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sábado, 31 de maio de 2025
Denying Visas to Chinese Students Could Backfire on America
Denying
Visas to Chinese Students Could Backfire on America
Protecting
the borders from espionage is essential. It’s something else to deny students
because they are Chinese and hope to pursue a STEM degree in the United States.
Li Yuan
By Li Yuan
May 30, 2025
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/business/china-student-visas-trump.html
One night in
1978, President Jimmy Carter got a phone call at 3 a.m. from a top adviser who
was visiting China.
“Deng
Xiaoping insisted I call you now, to see if you would permit 5,000 Chinese
students to come to American universities,” said the official, Frank Press.
“Tell him to
send 100,000,” Mr. Carter replied.
By
Christmastime that year, the first group of 52 Chinese students had arrived in
the United States, just ahead of the formal establishment of U.S.-Chinese
diplomatic relations on New Year’s Day. A month later, Mr. Deng, China’s top
leader, made a historic visit to America during which he watched John Denver
sing “Take Me Home, Country Roads” and was photographed wearing a cowboy hat.
It’s almost
hard to believe how little contact there had been between the United States and
modern China before that. The Sinologist John K. Fairbank wrote in 1971: “Since
1950 Washington has officially sent more men to the moon than it has to China.”
The visits by Mr. Deng and, more important, by those first Chinese students
began a new chapter that would fundamentally change China — and the world. The
United States gained access to a vast market and talent pool, while China found
a model and a partner for transforming its economy.
Now that
chapter has closed, after the Trump administration announced on Wednesday that
it would begin “aggressively” revoking the visas of Chinese students.
For the
millions of Chinese who have studied in the United States, myself included, it
is a sobering and disheartening development. It marks a turning point that
America, long a beacon of openness and opportunity, would start shutting its
doors to Chinese who aspire to a good education and a future in a society that
values freedom and human dignity.
By curbing
people-to-people exchanges, President Trump is taking a decisive step toward
decoupling from China. To treat Chinese students and professionals in science
and technology broadly not as contributors, but as potential security risks,
reflects a foreign policy driven more by insecurity and retreat than by the
self-assurance of a global leader.
The reaction
to the new policy inside China, reflected in the U.S. Embassy’s social media
accounts, was mixed. Some commenters thanked the United States for “sending
China’s brightest minds back.” Others drew historical parallels, comparing the
Trump administration’s isolationist turn to China’s Ming and Qing dynasties —
once global powers that declined after turning inward and were ultimately
defeated in foreign invasions. One commenter remarked that the policy’s
narrow-mindedness would “make America small again.”
The shift
also comes when many young Chinese, disillusioned by political repression and
economic stagnation under Xi Jinping’s leadership, are trying to flee the
country to seek freedom and opportunities.
“Xi is
pushing many of the best and the brightest to leave China,” said Thomas E.
Kellogg, executive director of Georgetown’s Center for Asian Law and a leading
scholar of legal reform in China. “The U.S. should be taking advantage of this
historic brain drain, not shutting the door to many talented Chinese young
people.”
The number
of Chinese students in the United States dropped to about 277,000 in the
2023-24 academic year, a 25 percent decline from its peak four years earlier,
according to government data. Students from China remained the second-largest
group of international students, after those from India. In fact, applications
for postgraduation temporary employment permits rose 12 percent in 2023-24 from
the prior year, signaling more interest in working in the United States despite
the challenges.
The new visa
policy will leave many of these students with little choice but to leave, or at
the least reconsider their future in the United States.
I
interviewed a doctoral candidate in computer science at a top American
university, a young man from China who first dreamed of studying in America at
17, when he began to question Chinese government propaganda. He arrived eight
years ago and never seriously considered returning. But now, facing the threat
of visa revocation, he said he was no longer sure if he could — or even wanted
to — stay.
“America
doesn’t feel worth it anymore,” he said, asking me not to identify him for fear
of retribution from Washington. The immigration process is fraught with
anxiety, he said, and the returns no longer seem to justify the stress. He said
he was exploring work visa options in Canada, Australia and Western Europe,
even though he has a job offer from a big tech company on the West Coast.
“The pay
might be lower,” he said, “but those countries offer more personal freedom.”
His
experience is in stark contrast to that of Dong Jielin, who was among the first
Chinese students to come to the United States after the Cultural Revolution.
When she arrived at Carnegie Mellon in 1982 on a U.S. scholarship, she knew
little about the country beyond what the Chinese state media had portrayed: a
capitalist society in perpetual crisis and a people living in misery.
It didn’t
take long for her perception to shift. “The moment I walked into a supermarket,
I could see that life here was far from miserable,” she told me in an
interview. Encounters with Americans quickly dispelled other myths as well.
“They were not vicious or hostile,” she said. “They were warm and kind.”
Ms. Dong
went on to earn a doctoral degree in physics, build a career in finance and
technology, become a U.S. citizen and raise a family.
The U.S.
government has good reasons to worry about national security risks from China,
including espionage and intellectual property theft. The Federal Bureau of
Investigation calls the Chinese government the most prolific sponsor of talent
recruitment programs that aim to transfer scientific and technological
breakthroughs to China.
It also
makes sense to block people with ties to China’s military industrial complex.
But it’s
something else entirely to deny visas to 18-year-old students simply because
they are Chinese and hope to pursue a STEM degree in the United States.
American
officials often say they aim to distinguish between the Chinese Communist Party
and the Chinese people. That distinction was emphasized during Mr. Trump’s
first term. It’s largely absent now.
