World roundup: February 4 2025

Stories from China, Russia, El Salvador, and elsewhere

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TODAY IN HISTORY

February 4, 1789: The Electoral College votes unanimously to make George Washington the first President of the United States. John Adams finished second and thereby became vice president. Only ten of the original 13 states participated. New York, North Carolina, and Rhode Island were left out—North Carolina and Rhode Island because they still hadn’t ratified the Constitution, and New York because its legislature failed to choose a slate of electors by the January 7 deadline.

February 4, 1861: Representatives of seven US states—Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina—meet in Montgomery, Alabama, to draw up a preliminary constitution for a new secessionist nation. Texas would soon join once the results of its February 1 referendum were tabulated. The “Montgomery Convention,” as the meeting is sometimes known, formed the basis of the future Confederate States of America.

MIDDLE EAST

TURKEY

The co-chair of Turkey’s People’s Equality and Democracy Party (DEM), Tuncer Bakırhan, spoke to party MPs on Tuesday and reiterated speculation that imprisoned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan is about to call on his followers to disarm. Followed to its hopeful conclusion this would lead eventually to Öcalan’s release from prison and a political settlement to the contentious relationship between the Turkish government and the country’s Kurdish minority—as well as Turkey’s conflict with the Syrian Democratic Forces group. At Jacobin, Kurdish journalist Devriş Çimen questions the Turkish government’s intentions:

This highlights an obvious contradiction. There is talk of a possible “solution” to the Kurdish question, yet at the same time Ankara is escalating an approach built on war, occupation, and systematic repression. Since the last local elections in 2023, nine democratically elected Kurdish mayors, including in Merdîn, Colemêrg (Turkish: Hakkari), Elih (Batman), and Dêrsim, have been removed from office and replaced by state administrators. Since 2016, a total of 157 municipal administrations in the Kurdish provinces have been seized by state administrators. Protests against this were brutally suppressed and hundreds of people were arrested, most of them receiving long prison sentences. More than ten thousand political prisoners, including former MPs, mayors, journalists, and political activists, are in Turkish prisons today.

Politicians, academics, and experts who do not recognize the fundamental rights of the Kurdish people are now dominating the “democratic” debates in the Turkish media. The prevalent discourse is characterized by paranoia and the constructed scenario that granting basic rights to the Kurds will lead to a division of the country. Even in parliament, pro-war and antidemocratic figures are debating the Kurdish issue. So there is a risk that this apparent opening will remain nothing more than empty political chatter. If Turkey were really ready, the solution would be simple: talk openly and directly with Öcalan and representatives of the Kurdistan Freedom Movement instead of just talking about them.

SYRIA

Interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa made Turkey the second stop on his first trip abroad as head of state on Tuesday, following his visit to Saudi Arabia. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan praised the former al-Qaeda leader for his “strong commitment…in the fight against terrorism,” which for Erdoğan means taking a hard line with respect to the SDF. According to Reuters the two were expected to discuss a military cooperation agreement that would see Turkey take over military bases inside Syria and help train the new Syrian military. It would be serving the same role for Sharaa’s government that Iran and Russia served for former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, though with negotiations on the status of Russia’s Syrian bases ongoing it’s unclear whether there could still be a role for Moscow to play.

ISRAEL-PALESTINE

A Palestinian gunman reportedly opened fire on an Israeli security checkpoint near the besieged West Bank city of Jenin on Tuesday, killing two soldiers before being killed in turn. The attack comes in the context of the Israeli military’s (IDF) ongoing “Operation Iron Wall” campaign that aims to make the northern West Bank look more like Gaza. Palestinian and United Nations officials estimate that the IDF has displaced more than 5500 northern West Bank families over the past couple of months.

