Asia
Trump Finally Announced His “Liberation Day” Tariffs. Markets Lost Trillions. The Most Important Problem May Not Be the Tariffs Themselves, but Whether Anyone Knows How Long They Will Last.
Donald Trump’s promised “Liberation Day” arrived on 2 April, and the scale of the policy was considerably larger than markets expected. The administration announced a 10% baseline tariff on virtually all US imports, alongside substantially…
Trump Is About to Announce His Biggest Tariffs Yet. The Real Change Is That Free Trade Is No Longer the Default Assumption of American Politics.
Donald Trump is preparing what he has called “Liberation Day” on 2 April, when his administration is expected to announce a major new package of tariffs against American trading partners. The exact structure has not…
Trump Has Ordered Major Strikes on Yemen’s Houthis. The Problem Is That Destroying Missiles Is Easier Than Destroying the Incentive to Keep Firing Them.
Donald Trump ordered a major new American military campaign against Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen on 15 March, after the Iran-aligned movement threatened to resume attacks on shipping connected to Israel in response to restrictions on…
Assad Is Gone. Now Syria Faces the Test That Determines Whether a Revolution Becomes a State: Can the Winners Protect the People Associated With the Losers?
Syria’s transition has entered its most dangerous moment since Bashar al-Assad fled Damascus in December. Over the past several days, fighting and sectarian violence have erupted across the country’s Mediterranean coastal region after gunmen associated…
Germany Has Voted. The Centre-Right Won, the Far Right Surged, and the Parties Actually Governing the Country Were Punished.
Germany voted today in an election that may prove more important than an ordinary change of government. Early results put Friedrich Merz’s CDU/CSU first with roughly 29% of the vote, positioning him to become the…
Trump Says America Could “Take Over” Gaza. The Proposal Reveals a Larger Problem: Reconstruction Is Easy to Discuss When the People Living There Are Treated as Variables Rather Than Political Actors.
Donald Trump produced one of the most extraordinary foreign-policy proposals of his presidency this week. Standing beside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on 4 February, Trump said the United States could…
Trump Has Started a Trade War With America’s Closest Trading Partners. The Question Is Whether Tariffs Create Leverage Faster Than They Create Costs.
Donald Trump has begun implementing one of the central promises of his second presidential campaign. On 1 February, he ordered a 25% tariff on most imports from Canada and Mexico and an additional 10% tariff…
Israel and Hamas Have Reached a Ceasefire Deal. The Hard Part Was Getting to an Agreement. The Harder Part May Be Making Sure Neither Side Decides It Is Better Off Breaking It.
A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect today, beginning the first phase of an agreement intended to pause more than fifteen months of war in Gaza and secure the release of Israeli hostages in…
2024 Was the Year Voters Punished Governments. 2025 May Be the Year We Find Out Whether the Alternatives Can Govern Better.
The first week of 2025 begins after an extraordinary year of political turnover. Donald Trump is preparing to return to the White House, Labour governs Britain with a huge parliamentary majority, France has lost the…
Jimmy Carter Has Died at 100. His Life Is a Reminder That Losing an Election Does Not Have to Be the End of Political Relevance.
Former US President Jimmy Carter died today at his home in Plains, Georgia, aged 100, making him the longest-lived president in American history. Carter served only one term, from 1977 to 1981, and left office…
Assad Is Gone. Now Syria Has to Avoid the Mistake That Has Destroyed So Many Revolutions: Winning the War and Losing the State.
Two weeks after the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s government, Syria is beginning the much less dramatic and much more difficult process of determining what replaces it. Ahmed al-Sharaa, the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS),…
Bashar al-Assad’s Government Has Collapsed. After Thirteen Years of Civil War, the Hardest Question Is Who Actually Owns the Victory.
Syria has undergone one of the most dramatic political collapses of the twenty-first century. On 8 December, rebel forces entered Damascus and Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia, ending more than fifty years of rule by…