U.S. policy
now targets anyone with ties to the Chinese Communist Party. But the party has
nearly 100 million members, about one in 14 Chinese. And most children in China
grow up as members of the Young Pioneers and Communist Youth League,
school-based party organizations. It’s just the way of life in a country ruled
by a Leninist party.
As one
commenter put it on the U.S. Embassy’s WeChat account, “How could any Chinese
not be associated with the Party?”
The policy
is also very likely to backfire.
Researchers
found that Chinese undergraduates in American universities were more
predisposed to favor liberal democracy than their peers in China. However, they
said, exposure to xenophobic, anti-Chinese comments by Americans significantly
decreased their belief that political reforms are desirable for China. Those
who experienced discrimination were more likely to reject democratic values in
favor of autocratic ones.
Chinese who
have studied abroad also face growing suspicion at home. The government and
some employers believe that exposure to Western values makes their fellow
Chinese politically unreliable.
Dong
Mingzhu, chairwoman of the appliance giant Gree Electric, said recently that
her company would never hire a graduate from a foreign university. “There are
spies among them,” she said.
On the
Chinese internet, some people compared her to Secretary of State Marco Rubio,
who announced the visa policy.
Dong Jielin,
the former student who was among the first to come to the United States, said
the experience had a profound impact on her life, giving her the opportunity to
explore the frontiers of science and technology.
It is
understandable, she said, that the government is raising screening standards
for student visas. “But I believe the vast majority of those who stay in the
U.S. will, over time, become loyal American citizens,” she said, just like
herself.
A correction
was made on May 30, 2025: An earlier version of this column misstated the
proportion of Chinese who are members of the Chinese Communist Party. It is one
in 14, not one in seven.
When we
learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error,
please let us know at nytnews@nytimes.com.Learn more
Li Yuan
writes The New New World column, which focuses on China’s growing influence on
the world by examining its businesses, politics and society.
UK forging ahead with US trade talks, despite court block on Trump’s tariffs
UK
forging ahead with US trade talks, despite court block on Trump’s tariffs
Exclusive:
British officials hope to have deals covering cars, metals and aeroplane parts
within weeks
Kiran Stacey
Political correspondent
Sat 31 May
2025 05.00 BST
British
officials are forging ahead in their trade talks with the US despite a recent
court decision overturning many of Donald Trump’s tariffs, and hope to have a
deals covering cars, metals and aeroplane parts in place within weeks.
A team of
British negotiators spent much of last week in Washington talking to their
American counterparts about how to implement the deal was signed earlier this
month, including how quickly it can be passed by parliament and Congress.
The talks
come despite a ruling last week by a federal court overturning Trump’s blanket
10% tariffs, which Downing Street believes will eventually be overruled by the
president’s allies on the supreme court.
But on
Thursday night, an appeals court paused the ruling while it looks more closely
at the arguments – allowing Trump’s administration to keep them in place.
One
government source said: “Some countries are viewing the court ruling as an
indication that they were right not to negotiate over tariffs. We’re taking the
opposite view, and trying to get this deal implemented as soon as possible.”
A government
spokesperson said: “The UK was the first country to secure a deal with the US
in a move that will protect British business and jobs across key sectors, from
autos to steel.
“We are
working to ensure that businesses can benefit from the deal as quickly as
possible and will confirm next steps in due course.”
The US
president announced the US-UK trade deal earlier this month from the Oval
Office, calling it “very special for the UK and special for the United States”.
Trump surprised Downing Street with the timing of his announcement, informing
Keir Starmer just hours before he made it, with many of the finer details still
to be ironed out.
Under the
terms of the agreement, for example, British car companies will be allowed to
export 100,000 vehicles a year at a 10% tariff rate. But the deal does not set
out how the Americans will view cars assembled in the UK with a considerable
proportion of parts made in other countries, nor how parts themselves will be
treated.
While the
details are being fleshed out, some British companies are being forced by their
American customers to reduce their prices, while others say they are simply not
exporting at all.
Earlier this
week, a federal court ruled many of Trump’s tariffs were illegal, and that he
should first have sought the approval of Congress. But while that ruling
applied to the 10% rate Trump has applied to products from across the world, it
did not apply to the higher 25% rate he has imposed on cars, steel and
aluminium.
Downing
Street has decided to continue negotiating with the US as if the court ruling
did not apply, not least because British officials believe it is likely to be
struck out by the supreme court, which is dominated by conservatives.
On Friday
night, Trump unexpectedly announced he would be doubling foreign tariffs on
steel and aluminium imports to 50%. It was not immediately clear how the
announcement would affect the trade agreement negotiated earlier this month
that saw tariffs on UK steel and aluminium reduced to zero.
Last week, a
UK team landed in Washington, including the prime minister’s business adviser,
Varun Chandra, the business department’s head of trade relations, Kate Joseph,
and the deputy national security adviser, Jonathan Black. Michael Ellam, the
senior Cabinet Office official who played a major role in getting the deal
signed, is now concentrating on the EU reset deal, one source said.
The team
spent much of last week talking to Howard Lutnick, the US commerce secretary,
Jamieson Greer, the US trade representative, and Brooke Rollins, the US
agriculture secretary. Rollins has been pushing for the UK to open up to more
US agricultural and food products, though Starmer has insisted he is not
willing to reduce welfare and safety standards to do so.
