jump, with killings rising 31% in a single year to reach 9,216.

Adam Isacson, director for defense oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America, noted that while populist movements across the political spectrum have found success, only the right has put forward short-term security plans capable of making citizens feel safer within months — even if those plans come at the cost of “democracy and human rights.”

Left-leaning proposals, such as community-based violence prevention, improved police training, and reforms to the justice and prison systems, tend to take longer to produce visible results, Isacson explained.

“It’s absolutely what you’re supposed to be doing, but people’s patience runs out,” Isacson said of those longer-term strategies. “So, there come the Bukeles of the world saying, ‘You want to feel better? We got this.’”

In Colombia, where large portions of the countryside have been pulled back into armed conflict, pro-Trump businessman Abelardo de la Espriella has led polls ahead of Sunday’s runoff election while closely following Bukele’s playbook.

In Peru, where extortion has skyrocketed fivefold over the past five years, Keiko Fujimori surged into a June 7 presidential runoff on a law-and-order message. She has pledged to send the military into prisons and deploy forces along the country’s borders, drawing on the authoritarian reputation of her late father, disgraced former President Alberto Fujimori.

Police in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam have broken up a major criminal operation involving the theft and slaughter of cats for human consumption, rescuing more than 500 animals in the process, according to animal welfare organizations and local media reports.

The multiday operation last week resulted in the detention of nine individuals and the discovery of 45 cages holding approximately 400 live cats. Officers also found four foam containers packed with ice containing around 80 dead cats, along with 21 additional live cats recovered at a second location, according to the Ho Chi Minh City Criminal Police Division.

Although more than 40 of the cats were successfully reunited with their families, about 100 of the rescued animals have since died as a result of the brutal conditions they were kept in, welfare groups reported.

The bust was triggered by a police investigation into a string of pet thefts in Ho Chi Minh City. Suspects confessed to trapping and collecting cats throughout southern Vietnam over the past three years, operating across Ho Chi Minh City and the cities of Tay Ninh and An Giang.

Karanvir Kukreja, who leads a campaign against dog and cat meat consumption for the international nonprofit Humane World for Animals, described the operation as “a sobering reminder of the enormous scale of Viet Nam’s cat meat trade.” He added that millions of animals fall victim to thieves in Vietnam each year who steal pets off the streets and slaughter them for food.

Chris Gindelhumer, with the nonprofit Vietnam Cat Welfare, is among those helping care for the surviving animals. He said he “saw quite a lot of tears in the last few days.”

“It’s really beautiful to see how many Vietnamese families are coming, looking for their cats,” Gindelhumer said. “But it’s also heartbreaking because many families were looking for their cats and didn’t find them.”

He noted that many veterinarians and volunteers have been working around the clock to care for the rescued cats.

While the consumption of dog and cat meat is legal in Vietnam — provided vendors hold permits verifying the animals’ origins — some cities, such as Hoi An in central Vietnam, are partnering with global animal welfare groups to end the practice locally. Vietnamese officials have also stated that the government plans to strengthen legal protections for pets and their owners, a move that came shortly after South Korea enacted a ban on dog meat in 2024.

An Pham, a master’s degree student and devoted cat lover in Ho Chi Minh City, said the bust has had a noticeable impact on public awareness. “This event surprised a lot of people and has raised awareness among many to stop consuming cat meat,” Pham said.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Wednesday that the United States and President Donald Trump have shifted their perspective on the war in Ukraine, adopting what fellow G7 leaders considered a more grounded and realistic outlook on the ongoing conflict.

Carney spoke at the G7 summit taking place in Evian-les-Bains, France, where he revealed that he had engaged in seven or eight separate conversations with President Trump over the previous 36 hours. Those discussions covered a broad range of topics, including Canada’s policy capping Chinese electric vehicles — a structure that Trump reportedly found appealing.

On other matters, Carney noted that Canada is on pace to produce 150 megatons of liquefied natural gas before the year is out. He also expressed his intention to finalize a trade agreement between Canada and India ahead of the G20 summit scheduled for November.

Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat Mirziyoyev took the stage at the annual Tashkent International Investment Forum on Wednesday, pledging to press ahead with economic reforms and announcing the creation of a new international financial hub in the country’s capital.

“We are always open to investors interested in cooperating with Uzbekistan and ready for an equal and mutually beneficial partnership,” Mirziyoyev told the audience in his opening remarks.

The centerpiece of his announcement was the Tashkent International Financial Center — a zone that would operate free of taxes and customs duties and function under English common law.

“Profit tax, value-added tax, property tax, and customs duties will be set at zero percent. Free capital movement and the ability to make payments in any currency will be guaranteed unconditionally. A modern system for financial technologies, digital assets, and green finance will be created,” Mirziyoyev said.

He also revealed that an independent financial regulator, empowered to issue its own regulatory rules, would be established within the new center.

Uzbekistan is Central Asia’s most populous nation, home to nearly 40 million people, and posted impressive economic growth of 7.7% in 2025. The country’s economy has been strengthened by its young and expanding population as well as elevated gold prices — Uzbekistan ranks among the world’s significant gold-producing nations.

