Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said China has been conducting training missions in the western Pacific aimed at limiting U.S. and allied military access. The exercises reflect Beijing’s effort to expand its anti-access/area-denial, or A2/AD, capabilities – a strategy meant to keep opposing forces from entering or operating freely in nearby regions.

The military spokesman for Taiwan – officially known as the Republic of China (ROC) – Lt. Gen. Sun Li-fang, told Fox News Digital in exclusive comments that the armed forces of the independently governed island fully understand the threats posed by China’s expanding military might. 

Sun said Taiwan has prepared a series of responses if the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) provocations escalate into acts of war and has detailed plans to counter and survive a potential Chinese naval blockade.

Taiwan’s military is on alert for the possibility that Communist China could turn ‘training’ or an exercise into an actual war. Some analysts warn that a Chinese blockade would be difficult to break, but Sun said Taiwan has ‘holistic plans to breach [any] blockade.’ He added that Taipei would ‘urge its allies and like-minded partners to treat any blockade as an act of war that should trigger a coordinated international response,’ noting that shipping disruptions in the seas near Taiwan would have serious effects on the global economy.

Sun said Taiwan expects the PLA to continue its campaign of ‘hybrid warfare’ or ‘gray-zone operations,’ a mix of nonmilitary and paramilitary actions designed to pressure and harass Taiwan without formally declaring war. He warned that the PLA seeks to ‘exhaust [Taiwan’s] defense capability and blur the battlespace.’

An example of this can be seen in the near-daily incursions by Chinese warplanes into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone, resulting in Taiwanese air force jets scrambling to intercept them. The tactic, analysts say, is deliberate – part of a broader effort to wear down Taiwan’s air force, degrade equipment and exhaust Taiwan’s personnel.

Beijing has never ruled Taiwan for even a single day, and Taiwan’s military insists it will not allow China to dictate the rules of any future conflict. Instead, the island democracy is prioritizing the development of asymmetric warfare, a strategy in which, as Sun put it, ‘the weaker party strikes at the weak point of the stronger party with appropriate tactics and weapons in order to gain advantages on the battlefield and change the outcome of the war.’

The general said Taiwan’s top priorities are to build asymmetric capabilities, strengthen operational resilience, expand reserve force capacity and improve defenses against gray-zone harassment. To achieve these goals, he said, Taiwan is expanding production and deployment of unmanned and AI-driven systems while dispersing command-and-control networks to make a knockout punch much more difficult. He also noted that Taiwan’s surveillance and reconnaissance units are ‘vigilant’ and that they ‘exchange intelligence and perspectives on PLA activities with our allies and partners.’

Sun also rejected the idea that Taiwan lacks the will to defend itself and believes people here would strongly resist any attempt by the PRC to take Taiwan by force. Taiwan’s military wants the world to know it is committed to its own defense, Sun said, pointing to the proposed 2026 defense budget, which will exceed 3% of GDP. Furthermore, he said, the government is actively pursuing reforms to make training ‘as realistic as possible,’ is expanding reserve forces, and has already extended mandatory military service to one year.

Taiwan’s government is stressing that an attack or blockade by Beijing would not just be a local confrontation but a global crisis. Government and military leaders of democratic Taiwan hope their statements and actions will convince China – and the world – that Taiwan will fight back with everything it’s got.

The Trump administration is warning that millions of Americans could lose out on federal food benefits within days if Democrats do not accept Republicans’ plan to end the government shutdown.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said it does not have the ability to independently reshuffle funds into the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as food stamps, according to a recent memo obtained by Fox News Digital.

‘Due to Congressional Democrats’ refusal to pass a clean continuing resolution (CR), approximately 42 million individuals will not receive their SNAP benefits come November 1st,’ the memo said.

‘This jeopardizes all SNAP recipients in November, including those that have applied for benefits in the last half of October, and furloughed Federal employees who will not receive their combined October/November benefits.’

Democrats had been pressing the Trump administration to use the federal government’s SNAP contingency fund, which they said contains about $5 billion, to cover at least some of the shortfall.

It takes about $8 to $9 billion per month to cover all SNAP benefits.

But the USDA argued that the emergency funding was not ‘legally available’ for use.

‘SNAP contingency funds are only available to supplement regular monthly benefits when amounts have been appropriated for, but are insufficient to cover, benefits. The contingency fund is not available to support [fiscal year (FY) 2026] regular benefits, because the appropriation for regular benefits no longer exists,’ the memo said.

‘Instead, the contingency fund is a source of funds for contingencies, such as the Disaster SNAP program, which provides food purchasing benefits for individuals in disaster areas, including natural disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods, that can come on quickly and without notice.’

The department also argued that shuffling existing funds from other areas would harm Americans who rely on those programs.

‘Transfers from other sources would pull away funding for school meals and infant formula,’ the memo said. ‘This Administration will not allow Democrats to jeopardize funding for school meals and infant formula in order to prolong their shutdown.’

USDA emphasized its point with an announcement on its website seen Monday morning that said, ‘Senate Democrats have now voted 12 times to not fund the food stamp program, also known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).’

‘Bottom line, the well has run dry. At this time, there will be no benefits issued November 1. We are approaching an inflection point for Senate Democrats. They can continue to hold out for healthcare for illegal aliens and gender mutilation procedures or reopen the government so mothers, babies, and the most vulnerable among us can receive critical nutrition assistance,’ the department said.

A letter signed by nearly all House Democrats sent to the USDA on Friday said the SNAP contingency fund was available ‘precisely for this reason.’

‘We urge USDA to use these funds for November SNAP benefits and issue clear guidance to states on how to navigate benefit issuance. Additionally, while the contingency reserve will not cover November benefits in full, we urge USDA to use its statutory transfer authority or any other legal authority at its disposal to supplement these dollars and fully fund November benefits,’ they wrote.

Democrats have said they would not accept any federal funding bill that does not also include an extension of Obamacare subsidies that were enhanced during the COVID-19 pandemic — but which are set to expire at the end of this year.

Republicans’ plan, a short-term extension of FY2025 federal funding called a continuing resolution (CR), passed the House on Sept. 19 but has since stalled in the Senate.

President Donald Trump discussed the results of a recent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan he had with reporters on Air Force One while on his way to Tokyo on Monday.

