CNN
 — 

Some US allies are highly alarmed by the framework the Trump administration is pushing to end the Ukraine war and Europeans are bracing for the outcome of another round of high-level talks between the US and Russia, multiple diplomatic sources told CNN.

The administration’s framework, presented in Paris last week, proposes significant sacrifices from Kyiv, including US recognition of Crimea as Russian territory and Ukraine ceding large swaths of territory to Russia, according to an official familiar. Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday called “to freeze the territorial lines at some level close to where they are today.”

Asked what concessions Russia was offering on Thursday, Trump replied, “stopping the war,” suggesting that not “taking the whole country” is a “pretty big concession.”

Multiple allied diplomats said they are rattled by what the Trump administration is proposing, because they believe such a framework sends a dangerous message to Russia’s Vladimir Putin and other world leaders, including China’s Xi Jinping, that illegal conquest could be rewarded, multiple diplomats said.

“This is about the fundamental principles of international law. This is very much about our own existence and the weakening of any safeguards that my or other countries have for our own independence,” an Eastern European diplomat told CNN. They and other sources spoke on background to discuss sensitive diplomatic matters.

“If one country in Europe is currently under pressure or being forced to give up parts of its own legal territory, territory that has been that has been recognized as part of Ukraine … if one country in Europe is forced to do that, no country in Europe or elsewhere can feel safe, NATO or no NATO,” the diplomat said.

The proposal for a de-facto US recognition of Crimea as part of Russia would reverse years of US policy affirming that, despite Russian occupation, Crimea is Ukrainian territory. European officials say they would not follow suit – leaving the US isolated.

Asian allies too are growing concerned about an end of war agreement that would reward Russia after the deadly conflict.

In private discussions with US partners, Asian diplomats have clearly articulated their concerns about the global implications of a settlement that violates Ukraine’s borders.

“China is watching. We have told the Trump administration that. We are worried about the message they might take away from any end to the war that appears to award Russia for the bloodshed,” said one Asian diplomat.

All eyes are now on the expected meeting between special envoy Steve Witkoff and Putin on Friday, which comes after sources say progress was made in talks with European, Ukrainian and US officials in London Wednesday. However, many Europeans fear that the progress might not be fast enough to satisfy Trump’s ambitions for a quick end to the war.

There are also concerns about what kind of additional promises Putin may make to Witkoff to garner favor with the US as European leaders warn that the Russian president is not to be trusted.

Officials are wondering what level of pressure will be applied on Witkoff’s fourth trip to Russia given the US’ desire for a quick end to the war and the US envoy’s past echoing of Putin’s arguments.

Trump on Thursday morning expressed dissatisfaction with the Russian leader after a deadly barrage of Russian missile strikes on Kyiv, saying that they were “not necessary, and very bad timing.”

“Vladimir, STOP! 5000 soldiers a week are dying. Lets get the Peace Deal DONE!,” he wrote on TruthSocial.

Hours later, however, the US president said he believed both Russia and Ukraine want peace.

However, Trump has lashed out at Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelensky, on far more occasions using much stronger language than when he has criticized Putin.

Meanwhile, even though the framework on the table has many allies deeply uneasy, negotiators have touted progress in the high-stakes diplomatic talks this week, including steps taken by the Ukrainians.

“We got [the Ukrainians] to a point where there will be conversations about territory,” said a European official familiar with the discussions, following the full day of meetings on Wednesday in London attended by senior officials from Ukraine, Germany, the United Kingdom, France and the US envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg.

Just that evolution in thinking was progress, the official said, noting they “managed to convince the Ukrainians to convince themselves to get in a more US administration-friendly position.”

Kellogg believed the talks to be “candid, positive and productive,” he told CNN.

Kellogg was the highest-ranking US official at the table for the talks, after the Trump administration pulled back plans for Secretary of State Marco Rubio to attend with the expectation that the meetings were not going to be decisive.

The Germans, French, and British said in a joint statement that “significant progress was made on reaching a common position on next steps.”

“The Ukrainians are coming around and understand the situation, even though they have red lines they cannot cross,” said a German official when asked how flexible the Ukrainians are being on territorial matters.

The British government has been working with the Ukrainians to try to move forward on the US framework, a second European official said, noting that it would be backed by security guarantees that are regularly being discussed by European allies, including potential troops in Ukraine. Russia has rejected such a prospect and Trump has said no American forces would go to Ukraine.

