United States
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…
Trump and Zelenskyy’s Oval Office Meeting Collapsed Into an Argument. The Bigger Issue Is What Happens When an Alliance Becomes a Negotiation Between Unequal Partners.
The meeting between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House on 28 February was supposed to demonstrate a new economic partnership between the United States and Ukraine. Instead, it ended in an extraordinary…
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 the Ukraine War Must End. The Hard Question Is Whether Ending a War Quickly Can Create the Conditions for the Next One.
The diplomatic structure surrounding the Russia-Ukraine war changed dramatically this week. On 12 February, Donald Trump spoke directly with Vladimir Putin and announced that negotiations to end the war should begin, before speaking separately with…
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…
Donald Trump Is President Again. His First Week Shows That the Central Argument of His Second Term Will Be About How Much a President Can Change Without Congress.
Donald Trump returned to the White House on 20 January and immediately began testing the boundaries of presidential power. Within days, he signed a large wave of executive orders and presidential actions covering immigration, energy,…
Los Angeles Is Burning. The Hardest Climate Question Is No Longer Whether Extreme Events Will Happen, but Who Pays When Risk Becomes Uninsurable.
Los Angeles is experiencing one of the most destructive wildfire disasters in its history. Fires that erupted on 7 January have swept through communities including Pacific Palisades and Altadena, killing at least sixteen people by…
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),…
