India, US agree to resolve trade and tariff rows after Trump-Modi talks

OXON HILL, Maryland: President Donald Trump said Saturday that “nobody’s ever seen anything” like his administration’s sweeping effort to fire thousands of federal employees and shrink the size of government, congratulating himself for “dominating” Washington and sending bureaucrats “packing.”
Addressing an adoring crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference just outside Washington, Trump promised, “We’re going to forge a new and lasting political majority that will drive American politics for generations to come.”
The president argues that voters gave him a mandate to overhaul government while cracking down on the US-Mexico border and extending tax cuts that were the signature policy of his first administration.
Trump clicked easily back into campaign mode during his hour-plus speech, predicting that the GOP will continue to win and defy history, which has shown that a president’s party typically struggles during midterm elections. He insisted of Republicans, “I don’t think we’ve been at this level, maybe ever.”
“Nobody’s ever seen anything like this,” Trump said, likening his new administration’s opening month to being on a roll through the first four holes of a round of golf — which he said gives him confidence for the fifth hole.
Trump has empowered Elon Musk to help carry out the firings, and the billionaire suggested Saturday that more might be coming.
“Consistent with President @realDonaldTrump’s instructions, all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week,” Musk posted on X, which he owns. “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.”
A short time later, an “HR” email was sent to federal workers across numerous agencies titled “What did you do last week” and asking that recipients “reply with approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week and cc your manager.” It cautioned against sending classified information, and gave a deadline of Monday at 11:59 p.m. ET.
Trump also said during the speech that he’d carry out harsher immigration policies. But those efforts have so far largely been overshadowed by his administration’s mass federal firings. He announced that one federal entity with a worforce that had been significantly reduced, the US Agency for International Development, would have its Washington office taken over by Customs and Border Protection officials.
“The agency’s name has been removed from its former building,” he said.
The president also repeated his previous promises to scrutinize the country’s gold depository at Fort Knox.
“Would anybody like to join us,” he said to cheers from the crowd at the suggestion that administration forces might converge on the complex. “We want to see if the gold is still there.”
But Trump also devoted large chunks of his address reliving last year’s presidential race, jeering at former President Joe Biden and mispronouncing the first name of former Vice President Kamala Harris — his Election Day opponent — gleefully proclaiming, “I haven’t said that name in a while.”
He went on to use an expletive to describe Biden’s handling of border security, despite noting that evangelical conservatives have urged him not to use foul language.
Trump had kinder words for Chinese President Xi Jinping, saying “I happen to like” him, while noting, “we’ve been treated very unfairly by China and many other countries.”
On the sidelines of the conference, Trump met with conservative Polish President Andrzej Duda amid rising tensions in Europe over Russia’s war in Ukraine. After he took the stage, Trump saluted Duda and Argentine President Javier Milei, who himself separately addressed the conference.
Trump called Duda “a fantastic man and a great friend of mine” and said “you must be doing something right, hanging out with Trump.” He noted that Milei was “a MAGA guy, too, Make Argentina Great Again.”
Poland is a longtime ally of Ukraine. Trump upended recent US policy by dispatching top foreign policy advisers to Saudi Arabia for direct talks with Russian officials that were aimed at ending fighting in Ukraine.
Those meetings did not include Ukrainian or European officials, which has alarmed US allies. Trump is meeting on Monday at the White House with French President Emmanuel Macron and Thursday with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Trump also has begun a public back and forth with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, whom the US president called a “dictator” while falsely suggesting that Ukraine started the war — though on Friday he acknowledged that Russia attacked its neighbor.
Trump told the CPAC crowd, “I’m dealing with President Zelensky. I’m dealing with President Putin” and added of fighting in Ukraine, “It affects Europe. It doesn’t really affect us.”
Zelensky has said Trump is living in a Russian-made “disinformation space.”
For much of the time since Russia invaded in February 2022, the United States, under Biden, pledged that Ukraine would play in any major effort to end the fighting, vowing “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.” Trump’s administration has dispensed with that notion, as the Republican president has accelerated his push to find an endgame to the war.