With Israeli Prime Minister (and International Criminal Court fugitive) Benjamin Netanyahu set to have his long-awaited (?) meeting with Donald Trump on Tuesday, there was a bit of good news on the ceasefire front as Netanyahu’s office announced the dispatching of a team to Doha to open “second round” negotiations. There had been some question as to whether Netanyahu would even bother participating in those talks, at least initially. The bad news is that Trump remains fixated on ethnically cleansing Gaza, telling reporters before the meeting that Palestinians “would be thrilled” to leave the territory. How he knows this is anybody’s guess. After the meeting he went further, telling reporters that the US will “take over” Gaza, staking “a long-term ownership position” after it’s been cleansed of its Palestinian population. According to Trump “everybody” he’s “spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land, developing and creating thousands of jobs.” To which I have to ask: who’s “everybody,” and has he spoken to anyone outside the Israeli settler movement?

Trump and Netanyahu leaving their joint press conference on Tuesday (Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty Images)

I can believe that many people in Gaza at present would prefer to be living somewhere else, now that the IDF has turned their home into a post-apocalyptic hellscape. But I also think it’s reasonable to assume that most would like to have the option of returning to a rebuilt Gaza someday and, well, that doesn’t seem to be part of Trump’s plan. He doesn’t “necessarily” support Israeli settlement of the territory, but it would definitely not be returned to its current residents. According to “senior administration officials” who spoke to Haaretz, Trump’s motivation here is that he thinks it’s “inhumane to force people to live in an uninhabitable plot of land with unexploded ordinance and rubble” and is interested in “helping the people of Gaza have normal lives.” If you believe any of that please hand your wallet over to the nearest inspector.

As to the idea that the US will “take over” the territory, I think you have to file this under “sometimes shit just pours out of Donald Trump’s mouth” unless/until the administration actually fleshes out what it might look like. The reason I say this is because Trump also insisted that the US wouldn’t put any resources toward Gaza’s reconstruction, which in his mind would be “paid for by neighboring countries of great wealth.” Trump, who sees Gaza as a place whose economic activity “will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area,” imagines that some third party or parties, presumably one or more of the Gulf Arab states, will pay to rebuild it so that the US then can swoop in and reap the hypothetical reward. Why would anyone agree to such a thing? Your guess is as good as mine.

Now consider that this act of unlikely generosity would be built upon the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and abandonment of the Palestinian cause, and ask yourself whether any Gulf state would be willing to put its imprimatur on something like that. Then consider that the US would be making itself responsible for operating and securing a precarious new Mediterranean colony that would likely be a source of discord—contrary to Trump’s insistence that it would create “great stability” in “maybe the entire Middle East.” How does any of this make any sense? The answer is that it doesn’t. Maybe, as former US ambassador Dan Shapiro suggested on social media, Trump said this to provide rhetorical “cover” to Netanyahu that will allow him to proceed to phase two ceasefire negotiations without worrying about the Israeli far-right attacking him politically. But I think that gives Trump too much credit.

IRAN

Trump signed a new memorandum on Tuesday ordering “every department in the US government to design sanctions on Iran, especially in relation to nuclear activities” according to AFP. This marks a return to the “maximum pressure” policy he adopted toward Iran during his first term, an approach that worked so well Iran finished that term far closer to having the capability to develop nuclear weapons than it had been four years previously. Trump seems interested in negotiating a Deal with Iran this time around and suggested that he’s compiling the sanctions as a way to facilitate that goal and/or as a fallback if diplomacy fails but is hoping that they will “hardly have to be used.” And in complete fairness, he did opine to reporters that “there are many people at the top ranks of Iran that do not want to have a nuclear weapon,” which is a pretty significant break with US foreign policy orthodoxy that suggests he’s serious about favoring a deal over more hostility.

ASIA

THAILAND

The Thai government announced on Tuesday that it plans to cut electricity to certain areas along the Myanmar border as part of a regional effort to snuff out scam operations that have proliferated there in recent years. The United Nations contends that “hundreds of thousands” of people have been trafficked to work in these outfits, which rip people off through a variety of online means including fraudulent cryptocurrencies and fake dating sites. The centers where these scams are operated emerged in a serious way during the pandemic and then grew following the 2021 Myanmar coup, which left parts of the border outside government control. A significant number of the people who have been trafficked are Chinese nationals, making this a particular concern for Beijing.

