[Apr 19th 2025]

The world this week

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The world this week

Politics
Business
The weekly cartoon
This week’s cover
The Economist :: How we saw the world

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The world this week

Politics
4月 16, 2025 07:03 上午

Russia was widely denounced for its missile strikes on the city of
Sumy in Ukraine, which killed 35 people. Russia claimed that it had
targeted a meeting of Ukrainian commanders. The UN Human Rights
Monitoring Mission in Ukraine reported a 50% rise in civilian
casualties from Russian attacks during March. Friedrich Merz,
Germany’s incoming chancellor, described the attack on Sumy as “a
serious war crime” and suggested that he was ready to start
supplying Ukraine with Taurus cruise missiles. Two days earlier
Ukraine’s allies, led by Britain and Germany, confirmed that they will
give Ukraine €21bn ($24bn) in military support.

Before the attack Donald Trump said “Russia has to get moving·” on
peace talks. Mr Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, held a four-hour
meeting with Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg to discuss aspects of a
ceasefire. Reports emerged that America won’t endorse a G7
statement condemning Russia’s strike on Sumy because it wants to
keep the talks alive.

The United Kingdom’s Supreme Court unanimously ruled that “the

terms woman and sex in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological
woman and biological sex”. The case was brought by a women’s
rights group against the Scottish government, which had said that
the word “woman” could also include transwomen (natal males) who
have a “gender recognition certificate”. The court pointed out that
the Equality Act also separately gives transgender people protection
from discrimination and harassment.

The government led by Viktor Orban in Hungary continued its

suppression of gay rights, as parliament passed constitutional
measures that the government claims will protect children by
safeguarding them against “ideological influences” such as Pride
parades, which have already been banned. Mr Orban is shoring up
his conservative-populist base ahead of next year’s election.

A diplomatic spat between France and Algeria intensified when the

French authorities charged an Algerian consular official and two
other men with the brief abduction last year of Amir Boukhors, a
critic of the Algerian government who is followed by 1m people on
TikTok. In response Algeria expelled 12 French embassy workers,
which prompted France to expel 12 Algerian consular staff and recall
its ambassador from Algiers.

An innocent abroad

The Trump administration confirmed that Kilmar Abrego Garcia·, a

Salvadorean migrant whom the government admits was wrongly
deported to a jail in El Salvador, was “alive and secure”. The
Supreme Court has ruled that the government should facilitate his
return. The judge overseeing the case criticised the government for
doing “nothing” so far.

Meanwhile, El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele·, visited the

White House and said he would not return Mr Abrego Garcia,
comparing him to a terrorist, even though he has not been charged
with a crime. Mr Bukele is positioning himself as a regional ally of
Donald Trump and has struck a deal that allows America to deport
alleged gang members to a prison in El Salvador.

Daniel Noboa· was re-elected as Ecuador’s president by a

comfortable margin of victory. His opponent from the left, Luisa
González, said Mr Noboa’s declaration of a state of emergency in
seven states where she enjoys widespread support was intended to
suppress her vote.

Iran and America held a first round of talks in Oman about Iran’s
nuclear programme. It was the highest-level meeting between the
two countries since 2018. Both sides described the talks as
“constructive”. Steve Witkoff, Mr Trump’s envoy, said that Iran would
have to abandon its enrichment programme. Previously he had
suggested that it could be allowed to enrich uranium at a low level in
a new nuclear deal. The negotiations will continue.

An Israeli air strike destroyed parts of the last fully functioning

hospital in Gaza City. Medics said they received only 20 minutes’
warning before the attack. There were no casualties but one girl
died because she was unable to get the care she needed. Israel said
it was targeting a Hamas command-and-control centre there.

Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema, who took power in Gabon in a coup in

2023, won the country’s presidential election with 90% of the vote,
cementing his hold on the state. The vote took place under a new
constitution and electoral code designed to ensure his victory.

Two years into Sudan’s civil war more than 200 civilians were
killed in attacks by the Rapid Support Forces in Darfur. The rebels
targeted el-Fasher, the last city in the region still under the control of
the Sudanese government, and surrounding refugee camps. Among
those killed were the entire medical staff of Relief International, who
were operating the last remaining clinic inside Zamzam camp.

Tanzania’s main opposition party was disqualified from elections

scheduled for later this year, days after the party’s leader, Tundu
Lissu·, was arrested and charged with treason. Tanzania’s ruling
party has governed the country uninterrupted since independence
from Britain in 1961, and is keen to ensure it continues to do so.

Barrick Gold, one of the world’s biggest gold miners, said that the
government of Mali had escalated its dispute with the company by
closing its office in Bamako, the capital, and threatening to place a
mine under administration. Barrick suspended operations at the mine
in January when the government stopped it from exporting gold.
The firm said progress on a deal was being obstructed by “a small
group of individuals placing personal or political interests” above
those of the Malian people.
China and Vietnam signed dozens of co-operation agreements on
everything from AI to joint maritime patrols to railway development.
The agreements came as China’s leader, Xi Jinping, visited Vietnam
on the first leg of his tour of South-East Asia. Mr Xi warned that
protectionism “leads nowhere” and that a trade war would have “no
winners”.

The Democratic Party in Hong Kong held a preliminary vote among

members to dissolve itself. The news marks a symbolic moment for
the former British territory. For decades the Democrats were the
city’s largest opposition party, but a new national security law in
2020 led to its leaders being arrested and imprisoned amid a more
general crackdown on free expression.

Singapore is to hold a general election on May 3rd. The People’s

Action Party, which has been in power since independence in 1965,
is all but guaranteed another victory, though the prime minister,
Lawrence Wong, wants to ensure a bigger mandate. The PAP took
61% of the vote in 2020, down from 70% in 2015.

Harvard University refused to comply with the Trump

administration’s demands that academic departments must have
diverse views and that it curb the power of students and faculty,
among other things. In a defiant message, the university referred to
its constitutional rights and said no government should dictate what
private colleges can teach. The government promptly carried out its
threat to freeze $2.2bn in grants to Harvard.

Not on the same page

The Pentagon sacked the commander in charge of America’s space

base in Greenland, after she criticised a recent visit there by J.D.
Vance, the vice-president. Mr Vance had said during his trip that
Denmark was failing to protect its territory from Russia. Colonel
Susannah Meyers reportedly responded that his views did not reflect
those of Pituffik Space Base. The Pentagon said that Colonel
Meyers’s remarks were subversive.
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The world this week

Business
4月 16, 2025 08:32 上午

The Trump administration’s chaotic pronouncements on tariffs

caused more uncertainty among investors. America’s customs
agency said that smartphones, computers and chips, among other
things, would be exempt from Donald Trump’s punitive levies, only
for the president to say later that the exemptions would be
temporary, as nobody is getting “off the hook”. Tech products will be
exempt from reciprocal tariffs for a time but included in other duties
on the chip industry that may be two months away, said Howard
Lutnick, the commerce secretary, sowing more confusion. Mr Trump
also said he was looking to help car companies, though without
saying how.
In a regulatory filing Nvidia warned that it expects to book a $5.5bn
charge as it will now have to obtain special licences to sell its H20
chip in China. America’s Commerce Department issued new export
restrictions to China on the H20 and AMD’s MI308 chip to “safeguard
our national and economic security”. Both chips are used in artificial-
intelligence applications.

China continued its retaliations in the trade war. It emerged that

the country’s shipments of a range of rare-earth metals critical to the
production of electric vehicles have come to a halt after they were
subjected to export controls. The government also reportedly told
Chinese airlines not to accept deliveries of Boeing aircraft.
Meanwhile, China’s exports rose sharply in March, an indication that
companies rushed to fulfil orders before tariffs took full effect. That
helped GDP grow by a robust 5.4% in the first quarter, year on year.

Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and

Morgan Stanley reported a surge in revenues from trading stocks
in the first three months of the year, boosted by the volatility in the
markets. Goldman’s equity traders had their best quarter ever.
Revenues from market trading at JPMorgan Chase were up by 21%,
year on year.

Britain’s annual inflation rate fell in March to 2.6%. Inflation is

widely expected to pick up again later this year in part because of a
steep rise in utility bills for households.

Not happy
A survey of American consumer sentiment published by the
University of Michigan showed a sharp fall in April. The index
registered a reading of 50.8. That was the second-lowest score since
the survey began in 1952, though it was taken before Mr Trump
announced some relief from his tariffs. Expectations of higher
inflation rose sharply. The decline in sentiment is “pervasive and
unanimous across age, income, education, geographic region and
political affiliation”, said the survey’s director.

The Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust trial against Meta· got

under way in Washington. The regulator argues that the acquisitions
of Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014 by Facebook, as it was
then, were intended to hobble competition and that Meta has since
built “monopoly power” in personal social-networking, a narrow
definition that excludes the likes of X and LinkedIn. If the FTC wins
its case Meta could be forced to break up its social-media empire.

Intel struck a deal to sell a 51% stake in its Altera business to Silver
Lake, a private-equity firm, for $4.5bn. It is Intel’s first big sale of a
non-core asset since Lip-Bu Tan became chief executive in March.
The deal values Altera at $8.75bn. Intel paid nearly $17bn for it in
2015.

The Chinese owner of British Steel, Jingye Group, said that it was
on the brink of closing Britain’s last blast furnaces in Scunthorpe,
warning that the plant was losing £700,000 ($925,000) a day. The
closure would have left the country as the only G7 member without
primary steel production. The government recalled Parliament to
pass emergency legislation to keep the facility going and give the
government direct control over British Steel·
https://t.me/+NA8muckncd4yNDUx. A £2.5bn fund will help
maintain production.

NATO announced that it had recently procured Palantir’s Maven

Smart System, which provides AI military capabilities to the alliance’s
operations and “data-enabled warfighting”. It was one of NATO’s
quickest ever procurements, taking only six months from outlining
the requirements to obtaining the system.

Handbags at dawn

LVMH’s share price slumped after it announced a steep decline in

sales of fashion and leather products. Demand remained subdued in
China, which used to be a big source of growth for the luxury-goods
industry. In a bad week for LVMH its stock fell so far after its
announcement that its market capitalisation was overtaken by
Hermès, a rival Parisian luxury house that it had once tried to buy.
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The world this week

The weekly cartoon

4月 16, 2025 08:14 上午

Dig deeper into the subject of this week’s cartoon

Trump’s incoherent trade policy will do lasting damage

The tariff madness of King Donald, explained
America’s financial system came close to the brink

The editorial cartoon appears weekly in The Economist. You can see
last week’s here.

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this-week/2025/04/16/the-weekly-cartoon
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The Economist

This week’s cover

How we saw the world
4月 17, 2025 07:26 上午

WE HAD ONE worldwide cover this week, sketching out the risks of
a dollar crisis. Our task was to cut through the market hubbub to
make our message clear. We settled on two possible approaches,
humour and alarm.

For decades American assets have been the bedrock of global

finance. The dollar dominates trade; Treasuries have been a haven;
and the Federal Reserve, the Treasury and the courts have
encouraged investors—including foreigners—to believe that their
money is welcome in America, and safe there, too.

The dollar has been falling even as Treasury yields have risen.
Investors are beginning to wonder whether their faith in America is
misplaced.

We started with a dollar-shaped off-ramp, featuring investors

abandoning what had seemed the endless straight path of American
economic policy. This design had the right elements: once the envy
of the world, America’s economy is now courting recession, as tariffs
rupture supply chains, boost inflation and punish consumers.
America’s historically bad fiscal position is becoming even worse.

But the idea lacked drama: turning off the motorway is neither
perilous nor unusual.
Option two was a grounded, eagle-shaped plane. The slides and life-
rafts had been deployed. And there was a little fire extinguisher that
was clearly unequal to the job.

The fact that this depicted an emergency lent the idea some
urgency, even if the execution looked more like a pre-flight safety
briefing than the real thing. And our editorial does indeed argue that
you can imagine how rising borrowing costs, a weakening economy
and a loss of credibility could make America’s fiscal deficit
unsustainable. That scenario is more typical of emerging markets
than of a financial haven.

The next idea was to use one of Donald Trump’s favourite black
Sharpies to deface the dollar bill. Over the 13-layered pyramid, a
symbol of the republic’s resilience, and therefore just in front of the
“ONE” on the bill, we scrawled a big fat “N”.

This was right in the sense that the dollar-crisis-in-the-making was

created in the White House. The shambolic, incoherent way Mr
Trump and his administration calculated and administered the tariffs
(or not) has made a mockery of policymaking.

But the design was wrong in the sense that the dollar does not have
to be worthless for America to be in trouble. Even by the elastic
standards of our cover imagery, an exaggeration on this scale would
have been unwise.

George Washington in an ejector seat shooting away from his

position on a dollar bill was funnier. For decades America has
carefully signalled its dedication to a strong dollar. Today some White
House advisers are talking about the reserve currency as if it were a
burden to be shared—using coercion if necessary.

Inevitably, the Federal Reserve is under strain. In a crisis, it would

not want to appear to be monetising the debt of an uncreditworthy
government—especially risky when inflation is high. Could it strike
the right balance between emergency lending and monetary
financing?

Some of us thought that this image was wrong, however, because it

is not Washington who is deserting the dollar, but investors,
including foreigners who own $8.5trn of government debt, a bit
under a third of the total.

A prison-style break-out, with knotted sheets hanging down from a

hole in the middle of the buck, did not quite solve that problem, in
that Washington had gone AWOL here, too. But at least the sheets
suggested that others had escaped with him. And indeed, rumours
are rife that big foreign asset managers are dumping dollars.

This was a fresh design and some of us would have chosen it as the
cover. But it failed to get across the nauseous, stomach-churning
drama of a true market run.

To evoke that sensation we turned to Edvard Munch. Our designer

has replaced the cadaverous face in the original with an inverted
money bag about to spill its dollars.

It is worryingly easy to set out how a crisis could unfold. Over the
next year America must refinance $9trn of debt. If demand for
Treasuries weakens, the impact will quickly feed through to the
budget. Covid-19 required Congress to spend its way out of trouble.
A crisis today would be much harder to manage, because Congress
would have to axe entitlements or raise taxes—and have just hours
or days to win Mr Trump’s backing. As America dithered, the shock
could spread from Treasuries to the rest of the financial system,
bringing defaults and hedge-fund blow-ups.

A currency is only as good as the government that backs it. Our

scream is not a prediction, but it is a warning.
Leader: How a dollar crisis would unfold
Finance & economics: How Trump might topple the dollar
Finance & economics: Can the euro go global?
Finance & economics: Poor countries would miss King Dollar.
Free exchange: Hell is other people’s currencies·
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Leaders
How a dollar crisis would unfold
Biting the hand that funds :: If investors keep selling American assets, a grim fate
awaits the world economy

In its pursuit of a policy, Donald Trump’s

government is content to destroy a man
What’s at stake in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia

Zuckerberg on trial: why Meta deserves to

win
Swipe it away :: Social media has plenty of problems. Lack of competition isn’t one of
them

Brazil’s Supreme Court is on trial

The rule of law :: How a superstar judge illuminates an excessive concentration of
power

Don’t overlook the many benefits of

plastics
In praise of plastics :: If they are a problem, it is because they are badly managed

The lesson of Birmingham’s striking binmen

Something rotten :: The moment is ripe to reform Britain’s equal-pay rules

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Biting the hand that funds

How a dollar crisis would

unfold
If investors keep selling American assets, a grim fate awaits the
world economy
4月 16, 2025 11:36 下午
THE DOLLAR is meant to be a source of safety. Lately, however, it
has been a cause of fear. Since its peak in mid-January the
greenback has fallen by over 9% against a basket of major
currencies. Two-fifths of that fall has happened since April 1st, even
as the yield on ten-year Treasuries has crept up by 0.2 percentage
points. That mix of rising yields and a falling currency is a warning
sign: if investors are fleeing even though returns are up, it must be
because they think America has become more risky. Rumours are
rife that big foreign asset managers are dumping greenbacks.

For decades investors have counted on the stability of American

assets, making them the keystones of global finance·. The depth of
a $27trn market helps make Treasuries a haven; the dollar
dominates trade in everything from goods and commodities to
derivatives. The system is buttressed by the Federal Reserve, which
promises low inflation, and by America’s sturdy governance, under
which foreigners and their money have been welcome and secure.
In just a few weeks President Donald Trump has replaced these
ironclad assumptions with stomach-churning doubts.

This crisis-in-the-making was created in the White House. Mr

Trump’s reckless trade war has raised tariffs by roughly a factor of
ten and created economic uncertainty. Once the envy of the world,
America’s economy is now courting recession, as tariffs rupture
supply chains, boost inflation and punish consumers.

This comes as America’s historically bad fiscal position is becoming

even worse. Net debts stand at about 100% of GDP; the budget
deficit over the past year, of 7%, was astonishingly high for a
healthy economy. Yet in its quest to renew and extend tax cuts from
Mr Trump’s first term, Congress wants to borrow still more. On April
10th it approved a budget blueprint that could add $5.8trn in deficits
over the next decade, according to the Committee for a Responsible
Federal Budget, a think-tank. That would boost the deficit by
another 2 percentage points and exceeds the combined total value
of Mr Trump’s first-term tax cuts, the extra spending in the covid-19
pandemic and Joe Biden’s stimulus and infrastructure bills. It could
double the pace at which the debt-to-GDP ratio rises in the coming
years.

How Trump might topple the dollar·

Can the euro go global?·
Hell is other people’s currencies·
What makes this economic downturn and the loss of fiscal discipline
so explosive is the fact that markets are starting to doubt whether
Mr Trump can govern America competently or consistently. The
shambolic, incoherent way the tariffs were calculated, unveiled and
delayed was a mockery of policymaking. On-again, off-again
exemptions and sectoral tariffs promote lobbying. For decades
America has carefully signalled its dedication to a strong dollar.
Today some White House advisers are talking about the reserve
currency as if it were a burden to be shared—using coercion if
necessary.

Inevitably, this puts the Federal Reserve under strain. Mr Trump is

pressing the central bank to cut interest rates. The courts are likely
to stop him sacking Fed governors at will, but he will be able to
nominate a pliant new Fed chair in 2026. Meanwhile, the president’s
other policies—such as shipping undocumented migrants to El
Salvador without a hearing·, or harassing law firms that displease
him—make it possible to think that foreign creditors’ rights could
suffer.

All this has created a risk premium for American assets. The
shocking thing is that a full-blown bond-market crisis is also easy to
imagine. Foreigners own $8.5trn of government debt, a bit under a
third of the total; more than half of that is held by private investors,
who cannot be cajoled by diplomacy or threatened with tariffs.
America must refinance $9trn of debt over the next year. If demand
for Treasuries weakens, the impact will quickly feed through to the
budget, which, owing to high debts and short maturities, is sensitive
to interest rates.

What would Congress do then? When markets collapsed during the

global financial crisis and the pandemic, it acted forcefully. But those
crises required it to spend, not to impose cuts. This time it would
need to take an axe to entitlements and raise taxes quickly. You
need only consider the make-up of Congress and the White House to
see that the markets might have to impose a lot of pain before the
government could agree on what to do. As America dithered, the
shock could spread from Treasuries to the rest of the financial
system, bringing defaults and hedge-fund blow-ups. That is the sort
of behaviour you would expect in an emerging market.

The Fed, for its part, would face a painful dilemma. It could buy
assets to steady the ship. But it would not want to appear to be
monetising the debt of an uncreditworthy government—an especially
risky move when inflation is high. Could it strike the balance
between emergency lending and monetary financing? And if it was
not bailing out Mr Trump, would he approve of it lending dollars to
foreign central banks that lack liquidity, as it usually does in a crisis?

A currency is only as good as the government that backs it. The

longer America’s political system fails to grapple with its deficits or
flirts with chaotic or discriminatory rules, the more likely will be a
once-in-a-generation upheaval that pushes the global financial
system into the unknown. Wherever things settled, the greenback’s
diminished role would be a tragedy for America. True, some
exporters would benefit from a weaker currency. But the dollar’s
primacy reduces the cost of capital for everyone, from first-time
homebuyers to blue-chip firms.

Biting the hand that funds

The world would suffer because the dollar has no equal—just pale
imitations. The euro is backed by a big economy, but the euro zone
does not produce enough safe assets. Switzerland is safe but small.
Japan is big, but has its own vast debts. Gold and cryptocurrencies
lack state backing. As investors tried one asset and then another, the
hunt for safety could bring about destabilising booms and busts. The
dollar system is not perfect, but it provides the stable ground on
which today’s globalised economy is built. When investors doubt
America’s creditworthiness, those foundations are in danger of
cracking. ■
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up to our weekly Cover Story newsletter.
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Leaders

In its pursuit of a policy,

Donald Trump’s government
is content to destroy a man
What’s at stake in the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia
4月 17, 2025 12:23 上午

KILMAR ABREGO GARCIA moved to America illegally when he was

16. His lawyers say his parents sent him north after a gang in El
Salvador threatened to kidnap him and rape his sisters. Eight years
after coming to America, he was detained while looking for work in a
Home Depot car park. Maryland’s police thought he might be a gang
member, though that claim was never tested in court. His case was
heard by an immigration judge, who denied Mr Abrego Garcia’s
asylum claim. But the judge ruled that he could not be deported
because he had a well-founded fear of persecution, and so he was
released. This is how the law works in America: it can be slow,
evidence is not always clear and judgments can frustrate everyone.

