标签： Asia

WASHINGTON — In a landmark bipartisan rebuke of the Trump administration’s foreign policy, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a binding resolution on Wednesday that would compel President Donald Trump to pull all U.S. military forces out of the ongoing war with Iran and require explicit congressional authorization for any future military action against the country.

The final vote tally stood at 215 in favor to 208 opposed, with four House Republicans breaking ranks to join every Democratic member in supporting the measure. This vote marks the most significant pushback against Trump’s management of the months-long conflict to date. The war has already resulted in the deaths of more than a dozen U.S. military service members, claimed the lives of thousands of Iranian civilians, and wreaked havoc on global commodity supply chains. Blockades of the Strait of Hormuz, a critical global shipping chokepoint, have disrupted international flows of both oil and fertilizer, driving up global market prices.

This resolution, which leverages Congress’s constitutional War Powers authority to limit executive branch ability to initiate or escalate military engagements, narrowly failed to pass the House just one month prior, deadlocking at a 212-212 tie vote.

While parallel measures in the U.S. Senate have previously failed to advance, the political landscape shifted recently after Louisiana Republican Senator Bill Cassidy lost his party’s primary election. Cassidy has since joined Senate Democrats and a small group of fellow Senate Republicans to advance the Iran War Powers resolution, though a final floor vote on full passage has not yet been scheduled.

The House resolution was sponsored by Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, the ranking Democratic member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. In a separate legislative action, Michigan Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib has introduced an additional War Powers resolution that would force the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Lebanon, where Israel – backed by U.S. weapons and funding – has launched a large-scale military offensive.

The passage of the Iran resolution, achieved even in a House controlled by the Republican Party, underscores the growing intraparty dissent against President Trump’s policies among congressional Republicans.

In a separate development highlighting rifts within the party, Senate Republicans have rejected a Trump administration proposal to create a $1.8 billion compensation fund for individuals who claim they were wrongfully prosecuted by the U.S. Department of Justice. The fund would have covered individuals convicted for their role in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol who were later pardoned by Trump. Following the opposition, the administration pulled back from the proposal, after disputes over the fund derailed progress on broader legislation to fund immigration and deportation operations for the remainder of Trump’s second term.

In a unprecedented diplomatic move marking a sharp escalation of Beijing’s sovereignty pressure over Taiwan, China has barred four New Zealand parliamentarians from entering mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau for 12 months, and demanded the lawmakers issue a formal apology for their parliamentary trip to the self-governing island, multiple official sources confirmed to the Associated Press Thursday.

This sanction marks the first time New Zealand elected officials have been targeted by Beijing for punitive measures over engagement with Taiwan, although lawmakers from other countries have previously faced similar restrictions for contacts with Taipei. For years, Beijing has ramped up diplomatic and military pressure on Taiwan, the democratically ruled island that China claims as an inalienable part of its sovereign territory.

The four New Zealand lawmakers traveled to Taipei for a parliamentary visit back in May, a trip that follows a long-standing tradition of New Zealand parliamentary delegations visiting Taiwan “for decades,” according to a spokesperson for New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters. Two of the four lawmakers who were reached by the AP this week have flatly rejected Beijing’s apology demand, while attempts to contact the other two for comment were not immediately successful.

Beijing’s position holds that Taiwan, as a Chinese region, has no authority to conduct official foreign relations, and that visits by sitting legislators from countries that maintain formal diplomatic ties with Beijing violate China’s core sovereignty claims. In an official statement posted to its website Thursday, the Chinese Embassy in Wellington clarified its stance, noting: “China has consistently opposed visits to China’s Taiwan region by members of the legislatures of countries that have established diplomatic relations with China, including New Zealand, and this case is no exception. The New Zealand side should not be surprised.”

The details of the travel ban and apology demand were outlined in emails from New Zealand’s Parliamentary Service to the affected lawmakers, which were reviewed by the AP. The correspondence confirms the ban could be lifted only if the legislators comply with the apology requirement.

The New Zealand government has pushed back against the measure, announcing it will formally convey its concern over the travel restrictions to Chinese authorities. A spokesperson for Peters emphasized that the May visit was “not inconsistent with New Zealand’s One China policy,” the long-standing framework under which Wellington acknowledges Beijing’s position that Taiwan is a Chinese province. Like most nations around the globe, New Zealand does not maintain formal diplomatic relations with Taipei. New Zealand’s parliamentary system allows individual legislators to make independent decisions about joining international travel delegations, which typically cross party lines to include representatives from multiple major political groups.

Affected lawmakers have publicly pushed back against Beijing’s action. Laura McClure, a legislator from New Zealand’s libertarian ACT Party, called the demand for an apology “frankly insulting” and confirmed she would not meet the requirement. Duncan Webb, a lawmaker from the center-left Labour Party, echoed the sentiment, noting that New Zealand upholds democratic norms and the right of its elected officials to engage with international partners. “If the cost of doing that is to be excluded from China for a year, I will pay that price,” Webb said in an emailed statement.