CHINA

Donald Trump may have quickly backed away from his tariffs on Mexican and Canadian imports (more on that later), but his 10 percent tariffs on Chinese imports seem to be sticking around. The Chinese government on Tuesday rolled out a host of retaliatory measures, including its own tariffs (15 percent on “coal and liquefied natural gas products” and 10 percent on “crude oil, agricultural machinery and large-engine cars”) as well as the opening of a case against the US at the World Trade Organization (which is mostly a symbolic gesture given that the US government has largely wrecked the WTO’s court system). Beijing also imposed new export controls on rare earth minerals going to the US, opened an antitrust investigation against Google, and placed two US firms on its “unreliable entities” trade list—the clothing firm PVH Group and the biotech firm Illumina.

The consensus seems to be that this was a fairly measured response that reflects the wider range of economic tools that China has at its disposal now as compared with its options during Trump’s first term. That’s congruent with the tariffs that Trump imposed—which while significant, weren’t as high as he’s talked about going in the past—and probably indicates that Beijing wants to discuss things rather than get into a full blown trade war. Trump appeared to take it all in stride on Tuesday, calling the retaliation “fine” when asked about it, so maybe the message was received. The White House suggested that he and Chinese President Xi Jinping will speak at some point—after which Trump may abandon these tariffs just as he did with the others—but there doesn’t seem to be any particular urgency around scheduling that chat.

AFRICA

SUDAN

Shelling apparently from the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group killed at least five people near a hospital in the Sudanese city of Omdurman on Tuesday. Al-Nao Hospital, operated by the Doctors Without Borders charity, is among a handful of medical facilities still operating in Sudan’s three-city capital zone. Tuesday’s shelling comes amid a series of setbacks for the RSF in that region. Elsewhere, a second day of military airstrikes on the RSF-controlled city of Nyala, in South Darfur state, reportedly left at least 25 people dead on Tuesday. And there are reports of continued fighting between the military and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North rebel group in South Kordofan state. According to the rebels, military forces attacked SPLM-N positions near the state capital, Kadugli, but were unsuccessful.

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO

The Congolese government has dismissed the M23 militant group’s declaration of a humanitarian ceasefire on Monday as a “false communication” amid UN reports of continued fighting in the eastern DRC’s South Kivu province. The militants no longer seem to be advancing on the state capital, Bukavu, though whether that’s because they’ve stopped trying or are being stopped by opposing forces is unclear. Congolese Interior Minister Jacquemain Shabani is now putting the death toll from last week’s fighting, when M23 seized the city of Goma, at 2000 or more. That presumably includes the 900-plus deaths the UN has recorded in Goma alone.

EUROPE

RUSSIA

According to The Guardian, the formation of Russia’s “shadow fleet” of sanctions-busting tankers has been big business for Western shipowners:

European and US shipowners have sold at least 230 ageing tankers into the “shadow fleet” used by Russia to evade western sanctions on its oil exports and help fund its war against Ukraine, an international investigation reveals.

The shipowners have made more than $6bn (£4.8bn) since Russia’s 2022 invasion by selling the vessels to buyers in countries such as India, Hong Kong, Vietnam or Seychelles that are not participating in the economic sanctions against Moscow, the investigation found.

It said Greek owners had sold the largest number of tankers, offloading 127 vessels, with UK companies selling 22 and German and Norwegian owners 11 and eight. Most would otherwise have been sold for scrap at a fraction of the price, it said.

UKRAINE

The Ukrainian government is apparently quite pleased that Donald Trump wants to loot their country’s rare earth resources, mostly because it could mean he’s going to be invested in continuing to arm the Ukrainian military against Russia. Kyiv has been looking ahead to leveraging those resources to help fund postwar reconstruction, though obviously surviving the war is of more immediate concern than what happens when it’s finally over. What I think is interesting here is the possibility that the Ukrainians have given the rest of the world an object lesson into getting Trump to do what you want—bribe him, basically. This quid pro quo could become a pattern.