‘It was perfect, yeah,’ he said. ‘I mean, I gave you the full results. We had an MRI and the machine, you know, the whole thing. And it was perfect.’

Trump, 79, was the oldest person to be inaugurated as U.S. president when he retook the White House in January, and he is the second-oldest person to serve as U.S. president.

Earlier this month, the president’s doctor said Trump was found to be in ‘exceptional health’ following a ‘routine’ semiannual physical at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

Navy Capt. Sean P. Barbabella, the physician to the president, said Trump ‘remains in exceptional health, exhibiting strong cardiovascular, pulmonary, neurological, and physical performance.’ 

Barbabella also said Trump received updated COVID-19 and flu shots in preparation for international travel.  

The medical checkup was Trump’s second this year. He had a similar exam in April, during which his physician stated that he ‘remains in excellent health.’

In July, the president was diagnosed with a vein condition known as chronic venous insufficiency. At the time, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump had noticed ‘mild swelling’ in his lower legs and was evaluated by the White House medical unit.

Chronic venous insufficiency occurs when veins in the legs struggle to allow blood to flow back up to the heart.

Leavitt also attributed bruising on the president’s hand to ‘frequent handshaking and the use of aspirin,’ which Trump takes as part of a ‘standard cardiovascular prevention regimen.’

Fox News Digital’s Brie Stimson and Reuters contributed to this report. 

President Donald Trump discussed the results of a recent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan he had with reporters on Air Force One while on his way to Tokyo on Monday.

‘It was perfect, yeah,’ he said. ‘I mean, I gave you the full results. We had an MRI and the machine, you know, the whole thing. And it was perfect.’

Trump, 79, was the oldest person to be inaugurated as U.S. president when he retook the White House in January, and he is the second-oldest person to serve as U.S. president.

Earlier this month, the president’s doctor said Trump was found to be in ‘exceptional health’ following a ‘routine’ semiannual physical at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

Navy Capt. Sean P. Barbabella, the physician to the president, said Trump ‘remains in exceptional health, exhibiting strong cardiovascular, pulmonary, neurological, and physical performance.’ 

Barbabella also said Trump received updated COVID-19 and flu shots in preparation for international travel.  

The medical checkup was Trump’s second this year. He had a similar exam in April, during which his physician stated that he ‘remains in excellent health.’

In July, the president was diagnosed with a vein condition known as chronic venous insufficiency. At the time, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump had noticed ‘mild swelling’ in his lower legs and was evaluated by the White House medical unit.

Chronic venous insufficiency occurs when veins in the legs struggle to allow blood to flow back up to the heart.

Leavitt also attributed bruising on the president’s hand to ‘frequent handshaking and the use of aspirin,’ which Trump takes as part of a ‘standard cardiovascular prevention regimen.’

Fox News Digital’s Brie Stimson and Reuters contributed to this report. 

President Donald Trump discussed the results of a recent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan he had with reporters on Air Force One while on his way to Tokyo on Monday.

‘It was perfect, yeah,’ he said. ‘I mean, I gave you the full results. We had an MRI and the machine, you know, the whole thing. And it was perfect.’

Trump, 79, was the oldest person to be inaugurated as U.S. president when he retook the White House in January, and he is the second-oldest person to serve as U.S. president.

Earlier this month, the president’s doctor said Trump was found to be in ‘exceptional health’ following a ‘routine’ semiannual physical at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

Navy Capt. Sean P. Barbabella, the physician to the president, said Trump ‘remains in exceptional health, exhibiting strong cardiovascular, pulmonary, neurological, and physical performance.’ 

Barbabella also said Trump received updated COVID-19 and flu shots in preparation for international travel.  

The medical checkup was Trump’s second this year. He had a similar exam in April, during which his physician stated that he ‘remains in excellent health.’

In July, the president was diagnosed with a vein condition known as chronic venous insufficiency. At the time, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump had noticed ‘mild swelling’ in his lower legs and was evaluated by the White House medical unit.

Chronic venous insufficiency occurs when veins in the legs struggle to allow blood to flow back up to the heart.

Leavitt also attributed bruising on the president’s hand to ‘frequent handshaking and the use of aspirin,’ which Trump takes as part of a ‘standard cardiovascular prevention regimen.’

Fox News Digital’s Brie Stimson and Reuters contributed to this report. 

In late September 2017, Palestinian American activist Linda Sarsour, once the darling of the Women’s March and the self-declared face of the ‘resistance’ against Donald Trump, was facing mounting criticism for antisemitic remarks and her embrace of extremist views. 

But, beaming in a photograph taken on a city sidewalk, Sarsour appeared unfazed, her iconic fist pumped in the air as she knelt shoulder-to-shoulder with campaign volunteers for City Council candidate Khader El-Yateem. The photo was posted by El-Yateem on the Facebook page he used to promote his campaign, which he lost, but among the smiling faces was a young organizer named Zohran Mamdani.

That photo would mark the start of a carefully constructed political project that, in less than a decade, would propel a now-34-year-old socialist newcomer to the precipice of running America’s largest city – even while campaigning with radical imams, some of whom have supported terrorists and terrorist financiers.

A Fox Digital investigation reveals that Mamdani’s rise was no accident. It was engineered.

A database of 110 groups backing Mamdani exposes a tight inner circle of organizations that identify as Muslim or socialist, working hand-in-glove with 76 Democratic Party affiliates, allied groups and unions. Particularly important in this political machine are two networks – Sarsour’s MPower organizations and another constellation of groups called Emgage, with which she works closely.

The organizations have been generously funded. In total, billionaire George Soros’ Open Society philanthropies have given MPower and Emgage nearly $2.5 million in recent years, according to tax filings. 

‘We fund a range of civil society organizations that work to deepen civic engagement through peaceful democratic participation, counter discrimination including against Muslim Americans and advance human rights,’ a spokesperson for Open Society Foundations told Fox News Digital. ‘The grants that you cite all occurred years before the mayoral race, and we are a nonpartisan organization that does not fund political candidates and their campaigns.’

Mamdani, Sarsour and the groups supporting Mamdani’s campaign didn’t return requests for comment.