Then the law broke down. In defiance of that ruling, Mr Abrego

Garcia was deported to El Salvador in March, without a trial or a
chance to appeal, and put in a prison that specialises in the
degrading treatment of alleged gang members. Then the Trump
administration said it had made a mistake. The Supreme Court
issued a 9-0 ruling that the federal government should “facilitate” his
return to America.

A few days later Nayib Bukele, El Salvador’s president, appeared in

the Oval Office and was asked about Mr Abrego Garcia. He could not
possibly return a “terrorist” to the United States, he said. President
Donald Trump, usually quick to assert his power over others, smiled
as if to say: I would so like to obey the Supreme Court, but what
can you do?

Governments have the right to deport people who migrate illegally.

Mr Trump promised a campaign of mass deportation and voters gave
him a mandate to carry it out. In Mr Abrego Garcia, the
administration has picked a soft target. An illegal immigrant, tainted
by the allegation of being a gang member, he will not command the
sympathy of many Americans. As a non-citizen, he does not enjoy
the full panoply of protections. Even so, Mr Abrego Garcia does have
rights, and by trampling them Mr Trump is undermining the rule of
law.

Many of America’s freedoms were established by plaintiffs whom the

majority condemned. The right to free expression of every
churchgoing midwesterner is underpinned by court rulings in favour
of a Ku Klux Klan leader (in Brandenburg v Ohio), a pornographer
(Hustler Magazine v Falwell) and a man who burned an American
flag outside a Republican convention (Texas v Johnson). The courts
upheld their rights, and thereby secured the rights of everyone else.
The Trump administration is turning this idea on its head.

In addition, the administration cannot deny someone the protection

of the courts just because they are not a citizen. Even the detainees
at Guantánamo Bay, site of the worst abuse of domestic liberties
ordered by the White House this century, could appeal to a judicial
process of sorts. Mr Abrego Garcia had expressly been spared from
deportation to El Salvador. Mr Trump’s grin mocked the principle that
America is a place where the government cannot suspend rights
whenever it chooses and where the head of government willingly
defers to the highest court. In other words, that America is not El
Salvador·.

Last, Mr Abrego Garcia’s case shows that the Trump administration is

prepared to destroy a man’s life in pursuit of its policies. The right
not to be locked up indefinitely without trial, or habeas corpus, is
absolute and a fundamental principle by which people can limit the
arbitrary exercise of state power. Even by the time of Thomas
Jefferson’s first inaugural address it had existed in common law for
centuries. Jefferson called it one of the elements forming a “bright
constellation” that had guided the young nation through revolution
and reformation. That is still true. But as long as Mr Abrego Garcia
remains in El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Centre, that
constellation will be dimmed—and Americans should worry. ■

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which brings together the best of our leaders, columns, guest essays
and reader correspondence.
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Swipe it away

Zuckerberg on trial: why Meta

deserves to win
Social media has plenty of problems. Lack of competition isn’t one of
them
4月 16, 2025 07:35 上午

THE $23M pied-à-terre that Mark Zuckerberg bought last month in

Washington, DC, is a seven-bathroom testament to Meta’s devotion
to lobbying. As well as donating $1m to Donald Trump’s presidential-
inauguration fund and shelling out $25m to settle a spurious lawsuit
from the president, Meta has MAGAfied its board, appointing allies
such as Dana White and, last week, Dina Powell, who served in Mr
Trump’s first administration (John Elkann, the boss of Exor, which
part-owns The Economist’s parent company, is also a director). Mr
Zuckerberg has dined at Mar-a-Lago and visited the White House.

The reason for this frantic schmoozing is a blockbuster antitrust trial

that began on April 14th and which threatens to break up Mr
Zuckerberg’s $1.3trn empire. The stakes are high and the politics are
low. But what matters is that the claim the Federal Trade
Commission (FTC), America’s competition watchdog, has brought
against Meta deserves to fail.

The complaint, launched in 2020, alleges that Meta (then called

Facebook) illegally maintained its social-media monopoly when it
bought Instagram and WhatsApp, two smaller rivals, several years
earlier. Though the FTC approved both transactions at the time, it
now wants them undone. To establish that Meta is a monopolist, the
trustbusters have described its market as “personal social
networking”. This is a tendentiously narrow definition that excludes
obvious rivals such as X, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Reddit. On this
view, the world’s biggest social-media company competes only with
Snapchat, a much smaller rival, and MeWe, an even tinier one.

The FTC’s argument was never compelling, and in the years since
the complaint was filed it has only become less persuasive. Despite
the FTC’s claim that network effects create insurmountable barriers
to entry, the past few years have seen a rush of successful social-
media startups. Some have fizzled, like Clubhouse and BeReal.
Others remain small, such as Bluesky and Mr Trump’s own Truth
Social. But the arrival of TikTok, which has attracted more than
1.5bn users worldwide, makes a mockery of the idea that the market
is closed.

Competition has intensified in other ways, too. Thanks partly to

TikTok’s innovation, social apps now revolve around video. That has
pitched Meta into competition with giants such as YouTube, whose
“Shorts” feature mimics the TikTok-like vertical clips that also play on
Facebook and Instagram. Moreover, once-distinct media markets are
converging. Spotify, originally a music service, is pushing into video;
Roblox, a gaming platform, acts as a social network for many
teenagers. As competition spreads across previously separate
categories, the FTC’s narrow market definition looks ever sillier.

What of the experience for consumers, whose interests the FTC

exists to defend? The regulator argues that a shortage of
competition has created worse products, citing an overload of ads on
Meta’s apps. But the idea that consumers have been poorly served
by the social-media market in recent years is hard to square with the
hours of extra time they are devoting to it. By one estimate nearly
half of all mobile screen time worldwide is spent browsing social
media (and about a quarter of all waking hours are spent on
phones).

Ask a parent if they have any concerns about social media and they
will chew your ear off, but they are unlikely to complain that their
child is short of social apps. Indeed, consumers’ behaviour suggests
that—for better or worse—they have seldom encountered a market
they find so captivating.

The shaky case has come to trial at an appropriately farcical

moment. As the FTC sets out its claim that Meta faces insufficient
competition, the firm’s main rival, TikTok, hangs in legal limbo.
Distribution of the Chinese-owned app in America has been outlawed
since the beginning of Mr Trump’s presidency. But he has ordered
the authorities to ignore the ban—for 75 days, then 150—while he
negotiates the app’s sale to an American buyer. No one has the
faintest idea whether the app will still be around by the time Meta’s
trial is over. How can any serious judgment on competition in social
media be made without knowing the fate of TikTok, its greatest
disruptive force?

What began as a thin case has become progressively weaker, and

now looks downright absurd. The court should waste no time in
swiping it up and away. ■
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The rule of law

Brazil’s Supreme Court is on

trial
How a superstar judge illuminates an excessive concentration of
power
4月 16, 2025 07:03 上午

BRAZILIAN DEMOCRACY has taken a beating over the past two

decades and much of the blame lies with its rotten politicians. Every
president since 2003 has been accused of breaking the law. Dilma
Rousseff was impeached for fiddling public accounts. Luiz Inácio Lula
da Silva, known as Lula, was jailed for corruption and is now
president again. Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right agitator, allegedly plotted
a coup to stay in power after losing the election in 2022, and will
soon be put on trial. But Brazil’s democracy has another problem:
judges with too much power. And no figure embodies that more than
Alexandre de Moraes·, who sits on the Supreme Court. His record
shows that judicial power needs to be pared back.

Brazil’s Supreme Court has inexorably gained clout and prestige as

the executive branch has lost legitimacy and Congress has been
mired in gridlock and scandal. Since ruling on a big corruption case
in 2012 the court has become more willing to assert its powers. Mr
Bolsonaro’s dangerous, anti-democratic behaviour, both in office and
after being kicked out by voters, gave the court further justification
to throw its weight around in defence of the rule of law. Mr
Bolsonaro allegedly tried to declare a bogus state of emergency after
losing the election, and his supporters assaulted government
buildings and planned to attack an airport. The latest allegations
accuse him of planning to assassinate Mr Moraes, as well as Lula
and his vice-president in 2022, before they could assume office.

These are grave charges, and the court should weigh the evidence
and convict if appropriate. The trouble is that there are mounting
questions about the court’s own behaviour, the quality of justice it
delivers and the appropriateness of its sanctions.

A panel of five judges will, for example, decide whether Mr

Bolsonaro goes to jail, instead of the court’s full bench of 11. Of the
five, one is Lula’s former personal lawyer and another is his former
justice minister. The trial thus risks reinforcing the perception that
the court is guided as much by politics as by the law. During Lava
Jato (”Car Wash”), a gigantic corruption probe that ran through the
2010s, the court upheld jail sentences for dozens of politicians and
businessmen found guilty of graft, but then changed its mind and
nullified Lula’s convictions in 2021 on procedural grounds. In 2023
the court’s president boasted it had “defeated Bolsonaro”.

Claims of such arbitrariness and impropriety have become common.

In recent years a single judge, José Antonio Dias Toffoli, has voided
almost all the evidence uncovered during Lava Jato and opened a
dubious investigation into Transparency International, an anti-
corruption group based in Berlin. Gilmar Mendes, another judge,
hosts a flashy gathering attended by the kind of high-powered
people who often have business in front of the court.

Then there is Mr Moraes. He has led investigations into Mr Bolsonaro

but is conflicted because he has been targeted by the former
president’s smear and intimidation machine. He has also been
waging a crusade against anti-democratic speech online, wielding
astonishingly expansive powers, which has overwhelmingly targeted
right-wing actors. Last year he ordered X, a social media-platform
owned by Elon Musk, to take down hundreds of pro-Bolsonaro
accounts, often without giving the account owners any explanation.
He blocked access to X in Brazil for over a month and froze the bank
accounts of Starlink, Mr Musk’s satellite-internet firm. Mr Moraes
responds to criticism with imperiousness. Pressed last year about
whether the court should adopt an ethics code, as the United States
Supreme Court did in 2023, Mr Moraes claimed that “there isn’t the
slightest need”.

In its defence, the court is acting legally. It gains its powers from
Brazil’s constitution, which is one of the world’s longest, and lets
political parties, trade unions and many other organisations file cases
directly to the Supreme Court, rather than having them filter up from
lower courts. This means that the Supreme Court in effect makes
the law on issues that would be decided by elected officials in many
other countries. A single judge can unilaterally pass rulings with
serious repercussions, known as “monocratic decisions”. The
Supreme Court often steps in because Brazil’s other institutions do
their job poorly. Congress has long sat on a bill that would set clear
rules for online speech. Instead, surreally, it is spending its time
mulling legislation that would pardon those who attacked
government buildings after Mr Bolsonaro’s electoral loss.

The threat from all of this is three-fold. One danger is that the
quality of decision-making at the Supreme Court will deteriorate as
its remit sprawls relentlessly. Second, the more the court seeks to
manage politics, the more it loses public support: just 12% of people
say that it is doing a “good” or “great” job, down from 31% in 2022.
Third, such unconstrained power raises the threat of the court
becoming an instrument of illiberal impulses that infringe liberty,
rather than support it.

What can be done?

Part of the answer is for the Supreme Court to exercise restraint. To

restore its image of impartiality, it should convene its full bench to
try Mr Bolsonaro, including the two judges whom the former
president appointed. Individual judges should avoid issuing
monocratic decisions, especially on sensitive political issues. And
once the trial against Mr Bolsonaro is over, Brazil’s Congress should
wrest back the job of policing online speech from Mr Moraes.
Brazilians have lost faith in two of their three branches of
government. It is essential to avoid a full-blown crisis of confidence
in the third. ■

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In praise of plastics

Don’t overlook the many

benefits of plastics
If they are a problem, it is because they are badly managed
4月 17, 2025 02:46 上午

FEW PEOPLE are more synonymous with wonder at the natural

world than Sir David Attenborough, a nonagenarian television
presenter. In recent years, Sir David has been campaigning fervently
for an end to the plastic that his film crews find scattered across the
planet. “The plastic in our oceans ought never to have got there in
the first place,” he said in one interview. “Much of it perhaps ought
not to have even been manufactured at all.” The first statement is
reasonable, but the second is not—for it disregards the extraordinary
benefits that plastics, and the industry which produces them, have
provided both to humans and to the environment.

Although the drawbacks of the world’s reliance on plastics are all too
apparent, the benefits they provide, in the form of reducing waste
and cost, are all too easily overlooked. Plastics have made possible a
bewildering range of new materials that can replicate the properties
of existing ones, and can do things they cannot, while being lighter,
more durable, and cheaper and easier to manufacture. These
materials have become vital in everything from building to
carmaking to consumer electronics.

Take food as an example. Plastic packaging prevents perishable

foodstuffs from spoiling, making possible global trade in meat, fish,
fruit and vegetables. It enables essentials like rice, cooking oil and
powdered milk to be stored and distributed safely and cheaply. A
one-litre plastic bottle weighs 5% as much as a glass one; plastic
packaging thus reduces shipping costs and emissions.

Plastics are greener than they seem·

A new way to recycle plastic is here·
Microplastics have not yet earned their bad reputation·

Plastics have also eased the world’s reliance on older materials, and
on the living beings from which many of them came. There are
perhaps 10m pianos in the world. If all their white keys were made
of ivory, how many elephants would remain?

Just as the benefits of plastics are often unseen, however, so are

some potential harms. The visible blight of discarded waste strewn
across otherwise lovely landscapes, often to the detriment of
wildlife, used to be one of the principal charges against plastics. Now
there is growing concern about what happens when they break up
into microscopic fragments invisible to the naked eye. In the past
decade such “microplastics” have been found in food chains, in
human brains and even in the apparently pristine snow of Antarctica.
Being detectable does not make something dangerous. It can be
mere testimony to the acuity of the instruments in use. But history
shows that ubiquitous industrial materials can do unintended,
unexpected and widespread harm that is recognised much too late:
think of lead-based paint and leaded petrol, which cause health and
developmental problems. The ubiquity of microplastics means the
harm they might do deserves serious, well-supported and co-
ordinated research; some worrying findings· make that a matter of
urgency. If there are harms, swift action will be needed on diagnosis
and remediation.

To deal with the scourge of pollution the best approach is not to ban
plastics, but to manage them more carefully. Better recycling
technologies, now under development·, are one part of the answer.
The proportion of plastics which end up being recycled has doubled
in the past two decades, but it is still only 9%. This is not because
people do not care about the planet. It is because recycling is harder
and more costly than most people realise.

Technical difficulties and the onerous sorting required mean that

recycled plastic is almost always more expensive than the virgin
stuff, which makes it hard to set up a virtuously circular market. One
result is that many rich countries export their waste· for “recycling”
in poorer countries which are not equipped to deal with their own
often voluminous plastic-waste problems, let alone anyone else’s.
The UN estimates that 59% of all plastic waste ends up being sorted
by roughly 20m informal workers worldwide, frequently in terrible
conditions.

Greater use should therefore be made of landfill. When properly

managed and well monitored, this is far less environmentally ruinous
than often portrayed, and can be simpler and more effective than
poorly executed recycling. It also sidesteps the risk that plastics sent
across the world for recycling will be dumped or burned.
Incinerators, which can both produce energy and allow the resulting
carbon to be captured, are a useful option too, though they are also
unpopular. Fortnum, a Finnish company, has found a way to turn the
hydrocarbons released from waste incineration back into plastic
feedstock. Such innovation should be built on. When it comes to
plastics, the benefits are very much greater than most people will
allow—and so is the potential for managing the costs. ■

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Something rotten

The lesson of Birmingham’s

striking binmen
The moment is ripe to reform Britain’s equal-pay rules
4月 16, 2025 07:03 上午

THE STENCH alone is a metaphor. For six weeks, strikes by city bin-
collectors have blotted the streets of Birmingham with growing
mounds of rubbish·. The rats in Britain’s second city have feasted
and multiplied.

More is at stake than the usual to-and-fro of unions hustling bosses

for better pay or lighter working hours. Birmingham is the latest in a
growing roster of victims hobbled by expansive equal-pay laws.
These penalise employers for disparities between sometimes wildly
different roles—binmen and cleaners, warehouse stockers and
shopworkers—if judges can be sold on the idea that the work was of
“equal value”. Never mind whether the market concurs.

The consequences are huge. Over £1bn ($1.3bn) in equal-pay claims

have bankrupted Birmingham’s council. A common sticking-point is
the pay for an intermediate grade of binman (the “waste recycling
and collection officer”), which has been used as a cudgel by council-
employed carers and cleaners, jobs that skew towards female
workers, to demand a payout. The council wants to stave off future
claims by eliminating the role.

Winning a case on the grounds of equal value does not require

proving sexism, even the subliminal kind. It hinges instead on a sort
of judicial central planning. A recent judgment against Asda, a
grocery chain, dissected workdays by the minute. Ms Darville, in the
shop, handled fireworks, a known hazard. Occasionally she mopped
up a spill. Mr Devenney, in the warehouse, spent 3% of his time
tidying. Each job gets “points”, which sum to a “value”.

If the judges’ score doesn’t match the market wage the role
commands, and the gender balance is even moderately askew, there
will be trouble. The Asda case has further to go, but the company
may be on the hook for a £1.2bn payout and £400m in extra annual
wage costs, a 15% increase.

A rethink is long overdue. Britain did not originally recognise “equal

value”; Barbara Castle, the Labour minister who introduced the
Equal Pay Act in 1970, thought it too woolly. But it caught on across
the English Channel, and was added to the law books in the 1980s,
under pressure from Brussels. Trouble began in the 2000s, after a
ruling in the late 1990s by the European Court of Justice, which let
victors claim six years of back pay, making a win more lucrative.
Alongside Britain’s relaxed rules about no-win-no-fee lawyers and
higher levels of pay transparency, that proved a potent lure.
Cue a bonanza. One law firm, Leigh Day, is orchestrating equal-pay
claims against 70% of British grocery chains, by market share. A
rent-seeking cabal of equal-pay advisers, evaluators and lawyers has
sprung up. Firms realised that subcontracting hiring allows them to
elude liability. Conservative-run councils, with fewer ideological
hangups, have done so. Left-wing ones have struggled. Labour-led
Sheffield also has an ongoing dispute, and Glasgow, under the
Scottish National Party, has agreed to pay out £770m. Now the
government is consulting on plans to close that escape-hatch by
stretching the rules to cover outsourced workers.

Politicians have let the issue fester. Even Unite, the binmen’s union,
is too skittish to admit where the real issue lies: bewailing austerity
is safer than wrestling with whether equal-pay rules have gone too
far.

Brexit has given Britain a chance to fix this. Instead of doubling

down on equal value the government should ditch it and, like
America, focus on people doing similar jobs. Even jobs with a history
of gender bias have gradually been getting more balanced. The
warehouse staff at Next, another retailer hit by an equal-value
ruling, is 47% female. Defining equal value less broadly and reining
in the scale of payouts would also work.

Europe should learn from Britain’s troubles. The European

Commission is due to push through new pay-transparency rules in
2026, which will make equal-value cases far easier to bring.
Birmingham is an hour’s flight from Brussels. Eurocrats would do
well to take a walking tour of Birmingham’s bins—though they
should mind where they tread. ■

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Letters
The threat to university research in
America, and more
A selection of correspondence :: Also this week , electricity costs, Daylight Saving
Time, Jewish identity

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A selection of correspondence

The threat to university

research in America, and
more
Also this week , electricity costs, Daylight Saving Time, Jewish
identity
4月 16, 2025 07:03 上午

Letters are welcome via e-mail to [email protected]

Find out more about how we process your letters.

Eisenhower on universities
Lexington (April 5th) highlighted the revolution in university research
in America after the second world war. He wrote about how the
government wanted America to lead the world in innovation and so
it increased its sponsorship of university research, but still “premised
on the principles of academic freedom”. The extraordinary scientific
and economic gains of this partnership are obvious to everyone
except Donald Trump, who is cancelling billions of dollars in grants
and contracts.

The threat posed by central government funding to academic

freedom in America is only now, suddenly, coming into the open. Yet
Dwight Eisenhower identified the danger in 1961. In his farewell
address three days before the end of his presidency, Eisenhower
coined the now familiar phrase “military-industrial complex”, which
he recognised as a threat to America. But he also drew upon his
experience as chancellor of Columbia University from 1948-53 to
point out a second threat, in the form of the increasingly dominant
role of the federal government in funding university research.

“The free university…has experienced a revolution,” he said. “Partly

because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes
virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity.” He recognised “the
prospect of domination” by the federal government in terms of
employment and allocating projects, warning that “The power of
money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.” Or in other
words, he who pays the piper calls the tune.