Officials
are hoping car tariffs will be dropped in the next two weeks, while steel and
aluminium ones could take a few weeks longer. They also believe the US will
reduce tariffs on British-made aeroplane parts almost to zero, having promised
to give the UK a “significantly preferential outcome” when deciding tariffs on
future products.
Discussions
about pharmaceutical products, which account for approximately £7bn worth of
exports to the US, are still going on, however, given Trump has not yet said
what tariffs he intends to impose on the sector.
The talks
with the US are continuing at the same time as officials get closer to a
controversial £1.6bn trade deal with Gulf countries. The Guardian revealed on
Friday that that deal contained no concrete provisions on human rights, modern
slavery or the environment.
Skeletons in Nawrocki’s closet fail to dent his Polish presidential bid
Skeletons
in Nawrocki’s closet fail to dent his Polish presidential bid
The populist
right-winger even appears to be turning accusations from liberal politicians
and media to his advantage ahead of Sunday’s vote.
Karol
Nawrocki's campaign in fact shows no signs of buckling under the accusations. |
May 30, 2025
4:01 am CET
By Wojciech
Kość
WARSAW —
Numerous skeletons have tumbled out of Karol Nawrocki’s closet during Poland’s
presidential election campaign, but the increasingly lurid accusations about
his past aren’t harming his chances — and may even help the populist
right-winger win Sunday’s nail-biter contest.
The
political temperature is boiling in the final stretch of the race. Donald Tusk,
Poland’s pro-EU center-right prime minister, has accused the nationalist Law
and Justice (PiS) opposition party of backing Nawrocki’s presidential bid
despite knowing of his links to gangsters and prostitution. The candidate
himself is also suggesting he took part in pitched battles of football
hooligans, playing up his skills as a boxer.
It’s been a
sensational escalation from the somewhat surreal accusations against Nawrocki
in the earlier weeks of the campaign. In March it emerged that he had appeared
on a TV show in disguise, blurred out and using a pseudonym, to promote a book
he had written on organized crime and to praise himself.
Matters took
a more serious turn this month when the circumstances of Nawrocki’s acquisition
of an apartment from an elderly man in the northern city of Gdańsk ignited a
political controversy. But the accusations that he is linked to the underworld
— which Nawrocki has adamantly denied as a media fabrication — have ratcheted
up the debate over his fitness for the presidency.
Polarized
Poles
The big
question is whether any of this is moving the needle in Poland’s highly
polarized society. Just like his political ally U.S. President Donald Trump,
whom he met earlier in the campaign, Nawrocki is proving adept at deflecting
the accusations against him as fantasies and lies from the liberal camp.
Nawrocki’s
campaign in fact shows no signs of buckling under the accusations, and
POLITICO’s Poll of Polls puts the contest on a knife edge, with Nawrocki
polling only one percentage point behind his rival, liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafał
Trzaskowski.
Poland is an
important player in the EU and NATO, and the high-stakes election is being
closely watched as a signal about the country’s trajectory. A win for
Trzaskowski would allow Tusk to steer Warsaw back to the heart of the EU
mainstream, whereas Nawrocki as president would be able to scupper much of
Tusk’s reformist agenda.
Nawrocki is
drawing parallels between himself and Trump as he hits back against his
critics. “Media slander did not destroy President Trump. It will not destroy
Karol Nawrocki, either,” he said on his campaign’s X account Wednesday. In
addition to meeting Trump, the PiS-backed presidential candidate was also a
speaker at MAGA’s CPAC conference in Poland, held Tuesday in the southeastern
town of Jasionka.
And just
like Trump, Nawrocki has a solid base that is impervious to much of the noise
about his past.
“In a deeply
polarized society, anything is possible and that is the most fitting answer as
to why this is happening,” said Anna Siewierska-Chmaj, a political scientist
from the University of Rzeszów.
“These
scandals may have actually helped Nawrocki since PiS abandoned the narrative of
[his] being a ‘citizens’ candidate’ and closed ranks behind him as a de facto
party candidate. This has put the unconvinced PiS voters firmly behind
Nawrocki.”
Pulling no
punches
Tusk has
pulled no punches in combatting Nawrocki, accusing PiS leader Jarosław
Kaczyński of backing an unsuitable candidate. “You knew about everything,
Jarosław. About the connections with the gangsters, about ‘arranging for girls’
… about the apartment fraud and other matters still hidden. The entire
responsibility for this catastrophe falls on you!” he wrote on X.
The most
serious accusations stem from testimony provided to Polish online portal Onet
that Nawrocki had secured prostitutes at a luxury hotel on the Baltic Sea,
where he was working for security. A member of parliament from Tusk’s party
then appeared on television to vouch for the report. “I have knowledge that all
the information presented … in the Onet article is simply true,” said Agnieszka
Pomaska, who represents Gdańsk, the city on the Baltic Sea where the alleged
offences took place.
Nawrocki
emphatically denies the accusations, says he will sue Onet over the report, and
is hitting back hard against Tusk and Trzaskowski. “Today in Poland the problem
is political prostitution, which wants to give Poland away for foreign money …
Media assistants of Tusk and Trzaskowski will not take away our victory!” he
wrote on X.
Conversely,
when it comes to suggestions he was involved in mass brawls involving as many
as 140 football hooligans, far from pushing back Nawrocki has embraced the
notion, playing up his pedigree as a boxer and saying he took part in
“sporting, noble fights.”