“There is a realpolitik reality: any deal that can get Russia on board will look unfavorable to the Ukrainians. But within reason the Ukrainians will have to come to terms with something that may be second best to a deal they would have wanted two years ago,” another European diplomat said. “That is just where we are.”

However, even if Zelensky were to get on board with a painful proposal that sees significant land concessions – a move that one Ukrainian lawmaker said would be “political suicide” – it would not be accepted by Ukrainian parliament, the lawmaker said.

Some have noted that there doesn’t seem to be a US strategy for implementing a potential deal and Washington may be barreling past the idea of a ceasefire in order to simply end the conflict as quickly as possible.

“The American position is clear: take it or leave it, this is where we are,” the first European official said. “The Ukrainian position – and to some extent ours – is we accept there needs to be territorial negotiations but when does that come?”

What exactly the US administration is arguing for at the moment, beyond a halt to the fighting, remains unclear. More than a month after calling for an immediate ceasefire – which Russia rejected – it appears to be trying to leap-frog ahead to the far more complicated prospect of nailing down the contours of a permanent peace.

“At this juncture, we judge that getting agreement on key terms now is the most expeditious way to achieve the core objective” said one US official familiar with the months-long back and forth who criticized the administration’s lack of strategic approach, calling it “somewhat directionless, rudderless, confused.”

“The diplomacy has been very ad hoc. The confusion over who does what on the file is as pronounced as ever,” said the official. “People seem to accept the chaos.”

CNN
 — 

She’d spent most of her life “checking off boxes” in order “to be deemed a success,” but as New Yorker Melissa Vargas approached her 30th birthday, she started to question the direction she was going in.

While she was “killing it” in her career in digital marketing and had “done everything everyone told me I’m supposed to,” Melissa felt that she wasn’t “really experiencing new things,” and had gotten way “too comfortable.”

After taking an extended trip to Europe for a wedding in 2016, Melissa, who says she hadn’t traveled much further than Mexico or the Caribbean up until that point, paid a visit to Munich, Germany and instantly felt a change in herself.

“People were just enjoying life,” Melissa tells CNN Travel, explaining that “this concept of relaxation,” seemed foreign to her as everything was “always go, go, go” in the Big Apple.

A few months after returning home, Melissa landed a job at a German agency, and went on to relocate to Munich in late 2017. Nearly eight years later, she’s still there.

“Honestly, it was the best decision I ever made,” says Melissa. “Looking back now, if I hadn’t done it then, I would have never done it.”

Reflecting on her big move, Melissa explains that she’d grown tired of the “work hard, play hard mentality” she was accustomed to in New York, and was ready for a change.

“I think by the time I was 28, I started to realize, there has to be more to life than just this,” says Melissa, who was born in the Dominican Republic, but raised in the Big Apple “from infancy.”

“I never really felt like I fit in in New York,” she adds. “I think I was just at a point where I needed something different.”

Melissa soon realized that she’d been living her life based on the things that other people wanted for her and hadn’t really taken the time to decide what she wanted for herself.

“I grew up in a very bad neighborhood, made it through school, got a scholarship for high school, got a scholarship to Syracuse University and graduated with two degrees,” she says.

“Everything that your immigrant family tells you you need to do.”

Feeling as though she needed to step out of her comfort zone, Melissa decided to put herself “in the most uncomfortable situation” she could imagine.

For her, this was moving to a country she had only visited once and didn’t speak the language.

“I felt like I had been hindered by kind of closing my circle off,” she says. “New York is such a bubble sometimes. You don’t realize it until you’re out of it…”

She began the application process for a Munich-based job shortly after returning to the United States, and was thrilled to be offered the position.

According to Melissa, her workplace helped her through the process of applying for a German working visa — which is granted to non-EU citizens with a job offer from a German company — hiring a lawyer for her, making the transition much easier.

“I took a month off,” Melissa says. “And then it was literally packing up my life, which is like 28 years into three suitcases. I had to give up so many beautiful shoes.”

After bidding farewell to her friends and family, Melissa flew to Munich, via Lisbon, Portugal, to begin her new life.

“I landed on a Sunday,” she recalls, describing her disappointment when she found that pretty much everywhere was closed, so “there was nothing to eat” when she arrived at her apartment.

The following day, Melissa set about obtaining her tax ID information, which needs to be obtained in person in Germany, from the local tax office in order to begin her new role.

“It took another two to three weeks before I was able to even step foot in the office” she says.