MPower and Emgage have been part of a tight inner circle of 30 ethnic and religious groups, that also includes CAIR Action, the 501(c)(4) political wing of the 501(c)(3) Council on American-Islamic Relations nonprofit, the Islamic Circle of North America,’ ‘Muslim Action Coalition,’ Yemeni American Merchants Associations Inc., the ‘Bangladeshi American Advocacy Group’ and ‘Desis Rising Up and Moving.’ They have pumped up Mamdani’s campaign with social media campaigns, canvassing, voters and buzz.

Altogether, they have annual revenues of about $24 million, and they have worked to promote Mamdani’s campaign with endorsements, fund-raising, social media campaigns and canvassing.

The result: a carefully constructed political career that mainstreams the socialist goals long embraced by Sarsour and fellow members of the Democratic Socialists of America.

It’s a machine that is expressing itself in races from New York to Virginia, Minnesota, Texas and California with MPower and Emgage aligning with the Democratic Socialists of America and the Democratic Party to propel candidates who may share their views. In a campaign called ‘Defend and Advance,’ Emgage SuperPac is pushing Mamdani and Democratic Virginia Lt. Governor candidate Ghazala Hashmi as its ‘star candidates.’

Emgage’s ‘Defend and Advance’ roster of supported candidates and office holders includes Dearborn, Mich., Mayor Abdullah Hammoud.

‘I want you to know as mayor, you are not welcome here,’ Hammoud recently told a Christian pastor who objected to a proposal to name a street in honor of a local man who had allegedly praised terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah. ‘And the day you move out of the city will be the day that I launch a parade celebrating the fact that you moved out of the city because you are not somebody who believes in coexistence.’

Emgage’s donations include $175,000 from a group little-noticed by political observers but important in Islamist circles: Sterling Charitable Gift Fund, based in Herndon, Va. It is part of a network of groups that FBI agents raided in 2002 as part of wider investigations into the funding of Palestinian terrorist groups, including Hamas. Federal prosecutors ultimately didn’t file criminal charges against any officials at Sterling Charitable Gift Fund.

Over almost a decade, Sarsour and her allies have orchestrated a network of well-financed and tightly connected socialist activists, radical imams, political organizers and nonprofit organizations funded with millions of dollars by major philanthropies, including Foundation to Promote Open Society, the Ford Foundation, Macarthur Foundation and the Tides Foundation.

The confluence of big philanthropy, partisan operatives and clerical authority has helped drive Mamdani’s ascent. Its architecture combines nonprofit activism with faith-based politics and the precision of a professional campaign operation. 

‘To the casual observer, Zohran Mamdani’s rise might appear meteoric – a story of grassroots energy and demographic change in America’s largest city,’ said Dalia Al-Aqidi, an Iraqi American Muslim who is running against Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar in Minnesota, with Omar supported by the same kind of political machine being unleashed to propel Mamdani to office.

‘The data, the money trail and the affiliations, from the Democratic Socialists of America to the Islamists, tells a different story.’

‘Mamdani’s ascent is the product of deliberate design: a sophisticated collaboration between socialist activism and Islamist organizing, lubricated by millions in foundation grants and political donations and normalized through a revolving door of political operatives and nonprofits who embrace Islamists, the destruction of the state of Israel and hostilities to the police, the U.S. and the West,’ Al-Aqidi said.

The timeline of Mamdani’s rise tracks precisely with the growth of this network. In 2012, as a student at Bowdoin College, in Maine, he cofounded a chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, the campus organization known for its rabid anti-Israel activism. By 2017, he was canvassing for El-Yateem’s campaign with Sarsour’s mentorship.

In 2018, Mamdani formally entered Sarsour’s orbit through the Muslim Democratic Club of New York, an organization she co-founded in 2013 to mobilize Muslim voters and elect progressive Democrats to local office. The Muslim Democratic Club of New York served as both incubator and amplifier for Sarsour’s political brand, one that fused progressive politics with an explicitly Islamist social identity. By December 2018, Mamdani joined the board, in an announcement in which the group said, ‘Help build Muslim power across the city with us!’

With his new role, Mamdani gained access to an emerging infrastructure of influence: voter lists, donor networks and organizing muscle that would later power his campaign to a seat on the New York General Assembly. The Muslim Democratic Club endorsed Mamdani.

Around that time, Sarsour was building her own empire, founding MPower Change as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit housed at Neo Philanthropy Inc. Public filings show MPower Change took in at least $2.4 million between 2017 and 2024, the latest year available, with Soros’s Foundation to Promote Open Society giving her organization $1.125 million and the Macarthur Foundation funneling her $450,000. It would become a flagship digital organizing hub for not just Sarsour but Mamdani. 

Meanwhile, Emgage Action was expanding its footprint nationally. Also backed by the Open Society network, Emgage Action received a share of $42.5 million that Soros’ foundations pledged to Muslim, Arab and South Asian civic groups beginning in 2021. It has received $1.8 million from the Open Society Policy Center and another $1.35 million from the Foundation to Promote Open Society.

Together, MPower Change and Emgage created an unprecedented financial and political ecosystem, leveraging big philanthropy’s dollars and digital strategy to elevate candidates like Mamdani under the banner of Muslim empowerment.

In 2020, Mamdani won his first election to the New York State Assembly, with Sarsour’s explicit endorsement and fundraising help.

By 2020, Mamdani was being featured in Sarsour’s #MyMuslimVote summit, promoted by MPower Change as the face of a new generation of unapologetic Muslim progressives. By this year, his campaign for mayor became the culmination of that project — backed by PAC money, boosted by clerical endorsements and legitimized by an activist ecosystem that had spent a decade grooming him for this very moment.

To push Mamdani toward the helm of the nation’s biggest city, the network extended far beyond activist circles. Central to Mamdani’s political ascent was a series of carefully cultivated relationships with clerics with some troubling views.

In January, Mamdani courted Imam Muhammad Al-Barr of the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge, visiting his mosque just months after Al-Barr had publicly prayed to ‘annihilate’ Israel.

In May, Imam Siraj Wahhaj, the longtime imam of Brooklyn’s Masjid At-Taqwa, personally donated $1,000 to the Unity and Justice Fund. More recently, Mamdani met with Wahhaj and called him ‘one of the nation’s foremost Muslim leaders and a pillar of the Bed-Stuy community.’

Wahhaj, who served as a character witness in the trial of Omar Abdel-Rahman, the ‘Blind Sheikh’ later convicted of masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, has a long history of calling for the exploitation of America’s democracy to further a conquest for Islam.