Denis Feeney
Dorchester on Thames, Oxfordshire
The costs of low carbon

Your interesting article on why electricity prices are so high in Britain

(“Power up”, March 15th) did not mention one critical factor: the
difference between the low wholesale costs that could accrue in time
from a wider deployment of renewables and the full cost to the
consumer. The renewables have to be paid for, and the full subsidies
for this already amount to £250 ($330) on customers’ bills. They are
heading only one way and are also a big reason why British
electricity prices are higher than elsewhere.

The move to low-carbon power is undoubtedly the right way to go,

but we need to recognise the costs required to achieve this. How
this is paid for, and ultimately how those costs are apportioned to
ensure fairness and equity, is an important factor in making sure the
public remain on board in the transition to a low-carbon future.

Dr Tony Ballance
Chief strategy and regulatory officer
Cadent
Coventry
Life in Ivory Coast

“A quiet renaissance” (March 22nd) painted an incomplete and

overly positive picture of Ivory Coast. High macroeconomic growth
contrasts with health and education outcomes that are among the
worst in Africa. According to the World Bank, Ivory Coast’s life
expectancy in 2022 stood at just 59 years, nine years less than
Senegal despite GDP per head being 50% higher. This translates into
250 extra avoidable Ivorian deaths per day compared with Senegal.
The average life expectancy for countries with similar income levels
to Ivory Coast is nearly a decade higher. Liberia or Mauritania fare
better.

The UNDP’s Human Development Index ranked Ivory Coast 166th

out of 193 in 2023, down from 125th in 1999. Education outcomes
are similarly bleak: 13th out of 14 Francophone African countries in
school mathematics performance, despite many of those countries
being poorer. Finally, the country was recently added to the Financial
Action Task Force’s Grey List for money-laundering, alongside
Lebanon and Algeria, raising serious governance concerns.
I dare say that the economic numbers in your article mask a
troubling reality and a concerning future for Ivorians.

Tidjane Thiam
President of the PDCI-RDA
Abidjan

Our hour of need

I was glad to see your newspaper endorse the end of Daylight

Saving Time (“Stop changing all the clocks”, April 5th). As you noted,
the first law establishing DST in Britain was passed during the first
world war, but it was proposed several years earlier at the urging of
William Willett, an eccentric real-estate developer and golf
enthusiast. In a pamphlet from 1907, Willett argued that the change
would allow people more time for leisure “in the open air…after the
duties of the day have been discharged”. Presumably he meant a
few more holes of golf.

Wouldn’t it be ironic if DST was at last ended a century later by

another eccentric real-estate developer and golf enthusiast, this one
sitting in the White House?

Augustus Haney
New York

Britain and Ireland had separate time zones until October 1916.
Ireland’s time zone was called Dunsink time, after the observatory
near Dublin. It was 25 minutes behind Greenwich Mean Time. After
the Easter Rising, Britain put Ireland on GMT and it’s been the same
ever since, mainly for economic convenience between the two
countries.

Mark Doody
Bedford, Texas

I passionately agree with your position on changing the clocks. As

the world falls apart it is one positive step towards a more rational
universe. Are there protest marches scheduled? Can I distribute
leaflets? Keep up the good work.

Father Rick McGrath

Hassocks, West Sussex

You argue that countries should stay on winter time all year round.
In London this would mean that sunrise during June would be
around 3.45am and sunset would occur no later than 8.20pm. Surely
most Londoners would prefer to swap an hour of that morning light,
when they are asleep, for an extra hour of daylight in the evening?

William Hern
Maidenhead, Berkshire
Jewish connections

Thank you for acknowledging the ways in which the events of the
past 18 months have led to a surge in Jewish identity (“A golden era
may have ended”, March 29th). Hundreds of thousands of Jews
awakened to the richness of Jewish civilisation and are cultivating
old and new avenues of “doing” and “being” Jewish.

Yet you also made a common mistake in assuming that the primary
focus of the Israel-diaspora relationship is through Israeli politics.
That approach misses the vast and deep realm of other points of
identification, from faith to family. Around half of my fellow Jews live
in Israel. That is enough for me to be deeply concerned about their
well-being.

My connection to, and solidarity with, them transcends whatever

views I have about the crises of any particular moment. In 1947 my
grandparents, refugees from the Holocaust, chose to go to the
United States rather than Palestine. But for that small swerve of
history, I would be living in Israel today. I see our fates as
intertwined.
Today’s troubles are a great tragedy, and I am deeply concerned
with what the future will bring for everyone involved. We Jews have
to cultivate an identity that isn’t so consumed with politics, but
which instead embraces the fullness of Jewish life, and that includes
our fellow Jews in Israel.

Jason Harris
Alameda, California

Mrs and Ms Robinson

I was surprised to read in your article on the rise of Christian

entertainment that the command from Leviticus 18:17, “Do not have
sexual relations with both a woman and her daughter”, is not movie
material (“Holywood”, March 15th).

Have you never seen “The Graduate”?

Romy Negrin
New York
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By Invitation
The head of the Gates Foundation on how
to keep helping the poor as aid shrinks
Aid and development :: Prepare for the first step back in development progress this
century, writes Mark Suzman

The bond market’s problems aren’t all to do

with Donald Trump, write Anil Kashyap and
Jeremy Stein
Cracks in the bedrock :: Dysfunction lies at the heart of the Treasury market

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Aid and development

The head of the Gates

Foundation on how to keep
helping the poor as aid
shrinks
Prepare for the first step back in development progress this century,
writes Mark Suzman
4月 16, 2025 07:03 上午

IN RECENT YEARS a quiet but disturbing trend emerged: as

countries struggled to recover from the covid-19 pandemic and other
shocks, official development assistance—aid funding from rich
countries that helps save and improve lives in poorer ones—steadily
declined. And then, this year, it fell off a cliff.

The Trump administration’s proposed cuts to health and

development funding have rightly grabbed the most headlines due to
their scale and scope—America is by far the world’s largest donor
and last year committed nearly $70bn in international aid. But they
are by no means alone. Britain, France and the Netherlands have all
announced plans to cut their aid budgets by around a third, and
others are likely to follow suit. The total amounts to tens of billions
of dollars in additional shortfalls.

As a result, the tremendous gains the world made this century, in

large part thanks to aid—halving global maternal- and child-mortality
rates and saving millions of people from deadly diseases including
HIV, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria—are now in jeopardy. And this is
all happening as the world’s poorest countries grapple with the
lingering impact of the pandemic and the toughest macroeconomic
headwinds in more than a generation. Persistent inflation, high
interest rates and crippling debt have led to more than half of
African countries now spending more on debt payments than they
do on health care or education.

With fewer global resources available, it is crucial that the remaining

donor money goes to proven interventions that most improve health
and human potential. These have huge societal returns—measured
in lives saved and poverty reduction—making them best suited for
grants and other low-cost funds. For example, a study of 73
countries supported by Gavi, an international alliance that funds
vaccines in poor countries, found that every dollar spent on vaccines
yields $54 in returns to communities via reduced health costs,
productivity gains and other benefits.

By this measure, two of the best investments the world has ever
made are Gavi’s vaccine funding and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS,
Tuberculosis and Malaria. Together, they have saved an estimated
82m lives this century. Gavi alone has helped to halve child deaths in
some of the world’s poorest countries. If America follows through on
its proposal to withdraw support for Gavi, the death toll would be
akin to that of a new pandemic.

Both Gavi and the Global Fund are facing replenishment rounds this
year, and they deserve to be fully funded. Governments and
philanthropists who support them will be embracing a model that
makes the most of partnerships with the private sector, drives down
costs over time and moves governments towards self-reliance by
building the capacity of local health ministries. Nineteen countries,
including Vietnam and Indonesia, have successfully graduated from
Gavi support and now finance their immunisation programmes
themselves, and many others, from Ghana to Bangladesh, are
making great strides towards doing the same.

Some hope that private donors like the Gates Foundation can fill the
void. But even as our organisation raises spending to $9bn a year, it
is unrealistic to think that private giving can make up the shortfall as
public giving shrinks. Nor can it match the expertise or reach of
governments in the delivery of products and services.

While the Gates Foundation has provided nearly $16bn to date to

efforts like Gavi, the Global Fund and the Global Polio Eradication
Initiative, organisations like ours can’t do everything. Our main
comparative advantage is in innovation and taking risks and
addressing market failures that the public sector and private
companies can’t or won’t. We focus on research and development
that has the potential to transform how we fight disease and
poverty.

To that end, the Gates Foundation is funding the development of

new diagnostics, treatments and vaccines for HIV, malaria and TB;
new strains of drought- and heat-tolerant crops that can help
farmers adapt to climate change; new treatments that will target
children’s microbiomes, helping save them from severe malnutrition;
and new AI-enabled tools that can transform financial inclusion,
primary health care and basic education.

We will continue supporting this and other work because we believe

these are smart investments that foster a safer, more stable, more
prosperous world. And because we believe that all lives have equal
value, and that the rich—be they individuals or countries—have an
obligation to help those in need.

There are positive signs that others are stepping up. In Asia and the
Middle East, new donors—including countries that once benefited
from aid themselves—are increasing their giving. A new generation
of philanthropists is emerging. And most importantly, leaders across
the global south are committing to increasing domestic revenue
collection and improving the efficiency and transparency with which
they serve their citizens. A good example is India’s digital ID system,
which connects people to financial tools and government services
while boosting tax receipts.

But they need time and support to do this effectively. Even if all
these steps are taken, the severity and swiftness of the recent aid
cuts guarantee that the path to future progress will be rocky. The
coming year is likely to mark the first significant step back in
development progress this century—especially for children living in
poorer countries, who have relied on donated vaccines to avoid
getting sick, or who need a bed net to protect them from malaria.

By focusing available resources on the investments we know work

best, it remains possible to cushion the worst of the shock and to
begin to capitalise on the exciting scientific advances in the pipeline.
If we do, it will ultimately help drive even greater human progress
than we saw in the past quarter-century. ■

Mark Suzman is the chief executive of the Gates Foundation.

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Cracks in the bedrock

The bond market’s problems

aren’t all to do with Donald
Trump, write Anil Kashyap
and Jeremy Stein
Dysfunction lies at the heart of the Treasury market
4月 16, 2025 07:03 上午

THERE CAN be little doubt that the 90-day pause on tariffs for most
countries that Donald Trump announced abruptly on April 9th was
driven by worries about the bond market. A jump in yields in
America’s Treasury market after the tariffs were first unveiled had,
even the president conceded, made people “queasy”. The heavy sell-
off in Treasuries came amid weak demand at auction, high price
volatility and even talk of “fire sales” in the market.

It is hard to think of anything more alarming for global financial

markets than the prospect of Treasuries, long seen as the risk-free
asset to which investors flock in turbulent times, losing their status
as the ultimate haven. If they are not perceived to be safe, what is?
What would the loss of their gold-plated reputation mean for the
borrowing costs of the American government, whose interest
payments on $36trn of Treasuries already consume about a fifth of
its tax revenues? And what about all those households and
businesses whose debt costs are tied to the interest rate on
Treasuries?

The last time the Treasury market faced such a constellation of

factors was in the pandemic of 2020. To stabilise the market then,
the Federal Reserve bought massive quantities of Treasuries,
including $362bn-worth in a single week.

From the Fed’s perspective things may be even more complicated

this time, since in addition to the obvious downside risks to growth
and employment there is now also the risk of spiking inflation. In
this context, initiating an enormous purchase programme would
probably be perceived as an extremely dovish monetary-policy signal
—which the Fed would want to avoid. Is there another option?

Our research suggests that part of the disorderly selling may be due
to a deeper source of fragility in the way the Treasury market
operates. The story starts with the observation that pension funds,
life-insurance companies and corporate-bond funds (which we
collectively call “asset managers”) are all heavy users of Treasury
derivatives such as futures and interest-rate swaps. They take long
positions in these derivatives along with shorter-term corporate debt
in order to establish an asset mix that has both some extra yield
(from the corporate debt) and a maturity profile that suits them. If
they could, they would just buy long-term corporate debt, but there
isn’t enough of it. So they use derivatives as a substitute. Lots of
them: we estimate that they had about $1trn invested in long
positions in Treasury futures alone earlier this month.

For the Treasury derivatives market to clear, someone has to take

the other side of the trade. That someone is hedge funds, which
leaves them with a short position in futures. The hedge funds,
however, do not want to make an outright bet on interest rates. So,
in addition to going short futures, they buy cash Treasury securities.
They can earn a premium on this trade, known as the “basis” trade,
but not a very big one. So, to make the trade more profitable, they
juice it up with leverage, borrowing to buy the Treasuries. They
might borrow, say, $49 for every dollar they invest.

The hedge funds’ need for leverage brings in the last two actors in
the story: money-market funds and the Treasury market’s “primary”
dealers (Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and the like). The money-market
funds typically lend to the dealers, who lend the money on to the
hedge funds.

This ecosystem has several weak points. One is its reliance on the
money-market funds, which can lose their appetite to lend, for
instance if they are facing withdrawals during market turmoil. The
second risk is the dealers, who may scale back lending to hedge
funds, even if they have enough to lend, in order to reduce risk.

The third and probably biggest risk comes from the hedge funds.
When volatility rises, they may step out of their highly leveraged
trades to protect against losses. That may be prudent risk
management for any single hedge fund, but if a lot of them do it at
once prices need to fall to tempt others to take their place. There
are some signs that this kind of behaviour contributed to the latest
turmoil triggered by Mr Trump’s tariffs.

Another destabilising factor is that when volatility increases, futures

exchanges increase the margin requirements—to post collateral—
that they impose on the hedge funds. Such margin calls may also
force hedge funds to unwind basis trades they would rather stay in,
forcing them to sell their cash Treasuries, even at fire-sale prices.

The situation over the past week does not seem to have been as
dire as in March 2020. But the market remains edgy. If things were
to deteriorate further, and the Fed had to intervene again, how
should it act?

The problem with buying Treasuries outright, as the Fed has done in
the past, is that it can look like “quantitative easing”—an easing of
monetary policy through purchases of government bonds and other
assets—which is not the signal it would want to send right now.
Instead, it should set up a special-purpose vehicle (SPV), perhaps in
collaboration with the Treasury Department, that would take over
the hedged long-Treasuries-plus-short-futures bundle that the hedge
funds would be dumping.

This would have three advantages over unhedged outright

purchases. First, it would make it clear that this is an action
designed to address market function, not an easing of monetary
policy. Second, the Fed would only lend on a collateralised basis to
the SPV and the SPV would own the hedged bundle, which would be
immune to interest-rate changes. The taxpayer would therefore not
be exposed to any losses from such changes, and the SPV would
self-liquidate as conditions normalised and the futures contracts
matured. Finally, the purchases could be made via an auction, which
would put a lower-than-normal price on the long-Treasuries-short-
futures bundle. This would ensure that hedge funds that had
managed risk poorly and had to rely on the SPV suffered some
losses, thereby mitigating moral hazard.

A century and a half ago, in “Lombard Street”, Walter Bagehot, then

the editor of The Economist, laid out the terms on which a central
bank should act, as the “lender of last resort”, to stabilise the
financial system in times of stress. The Treasury market of today—a
focal point of a much more complicated financial landscape—
requires its own version of the backstop. One commentator has
dubbed our proposal the “synthetic lender of last resort”. Whatever
you call it, a new approach is needed to deal with the dysfunction at
the heart of the world’s most important financial market. ■

Anil Kashyap is the Stevens Distinguished Service Professor of

Economics and Finance at the University of Chicago’s Booth School
of Business. From 2016 to 2022 he was an external member of the
Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee. Jeremy C. Stein is the
Moise Y. Safra Professor of Economics at Harvard University. From
2012 to 2014 he was a member of the Federal Reserve’s Board of
Governors. Their research on the Treasury market was conducted
with Jonathan Wallen and Joshua Younger.
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Asia
The biggest bugs in the new gold rush are
Asian
Sticks and carats :: Wall Street is loading up on bullion. So are people in China and
India

Indians are losing big on the stockmarket

Risky routines :: The middle-class enthusiasm for derivatives is a relatively new
phenomenon

Why Narendra Modi has embraced an anti-

caste icon
History wars :: B.R. Ambedkar dedicated his life to challenging Hinduism

Why Christianity is taking an Asian turn

Risen and rising :: Believers have clout in South Korea, the Philippines, Japan and
beyond

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Sticks and carats

The biggest bugs in the new

gold rush are Asian
Wall Street is loading up on bullion. So are people in China and India
4月 16, 2025 07:35 上午 | MUMBAI AND SINGAPORE

GOLD WAS already on a tear when President Donald Trump unveiled

sweeping tariffs on much of the world earlier this month, briefly
sending the price of the metal to an all-time high of $3,166 per troy
ounce, up 17.4% from the day of his inauguration. On April 11th it
surged past $3,200. In one part of the world, however, that has
hardly curbed consumers’ enthusiasm. “Rising gold prices stopping
your wedding jewellery purchase?” asks a sign outside the
downtown Mumbai branch of Tanishq, India’s biggest jewellery
retailer. “Pay nothing for your dream,” it declares, advertising a
“festival of exchange” to trade in old jewellery for new.

Even as the gold price surged through 2024, demand in India stayed
steady. Absolute price levels don’t really matter, says Anindya
Banerjee of Kotak Securities, a broker. What matters is that there are
no sharp falls. According to the World Gold Council, a trade
association, Indians are still buying “need-based” gold jewellery,
such as for weddings and other occasions. They are taking up offers
like Tanishq’s to update old jewellery for new designs. Loans against
gold are soaring, too.

Asian countries are voracious consumers of the yellow metal. Last

year India was the world’s biggest buyer of gold jewellery, its
combined purchases of 560 tonnes outpacing even China’s 510
tonnes (see chart 1). Indians also bought 240 tonnes of gold bars
and coins, and Chinese purchased a whopping 345 tonnes. In
Thailand, demand for bullion jumped 17% in 2024 to 40 tonnes,
owing to the growing popularity of apps that sell physical gold
online. Add in other markets, such as Indonesia and Vietnam, and
Asia accounted for 64.5% of global demand for gold jewellery and
bullion last year, not including central-bank purchases, roughly in line
with their share of global population but greater than average
incomes would suggest.
Asia’s love of gold is partly to do with its role in important life
events, especially weddings. Kalyan Jewellers, a big retailer,
estimates that “India is a market of approximately 10m marriages
annually, and this market alone is estimated to cater to 300 to 400
tonnes of gold.” Many Hindus also buy gold on auspicious days, such
as during the season that culminates with Diwali in the autumn, or
on Akshaya Tritiya, a spring festival which this year falls on April
30th.
Gold is deeply woven into Chinese cultural traditions, too. It is
purchased to celebrate weddings, a baby’s first-month anniversary
and other milestones, both on the mainland and among the
diaspora. In previous generations it was one of the few ways to
store wealth and hand it down to descendants. And beyond the
mainland, many diaspora Chinese groups have adopted the wedding
tradition of the Teochew communities in South-East Asia. The
groom’s family buys four items of gold jewellery—usually a necklace,
bangle, earrings and ring—for the bride, to symbolise the four
corners of the roof that a husband is expected to provide.

Au contraire

As a result, Asians’ fondness for gold is often attributed to cultural

reasons. But India and China are culturally very dissimilar, and
South-East Asian countries would chafe at being lumped in with
either. Underlying the cultural motives are deeper economic and
financial ones that help explain gold’s enduring popularity.

A crucial one is diversification. Investors across the world prize gold

as a store of value and as a hedge against inflation, especially in
turbulent times. Indeed, Americans have been piling into gold since
Mr Trump took office, snapping up more of the stuff early in March
than at the height of the pandemic in 2020. A gold broker in
Singapore says he has been arranging bulk shipments for anxious
rich people, who are hoarding the metal.
But in much of Asia it serves an additional role: as a currency hedge
and a way to gain exposure to an asset not linked to the national
economy. Asian countries, especially India and China, fare poorly on
an index of investment freedom (see map). Capital controls are
common, and investing in foreign markets ranges from difficult to
impossible. “It’s the only way for our caged capital to easily buy non-
rupee assets,” says Joseph Sebastian, an investor at Blume Ventures,
a venture-capital firm in Mumbai. Despite a recent investing boom,
less than 6% of Indian household assets are allocated to equities,
compared with 15% in gold.
In China, even domestic investment can be hard. Many profitable
industries are controlled by the government and remain off-limits to
retail investors. Chinese equity markets traded below their pandemic
highs even before Mr Trump’s threat of tariffs caused market turmoil,
and far below historic peaks. Property has lost its sheen as a route
to building wealth ever since a government crackdown on
speculation and debt: prices for new homes are down 5% from their
peak in 2021. The benchmark gold price doubled to 737 yuan per
gram in the five years to the end of March, an annual return of
15.4% (see chart 2).

