Keir Starmer has met Donald Trump at the White House but will his flattering words and invitation from the King be enough to persuade America not to turn its back on Europe and help Ukraine in its fight against the army of Vladimir Putin - or will President Zelenskyy need to give up all his country’s mineral wealth too? 

In this special episode of the Fourcast, Matt Frei is joined at the White House by Channel 4 News Political Editor Gary Gibbon and International Editor Lindsey Hilsum.

Produced by Calum Fraser, Ka Yee Mak and Rob Thomson.

As the war between Russia and Ukraine hits its 3 year mark, Germany elects a new government to join its beleaguered neighbours in trying to get Europe – and President Zelenskyy - out of the mess caused by an aggressive President Putin on its East flank, and an antagonistic President Trump on its West. More money, for more troops, actually on the ground in Ukraine? It’s a move most of Europe seems reluctant to make, but can the continent avoid catastrophe by going it alone?

In this episode of the Fourcast, Matt Frei is joined by the former German ambassador to the US Wolfgang Ischinger, and the former Ukrainian deputy defence minister Alina Frolova

Produced by Calum Fraser, Ka Yee Mak and Rob Thomson.

America’s Marco Rubio and Russia’s Sergey Lavrov have met in Saudi Arabia for Ukraine war peace talks. The US says a peace deal must be "fair, enduring and acceptable to all the parties involved" - not that all the parties - like Ukraine or the Europeans - were invited by Donald Trump to the first round of the talks.

So what do Russia and the US really want to get out from it? And will Russia be brought in from the cold internationally?

To discuss this on this episode of The Fourcast, Matt Frei is joined by Bronwen Maddox, the Director of the international think tank Chatham House, and Channel 4 News’ International Editor Lindsey Hilsum.

Produced by Silvia Maresca, Ka Yee Mak and Rob Thomson.

As Trump is invited to Moscow and praises Putin after a call with the Russian leader about peace negotiations, his defence secretary Pete Hegseth says American troops will not go to Ukraine as peacekeepers as part of any future deal with Russia. He also announced Ukraine will never be part of NATO and needs to say goodbye to territory seized by Russia.

In this episode of the Fourcast, Matt Frei discusses all of this and more with Channel 4 News’ international editor Lindsey Hilsum.

Produced by Calum Fraser, Helene Cacace and Ka Yee Mak.

Donald Trump has spent the week turning the world upside down again - launching a trade war with China and claiming America will take over the Gaza Strip - and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is scrambling to work out how best to respond to the American president.

Sir Keir met with EU leaders earlier in the week for post-Brexit reset, but the prospect of closer ties comes just as Donald Trump has the EU in his crosshairs - saying he’ll slap tariffs on the bloc, while suggesting he might spare the UK. 

So, the prime minister is walking a tightrope that stretches across both the Channel and the Atlantic, will he keep the balancing act going or topple over? In this week’s episode of the Fourcast, Gary Gibbon is joined by Michael Gove, cabinet minister under four Conservative Prime Ministers and now editor of the Spectator, journalist and biographer of Keir Starmer, Tom Baldwin. And head of the Europe programme at the Chatham House think tank, Armida van Rij .

Produced by Silvia Maresca, Calum Fraser, Ka Yee Mak, Rob Thomson.

Donald Trump, with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his side, has said the US should take over Gaza, own it, and turn it into the "Riviera of the Middle East", but within hours of these comments Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Palestinians have rejected the suggestion outright.

So what is Donald Trump really up to? Is this a serious proposal, a negotiating position or the dreams of a reality show star on the world stage?

On this episode of the Fourcast, Krishnan Guru-Murthy is joined by our Foreign Affairs Correspondent Secunder Kermani and the Palestinian journalist Yousef Hammash, who reported from inside Gaza for Channel 4 News from October 2023.

Produced by Silvia Maresca, Ka Yee Mak, Rob Thomson, Calum Fraser.

Donald Trump’s long promised trade war has begun, sort of - the US president threatened to slap tariffs on America’s biggest trading partners, before backtracking and striking a deal with Mexico and Canada. But a 10% tariff on Chinese goods has come into force and Beijing has retaliated by imposing hefty levies on a range of American imports and vowing to investigate Google over antitrust allegations. 

So will Trump’s tariff wars totally backfire? And how should other world leaders, including Keir Starmer, react?

In this episode of the Fourcast, Krishnan Guru-Murthy is joined by Greece’s former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis and Erica York of the Tax Foundation think tank.

Produced by Calum Fraser, Silvia Maresca, Rob Thomson, Ka Yee Mak and Amani Hughes.

In a major speech on growing the UK economy, Chancellor Rachel Reeves says she will make Cambridge and Oxford the “Silicon Valley of Europe” and build a third runway at Heathrow Airport - which is now backed by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer even though he opposed it in the past. So will Labour deliver? Can Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves really get the economy firing again? And will it be enough to turn around their recent political woes?

Discussing this and more in this episode of the Fourcast, Krishnan Guru-Murthy is joined by Gillian Tett, Financial Times columnist, and Rupert Harrison, senior advisor at Macro Advisory Partners and former advisor to Goerge Osborne when he was chancellor.

Produced by Silvia Maresca, Calum Fraser, Rob Thomson and Ka Yee Mak.

In Donald Trump’s speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos he said, again, that he wants a peace deal with Vladimir Putin over the war in Ukraine, again suggested Canada could become part of America and again raised the spectre of tariffs that economists say could devastate the global economy, so what is the new American president’s vision of the world order and how will he deal with China and Xi Jinping’s claims over Taiwan?

In his inaugural address President Trump said America would expand its territory, what does this actually mean? A future land grab? Or just a more aggressive American influence in parts of the world? And what does it mean for some of worlds’ other strongmen, who have their own expansionist ambitions?

In this episode of the Fourcast, Matt Frei is joined by Nina Khrushcheva, professor of international affairs at the New School, and Lindsey Hilsum, Channel 4 News’ international editor.

Produced by Calum Fraser, Silvia Maresca, Rob Thomson, Ka Yee Mak and Amani Huges.

Hours after Donald Trump was sworn in as the 47th president of the United States of America, he signed executive orders to take the US out of the World Health Organisation and the Paris Climate Accords; around 1,500 January 6 rioters were freed; a national emergency at the US-Mexico border was declared, he made the designation of two genders an official government policy and the TikTok ban was paused - and that’s before he made off-hand comments on whether the fragile ceasefire in Gaza will last.

To discuss all this and more in this edition of the Fourcast, Matt Frei is joined by Nayyera Haq, senior director of the Obama White House and Deana Bass Williams, a Republican strategist.

Produced by Calum Fraser, Silvia Maresca, Rob Thomson, Gracie Jerome, Amani Hughes and Ka Yee Mak.

Donald Trump is set to be sworn in as President of the United States of America for the second time - but, from TikTok and the southern border, to Ukraine and the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza - he faces even bigger challenges than he did eight years ago.

Will he really end the Ukraine war on day one, pardon the January 6 rioters in the “first hour” and potentially bring back TikTok? And while his personal brand of right-wing populism is totally dominant now, will there be a progressive backlash or resistance?

In this week’s episode of the Fourcast, Matt Frei is joined by Channel 4 News's very own America experts - Siobhan Kennedy and Kiran Moodley.

Produced by Calum Fraser, Rob Thomson, Ka Yee Mak.