The diplomatic dispute comes at a time when bilateral relations between New Zealand and China have otherwise remained broadly positive in recent years. China holds the position of New Zealand’s largest trading partner, and New Zealand made history as the first Western nation to sign a free trade agreement with Beijing decades ago.

Neighboring Australia has also joined New Zealand in expressing disapproval of the measure. Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong told a Senate committee in Canberra Thursday that her government would also raise concerns about the travel ban with Beijing and China’s diplomatic mission in Canberra. “We agree with the principle expressed by New Zealand that members of parliament, including the Australian Parliament, are free to make their own decisions about their travel independent of government,” Wong said. “Placing pressure on parliamentarians is not appropriate,” she added.

Associated Press reporters Huizhong Wu in Bangkok and Rod McGuirk in Melbourne contributed reporting to this article.

In an unprecedented step that marks a sharp departure from long-standing diplomatic practice, China has issued one-year entry bans on four sitting New Zealand Members of Parliament following their official visit to Taiwan in May, New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has confirmed. Local media first broke the story on Thursday, revealing that the four lawmakers only learned of the travel restrictions after returning home from their trip. According to reports, the Chinese Embassy in Wellington has indicated the bans could be lifted early if the parliamentarians issue a formal apology.

China has long asserted territorial claims over the self-governing island of Taiwan, and has consistently sought to limit Taipei’s formal diplomatic engagements with sovereign states around the world. However, this latest action marks the first time Beijing has implemented direct travel restrictions against New Zealand elected officials over a Taiwan visit, a development that has caught Wellington’s top diplomat off guard. A spokesperson for New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed to the BBC that the move came as a surprise to Foreign Minister Winston Peters.

New Zealand’s official position has long held that parliamentary travel to Taiwan is fully aligned with the country’s formal One China policy. “New Zealand MPs have visited Taiwan for decades and such visits are not inconsistent with New Zealand’s One China policy,” the spokesperson said in an official statement.

The cross-party delegation that traveled to Taiwan in May included three lawmakers from the current ruling coalition: Maureen Pugh, David Wilson, and ACT party member Laura McClure, as well as Duncan Webb from the opposition Labour Party. In comments to local media, McClure pushed back sharply against the restrictions, framing the ban as an unacceptable intrusion into New Zealand’s domestic affairs. “This is a type of foreign interference,” she told the *New Zealand Herald*, adding that she would not apologize for making the trip.

McClure further told Radio New Zealand that she was caught completely off guard by the punitive measure. “I was quite surprised and shocked,” she said, noting that parliamentary delegations from New Zealand had made similar visits to Taiwan for decades without incident. She emphasized that elected New Zealand representatives hold an inherent right to global travel as part of the country’s democratic foundations. “New Zealand MPs have the right to travel freely around the globe,” she said. “That is part of living in a free democracy.”

Following the announcement of the bans, Foreign Minister Peters has directed New Zealand diplomatic staff in both Beijing and Wellington to open formal discussions with Chinese authorities, with the goal of clarifying why Beijing broke from decades of past practice on the issue.

Pictures from the parliamentary visit were shared publicly on Facebook by Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung, who framed the trip as a meaningful show of cross-party parliamentary support for Taipei. Lin tied the New Zealand visit to recent diplomatic challenges Taiwan has faced, referencing President Lai Ching-te’s trip last month to Eswatini, Taiwan’s only remaining formal diplomatic ally in Africa. Lai’s visit was only able to proceed after an initial itinerary was scrapped when multiple African countries reportedly faced pressure from Beijing to deny Lai overflight access to their airspace.

“President Lai’s recent visit to Eswatini has once again made the world feel the challenges facing Taiwan’s diplomacy,” Lin wrote in his social media post. He added that the New Zealand delegation’s trip “not only showed the support of the New Zealand Parliament for Taiwan, but also made the friendship between Taiwan and New Zealand stronger.”

New Zealand has formally recognized Beijing as the sole legitimate government of China since establishing full diplomatic ties in 1972, consistent with the One China policy. Like many other nations that do not maintain formal diplomatic relations with Taipei, Wellington has continued to hold unofficial people-to-people and parliamentary exchanges with Taiwan over the decades.

Beijing has already made formal objections to recent parliamentary trips from New Zealand to Taiwan. Last year, a separate delegation of New Zealand MPs met with President Lai Ching-te during a visit to the island, prompting the Chinese Embassy in Wellington to denounce the meeting as “colluding with ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces.” A month before that, Beijing also condemned a group of New Zealand lawmakers for attending an official reception hosted by Taiwan’s de facto embassy in Wellington.

