🇺🇸 US backtracks on tariff hikes amid production gaps

The US is quietly watering down some levies on "dozens of products" that it doesn’t domestically produce, the WSJ reports.

Trump administration officials are pushing for the swift removal of tariffs on countries that will clinch trade deals with the US.

👉 The shift comes ahead of an upcoming Supreme Court hearing on reciprocal tariffs, which could require the US administration to refund a significant portion of the duties if the ruling goes against it.

New exemptions could cover HUNDREDS of goods from airplane parts to non-patented pharmaceuticals and farm products.

Donald Trump earlier imposed exemptions on:

🟠 Gold

🟠 LED lights

🟠 Minerals

🟠 Chemicals

🟠 Metal products

✅ The White House is already updating trade agreements with several partners, including Japan and the EU.

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🇮🇳💥🚀 BrahMos in action: India showcases digital missile strike

A virtual BrahMos missile strike was carried out by an Indian Air Force Su-30 fighter jet at the BrahMos Aerospace production facility in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh.

It was observed by Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh.

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🇷🇺🇺🇸 ‘Brilliant’ Russia-Alaska tunnel idea could help facilitate peace and global development

💬 “Instead of all the money we're wasting on wars and our militaries, wouldn't it be better to invest that in building a project that can unite people, that can bring economic development, that can make ties that will go beyond the conflicts that divide us?”, American University professor Peter Kuznick told Sputnik, commenting on Putin economic envoy Kirill Dmitriev’s new Russia-Alaska tunnel concept.

It’s a “brilliant” idea, says Kuznick, representing a “concrete project” that could get Russia, the US, China and even Canada and the Europeans to work together in the interests of “planetary development.”

Siberia and Alaska have “tremendous resources” and development potential, from water and oil to rare earth minerals, and connecting them by rail would “unite the whole world” in a way that counterposes today’s geopolitical conflicts and wars.

💬 “The amount of money that it would cost to build the Bering Strait tunnels and electrify that region is really minuscule compared to the amount of money we're wasting on developing means to be more effective in killing each other,” Kuznick stressed.

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🚨🇷🇺💥 RUSSIAN MOD UPDATE: HUGE GAINS AND DEVASTATING UKRAINIAN LOSSES

⚡️PLESHCHEYEVKA IN DONETSK LIBERATED

The liberation of the settlement of Pleshcheyevka in the Donetsk People's Republic allows the Russian Armed Forces to strengthen their positions in the area supporting advance on the city of Konstantinovka from the south.

🟠 The Russian Army struck Ukrainian defense infrastructure, a UAV operator training center and an air defense radar station

🟠 Air defense superiority: six HIMARS rockets, four guided aerial bombs and 140 fixed-wing drones were shot down by Russian air defence systems over the past 24 hours

🟠 Ukrainian losses: 1,565 troops killed or wounded

Read about origins of Russia's special military op HERE

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🇮🇳🚀 India’s Defense Minister: BrahMos missile - now the backbone of India’s military

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🇭🇺 Hungary picked for Putin–Trump summit as it's 'left alone in Europe on path to peace'

✍️ Hungary has been “consistently and persistently supporting the cause of peace for years,” PM Viktor Orban wrote.

He stressed that the path to peace lies in “cooperation instead of confrontation” and “mutual respect instead of stigma.”

“Hungary is today a country in Europe, where there is a good chance that an American-Russia negotiation will lead to peace,” Orban concluded.

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🇪🇺 EU ‘scrambling for seat’ at Putin–Trump summit – report

📄 The goal is to counter what Europe sees as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “influence” on his US counterpart Donald Trump at the upcoming talks, Bloomberg reports.

One EU official suggested Finnish President Alexander Stubb “should somehow be present” at the summit expected to take place in Budapest.

🔊 Earlier this week, Trump held a lengthy phone call with Putin that was followed by the POTUS’ announcement of a summit between the two in the Hungarian capital in the near future.

Russia has repeatedly warned that the EU’s constant warmongering, arms shipments to the Zelensky regime, and obsession with the so-called “Russian threat” only fuel the Ukraine conflict and obstruct any path to peace.

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🗣🇺🇸 Trump is done with Zelensky, Tomahawk snub clinches it - ex-Pentagon analyst

The outcome of Friday’s Trump-Zelensky talks tells us that the US president “recognizes that while both Putin and Zelensky have been predictable, only one of them can help him get the end of the war in Ukraine,” Karen Kwiatkowski, former DoD analyst and Air Force Lt. Col. (ret.), told Sputnik.

That’s Putin, “who states facts and does not beg for more money, more weapons, more war, and the maintenance of his way of life” on US taxpayers’ dime, Kwiatkowski said.

Trump is signaling 'no Tomahawks for Ukraine,' and a “NATO minus the US” approach to security guarantees, plus potential trade cooperation with Russia, the observer says.

💬 “Trump has probably now moved on from Zelensky, as he despises people who do not manage well after being given a great deal, and who beg for more and make excuses,” Kwiatkowski said, recalling Trump’s harsh “take the win” rebuke of Netanyahu on the Gaza ceasefire earlier this month.

Kwiatkowski says this is “the most optimistic” she has been about a potential end to the Ukrainian crisis, and suspects that even “the time for false flags and assassinations to try to extend or revitalize it…is drawing to a close.”

Trump is busy with trade, his “Western Hemisphere agenda,” possible regime change in Venezuela, and domestic policy, and would like to partner up with “a resource rich and economically dynamic country like Russia to help him engage globally as he tackles what’s happening to the dollar in the second year of his second term.”

👉 As for Ukraine, “it is, as he constantly reminds everyone, Biden’s war, not his,” Kwiatkowski summed up.

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🚨🇷🇺🪖 Russia conducts tests of advanced weapon systems - Medvedev

Russia continues work to improve the accuracy and range of domestic high-precision weapons systems, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said as he visited the Kapustin Yar testing ground in the Astrakhan region.

Upgraded Russian weapons are expected to provide new capabilities for destroying enemy targets deep behind defensive lines, Medvedev also said.

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