Earlier this year in May, a package of minority stakes in state-owned companies was listed on the London Stock Exchange, marking the country’s largest initial public offering since 2021.

Mirziyoyev, who came to power in 2016, has worked to dismantle the capital controls that restricted economic growth under his predecessor, Islam Karimov, though he has maintained firm control over the country’s political landscape.

NEW DELHI — The messaging app Telegram has gone to court to fight back against an Indian government order that temporarily cut off access to the platform, according to legal news website Bar and Bench, which reported the development on Wednesday.

Indian authorities put the block in place starting Tuesday, with the restriction set to remain until June 22. The move was designed to stop people applying to medical schools from cheating on their entrance exams.

Telegram did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters.

The court challenge comes on the heels of a significant controversy in India’s medical education system. Last month, the Indian government scrapped a major undergraduate entrance exam used by medical colleges after officials said they were looking into claims that exam questions had been leaked ahead of time.

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Despite billions of dollars in pledges to support Africa’s shift to clean energy, countless renewable energy projects across the continent are failing to launch — and experts say a little-known financial rule is largely to blame.

The rule, called the “sovereign ceiling,” links the credit rating of any project or company to the credit rating of the country in which it operates. Analysts and development finance specialists say this makes perfectly sound renewable energy projects look far more dangerous to international investors than they actually are.

Of Africa’s 54 nations, only Botswana and Mauritius currently hold investment-grade sovereign ratings, meaning the vast majority of African countries — and the projects within them — are automatically viewed as high-risk borrowers under this framework.

The consequences are significant. The rule is hampering government efforts to bring electricity to more people and honor climate commitments made under the Paris Agreement. According to the International Energy Agency, close to 600 million people across Africa still have no access to electricity.

“The financing environment is the problem,” said Dr. John Asafu-Adjaye, a senior fellow at the African Center for Economic Transformation. “A project with strong fundamentals, a long-term power purchase agreement and predictable cash flow ends up being priced as if it were inherently dangerous. Not because it is, but because of where it sits on a map.”

In practical terms, analysts explain, renewable energy projects in countries with weak sovereign ratings absorb the perception of that sovereign risk — even when the projects themselves are financially solid and backed by international guarantees.

Several high-profile projects have already felt the impact. Kenya’s Menengai Geothermal project, Zambia’s IFC-led Solar Scaling programme, and Nigeria’s Solar IPP pipeline all struggled to secure adequate funding as investors raised concerns about sovereign guarantees, creditworthiness, and financing terms.

The United Nations Development Program estimates that subjective credit rating assessments cost African nations as much as $74.5 billion each year through higher borrowing costs and missed investment opportunities. Analysts add that renewable energy projects in Africa frequently face financing costs two to four times higher than comparable projects in Europe or North America.

“The sovereign ceiling functions as a binding constraint that raises costs across all projects and limits scaling of clean energy deployment regardless of fundamentals,” said Dr. Sibusisi Nkomo, program director of the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership’s Africa Program.

“Our recent work on private finance and investment in Africa shows that international credit rating systems often overstate risk relative to actual project fundamentals, leading to inflated risk premiums and higher costs of capital,” Nkomo added.

The outsized influence of major credit rating agencies — including Moody’s, S&P, and Fitch — along with other Western financial institutions, also shapes how investors view African markets, potentially cutting off access to bond markets as another source of financing, analysts say.

Many African nations see solar, wind, and transmission infrastructure as essential to their economies and industrial growth.

“Electricity is the backbone of all modern economies and is therefore essential for development,” said Malango Mughogho, managing director of ZeniZeni. However, she noted that much of the available project financing comes in the form of loans that countries simply cannot afford to repay.

Maria Nkhonjera, a climate and development finance specialist at the Stockholm Environment Institute, said international credit ratings and what she calls “risk mispricing” unfairly inflate borrowing costs — even though African clean energy projects have relatively low default rates.

“The sovereign ceiling rule is an outdated credit rule that penalizes commercially viable clean energy projects for sovereign risks,” Nkhonjera said.

Beyond the sovereign ceiling, clean energy projects also face hurdles from complicated approval processes, fragmented funding sources, and limited local institutional capacity.

“Africa does not lack investable opportunities,” Asafu-Adjaye said. “What it faces is a system in which risk is systematically overestimated.”

Nkhonjera suggested that expanding low-cost financing, increasing lending in local currencies, and reforming international debt systems could meaningfully reduce borrowing costs. Multilateral institutions such as Afreximbank and the Trade and Development Bank could also play a bigger role by offering guarantees and credit enhancements that help separate individual projects from sovereign risk.

“In many African countries, the cost of capital is now one of the most important determinants of the pace of economic transformation,” Asafu-Adjaye said. “Fixing that system is not peripheral to the development agenda. It is central to it.”

BOGOTA, Colombia — Just a few years ago, Latin America appeared to be shifting decisively to the left. Progressive leaders, capitalizing on widespread anger over deep-rooted inequality made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic, rose to power in several of the region’s largest nations, including Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Peru.