This ban is not the first time China has imposed punitive measures on foreign lawmakers for visiting Taiwan. Beijing has previously issued sanctions against multiple U.S. Members of Congress over Taiwan trips, including then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during her high-profile 2022 visit, and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul in 2023, when authorities claimed McCaul’s visit sent a “serious wrong signal to Taiwan independence separatist forces.”

Taipei has repeatedly accused Beijing of mounting a coordinated campaign to poach its few remaining diplomatic allies and limit its international space, a narrative that has gained greater traction amid growing global scrutiny of China’s regional ambitions.

Fresh confrontations and conflicting claims roiled US-Iran relations on Wednesday, as overlapping military clashes, congressional scrutiny, and stalled diplomatic talks laid bare the deep divisions between the two adversaries amid a broader regional conflict.

Iran opened the day by announcing it had launched a strike against a US military vessel operating near the Gulf of Oman, which Tehran claimed hosted a US command and control center that had entered Iranian territorial waters. The account was immediately rejected by US Central Command, which denied any attack had taken place against an American vessel in the region.

The day’s deadliest violence unfolded at Kuwait International Airport, where a stray projectile caused extensive structural damage, one fatality, and approximately 60 injuries. Initial blame for the strike fell on Iran, but Tehran countered that the damage stemmed from a malfunctioning US Patriot missile interceptor fired during its own barrage of more than 30 ballistic missiles targeting positions in Kuwait. US Central Command labeled Iran’s missile launch a “deliberate, calculated, and unjustified attack” against the Gulf state. Iran has long alleged that Kuwait permits the US to use its territory as a staging ground for strikes against Iranian targets, a claim Kuwait has repeatedly denied. Kuwaiti authorities have also arrested and deported individuals who filmed missile activity in the country, and reaffirmed this week that it has not allowed Washington to use its military bases for the US-Israeli campaign against Iran that launched on February 28.

The escalating violence drew sharp criticism from congressional Democrats during a Wednesday hearing featuring Secretary of State Marco Rubio before the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Gregory Meeks, the committee’s top Democratic member, repeatedly pressed Rubio for a direct yes-or-no answer on whether the secretary had warned President Donald Trump that US strikes against Iran would trigger retaliatory attacks against American allies, partners, and US citizens residing and working across the Middle East. Rubio only responded that the administration had been fully prepared for any Iranian response.

The day’s developments came after a fragile Pakistani-brokered ceasefire between the parties collapsed earlier this month, bringing a resumption of open hostilities. Despite the escalation, however, Iran confirmed Wednesday that indirect negotiations with the US have resumed, after Iranian officials pulled back from talks earlier this week to protest Israel’s ongoing intensive bombardment of Lebanon, where Iran backs key ally Hezbollah. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Lebanese broadcaster al-Mayadeen that diplomatic channels have not been severed, though no substantive progress has been achieved to date. “Text exchanges have continued between the two delegations,” Araghchi confirmed.

The core sticking points of the negotiations remain unchanged. The Trump administration has insisted that any final agreement must require Iran to end all nuclear enrichment activity and dismantle its ballistic missile program—two demands that Tehran has repeatedly labeled non-negotiable red lines. Rubio defended the administration’s military campaign, Operation Epic Fury, to lawmakers on Wednesday, noting the operation has now been fully wound down, and that he does not characterize the ongoing exchange of fire as a full-scale war. “Operation Epic Fury achieved its core goal of degrading Iran’s conventional missile and drone shield, and it forced Tehran back to the negotiating table,” Rubio said. “Our hope is that this will lead Iran to abandon its nuclear enrichment ambitions entirely.”

Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency, citing an anonymous source within the Iranian negotiating delegation, reported Wednesday that any preliminary memorandum of understanding between the two sides will require a four-stage approval process, signaling that a final agreement will likely take months to finalize. That timeline contradicts repeated public statements from President Trump, who has suggested in recent press briefings that a deal with Iran could be reached in the very near term. Iran has also added a new non-nuclear precondition to any agreement: Tehran has made clear it will not sign any deal that fails to guarantee an end to Israeli strikes on Lebanese territory.

Parallel talks focused on stabilizing the Lebanon front continued this week in Washington, where Lebanese and Israeli officials convened for a third round of negotiations on Tuesday and Wednesday. The talks followed an announcement from Trump Monday that he had held a call with Hezbollah representatives, who confirmed the group would abide by a proposed ceasefire. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pushed back on that framework, saying he would only agree to a ceasefire that applies to Beirut, leaving open the option of continued air strikes and ground operations in southern Lebanon.

This independent reporting was originally published by Middle East Eye, which provides on-the-ground coverage of the Middle East and North Africa region.