‘You don’t get in politics because it’s the American thing to do,’ he said in a videotaped 1991 sermon. ‘You get involved in politics because politics can be a weapon to use in the cause of Islam.’ 

Wahhaj has also denounced the U.S. government as ‘controlled by Shaitan,’ the Arabic word for the devil, urged Muslims not to befriend ‘non-believers,’ condemned homosexuality as ‘a disease of this society,’ and supported Islamic laws that punish sex outside of marriage with 100 lashes and stoning. In 2011, Wahhaj urged Muslims to donate to the legal defense of the since-convicted Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist dubbed ‘Lady Al Qaeda’ for attempting to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Over the years, Wahhaj’s sermons have praised ‘jihad’ without ‘a gun,’ called for an Islamic America governed by sharia law and urged the creation of an ‘army of 10,000 men in New York City.’

Other imams now backing Mamdani’s mayoral run have also been controversial. Imam Talib Abdur-Rashid, a cleric leading the Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood in Harlem, co-founded the Muslim Alliance in North America, alongside Wahhaj. In 2005, Abdur-Rashid publicly defended Rafiq Sabir, an American doctor who joined al Qaeda and was subsequently sentenced to 25 years in prison.

In 2008, Abdur-Rashid defended Sami Al-Arian, a Palestinian American professor whom the U.S. later deported to Turkey for ‘conspiring to provide services’ to Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Still in the U.S., Al-Arian’s wife joined the anti-Israel encampments at Columbia University.

In September, Mamdani appeared as the special guest speaker at Abdur-Rashid’s annual gala. A month earlier, Muslim Association of North America’s social media featured Abdur-Rashid visiting Wahhaj’s mosque, underscoring the continued collaboration between the two imams.

In Manhattan, Imam Khalid Latif, the executive director of the Islamic Center at New York University, has been another prominent Mamdani backer. Latif publicly endorsed Mamdani on Facebook in June, calling him ‘a bearer of compassion in a time where it is far too rare.’

In 2012, Latif led a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia that included Omar Mateen, who would later murder 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, the deadliest anti-LGBTQ attack in U.S. history. He has denied radicalizing Mateen and he hasn’t faced the same type of allegations that surround the other imams.

For many Muslim political organizations backing Mamdani, these clerics are not liabilities but assets, serving as trusted gatekeepers to the city’s growing community of Muslim voters.

After Mamdani visited Wahhaj’s mosque earlier this month, he tweeted out a photo of the two with the caption: ‘Pleasure to meet Imam Siraj Wahhaj, one of the nation’s foremost Muslim leaders.’ When a firestorm ensued, several allies rose to his defense: Sarsour, the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the leaders at Emgage Action.

Sarsour shared a selfie with Mamdani, beaming, like they did back in 2017, and wrote, ‘May Allah continue to bless and protect you.’

A defiant Wa’el Alzayat, the executive director of Emgage Action, sent out a dispatch to followers on Tuesday, amid criticism for their political work, promising, ‘We are in this for the long haul.’

Back in Minnesota, Al-Aqidi closely watched the defense of Mamdani.

‘For over a decade, Linda Sarsour and her network of allies have built the Mamdani machine piece by piece: the institutions, the donors, the narratives and now, the candidate. There was no way they were going to throw him under the bus for one photo with one imam whom they happen to love,’ said Al-Aqidi. ‘Mamdani is the fresh face of a radical coalition, and I hope New Yorkers will reject him. Win or lose, one fact remains undeniable. His rise was not spontaneous. It was engineered and the machinery behind it is only getting stronger.’

Al-Aqidi said; ‘I hope New Yorkers will shut the Mamdani machine down.’

In late September 2017, Palestinian American activist Linda Sarsour, once the darling of the Women’s March and the self-declared face of the ‘resistance’ against Donald Trump, was facing mounting criticism for antisemitic remarks and her embrace of extremist views. 

But, beaming in a photograph taken on a city sidewalk, Sarsour appeared unfazed, her iconic fist pumped in the air as she knelt shoulder-to-shoulder with campaign volunteers for City Council candidate Khader El-Yateem. The photo was posted by El-Yateem on the Facebook page he used to promote his campaign, which he lost, but among the smiling faces was a young organizer named Zohran Mamdani.

That photo would mark the start of a carefully constructed political project that, in less than a decade, would propel a now-34-year-old socialist newcomer to the precipice of running America’s largest city – even while campaigning with radical imams, some of whom have supported terrorists and terrorist financiers.

A Fox Digital investigation reveals that Mamdani’s rise was no accident. It was engineered.

A database of 110 groups backing Mamdani exposes a tight inner circle of organizations that identify as Muslim or socialist, working hand-in-glove with 76 Democratic Party affiliates, allied groups and unions. Particularly important in this political machine are two networks – Sarsour’s MPower organizations and another constellation of groups called Emgage, with which she works closely.

The organizations have been generously funded. In total, billionaire George Soros’ Open Society philanthropies have given MPower and Emgage nearly $2.5 million in recent years, according to tax filings. 

‘We fund a range of civil society organizations that work to deepen civic engagement through peaceful democratic participation, counter discrimination including against Muslim Americans and advance human rights,’ a spokesperson for Open Society Foundations told Fox News Digital. ‘The grants that you cite all occurred years before the mayoral race, and we are a nonpartisan organization that does not fund political candidates and their campaigns.’

Mamdani, Sarsour and the groups supporting Mamdani’s campaign didn’t return requests for comment.

MPower and Emgage have been part of a tight inner circle of 30 ethnic and religious groups, that also includes CAIR Action, the 501(c)(4) political wing of the 501(c)(3) Council on American-Islamic Relations nonprofit, the Islamic Circle of North America,’ ‘Muslim Action Coalition,’ Yemeni American Merchants Associations Inc., the ‘Bangladeshi American Advocacy Group’ and ‘Desis Rising Up and Moving.’ They have pumped up Mamdani’s campaign with social media campaigns, canvassing, voters and buzz.

Altogether, they have annual revenues of about $24 million, and they have worked to promote Mamdani’s campaign with endorsements, fund-raising, social media campaigns and canvassing.

The result: a carefully constructed political career that mainstreams the socialist goals long embraced by Sarsour and fellow members of the Democratic Socialists of America.

