In a matter of days, US President Donald Trump has extended a hand to Iran and bombed Tehran’s allies in Yemen. His administration has both demanded that Iran dismantle its nuclear program and offered more flexibility.Trump has for years dangled force as a means to get his way in negotiations. But on Iran, some observers see less a strategy than mixed messaging, with a real debate on how the norms-breaking president will handle a US adversary of nearly half a century.”There is a lot of contradiction within the Trump administration on Iran,” said one Western diplomat, who asked not to be named due to the sensitive nature of the issue. “Sooner or later, it will have to come to a head.”Trump said on March 7 that he had written a letter to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei offering talks on Iran’s contested nuclear program, but also warning of potential military action if he refuses — a threat also made by Israel.Trump, who in his first term ripped up a 2015 nuclear deal negotiated by predecessor Barack Obama, returned to office saying he would resume his “maximum pressure” policy of sanctions but openly said he was doing so reluctantly out of deference to hawkish advisors.Steve Witkoff, a friend of Trump who has quickly become his roving global envoy, hinted at compromise with Iran in a recent interview with Tucker Carlson, the conservative pundit and critic of military interventionism who dissuaded Trump from military action against Iran in his first term.Witkoff said Trump was proposing a “verification program” to show Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapon — in line with Obama’s deal, which was backed by European allies.Trump’s national security advisor, Mike Waltz, quickly said the goal remained “full dismantlement.” Iran insists it is not seeking a nuclear bomb, but US intelligence believes it could build one quickly if it decided to do so.- Trump surrounded by hawks -Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group, which supports peaceful resolutions, said a maximalist position of ending the nuclear program was a non-starter with Iran.”The Iranians are never going to negotiate with a gun to their heads,” he said.Both Witkoff and the president himself are “not ideologically opposed to a mutually beneficial deal” with Iran, but no one else in the administration appears to agree, Vaez said.While Trump is the chief decision-maker, he has not shown he is focused on Iran, and Witkoff is spread thin as he also negotiates on Gaza and Ukraine, Vaez said.Khamenei already will struggle to accept negotiations with Trump due to his past track record, including ordering the killing of top Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani in 2020.Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, voiced more optimism about diplomacy. He said Iran could even seek a deal of the sort Trump relishes, such as agreeing to buy US products after years of sanctions.”If Iran was smart, they would take this opportunity and say, well, here’s an American president who really doesn’t seem that heavily involved in this issue,” Vatanka said.”He just wants to be able to say that he got a better deal than Obama did in 2015.”- Play for time? -Trump’s outreach comes at a weak point for the Islamic republic after Israel decimated two of its allies — Hamas, the Palestinian militants who attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, and Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Iran’s main regional ally, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, fell in December after an offensive led by Sunni Islamists.Trump in recent days has unleashed major attacks on Yemen’s Iranian-linked Huthi insurgents who have been attacking Black Sea shipping in avowed solidarity with the Palestinians.Hanging over diplomacy is the prospect of military action by Israel, which already struck hard at Iran’s air defenses last year.Israel has sought to join forces on Iran with Gulf Arab nations, although Israel’s renewed Gaza offensive could jeopardize any open alliance.Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the hawkish Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said that a “credible American and Israeli military threat is instrumental” in dealing with Iran’s nuclear program, including in leveraging a strong agreement.”There is a great amount of cognizance within folks in the administration that Tehran is trying to play the administration to stall for time, and that there needs to be some real benchmarks if diplomacy is going to be an option here,” he said.

With Russian troops ravaging their native Kharkiv, Nikita Demydov and his wife Alina were offered a way out when the United States welcomed them and their five-year-old daughter as part of a humanitarian program.But that welcome is now being withdrawn under President Donald Trump, whose administration has suspended “Uniting for Ukraine,” which allowed more than 200,000 Ukrainians to legally reside in the country. “We have IDs, a Social Security number, a work permit,” said Demydov, 39, who has put down roots and started several small construction businesses in San Diego.”If the new government cancels it, we’ll lose everything again, one more time, and start from scratch again.”The humanitarian program was begun under then-president Joe Biden in April 2022 to offer safety to some of the thousands of Ukrainians fleeing the Russian advance.Many of them had found their way to the US southern border, joining desperate people from Central and Southern America seeking asylum in the US. Biden also established admission programs for people fleeing authoritarian regimes in Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua.But almost as soon as Trump took power, he began making good on his promise to shut the border and drastically reduce migration.- ‘What for?’ – The programs for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans have been terminated, while that for Ukrainians has been paused.That stoppage has left tens of thousands of Ukrainians in limbo and in fear.”This program gave Ukrainians the chance for stability,” said Ester Miroshnychenko, an 18-year-old high school student who moved to the United States with her parents and eight siblings in 2022.”If I have to leave everything, it’s gonna be really hard for me. It’s gonna be like everything that I achieved is gonna be destroyed,” said Miroshnychenko, who didn’t speak English when she arrived in the United States. “I would say to them… think about actual people who worked hard, who left everything behind, and they still find motivation to continue even after war.”Taking away those opportunities… for what?”Demydov says the winds of anti-migrant intolerance blowing from Washington are completely out of step with his daily experience in a country where he has always felt welcomed.”You will not see it from the regular people,” he said.”American people are happy to have us here. But at the highest level… I’m a little bit… not even confused. I’m scared.” – ‘Just want to be safe’ – Vlad Fedoryshyn, who settled in the United States in 2020 and became a liaison and supporter for Ukrainians who arrived under the humanitarian program, receives between 20 and 30 calls a day from people fretting about what will happen to them.Many are beginning to see the impact of the program’s pause, with their work permits and other applications paralyzed.”People are very worried,” he said.”When you hear from the government that, hey, we’re not going to have (this) program for you anymore… what does that mean?” asked Fedoryshyn, who works for a mailing company.”It was super hard for them to rent an apartment, to find a job, to just establish their life here,” he added. “And when this thing happened, they don’t know what’s going to happen with their parole, they start feeling unsafe.”Fedoryshyn, 26, believes the Trump administration does not really understand what is happening on the ground in Ukraine, where civilians come under frequent attack from invading Russian forces.The sudden about-face in US policy towards his country is upsetting and disorientating.”We are a small country,” said Fedoryshyn, who learned in textbooks that the United States and other European countries were allies and protectors of Ukraine. For him, seeing Trump rebuke President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House last month was very difficult to swallow. “We were always relying on this protection. And right now, when Trump was talking to the President like that… I almost was crying.”Fedoryshyn says he finds it difficult to believe that other countries, which opened their doors to Ukrainians at the beginning of the war, will want to welcome more migrants.But returning is almost impossible.”Are you going to want to go back to Ukraine, where the war continues, where missiles could fall or a drone could hit your house any day?” he said. “They just want to be safe.”

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen denounced Tuesday a US delegation visit that now includes Vice President JD Vance to Greenland, the Danish island coveted by President Donald Trump, as putting “unacceptable pressure” on both the territory and her country.Vance, who has become Trump’s attack dog on foreign policy matters, will travel with his wife Usha to Pituffik Space Base on Friday “to receive a briefing on Arctic security issues and meet with US servicemembers”, his office said in a statement.The vice president had earlier said in a video message that there was “so much excitement” around his wife’s planned visit to Greenland that he had decided to join her.According to the Arctic island’s outgoing Prime Minister Mute Egede, US national security adviser Mike Waltz will also visit Greenland this week, while US media have reported that Energy Secretary Chris Wright will travel there as well.The visits, presented as private, have angered Danish and Greenlandic politicians.”You can’t organise a private visit with official representatives of another country,” Frederiksen told reporters. The visit comes at a time of political flux in Greenland, where parties are still negotiating to form a new coalition government following a March 11 general election.”This is clearly not a visit that is about what Greenland needs or wants,” Frederiksen told broadcaster DR.”That’s why I have to say that the pressure being put on Greenland and Denmark in this situation is unacceptable. And it’s pressure we will resist.”- ‘So-called tourists’ -The outgoing Greenlandic government posted on Facebook that it had not “sent out any invitations for visits, private or official”. “The current government is a transitional government pending the formation of a new governing coalition, and we have asked all countries to respect this process,” it wrote.Since returning to power in January, Trump has insisted he wants to take over Greenland for national security purposes, refusing to rule out the use of force to do so.In his video message, Vance said other countries sought to use the territory to “threaten the United States, to threaten Canada, and, of course, to threaten the people of Greenland.”A self-governing territory that is seeking to emancipate itself from Copenhagen, Greenland holds massive untapped mineral and oil reserves, though oil and uranium exploration are banned.It is also strategically located between North America and Europe at a time of rising US, Chinese and Russian interest in the Arctic, where sea lanes have opened up because of climate change.Greenland’s location also puts it on the shortest route for missiles between Russia and the United States.Greenland’s likely new prime minister — Jens-Frederik Nielsen of the centre-right Democrats, who won the election — has criticised Trump’s moves on Greenland as “inappropriate”.Aaja Chemnitz, a lawmaker representing Greenland in the Danish parliament, denounced the US delegation’s visit.”No one from the Greenlandic official system has invited the so-called tourists. They’re coming, using soft power diplomacy and also focusing on security issues and this is totally unacceptable,” Chemnitz told AFP.Trump nonetheless alleged the visit was at the invitation of Greenland.”We’ve been invited,” Trump told reporters on Monday.”We’re dealing with a lot of people from Greenland that would like to see something happen with respect to being properly protected and properly taken care of,” he said.Frederiksen meanwhile said Copenhagen and Nuuk were still open to cooperation with Washington.”We are allies, we have a defence agreement on Greenland that dates back to 1951,” Frederiksen said. “There is nothing that indicates, neither in Denmark nor Greenland, that we don’t want to cooperate with the Americans.”