Another
allegation emerged in a report by Gazeta Wyborcza, a major liberal newspaper,
over Nawrocki’s security clearance — something he needed for his job as the
head of the Institute of National Remembrance, a state agency tracking Nazi and
Communist crimes against Poles.
The report
claimed that Nawrocki’s assessment by the ABW counterintelligence agency was
initially negative until the agency’s then-chief — now an aide to outgoing
President Andrzej Duda — overrode it.
Nawrocki’s
campaign team had no response to the security clearance issue when contacted by
POLITICO.
But the
election campaign attacks haven’t all been levelled at Nawrocki. PiS has also
tried to undermine Trzaskowski, more recently by suggesting he is refusing to
undergo drug testing because he has something to hide.
When asked
about that claim on Monday, Trzaskowski replied: “I am surprised that you are
asking this kind of question, because it is Karol Nawrocki who clearly has a
problem. It is like when someone has a car accident — they should examine
themselves, not ask others to do it.”
PiS also
said Wednesday that Trzaskowski could be implicated in a complex “garbage
scandal” that has festered for years at Warsaw town hall.
Poland’s
National Prosecutor’s Office said it had charged 17 people — some close to
municipal government in the capital — with corruption involving fake invoices
related to the rental of waste management equipment.
Trzaskowski,
who has been mayor of Warsaw since 2018, has long denied any role and sued a
PiS-linked newspaper over such allegations two years ago.
Tied to Tusk
PiS’s main
strategy has been to associate Trzaskowski with Tusk’s government, whose
popularity is waning.
An April
poll by Opinia24 for private broadcaster Radio Zet showed 51 percent of Poles
giving the government a negative assessment less than two years after it took
power. Only 39 percent of respondents said they were happy with the Tusk
administration.
Monthly
surveys gauging the mood in Poland showed supporters of the government at 34
percent of respondents in April, compared to 40 percent opposed.
“In the
final stretch of the election campaign … Donald Tusk is making it clear that he
wants to install his puppet in the presidential palace,” Andrzej Śliwka, a
member of parliament for PiS and an aide to Nawrocki’s campaign, told a press
conference Wednesday.
“Rafał
Trzaskowski is Donald Tusk’s puppet, and Tusk wants a politician … who will be
completely subservient to him. That is why Tusk will stop at nothing.”
Siewierska-Chmaj
fears the more feverish the campaign becomes, the greater the risk of an
explosive backlash.
“I would say
we’re already at a point where this threatens to erupt — even, I would go so
far as to say, into acts of violence. The level of polarization and mutual
animosity is starting to translate into real aggression, and it’s becoming
increasingly clear,” she said.
Poland’s future relationship with Brussels hinges on Sunday’s election
Poland’s
future relationship with Brussels hinges on Sunday’s election
Incumbent
President Andrzej Duda has been able to block most of the government’s efforts
to restore the rule of law. That could change after Sunday’s vote.
May 29, 2025
4:01 am CET
By Wojciech
Kość
WARSAW —
Poland’s halting effort to restore the rule of law and fully return to the EU
mainstream will be decided in Sunday’s presidential vote.
Liberal
Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, backed by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, is
neck-and-neck with right-winger Karol Nawrocki, supported by the
populist-nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) opposition party.
If
Trzaskowski wins, he promises to speed up efforts to restore the rule of law,
currently stalled by PiS-aligned incumbent President Andrzej Duda. But a
Nawrocki victory would block Tusk’s government for the remainder of its term.
Sunday’s
outcome means either a clean break with Poland’s past as one of the bad boys of
the EU, or a return to a more turbulent relationship with Brussels. When PiS
was in power from 2015 to 2023, Warsaw tangled with the EU over its tough
abortion laws, freedom of speech, clampdowns on LGBTQ+ rights, corruption, and
backsliding on the rule of law.
Tusk’s 2023
victory ended many of those tensions, a process that would be finalized with a
Trzaskowski win. If Nawrocki becomes president, however, Tusk will have a very
difficult time clearing the agenda of the difficulties of the past.
Tusk’s
people blame the slow pace of change on Duda — highlighting the need for a
change of president.
“We haven’t
delivered on rule of law, that’s right. The responsibility lies with the man
currently residing in the presidential palace,” Paweł Śliz, an MP for the Third
Way, one of Tusk’s coalition allies and the head of the parliamentary Justice
and Human Rights Committee, told POLITICO.
Under Tusk,
Poland is back as one of the leading countries in the EU, setting the bloc’s
direction alongside Germany and France. But his core promise of undoing the
legal changes pushed through by PiS in the eight years it ruled Poland has
fallen flat.
“There is
really nothing more important for a modern nation than a set of rights and
duties recognized as common, without exception,” Tusk told the parliament in
his inaugural address as Poland’s new prime minister in December 2023.
PiS deeply
changed Poland’s legal system during its eight years in power, such as by
putting a key judge-appointing body under its political control. As a result,
Brussels and international law watchdogs accused it of politicizing courts and
judges, with the EU freezing over €100 billion in funds in retaliation.
The
Commission has since unblocked the cash, but largely on the basis of Tusk’s
promises rather than an actual rollback of the PiS-era reforms.
That could
change after Sunday’s vote.
On the
campaign trail, Trzaskowski has promised to fix rule-of-law problems. “I will
certainly sign a bill to put an end to chaos and dualism in the judiciary,” he
said in January.
Tusk and
other coalition leaders pleaded with voters last Sunday to back Trzaskowski.
“It’s now or never,” Tusk told some 150,000 people who turned up in Warsaw for
a rally to encourage high turnout on June 1.