But the political winds are shifting again. While overall homicide rates across Latin America have generally fallen compared to a decade ago, sharp increases in violence in certain countries — combined with a broader regional rise in crimes like extortion — have given conservative populists fertile ground to campaign on promises of iron-fisted crackdowns on crime and immigration.

Campaign rhetoric portraying migrants as criminals and embracing the aggressive security tactics championed by El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, has earned conservative candidates the endorsement of U.S. President Donald Trump and energized frustrated voters — even as critics raise alarms about the potential for human rights abuses and democratic backsliding.

“You have an emergent right wing that is very much in collaboration across the region and with the U.S. through the MAGA movement, which has also used crime as a rallying cry for political mobilization,” said Enrique Roig, vice president of the nonprofit Human Rights First and a former State Department official. “It’s easier to sell locking people up than it is to deal with the reasons why mainly young men join gangs in countries like El Salvador.”

Populist politicians across the political spectrum have found success, but only those on the right have offered quick security fixes that make voters “feel safer in six months” — even if that means having to “sacrifice democracy and human rights,” according to Adam Isacson, director for defense oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America organization.

He noted that left-wing proposals — such as community violence prevention programs, improved police training, and reforms to the justice system and prisons — require much more time before results are visible.

“It’s absolutely what you’re supposed to be doing, but people’s patience runs out,” Isacson said of those longer-term strategies. “So, there come the Bukeles of the world saying, ‘You want to feel better? We got this.’”

In Colombia, where large portions of the countryside have descended into renewed conflict, pro-Trump businessman Abelardo de la Espriella has led polls ahead of a presidential runoff election while closely mirroring Bukele’s approach.

In Peru, where extortion has jumped fivefold over the past five years, Keiko Fujimori surged into a June 7 presidential runoff on a law-and-order platform. She has pledged to station military forces in prisons and along the country’s borders, leaning on the authoritarian legacy of her late, disgraced father, former President Alberto Fujimori.

Costa Rica, shaken by record levels of drug-related killings, chose conservative populist Laura Fernández in February based on her hard-line stance on crime. In Honduras, businessman Nasry Asfura swept December’s election after Trump endorsed him as a partner in the battle against what Trump called “narco-communists.”

According to InSight Crime, a think tank focused on organized crime in the Americas, the combined average homicide rate across Latin America and the Caribbean dropped by more than 5% last year compared to 2024, with the median rate reaching approximately 17.6 deaths per 100,000 people.

However, notable exceptions exist. Drug-fueled killings have climbed in Peru and Colombia — the world’s two largest cocaine producers — as well as in neighboring Ecuador, whose major seaports are prized by traffickers as a gateway to European markets.

Last year, authorities recorded 2,400 homicides in Peru and 14,780 in Colombia — the highest totals in each country since at least 2020. In Ecuador, killings surged a striking 31% year over year, reaching 9,216.

Much of Ecuador’s violence is attributed to gangs that began expanding rapidly during the COVID-19 pandemic, as criminal organizations from Mexico, Colombia, and the Balkans moved in and recruited local members, igniting deadly battles over drug-trafficking corridors. Those conflicts have extended into prisons, where hundreds of inmates have been killed since 2021. Ecuadorian authorities also logged more than 16,100 extortion cases last year, down from 23,000 in 2024 — though experts caution that extortion is widely underreported.

In Chile, voters four years ago rejected ultra-conservative lawmaker José Antonio Kast in favor of then-candidate Gabriel Boric, a young former student protest leader who promised to tackle Chile’s deep social inequities. Last year, however, growing fears about rising crime — frequently linked in media coverage to the country’s expanding Venezuelan immigrant population — helped Kast mount a political comeback.

As Venezuelan criminal networks, including the Tren de Aragua gang, exploited their country’s mass migration to infiltrate human trafficking operations following the pandemic, Chile — long among the safest nations in Latin America — experienced an unprecedented wave of carjackings, kidnappings, and shootings.

Chile’s homicide rate climbed 30%, peaking at 6.7 per 100,000 people between 2021 and 2022, according to the country’s Interior Ministry. Though it has since declined, it remains above pre-2021 levels. Other violent crimes continue to rise — kidnappings, for example, have increased nearly 180% over the past four years.

Taking cues from Bukele — whose mega-prisons in El Salvador Kast visited during his campaign — Kast decisively defeated his Communist opponent in December by pledging to construct a massive border wall, harden prison conditions for gang members, and deport hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants. Voters largely overlooked his opposition to abortion rights and same-sex marriage, as well as his defense of the late dictator Augusto Pinochet’s brutal regime.

In Peru, despite the divisive legacy of the convicted Alberto Fujimori, his daughter has capitalized on a surge in violent crime that occurred in the four years since she narrowly lost the presidency to schoolteacher Pedro Castillo. Running under the slogan “Peru with Order,” Keiko Fujimori captured the largest share of votes in April’s first round. Results from the June 7 runoff still show her in a statistical tie with nationalist Roberto Sánchez, the political successor of the imprisoned Castillo.

Analysts say that public appetite for tough measures — historically tied to the region’s brutal right-wing dictatorships of the 20th century — has grown in step with declining trust in government institutions and increasing ambivalence about democracy itself.