“I think we’re pretty close to a deal, and we better be close to a deal,” Trump said Saturday.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt later told reporters that Trump and his team were focused on negotiations to end the war in Ukraine and “the President is very confident we can get it done this week,” though such a tight timeline seems difficult.
Later, the president and first lady Melania Trump were hosting dinner at the White House for governors from both parties who were in Washington for a meeting of the National Governors Association.
Leavitt is one of three administration officials who face a lawsuit from The Associated Press on First- and Fifth-Amendment grounds.
The AP says the three are punishing the news agency for editorial decisions they oppose. The White House says the AP is not following an executive order to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.
 

NATIONAL HARBOR, United States: US President Donald Trump on Saturday said he was trying to get money back for the billions of dollars sent to support Ukraine’s war against Russia.
His comments came as Washington and Kyiv negotiate a mineral resources deal Trump wants as compensation for the wartime aid his predecessor Joe Biden gave Ukraine.
It was the latest twist in a whirlwind first month since he took office, during which he has upended US foreign policy by making diplomatic overtures toward the Kremlin over the heads of Ukraine and Europe.
Trump told delegates at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) near Washington: “I’m trying to get the money back, or secured.
“I want them to give us something for all of the money that we put up. We’re asking for rare earth and oil, anything we can get.
“We’re going to get our money back because it’s just not fair. And we will see, but I think we’re pretty close to a deal, and we better be close because that has been a horrible situation.”
Hours earlier, a source told AFP that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was “not ready” to sign such a deal, despite growing US pressure.
Trump’s special envoy Keith Kellogg, who met Zelensky earlier this week, said the Ukrainian president understood signing a deal with the US was “critical.”
But the Ukrainian source told AFP that Kyiv needed assurances first.
“In the form in which the draft is now, the president is not ready to accept, we are still trying to make changes and add constructiveness,” the source close to the matter said.
Ukraine wants any agreement signed with the US to include security guarantees as it battles Russia’s nearly three-year invasion.
The negotiations between the two countries come amid a deepening war of words between Trump and Zelensky that has raised alarm in Kyiv and Europe.
On Wednesday, Trump branded his Ukrainian counterpart a “dictator” and called for him to “move fast” to end the war, a day after Russian and US officials held talks in Saudi Arabia without Kyiv.
The US has proposed a United Nations resolution on the Ukraine conflict that omitted any mention of Kyiv’s territory occupied by Russia, diplomatic sources told AFP.
Trump has asked for “$500 billion worth” of rare earth minerals to make up for aid given to Kyiv — a price tag Ukraine has balked at and which is much higher than published US aid figures.
“There are no American obligations in the agreement regarding guarantees or investments, everything about them is very vague, and they want to extract $500 billion from us,” the Ukrainian source told AFP of the proposed deal.
“What kind of partnership is this? And why do we have to give $500 billion, there is no answer,” the source said, adding that Ukraine had proposed amendments to the draft.
The United States has given Ukraine more than $60 billion in military aid since Russia’s invasion, according to official figures — the largest such contribution among Kyiv’s allies but substantially lower than Trump’s figures.
The Kiel Institute, a German economic research body, said that from 2022 until the end of 2024, the United States gave a total of 114.2 billion euros ($119.8 billion) in financial, humanitarian and military aid.
A senior Ukrainian official told AFP Friday that despite the tensions, talks on a possible agreement were “ongoing.” Kellogg praised Zelensky as “courageous” after his visit to Kyiv earlier this week.
The row comes at a critical moment in the conflict. Ukraine marks the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion on Monday and Kyiv’s forces are slowly ceding ground on the frontline.
Moscow’s defense ministry earlier on Saturday claimed the capture of Novolyubivka in the eastern Lugansk region, which is now largely under Russian control.
In a call with Zelensky on Saturday, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer pledged the “UK’s ironclad support for Ukraine.”
Zelensky, in response, praised the United Kingdom for showing “leadership” on the war with Russia.
In London, thousands of people marched in support of Ukraine on Saturday, and polls in the UK suggest strong support for Kyiv.