For mainland Chinese gold has become more attractive as China’s

economy has slowed. Rather than keeping their cash in a bank that
may generate interest of 1-2% each year, young Chinese prefer to
buy small amounts of gold—as little as a one-gram “bean”.
Government policy also fuels interest. “When China’s central bank
buys gold, people think ‘Oh, I should buy gold as well’,” says Alex
He, a gold trader in Xi’an. There has been a shift away from
jewellery to bullion, suggesting that purchases are driven by
investment.
No less important is gold’s role in ensuring financial stability. In
China, India, Pakistan and most of South-East Asia, less than half of
people of working age are enrolled in a mandatory pension. Gold
serves as a safety-net for old age. It is particularly important for
women, who in many Asian countries lack the earning potential of
men, and in some places, such as South Asia, often have no assets
in their name.
Gold is also crucial to smooth out cashflows for farmers and traders,
whose income is vulnerable to climatic and economic vagaries. Like
Chinese youth, many rural Indians put away small sums to buy gold
to ensure access to liquidity when times are tight. India’s weak
system of land records and its underdeveloped mortgage market are
obstacles to borrowing against land. That has created a thriving and
increasingly formal gold-loan market. Muthoot, India’s largest gold-
loan firm, issues loans in under 15 minutes and is seeing a greater
number of middle-income borrowers. Loans against gold grew 68%
between April and December last year, up from 12.7% in the last
nine months of 2023.

Economists complain that the colossal sums invested in gold could

be allocated to more productive investments. An even bigger
complaint is the effect on the trade balance. Last year Thailand’s
central bank blamed high gold imports for transforming a current-
account surplus into a deficit. Gold accounts for 8% of India’s overall
imports. In some months it is the country’s single largest import
category. In the fiscal year ending March 2024, India’s $45bn in net
gold imports was nearly twice its current-account deficit. That puts
downward pressure on the Indian rupee, further boosting demand
for gold. From a macro point of view gold is bad, says Mr Sebastian,
“but from a micro personal point [of view], I still have 20% of my
assets in gold.”

Gilt trip

There is no easy fix. Governments could implement policies to

discourage gold buying. But that would just boost smugglers and
black markets. Another option is to source more production at home,
though geology may have other ideas. China is the world’s largest
gold producer, at a hefty 378 tonnes in 2023, but even that
accounted for just over 40% of demand for jewellery and bullion.
Indian production has been in decline for decades despite
substantial ore resources, partly due to restrictive rules. India
produced just one tonne of gold in 2022, a year in which it imported
over 700 tonnes.

Governments that want to decrease gold imports instead need to

look at harder or unpalatable reforms, such as deepening credit
markets, fixing land records, unclogging the judicial system or
freeing up the movement of capital. For all the cultural reasons so
often bandied about, it is economics and politics which ensure that
Asians remain gold bugs. ■

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Risky routines

Indians are losing big on the

stockmarket
The middle-class enthusiasm for derivatives is a relatively new
phenomenon
4月 16, 2025 07:03 上午 | Mumbai

“IT HURTS. IT’S irritating. You want to be [left] alone,” says Jagdish,
a 39-year-old IT systems manager, whose dreams of buying a new
house were shattered after he lost a small fortune gambling in
India’s stockmarket. Even before President Donald Trump’s so-called
reciprocal tariffs shook global markets, the Indian stockmarket had
been on a rollercoaster. The benchmark BSE Sensex is down 11%
from its peak in September last year.
Worst affected were those using high-risk leveraged instruments.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), the regulator,
estimates that 11m retail investors lost $21.6bn trading in futures
and options in three years until March 2024; only 7% turned a
profit. The reality check has been brutal, especially for teenagers
and young adults getting caught in the craze, says Dr Pankaj Verma,
a psychiatrist in Delhi. Shekhar Kunte, a Mumbai-based hypnotist
who usually helps students focus on their studies or cures jilted
lovers, now finds himself treating impulsive traders who cannot
resist the dopamine rush of high-risk speculation. “It’s a new-age
disease”, he says. “It’s mass hysteria”.

Last October SEBI introduced stricter rules. The impact was

immediate. According to Bloomberg, a financial firm, retail trading
activity in India’s options market has fallen to its lowest level in three
years.

Middle-class India’s enthusiasm for equities, and especially for

derivatives, is a relatively new phenomenon. Older generations
prized frugality. Most Indians still prefer to invest in gold and fixed
deposits that offer low but steady returns. But a mix of rising
incomes and easy access through apps has lured millions of new
investors to equity markets. Last year direct retail inflows on the
National Stock Exchange reached a three-year high, at nearly $12bn.
A wide-ranging and hugely successful advertising campaign has seen
mutual fund investments grow to $3bn in December, from $993m
five years ago.

While mutual funds offer relatively higher returns than conservative

assets, futures and options provide an extra zing. But they were not
designed for low-information retail investors, says Shinod
Somasundaram of Standard Chartered Bank. They were intended as
a hedge against market downturns, offering a safety net to protect
portfolios and manage risks during sudden drops. What investors are
doing today is “playing with fire”, he says.
Since the pandemic, the smartphone has become a virtual slot-
machine. TV advertisements tout card games and digital currencies.
Chainalysis, a data firm, says India led 151 countries in crypto
adoption for a second year running in 2024. But while the
government cracked down on cryptocurrencies and illegal sports
betting, stockmarket speculation is still rampant. Last year Nirmala
Sitharaman, the finance minister, sounded an alarm. “Any unchecked
explosion in retail trading of futures and options can create future
challenges, not just for the markets, but for investor sentiment and
household finances.” For a few investors, the lesson is finally sinking
in. “Now I only think long term,” says Jagdish. “The tension is simply
not worth it.” ■

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History wars

Why Narendra Modi has

embraced an anti-caste icon
B.R. Ambedkar dedicated his life to challenging Hinduism
4月 16, 2025 07:03 上午

A statuesque legacy

THE FATHER of the Indian constitution was not allowed to sit inside
the classroom at school. B.R. Ambedkar (1891-1956) was a Dalit:
formerly known as an “untouchable” at the bottom of India’s caste
hierarchy. Even so, he went on to obtain an economics PhD from
Columbia University before becoming a lawyer and minister. A fierce
critic of Hindu nationalism, he warned that “the assertion by the
Hindus that India is their country is untenable”. In 1956 he
converted to Buddhism, along with nearly half a million Dalits. This
year, however, Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government
declared his birthday, April 14th, to be a national holiday.

The announcement marks a high-profile intensification of the

government’s efforts to claim Ambedkar. On March 30th Mr Modi
visited the site of Ambedkar’s conversion in Nagpur, in the state of
Maharashtra, where the prime minister pledged allegiance to the
icon’s principles.

Mr Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is on the back foot on caste

politics. When Mr Modi was re-elected in 2019, the BJP’s vote share
among India’s approximately 232m Dalits was 34%, up from 24% in
2014 and only 12-14% in previous elections. But in the general
election last year, in which the BJP failed to win an absolute majority,
the support of Dalits for the BJP dropped by three percentage
points, even as national support declined by less than one. During
the campaign an opposition alliance including the Congress party,
the BJP’s main rival, spread a rumour that if the BJP won an
absolute majority it would pursue constitutional changes that could
jeopardise Dalit rights.

Not all of the BJP is on board with the reclamation of Ambedkar.

Amit Shah, the home minister, said in a speech on the constitution’s
75th anniversary last year that invocations of Ambedkar were merely
“a fashion”. Recently, the BJP’s central leadership sent out a
communiqué urging cadres to avoid derogatory remarks on Dalits.
But on April 6th Gyan Dev Ahuja, a BJP politician, caused outrage by
“purifying” a temple in the state of Rajasthan after a Dalit politician
from Congress entered it, suggesting that among some politicians
old attitudes die hard. (Two days after the incident, he was
suspended.)

Meanwhile, the Congress party is loth to share Ambedkar with the

BJP. The party organised “Ambedkar Respect Marches” to counter
Mr Shah’s remarks (it is unclear how many people actually attended
them). Its party president, Mallikarjun Kharge, is a Dalit. But even
with Congress, the legacy of Ambedkar is complex. He clashed
repeatedly with the upper-caste Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal
Nehru.

And despite the national holiday, Ambedkar’s vision of a casteless

India is far off. The National Crime Records Bureau reports over
50,000 caste atrocities against Dalits every year. Demands by the
opposition to include an all-out accounting of caste in a delayed
national census, which is due this year, will probably show that Dalits
comprise a larger share of the population than the 16.6% recorded
in the 2011 census. This means that India’s politicians will continue
to chase after their votes, whether or not Ambedkar would have lent
them his. ■

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Risen and rising

Why Christianity is taking an

Asian turn
Believers have clout in South Korea, the Philippines, Japan and
beyond
4月 16, 2025 07:03 上午 | NAGASAKI AND SEOUL

The mysteries of light

THE IMPEACHMENT of a former president, Yoon Suk Yeol, revealed

many fault lines in South Korean society. One runs through the
country’s sizeable Christian community. Evangelicals emerged as
some of Mr Yoon’s biggest supporters in the wake of his failed
attempt to impose martial law. Jeon Kwang-hoon, a far-right pastor,
organised rallies in his honour under the banner “Save Korea”. By
contrast, the National Council of Churches in Korea, a more
mainstream ecumenical body, welcomed the constitutional court’s
“historic decision” to restore democracy.

Christianity has long been a powerful force in South Korean society

and its battles over democracy. South Korea is among the most
Christian countries in Asia, with some 30% of the population
identifying as such. Protestant groups tended to align closely with
the country’s post-war authoritarian regimes, while Roman Catholics
supported the democratisation movement in the 1980s. These days
the divisions are less tidy, but no less pronounced. Christians are
“our own axis on the spectrum of a polarised society; we don’t align
neatly,” says Cho Seung-hyeon of the Catholic Peace Broadcasting
Corporation.

In many ways Christianity’s minority status belies its influence in the

country—as it does across much of Asia. Only the Philippines and
East Timor are majority-Christian nations. Yet as the population of
Christians declines in Europe and North America, “the centre of
gravity of Christianity is shifting,” argues Mathews George Chunakara
of the Christian Conference of Asia, an ecumenical regional body.
Africa and Latin America are the main sources of new believers, but
Asia also plays a role. Its Christian population grew by an average of
1.6% annually between 2020 and 2025. Last November, in a sign of
the region’s growing importance for Christianity, Pope Francis visited
South-East Asia.

Christian leaders are increasingly emerging from Asia, notes Todd

Johnson of the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Boston. The
Lausanne Movement, an evangelical group founded by the American
pastor Billy Graham, is led by a Korean-American who works
extensively in Japan. Recent heads of the Pentecostal World
Fellowship and the World Evangelical Alliance, two other big
evangelical movements, include a Malaysian and a Filipino,
respectively. South Korean missionaries are among the world’s most
active. A South Korean cardinal, Lazarus You Heung-Sik, is
mentioned as a potential next pope.
There may be more people practising Christianity in Asia than
typically believed. Fenggang Yang of Purdue University in Indiana
argues that many surveys understate the share of the Christian
population in Asian countries, by forcing respondents to make
either/or choices among faiths, when spiritual practices in the region
are often hybrid. Take Japan, which violently suppressed Christianity
until opening its borders in the late 19th century. Just 1% of Japan’s
population is believed to be Christian, but if respondents are allowed
to choose multiple faiths, the number affiliating with Christianity may
rise to 3-4% of the population, Mr Yang says.

Christianity also punches above its weight in education and, by

extension, among the region’s elites. Nine of Japan’s 65 post-war
prime ministers (or some 14%) have been Christians, including the
country’s current leader, Ishiba Shigeru. “If you want to find one
through line for that phenomenon, it’s education,” says Levi
McLaughlin of North Carolina State University. Many of the country’s
top private schools have Christian roots. Among Japan’s roughly 600
private universities, about 10% are Christian institutions, reckons
Yamaguchi Yoichi, president of Tokyo Christian University.
Christianity’s outsize influence is especially pronounced in South
Korea. Some 70% of the country’s post-war presidents have been
Christian, while roughly one-third of its universities are, says Kim
Eun-gi of Korea University.

Show me the man

South Korea’s contemporary Christian community is incredibly varied.

“There is a whole spectrum of extreme right and left present, not
only in Korean society but within Korean churches,” says Mr Kim.
Believers align at times with the country’s progressives on economic
issues, such as labour rights, while siding with conservatives on
social issues.

South Korean evangelical churches have led resistance to LGBT

rights in South Korea. Such megachurches have strong ties to
America’s. Last summer Donald Trump junior, son of America’s
president, spoke at Yoido Full Gospel Church, the world’s largest
megachurch, in Seoul. “We’ll keep fighting for all of the Judeo-
Christian values that we believe in and that you share with us,” he
declared. They can exercise “massive influence” over South Korean
politics by rallying large groups of potential voters, says Lee Dong-
hwan, a pastor who was excommunicated by South Korea’s
Methodist church over his support for gay rights.

Yet Mr Lee also notes that a small but growing number of

progressive priests have come out to support gay-pride parades in
South Korea in recent years. His own conversion to supporting the
LGBT community came after one of his own congregants came out
to him. “Jesus accepted all people,” Mr Lee says. “Whose side would
he be on today?” ■
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China
China hawks are losing influence in
Trumpworld, despite the trade war
Hawks v MAGA :: “Restrainers” are taking over from “primacists”

Chinese officials are encouraging office

workers not to work so hard
Your time’s your own :: More free time means more consumption, they hope

China’s propagandists preach defiance in

the trade war with America
Standing up :: The public seems on board, for now

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Hawks v MAGA

China hawks are losing

influence in Trumpworld,
despite the trade war
“Restrainers” are taking over from “primacists”
4月 16, 2025 07:35 上午

EVEN BEFORE Donald Trump’s tariff turmoil, it was hard to discern a

clear China strategy. With decisions depending largely on
presidential whim·, his foreign-policy advisers seemed to have split
into warring tribes. To use a shorthand common in Washington, the
“primacists” seek to re-establish America’s dominance in the world,
taking on all threats; the “prioritisers” think America can handle only
China and should abandon Ukraine; and the “restrainers” want to
focus on only the homeland, avoiding future wars. Since April 2nd Mr
Trump’s trade war has sown further confusion. But whatever his own
views, one thing seems increasingly clear: conventional China
hawks, whether primacists or prioritisers, are losing ground in the
battle for influence.

Though overshadowed by the trade drama, among the strongest

indications of this trend was the firing or reassignment of six
National Security Council (NSC) officials, which became public on
April 3rd. That was apparently prompted by Laura Loomer, a right-
wing conspiracy theorist who met Mr Trump a day earlier. Ms Loomer
said the officials were “disloyal people” who helped to sabotage Mr
Trump. Yet her demands seem to align closely with those of the
restrainers (including Donald Trump junior) who want to root out
those they see as “neocons” bent on provoking war with China.

One of those sacked was David Feith, the NSC’s senior director for
technology. He was in some ways a symbolic target. His father,
Douglas, was one of the original neocons. As a Pentagon official, he
helped to plan the invasion of Iraq in 2003. But the younger Mr Feith
was also among the White House’s most experienced China
specialists, working in the State Department through Mr Trump’s first
term and helping to create his Indo-Pacific Strategy, which
advocated upgrading American alliances. As a think-tanker after
that, he argued for tougher China policies.

On the NSC he handled issues that included American tech exports

to China and the proposed sale of TikTok to a non-Chinese owner. In
that role he appears to have built on many Biden-era initiatives,
while also taking up new ones, including the America First
Investment Policy. This identified Russia and China as “adversaries”
and broadened curbs on investment in China. Whether his views on
policy contributed to his sacking is unclear but, former colleagues
say, it is a win for the isolationists and a loss of China expertise.
The future of two other China hawks—Ivan Kanapathy, the NSC’s
senior director for Asia, and Alex Wong, the deputy national security
adviser—is also now in doubt. Ms Loomer accused Mr Kanapathy of
working previously with Trump critics, and attacked Mr Wong and his
wife over their Chinese heritage and her previous work as a lawyer.
Although both officials have kept their jobs, they have been
weakened by the broadside and by the waning authority of their
boss, Mike Waltz, the national security adviser (another wing-clipped
China hawk).

Officials in China and Taiwan will be watching Mr Kanapathy closely,

as he is seen as one of the island’s staunchest supporters in the
White House. He served as military attaché to America’s
representative office in Taiwan from 2014 to 2017, and contributed
to a book on Taiwan’s defence in 2024 that was edited by Matt
Pottinger, the NSC’S Asia chief in Mr Trump’s first term. Mr
Kanapathy met Taiwan’s president last year with Mr Pottinger, who
resigned over the attack on the Capitol on January 6th 2021 and has
since called for tougher policies aimed at encouraging political
change in China.

How this affects America’s dealings with China is unclear. Mr Trump

has not expressed his preferences beyond trade, and may be
unaware of the battles over policy among his staff. But one potential
consequence is that it gets harder for China hawks to push things
through without him noticing, as they did in his first term. Some see
their fingerprints on recent changes, including firmer joint
statements with allies opposing Chinese coercion of Taiwan and the
removal from the State Department’s website of a commitment not
to support the island’s independence.

Restrainer retrainer

The balance may be shifting in the Pentagon, too. Pete Hegseth, the
inexperienced defence secretary, reassured America’s Asian allies by
echoing many of President Joe Biden’s commitments during his first
regional tour in March. But that was probably because the Trump
administration has yet to work out its military priorities in Asia.
Those could become clearer after the Senate’s confirmation on April
8th of Elbridge Colby as under-secretary of defence for policy, the
Pentagon’s number-three post and one expected to play a critical
role in guiding Mr Hegseth.

Mr Colby has been the most vocal advocate of prioritising China.

Former colleagues say he is committed to that goal (including
Taiwan’s defence) and well qualified for his new post. Though not a
career China specialist, he worked in the Pentagon in Mr Trump’s
first term, developing a National Defence Strategy which identified
China and Russia as primary adversaries. He then founded a think-
tank and wrote a book, both of which advocate combating Chinese
hegemony in Asia.

Even so, he has sounded more like a restrainer of late, saying that
Taiwan is not an “existential” issue for America and should increase
its defence spending to (an unrealistic) 10% of GDP, from under 3%
now. He has also argued that South Korea, an ally, should do more
to defend itself. Such remarks have earned him public backing from
Vice-President J.D. Vance and the junior Mr Trump, who said
recently that Mr Colby supported the president’s desire to negotiate
with China’s leader, Xi Jinping, to avoid “poking the dragon in the
eye unnecessarily” and to seek a “balance of power with China that
avoids war”.

Mr Colby’s change of tune may have been politically savvy, but it has
unnerved some in American and allied defence circles who hear
echoes of Mr Trump’s views on Europe. They worry that the
president, who has little personal regard for Taiwan, might be open
to striking a deal with Mr Xi that compromises the island’s security in
exchange for trade concessions from China and deference to other
American interests in Asia. Others doubt Mr Trump can stick to any
coherent China strategy, considering his tariffs on Asian allies and
the recent redeployment of an aircraft-carrier and missile-defence
systems from Asia to the Middle East.

The State Department seems to have a limited say on China despite

the hawkish views of Marco Rubio, the secretary of state. Michael
Anton, his policy-planning chief, has argued that America should not
defend Taiwan. Some leading China hands recently retired early. And
the nominee for the top post covering East Asia and the Pacific is
Michael DeSombre, a lawyer whose only diplomatic experience was a
year as ambassador to Thailand.

Such personnel changes have not gone unnoticed in China.

Researchers there who study America and advise the leadership
believe that the first Trump administration was strongly influenced
by China hawks in the NSC, Pentagon and State Department. Hawks
in the current administration are weak by comparison, said Meng
Weizhan of Fudan University in a recent commentary. He expects it
to become increasingly hardline on technology and trade, but less so
on ideology and military matters as it focuses on domestic revival.

None of this will ultimately decide Mr Trump’s China strategy.

Judging by the past few weeks, that will depend largely on his own
impulses, which can quickly change. But who manages relationships
and policy day to day still matters. And if Mr Trump does seek a deal
with China or if the trade war spills over into the security realm, the
options presented to him and the capacity to predict China’s
response will all be vital. Signalling weakness on Taiwan, for
instance, has as much potential to trigger Chinese military action as
being over-provocative. To engage China in a trade war without a
coherent strategy is risky enough. Incoherence on the security front
could be catastrophic. ■

Subscribers can sign up to Drum Tower, our new weekly newsletter,

to understand what the world makes of China—and what China
makes of the world.
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Your time’s your own

Chinese officials are

encouraging office workers
not to work so hard
More free time means more consumption, they hope
4月 16, 2025 07:03 上午 | BEIJING

You need to get out more

FOR MUCH of the Western world, the two-day weekend is

sacrosanct. In China, the right to rest for two days each week is not
a given. Many students say goodbye to the concept when they start
high school. Overtime is sometimes compulsory for white-collar
workers, especially in the go-go world of tech. In 2019 Jack Ma,
founder of Alibaba, an internet giant, famously defended the “996”
work culture—9am to 9pm, six days a week—as “a huge blessing”.

But in recent months a new phenomenon has emerged, as big firms

across China have begun to make employees leave the office earlier.
Midea, an appliance giant, has launched a campaign against
unnecessary overtime, sending workers home by 6:20pm each day.
Its boss said: “More than 95% of overtime is performative.”
Managers at DJI, a drone maker, known for long hours, have started
clearing the office at 9pm (the deadline drew criticism online for still
being too late).

