China says no scientific, factual basis for Philippines’ damage claims at Sabina Shoal

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump is getting praise from his most ardent supporters for withholding some weapons from Ukraine after they recently questioned the Republican leader’s commitment to keeping the US out of foreign conflicts.

This week’s announcement pausing deliveries of key air defense missiles, precision-guided artillery and other equipment to Ukraine comes just a few weeks after Trump ordered the US military to carry out strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

Bombing those sites in Iran had some hardcore supporters of the “Make America Great Again” movement openly questioning whether Trump was betraying his vow to keep America out of “stupid wars” as he inserted the US military into Israel’s conflict with Tehran.

With the Ukraine pause, which affects a crucial resupply of Patriot missiles, Trump is sending the message to his most enthusiastic backers that he is committed to following through on his campaign pledge to wind down American support for Ukraine’s efforts to repel Russia, a conflict he has repeatedly described as a costly boondoggle for US taxpayers.

“The choice was this: either prioritize equipping our own troops with a munition in short supply (and which was used to defend US troops last week) or provide them to a country where there are limited US interests,” Dan Caldwell, who was ousted as a senior adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, posted on X.

Caldwell publicly worried before the Iran strikes that US involvement could incite a major war and ultimately cost American lives.

Far-right influencer Jack Posobiec, another ardent MAGA backer, warned as Trump weighed whether to carry out strikes on Iran last month that such a move “would disastrously split the Trump coalition.”

He was quick to cheer the news about pausing some weapons deliveries to Ukraine: “America FIRST,” Posobiec posted on X.

Both the White House and the Pentagon have justified the move as being consistent with Trump’s campaign pledge to limit US involvement in foreign wars.

“The president was elected on an America first platform to put America first,” Pentagon chief spokesman Sean Parnell said.

At the same time, the decision is stirring anxiety among those in the more hawkish wing of the Republican Party. Many are flummoxed by Trump’s halting the flow of US arms just as Russia accelerates its unrelenting assault on Ukraine.

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, a Pennsylvania Republican who hails from a district that former Vice President Kamala Harris won in 2024, wrote to Trump and the Pentagon on Wednesday expressing “serious concern” about the decision and requesting an emergency briefing.

“We can’t let (Russian President Vladimir) Putin prevail now. President Trump knows that too and it’s why he’s been advocating for peace,” Rep. Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican, wrote on X. “Now is the time to show Putin we mean business. And that starts with ensuring Ukraine has the weapons Congress authorized to pressure Putin to the negotiating table.”

Trump spoke by phone with Putin on Thursday, the sixth call between the leaders since Trump’s return to office. The leaders discussed Iran, Ukraine and other issues but did not specifically address the suspension of some US weapons shipments to Ukraine, according to Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign affairs adviser.

Zelensky said in Denmark after meeting with major European Union backers that he hopes to talk to Trump in the coming days about the suspension.

The administration says it is part of global review of the US stockpile and is a necessary audit after sending nearly $70 billion in arms to Ukraine since Putin launched the war on Ukraine in February 2022.

The pause was coordinated by Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby.

Colby, before taking his position, spoke publicly about the need to focus US strategy more on China, widely seen as the United States’ biggest economic and military competitor. At his Senate confirmation hearing in March, he said the US doesn’t have a “multi-war military.”

“This is the restrainers like Colby flexing their muscle and saying, ‘Hey, the Pacific is more important,’” said retired Navy Adm. Mark Montgomery, an analyst at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

Backers of a more restrained US foreign policy say the move is necessary, given an unsettled Middle East, rising challenges in Asia and the stress placed on the US defense industrial complex after more than three years of war in Ukraine.

“You’re really coming up to the point where continuing to provide aid to Ukraine is putting at risk the US ability to operate in future crises,” said Jennifer Kavanagh, a senior fellow and director of military analysis at Defense Priorities. “And you don’t know when those crises are going to happen.”

“So you have to be a little bit cautious,” she added.

WASHINGTON: The US Supreme Court again sided with President Donald Trump’s administration in a legal fight over deporting migrants to countries other than their own, lifting on Thursday limits a judge had imposed to protect eight men who the government sought to send to politically unstable South Sudan.

The court on June 23 put on hold Boston-based US District Judge Brian Murphy’s April 18 injunction requiring migrants set for removal to so-called “third countries” where they have no ties to get a chance to tell officials they are at risk of torture there, while a legal challenge plays out.

The court on Thursday granted a Justice Department request to clarify that its June 23 decision also extended to Murphy’s separate May 21 ruling that the administration had violated his injunction in attempting to send a group of migrants to South Sudan. The US State Department has urged Americans to avoid the African nation “due to crime, kidnapping and armed conflict.”

Two liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented from the decision.

The court said that Murphy should now “cease enforcing the April 18 injunction through the May 21 remedial order.”

Murphy’s May 21 order mandating further procedures for the South Sudan-destined migrants prompted the US government to keep the migrants at a military base in Djibouti. Murphy also clarified at the time that non-US citizens must be given at least 10 days to raise a claim that they fear for their safety.

After the Supreme Court lifted Murphy’s April injunction on June 23, the judge promptly ruled that his May 21 order “remains in full force and effect.” Calling that ruling by the judge a “lawless act of defiance,” the Justice Department the next day urged the Supreme Court to clarify that its action applied to Murphy’s May 21 decision as well.

Murphy’s ruling, the Justice Department said in court filings, has stalled its “lawful attempts to finalize the long-delayed removal of those aliens to South Sudan,” and disrupted diplomatic relations. Its agents are being “forced to house dangerous criminal aliens at a military base in the Horn of Africa that now lies on the borders of a regional conflict,” it added.

Even as it accused the judge of defying the Supreme Court, the administration itself has been accused of violating judicial orders including in the third-country deportation litigation.

The administration has said its third-country policy is critical for removing migrants who commit crimes because their countries of origin are often unwilling to take them back. The Supreme Court has a 6-3 conservative majority. Its three liberal members dissented from the June 23 decision pausing Murphy’s injunction, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor calling it a “gross abuse” of the court’s power that now exposes “thousands to the risk of torture or death.”

After the Department of Homeland Security moved in February to step up rapid deportations to third countries, immigrant rights groups filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of a group of migrants seeking to prevent their removal to such places without notice and a chance to assert the harms they could face.

In March, the administration issued guidance providing that if a third country has given credible diplomatic assurance that it will not persecute or torture migrants, individuals may be deported there “without the need for further procedures.”

Murphy found that the administration’s policy of “executing third-country removals without providing notice and a meaningful opportunity to present fear-based claims” likely violates due process requirements under the US Constitution. Due process generally requires the government to provide notice and an opportunity for a hearing before taking certain adverse actions.

The Justice Department on Tuesday noted in a filing that the administration has received credible diplomatic assurances from South Sudan that the aliens at issue will not be subject to torture.”

The Supreme Court has let Trump implement some contentious immigration policies while the fight over their legality continues to play out. In two decisions in May, it let Trump end humanitarian programs for hundreds of thousands of migrants to live and work in the United States temporarily. The justices, however, faulted the administration’s treatment of some migrants as inadequate under constitutional due process protections.