During her first few months in Munich, Melissa did her best to immerse herself into Bavarian culture, and loved how exciting and new everything felt.

“You’re like, ‘I’m here. I’m making it happen like ‘Emily in Paris.’ I’m gonna do it,’” she says.

“Mind you, this was before ‘Emily in Paris.’ “I was ‘Melissa in Munich.’ So, unprecedented at the time.”

However, even seemingly simple tasks like going to the supermarket proved to be incredibly taxing at times.

“I spent two hours there because I had no idea what the hell I was buying,” she says.

Although she loved being in Munich during the festive period, and visited many of the local Christmas markets, when the New Year rolled around, it was “super cloudy” and “raining all the time,” and Melissa began to question her decision to uproot her life.

“You’re like, ‘Oh, wow. Did I really sign up for this?’” she recounts, noting that the first year spent living in a new destination is “always the hardest.”

“You could decide after a year that maybe this isn’t for you,” she concedes, admitting that she considered giving up at times.

“But I think I was so hell bent on making it work that I was like, ‘This is the uncomfortable. If you succeed in this, and then in the end, you’re like, ‘I still want to go back,’ New York will always be there.’

“And I kept telling myself that.”

Melissa admits that it took a while for her to adjust to the slower pace of life in Munich, but she ultimately found this to be a huge reset for her.

“It’s taken me such a long time to honestly undo from all the years of living in New York,” she says.

Melissa goes on to explain that Sundays in Germany are known as “Ruhetag,” or a quiet day, and “you’re not supposed to drill or play music.”

“I play music, because I’m Latin,” she adds. “But other than that, I try not to do heavy lifting.”

Germans are renowned for their directness, and Melissa stresses that this is one cultural difference that she’s had no trouble adapting to.

“This is another part of why I felt misplaced in New York,” she admits. “I am super honest, probably sometimes to my own detriment. So coming here, it was a relief, because these people were just as honest as I am…

“That’s why I feel like I connect more with the Germans… It was nice to be in a place where I didn’t have to hold my tongue all the time.”

While Melissa acknowledges that Germany has a reputation of being an incredibly hard-working nation, she’s found that there’s “a big emphasis on balance.”

“It’s crazy because when I was telling my friends I was going to Germany, their first impression was, ‘Oh my God. They don’t relax. They are always working,’” she admits.

“I don’t think it’s necessarily completely true. They are hard workers… But I try to really embrace this idea of balance and giving myself space.”

Melissa adds that she was thrilled to learn that Germany has so many public holidays — nine in total — each year.

“So you get a lot of vacation,” she says, adding that she went from “10 vacation days a year to like 30.”

Melissa loves the fact that people in Germany seem to be “really big on nature,” and she often spends the whole day outside during summertime.

“Actually, I don’t even own a TV,” she says. “That’s the crazy part. I just decided, I really need to embrace this, and it’s got to become part of the lifestyle that I live, which I really, really appreciate.”

When it comes to the cost of living, Melissa has found Germany to be much more affordable than the US, pointing out that she’s able to “fill her fridge” for around 100 euros ($114.)

“Everything’s super accessible, super affordable, and the quality is just so much better,” she says.

“Even when I go back to New York now I actually refrain from buying meat. I just think that the quality has gone down.”

She points out that she feels incredibly secure in the “super safe” country — Germany is often ranked among the safest countries in the world — explaining that she’s had to train herself to stop looking over her shoulder before she puts her key into her apartment door.

”I think the worst thing that’s happened to me was that my bike was stolen one year,” she says,

While she’d initially only planned to spend a few years in Germany, this quickly “turned into eight.”

“And now I’m a permanent resident,” she adds. “So I don’t see myself leaving.”

Melissa was already bilingual when she moved to the country, speaking both French and Italian, as well as English, and assumed that she’d pick up German easily.

However, she “totally underestimated” how hard it would be.

“German is really difficult,” she says, adding that she put a lot of time and effort into mastering the language and is now at a point where she can visit her doctor and speak in German, and text back and forth with her German friends.

“I’m one of those people, when I learn a language, I need to know every single nuance,” she explains.

“And the crazy thing about German is there’s always a reason and a rationale behind everything.”

When questioned about the current political tensions in Germany, where far-right parties have been moving from the political edges to the mainstream in recent years, Melissa says that she’s aware of the headlines, but it isn’t something that has an impact on her day to day life.

“I have not felt the type of political ideologies that make me feel unwelcome or unsafe,” she says, adding that she felt more exposed to political divisiveness while she was in the States.