These new policies align with two of the Chinese state’s current
priorities. One is to try to curb a phenomenon known as neijuan—
often translated as “involution”. People use the term to describe a
situation in which extra input no longer yields more output, like
running to stand still. The government wants to prevent this intense,
self-harming competition. Perhaps not surprisingly, the new policy
has met plenty of cynicism from involuted workers. One newspaper
summarised their online snark with the question: “Are the companies
that long enforced brutal overtime now going to lead the fight
against involution?” Some point to Europe’s new ban on products
made with forced labour, including “excessive overtime”, as the
motivation for export companies to take action.

The second priority is to give people more time off in order to help
bring about the much-needed switch in the economy away from
exports and infrastructure towards consumption. In March the
government presented a new “special action plan” to increase
domestic demand, vowing to deal with “prominent pain points such
as the prevalence of overtime culture”, and to protect “rest and
vacation rights and interests”. It increased the number of public
holidays this year by two days. Getting people to eat out and spend
money is difficult if they are stuck at their desk.
Many people are receptive to the moves. Deaths from suspected
overwork at companies such as Pinduoduo and ByteDance have
sparked anger. Tech workers refer to themselves as niuma, or beasts
of burden. Though the nation’s top court in 2021 declared the “996”
schedule illegal, enforcement of the ruling has been lax. Some firms
still have a “big-week, small week” system, whereby employees
alternate five- and six-day work weeks.

Many of these trends are visible in Haidian, home to Beijing’s Silicon

Valley. Ms Tang is leaving her work at a cloud-computing company at
around 9:30pm. She used to think working late was normal, but now
says her younger colleagues are less tolerant of it. In a tough
economy, however, they may have little choice. “When the economy
is good, you can talk about employees’ happiness,” she says. She
recently moved to her new job because it is less relentless, and she
often gets off by 7pm.

Ms Li has just finished a late dinner at McDonald’s, across the street

from a stream of shuttle buses dropping workers at the subway
station. After burning out at an e-commerce firm, she too was
seeking balance. The 36-year-old took a six-month break, but is back
at an internet firm. Of her 15 days of annual leave last year, she took
six. She says friends her age don’t want to subject their children to
the same rat race, if they even have them. “It’s not just the financial
pressure. You don’t see the point of having kids, because you may
not be living a very good life yourself.”

Life for workers in the service economy is even tougher: they get
only a few days off each month, if any. During a smoke break, a chef
at a noodle restaurant in the Sanlitun shopping area said the owner
gives the option to take days off at lower pay, but most of his
colleagues opt for no rest. Getting Chinese people to stop working
hard will not be easy. ■

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to understand what the world makes of China—and what China
makes of the world.
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Standing up

China’s propagandists preach

defiance in the trade war with
America
The public seems on board, for now
4月 16, 2025 07:03 上午 | BEIJING

“I am standing here!”

EVEN BEFORE getting embroiled in a trade war with America,

China’s officials were struggling to keep up public morale. Many
people were already fretting about a weak job market and a
property downturn. Now, American levies on most Chinese goods
have reached a staggering 145% and China’s levies on American
imports are at 125%.
On April 14th China’s customs bureau tried to reassure, saying that
“the sky won’t fall” because of tariffs. But officials are worried about
consumer sentiment and, in the long run, social stability. So they are
trying to convince the public that China’s defiant approach to
America is the right one, and the pain will be bearable. “Believe in
China. Believe in tomorrow,” gushed an editorial on April 11th on the
front page of the People’s Daily, a Communist Party mouthpiece.
China is an “oasis of certainty” in a chaotic world, it argued,
alongside a list of technological achievements, from AI to space
travel. In America, meanwhile, there has been a shortage of eggs,
state-run media reported.

Propagandists are also digging into China’s revolutionary past for

inspiration. On social media officials shared a grainy video of Mao
Zedong speaking in 1953, during the Korean war, when China’s
armed forces fought America’s. In it Mao proclaims that “No matter
how long this war is going to last, we’ll never yield. We’ll fight until
we completely triumph.” State-run media are also quoting another
fiery saying of Mao: “America is just a paper tiger. Don’t believe its
bluff.”

China keeps tight control on public opinion surveys. But many

Chinese do seem to support fighting a trade war. “We must let
everyone know that we have a strong backbone and will never bow
down,” proclaimed Zijin Gongzi, a blogger with 430,000 followers on
Weibo, a social-media platform. Wuheqilin, a digital artist with 3.5m
followers, created an iconic image (pictured), widely shared online,
of a figure in red, representing China, standing defiantly before a
grotesque Mr Trump, with the title “I am standing here!”

Some are trolling Mr Trump for wanting to bring manufacturing jobs

back to America. They share AI-generated videos of overweight
American workers clumsily trying to make iPhones. One video
features Mr Trump himself in a factory, getting slapped by his
supervisor.
Many Chinese people are worried as well, though. Users of Douyin, a
video-sharing platform, are asking which goods Chinese people
should start hoarding. Others look for tips about buying gold,
perceived to be a haven for investors in times of turmoil. They are
anxious, as well as defiant. ■

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to understand what the world makes of China—and what China
makes of the world.
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United States
Donald Trump’s approval rating is dropping
Falling feeling :: He is beating his own record for rapidly annoying American voters

Tracking Donald Trump’s immigration

crackdown
By the numbers :: And why that is increasingly hard to do

Berniechella: America’s left protests

against Donald Trump
Eating the rich :: Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez take their show on the
road

America’s progressives should love

standardised tests
Hurrah for exams :: New evidence in a long-running argument

Abortion becomes more common in some

US states that outlawed it
Human shields :: Shield laws have profound implications for how federalism works

Can Progressives learn to make progress

again?
Lexington :: In the political wilderness, Democrats are asking themselves how they
lost their way

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Falling feeling

Donald Trump’s approval

rating is dropping
He is beating his own record for rapidly annoying American voters
4月 16, 2025 10:46 下午 | NEW YORK

EVEN WHEN Donald Trump does something well, he exaggerates.

He won the popular vote last November for the first time in three
tries, by a 1.5-point margin. “The mandate was massive,” he told
Time. In fact it was the slimmest margin since 2000, but it was an
improvement on Mr Trump’s two previous popular-vote losses, by 2.1
points in 2016 and 4.5 points in 2020. (He was elected in 2016
through the vagaries of the Electoral College.)
As staggered leaders worldwide have discovered, Mr Trump sees his
re-election as a vindication of the MAGA movement and a mandate
for radical, speedy action. Yet three months into his term, there are
signs that his popular standing is eroding. His approval rating has
fallen by 14 points since he entered office, more steeply than the
five-point drop he had suffered by this time in his first term. In
polling from YouGov/The Economist, Americans give Mr Trump a net
rating of minus-seven percentage points on his handling of the
economy, compared with positive ratings at this point in his first
term (see chart). Nearly one in five of Mr Trump’s own voters in
2024 say they disapprove of his handling of inflation and prices,
while 12% disapprove of his handling of jobs and the economy.
Likewise, in early April data from the University of Michigan’s survey
of consumers showed Republicans less optimistic about the economy
than at any point during Mr Trump’s first term, aside from December
2020, after he had lost re-election.

Mr Trump’s declining marks are no mystery. He was elected largely

on kitchen-table issues and inherited a strong economy dogged by
inflation worries. Presidents have few levers to improve the economy
in the short term. Yet since his inauguration, Mr Trump has appeared
intent on finding the levers that might engineer the most disruption
as quickly as possible. The administration’s initial evisceration of the
federal workforce, and cuts to aid programmes that benefit farmers,
directly affected some of his voters.

Then came the tariff rollercoaster. In the span of two weeks, Mr

Trump unveiled a staggering salvo of tariffs on nearly all of America’s
trading partners; backtracked on levies over 10% (except on China);
carved out an exemption for Chinese-made electronics and seems
content to negotiate and improvise day by day. On April 8th the S&P
500 closed 19% lower than its peak in February, before recovering.
It is hardly surprising that some of Mr Trump’s supporters have lost
confidence.
Will sagging polls slow him down? A self-described “Tariff Man”, Mr
Trump has acted from conviction and acknowledged that his
sweeping levies might cause “some pain” for Americans in the short
run, before reviving manufacturing jobs for the long term. Perhaps
this belief will inure him to dips in his polling numbers. Mr Trump will
not have to face the voters again, though he has mused about
running for a third term, despite a constitutional prohibition. Yet his
Republican congressional colleagues face a reckoning. Having built
their winning coalition on the backs of economically frustrated swing
voters, Republican congressional and state-level candidates will be
particularly vulnerable if Mr Trump’s tariffs push inflation higher or
cause a recession.

Mr Trump’s base remains enthusiastic about him. More than 92% of

the Republican partisans who voted for him in November still view
him favourably. But his re-election was secured by swing voters and
infrequent voters, many of whom were disillusioned with the
economy under Joe Biden. These pocketbook voters are more
diverse than the traditional Republican base—Mr Trump made
impressive gains with young voters and Hispanic voters, for example
—and are not dyed-in-the-wool conservatives. According to the
Cooperative Election Study, an election survey, 84% of the voters
who backed Mr Trump in both 2020 and 2024 were white, 74%
identified as conservative and 72% were over the age of 45. The
new voters he attracted in 2024 were different: 65% were white, a
mere 42% said they were conservative and just 41% were older
than 45. Should Mr Trump fail to deliver the economic boom he
promised on the campaign trail, these voters could easily turn
against him.
Already there are signs of this. The Economist’s analysis of YouGov
data shows how these swings are playing out. Among Hispanic
respondents, Mr Trump’s net approval is minus-37 percentage
points, while among those younger than 30 years of age it is minus-
25. Projecting these trends suggests how the very places that
delivered Mr Trump his victory are now swinging against him (see
chart). Our data suggest Mr Trump has a net negative approval
rating in all six swing states he flipped away from Joe Biden in
November’s presidential election (Arizona, Nevada, Georgia,
Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin).

Mr Trump and his allies may be tempted to dismiss such signals as

based on unreliable polls, but Republicans have seen worrying turns
in voter sentiment this year at the ballot too, in special congressional
elections and a hotly contested state supreme court vote in
Wisconsin. In November, voters will head to the polls for
gubernatorial and other statewide elections in Virginia and New
Jersey, where The Economist’s analysis suggests that Mr Trump’s net
approval has fallen to an estimated minus-11 and minus-14,
respectively.

The biggest test will be the midterm elections in 2026, which will
determine control of Congress, and with it the fate of Mr Trump’s
agenda. During his first term, Republicans lost 42 seats in the House
in 2018 and Democrats took control. At the time Mr Trump’s
approval rating was around minus-eight, slightly better than it is
today, and voters were broadly satisfied with the economy. With a
year and half to go, it is too early to forecast the headwinds
Republicans may face this time. But incumbent parties rarely do well
in midterms and the Republican majority in the House is razor-thin.
Paradoxically, voters’ discontent with Mr Trump’s handling of the
economy may be a bullish sign for American democracy. Partisanship
may be at record highs but there are still voters who will cross party
lines and punish politicians for hubris or folly. ■

Stay on top of American politics with The US in brief, our daily

newsletter with fast analysis of the most important political news,
and Checks and Balance, a weekly note from our Lexington
columnist that examines the state of American democracy and the
issues that matter to voters.
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states/2025/04/16/donald-trumps-approval-rating-is-dropping

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By the numbers

Tracking Donald Trump’s

immigration crackdown
And why that is increasingly hard to do
4月 16, 2025 07:03 上午 | El Paso

KILMAR ABREGO GARCIA was not supposed to be sent back to El

Salvador. He came to America illegally around 2011 as a teenager,
but had been living in Maryland legally since 2019. He is married to
an American citizen, has three American children and, with no
criminal history, was ostensibly protected from deportation. Yet he is
now languishing in a Salvadorean prison as one of more than 200
migrants deported without due process when Mr Trump invoked the
Alien Enemies Act last month. In the Oval Office, Nayib Bukele, El
Salvador’s president, said the idea that he would return Mr Abrego
Garcia to America was “preposterous”, despite the Supreme Court’s
ruling that the Trump administration must facilitate his return.

Mr Abrego Garcia’s case exemplifies the aggressive approach to

immigration enforcement that Mr Trump is taking in his second term.
He has tried to orient his administration around mass deportations,
and a broader crackdown on immigration.
Mr Trump has succeeded at the border. Migrant encounters have
fallen by 96% since they peaked in December 2023, during Joe
Biden’s presidency (see chart 1). “What you’re doing with the border
is remarkable,” gushed Mr Bukele. In 2022 migrant shelters in El
Paso, Texas, overflowed with new arrivals. Now migrants are rarely
seen. Border Patrol trucks drive lazily through the foothills that
separate El Paso from Mexico. Yet locals say that things calmed
down months before Mr Trump took office. That is reflected in the
data: crossings fell quickly when Mexico tightened enforcement and
Mr Biden restricted asylum in mid-2024.

The thousands of troops Mr Trump has stationed at the border may

also act as a deterrent. Immigrant advocates in El Paso say that
would-be migrants are taking a “wait and see” approach to the new
administration. Illegal crossings could eventually tick up as coyotes
discover new, and perhaps more dangerous, smuggling routes.

When Mr Trump took office, Immigration and Customs Enforcement

(ICE) began posting daily arrest figures on X. That did not last long.
Some immigration experts suggest that the agency stopped when it
became clear that they could not sustain tallies of 1,000 or so
arrests a day. An analysis from the Transactional Records Access
Clearinghouse (TRAC), which tracks immigration data, suggests that
average daily arrests in the first few weeks of Mr Trump’s term were
only slightly higher than during Mr Biden’s last year in office.
But those who have been arrested are now more likely to be
detained. The number of detainees plummeted during the pandemic
and remained relatively low during the first half of Mr Biden’s
administration. This has now reversed (see chart 2). As of March
23rd, ICE was holding nearly 48,000 migrants. Mr Trump is running
out of places to put people. Limited detention beds can slow
deportations, so ICE is working with private prison firms to reopen
old jails, and with the defence department on plans to detain
thousands at a military base in El Paso.
The big question, how many deportations have actually occurred, is
hard to answer. Under Mr Biden, the Office of Homeland Security
Statistics released monthly figures on immigration enforcement,
including deportations. No new data have been published since
January. A generous interpretation of the pause is that the Trump
administration merely wants to audit its statistics, says Austin
Kocher, an immigration expert at Syracuse University. “A more
concerning interpretation”, he adds, is that “they are just yanking
data entirely so that there is no way to fact-check what the White
House says.” ■

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Eating the rich

Berniechella: America’s left

protests against Donald
Trump
Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez take their show on the
road
4月 16, 2025 07:03 上午 | LOS ANGELES

And another thing

SOME CALIFORNIANS spent much of the weekend stuck in traffic on

the way to Coachella, a music festival in the desert. But near City
Hall in downtown Los Angeles on April 12th, a very different kind of
concert unfolded. Bernie Sanders, 83, a senator from Vermont and
two-time Democratic presidential candidate, and Alexandria Ocasio-
Cortez, 35, a congresswoman from New York, headlined a “Fighting
Oligarchy” rally, which seemed suspended somewhere between 1968
and 2025. A grey-haired Joan Baez told the crowd that she “ain’t
gonna let those lousy billionaires turn me around”. Neil Young urged
everyone to “take America back!” When they weren’t booing
President Donald Trump or Elon Musk, attendees swayed to Maggie
Rogers, a singer who best summed up the event. “Welcome to
Berniechella,” she told the crowd of 36,000.

The rally in Los Angeles was the largest so far of the “Fighting
Oligarchy” tour. In their speeches, Mr Sanders and Ms Ocasio-Cortez
suggested that the reasons for the rallies are two-fold. First, they
hope to show Mr Trump and his allies that there are plenty of people
unhappy with how his second term is unfolding. “Your presence here
today is making Donald Trump and Elon Musk very nervous,” said Mr
Sanders. Second, they are working to convince Democrats to adopt
economic populism.

Since Mr Trump’s victory, Democrats have been grappling with what

their party needs to change to woo back voters. The “Fighting
Oligarchy” rallies offer one path forward. “We need a Democratic
Party that fights harder for us,” said Ms Ocasio-Cortez. “That
means…choosing and voting for Democrats and elected officials who
know how to stand for the working class.” Both she and Mr Sanders
decry corporate money in politics, wealth inequality and the
existence of billionaires, especially when they win the popular vote.
A stage filled with influencers (this is LA, after all) was on hand to
help turn Mr Sanders’s greatest hits into viral videos. “There are no
ethical billionaires” was written across one woman’s crop top. “Eat
the rich” T-shirts were not in short supply.

Meanwhile, several in the crowd said they were more concerned

about making sure the government works than about sticking it to
billionaires. Serina Milano and Sylvia Villa met on Bumble BFF, an
app for making friends. The rally was their first time hanging out.
“It’s great to see how many people are embarrassed of their Teslas,”
said Ms Milano. But she wasn’t sure that fighting oligarchy would
resonate. Perhaps Mr Sanders wasn’t, either: his speech veered into
reproductive rights, climate change and housing.

He and Ms Ocasio-Cortez are not the only ones trying to push the
Democratic Party towards their point of view. But while they have
been saying the same thing for years, the centrists in the party have
some new lines. Some Democratic mayors, governors and state
lawmakers reckon that fixing problems that vex their constituents in
places the party already governs may convince voters that they
deserve power at national level, too. To this end, they are embracing
the “abundance agenda”, which involves cutting regulation· in order
to build housing and infrastructure more easily in places such as
New York and California.

Hours after Berniechella ended, the aged senator appeared on stage

at the real thing. “We have an economy today that is working very
well for the billionaire class,” he told fans at Coachella. He is nothing
if not consistent. ■

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Hurrah for exams

America’s progressives should

love standardised tests
New evidence in a long-running argument
4月 16, 2025 07:02 上午 | NEW YORK

Preppies

SOMETIMES POLITICAL fights go on long after evidence that should

settle the argument has come in. Such is the case with standardised
tests. In February the Trump administration warned universities that
eliminating standardised admissions tests to achieve racial diversity
would be illegal. The Biden administration took the opposite stance:
it encouraged colleges to consider dropping admissions tests like the
SAT or ACT, which critics have long said favour the wealthy and
disadvantage black Americans. In 2020, which already seems like
another era, Ibram X. Kendi, author of “How to Be an Antiracist”,
called the tests “the most effective racist weapon ever devised to…
exclude [black and brown students] from prestigious schools.”

He could hardly have been more wrong. During the covid-19

pandemic, hundreds of universities made submitting scores optional
because it was hard to consistently administer tests. Many then
stuck with the policy. In March 2022 MIT decided to reinstate a
mandatory test policy. For two years, “we were the lone wolf”
among the “Ivy Plus” schools (the eight Ivies plus Chicago, Duke,
MIT and Stanford), says MIT’s dean of admissions, Stuart Schmill.
“We were getting dirty looks everywhere.” Now tests are making a
comeback in top-tier schools. Eight of the Ivy Plus have belatedly
followed MIT’s lead, most recently Penn in February. Princeton and
Duke, two of four remaining holdouts, have yet to announce their
policy for 2026.

Critics of standardised tests say that high-school grade-point

averages (GPAs) are a better predictor of student potential. In
studies that compare the two, much evidence backs that claim. For
instance, a 2020 study found that GPAs of Chicago Public School
students predicted six-year graduation rates better than ACT scores,
while a 2019 study found grades in a national sample of 47,000
students better predicted on-time graduation than tests.
The disagreement arises partly because each side is measuring
something different. A new paper by John Friedman of Brown and
Bruce Sacerdote, Douglas Staiger and Michele Tine of Dartmouth
College uses scores and transcripts of 14,620 students from 2017 to
2024 at many of the Ivy Plus schools. The study found that scores
on SATs and ACTs predict how college students do far better than
high-school GPAs, controlling for gender, race and parental income
(see chart).

So the correct answer in the test v grade battle? It depends on how

selective the university is. There is much less variation in grades of
students today than there has been in the past—which some studies
suggest is due to grade inflation—making it more difficult for top-tier
schools to distinguish between applicants with impressive grades. By
contrast, Mr Friedman says, there is enough “meaningful” variation
in test scores to offer a “super helpful” signal for top-tier schools.
Variation at the top is less important for a less selective school.

Likewise, average grades pick up attributes such as attendance and

self-regulation that have bearing in, say, predicting graduation from
a community college, but less for distinguishing between high-flyers
for whom such attributes are more of a given. “Graduation rates are
all extremely high at Ivy Plus schools, so there is nothing to predict
there,” says Mr Friedman. In the 2019 study where GPAs prevailed in
predicting on-time graduation, only 39% of the students graduated
on time.

What about fairness? Test critics like FairTest, a non-profit advocacy

group, point to gaps in exam scores between students of different
racial groups, which they say leads to racial bias in admissions. But
tests don’t create poor academic preparation, they just pick it up,
says Mr Friedman. The new study found that students from different
backgrounds with the same scores achieved similar college grades.