“The thinking is often, ‘democracy hasn’t been able to keep me and my family safe, so maybe democracy is part of the problem,’” said Eduardo Moncada, director of the Institute of Latin American Studies at Columbia University.

That sentiment presents a serious challenge for Latin America’s left, which in many countries has overseen sluggish economic growth, become entangled in corruption scandals, and fallen short on promises of social reform.

Even progressive politicians — such as Jeannette Jara in Chile and Sánchez in Peru — have adjusted to the shifting political climate. Uruguay’s president, Yamandú Orsi, described Bukele’s model as worth studying further. The center-left government of Guatemala declared a state of emergency to combat gang violence this year and welcomed assistance from the Trump administration in targeting drug traffickers.

Yet newly elected hard-liners have found that the realities of governing complex, cash-strapped democracies like Ecuador and Chile are far removed from the simplicity of campaign promises. These nations bear little resemblance to tiny El Salvador, where Bukele’s party commands a legislative supermajority.

Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa campaigned in 2023 on promises to imprison gang leaders on floating barges and construct mega-prisons. He dropped the barge proposal after taking office, and his government didn’t open its first mega-prison until November.

“Building mega-prisons hasn’t been that easy or that straightforward because the country is in a very bad state financially and because President Daniel Noboa still sees himself as a democrat,” said Beatriz García Nice, a policy analyst at the Washington-based Stimson Center think tank.

Nearly three months into his time in office, Chilean President Kast is facing a skeptical public that says it cannot distinguish his security policies from those of his left-wing predecessor. His government has carried out only two deportation flights despite pledging to swiftly round up and remove Chile’s more than 300,000 undocumented immigrants. His public tone has noticeably softened, and last month he drew criticism after referring to his mass deportation promise as “a metaphor.”

Even as he unveiled new security proposals in a June 1 address — including stripping those convicted of attacking police officers of social benefits — he moved to temper his supporters’ expectations.

“Governing, as many of you know, means taking responsibility for reality, especially when it’s difficult,” he said. “I’m proceeding step by step because this isn’t something that happens overnight.”

EVIAN-LES-BAINS, France — The heads of government representing the G7 nations announced Wednesday that they stand firmly together in their support for Ukraine, reaffirming their commitment to the country’s territorial integrity while agreeing to turn up the heat on Russia’s war-driven economy.

In a joint statement released by the group, the leaders declared, “In this context, we will strengthen our sanctions (against Russia), including those on the oil and gas sectors.”

The announcement came as the G7 leaders convened for a summit in the French town of Evian-les-Bains. Beyond the conflict in Ukraine, the group also addressed broader global developments, expressing their support for the recently reached agreement between the United States and Iran and signaling their willingness to help carry out its terms.

The leaders also outlined steps to improve global energy security, stating their intention to work toward diversifying energy supply routes, reducing reliance on the Strait of Hormuz, and building up energy reserves.

WASHINGTON — When the leaders of the world’s seven largest economies sit down in France on Wednesday to talk about the global economy, one major topic will be conspicuously absent from direct criticism: the role that President Donald Trump’s war with Iran has played in rattling global markets.

Oil prices have surged 30% and inflation is climbing worldwide — both largely tied to the conflict that the U.S. and Israel launched against Iran in late February. Yet G7 leaders, already strained by disputes over U.S. tariffs, NATO, and Greenland, are expected to hold back from publicly blaming Trump for the economic turbulence, according to analysts.

Over the weekend, the U.S. and Iran announced a deal to halt the fighting and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which gave global markets a much-needed boost. But economists caution that the damage is already done — energy costs have spiked, food supply concerns are mounting in developing nations, and central banks have been forced to act. Both the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan raised interest rates within the past week in an effort to contain worsening inflation.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has publicly said he is “fed up” with how the conflict has driven up energy costs for his country. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has warned of the war’s broader economic and social consequences. Rising prices have also taken a toll politically, denting approval ratings for Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and French President Emmanuel Macron.

Despite all of this, world leaders appear set to avoid a direct confrontation with Trump at the summit, largely because they still need his cooperation on critical issues including Ukraine, NATO, and trade negotiations.

Analysts say this reluctance is undermining the very purpose of the G7, which was founded after the 1973 oil shock specifically to help the world’s major economies navigate exactly these kinds of crises.

“U.S. policymaking has been hurting world economic activity,” said Marcelo Estevao, chief economist at the Institute of International Finance. “You have a country with the largest economy undermining what could have been a G7 agenda of collaboration,” he added, noting that the G7 must work harder to stay relevant as emerging market economies — which are not part of the group — now make up a growing share of the global economy.

France, serving as this year’s G7 host, has already moved to reduce the chances of open conflict by scrapping plans for a broad final statement, or communique. Instead, the focus will be on narrower topics such as global economic imbalances, critical mineral supply chains, and restructuring development aid programs.

The ceasefire deal reached just before Trump departed for France has further reduced the likelihood of a dramatic showdown. Still, economists warn that even with the deal in place, restoring normal trade flows could take months, and experts in the fuel and maritime sectors say bunker fuel supplies could take up to a year to normalize.