“Trzaskowski
is expected to be a president who will smoothly cooperate with the Tusk
government on all fronts and in particular when it comes to the rule of law,”
said Jakub Jaraczewski, a researcher at Reporting Democracy, a think tank
focused on rule of law across the EU.
But
Nawrocki, for his part, blames Tusk for Poland’s rule-of-law problems. He has
promised to keep PiS-appointed judges and to slow reform of the
judge-appointing system.
“Nawrocki is
expected to be the polar opposite — a likely complete blocker of any
initiatives of the coalition on the rule-of-law front. The restoration of an
independent judiciary in Poland is literally on the ballot on Sunday — even if,
paradoxically, it occupies next to zero space in the campaign debate,”
Jaraczewski added.
Duda plays
blocker
The
president insists that the legal changes he approved under the former PiS
government should not be undone.
Duda has
been able to stymie Tusk’s efforts, such as by vetoing key bills to reform the
National Council of the Judiciary, a judge-appointing body that is at the heart
of the changes PiS introduced. Efforts to revamp electoral laws skewed under
PiS have also come to little. The governing coalition doesn’t have the votes in
parliament to override the president.
Duda has
also sent other bills for study to the PiS-dominated Constitutional Tribunal, a
top court, which in reality kills them. The Tusk government refuses to
recognize the legitimacy of the tribunal, as some judges were appointed in
questionable fashion, so it ignores unfavorable verdicts.
Duda has
also blocked efforts to replace senior officials and PiS-appointed ambassadors.
A Nawrocki
win would continue that policy of obstruction, representing a huge political
danger for Tusk. Opinion polls show support for his coalition eroding as voters
grow frustrated over its inability to follow through on most of the promises it
made during the 2023 campaign — ranging from undoing PiS’s legal reforms to
prosecuting former officials on allegations of wrongdoing, changing Poland’s
draconian abortion laws and more.
“A victory
for Mr Trzaskowski will provide the Tusk government with renewed momentum and a
clear two-and-a-half-year run before the next parliamentary election, during
which it can rebuild its support base and restore a sense of purpose,” wrote
Aleks Szczerbiak, a professor at the
University of Sussex who studies Polish politics.
As
president, Trzaskowski would spur a flood of legislation, said Śliz, the
Tusk-led coalition MP.
“These laws
should reach him as quickly as possible. These include [reforming] the National
Council of the Judiciary, getting the Constitutional Tribunal in order, and
separating the roles of prosecutor and justice minister,” he said.
But even if
Trzaskowski replaces Duda, a return to the pre-PiS era is out of the question,
said Maria Skóra, a political analyst and a visiting researcher at the European
Policy Centre.
The problem
is that the PiS-sponsored changes to the judiciary have taken root, with
hundreds of judges — who the Tusk government says were wrongfully appointed —
carrying out daily work affecting thousands of people.
“All these
actions aimed at restoring the rule of law should ensure that citizens are not
harmed, because if we have court rulings issued daily, abruptly cancelling them
or overturning them would cause tremendous chaos,” Skóra said.
sexta-feira, 30 de maio de 2025
Polish presidential candidates neck and neck on eve of runoff vote
Polish
presidential candidates neck and neck on eve of runoff vote
Polls show
close-run contest after first round in which one rural municipality was decided
by a single voter
Jakub Krupa
in Siekierczyn
Sat 31 May
2025 05.00 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/31/poland-close-presidential-election-runoff
Poles will
cast their votes on Sunday in the closest presidential runoff since the fall of
communism, in an election that pits two different visions of the nation against
each other.
In Poland’s
previous election in 2020, the conservative populist incumbent Andrzej Duda
narrowly won the second-round vote against the pro-Europe mayor of Warsaw,
Rafał Trzaskowski, by 51% to 49%.
This time it
could be even closer. Polls show the difference between Trzaskowski and the
nationalist rightwing historian Karol Nawrocki, who is backed by the Law and
Justice party (PiS), which ruled Poland from 2015 to 2023, to be within the
margin of error.
At stake is
whether the coalition government led by Donald Tusk, Trzaskowski’s political
patron, will be able to pursue its progressive agenda or see it further blocked
by a critical opposition president armed with the power to veto laws.
In
Siekierczyn, a rural municipality with 4,265 residents across eight villages in
the south-west of Poland, the first round was decided by a single vote,
catapulting the hitherto unknown area into the spotlight.
“You
probably often heard ‘my vote won’t change anything’. But look at Siekierczyn,”
the winner, Trzaskowski, said in a social media video, rallying voters before
the runoff.
Noticeboards
in the village are plastered with posters of candidates, and the mayor, Dariusz
Furdykoń, 48, cherishes the attention that comes with the close result. The
area faces challenges with rural revitalisation and energy transition, he says.
In 2023, he turned a neglected bathing pond into a colourful outdoor
playground; a new sports hall is to open this year.
But he
worries about depopulation as more people died (46) than were born (26) last
year, and younger people leave for cities or seek work in Germany or the Czech
Republic.
Emotions are
running high, he admits. “These differences come out at the dining table,
during first communion, Christmas or Easter. The rift is between older, often
less-educated people, and younger ones, who have been out and about,” he says.
“Some are
voters, others are believers. But what can you do? You need to talk with them,
try to find a way forward.”
In the first
round, about 60% of residents cast votes. “But the weather was awful,” Furdykoń
says. On Sunday, he hopes to see more come out; the municipality will even run
a special bus service to polling stations.