In fact, tests can help poorer students get admitted to top schools.
It may be harder to evaluate grades earned by students in little-
known high schools than by students at better-regarded places that
offer advanced coursework, says Mr Schmill. Richer students also
have more opportunities to do expensive enrichment activities that
strengthen their applications, and may receive expert essay editing.
A plethora of free test-prep material available online, such as Khan
Academy courses, helps level the test playing field; Schoolhouse, a
Khan offshoot, offers free tutoring.

Test-optional policies may actually harm disadvantaged students.

Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard and MIT reported concern that
some students did not report test scores that were strong but below
elite institutions’ average for accepted students without realising
that, in combination with their disadvantaged backgrounds, those
results would have helped them. At a time when America’s elite
universities are rethinking admissions, the idea that tests benefit
poorer students is a solid principle to hold on to. ■

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Human shields

Abortion becomes more

common in some US states
that outlawed it
Shield laws have profound implications for how federalism works
4月 16, 2025 07:04 上午 | BOSTON

ANGEL FOSTER has a vision of a patient. “Imagine you’re a 23-year-

old woman in rural Texas”, the doctor and public-health researcher
says. This patient is pregnant and wants an abortion. For years,
she’s been told that it is illegal in her state, with almost no
exceptions. But then, with a bit of Googling, “you find out that
there’s this group of people in Massachusetts that will send you FDA-
approved medications in the mail.” The ordeal will be over in a few
days and will cost $5. “It sounds absolutely bananas, right?” she
asks “How could it be legal? How could it be safe?”

Yet it is safe and legal. Dr Foster is one of the founders of the

Massachusetts Medication Abortion Access Project (the MAP), a
telehealth abortion provider outside Boston. It sends between 2,000
and 3,000 packages of abortion pills a month, 95% of them to states
where the procedure has been banned. Massachusetts is one of
eight states that protects abortion providers from criminal charges
and civil litigation, regardless of where pills are sent (see map). Such
“shield” laws are legal novelties that have sprung up since 2022,
when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade. In the first six
months of 2024, nearly 10,000 abortions took place each month
under these provisions—amounting to 10% of all legal abortions in
America. That number is probably even higher now. Partly due to
telemedicine abortions, Mississippi women—and those in nine other
ban states—now have more abortions than before the procedure
was outlawed.

The MAP office “looks like an Etsy startup”, Dr Foster observes.

Shipping cartons stack up next to Post-its with passwords. Open a
cabinet, however, and there are hundreds of doses of abortion pills.
The process is simple: women fill out some online forms (other
providers require a phone call) and send $5. Medically, this is fine.
Telemedicine abortion is legal in Britain and is safe: a 2024 study
published in Nature Medicine found that 99.8% of such abortions in
America were not followed by a serious adverse event.
The FDA permits telemedicine abortions only for early pregnancies
and following the procedure at home can be unpleasant. Some
women worry about the amount of bleeding that can occur and go
to hospital. Some legal danger remains. Although women are
generally not forbidden from ending their own pregnancies (typically
laws penalise providers and supporters), a handful have faced
charges for related crimes, the most grisly being improper disposal
of a corpse. For health-care providers (in some states, midwives and
nurse practitioners can also perform abortions) there are risks. “I’m
not an activist in general” explains one family doctor in California
who does shield-law abortions, “I’m doing this because I can and it’s
needed.“ Shield laws prevent extradition from only the shielded
state. Because he now avoids leaving California, that doctor is
missing the birth of a grandchild.

Anti-abortion activists are incensed by the workaround. In December

Ken Paxton, Texas’s attorney-general, filed a civil suit against Maggie
Carpenter, a New York doctor, for sending abortion pills into the
state. Louisiana followed in January, indicting the same doctor with
criminal charges for sending pills to the mother of a pregnant
teenager. So far, though, the shields are holding. Kathy Hochul, New
York’s governor, has refused to extradite the doctor and courts in the
state are not enforcing Texas’ $113,000 penalty. Mr Paxton has
promised to press on, claiming that “New York is shredding the
constitution.” A challenge in federal court is likely.
“There’s no patient who’s come forward to say: ‘I was shipped the
wrong pills… I’ve suffered these consequences’,” says Rachel
Rebouché, a dean of Temple University law school, and one of the
architects of shield laws. In a hunt for such harm, lawyers are
reportedly looking for would-be fathers to bring a suit. So far the
action against Dr Carpenter has succeeded only in publicising the
option, triggering an uptick in the use of abortion pills. The shield
laws are “probably going to end up before the Supreme Court, it is
just a question of when” says Mary Ziegler, a legal historian.

The constitutional questions are profound. That states respected

judgments and co-operated in investigations “was a really strong
value and default that crossed partisan lines”, says Ms Ziegler.
“Shield laws clearly are undermining that value.” It is possible to
imagine their use spreading beyond abortion to cover more things
some states ban and others permit, like conversion therapy or the
recreational use of psychedelics. Some states already apply them to
transgender medicine. “I don’t know how you put that genie back in
the bottle” says Thomas Jipping of the Heritage Foundation, a
conservative think-tank. “If we can’t agree on the underlying
principles that hold the country together, well, then we’re going to
have deep, deep problems going forward.” He frets that “the country
may well come apart.”

Shield-law advocates say that abortion is special and the laws are
unlikely to spread further. A federal law could bring clarification, but
any attempts in the current Congress would be blocked by a Senate
filibuster. Donald Trump’s administration has some options to limit
shield laws: the Food and Drug Administration could require
mifepristone, one of the medicines used in abortion, to be received
in person. Medication abortion can be done without those pills, but it
is less effective and more painful. The Justice Department could also
attempt to enforce the Comstock Act, an archaic anti-obscenity law,
that, among other things, bans the posting of abortifacients. The
president has said abortion laws should be left to states to decide.
But he probably did not envisage this. ■

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Lexington

Can Progressives learn to

make progress again?
In the political wilderness, Democrats are asking themselves how
they lost their way
4月 16, 2025 07:02 上午

NOT MANY biographies would qualify as influential enough to justify

their own exhibition. But it is impossible to argue with the choice
made by the New York Historical museum to host a show
commemorating the 50th anniversary of “The Power Broker: Robert
Moses and the Fall of New York”, the landmark takedown of the city’s
master-builder by Robert Caro.
The installation recounts how Mr Caro, having quit his job as a
newspaper reporter, spent seven years investigating the many ways
Moses amassed control to remake the city in the middle of the last
century, razing neighbourhoods to build housing developments,
highways and parks. In East Tremont, in the Bronx, families found
notices on their doors signed by Moses that gave them 90 days to
find new homes. One display presents Mr Caro’s scribbled notes of
his interview with Moses about the forced evictions: “There’s very
little real hardship,” Moses told him. “It was a political thing that
stirred up the animals there.”

In another display is the publicity plug for “The Power Broker”,

featuring a plug from a heroine of the time, Jane Jacobs, who had
saved her neighbourhood in Greenwich Village by thwarting Moses.
She called the book “an immense public service”. The exhibition
concludes that “The Power Broker” has inspired generations of
readers “to critically engage with the power structures around them
in order to effectuate progressive change”.

Yet beyond the New York Historical’s walls, eggheads of the left,
confronting the collapse of confidence in government and the
Democratic Party, are asking: where, exactly, is the evidence of
progressive change? In their telling, it is Jacobs and her ilk who are
the culprits behind the modern-day fall of New York, blocking
progress in Democrat-dominated cities and states to preserve their
own genteel lifestyles. Jacobs, the author of “The Death and Life of
Great American Cities”, had “largely lost faith in electoral
democracy”, writes Yoni Appelbaum in “Stuck”, his fascinating new
account of the decline in Americans’ geographical mobility.

Distrustful of big institutions and bureaucracy, Jacobs argued for a

decentralised, bottom-up approach to urban planning that, as it took
hold in New York and elsewhere, vested new powers over zoning in
the neighbourhoods. In practice those powers were seized by small
groups of activists. The results, in Mr Appelbaum’s appraisal,
included a system “that was even less representative and far less
able to defend the public interest”, and a Greenwich Village in which
only millionaires could afford to live. Nationally, zoning has made
neighbourhoods less diverse economically, and fewer arrivals mean
fewer infusions of new ideas and experiences, intensifying
polarisation. Where one in three Americans moved in any given year
at the end of the 19th century, and one in five did so in the middle
of the last century, today the figure is closer to one in 12. Mr
Appelbaum writes that, because housing costs in cities like New York
have rocketed, “moving toward opportunity is now, largely, a
privilege of the economic elite.”

No one is arguing for reviving Robert Moses. But among the so-
called Abundance Democrats, advocates for making housing and
energy cheaper and public transport less awful, there is a wistfulness
for his era of Progressive, um, progress. Such critiques of
Democratic governance have bubbled among reform-minded policy
thinkers for many years, but they are gaining urgency within the
party from a realisation, at last, that the public shares them. Indeed,
for all Mr Caro’s revelations, what might jump out at a New Yorker
visiting the museum is that the Triborough Bridge, a network of four
bridges requiring steel from 50 mills and a forest’s worth of lumber,
opened in just three years. By contrast, though the reborn LaGuardia
Airport is a bright spot, the renovation of a stretch of highway in
Queens has been trudging along since 2010.

In the early years of the Progressive movement, Teddy Roosevelt

envisioned a “New Nationalism” that, as he put it in a speech in
1910, was “impatient of the impotence which springs from
overdivision of government powers, the impotence which makes it
possible for local selfishness or for legal cunning, hired by wealthy
special interests, to bring national activities to a deadlock”. This New
Nationalism, he went on, “regards the executive power as the
steward of the public welfare”. Moses, a Progressive in the Roosevelt
tradition, may well represent its high-water mark.

Trust-busting
“The Power Broker” appeared within weeks of President Richard
Nixon’s resignation in 1974, notes Marc Dunkelman in “Why Nothing
Works”. By then, he writes, progressives were coming to see state
power as a threat to public welfare rather than as a tool to advance
it. Not the right with its anti-government oratory but the left with its
checks on state action emerges from his history as the chief villain in
alienating citizens from the state. “Who in their right mind”, he asks,
“would seek to give more power to this sort of dysfunctional, do-the-
least-possible version of government?”

Donald Trump has his own view of executive power, one that
appears to recognise no boundaries. To free his hand, he is returning
government to something more like it was before the Progressives
created the civil service to professionalise the bureaucracy,
restricting patronage and the politicisation of state policy, which
fuelled the 19th-century political machines. The ideas percolating on
the left fall well short of a detailed agenda, and they treat citizens
largely as consumers rather than, as both Presidents Roosevelt did,
participants in a great national project. But these ideas are starting
to point towards some new synthesis of federal power, local interest
and market forces, to replace once-cherished Democratic reforms
that outlasted their era. If Mr Trump’s model fails, Democrats will
have their chance to deliver a new model, built for this time, of what
they think good government looks like. ■

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The Americas
Milei’s bold move: making Argentina’s
economy normal
23rd time lucky :: A gob of IMF cash will help float the peso, but political and market
risks abound

Nayib Bukele provides Donald Trump with a

legal black hole
House Bukele at the court of Trump :: Deportees disappear into it

Guatemala’s indigenous people grow

impatient with their champion
Spring unsprung :: The president is struggling with his “new spring” anti-corruption
drive

The judge who would rule the internet

Democrat or dictator? :: Brazil’s Alexandre de Moraes is on a crusade to cow the far
right by curbing online speech

Daniel Noboa wins another term as

Ecuador’s murder rate soars
Nobody’s perfect :: Ecuadorians will have little patience if the would-be strongman
cannot tackle the gangs

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23rd time lucky

Milei’s bold move: making

Argentina’s economy normal
A gob of IMF cash will help float the peso, but political and market
risks abound
4月 16, 2025 07:35 上午 | Buenos Aires

“INSTEAD OF TALKING about growth at Chinese rates, the world

will soon be talking about growth at Argentine rates,” crowed Javier
Milei on late-night television on April 11th. His economy minister had
just outlined a $20bn IMF programme, a reduction in capital controls
and a shift to a more flexible exchange rate. Yet not everyone in
Argentina is so triumphant. On April 10th, after the news of the IMF
deal first broke, a pre-planned general strike against Mr Milei’s
spending cuts paralysed the country. Jorge Newbery airport in
Buenos Aires, the capital, was left empty. Trains and subways were
silent. Uncollected rubbish mouldered on the streets.

Many of Argentina’s 22 previous IMF programmes have ended in

disaster. Mr Milei’s record gives some credibility to his insistence that
this time will be different. In December 2023 he inherited rampant
government overspending, soaring inflation and a byzantine tangle
of capital controls and exchange rates. He slashed spending
immediately, pulling inflation sharply down. A deep recession is now
giving way to strong growth. The rate of poverty, which rose to 53%
of all Argentines in early 2024, has now fallen back to 38%, lower
than it was when Mr Milei took office. Now he is tackling the
weakness in his reform programme: capital controls and the
overvalued peso. He has never been closer to transforming
Argentina into a normal economy. But global economic chaos
endangers his reforms, and politics could still trip him up.

Until April 14th, Mr Milei maintained capital controls and kept the
exchange rate on a “crawling peg”, which initially devalued the peso
by 2% against the dollar each month. That pulled down inflation,
but while it was still running at more than 2% a month the peso
became overvalued. Capital controls deter foreign investors; the
“super peso” made exports costly relative to local goods, and
prompted markets to bet that its value would fall. That threatened a
crisis. Since mid-March the central bank has spent about $2.5bn to
prop up the exchange rate. By April 11th its net foreign reserves
were some $7bn in the red (see chart).
Now, pushed and supported by the fund, Mr Milei has acted. A big
slug of IMF cash—$12bn right away and another $3bn over the
course of this year—will help the central bank defend a more flexible
exchange-rate regime. Gross reserves are also bolstered by the
renewal of a $5bn swap line with China and by $6.1bn that is
expected to be lent by multilateral banks. The official exchange rate
will now float between 1,000 and 1,400 pesos to the dollar. The
central bank will sell dollars to defend the peso only if it approaches
the 1,400 limit. If it looks like Argentines are exchanging too many
pesos for dollars, the central bank will offer up juicy high interest
rates in pesos as an inducement.

This strategy is courageous because it is risky. By April 15th the peso

had slumped by 12% to 1,230 to the dollar. Yet Capital Economics, a
consultancy, reckons that still overvalues the peso. “At some point
the market is going to test the upper band,” says Martin Redrado, a
former head of the central bank, now with Fundación Capital, a
consultancy. The strength of the central bank’s response will be
crucial, he says.

The government has also reduced capital controls to make it easier

to take money out of Argentina. That will help attract foreign
investment, but raises the risk of sudden outflows. For that reason
some big controls remain, including on billions in past foreign
dividends that have long been stuck in the country.

The reforms should make it easier for the central bank to

accumulate reserves of its own, not just those lent to it by the fund.
Argentina needs those to have any chance of borrowing in global
capital markets, which it wants to start doing early next year to help
roll debts over. Some $19bn is due in 2026. Early signs are good.
Argentine international bonds rallied strongly after the change,
suggesting that markets approve of the plan.

The Trump trap

Global economic chaos makes it harder to carry out. Mr Milei loves

the United States’ president, Donald Trump, but Mr Trump’s trade
war has caused a sharp drop in the price of oil and threatens the
price of agricultural commodities. This weakens earnings from two
big Argentine exports and makes it harder to build up reserves. The
mayhem also makes for risk-averse investors; they are already wary
of Argentina, a serial defaulter. Perhaps to compensate, on April 14th
Scott Bessent, the United States’ treasury secretary, stepped away
from firefighting and went to Argentina to meet Mr Milei. Although
no concrete measures were announced, the visit was a strong
symbol of support.

The risk for Mr Milei is that these sweeping reforms lead to inflation,
and then to dicey politics. The peso’s depreciation will almost
certainly increase inflation. It rose to 3.7% monthly in March, up
from 2.4% in February. A further rise to around 5% monthly is likely,
says FMyA, an economics consultancy. Mr Milei’s hope is that any
rise in inflation lasts only a few months, and falls off before the
October midterm elections.

Falling inflation is the basis of Mr Milei’s popularity. Argentines may

be angry if it rises further, especially as in his triumphant speech on
April 11th he declared that “inflation is going to collapse”. The
danger is a vicious circle in which inflation rises and Mr Milei’s
popularity falls, markets get spooked, economic problems mount, Mr
Milei’s popularity declines further, and so on. In an attempt to pre-
empt spooking, the government has promised yet more aggressive
spending cuts. That will anger many Argentines already suffering—
and going on strike.

Mr Milei is already under political pressure. On April 3rd the Senate

rejected two of his nominations for the Supreme Court, which he
had controversially tried to ram through by decree. Soon after, the
lower house voted to open an investigation into Mr Milei’s promotion
in February of a dodgy cryptocurrency, which crashed in value hours
after he promoted it on social media. The crypto scandal undermines
his narrative about fighting the corrupt “caste”.

At 45% his approval rating remains strong, but has fallen since the
new year. Markets will watch upcoming regional elections, followed
by the midterms, for any sign that spendthrift Peronists might be set
for a comeback. No structural reform is more crucial for Argentina
than excising radical Peronist economic policy, says Alejandro Werner
of the Peterson Institute, a think-tank in Washington.
The trouble is that Mr Milei lacks allies. He is most obviously aligned
with the party of the centre-right ex-president, Mauricio Macri. But
while there is talk of a united front, there are also plenty of gripes.
That could open the door to the Peronists in elections in both
Buenos Aires city and province. A big Peronist win in the latter could
scare markets, warns Ignacio Labaqui of Medley Advisors, a research
firm.

Even if the midterms go well, they will not bring Mr Milei as much
power as he would like. While his party, which holds just 15% of the
seats in the lower house and fewer in the Senate, hopes to make big
gains, the limited nature of the election is against them. Only half of
the lower house and a third of the Senate are up for grabs.

He is fortunate that the Peronist opposition is embroiled in infighting

over its leadership. The road ahead remains difficult, but for now,
remarkably, Mr Milei looks more likely than not to pull off his
transformation of Argentina’s economy. ■

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House Bukele at the court of Trump

Nayib Bukele provides Donald

Trump with a legal black hole
Deportees disappear into it
4月 16, 2025 07:04 上午 | Mexico City

Into a black hole

NAYIB BUKELE has won over many aspiring autocrats with his
combination of charm and disrespect for the rule of law. On April
14th that heady mixture was on display for his counterpart in the
United States, Donald Trump. During a meeting in the Oval Office, El
Salvador’s president beamed as he asked why the media were not
reporting Mr Trump’s “remarkable” work at the border. He assured
Mr Trump that the women in his cabinet had not been hired in the
name of diversity, equality and inclusion. Mr Trump chuckled and
called him “a great friend”. Their bromance is theatrical. Its
consequences are not.

The 43-year-old Mr Bukele has long been influential within the MAGA
movement for his tough stance on crime and flashy use of social
media. He is now one of Mr Trump’s most useful allies. Since March
the Trump administration has deported hundreds of people—mostly
Venezuelans it alleges to be members of Tren de Aragua, a gang—to
El Salvador. Many were expelled under the Alien Enemies Act, a
rarely used law passed in 1798. Mr Bukele has placed them in his
Terrorism Confinement Centre, a “mega-prison” built to hold
domestic gang members.

This arrangement is being challenged in courts in the United States.

Human Rights Watch, an NGO, says 238 Venezuelans have been
arbitrarily detained. There is no evidence that more than a few of
them are the violent criminals that Mr Trump says they are. Just 5%
have been charged with serious crimes, according to Bloomberg.
Though the US Supreme Court has allowed the Trump administration
to invoke the Alien Enemies Act, it ruled that deportees must be
given an opportunity to contest their removal. So far, none has.

Take the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadorean resident of

Maryland. American officials argue that they cannot “facilitate” his
return to the US, as ordered by the Supreme Court, despite
acknowledging that he was deported by mistake. Mr Bukele’s
response was similarly defiant. Asked if he would send him back, he
said he would not “smuggle a terrorist into the United States”. (That
is a vague allegation that has not been tested in court.)

There are few legal constraints, if any, in El Salvador. Since taking

office in 2019, Mr Bukele has stacked the courts, eliminated bodies
which might check his power and won control of the national
assembly. Stacked with Mr Bukele’s allies, the Supreme Court
reinterpreted the constitution to permit his re-election in 2024.
Despite this allergy to oversight, Mr Bukele is hugely popular thanks
to his crackdown on gangs. El Salvador’s murder rate was already
falling when he was elected, but has since plummeted from 51 per
100,000 in 2018 to just 1.9 in 2024. But the price has been a three-
year state of emergency and the highest incarceration rate in the
world, in some of its grimmest prisons. “There are thousands of
Kilmars in El Salvador,” says Noah Bullock of Cristosal, a human-
rights NGO in San Salvador, El Salvador’s capital.