International Monetary Fund chief Kristalina Georgieva, attending the G7 summit in France, took a somewhat more optimistic tone in a blog post Monday, walking back some of the dire warnings she issued two months ago. She said the global economy was holding up so far, with no clear signs of a worldwide slowdown, even as some regions have been hit hard.

The IMF, whose largest shareholder is the United States, is set to release an updated global economic forecast on July 8. Georgieva’s post came shortly after a more pessimistic outlook from the World Bank. One of the IMF’s scenarios, based on a short-lived conflict, projects global growth of 3.1% in 2026, down from 3.4% in 2025. Its worst-case scenario shows growth dropping to just 2%, with inflation reaching 5.8%.

U.S. officials have pointed out that oil prices have come down from their peak and that the United States, as a fuel exporter, was somewhat insulated from the worst price increases. They argue the war’s economic impact will ease quickly once the Strait of Hormuz fully reopens, and believe even fuel-importing nations in Europe are likely to avoid severe shortages.

The G7 — made up of the major European economies along with the U.S., Canada, and Japan — has been grappling with questions about its relevance for years as economies like India, Brazil, and China have grown in global influence. The group now represents just 44.1% of global GDP, a sharp drop from 60.5% when it was first established, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Supporters of the group argue it still serves a vital function during moments of crisis, pointing to its response during the 2008-2009 global financial meltdown.

“The G7 has always been able, if needed, to come up with some real decisions that still govern half the world economy,” said Martin Muehleisen, a former IMF strategy chief who has participated in past summits, including some that included Trump. He noted that while European leaders would likely stay cautious in formal settings, unexpected moments of tension could still emerge during private meetings and dinners.

Eric LeCompte, executive director of Jubilee USA Network, a development organization, said economic concerns remain front and center regardless of the ceasefire. “The economy is in deep turmoil and you don’t have to be in a developing country to see it. You can just go to a grocery store and feel it,” he said.

WASHINGTON — When the United States and Israel launched airstrikes against Iran on February 28, President Donald Trump outlined an ambitious set of goals: destroying Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal, dismantling its military power, and making certain Tehran could never develop a nuclear weapon.

Now, with more than three months of conflict behind them and a preliminary peace agreement on the table, the question is: how much of that agenda has actually been fulfilled?

MISSILES AND DRONES

Going into the conflict, Iran possessed the largest ballistic missile stockpile in the Middle East — somewhere between 2,500 and 6,000 missiles of varying types. Several had the range to strike Israel, reaching up to 2,000 kilometers (roughly 1,240 miles), and some were armed with cluster munition warheads that are especially difficult to intercept. Iran was also a major producer of long-range drones, including the Shahed drone used by Russia against Ukraine and by Iran itself.

About a month into the fighting, U.S. sources told Reuters that approximately one-third of that arsenal had been destroyed, with another third likely damaged, destroyed, or buried.

U.S. Admiral Brad Cooper testified before Congress on May 14 that Iran’s capacity to manufacture and stockpile missiles and long-range drones had been set back by years. He reported that more than 1,500 missiles and 6,000 drones had been intercepted by the U.S. and allied forces throughout the conflict.

Even so, Iran retains some strike capability. On June 6, it launched missile salvos at Kuwait and Bahrain, and on June 7, it fired missiles at Israel. All three countries reported no significant damage from those attacks.

CONVENTIONAL MILITARY

The U.S. military says it has significantly weakened Iran’s conventional ability to project force in the region or threaten American operations.

Admiral Cooper told Congress that U.S. forces had destroyed 161 Iranian naval vessels and eliminated 82% of Iran’s air defense systems. He added that Iran’s air force, which had been flying up to 100 missions per day before the war, is now conducting no flight operations at all.

Despite those losses, Iran managed to effectively close the Strait of Hormuz for the duration of the conflict — using speedboats, mines, drones, and missile boats to trap merchant ships in the waterway. That strait carries roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas supply.

NUCLEAR PROGRAM

Trump has repeatedly identified preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon as his primary objective. Iran has consistently denied any intention to build one, insisting its nuclear program exists solely for peaceful purposes.

However, the war appears to have done little to change Iran’s nuclear timeline. U.S. intelligence estimated last month that Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in less than a year — the same assessment that followed the June 2025 strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

Iran’s nuclear program is expected to be a central sticking point as negotiators work toward formalizing the framework deal, set to be signed on Friday. Trump has demanded that Iran’s enriched uranium be removed from the country, while Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei has insisted it must remain inside Iran, according to sources.

IRANIAN PROXY FORCES

On March 2, Trump said from the White House that Iran must not be allowed to continue arming and financing the proxy armed groups operating in Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza, and Yemen — a network Tehran has used for decades to extend its influence and pressure its enemies.

Iran has shown no sign of cutting off support for those groups since the war began, but both U.S. military and independent assessments conclude that the proxy network is far less effective than it once was.

