March 25, 2025 (EIRNS)—Over the past few days in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, diplomats and negotiators from the U.S. have been meeting (separately) with their Russian and Ukrainian counterparts. Today, the White House announced, in a pair of statements, that all three nations are in agreement on several items:
The countries have agreed “to ensure safe navigation, eliminate the use of force, and prevent the use of commercial vessels for military purposes in the Black Sea,” they have agreed to “develop measures for implementing … [the] agreement to ban strikes against energy facilities of Russia and Ukraine,” and they have agreed to “continue working toward achieving a durable and lasting peace.”
This significant step forward in resolving the NATO-Russia conflict playing out in Ukraine comes despite efforts to thwart the outbreak of peace. Such efforts include the demands by European Union officials and officials of nations including Germany, the United Kingdom, and the Baltics for massively increased military spending and for “peacekeeping” forces that would prevent peace in the first place. Or consider the state of mind of Ukraine’s acting president, whose taste in art gives a sense of what his inclinations might be. (His favorite painting, hung in his private office, depicts the Kremlin in flames.) The head of Ukraine’s Foreign Affairs Committee has accused Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, of spreading Russian propaganda and called for him to be fired for making “disgraceful, shocking statements.”
By overcoming such obstacles, real progress was made in Riyadh, progress the world should applaud.
But Southwest Asia is becoming increasingly dangerous. Although he left arch-warmongers John Bolton and Mike Pompeo out of his new administration, Donald Trump’s seeming fixation on Tehran as an implacable enemy leaves him vulnerable to manipulation by those pushing for an Israeli-U.S. attack on Iran. (The U.S. Threat Assessment compiled this year assesses, again, that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, facing increasing outrage over his policies, both domestic and with respect to Gaza, hopes for the protection that he believes comes with being a wartime leader—in part to escape the tightening net of corruption charges circling around him. Will a sinking Bibi pull Trump down with him?
The contradictions between Trump’s campaign promises and the policies he is actually implementing are causing increasing blowback among his supporters. How does “America First” square with bombing Yemen and supporting Israeli ethnic cleansing? And how hollow now seem the proclamations of free speech in light of Trump’s misnamed Task Force To Combat Anti-Semitism crushing speech and expression critical of Israeli policy, including through deportations ordered on speech grounds, in violation of the First Amendment.
And what about the economy? Trump’s tariffs will not cause the economy to bloom, and his scattershot approach to sanctions and potential port fees for Chinese-built vessels threaten trade and cause businesses and countries around the world to reconsider their relationship to the U.S. market and financial system. Meanwhile, his friends and family are promoting their own cryptocurrencies, supposedly as a way of bolstering the dollar. This is not the way forward.
What the United States needs is the economic approach of economist and many-time presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche.
This past weekend, The LaRouche Organization held an event in New York City, where speakers presented a strategic overview of the “American System” of political economy, the real means to foster an economic recovery.