It’s a machine that is expressing itself in races from New York to Virginia, Minnesota, Texas and California with MPower and Emgage aligning with the Democratic Socialists of America and the Democratic Party to propel candidates who may share their views. In a campaign called ‘Defend and Advance,’ Emgage SuperPac is pushing Mamdani and Democratic Virginia Lt. Governor candidate Ghazala Hashmi as its ‘star candidates.’

Emgage’s ‘Defend and Advance’ roster of supported candidates and office holders includes Dearborn, Mich., Mayor Abdullah Hammoud.

‘I want you to know as mayor, you are not welcome here,’ Hammoud recently told a Christian pastor who objected to a proposal to name a street in honor of a local man who had allegedly praised terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah. ‘And the day you move out of the city will be the day that I launch a parade celebrating the fact that you moved out of the city because you are not somebody who believes in coexistence.’

Emgage’s donations include $175,000 from a group little-noticed by political observers but important in Islamist circles: Sterling Charitable Gift Fund, based in Herndon, Va. It is part of a network of groups that FBI agents raided in 2002 as part of wider investigations into the funding of Palestinian terrorist groups, including Hamas. Federal prosecutors ultimately didn’t file criminal charges against any officials at Sterling Charitable Gift Fund.

Over almost a decade, Sarsour and her allies have orchestrated a network of well-financed and tightly connected socialist activists, radical imams, political organizers and nonprofit organizations funded with millions of dollars by major philanthropies, including Foundation to Promote Open Society, the Ford Foundation, Macarthur Foundation and the Tides Foundation.

The confluence of big philanthropy, partisan operatives and clerical authority has helped drive Mamdani’s ascent. Its architecture combines nonprofit activism with faith-based politics and the precision of a professional campaign operation. 

‘To the casual observer, Zohran Mamdani’s rise might appear meteoric – a story of grassroots energy and demographic change in America’s largest city,’ said Dalia Al-Aqidi, an Iraqi American Muslim who is running against Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar in Minnesota, with Omar supported by the same kind of political machine being unleashed to propel Mamdani to office.

‘The data, the money trail and the affiliations, from the Democratic Socialists of America to the Islamists, tells a different story.’

‘Mamdani’s ascent is the product of deliberate design: a sophisticated collaboration between socialist activism and Islamist organizing, lubricated by millions in foundation grants and political donations and normalized through a revolving door of political operatives and nonprofits who embrace Islamists, the destruction of the state of Israel and hostilities to the police, the U.S. and the West,’ Al-Aqidi said.

The timeline of Mamdani’s rise tracks precisely with the growth of this network. In 2012, as a student at Bowdoin College, in Maine, he cofounded a chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, the campus organization known for its rabid anti-Israel activism. By 2017, he was canvassing for El-Yateem’s campaign with Sarsour’s mentorship.

In 2018, Mamdani formally entered Sarsour’s orbit through the Muslim Democratic Club of New York, an organization she co-founded in 2013 to mobilize Muslim voters and elect progressive Democrats to local office. The Muslim Democratic Club of New York served as both incubator and amplifier for Sarsour’s political brand, one that fused progressive politics with an explicitly Islamist social identity. By December 2018, Mamdani joined the board, in an announcement in which the group said, ‘Help build Muslim power across the city with us!’

With his new role, Mamdani gained access to an emerging infrastructure of influence: voter lists, donor networks and organizing muscle that would later power his campaign to a seat on the New York General Assembly. The Muslim Democratic Club endorsed Mamdani.

Around that time, Sarsour was building her own empire, founding MPower Change as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit housed at Neo Philanthropy Inc. Public filings show MPower Change took in at least $2.4 million between 2017 and 2024, the latest year available, with Soros’s Foundation to Promote Open Society giving her organization $1.125 million and the Macarthur Foundation funneling her $450,000. It would become a flagship digital organizing hub for not just Sarsour but Mamdani. 

Meanwhile, Emgage Action was expanding its footprint nationally. Also backed by the Open Society network, Emgage Action received a share of $42.5 million that Soros’ foundations pledged to Muslim, Arab and South Asian civic groups beginning in 2021. It has received $1.8 million from the Open Society Policy Center and another $1.35 million from the Foundation to Promote Open Society.

Together, MPower Change and Emgage created an unprecedented financial and political ecosystem, leveraging big philanthropy’s dollars and digital strategy to elevate candidates like Mamdani under the banner of Muslim empowerment.

In 2020, Mamdani won his first election to the New York State Assembly, with Sarsour’s explicit endorsement and fundraising help.

By 2020, Mamdani was being featured in Sarsour’s #MyMuslimVote summit, promoted by MPower Change as the face of a new generation of unapologetic Muslim progressives. By this year, his campaign for mayor became the culmination of that project — backed by PAC money, boosted by clerical endorsements and legitimized by an activist ecosystem that had spent a decade grooming him for this very moment.

To push Mamdani toward the helm of the nation’s biggest city, the network extended far beyond activist circles. Central to Mamdani’s political ascent was a series of carefully cultivated relationships with clerics with some troubling views.

In January, Mamdani courted Imam Muhammad Al-Barr of the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge, visiting his mosque just months after Al-Barr had publicly prayed to ‘annihilate’ Israel.

In May, Imam Siraj Wahhaj, the longtime imam of Brooklyn’s Masjid At-Taqwa, personally donated $1,000 to the Unity and Justice Fund. More recently, Mamdani met with Wahhaj and called him ‘one of the nation’s foremost Muslim leaders and a pillar of the Bed-Stuy community.’

Wahhaj, who served as a character witness in the trial of Omar Abdel-Rahman, the ‘Blind Sheikh’ later convicted of masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, has a long history of calling for the exploitation of America’s democracy to further a conquest for Islam.

‘You don’t get in politics because it’s the American thing to do,’ he said in a videotaped 1991 sermon. ‘You get involved in politics because politics can be a weapon to use in the cause of Islam.’ 

Wahhaj has also denounced the U.S. government as ‘controlled by Shaitan,’ the Arabic word for the devil, urged Muslims not to befriend ‘non-believers,’ condemned homosexuality as ‘a disease of this society,’ and supported Islamic laws that punish sex outside of marriage with 100 lashes and stoning. In 2011, Wahhaj urged Muslims to donate to the legal defense of the since-convicted Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist dubbed ‘Lady Al Qaeda’ for attempting to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Over the years, Wahhaj’s sermons have praised ‘jihad’ without ‘a gun,’ called for an Islamic America governed by sharia law and urged the creation of an ‘army of 10,000 men in New York City.’