AUSTRIA

The two parties currently trying to work out the details of Austria’s next government, the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) and the right wing People’s Party (ÖVP), spent Tuesday denying reports that their coalition talks had run aground. But clearly it’s not been entirely smooth sailing. The FPÖ took to social media to call the reports a “hoax” while also acknowledging that the ÖVP had taken a step back from the talks for “internal deliberations.” Later the ÖVP, while announcing that coalition talks would resume on Wednesday, said that negotiations are in a “difficult phase.” It’s unclear what the specific source of the difficulty is, but given that the FPÖ won September’s election and would be in line to lead the next government it’s quite possible that some ÖVP members are uncomfortable about serving as the subordinate partner in a far-right coalition.

AMERICAS

EL SALVADOR

Salvadoran President/Chief Warden Nayib Bukele hosted US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday and extended the extraordinary offer to house US convicts in his own country’s massive Center for the Confinement of Terrorism prison facility. The offer covers Salvadoran nationals but also nationals of other countries and even US citizens. I guess Bukele is running out of Salvadorans to imprison so he’s looking for new ways to support his habit. Of course he’d expect to be paid for his trouble, though he said via social media that “the fee would be relatively low for the US but significant for us, making our entire prison system sustainable.” Oh goodie. Rubio said that the Trump administration will need to “study” the “legalities” around Bukele’s “very generous offer,” and I think I can save them the trouble because it is flagrantly illegal (though if you think Rubio and Trump actually care about that then, again, please turn your wallet over to an inspector ASAP).

UNITED STATES

According to the AP, Donald Trump quickly reversed his proposed Mexican and Canadian tariffs, which are now on hold for at least the next 30 days, in return for “not all that much.” Both countries agreed to boost their levels of border enforcement, with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum agreeing to deploy 10,000 National Guard troops to its US border and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau agreeing to spend some $900 million (C$1.3 billion) on a variety of border measures including the appointment of a “fentanyl czar.”

Those offers were enough for Trump to declare victory and suspend the tariffs. But in Mexico’s case the deployment costs virtually nothing, since those forces will just be transferred to the border from other parts of the country. And the Canadian government had already announced the additional border spending weeks ago, so the only things Trudeau really did in response to the tariffs were agreeing to create the “czar” position and to designate Mexican cartels as terrorist groups. It’s possible Trump will demand additional concessions in 30 days but for now, at least, it seems he was satisfied with anything that he could claim as a “win.”

Trump announced a number of UN-related measures on Tuesday, including his decision to pull the US out of the UN Human Rights Council and to cease funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency. The Biden administration had already opted against running for another term on the HRC and had already suspended UNRWA aid so neither of those marks a major shift in policy. Trump is also ordering a “review” of other US commitments to the UN.

Finally, the White House announced two deportation flights carrying migrants to the Guantánamo Bay detention facility on Tuesday. Trump has ordered the construction of a prison camp at Gitmo that can hold up to 30,000 people whose deportation to their home countries can’t be “trusted” for some reason. At FOREVER WARS, Spencer Ackerman looks ahead to the horrors that will inevitably ensue:

THE THING TO UNDERSTAND—the thing that can be difficult to convey to people who've never been to Guantanamo—is that abuse at Guantanamo is guaranteed.

Guantanamo is a black hole. It is difficult for the outside world to get to Guantanamo, even more than most U.S. military bases. You can't fly to a civilian airport nearby, rent a car, and, if base access wasn't already arranged in advance, wait at a nearby motel while your request gets worked out. There is no civilian airport or seaport nearby, only Cuban territory. Just travelling to Guantanamo requires pre-approval from the Pentagon.

Accordingly, there will be very few outside monitors as the cages fill back up. What happens inside will take a long time to filter out. The command atmosphere, it seems obvious, will not be one that rewards treating the people inside as human beings. Everyone who reported from Guantanamo can tell you that the military controls information at Guantanamo very tightly—I was much freer to report on military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan than I ever was at Guantanamo—and I expect that to be a feature of the migrant camps. When the gut-wrenching stories eventually emerge from Gitmo, they will be vigorously denied by the Pentagon and DHS.