It is clear by now that Donald Trump’s second administration will not be a rerun of the first. Why has the United States tilted away from Europe? Is there any method to the apparent madness? And how should Europe adjust? Leaders from the CIA, Nato and the US military join ‘The Foreign Desk’ to sift through the US’s new reality.

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What shape will the war in Ukraine take now that president Trump has paused all military aid? Andrew Mueller unpacks the nation’s prospects following Friday’s showdown in the Oval Office. 

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Russia’s rampage in Ukraine has had knock-on effects elsewhere, few if any of them positive. At the Munich Security Conference, Georgia’s president Salome Zourabichvili told us how she’s fighting Russian interference at home, and Belarus’s exiled opposition leader discussed how Moscow is underpinning her country’s tyrant. Leaders from the countries staring down the threat from the Kremlin join ‘The Foreign Desk’ to tell us how to defeat the menace at the gate.

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As security risks on the European continent rise and the US retreats from its historic role, will Germany be able to shake off its history and arm itself to meet the moment?

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In the week following US vice president JD Vance’s explosive speech at the Munich Security Conference, European leaders scrambled to two emergency summits to consider the prospect of American detachment. In this special episode recorded at the conference, we reflect on this new reality almost exactly three years on from the invasion of Ukraine. We speak with current and former office-holders, including Pål Jonson, Sweden’s minister of defence, and Oleksii Reznikov, former minister of defence of Ukraine.

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Former Mauritius PM Pravind Jugnauth was arrested last weekend after the country’s Financial Crimes Commission recovered suitcases full of banknotes worth over €2m. We explain why the scandal is not just bad news for Mauritius but the UK too. 

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Between the infrastructure disaster that has sparked prolonged protests and the ongoing troubles with Kosovo, Albania and Nato, is Serbia OK? Andrew Mueller speaks to the country’s minister of foreign affairs, Marko Đurić, and our Balkans correspondent, Guy De Launey, for the view from the ground. 

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Why has New Zealand fallen out with the Cook Islands and Kiribati? And what does China have to do with it? Andrew Mueller explains. 

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It seems clear that the newly inaugurated US president Trump has a philosophy on trade wars: they are good and easy to win. Tina Fordham, Alex von Tunzelmann and Elisabeth Braw join us to discuss whether the history of trade wars can tell us anything about how to wage one. And are these new economic tussles really anything remarkable, or just part of a wider backlash against globalisation?

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Is there any truth to Donald Trump’s claims that China controls the Panama Canal or is he out of his depth? Following secretary of state Marco Rubio’s meeting with Panama’s president, Andrew Mueller explains the US’s rocky history with the country and its waterways.

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