Other imams now backing Mamdani’s mayoral run have also been controversial. Imam Talib Abdur-Rashid, a cleric leading the Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood in Harlem, co-founded the Muslim Alliance in North America, alongside Wahhaj. In 2005, Abdur-Rashid publicly defended Rafiq Sabir, an American doctor who joined al Qaeda and was subsequently sentenced to 25 years in prison.

In 2008, Abdur-Rashid defended Sami Al-Arian, a Palestinian American professor whom the U.S. later deported to Turkey for ‘conspiring to provide services’ to Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Still in the U.S., Al-Arian’s wife joined the anti-Israel encampments at Columbia University.

In September, Mamdani appeared as the special guest speaker at Abdur-Rashid’s annual gala. A month earlier, Muslim Association of North America’s social media featured Abdur-Rashid visiting Wahhaj’s mosque, underscoring the continued collaboration between the two imams.

In Manhattan, Imam Khalid Latif, the executive director of the Islamic Center at New York University, has been another prominent Mamdani backer. Latif publicly endorsed Mamdani on Facebook in June, calling him ‘a bearer of compassion in a time where it is far too rare.’

In 2012, Latif led a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia that included Omar Mateen, who would later murder 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, the deadliest anti-LGBTQ attack in U.S. history. He has denied radicalizing Mateen and he hasn’t faced the same type of allegations that surround the other imams.

For many Muslim political organizations backing Mamdani, these clerics are not liabilities but assets, serving as trusted gatekeepers to the city’s growing community of Muslim voters.

After Mamdani visited Wahhaj’s mosque earlier this month, he tweeted out a photo of the two with the caption: ‘Pleasure to meet Imam Siraj Wahhaj, one of the nation’s foremost Muslim leaders.’ When a firestorm ensued, several allies rose to his defense: Sarsour, the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the leaders at Emgage Action.

Sarsour shared a selfie with Mamdani, beaming, like they did back in 2017, and wrote, ‘May Allah continue to bless and protect you.’

A defiant Wa’el Alzayat, the executive director of Emgage Action, sent out a dispatch to followers on Tuesday, amid criticism for their political work, promising, ‘We are in this for the long haul.’

Back in Minnesota, Al-Aqidi closely watched the defense of Mamdani.

‘For over a decade, Linda Sarsour and her network of allies have built the Mamdani machine piece by piece: the institutions, the donors, the narratives and now, the candidate. There was no way they were going to throw him under the bus for one photo with one imam whom they happen to love,’ said Al-Aqidi. ‘Mamdani is the fresh face of a radical coalition, and I hope New Yorkers will reject him. Win or lose, one fact remains undeniable. His rise was not spontaneous. It was engineered and the machinery behind it is only getting stronger.’

Al-Aqidi said; ‘I hope New Yorkers will shut the Mamdani machine down.’

In late September 2017, Palestinian American activist Linda Sarsour, once the darling of the Women’s March and the self-declared face of the ‘resistance’ against Donald Trump, was facing mounting criticism for antisemitic remarks and her embrace of extremist views. 

But, beaming in a photograph taken on a city sidewalk, Sarsour appeared unfazed, her iconic fist pumped in the air as she knelt shoulder-to-shoulder with campaign volunteers for City Council candidate Khader El-Yateem. The photo was posted by El-Yateem on the Facebook page he used to promote his campaign, which he lost, but among the smiling faces was a young organizer named Zohran Mamdani.

That photo would mark the start of a carefully constructed political project that, in less than a decade, would propel a now-34-year-old socialist newcomer to the precipice of running America’s largest city – even while campaigning with radical imams, some of whom have supported terrorists and terrorist financiers.

A Fox Digital investigation reveals that Mamdani’s rise was no accident. It was engineered.

A database of 110 groups backing Mamdani exposes a tight inner circle of organizations that identify as Muslim or socialist, working hand-in-glove with 76 Democratic Party affiliates, allied groups and unions. Particularly important in this political machine are two networks – Sarsour’s MPower organizations and another constellation of groups called Emgage, with which she works closely.

The organizations have been generously funded. In total, billionaire George Soros’ Open Society philanthropies have given MPower and Emgage nearly $2.5 million in recent years, according to tax filings. 

‘We fund a range of civil society organizations that work to deepen civic engagement through peaceful democratic participation, counter discrimination including against Muslim Americans and advance human rights,’ a spokesperson for Open Society Foundations told Fox News Digital. ‘The grants that you cite all occurred years before the mayoral race, and we are a nonpartisan organization that does not fund political candidates and their campaigns.’

Mamdani, Sarsour and the groups supporting Mamdani’s campaign didn’t return requests for comment.

MPower and Emgage have been part of a tight inner circle of 30 ethnic and religious groups, that also includes CAIR Action, the 501(c)(4) political wing of the 501(c)(3) Council on American-Islamic Relations nonprofit, the Islamic Circle of North America,’ ‘Muslim Action Coalition,’ Yemeni American Merchants Associations Inc., the ‘Bangladeshi American Advocacy Group’ and ‘Desis Rising Up and Moving.’ They have pumped up Mamdani’s campaign with social media campaigns, canvassing, voters and buzz.

Altogether, they have annual revenues of about $24 million, and they have worked to promote Mamdani’s campaign with endorsements, fund-raising, social media campaigns and canvassing.

The result: a carefully constructed political career that mainstreams the socialist goals long embraced by Sarsour and fellow members of the Democratic Socialists of America.

It’s a machine that is expressing itself in races from New York to Virginia, Minnesota, Texas and California with MPower and Emgage aligning with the Democratic Socialists of America and the Democratic Party to propel candidates who may share their views. In a campaign called ‘Defend and Advance,’ Emgage SuperPac is pushing Mamdani and Democratic Virginia Lt. Governor candidate Ghazala Hashmi as its ‘star candidates.’

Emgage’s ‘Defend and Advance’ roster of supported candidates and office holders includes Dearborn, Mich., Mayor Abdullah Hammoud.