After nearly a decade in Germany, Melissa can’t ever see herself returning home and feels as though there’s little left for her back in New York.

“Some of my friends are here in Europe,” she says. “And a lot of my other friends have moved to other cities.

“Everybody has left New York. And for me, I grew up there. It was great back then. I don’t really know how I could live there now.”

Melissa has visited various European destinations during her time in Germany, including Italy, France and Spain, and admits that she’s toyed with the idea of moving to the latter, which is where her maternal grandmother is originally from.

However, she says she’s more than happy to stay put for now.

“I’ve always been interested in finding out more about the Spanish side of my family,” she says. “I have not found anybody that is connected to my genetics, unfortunately, here in Europe, at least.

“I think my end goal will be to live in Spain. For now, I’m really quite enjoying living in Germany.”

Melissa says she’d urge anyone considering a move to a new country to be as “open” and “considerate” as possible throughout the process.

“I think being open minded was the biggest thing. You’re uncomfortable all the time,” she says.

“You’re in environments that are completely new to you. Don’t fall back on your tendencies. Embrace the change. Embrace the openness with open arms.

“Everything about a new experience is going to teach you something better, and you’re going to improve yourself.”

Over the years, she’s managed to build up a network of friends in Munich, and was able to lean on her new found community for support when her beloved mother passed away.

“Having that community was such a big thing…” she says. “My friends were really the basis of my support system. And I think that solidified it for me.”

While she misses some aspects of her life in New York, particularly the restaurant scene, the fashion and diversity, Melissa stresses that stepping outside of everything she knew and entering a new space totally on her own has been hugely liberating.

She has absolutely no regrets about her decision to leave the US, and feels as though she’s grown as a person tremendously during her time in Germany.

“I was always around family and friends my whole life,” she explains. “There was always a method and there was always a person to help me out.

“And in this situation, the only person that could help me was myself… I needed to give myself the opportunity to grow.”

New York
CNN
 — 

Exports of American-made spirits hit a record high last year. However, a hangover is about to hit the industry as tariffs threaten to stunt growth, a leading industry group warned.

Exports hit a record $2.4 billion in 2024, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS). In a report released Thursday, the trade group said that last year’s growth is thanks to a rebuilt trading relationship between the US and the European Union. Exports to the EU jumped 39% in 2024 compared to a year prior — a gain put in peril by President Donald Trump’s trade war.

“Unfortunately, ongoing trade disputes unrelated to our sector have caused uncertainty, keeping many US distillers on the sidelines and curtailing sales growth,” said DISCUS President and CEO Chris Swonger in a release.

American-made whiskey in particular stands in the crosshairs of the trade dispute. The EU had removed tariffs on US whiskey in 2022. Since then, exports from the US to the EU have jumped nearly 60% to $699 million, according to data compiled by DISCUS.

The EU was set to levy new tariffs on American whiskey this month, but delayed them after Trump announced a 90-day pause on the so-called retaliatory tariffs against most other nations. Swonger called the pause a “positive first step toward getting the US-EU spirits sectors back to zero-for-zero tariffs and untangling spirits from these trade disputes.”

EU tariffs would be a major blow for American distillers and spirits makers. The bloc is the largest export market for US-made spirits, accounting for about half of all US spirits exports, worth $1.2 billion last year, DISCUS said.

But it’s not just the EU. Canada is the second-largest recipient of US-made spirits, totaling $221 million last year. Canada’s 25% retaliatory tariff on all US spirits that began last month, and the subsequent removal of many American brands from Canadian liquor stores, is causing uncertainty in this year’s outlook with the country, DISCUS said.

Tariffs aren’t the only problem major spirits makers are dealing with. A decrease in demand following a pandemic-induced boom caused US exports of spirits to the rest of the world to drop by nearly 10%, DISCUS said.

That has resulted in layoffs at major distillers, such as at Woodford Reserve and Jack Daniel’s parent company Brown-Forman, and bankruptcies, including Westward Whiskey, a Diageo-backed distillery based in Oregon.

Despite the recent weakness, sales of US spirits have generally grown over the past two-and-a-half decades. Exports have jumped to $2.4 billion in 2024 from $478 million in 2000.

In its report, DISCUS attributed this jump in part to the US spirits sector “having a fair and reciprocal playing field with 51 countries that have provided tariff-free access for US spirits,” including the EU, Canada and Mexico.