In the early
afternoon, the sleepy village turns into a hive of political campaigning as a
group of Nawrocki voters meet to chat to the conservative TV channel Republika.
Standing by
their pickup emblazoned with Nawrocki’s poster, Henryk, a former councillor,
and Janina Wójcik say they want “a candidate who, however lofty it sounds,
serves Poland’s interests best”.
They feel
that “someone wants to take our freedom, our statehood,” as they worry about
plans to create “a European army” and EU green policies. In contrast, the
Donald Trump-backed Nawrocki is a Catholic and will guarantee their state
pension payments and free prescriptions, they say.
Others rush
to point out that Trzaskowski only came first because of a polling station
inside a prison, where he won by 77 votes. “People in the village didn’t vote
for him; prisoners did. Not something to brag about, is it?” says Teresa
Zembik, 62.
Her husband,
Wojciech, 63, is head of the local PiS branch and he doesn’t mince words.
Political conflict “runs through families here”, he says. “These are not just
political views, it’s a continuation of the war, and Poland is at stake. One
group wants to fight for Poland, the other to destroy it in the interests of
Russia and Germany.”
As the group
crosses the road from the parish church, another man splits from it and tears
down a Trzaskowski banner on a nearby house.
Its resident
Monika misses the drama. When told about the incident by children, she pulls
her phone out. “I will get another one up,” she laughs.
She wants a
“tolerant, clean and peaceful Poland” and rejects the dismissive tone about
prison voters. “Folks make mistakes but then make amends. People are people.”
Her daughter got her dad to vote for the first time this year. Maybe that won
the first round, she wonders.
She is not
the only one to stake that claim. Picking up children from school, Mariola says
her son turned 18 recently and voted for the first time, so it’s his vote that
swung it for Trzaskowski. “I want to get reforms going,” she says, pointing to
women’s rights – “the right to choose” – in particular.
At a local
supermarket, two Nawrocki voters, Dominik and Janusz, joke about another
neighbour who also says he decided the vote. But they are tired of “dirty
campaign tricks” against their candidate.
They shrug
off that Nawrocki took part in an organised fight between 140 football
hooligans20 years ago (he called it an act of “noble combat”), and distrust
reports he was allegedly involved in procuring sex workers while working as a
student security guard at a hotel (a claim he strongly denies).
Instead,
they focus on the here and now, and want Nawrocki to lower national insurance
payments for entrepreneurs. As president he could propose legislation, but he
wouldn’t have a majority in parliament – at least for now.
The closest
presidential run-off since the fall of communism pits two different visions of
Poland against each other on the ballot paper. Photograph: Jakub Krupa/The
Guardian
Despite the
fevered atmosphere, there are still some voters who are yet to make up their
minds. Wioletta, 44, voted in the first round for the libertarian far-right
candidate Sławomir Mentzen, who came third, and she doesn’t like the remaining
candidates. “But I have to go. I’ll decide at the polling station,” she says.
Adam, 40,
says: “None of them convinced me yet.” He plans to watch YouTube and read up
over the weekend.
Aleks
Szczerbiak, a professor of politics at the University of Sussex, said it was
“very, very close,” with 5% yet to pick a side. It “might mean you get …
disillusioned government supporters coming out in spite of everything” for
Trzaskowski, or older voters who skipped the first round mobilise to back
Nawrocki, or see another minor movement that could ultimately decide the
result, he said.
The diaspora
vote could play a role, too, with about 700,000 registered voters abroad,
including 185,000 in the UK.
Ben Stanley,
an associate professor at SWPS University in Warsaw, said: “The outcome is
impossible to predict. There are too many moving parts, and even the slightest
change on the day could tip the balance.”
For what
it’s worth, it is expected to rain again in Siekierczyn on Sunday.
On the Campaign Trail, Elon Musk Juggled Drugs and Family Drama
On the
Campaign Trail, Elon Musk Juggled Drugs and Family Drama
As Mr. Musk
entered President Trump’s orbit, his private life grew increasingly tumultuous
and his drug use was more intense than previously known.
Kirsten
Grind Megan Twohey
By Kirsten
Grind and Megan Twohey
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/us/elon-musk-drugs-children-trump.html
May 30, 2025
Updated 3:17
p.m. ET
As Elon Musk
became one of Donald J. Trump’s closest allies last year, leading raucous
rallies and donating about $275 million to help him win the presidency, he was
also using drugs far more intensely than previously known, according to people
familiar with his activities.
Mr. Musk’s
drug consumption went well beyond occasional use. He told people he was taking
so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that it was affecting his bladder, a
known effect of chronic use. He took Ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms. And he
traveled with a daily medication box that held about 20 pills, including ones
with the markings of the stimulant Adderall, according to a photo of the box
and people who have seen it.
It is
unclear whether Mr. Musk, 53, was taking drugs when he became a fixture at the
White House this year and was handed the power to slash the federal
bureaucracy. But he has exhibited erratic behavior, insulting cabinet members,
gesturing like a Nazi and garbling his answers in a staged interview.
At the same
time, Mr. Musk’s family life has grown increasingly tumultuous as he has
negotiated overlapping romantic relationships and private legal battles
involving his growing brood of children, according to documents and interviews.
On Wednesday
evening, Mr. Musk announced that he was ending his stint with the government,
after lamenting how much time he had spent on politics instead of his
businesses.