Much of that weakening had already occurred before the latest conflict. Israel had killed many of Hamas’s top commanders and thousands of its fighters in Gaza following the October 7, 2023 attack, and had also eliminated much of Hezbollah’s leadership in Lebanon. The fall of former President Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria in 2024 cut off a key supply route Iran had used to arm Hezbollah. Economic troubles and international sanctions further limited Iran’s ability to fund these groups.

During the war, those groups played a limited role. Hamas did not launch attacks on Israel from Gaza, and the Houthis did not significantly disrupt Red Sea shipping from Yemen.

Hezbollah entered the conflict on March 2, firing missiles and drones into Israel. Israel responded with airstrikes and a ground invasion that has killed nearly 3,700 people and displaced 1.2 million in Lebanon. On the Israeli side, approximately 28 soldiers and four civilians have been killed.

Admiral Cooper told Congress in May that Iran can no longer reliably supply those proxy groups with advanced weapons, though he did not elaborate on what that assessment specifically means in practice.

REGIME CHANGE

Before the war, Trump had encouraged Iranian citizens to rise up against their government. After Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei died on February 28, Trump called it their “single greatest chance” to take control. On March 6, he declared the war would only conclude with “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER” from Iran and the installation of a new, “acceptable” leader.

The war did not topple Iran’s theocratic government, but Trump has argued he achieved his objective anyway — because Khamenei was succeeded by his son, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei. Trump described the new leadership as “a new, and more reasonable, regime” in a March 29 statement.

In recent weeks, Trump has stopped calling for the removal of Iran’s leadership.

BUCHAREST, Romania — A striking new exhibition now open in Romania’s capital city is pulling back the curtain on the terrifying methods used by the country’s communist-era secret police — and it’s doing so using the secret police’s own recordings.

On display at the National History Museum of Romania in Bucharest, the exhibition is titled “A.REST 1989: The Securitate Video Archive.” It draws on actual video footage to show how arrests and interrogations were conducted under the Securitate — the vast surveillance and enforcement network that kept Nicolae Ceausescu in power until he was toppled and executed in December 1989.

Visitors can watch original, grainy videotaped interrogations of four detainees, shown on wall-mounted monitors in the museum’s main hall. All of the recordings were made in 1989 by the Securitate’s Criminal Investigations Directorate.

At the center of the exhibition floor sits a reconstructed detention cell, outfitted with a small bed, a bare metal bowl, and a cup — a stark reminder of the isolation prisoners endured. The display also illustrates the sweeping reach of the Securitate and the methods its agents employed against those they investigated.

Many of the recordings capture coercive questioning and intimidation that sometimes veers into the absurd, as detainees are worn down or left confused. In one exchange, a woman whose husband had allegedly fled the country tells her interrogator: “I no longer have the strength to fight. I need logical arguments, not this nonsense.”

The exhibition’s organizers describe the Securitate’s version of justice as a system in which detainees “were merely prisoners, captives in the operational labyrinth of manufactured guilt.” They say the exhibition can serve as a long-overdue “memorial plaque” for victims, noting that “the victims, thus, gain a voice and a place.”

The show runs through mid-September and was organized as a joint effort between the National History Museum, Romania’s National Council for Studying the Securitate Archives — known as CNSAS — and the Ministry of Culture.

According to organizers, the 26 videotapes held by CNSAS are “a remnant, the accidental result of the disorderly and violent end” of socialist Romania, captured by the criminal investigations technical department in 1989.

Oana Demetriade, a historian at CNSAS and one of the exhibition’s curators, told the Associated Press that she originally envisioned using the tapes for a documentary aimed at students, but ultimately chose to create a museum exhibition instead.

“The project grew organically through the discussions I had with architects and designers,” she explained. “From the very beginning, the first discussions I had with my husband who works at CNSAS and everything I found in these tapes made me go ‘wow!’ … They were being watched in cells non-stop.”

She added: “That’s what this whole archive brings new. How it gets here and how people, those who are arrested, in the end, are repeatedly threatened, yelled at, threatened with beatings, threatened with the family suffering, and so on.”

Among the physical artifacts on display is a printing press that once belonged to journalist Petre Mihai Bacanu, seized by the secret police in early 1989. Bacanu and a group of associates had used the press to produce an underground newspaper critical of Ceausescu and his government.

In footage from a February 1989 interrogation, Bacanu is heard asking: “How could we, after 45 years of socialism, still be afraid of people’s opinions, even of their thoughts?”

Another item on display is a pair of specially designed glasses used to prevent detainees from “seeing where they were going or identifying” other individuals.

Mihai Demetriade, also a CNSAS historian and co-curator of the exhibition alongside his wife, explained that the detention facility featured two distinct types of holding areas. “Preventative detention” was used in political cases involving alleged crimes against the state, while “operational detention” units functioned more like kidnapping — locking up potential dissidents during sensitive occasions such as a government congress or a foreign dignitary’s visit.

“We are not talking about the testimonies of victims after the fall of communism, nor about documents, nor about books, nor about manuscripts,” he said. “We have something not open to manipulation … a live recording of events that occur in interrogation rooms or cells. It’s hard to fight against something like that as a denialist.”

He went on to say: “This space is important because it proves how rapacious, tough, aggressive the communist dictatorship remained even in the last moments of the communist system.”