Mr Bukele relishes helping Mr Trump to flout the law. When an

American judge ordered the return of a planeload of deported
people, Mr Bukele posted, “Oopsie… too late,” on X, a social-media
platform. There’s money involved, too. The Trump administration is
paying El Salvador $6m to hold those deported.

Mr Bukele may want an exemption from the 10% tariffs that Mr

Trump has put on most countries’ exports to the United States. He
may also want to preserve Salvadoreans’ Temporary Protected
Status (TPS), which allows them to stay in the United States without
a visa. Most important, Mr Bukele likes the publicity.

El Salvador’s role as America’s jailor may expand. Mr Trump has

talked of helping Mr Bukele build more prisons. At the Oval Office Mr
Bukele told Mr Trump he is “eager to help” with America’s “crime
problem” and its “terrorism problem”. He has offered to hold
American prisoners in El Salvador, as well as deported foreigners. Mr
Trump has said he “loves” the idea, though admits it may be legally
tricky.

Officials in Washington may yet find workarounds. According to

Politico, a news outlet, Erik Prince, who founded a military
contractor, Blackwater, has suggested that Mr Trump could designate
prisons in El Salvador as American territory. That would enable the
Trump administration to claim that transfers to those prisons would
not amount to deportation or extradition.
Mr Bukele said he had been criticised for locking up too many
people, but that in doing so he “actually liberated millions”. Mr
Trump, he said, has 350m Americans to liberate. With Mr Bukele’s
help, Mr Trump is now testing how far borders—and the law—can be
bent to that end. ■

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Spring unsprung

Guatemala’s indigenous
people grow impatient with
their champion
The president is struggling with his “new spring” anti-corruption
drive
4月 16, 2025 07:03 上午 | Mexico City

WHEN A CABAL of elites that many Guatemalans refer to as the

“pact of the corrupt” tried to block the transfer of presidential power
to Bernardo Arévalo in 2023, thousands of the country’s indigenous
people cried foul and shut down major roads. In the end, various
ruses to keep Mr Arévalo out of office failed. Now, after more than a
year in power, he is beginning to test the patience of the people who
helped him get there.

Mr Arévalo is a former diplomat with a penchant for mediation. He

focused his campaign on a “new spring” that would tackle
Guatemala’s entrenched corruption. But he also put the country’s
indigenous communities on his agenda. They make up 44% of the
population and live largely in poverty. More than half have homes
that lack indoor plumbing. Mr Arévalo has strengthened government
institutions that serve indigenous people. He joins formal
roundtables each month with dozens of indigenous leaders, and is
working to remove legal obstacles to public investment on
indigenous land.

Many expected deeper and speedier change. In a letter sent on

January 30th, an indigenous group from the mountainous Solalá
region urged Mr Arévalo to remove corrupt officials who have spent
years in their posts. “We would like him to be braver, to show his
claws,” says Dina Juc, an indigenous leader. Sonia Gutiérrez, an
indigenous congresswoman, says that the executive branch has the
will but not a plan.

In fairness, Mr Arévalo has not had it easy. María Consuelo Porras,

the attorney-general who led the effort to bar him from office,
remains in her position. She has faced international sanctions for
corruption (which she denies), and has sought to lift Mr Arévalo’s
immunity from prosecution. While Mr Arévolo’s cabinet has sent
prosecutors some 250 formal corruption complaints, about one-fifth
have been archived or dismissed. The executive branch has
struggled to dismiss staff who are accused of dodgy behaviour. The
problem, says Julio Flores, the boss of Guatemala’s National
Commission Against Corruption, is that “institutions are completely
co-opted”. Beyond the attorney-general’s office, Mr Arévalo also
lacks support in Guatemala’s judiciary and in Congress, where his
party holds a small minority. A deep clean will thus take time.
Meanwhile, Mr Arévalo’s government insists that symbolic acts
matter. It hopes that its talks with indigenous people will send a
signal to future governments that these groups cannot be ignored.
“The mentality in this country is that the president has a magic wand
and can resolve everything he wants by waving it,” says Ana Glenda
Tager, an official who co-ordinates the talks. “The reality is that he
arrived to a completely disordered state.”

Ms Juc says that she and other leaders recognise this issue. But
frustration is mounting nonetheless. When he took office in January
2024 Mr Arévalo’s approval rating was 78%. It is now half that. He is
often referred to as tibio, lukewarm. When his government issued
new regulations requiring drivers to be insured, at least nine
indigenous groups voiced opposition. Truckers blocked roads. Mr
Arévalo backed down after just two days.

One of the indigenous groups who led the protests against the “pact
of the corrupt” in 2023 is called the 48 Cantons of Totonicapán. For
Juan Pablo Ajpacajá Barreno, its leader, that season of change is
over. “Honestly,” he says, “the ‘new spring’ doesn’t exist.” ■

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Democrat or dictator?

The judge who would rule the

internet
Brazil’s Alexandre de Moraes is on a crusade to cow the far right by
curbing online speech
4月 16, 2025 07:03 上午 | Brasília

ALEXANDRE DE MORAES divides opinion. Elon Musk calls the

Brazilian supreme court judge “Darth Vader” on account of his black
cape and high, shiny forehead, and claims he is a “tyrannical dictator
masquerading as a judge”. Others hold warmer feelings. To
campaigners who call for restrictions on digital speech, Mr Moraes is
a superstar. To his fans in Brazil he is just Xandão, “Big Alex”.
Only in Brazil, which endows its Federal Supreme Court (STF) with
extreme power, could a judge be so prominent. As guardians of
Brazil’s prolix constitution, which covers everything from health care
to wages, STF judges often rule on matters which in most places are
the remit of elected officials. Because of the caseload this creates,
the STF allows judges to make consequential decisions individually,
rather than waiting for the full bench to convene.

This gives each judge enormous visibility—and an air of celebrity.

Rulings are broadcast live. The court runs a lively TikTok account.
Yet no other STF judge has a public profile to compare with Mr
Moraes. He became famous during a sideline running Brazil’s
electoral tribunal between 2022 and 2024, when Jair Bolsonaro,
Brazil’s far-right former president, allegedly tried to organise a coup
to stay in power. His investigations into Mr Bolsonaro, and a related
probe he leads into online misinformation, mean that Mr Moraes
rivals US Supreme Court members for the title of most powerful
judge in the world.

He was appointed to the STF in 2017 while serving as justice

minister in the centre-right government of Michel Temer. As a public
prosecutor he had earned a reputation for ruthlessness, but he is
often genial. Asked about Mr Musk and his threats, he concedes that
he is “a brilliant businessman”, then adds: “I don’t waste a minute of
my life thinking about him.”

What Mr Moraes does think about is unregulated online speech. His

concern took root in 2018, when Mr Bolsonaro was elected
president. An army captain turned congressman, Mr Bolsonaro
praised Brazil’s former military dictatorship and attacked institutions
that might check his power. During the campaign his son, a
congressman, stated that “a soldier and a corporal” could shut down
the STF.

After Mr Bolsonaro took office the threats intensified. Mr Moraes

recalls an anonymous post detailing the travel plans of an STF judge
and urging people to stab him at the airport. The attorney-general, a
Bolsonaro appointee, ignored complaints about the incident, and
other similar ones, prompting the STF to open a probe into
misinformation in March 2019. The “fake-news inquiry” was set up
to investigate online content which “affects the honour and security
of the Supreme Court, its members and their families”. Mr Moraes
was put in charge, bypassing the lottery system which is the norm
for such appointments.

Since then, he has suspended hundreds of social-media accounts,

mostly those that are pro-Bolsonaro. (The fake-news inquiry is
sealed, so the total number of suspended accounts is unknown.)
Platforms are usually given mere hours to carry out court orders,
and users are often not told why their profiles have been blocked. In
2024 he blocked X, Mr Musk’s social-media platform, for more than a
month across Brazil, and froze the bank accounts of Starlink, Mr
Musk’s satellite-internet company.

This digital crusade has made Mr Moraes a target in Washington. On

top of Mr Musk’s attacks, the media company owned by President
Donald Trump has sued Mr Moraes for allegedly violating free
speech. The US State Department then accused Brazil of censorship.
Some members of the US Congress want to sanction him and bar
him from entering the United States.

Classically radical

One might expect a judge in the MAGA cross-hairs to be left-wing.

But Mr Moraes calls himself a “classical liberal” and defends
republican government and a limited role for the state in the
economy. He has only ever worked for centre-right politicians.
“Virtue”, he says, “is in the middle.” Brazilian leftists were furious
when he was appointed to the STF because he favours privatising
state-owned companies and legalising gig work, as well as the use
of force to break up protests.
A more plausible explanation for Mr Moraes’s campaign is this: it’s
personal. He receives constant death threats. These seem to
invigorate him, and have given his rulings an absolutist edge.
“People are starting to realise that there’s not much point in
threatening me. They will just waste their time—or go to jail,” he
grins, hinting at draconian instincts.

Mr Moraes is empowered by Brazilian law. Like any democracy, Brazil

places limits on freedom of speech, but it does so quite broadly and
enforces those limits extremely harshly. Any “discrimination or
prejudice” based on race, gender, sexual orientation, religion or
“physical or social condition” is prohibited. Penalties for slander,
defamation and libel are higher if the insults are against public
officials. Yet even by Brazilian standards, the gusto with which Mr
Moraes has deployed his sprawling mandate has been alarming. The
fake-news inquiry, which was supposed to last just nine months, is
still running six years later, and now covers attacks against any of
Brazil’s democratic institutions.

Some of his targets have clearly acted beyond the law. One
prominent journalist critical of Mr Bolsonaro had her face transposed
onto pornographic images; Mr Bolsonaro and his fans insinuated that
she obtained interviews in exchange for sex. Carla Zambelli, a
Bolsonarista congresswoman, chased a pro-Lula voter while waving
a gun. The volume of unhinged content on the Brazilian internet is
overwhelming.

But Mr Moraes has sometimes gravely over-reached. In May 2019 he

forced a news outlet to take down an article showing potential links
between an STF judge and a businessman who had been convicted
for bribery. Public outcry forced him to reverse the order. In August
2022, after a newspaper published the private messages of some
Bolsonarista businessmen, Mr Moraes ordered police to raid the
mens’ homes, blocked their bank accounts and shut down their
social-media pages; one of the men had written that “I prefer a coup
to the return of [the left-wing Workers’ Party]”. Again, Mr Moraes
stopped investigating six of the eight businessmen after a public
backlash.

Questioned about these cases, Mr Moraes says he changed his mind

after receiving more information. He insists that he is merely
applying the law. “Because of the ideological polarisation that exists
today in Brazil, some people don’t realise that my decisions are
technical, not political,” he says. Yet his rulings can hint at personal
caprice. In July 2023 a Bolsonarista family assailed Mr Moraes at an
airport in Rome, allegedly slapping his son. The family was
investigated for calumny and their house was raided. Charges were
dropped only after the family apologised to Mr Moraes.

Shoeing the truth

Mr Moraes says that Brazil is “in the vanguard” when it comes to

taming social media. He criticises American politicians and
businessmen who “hide behind the false idea that freedom of speech
has no limits in order to maintain a business model that generates a
lot of money”. “A new extremist digital populism has emerged, led by
the extreme right,” he says. “And they exploit something that
Goebbels used to say during the Nazi era: a lie told a thousand times
becomes a truth.” He believes that if social media are not checked,
“you will get a dictatorship here, a dictatorship there, extremism, the
return of fascism.”

Freedom House, a think-tank in Washington, calls Brazil a “swing

state” because it is one of just a few large democracies that have
not yet taken legislative steps to regulate speech on the internet,
leaving that work to judges. The rest of the world is watching Brazil,
and Mr Moraes, closely.

Mr Bolsonaro may go to prison this year. His trial begins soon. If he

is jailed, Brazilian tolerance for Mr Moraes’s heavy hand may wane.
“I worry about people who have an authoritarian bias,” says a
prominent left-wing intellectual, referring to Mr Moraes’s iron-fisted
rulings. “When the wheel turns” and a domineering judge with
different views sits on the almighty STF, “I could be sent to jail.” ■

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Nobody’s perfect

Daniel Noboa wins another

term as Ecuador’s murder rate
soars
Ecuadorians will have little patience if the would-be strongman
cannot tackle the gangs
4月 16, 2025 07:03 上午 | Quito

Noboa comes out on top

ON APRIL 13TH Daniel Noboa, Ecuador’s conservative president,

trounced his left-wing opponent, Luisa González, to win a second
term. A 37-year-old heir to a banana fortune, Mr Noboa has been in
office only since November 2023, when he was elected to finish the
mandate of an unpopular president who had resigned. Since then he
has hammered Ecuador’s drug gangs, sidelined rivals and ramped up
spending on welfare. He also puffed up his friendship with Donald
Trump, whom he met in Mar-a-Lago just before the election. Mr
Noboa is only the second president to win re-election since Ecuador
became a democracy in 1979.

In the election’s first round, in February, he ran neck-and-neck with

Ms González, a lawyer widely seen as a proxy for Rafael Correa, a
once-powerful president now living in exile to avoid a prison
sentence for corruption. (Mr Correa denies all charges and says he is
being politically persecuted.) But Mr Noboa easily won the run-off,
with 56% of the vote. His party now has a chance of forming a
majority in Congress.

His agenda, however, is unclear. He often seems to make it up as he

goes along. In 2023 he campaigned as a centrist outsider, though his
father is one of Latin America’s richest men and a serial presidential
candidate. In office Mr Noboa has tacked to the right, renewing a
state of emergency, sending the army onto the streets and into
prisons, and spending $52m on a high-security jail. To pay for his
war on gangs he has slashed petrol subsidies and raised VAT from
12% to 15%.

At the same time he has splurged on welfare and handouts, which

may have helped clinch his victory. Since January he has announced
14 new welfare programmes at a cost of over $500m. His new
grants include a one-off payment of $1,000 to 100,000 small-
business owners. He has also extended a generous make-work
programme for unemployed 18-to-29-year-olds. Spending in the first
quarter of 2025 was almost 20% higher than in the same period last
year. Such measures, says Mr Noboa, will boost growth “by more
than 4%” this year. The central bank and IMF disagree. They both
expect growth of only 1.5% or less.

Sceptics question Mr Noboa’s temperament, and his respect for the

law. According to Ecuador’s constitution, he ought to have taken a
leave of absence to campaign for re-election, letting the vice-
president temporarily assume his duties. He did not. The election
authorities barred some of his rivals, such as Jan Topic, a tough-on-
crime candidate, from running for the presidency. Mr Noboa has
surrounded himself with family and friends in office. His mother was
elected to Congress. Some Ecuadorians are wary of his promise to
call a constitutional convention.

Yet Ms González’s shortcomings proved harder to overcome. Her

mentor, Mr Correa, who was in office from 2007 to 2017, intimidated
his opponents, hamstrung the media, and relied on a commodities
boom and Chinese loans for growth. From exile he still balefully
influences Ecuadorian politics, furiously posting to his 4m followers
on X, a social-media platform, and hosting a show on RT, a Kremlin-
funded TV outlet.

In a TV debate held before the election, Ms Gonzáles justified

recognising the dictatorial regime of Mr Correa’s ally, Nicolás Maduro,
in Venezuela. After the run-off, she refused to concede defeat,
saying Ecuador was now “living in a dictatorship”.

This was the third consecutive presidential race that Mr Correa’s

party has lost. His “brand has become toxic”, says Will Freeman of
the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. The party’s old guard
do not want to let go of Mr Correa as their leader because “they
might get thrown out with him,” he says.

Mr Noboa’s presidency will be judged by whether he can restore

security. Though murders fell from 45 per 100,000 people in 2023 to
39 last year, the numbers in January and February were the highest
on record. “For now Ecuadorians are giving Noboa the benefit of the
doubt,” says Sebastián Hurtado, a political analyst in Quito, the
capital. If results do not come soon, Ecuadorians may sour on him,
too. ■
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Middle East & Africa

The UAE preaches unity at home but
pursues division abroad
The UAE’s destabilising influence :: It is carving out a sphere of influence through
militias who carve up Arab states

A new smash and grab for Red Sea ports

Trouble in the Horn of Africa :: Outside powers are lining up for a piece of the action

Binyamin Netanyahu’s other war

Israel’s Qatargate :: A scandal involving Qatar may affect the Gaza conflict

Populism meets reality in Senegal

Young and broke :: Worse-than-expected public finances hamper the new
government

When does opposition become treason in

east Africa?
Pre-poll lock-up :: When election time is approaching

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The UAE’s destabilising influence

The UAE preaches unity at

home but pursues division
abroad
It is carving out a sphere of influence through militias who carve up
Arab states
4月 16, 2025 06:49 下午 | ABU DHABI

THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES (UAE) was the first Arab country to
set up a ministry of tolerance. It was also the first to be tried for
complicity in genocide. On April 10th lawyers for Sudan argued their
case at the International Court of Justice. They accuse the UAE of
enabling the mass killing of the Masalit, an ethnic group, by arming
the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a militia guilty of a deluge of
atrocities.

The UAE rejects the charges. Reem Ketait, a foreign-ministry official,

calls them a “cynical and baseless PR stunt” and suggests they are
meant to distract from atrocities by the Sudanese army, the RSF’s
opponent in a two-year civil war.

Though the army has indeed committed its own war crimes, Emirati
support for the RSF is not really in doubt. Still, for procedural
reasons, the case is unlikely to progress further. It nonetheless
highlights a trend: across the Middle East, the UAE has backed an
array of militias who either want to seize states by force or divide
them.

Along with neighbouring Saudi Arabia, the UAE is at the centre of

the modern Arab world. They are its largest economies and most
influential diplomatic players. Both see themselves as independent
middle powers in a multipolar world. But they have adopted very
different approaches to the region. The Saudis see stability as a core
interest, and align themselves often (if not always) with America.
The UAE, a clutch of seven emirates (including Dubai) of which Abu
Dhabi is the richest, has taken a different tack. In Libya it allied with
Khalifa Haftar, a warlord who tried to overthrow the UN-backed
government in Tripoli, the capital. In Yemen it supports the Southern
Transitional Council, a secessionist group. It has also forged close
ties with leaders in Puntland and Somaliland, two breakaway
republics in Somalia. Many of its policies are opposed to America’s.
Backing the RSF in Sudan put it at odds with America, China and
eventually Russia, too—no small feat.

Asked to explain their policy, Emirati officials often insist it is not

theirs at all. The UAE denies sending weapons to the RSF, even after
UN investigations and satellite imagery showed that it was doing so
several times a week. An Emirati foreign-ministry official once
claimed support for Mr Haftar was done in “full co-ordination” with
allies—never mind that most of Libya’s allies, including America,
opposed it.

Foreign diplomats in Abu Dhabi speculate about economic motives.

Some muse that the UAE wants preferential deals for Sudan’s gold.
That explanation feels shallow: most of Sudan’s gold is already
exported to the UAE. Others think it wants access to arable land and
ports in Sudan· to further its food-security initiative; 90% of its food
is imported.

A focus on commercial considerations may have it backwards. The

UAE seems chiefly motivated by ideology. Muhammad bin Zayed al-
Nahyan, the president, is fiercely hostile to Islamists. The ruling
family is keen to curb the role of Qatar and Turkey, which back
Islamist parties. They also want to carve out their own sphere of
influence distinct from Saudi Arabia’s.

In Yemen, a sense of peril compelled the UAE to join the Saudi-led

coalition that went to war in 2015 against the Houthis, a Shia rebel
group that had seized much of the country. Neither wanted an Iran-
backed militia to have a foothold on the Arabian peninsula. But the
UAE wanted its own allies on the ground—in part because the Saudis
were close to the Islah party, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Secessionists in the south, which was an independent communist

state until 1990, were a better fit. The alliance may one day yield
economic benefits. AD Ports, the state-owned shipping giant in Abu
Dhabi, hopes to win a concession to operate the port of Aden in
southern Yemen. The UAE’s economic heft is a way to reinforce its
relationships—but not the reason for them in the first place.

Sudan ended decades of Islamist rule when it overthrew Omar al-

Bashir in 2019, but Islamist officers still wield influence in the army.
That gave Sheikh Muhammad a reason to back the RSF. He may
also have felt an obligation to the militia’s leader, Muhammad
Hamdan Dagalo (also known as Hemedti), who supplied thousands
of fighters to help his army in Yemen. “I think he feels a sense of
loyalty to these guys,” says a former American official who has met
the Emirati president.

The UAE insists it is simply being pragmatic. This argument has

some merit. Its allies in Yemen proved better fighters than the
Saudi-aligned camp. The UN-backed government in Libya is not as
legitimate as it sounds: it is dominated by militias.

Yet support for rogue actors has not been terribly successful. The
UAE reopened its embassy in Damascus in 2018 and lobbied other
countries to normalise ties with Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s dictator.
Anwar Gargash, a foreign-policy adviser to Sheikh Muhammad, says
the outreach “came out of the frustration of ten years”. Isolating the
Syrian tyrant did not work, he argues; it was worth trying to engage
him.