Mr. Musk and
his lawyer did not respond to requests for comment this week about his drug use
and personal life. He has previously said he was prescribed ketamine for
depression, taking it about every two weeks. And he told his biographer, “I
really don’t like doing illegal drugs.”
The White
House declined to comment on Mr. Musk’s drug use. At a news conference with Mr.
Trump on Friday afternoon, Mr. Musk was asked about The New York Times’s
coverage. He questioned the newspaper’s credibility and told the reporter to
“move on.”
As a large
government contractor, Mr. Musk’s aerospace firm, SpaceX, must maintain a
drug-free work force and administers random drug tests to its employees. But
Mr. Musk has received advance warning of the tests, according to people close
to the process. SpaceX did not respond to questions about those warnings.
Mr. Musk,
who joined the president’s inner circle after making a vast fortune on cars,
satellites and rocket ships, has long been known for grandiose statements and a
mercurial personality. Supporters see him as an eccentric genius whose
slash-and-burn management style is key to his success.
But last
year, as he jumped into the political arena, some people who knew him worried
about his frequent drug use, mood swings and fixation on having more children.
This account of his behavior is based on private messages obtained by The Times
as well as interviews with more than a dozen people who have known or worked
with him.
This year,
some of his longtime friends have renounced him, pointing to some of his public
conduct.
“Elon has
pushed the boundaries of his bad behavior more and more,” said Philip Low, a
neuroscientist and onetime friend of Mr. Musk’s who criticized him for his
Nazi-like gesture at a rally.
And some
women are challenging Mr. Musk for control of their children.
One of his
former partners, Claire Boucher, the musician known as Grimes, has been
fighting with Mr. Musk over their 5-year-old son, known as X. Mr. Musk is
extremely attached to the boy, taking him to the Oval Office and high-profile
gatherings that are broadcast around the world.
Ms. Boucher
has privately complained that the appearances violate a custody settlement in
which she and Mr. Musk agreed to try to keep their children out of the public
eye, according to people familiar with her concerns and the provision, which
has not been previously reported. She has told people that she worries about
the boy’s safety, and that frequent travel and sleep deprivation are harming
his health.
Another
mother, the right-leaning writer Ashley St. Clair, revealed in February that
she had a secret relationship with Mr. Musk and had given birth to his 14th
known child. Mr. Musk offered her a large settlement to keep his paternity
concealed, but she refused. He sought a gag order in New York to force Ms. St.
Clair to stop speaking publicly, she said in an interview.
A Ketamine
Habit
Mr. Musk has
described some of his mental health issues in interviews and on social media,
saying in one post that he has felt “great highs, terrible lows and unrelenting
stress.” He has denounced traditional therapy and antidepressants.
He plays
video games for hours on end. He struggles with binge eating, according to
people familiar with his habits, and takes weight-loss medication. And he posts
day and night on his social media platform, X.
Mr. Musk has
a history of recreational drug use, The Wall Street Journal reported last year.
Some board members at Tesla, his electric vehicle company, have worried about
his use of drugs, including Ambien, a sleep medication.
In an
interview in March 2024, the journalist Don Lemon pressed him on his drug use.
Mr. Musk said he took only “a small amount” of ketamine, about once every two
weeks, as a prescribed treatment for negative moods.
“If you’ve
used too much ketamine, you can’t really get work done, and I have a lot of
work,” he said.
He had
actually developed a far more serious habit, The Times found.
Mr. Musk had
been using ketamine often, sometimes daily, and mixing it with other drugs,
according to people familiar with his consumption. The line between medical use
and recreation was blurry, troubling some people close to him.
He also took
Ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms at private gatherings across the United
States and in at least one other country, according to those who attended the
events.
The Food and
Drug Administration has formally approved the use of ketamine only as an
anesthetic in medical procedures. Doctors with a special license may prescribe
it for psychiatric disorders like depression. But the agency has warned about
its risks, which came into sharp relief after the death of the actor Matthew
Perry. The drug has psychedelic properties and can cause dissociation from
reality. Chronic use can lead to addiction and problems with bladder pain and
control.
By the
spring of last year, Mr. Musk was ramping up criticism of President Joseph R.
Biden Jr., particularly his policies on illegal immigration and diversity
initiatives.
Mr. Musk was
also facing federal investigations into his businesses. Regulators were looking
into crashes of Tesla’s self-driving cars and allegations of racism at its
factories, among other complaints.
“There are
at least half a dozen initiatives of significance to take me down,” he wrote in
a text message to someone close to him last May. “The Biden administration
views me as the #2 threat after Trump.”
“I can’t be
president, but I can help Trump defeat Biden and I will,” he added.
He publicly
endorsed Mr. Trump in July.
Around that
time, Mr. Musk told people that his ketamine use was causing bladder issues,
according to people familiar with the conversations.
On Oct. 5,
he appeared with Mr. Trump at a rally for the first time, bouncing up and down
around the candidate. That evening, Mr. Musk shared his excitement with a
person close to him. “I’m feeling more optimistic after tonight,” he wrote in a
text message. “Tomorrow we unleash the anomaly in the matrix.”
“This is not
something on the chessboard, so they will be quite surprised,” Mr. Musk added
about an hour later. “‘Lasers’ from space.”
After Mr.
Trump won, Mr. Musk rented a cottage at Mar-a-Lago, the president-elect’s
Florida resort, to assist with the transition. Mr. Musk attended personnel
meetings and sat in on phone calls with foreign leaders. And he crafted plans
to overhaul the federal government under the new Department of Government
Efficiency.
