Trump says Ukraine’s Zelenskyy wants to sign mineral deal
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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump signaled another twist in the back-and-forth over his effort to force a negotiated end to the Ukraine-Russia war during his speech Tuesday night.
As he first mentioned Ukraine 90 minutes into his address, Trump provided an update following last week’s blowup in the Oval Office between him and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Zelenskyy left the White House after the shouting match and did not sign an anticipated deal that would have given the U.S. rare minerals from Ukraine.
Trump claimed during his speech Zelenskyy sent him a letter just before his speech indicating that he was ready to come back to the negotiating table and was willing to sign the agreement to give the U.S. access to Ukraine’s rare materials.
“Nobody wants peace more than the Ukrainians, he said. My team and I stand ready to work under President Trump’s strong leadership to get a peace that lasts. We do really value how much America has done to help Ukraine,” Trump claimed the letter said.
Zelenskyy and Ukrainian officials didn’t immediately comment, The letter hasn’t been released by the White House or Ukrainian officials.
Trump indicated to top advisers he wanted to get the deal done before the speech, sources told ABC News.
ABC News’ Katherine Faulders contributed to this report.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images, Ken Ishii – Pool/Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump earlier this month announced far-reaching “reciprocal tariffs” on scores of countries, but he soon suspended the levies on all but one: China.
Instead, Trump ratcheted up China tariffs to a whopping total of 145%. In response, China slapped 125% tariffs on U.S. goods and issued other countermeasures.
The trade war between the world’s two largest economies amounts to a battle of wills in which each stands poised to draw on economic advantages and political pressure points, analysts said. An assessment of each side’s leverage, they added, helps reveal how the standoff may unfold.
“The stakes are extremely high and the only issue remaining is who is going to blink first,” Yasheng Huang, professor of global economics and management at MIT, told ABC News.
Potential economic damage
The U.S. and China each are among the other’s top trade partners, meaning a sizable chunk of each economy depends on the relationship.
U.S. consumers and firms purchase more goods and services from China than the other way around, putting China at risk of a larger loss in economic activity if trading comes to an effective halt, analysts said.
Still, they added, the trade imbalance also threatens acute product shortages and price increases for U.S. consumers.
“The U.S. imports more from China than it exports to China — that gives the U.S. an advantage,” Shang-Jin Wei, a professor of finance and economics at Columbia University who studies the U.S.-China trade relationship, told ABC News.
“But the very fact that the U.S. buys so much from them also means that it is dependent on their supply of low-cost goods,” Wei said.
Last year, the U.S. imported about $438 billion worth of goods and services from China, making it the largest destination for China’s exports. In all, that figure accounts for about 15% of China’s exports, according to the U.S. Trade Representative. China makes up a primary source of consumer electronics like laptops and smartphones, as well as footwear, apparel and toys.
U.S. tariffs are expected to lower China’s gross domestic product growth this year by 0.7%, though the Chinese economy is still forecast to expand by more than 4%, J.P.Morgan said on Tuesday.
The loss of relatively cheap Chinese goods, meanwhile, is expected to raise prices for U.S. shoppers. Over the weekend, the Trump administration issued a tariff exemption for some consumer electronics from China, but price hikes are expected for a host of other goods.
On the other hand, China purchased about $143 billion of U.S. goods last year, including crops such as soybeans and wheat, as well as oil and gas.
Roughly 930,000 U.S. jobs are supported by exports to China, the U.S.-China Business Council said in a report last year. During Trump’s first term, the U.S. provided financial relief to some farmers to make up for lost sales to China.
Essential materials
The U.S. or China could also derive leverage from specialized goods that would be difficult for the other country to replace in the event of trade restrictions.
Earlier this month, China imposed export restrictions on some rare earth elements and magnets that make up critical inputs in some U.S. auto, energy and defense products. For now, Chinese companies can still export to U.S. buyers, though the Chinese firms must receive approval from the Chinese government.
Rare earths are vital for a range of defense technologies, including F-35 fighter jets, Tomahawk missiles and radar systems, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, or CSIS, said on Tuesday.
The U.S. is not prepared to immediately make up for a potential loss of those components through domestic industry, CSIS found.
“The U.S. dependency on China for rare earths is extremely high,” Huang said. “China can shut it off or turn it on at will — that is leverage.”
Meg Rithmire, a professor of business administration at Harvard University, said the U.S. could seek out alternative sources abroad but China remains the dominant source of such materials.
“It doesn’t seem like this is the kind of thing that will cripple anyone in the short term, but the supply chains are such that it could get messy in the medium term,” Rithmire said.
Meanwhile, China relies on the U.S. for some important components of its electronics, auto and technology products, Huang said.
China could likely withstand a temporary shortfall, Huang added, though a long-term shortage of such goods would pose a problem.
“It would definitely hurt them — no question about it,” Huang said.
Tolerance for financial pain
Analysts told ABC News that China’s authoritarian form of government affords it greater capacity to tolerate a prolonged period of economic hardship.
By contrast, separate branches of government and regular elections in the U.S. make it more difficult for the country to hold out through potential widespread financial challenges, they added.