The exhibition arrives at a notable moment. In recent years, a wave of nostalgia for life under communism during the Ceausescu era has grown in Romania, particularly among younger generations who have little or no personal memory of the country before 1989 — even as nationalism has simultaneously been on the rise.

Cornel Constantin Ilie, the manager of the National History Museum of Romania, says the exhibition has the potential to reveal the truth about that chapter of history and “reach the minds and, why not, the souls” of those who walk through it.

“It is an exhibition that puts you in front of facts that cannot be ignored,” he said. “It’s very important because we must not forget and we must not repeat. … What we see in this exhibition is an ugly face of history, it is a story in which human freedom, human dignity were suppressed.”

PARIS/STOCKHOLM — Europe’s push for independence in artificial intelligence is taking center stage this week as world leaders and technology executives descend on France for both the G7 summit and the VivaTech conference in Paris.

The timing is significant. Just days before these gatherings, the United States moved to tighten access to Anthropic’s most advanced AI systems for people outside the country — a move that has highlighted just how exposed Europe is to decisions made across the Atlantic.

“Tech sovereignty will be top of mind this week at VivaTech,” said Ana Paula Assis, a senior vice president at IBM. “For European organisations to get this right, it is vital to understand sovereignty is about having control where it matters — not where the technology is from.”

The underlying tension is one Europe has struggled with for years: how to preserve strategic independence while still leaning heavily on American companies that lead the world in cloud computing, chip design, and cutting-edge AI development.

G7 nations have convened in Evian, France, where government officials are sitting down with top executives from major AI firms including Anthropic, OpenAI, Alphabet’s Google, and French startup Mistral. Topics on the table include AI competitiveness, regulatory frameworks, and dependence on China for critical minerals.

Meanwhile, more than 180,000 attendees — including Amazon’s Jeff Bezos — are expected at VivaTech in Paris, where conversations are expected to center as much on geopolitics as on new technology.

Mistral, the French AI startup widely regarded as Europe’s strongest homegrown contender in the AI race, is deepening its ties with European businesses, especially in sectors where the region claims a competitive edge.

Still, despite billions of euros in investment, European AI companies continue to depend heavily on U.S.-controlled cloud systems, semiconductors, and foundational AI models.

France has emerged as one of the loudest voices calling for European technological self-reliance, with its government actively working to reduce its use of American providers in public services.

“We cannot rely on tools developed by foreign powers. France must have its own tools,” French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said Tuesday.

The European Commission is currently reviewing the real-world impact of U.S. export control rules, insisting that any such measures should not unfairly target allied nations.

European officials have increasingly framed AI development as both an economic and a national security priority. The Commission has recently announced plans for AI “gigafactories” and large-scale computing facilities intended to give Europe sovereign control over its own computing power. Proposed legislation also aims to grow domestic cloud, AI, and semiconductor industries while reducing dependence on major U.S. technology companies — though critics argue Europe remains years behind its American rivals.

Telecoms company Orange captured the sentiment in a statement: “It’s patently clear, if it wasn’t before, how important it is for Europe to have access to an AI service that it can control, that will never be switched off on a whim.”

But building that independence comes with a price tag. Capgemini’s chief operating officer Karine Brunet noted that companies must weigh sovereignty goals against real costs, pointing out that European cloud alternatives can carry premiums of up to 40% compared to American options.

“The alternative is not simply replacing one provider with another,” said Francois Bitouzet, managing director of VivaTech. “It is about building more resilient technology strategies, where companies can draw on European innovation for the most critical parts of their stack while still working with global partners where it makes sense.”

WARSAW, Poland — Germany and Poland were scheduled to put pen to paper on a new defense agreement Wednesday, setting aside a long and complicated shared history to deepen military cooperation across Europe at a time of heightened tensions with Russia and growing questions about how committed the United States will remain to European security.

The relationship between the two neighboring nations has grown increasingly practical in recent years, shaped by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the rise of a liberal government in Poland in 2023.

As the United States considers a partial pullback of its military forces from Europe, Poland is pushing for major European allies to take on a bigger role in defending the continent’s eastern edge. Meanwhile, Germany is looking for partners as it works to rebuild its military — known as the Bundeswehr — after decades of underinvestment. Berlin’s goal is to develop the most capable conventional army on NATO’s European side, positioning itself as a cornerstone of European defense going forward.

Poland’s value as a logistics hub supporting Ukraine, combined with its expanding economy and significant defense spending, has made it an attractive partner for Germany and other major European nations.

“We Germans need a strong Poland as an equal partner,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said in Berlin following a December meeting with liberal Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk. “This is in our fundamental interest.”

The new defense agreement is expected to outline plans for securing the Baltic Sea region and spell out cooperation on military movement and infrastructure, cyber defense, and emerging technologies.

Justyna Gotkowska, deputy director of the Warsaw-based think tank Center for Eastern Studies, noted that the two countries are already firmly linked through NATO’s defense planning, which assigns Germany a central role in protecting the Baltic region alongside Poland and other central and eastern European nations.