Family
Secrets
Mr. Musk has
also been juggling the messy consequences of his efforts to produce more
babies.
By 2022, Mr.
Musk, who has married and divorced three times, had fathered six children in
his first marriage (including one who died in infancy), as well as two with Ms.
Boucher. She told people she believed they were in a monogamous relationship
and building a family together.
But while a
surrogate was pregnant with their third child, Ms. Boucher was furious to
discover that Mr. Musk had recently fathered twins with Shivon Zilis, an
executive at his brain implant company, Neuralink, according to people familiar
with the situation.
Mr. Musk was
by then sounding an alarm that the world’s declining birthrates would lead to
the end of civilization, publicly encouraging people to have children and
donating $10 million to a research initiative on population growth.
Privately,
he was spending time with Simone and Malcolm Collins, prominent figures in the
emerging pronatalist movement, and urging his wealthy friends to have as many
children as possible. He believed the world needed more intelligent people,
according to people aware of the conversations.
Mr. Collins
declined to comment on his relationship with Mr. Musk, but said, “Elon is one
of the people taking this cause seriously.”
Even as Mr.
Musk fathered more children, he favored his son X. By the fall of 2022, during
a period when he and Ms. Boucher were broken up, he began traveling with the
boy for days at a time, often without providing advance notice, according to
people familiar with his actions.
Ms. Boucher
reconciled with Mr. Musk, only to get another unpleasant surprise. In August
2023, she learned that Ms. Zilis was expecting a third child with Mr. Musk via
surrogacy and was pregnant with their fourth.
Ms. Boucher
and Mr. Musk began a contentious custody battle, during which Mr. Musk kept X
for months. They eventually signed the joint custody agreement that specified
keeping their children out of the spotlight.
By mid-2023,
unknown to either Ms. Boucher or Ms. Zilis, Mr. Musk had started a romantic
relationship with Ms. St. Clair, the writer, who lives in New York City.
Ms. St.
Clair said in an interview that at first, Mr. Musk told her he wasn’t dating
anyone else. But when she was about six months pregnant, he acknowledged that
he was romantically involved with Ms. Zilis, who went on to become a more
visible fixture in Mr. Musk’s life.
Ms. St.
Clair said that Mr. Musk told her he had fathered children around the world,
including one with a Japanese pop star. He said he would be willing to give his
sperm to anyone who wanted to have a child.
“He made it
seem like it was just his altruism and he generally believed these people
should just have children,” Ms. St. Clair said.
Ms. St.
Clair said that when she was in a delivery room giving birth in September, Mr.
Musk told her over disappearing Signal messages that he wanted to keep his
paternity and their relationship quiet.
On election
night, Ms. St. Clair and Mr. Musk both went to Mar-a-Lago to celebrate Mr.
Trump’s victory. But she had to pretend that she hardly knew him, she said.
He offered
her $15 million and $100,000 a month until their son turned 21, in exchange for
her silence, according to documents reviewed by The Times and first reported by
The Journal. But she did not want her son’s paternity to be hidden.
After she
went public in February, ahead of a tabloid story, she sued Mr. Musk to
acknowledge paternity and, later, to get emergency child support.
Mr. Musk
sought a gag order, claiming that any publicity involving the child, or
comments by Ms. St. Clair on her experience, would be a security risk for the
boy.
‘No Sympathy
for This Behavior’
Some of Mr.
Musk’s onetime friends have aired concerns about what they considered toxic
public behavior.
In a January
newsletter explaining why their friendship had ended, Sam Harris, a public
intellectual, wrote that Mr. Musk had used his social media platform to defame
people and promote lies.
“There is
something seriously wrong with his moral compass, if not his perception of
reality,” Dr. Harris wrote.
Later that
month, at a Trump inauguration event, Mr. Musk thumped his chest and thrust his
hand diagonally upward, resembling a fascist salute. “My heart goes out to
you,” he told the crowd. “It is thanks to you that the future of civilization
is assured.”
Mr. Musk
dismissed the resulting public outcry, saying he had made a “positive gesture.”
Dr. Low, who
is chief executive of NeuroVigil, a neurotechnology company, was outraged by
the performance. He wrote Mr. Musk a sharp email, shared with The Times,
cursing him “for giving the Nazi salute.”
When Mr.
Musk didn’t respond to the message, Dr. Low posted his concerns on social
media. “I have no sympathy for this behavior,” he wrote on Facebook, referring
to the gesture as well as other behaviors. “At some point, after having
repeatedly confronted it in private, I believe the ethical thing to do is to
speak out, forcefully and unapologetically.”
The next
month, Mr. Musk once again found himself under scrutiny, this time for an
appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington.
As he walked
onto the stage, he was handed a chain saw from one of his political allies,
Javier Milei, the president of Argentina. “This is the chain saw for
bureaucracy!” Mr. Musk shouted to the cheering crowd.
Some
conference organizers told The Times that they did not notice anything out of
the ordinary about his behavior behind the scenes. But during an onstage
interview, he spoke in disjointed bouts of stuttering and laughing, with
sunglasses on. Clips of it went viral as many viewers speculated about possible
drug use.
Julie Tate
contributed research.
Kirsten
Grind is an investigative business reporter for The Times, writing stories
about companies, chief executives and billionaires across Silicon Valley and
the technology industry.
Megan Twohey
is an investigative reporter at The Times. Her work has prompted changes to the
law, criminal convictions and cultural shifts.
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