The Chinese public faces limits on public expression and little recourse for bringing its displeasure to bear on political representatives, analysts said.
“There’s a lot structurally built into the Chinese system to withstand political pain, which isn’t the case for the U.S.,” Rithmire said. “The U.S. system incorporates the unhappiness of people as they experience the economic effects.”
The countries’ different responses to COVID-19 exemplify how their respective political systems respond to flagging general welfare, analysts said.
China maintained a zero-COVID policy for several years, severely restricting individual mobility and hamstringing a broad swath of the nation’s economy. In the U.S., on the other hand, eight states never issued COVID lockdowns, while the federal government focused on economic stimulus and expedited vaccine development.
“The trade war, as substantial as it is, doesn’t compare to the COVID lockdown that China implemented,” Huang said. “We have solid evidence that the political system is quite immune from economic hardship.”
Still, that tolerance of economic pain has limits, Wei said. Over the past half century, the Chinese government has drawn legitimacy from its ability to deliver economic growth and improved living standards, he added.
“Anything that hurts that can undermine their power,” Wei said.
Ultimately, the standoff may endure until each country sees a pathway out of the trade spat that promises sufficient political benefit.
“Is there a productive off-ramp for each side?” Huang said.
(NEW YORK) — Hamas announced it will release American hostage Edan Alexander and “the bodies of four other dual nationals” after receiving a a proposal from mediators to resume negotiations.
The group said in a statement Friday it responded “responsibly and positively” to the latest ceasefire extension proposal.
The parents of two of the U.S. hostages being held told ABC News they have not heard anything so far from the Israeli government or the Trump administration.
Israel accused Hamas of “manipulation and psychological warfare.”
“While Israel has accepted the Witkoff outline, Hamas remains steadfast in its refusal and has not budged a millimeter,” the Israeli Prime Minister’s office said. “At the same time, it continues to engage in manipulation and psychological warfare. The Prime Minister will convene the ministerial team on Saturday night to receive a detailed report from the negotiating team, and to decide on the next steps for the release of the hostages.”
President Donald Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, proposed a new agreement which would last until April 20. On the first day of his outline, half of the hostages will be released in one fell swoop of the hostages. At the end of the outline – if an agreement is reached – the remaining hostages will also be released, all at once.
Hamas has refused this proposal, saying it already agreed to a ceasefire agreement. Israel has agreed to the Witkoff proposal after stalling negotiations on the second phase of the signed ceasefire agreement.
Due to Hamas’ refusal of the Witkoff proposal, Israel said it will block all aid goods and supplies from entering Gaza, a move that violates international law.
Hamas condemned Israel’s decision to halt entry of aid into Gaza and described it as a “cheap blackmail,” “war crime” and a “blatant coup against the agreement.”
Hamas said that “the only way” to return Israeli hostages is to adhere to the ceasefire and “immediately enter into negotiations to begin the second stage,” in a statement earlier this month.
The second phase of the ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel has not begun, with ceasefire negotiations ongoing in Doha, Qatar, despite a nearly two-week blockade of aid into Gaza.
In the ceasefire agreement signed earlier this year, Hamas and Israel had agreed to sustain calm, permanent cessation of military operations and all hostilities to be implemented before the exchange of remaining Israeli male hostages, civilians and soldiers for an agreed-upon number of prisoners in Israeli jails and the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(LONDON) — Increasingly squeezed by allies and enemies alike, Ukraine’s armed forces are still setting records in their stubborn defense against Russia’s 3-year-old invasion, which — if President Donald Trump’s peace talks bear fruit — may soon see a partial ceasefire.
Month after month, Ukraine has increased the size and scope of its drone assaults within Russia. The high watermark this month came on March 10 as Kyiv launched at least 343 drones into Russia — according to the Defense Ministry in Moscow — representing Kyiv’s largest ever such attack. More than 90 drones were shot down over Moscow, the capital’s mayor describing the assault as “massive.”
The timing was pointed, coming hours before American and Ukrainian officials gathered in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for ceasefire talks.
While straining to prove to the White House they were ready to discuss peace with Moscow, the Ukrainians were also exhibiting their ever-evolving capability to wage war deep inside Russia.
“We keep developing a lot of different types of long-range deep strikes,” Yehor Cherniv — a member of the Ukrainian Parliament and the chairman of his country’s delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly — told ABC News.
“Our capacity is growing to destroy the capacity of Russia to continue this war,” he added.
Ukraine’s strikes against Russian critical infrastructure, energy facilities, military-industrial targets and military bases have mirrored Moscow’s own long-range campaign against Ukraine. Cross-border barrages in both directions have grown in size and complexity throughout the full-scale war.
Ukrainian short-range drones are harrying Russian forces on the devastated battlefields while long-range strike craft hit targets closer to home. Kyiv this month even claimed the first successful use of its domestically produced Neptune cruise missile, with a range of 600 miles.
Since the opening of U.S.-Russian talks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Feb. 18, Russia’s Defense Ministry claims to have shot down a total of 1,879 long-range Ukrainian drones — an average of more than 53 each day. On four occasions, the ministry reported intercepting more than 100 drones over a 24-hour period.