“Germany is largely responsible for the defense of the Baltic states and without cooperation with Poland, that will not happen,” Gotkowska said.

The Baltic countries are frequently cited as the most probable target for a Russian attack on NATO territory if such a conflict were ever to occur.

The agreement is expected to reaffirm the mutual defense commitments already established under NATO and European Union treaties, to which both Germany and Poland belong. However, unlike bilateral treaties each country has separately signed with France and the United Kingdom in recent years, this German-Polish deal is an inter-ministerial arrangement. It focuses on the practical side of military cooperation and does not include the political mutual defense declarations found in those other bilateral agreements.

When asked in June by Polish Radio Trojka why Poland was not pursuing a similar full treaty with Germany, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said that President Karol Nawrocki — who came to power with the backing of the national-conservative Law and Justice party — would never agree to it.

“Hell would break loose here” if such a German-Polish treaty were signed, Sikorski said.

During the period when Law and Justice held power, that government demanded $1.3 trillion in reparations from Germany for its World War II occupation of Poland — a claim Berlin has rejected. The issue is expected to resurface ahead of next year’s general election, and Tusk will be careful not to appear as though he is taking a soft stance or acting in Berlin’s interests. Tusk himself has called on Germany to move more quickly to compensate survivors of the wartime occupation.

Despite Poland’s growing role in Europe’s security framework, Germany has tended to make major decisions on issues like Ukraine or Iran alongside key Western European partners France and the United Kingdom, often leaving Warsaw out of the conversation.

On June 7, those three Western European nations hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in London to discuss the potential role they could play in future peace negotiations with Russia.

At a news conference in Warsaw following that London gathering, Tusk said he had raised concerns directly with Merz that Poland deserved a seat at the table in discussions about Ukraine’s future and the broader region. “Any arrangements made without our participation will not be respected or binding for us,” Tusk said.

Rolf Nikel, a former German ambassador to Poland and vice president of the German Council on Foreign Relations, acknowledged that Poland’s standing within Europe and NATO has grown considerably.

“So Poland must be taken more seriously today and, above all, must be respected more than we have seen in the past,” Nikel said.

Gotkowska echoed that sentiment, pointing out that Germany needs to come to terms with the fact that its economy has stalled while Poland’s economy and military strength have grown.

“The balance of power has changed in Europe in recent years,” Gotkowska said.

EVIAN-LES-BAINS, France — World leaders meeting at the G7 summit in France are working toward a joint statement on critical minerals that could include steps to lessen the West’s dependence on China and protect investors from retaliatory trade measures and price undercutting, according to diplomats familiar with the discussions.

The final day of the June 15-17 summit in Evian-les-Bains features discussions on securing mineral supply chains — a top priority of France’s G7 presidency — along with efforts to correct what leaders see as dangerous imbalances in the global economy.

Alarm over Western dependence on China intensified last year when Beijing placed export restrictions on rare earth permanent magnets, nearly halting operations in some industries. The episode exposed just how deeply the energy, defense, and technology sectors rely on materials largely controlled by China.

“We are negotiating texts that are significant on critical minerals and, as a consequence, on economic sovereignty,” a French presidency official said ahead of the summit.

Options that have been on the table in recent months include price supports, market standards, government subsidies, guaranteed purchase agreements, and ways to attract more private investment into mineral supply chains outside of China. Analysts expect any announcements from the summit to represent early-stage commitments rather than sweeping solutions.

China has been steadily tightening its grip on exports of niche materials and battery metals. In addition to rare earth restrictions, Beijing has also limited American companies’ access to tungsten and antimony, among other materials.

Western nations are scrambling to secure supply agreements with mines and build their own processing and recycling capacity. However, experts warn it could take years to meaningfully challenge China’s dominant position — one that was built up over several decades.

The United States proposed a critical minerals trading bloc in early 2026, but disagreements remain among participating countries over how such a group would function, particularly given the White House’s “America First” policy priorities.

Beyond minerals, G7 leaders are also taking aim at what France describes as “predatory competition” from China. France has characterized the core imbalance this way: China overproduces, the United States overconsumes, and Europe underinvests.

European officials are increasingly worried about China’s record trade surplus and its expansion into higher-value industries — a trend analysts are calling a “second China shock,” recalling China’s earlier takeover of low-value manufacturing in the 2000s.

French President Emmanuel Macron made a last-minute push to engage China before the summit in hopes of finding common ground. Beijing has pushed back against European Union claims of unfair subsidies and has repeatedly promised “strong” countermeasures against the EU’s proposed “Buy European” policy and updated technology sovereignty rules.

EU leaders are scheduled to hold separate discussions Thursday in Brussels on using trade defense tools more aggressively against a surge of Chinese imports. Last year, the EU posted its largest-ever trade deficit with China, topping €360 billion.

“This is, of course, not sustainable. As you know, in Europe, our strategy is very clear: de-risk not decouple,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told reporters at the opening of the summit.

G7 leaders are also set to discuss artificial intelligence over a Wednesday lunch, covering topics such as the legal liability of AI bots and agents, and how AI systems present information as true or false. OpenAI founder Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei are expected to take part in the lunch.