‘I want you to know as mayor, you are not welcome here,’ Hammoud recently told a Christian pastor who objected to a proposal to name a street in honor of a local man who had allegedly praised terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah. ‘And the day you move out of the city will be the day that I launch a parade celebrating the fact that you moved out of the city because you are not somebody who believes in coexistence.’

Emgage’s donations include $175,000 from a group little-noticed by political observers but important in Islamist circles: Sterling Charitable Gift Fund, based in Herndon, Va. It is part of a network of groups that FBI agents raided in 2002 as part of wider investigations into the funding of Palestinian terrorist groups, including Hamas. Federal prosecutors ultimately didn’t file criminal charges against any officials at Sterling Charitable Gift Fund.

Over almost a decade, Sarsour and her allies have orchestrated a network of well-financed and tightly connected socialist activists, radical imams, political organizers and nonprofit organizations funded with millions of dollars by major philanthropies, including Foundation to Promote Open Society, the Ford Foundation, Macarthur Foundation and the Tides Foundation.

The confluence of big philanthropy, partisan operatives and clerical authority has helped drive Mamdani’s ascent. Its architecture combines nonprofit activism with faith-based politics and the precision of a professional campaign operation. 

‘To the casual observer, Zohran Mamdani’s rise might appear meteoric – a story of grassroots energy and demographic change in America’s largest city,’ said Dalia Al-Aqidi, an Iraqi American Muslim who is running against Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar in Minnesota, with Omar supported by the same kind of political machine being unleashed to propel Mamdani to office.

‘The data, the money trail and the affiliations, from the Democratic Socialists of America to the Islamists, tells a different story.’

‘Mamdani’s ascent is the product of deliberate design: a sophisticated collaboration between socialist activism and Islamist organizing, lubricated by millions in foundation grants and political donations and normalized through a revolving door of political operatives and nonprofits who embrace Islamists, the destruction of the state of Israel and hostilities to the police, the U.S. and the West,’ Al-Aqidi said.

The timeline of Mamdani’s rise tracks precisely with the growth of this network. In 2012, as a student at Bowdoin College, in Maine, he cofounded a chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, the campus organization known for its rabid anti-Israel activism. By 2017, he was canvassing for El-Yateem’s campaign with Sarsour’s mentorship.

In 2018, Mamdani formally entered Sarsour’s orbit through the Muslim Democratic Club of New York, an organization she co-founded in 2013 to mobilize Muslim voters and elect progressive Democrats to local office. The Muslim Democratic Club of New York served as both incubator and amplifier for Sarsour’s political brand, one that fused progressive politics with an explicitly Islamist social identity. By December 2018, Mamdani joined the board, in an announcement in which the group said, ‘Help build Muslim power across the city with us!’

With his new role, Mamdani gained access to an emerging infrastructure of influence: voter lists, donor networks and organizing muscle that would later power his campaign to a seat on the New York General Assembly. The Muslim Democratic Club endorsed Mamdani.

Around that time, Sarsour was building her own empire, founding MPower Change as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit housed at Neo Philanthropy Inc. Public filings show MPower Change took in at least $2.4 million between 2017 and 2024, the latest year available, with Soros’s Foundation to Promote Open Society giving her organization $1.125 million and the Macarthur Foundation funneling her $450,000. It would become a flagship digital organizing hub for not just Sarsour but Mamdani. 

Meanwhile, Emgage Action was expanding its footprint nationally. Also backed by the Open Society network, Emgage Action received a share of $42.5 million that Soros’ foundations pledged to Muslim, Arab and South Asian civic groups beginning in 2021. It has received $1.8 million from the Open Society Policy Center and another $1.35 million from the Foundation to Promote Open Society.

Together, MPower Change and Emgage created an unprecedented financial and political ecosystem, leveraging big philanthropy’s dollars and digital strategy to elevate candidates like Mamdani under the banner of Muslim empowerment.

In 2020, Mamdani won his first election to the New York State Assembly, with Sarsour’s explicit endorsement and fundraising help.

By 2020, Mamdani was being featured in Sarsour’s #MyMuslimVote summit, promoted by MPower Change as the face of a new generation of unapologetic Muslim progressives. By this year, his campaign for mayor became the culmination of that project — backed by PAC money, boosted by clerical endorsements and legitimized by an activist ecosystem that had spent a decade grooming him for this very moment.

To push Mamdani toward the helm of the nation’s biggest city, the network extended far beyond activist circles. Central to Mamdani’s political ascent was a series of carefully cultivated relationships with clerics with some troubling views.

In January, Mamdani courted Imam Muhammad Al-Barr of the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge, visiting his mosque just months after Al-Barr had publicly prayed to ‘annihilate’ Israel.

In May, Imam Siraj Wahhaj, the longtime imam of Brooklyn’s Masjid At-Taqwa, personally donated $1,000 to the Unity and Justice Fund. More recently, Mamdani met with Wahhaj and called him ‘one of the nation’s foremost Muslim leaders and a pillar of the Bed-Stuy community.’

Wahhaj, who served as a character witness in the trial of Omar Abdel-Rahman, the ‘Blind Sheikh’ later convicted of masterminding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, has a long history of calling for the exploitation of America’s democracy to further a conquest for Islam.

‘You don’t get in politics because it’s the American thing to do,’ he said in a videotaped 1991 sermon. ‘You get involved in politics because politics can be a weapon to use in the cause of Islam.’ 

Wahhaj has also denounced the U.S. government as ‘controlled by Shaitan,’ the Arabic word for the devil, urged Muslims not to befriend ‘non-believers,’ condemned homosexuality as ‘a disease of this society,’ and supported Islamic laws that punish sex outside of marriage with 100 lashes and stoning. In 2011, Wahhaj urged Muslims to donate to the legal defense of the since-convicted Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist dubbed ‘Lady Al Qaeda’ for attempting to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Over the years, Wahhaj’s sermons have praised ‘jihad’ without ‘a gun,’ called for an Islamic America governed by sharia law and urged the creation of an ‘army of 10,000 men in New York City.’

Other imams now backing Mamdani’s mayoral run have also been controversial. Imam Talib Abdur-Rashid, a cleric leading the Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood in Harlem, co-founded the Muslim Alliance in North America, alongside Wahhaj. In 2005, Abdur-Rashid publicly defended Rafiq Sabir, an American doctor who joined al Qaeda and was subsequently sentenced to 25 years in prison.