“Ukraine is pulling every single lever that it can, as hard as it can, to get it the kind of lethal strike capability that it needs for both of those campaigns,” Nick Reynolds, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute think tank in London, told ABC News.
Three years of Russia’s full-scale war have supercharged drone innovation in Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s armed forces and intelligence services have lauded what they call their “drone sanctions” — a tongue-in-cheek reference to drone attacks on Russian fossil fuel, military industrial and other infrastructure targets far beyond the front.
“Our Ukrainian production of drones and their continuous modernization are a key part of our system of deterrence against Russia, which is crucial for ensuring Ukraine’s security in the long term,” Zelenskyy said in a recent Telegram post.
Ukrainian drones have hit targets more than 700 miles inside Russia, have regularly forced the temporary closures of major Russian airports and have bombarded the power centers of Moscow and St. Petersburg. At sea, Ukraine’s naval drones have confined Russia’s fleet to the eastern portion of the Black Sea and made its bases in Crimea untenable.
It is no longer unusual for more than 100 attack drones to cross into Russian territory in the course of one night. Meanwhile, Kyiv is pushing to replace its relatively low-tech propeller-driven unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, with more jet-powered craft — potentially extending range, payload and survivability. “The number of rocket drones production will grow just like our long-range strike drones production did,” Zelenskyy said last summer.
Kyiv’s strikes have particularly disrupted Russia’s lucrative oil refining and export industry, prompting concerns abroad — including in the U.S. — that the Ukrainian campaign is driving up oil prices globally.
Federico Borsari of the Center for European Policy Analysis think tank told ABC News that Ukraine’s evolving long-range strike industry represents a “strategic advantage,” especially if Kyiv is able to protect its industrial sites from Russian strikes and stockpile weapons for future use.
“Ukraine has damaged Russian oil refining facilities hard since 2024 and destroyed several key storage bases of the artillery shells,” Pavel Luzin, a Russian political analyst at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts, told ABC News. “So, the Russians are highly concerned about this.”
“The amount of financial loss and material damage is huge,” Borsari added.
Drones of all ranges are expected to serve a key role in Ukraine’s future deterrence of repeat Russian aggression. Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, for example, said Kyiv is planning a 6- to 9-mile drone “kill zone” to buffer any future post-war frontier with Russia, “making enemy advances impossible.”
Ivan Stupak, a former officer in the Security Service of Ukraine, told ABC News that Ukraine’s drone threat could also prove an important lever in ongoing negotiations with both Moscow and Washington, neither of which want continued — or expanded — drone strikes on Russian oil infrastructure and other sensitive targets.
The weapons could also be vital to future deterrence of repeat Russian aggression, Stupak said, as Ukraine pursues a “hedgehog” strategy by which the country would make itself too “prickly” for Moscow to attempt to swallow again.
Ukraine’s success has not gone unnoticed by its foreign partners. Kyiv appears to be carving out a potentially lucrative niche in providing long-range, low-cost strike platforms.
“There is immense interest from our friends around the world in Ukraine’s developments, our capabilities and our technological production,” Zelenskyy said recently.
Last fall, reports emerged indicating that Ukraine was considering lifting a wartime ban on drone exports, seeking to take advantage of growing demand worth as much as $20 billion annually, per an estimate by Ukrainian lawmaker Oleksandr Marikovskyi.
Ukraine’s military and intelligence services collaborate with domestic and international private companies to expand their drone capabilities. Kyiv has estimated there are more than 200 domestic companies working in the sector. This year, Zelenskyy wants Ukraine to produce 30,000 long-range drones and 3,000 ballistic missiles.
This month’s brief U.S. aid and intelligence freeze has raised concerns within Ukraine’s domestic drone industry, arguably one of the most insulated and resilient areas of the country’s defense sector.
“The reality is that Western-provided intelligence — and the Americans are a big part of that — does feed into a better targeting picture,” Reynolds said. “The efficiency and effectiveness is, in part, tied to that.”
“Ukraine became partly blinded as to how and where Russian anti-aircraft and electronic warfare systems are being deployed,” Stupak said.
If such a freeze is repeated, “I suppose it will be more difficult for Ukraine to avoid anti-aircraft and electronic warfare systems and maybe we will see decreased levels of successful strikes,” he said.
Ukraine’s largest drone attack of the war thus far came days after the U.S. announced its intelligence sharing freeze. It is not clear whether Ukraine used previously shared intelligence to carry out the strike, in which scores of craft reached Moscow.
Some targets are easier to find than others. Airfields — like Engels strategic bomber air base — oil refineries, ports and the like are static and their locations known to Ukrainian military planners.
Still, a lack of intelligence would make it harder for Kyiv to locate and avoid Russian defensive systems. The pause in American intelligence sharing was brief, but for Ukrainians highlighted their level of reliance on U.S. assistance.
A long-lasting paucity of intelligence would represent “an important vulnerability,” Borsari said. “For very long-range targets, they require satellite information, satellite imagery — and most of the time this information comes from Western allies.”
