The Debate

Much was riding on this Tuesday's phone call between US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. Trump is wanting movement from Moscow on the US proposal for a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine. This as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Putin of dragging his heels in responding to the US proposal.

Produced by Rebecca Gnignati, Elisa Amiri, Ilayda Habip.

US President Donald Trump likes to say he's the protector of free speech. Yet, his administration has already threatened Democratic Congress members with investigation for criticising conservatives while withdrawing federal grants that include language it opposes. This as it sanctioned law firms that represent Trump's political opponents and arrested the Palestinian organiser of student protests that Trump criticised as "anti-Semitic, anti-American". The US president is stripping back the government-funded news organisation Voice of America as he accuses it of being "anti-Trump" and "radical". So will free speech survive in America? And are we merely witnessing the opening salvos of a war on so-called wokeism?

Produced by Rebecca Gnignati, Elisa Amiri, Ilayda Habip, Juliette Laffont.

Donald Trump has said it many times: "The most beautiful word in the dictionary to me is tariff." But the tariffs that Trump is imposing on businesses across the borders are having a less than beautiful effect. Trump came to power promising prosperity for the United States, a "new golden age", but now the country is teetering towards recession. 

Is this a lose-lose situation where Trump's tariffs provoke a similar response from the penalised countries? Caught in the middle are the consumers who always seem to suffer when the people in power want radical change. 

Produced by Théophile Vareille, Rebecca Gnignati and Ilayda Habip.

Talk about mood swings: is that epic White House bust-up that we are still processing already water under the bridge? Donald Trump’s envoys making that recent dumpster fire of a sitdown with Volodymyr Zelensky sound like a fading memory. The US now unpausing military assistance to Kyiv and talking up the imminence of a rare minerals deal in exchange for Ukraine agreeing to a 30-day truce with Russia. All is forgiven … up to a point. 

With the ball now in the Kremlin’s court, Ukraine is still shut out of direct bargaining over its own fate. For now, it is still between Moscow and Washington.

We will ask about the dizzying ups and downs of diplomacy à la Trump, and how allies feel about this rollercoaster ride. On that score, special attention to all the huddling we have seen in London and Paris as Europeans figure out how to rewrite their own security strategy on the fly, what with a US-led NATO no longer what it used to be.

Produced by Théophile Vareille, Rebecca Gnignati and Ilayda Habip. 

It's got a population smaller than Paris’ Latin Quarter, but thanks to Donald Trump, the whole world’s watching Greenland. As citizens of the Arctic Danish dependency choose between six main parties, all pro-independence to varying degrees, we’ll ask how locals voting in parliamentary elections feel about the US president promising Congress to get the mineral-rich island “one way or another”.

Even if it means taking on traditional allies. Denmark’s an EU and NATO member that equips its military with hardware made in the USA. What does Trump's hard bargaining say about the times we live in? New imperialism, melting polar ice caps, housing and social challenges, we’ll ask how changing times are impacting the life of Greenland’s 56,865 inhabitants and what lessons we can all draw from the global attention they're suddenly getting. 

Produced by Rebecca Gnignati, Elisa Amiri, Ilayda Habip.

Three months on, could Syria slide back into civil war? In the Alawite bastion of ousted president Bashar al-Assad, the bloodiest week in years with attacks and revenge killings of civilians that the new masters of Damascus are scrambling to contain. Why did the Mediterranean coast region erupt? What triggered it?

And what’s the next move by new strongman Ahmed al-Sharaa? The jihadist militia leader who’s traded in his fatigues for a suit and promised the outside world justice and respect for minority rights. Enough for the West to begin a desperately-needed easing of sanctions. Have the likes of the European Union moved too slowly or too fast?

And how will al-Sharaa navigate between his own alliance of forces that include Turkey-backed militias which contributed to the overthrow of Assad but could pose a threat to the central authority in Damascus, the US-backed Kurds who want federalism, and the Russians who want to keep their Mediterranean bases? Not to mention Israel, which rejected overtures of détente and for the moment occupies more land in the Golan Heights

Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Elisa Amiri, Ilayda Habip.

Ukraine’s allies have plenty of troops and hardware. But how battle ready are they? And is it enough to deter Putin’s Russia? Brussels is hosting an emergency summit with Volodymyr Zelensky attending as the Trump administration halts support for Ukraine. The sense of urgency is also illustrated by Germany reaching a deal to revise its constitution so it can ensure its security without US protection. But how far can Europeans go, including the British, if their US-made equipment can’t operate without Washington’s approval or in some cases without its intelligence.   

Produced by Rebecca Gnignati, Elisa Amiri, Ilayda Habip. 

Can Europeans and Americans still speak of shared values? The longest-ever speech by a US president to a joint session of Congress doubling down on an America First vision of foreign policy that's heavy on the sticks, light on the carrots. In the past, critics of the US dismissed talks of exporting democracy by pointing to Vietnam, Latin America and Iraq, but the US has also put its might behind international institutions to broker peace and set up norms for doing business that the whole world could trust. 

Globalisation without a US backstop has consequences. Has the US become a nationalist illiberal democracy or does it all return to normal when next year’s midterm elections roll around?

Europe finds itself having to rewrite its entire security architecture on the fly. Here you see Emmanuel Macron trying to convince one of Donald Trump’s European allies, Hungary’s Viktor Orban, ahead of an EU summit that’s facing the sudden end of the post-1945 order. How did allies not see this moment coming?

 

Produced by Rebecca Gnignati, Elisa Amiri, Ilayda Habip.

It’s a volatile world these days. While Europe wonders if it’s just lost its US security umbrella, while a Gaza ceasefire hangs by a thread, while Syria figures out how to hold it together after the fall of Assad, major regional player Turkey looks to get its own house in order with the announced dissolution of a 40-year-old Kurdish insurgency. Why did Recep Tayyip Erdogan and imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan agree to open a path to peace? And why now? 

Will it work this time? The pair have tried and failed before to bury the hatchet.

We discuss the cross-border consequences in Iraq, where many guerrillas have their base, and in Syria, where Ankara-backed militias are openly fighting Syrian YPG Kurdish fighters, the secular Syrian Kurds who as part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have the backing of US troops as they take on the remnants of the Islamic State group.

On that score, will that support from Washington continue? With Iran in retreat and Russia elsewhere occupied, how does the Trump administration see its role?

Produced by Rebecca Gnignati, Ilayda Habib and Aurore Laborie. 

The image of King Charles III welcoming Volodymyr Zelensky to Sandringham evokes memories of his grandfather, George VI, standing firm as Britain held the line before the United States entered the war. Since then, Europe has relied on Washington's security umbrella. But that era may be coming to an end. Last Friday, Ukraine's president was caught off guard on live television, confronted with rhetoric strikingly similar to Kremlin talking points that shifted blame for the war onto Kyiv and NATO. What was supposed to be a solemn debrief of PM Keir Starmer's visit to Washington instead turned into an urgent strategy session in London. If NATO's future is in doubt, is Europe truly prepared to defend itself? And with Trump appearing to align himself with Putin, is the continent now closer than ever to direct confrontation with Russia?

Read more'We should have woken up earlier': Europe races to rearm as old alliances falter

Produced by François Picard, Alessandro Xenos, Guillaume Gougeon and Ilayda Habip.