In 2008, Abdur-Rashid defended Sami Al-Arian, a Palestinian American professor whom the U.S. later deported to Turkey for ‘conspiring to provide services’ to Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Still in the U.S., Al-Arian’s wife joined the anti-Israel encampments at Columbia University.

In September, Mamdani appeared as the special guest speaker at Abdur-Rashid’s annual gala. A month earlier, Muslim Association of North America’s social media featured Abdur-Rashid visiting Wahhaj’s mosque, underscoring the continued collaboration between the two imams.

In Manhattan, Imam Khalid Latif, the executive director of the Islamic Center at New York University, has been another prominent Mamdani backer. Latif publicly endorsed Mamdani on Facebook in June, calling him ‘a bearer of compassion in a time where it is far too rare.’

In 2012, Latif led a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia that included Omar Mateen, who would later murder 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, the deadliest anti-LGBTQ attack in U.S. history. He has denied radicalizing Mateen and he hasn’t faced the same type of allegations that surround the other imams.

For many Muslim political organizations backing Mamdani, these clerics are not liabilities but assets, serving as trusted gatekeepers to the city’s growing community of Muslim voters.

After Mamdani visited Wahhaj’s mosque earlier this month, he tweeted out a photo of the two with the caption: ‘Pleasure to meet Imam Siraj Wahhaj, one of the nation’s foremost Muslim leaders.’ When a firestorm ensued, several allies rose to his defense: Sarsour, the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the leaders at Emgage Action.

Sarsour shared a selfie with Mamdani, beaming, like they did back in 2017, and wrote, ‘May Allah continue to bless and protect you.’

A defiant Wa’el Alzayat, the executive director of Emgage Action, sent out a dispatch to followers on Tuesday, amid criticism for their political work, promising, ‘We are in this for the long haul.’

Back in Minnesota, Al-Aqidi closely watched the defense of Mamdani.

‘For over a decade, Linda Sarsour and her network of allies have built the Mamdani machine piece by piece: the institutions, the donors, the narratives and now, the candidate. There was no way they were going to throw him under the bus for one photo with one imam whom they happen to love,’ said Al-Aqidi. ‘Mamdani is the fresh face of a radical coalition, and I hope New Yorkers will reject him. Win or lose, one fact remains undeniable. His rise was not spontaneous. It was engineered and the machinery behind it is only getting stronger.’

Al-Aqidi said; ‘I hope New Yorkers will shut the Mamdani machine down.’

President Donald Trump is shifting his attention to key allies Japan and South Korea as his Asia tour enters its next phase, with trade, regional security and military cooperation expected to top his agenda this week.

Trump’s five-day Asia tour will include talks with Japan’s newly elected Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in Tokyo and a planned meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping during the final stop in South Korea.

The trip comes at a time of renewed uncertainty in the region, with North Korea ramping up missile tests and China asserting greater control in the South China Sea.

Economic ties are expected to play a central role in Trump’s meetings, with trade imbalances, technology cooperation and energy security topping the agenda. The administration has signaled an interest in expanding semiconductor and critical minerals partnerships with Japan and South Korea to counter China’s dominance in global supply chains.

The Trump administration said Sunday that the world’s two largest economies are close to reaching an agreement to avert a new 100% U.S. tariff on Chinese goods, with both sides expected to meet in person soon.

‘President Trump gave me a great deal of negotiating leverage with the threat of the 100% tariffs, and I believe we’ve reached a very substantial framework that will avoid that and allow us to discuss many other things with the Chinese,’ Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press.’

Before heading north, Trump began his trip in Malaysia, where he was greeted with traditional music and dancing, even joining performers in celebration. 

He also oversaw the signing of a peace agreement between Cambodia and Thailand on Sunday, a development viewed as a key step in reducing regional tensions and bolstering U.S. diplomatic influence in Southeast Asia.

As part of the agreement, Thailand agreed to release 18 Cambodian soldiers held captive and for both countries to begin removing heavy artillery from their shared border. The Thai prime minister called the signing of a ceasefire deal ‘the building blocks for a lasting peace,’ and Cambodia’s prime minister described the events as a ‘historic day.’

‘We did something that a lot of people said couldn’t be done,’ Trump said. 

The White House has framed the trip as a showcase of Trump’s foreign policy approach: ending conflicts, striking deals and reasserting U.S. leadership abroad.

President Donald Trump is shifting his attention to key allies Japan and South Korea as his Asia tour enters its next phase, with trade, regional security and military cooperation expected to top his agenda this week.

Trump’s five-day Asia tour will include talks with Japan’s newly elected Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in Tokyo and a planned meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping during the final stop in South Korea.

The trip comes at a time of renewed uncertainty in the region, with North Korea ramping up missile tests and China asserting greater control in the South China Sea.

Economic ties are expected to play a central role in Trump’s meetings, with trade imbalances, technology cooperation and energy security topping the agenda. The administration has signaled an interest in expanding semiconductor and critical minerals partnerships with Japan and South Korea to counter China’s dominance in global supply chains.

The Trump administration said Sunday that the world’s two largest economies are close to reaching an agreement to avert a new 100% U.S. tariff on Chinese goods, with both sides expected to meet in person soon.

‘President Trump gave me a great deal of negotiating leverage with the threat of the 100% tariffs, and I believe we’ve reached a very substantial framework that will avoid that and allow us to discuss many other things with the Chinese,’ Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press.’

Before heading north, Trump began his trip in Malaysia, where he was greeted with traditional music and dancing, even joining performers in celebration. 

He also oversaw the signing of a peace agreement between Cambodia and Thailand on Sunday, a development viewed as a key step in reducing regional tensions and bolstering U.S. diplomatic influence in Southeast Asia.

As part of the agreement, Thailand agreed to release 18 Cambodian soldiers held captive and for both countries to begin removing heavy artillery from their shared border. The Thai prime minister called the signing of a ceasefire deal ‘the building blocks for a lasting peace,’ and Cambodia’s prime minister described the events as a ‘historic day.’

‘We did something that a lot of people said couldn’t be done,’ Trump said. 

The White House has framed the trip as a showcase of Trump’s foreign policy approach: ending conflicts, striking deals and reasserting U.S. leadership abroad.