Engagement failed, too. Mr Assad fled to Moscow in December. The

UAE is sceptical of the Islamist-led government that emerged, far
more so than other Gulf states (though it is not yet working against
Ahmed al-Sharaa, the new president).
Mr Haftar was unsuccessful in his quest to capture Tripoli. The RSF
lost control of the Sudanese capital last month and fled the city. In
both cases, the UAE’s role has arguably been counterproductive. It
gave Turkey an excuse to deepen its ties with the Sudanese army
and the government in Tripoli: they have relied on Turkish drones to
beat back their opponents.

These policies have also done growing damage to the UAE’s

reputation. In separate meetings in Washington last month, three
congressional staffers raised the prospect of imposing sanctions.
That is probably just talk—for now. As the saying goes, backing
groups like the RSF is worse than a crime; it is a blunder. ■

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Trouble in the Horn of Africa

A new smash and grab for

Red Sea ports
Outside powers are lining up for a piece of the action
4月 16, 2025 07:35 上午 | Djibouti

TO GRASP THE importance of the Red Sea, visit Djibouti. Before

missiles fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebels reduced cargo shipments by
more than two-thirds in 2024, about 12% of global trade passed by
the former French colony. Both America and China have their only
permanent military bases in Africa at this strategic spot on the
African side of the Bab al-Mandab strait, where the Red Sea meets
the Gulf of Aden (see map). France, Japan and Italy all have bases
there. Warships from countries as diverse as Greece and Iran drop
anchor at Djibouti’s docks. “Djibouti is a haven of stability,” says Slim
Feriani, who runs the country’s sovereign-wealth fund.
That stability makes it exceptional in the Horn of Africa. “The whole
region is on fire,” says Mohammed Idriss Farah, a veteran Djiboutian
diplomat. He does not just mean the Houthis’ attacks on commercial
shipping. Sudan is being torn apart by a catastrophic civil war, now
in its third year. Somalia is disintegrating. Tensions between Eritrea
and landlocked Ethiopia are rising. Though each crisis is driven by
different, home-grown causes, “the question of who controls the Red
Sea and who will guarantee its security” is common to them all, says
a foreign-policy strategist at a government think-tank in Djibouti. In
an increasingly multipolar world, that question is likely to foment
more instability.

Until fairly recently, geopolitical competition in the Red Sea,

particularly between the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia
and Egypt, was kept in check by the “traffic cop of last resort”, as
Alex Rondos, a former EU special representative to the Horn of
Africa, describes America. Under Donald Trump, America has
bolstered its naval presence in the Red Sea in order to bomb the
Houthis. But it is said to be considering pulling out of Djibouti and
cutting support for Somalia’s fight against jihadists. The resulting
instability means that peaceful commercial and geopolitical
competition is increasingly escalating into something darker.

Nowhere is this more evident than in Sudan, which has more than
800km of coastline. Turkey and Qatar signed deals to build and
manage commercial ports there in the 2010s. In 2022 an Emirati
consortium agreed on a $6bn port and agriculture project. Russia
has its eyes on Port Sudan, in a bid for its first military foothold on
the Red Sea. Iran, which used ports in Sudan to smuggle arms to
the Houthis in the 2010s, has similar ambitions.

With the onset of civil war in Sudan in 2023, the competition turned
violent. The rival foreign powers funnelling arms and money to
Sudan’s warring parties are doing so at least in part to secure their
Red Sea interests. Russia has reportedly reached an agreement with
Sudan’s national army to set up a naval base in Port Sudan. The UAE
sends arms to the Rapid Support Forces· (RSF), the other main
belligerent in the war. That prompted a move by Sudan’s
government last year to cancel the port deal. Yet the port will remain
a key interest for the UAE, says Jonas Horner of the European
Council on Foreign Relations. That could mean increasing support for
the RSF to prevent an army victory.

Rivalries in the Red Sea are also tugging at the seams of Somalia’s
fragile federation. In 2017, to the ire of the federal government, the
UAE invested around $400m in a new container terminal in the
breakaway region of Somaliland. Satellite imagery shows it has since
built a nearby harbour for military use, as well as similar facilities at
the port of Bosaso in Puntland, another separatist region. Turkey, by
contrast, supports the federal government, and last year agreed to
deploy its navy to police Somalia’s coastal waters. Turkish firms own
stakes in Somalia’s ports.

Like the UAE, America is inching closer to Somaliland. American

warships have reportedly been stationed off its coast in recent
months. Officials in the Trump administration are said to be mulling
a new American naval base, perhaps in exchange for recognition of
the would-be state. Last month, to head off such a deal, Somalia’s
president reportedly offered America “exclusive operational access”
to both Bosaso and Somaliland’s Berbera port (despite having
meaningful control over neither).

Potentially the most explosive addition to the Red Sea’s harbour rush
is Ethiopia. A deal with Somaliland to build a naval base sparked a
diplomatic furore last year and has since been put on hold. Yet
Ethiopia’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, is eyeing his own Red Sea
port, the main target being Assab, in Eritrea. Mr Abiy says he does
not want war with Eritrea. But few of Ethiopia’s neighbours believe
him. Officials in Djibouti suspect that his quest has the backing of
the UAE.
For the past few decades outside powers seeking influence in the
Red Sea generally did so by leasing harbours from sovereign states.
But the Horn of Africa may presage a future in which “supplies and
supply chains trump sovereignty and nation states,” says Mr Rondos.
Seizing a port is no longer unthinkable. ■

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Israel’s Qatargate

Binyamin Netanyahu’s other

war
A scandal involving Qatar may affect the Gaza conflict
4月 16, 2025 07:03 上午 | JERUSALEM

No fan of the prime minister

THE TINY emirate of Qatar is skilled in the art of playing all sides in
Middle Eastern conflicts. It funds Al Jazeera, a satellite news channel
sympathetic to anti-Western Islamist movements. It has long hosted
the leaders of Hamas, the Palestinian movement that attacked Israel
on October 7th 2023. Yet Qatar also hosts the largest American
military base in the Middle East. And it has mediated between
Hamas and Israel.
Even with this track record, the news last month that aides of
Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, had been moonlighting
for a firm burnishing Qatar’s image shocked many Israelis. The aides
started their work ahead of the 2022 football World Cup in Qatar,
and kept it up even during Israel’s war in Gaza.

The suspects include Mr Netanyahu’s top spin doctor, Jonatan Urich,

and his spokesman for military affairs, Eli Feldstein. The men are
accused of bribery, contact with a foreign agent and breach of trust.
In a separate case opened last year, Mr Feldstein is also alleged to
have leaked state secrets to a German newspaper in order to change
the discourse surrounding ceasefire talks with Hamas. The Shin Bet,
Israel’s domestic security service, and the police are investigating
their actions. Mr Feldstein has admitted the charges. Mr Urich is
keeping silent, though the fact that he was a partner in a company
doing PR work for Qatar is a matter of record.

Though he is not currently a suspect in the Qatar affair, Mr

Netanyahu clearly dislikes all this probing. The police have
questioned him. He denies receiving anything from the Qataris and
has called the investigations a “witch hunt” by “the deep state”.
(Qatari officials also say the allegations are baseless.) His
government is trying to fire the two people in charge of the
inquiries: Ronen Bar, the head of the Shin Bet, and Gali Baharav-
Miara, the attorney-general.

The prime minister’s critics already think his motives for breaking the
Gaza ceasefire and ordering the Israeli army to resume fighting in
Gaza on March 18th are political. A permanent deal would prompt
Mr Netanyahu’s far-right allies to abandon him and his government
to collapse. Avoiding that fate means bowing to the demands of his
far-right allies to continue pummelling Gaza. The corruption
investigations are playing into this. To fend them off, Mr Netanyahu
is keeping the government going by placating the hard right and
keeping up the rhetoric of war.
Mr Netanyahu insists that ending the war while Hamas still rules
parts of Gaza is unthinkable for Israel. But in recent days, thousands
of Israeli reservists have signed letters calling upon the government
to end the war, saying it “serves mainly political and personal, and
not security, interests”. They want Israel to accept the ceasefire
terms, which include the release of the 59 hostages still in Gaza.

So Mr Netanyahu is determined to rid himself of his accusers. It is

not just Mr Bar and Ms Baharav-Miara. In past wars reservists
expressed similar opposition to the political motives of the
government, even while turning up to fight. This time, however, the
Israel Defence Forces (IDF) has discharged from future service some
of those who signed the letters. The IDF relies heavily on its
reservists, but Mr Netanyahu was quick to praise the move.

“Qatargate”, as some in Israel are calling it, has added a new layer
to the conflict between Israel’s legal establishment and Mr
Netanyahu’s government. That war began in January 2023, when his
coalition introduced reforms aimed at curbing the power of Israel’s
robustly independent Supreme Court. This triggered huge protests.
Part of the legislation eventually passed—only to be struck down by
the court.

The latest skirmish came on April 8th, when the court heard
petitions against the firing of Mr Bar. Government supporters heckled
the judges and the court was cleared. In a letter to the court the
Shin Bet chief accused Mr Netanyahu of pressing him to issue a
security directive that would have suspended hearings in a case
where the prime minister faces charges of bribery and fraud. Mr Bar
said his dismissal would risk turning the Shin Bet into “a secret
police”. In a supporting missive to the court, Ms Baharav-Miara
argued that Mr Netanyahu’s decision to sack Mr Bar was “tainted by
personal conflict of interest”.

The judges have said that Mr Bar must remain in place until they
rule on his dismissal and have directed the government and the
attorney-general to come up with a “creative solution” by April 20th.
Neither side is likely to agree to such a solution.

The hostility between Mr Netanyahu and Israel’s judges predates the

war in Gaza. But his determination to cling to power has
exacerbated matters. He has refused to appoint a national
commission of inquiry into the failures that led to Hamas’s attack;
the president of the Supreme Court decides who would sit on such a
panel.

Now Qatargate is focusing new attention on Mr Netanyahu’s strategy

in Gaza before October 7th. For years, with Israel’s blessing, Qatar
financed the Hamas government there, despite warnings from the
Shin Bet that some of the money was going to the group’s military
wing. It was part of Mr Netanyahu’s policy of perpetuating divisions
between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas,
which has ruled Gaza. A divided Palestinian leadership meant less
pressure on Israel to negotiate a deal that would lead to Palestinian
statehood. It also gave Hamas the time and funds to plan its assault
on Israel. ■

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Young and broke

Populism meets reality in

Senegal
Worse-than-expected public finances hamper the new government
4月 16, 2025 07:02 上午 | Dakar

Fading promises

A LITTLE OVER a year ago Senegalese voted in an election that

almost did not happen. Macky Sall, the president at the time, had
tried to postpone it, triggering a constitutional crisis. The landslide
victory by Bassirou Diomaye Faye, the opposition candidate and an
anti-corruption crusader who had been released from prison just two
weeks earlier, was widely hailed as a triumph for democracy.
Mr Faye, who is 45 and new to political office, came to power on a
wave of anti-Western and anti-elite sentiment. He promised to root
out corruption, loosen ties with France and create much-needed jobs
for Senegal’s frustrated young. Yet a year on, the realities of
governing have considerably sobered his agenda.

Mr Faye’s prime minister and closest associate is Ousmane Sonko, Mr

Sall’s most popular opponent, who had been barred from running for
president following convictions for defamation and “corrupting
youth”. (Mr Sonko denies wrongdoing and says the cases against
him were politically motivated.) The duo claim that progress on their
promises is being impeded by Mr Sall’s legacy, especially regarding
the public finances. A report published by the court of auditors in
February found that the budget deficit for 2023, the last year Mr Sall
was in power, was 12.3% of GDP, not the previously reported 4.9%,
and that public debt was a huge 99.7% of GDP. (Mr Sall denies
wrongdoing.)

The governing party considers the report a victory for transparency.

Officials from the IMF, who confirmed its findings during a visit in
March, concur. Voters are less impressed. “We don’t expect them to
lament on things,” says Ali Cissé, a 25-year-old student. “When the
president says that our current financial situation is catastrophic, it’s
discouraging.”

Some of Mr Faye’s populist policies, such as price controls on staple

foods to ease the cost of living, have survived the fiscal squeeze. Yet
it is forcing him into more conventional territory. He plans to raise
taxes, lower subsidies and slim the public sector. The state no longer
has the leeway to take on more debt, says Elimane Kané, who runs
a think-tank in Dakar.

The promised “rupture” with French and Western influence is also off
the agenda. Mr Faye has not made good on plans to abandon the
Euro-pegged currency. He is renegotiating a much-needed $1.8bn
credit facility with the IMF (the credit line is worth 5.8% of GDP). His
first state visit outside Africa was to France. Bosses of global oil firms
who worried that the government might disrupt their business are
sleeping easier than a year ago.

It is all a far cry from the fiery speeches with which Mr Faye started.
But it may turn out to be better for Senegal. ■

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Pre-poll lock-up

When does opposition

become treason in east
Africa?
When election time is approaching
4月 16, 2025 07:03 上午 | Kampala

THIS OCTOBER in Tanzania and next January in Uganda millions of

people will take part in a mass political ritual. Most will call it an
“election”, for want of a better term. But in both countries the ballot
is an exercise of state power, not a realistic chance to choose who
should wield it. Rulers are already preparing—by charging their
opponents with treason.
The Ugandan case targets Kizza Besigye, who has run four times to
be president. He was kidnapped on a visit to Kenya in November,
shuttled across the border, and accused of plotting to overthrow
Uganda’s government by force. In Tanzania Tundu Lissu, the
opposition leader, was arrested on April 9th. The charge sheet cites
comments he made threatening civil disobedience. Three days later
his party was disqualified from the election.

The cases illustrate the mechanisms of electoral authoritarianism.

Between 1989 and 2006 more than 40 African countries introduced,
or reintroduced, multi-party elections. In some, like Ghana,
democracy has taken root. But in others incumbents learned to tilt
the playing field by threatening opponents, stifling the press, and
buying support. Liberal institutions were grafted clumsily onto
illiberal politics.

That produced strongman rulers who are happy to hold elections,

but not to risk losing them. Yoweri Museveni, Uganda’s president,
has ruled since 1986 and twice had the constitution amended to stay
in power. His son and would-be successor Muhoozi Kainerugaba,
who commands the army, can barely be bothered to keep up the
democratic pretence. In January he wrote on X, a social-media
platform, that he would like to behead Bobi Wine, an opposition
leader who has been tortured.

In Tanzania the discourse is gentler, though hardly free. The ruling

party has governed since independence in 1961. Under John
Magufuli, who became president in 2015, it stuffed ballot boxes and
crushed dissent. When he died in 2021 his successor, Samia Suluhu
Hassan, promised reform and lifted a ban on opposition rallies. But
she has faced dissent within the party and resurgent activism
outside it, says Nicodemus Minde of the Institute for Security
Studies. Repression is tightening again. The party won a dubious
99% of positions in local elections last year.
In authoritarian countries critics are easily cast as traitors, since
taking on the ruling party means challenging the state. Mr Besigye
does not trust the electoral process and has repeatedly tried to
instigate a popular uprising. Mr Lissu is leading a campaign called
“no reforms, no election”, urging his supporters to disrupt the vote
unless institutions like the electoral commission are made more
independent. “The commission is in cahoots with the CCM [the ruling
party] to rig the election,” argues Rugemeleza Nshala, his lawyer.

The treason charge is not the worst thing to happen to Mr Lissu,

whom unknown gunmen riddled with bullets in 2017. He will
probably not be convicted, but the case will keep him out of sight,
embroiled in endless court dates. For Mr Besigye, who has been
charged with treason twice before, the routine is familiar. He was
denied bail on April 11th. “There’s a price you pay for challenging
the status quo,” says Doreen Nyanjura, the deputy mayor of
Kampala, who is one of his allies.

This kind of lawfare can galvanise popular outrage. Hakainde

Hichilema, charged with treason in 2017, is now president of
Zambia. Ousmane Sonko, charged with corrupting youth and
fomenting insurrection in 2023, became prime minister of Senegal a
year ago·. Such a turnaround seems improbable in Uganda or
Tanzania. But in their prison cells, the “traitors” are not giving up. ■

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Europe
Trump’s Ukraine ceasefire is slipping away
Fighting and talking :: The American president increasingly looks like Russia’s willing
dupe

Power is being monopolised in Ukraine

When politics becomes the weak point :: Critics say the presidency is becoming too
mighty, and making mistakes

The threat to free speech in Germany

Germany’s gag reflex :: One of the freest countries in the world takes a hammer to its
own reputation

Young men in Spain love the hardline Vox

The battle on the right :: They find the rough populism of the hard right appealing

Europe’s streets are alive with the sound of

protests
Charlemagne :: An arc of discontent runs through Serbia and Turkey

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Fighting and talking

Trump’s Ukraine ceasefire is

slipping away
The American president increasingly looks like Russia’s willing dupe
4月 16, 2025 07:35 上午 | WASHINGTON, DC

HE PROMISED to end the war in Ukraine within a day. Now, insiders

say, Donald Trump hopes to secure a ceasefire within his first 100
days—ie, by the end of this month. He has started to refer to the
conflict as “Biden’s war”. But if it drags on, he worries it will
increasingly become his.

How to stop the fighting? Russia has ignored America’s call for an
unconditional 30-day ceasefire, which Ukraine accepted on March
11th. Instead it has played for time and intensified its attacks. On
April 13th two Russian missiles struck the town of Sumy, killing 34
people, many of them gathering to attend Palm Sunday services. It
followed a similar strike on Kryvyi Rih on April 4th that killed 20
people.

Read more of our recent coverage of the Ukraine war

Radek Sikorski, Poland’s foreign minister, said Mr Trump’s team

should realise that the Kremlin was “mocking their goodwill”. Mr
Trump, though, seems immune to shame. He has proved peculiarly
indulgent of Russia and hostile towards Ukraine. Even as some of his
aides denounced the Russian attack on Sumy, Mr Trump suggested it
was a “mistake”, albeit a “horrible” one. Astonishingly, on April 14th
he blamed Ukraine for being invaded by Russia, shrugging off a
Ukrainian request to buy American missiles. “You don’t start a war
against somebody that’s 20 times your size and then hope that
people give you some missiles,” he declared.

Admirers of Mr Trump insist he is ready to get tough with Russia. He

has renewed his predecessor’s sanctions on Russia, and has
expressed impatience with the Kremlin, telling one interviewer that
he was “pissed off” with Russia and floating the idea of imposing
“secondary tariffs”, presumably on countries buying Russian oil. On
April 11th he said, “Russia has to get moving.” European leaders are
clamouring for additional sanctions on Russia to make such words
count, so far to no avail.

In March Mr Trump briefly cut the weapons and intelligence to

Ukraine. Keith Kellogg, an adviser, compared this to “hitting a mule
with a two-by-four across the nose”. It worked: within days, Ukraine
agreed to the 30-day ceasefire. For the obdurate Russians, however,
there have been no sticks, only carrots. American and Russian
officials met in Istanbul on April 10th to discuss upgrading their
embassies. The countries also exchanged two prisoners. Russian
media say the rapprochement is proceeding regardless of the
Ukraine talks.
When Mr Trump announced his worldwide “reciprocal tariffs” this
month, he whacked Ukraine with the minimum 10% universal rate
while excluding Russia (supposedly because it was already under
sanctions). One solace for Ukraine is that the turmoil of the trade
war is such that the price of oil has tumbled from around $80 a
barrel in January to $65, sharply cutting Mr Putin’s revenues.

Notably absent from Mr Trump’s discourse is any notion of additional

military aid for Ukraine. Indeed, America’s support is dwindling. The
flow of weapons approved by Joe Biden will run out in the coming
months, and Mr Trump has not authorised any more. Another
budget allocation to support Ukraine looks unlikely.
America is withdrawing troops and equipment from Rzeszow, a vital
hub in Poland for weapons being sent to Ukraine. Their duties will
henceforth be carried out by European troops. America is also taking
a different approach to the Ukraine Defence Contact Group, a
gathering of 50-odd countries contributing military help that was
created by his predecessor, Lloyd Austin. Mr Austin led the group in
person, but on April 11th Mr Hegseth joined by video link.

Another sign of the times is that Pentagon figures recently

questioned one ally about why it was still supplying weapons to
Ukraine—a challenge that was ignored. Diplomats in Washington
also report that some Trump aides say privately that they are “fed
up” with Europe’s effort to strengthen Ukraine. As always with such
a chaotic administration, it is hard to distinguish the true signal from
the noise.

For now Europeans are pushing along two tracks. The first is the
effort by Britain and France to create a European “reassurance
force” to help Ukraine after a ceasefire. Russia objects to that
deployment, even if America is offering no assurance that it will back
the Europeans. The force would not seek to police the front lines
between Russian and Ukrainian forces. Instead it would stay away
from the front, probably in western Ukraine, where it would
concentrate on training Ukrainian forces, and perhaps do joint air
patrols.

Europeans hope to show Mr Trump that they are taking up the

burden of European security, hoping to retain at least some kind of
American commitment, to NATO if not to Ukraine. Under this
emerging scheme, the future “deterrence” of Russia would come in
three zones: reinforced Ukrainian troops holding the line against
Russia in the east, European forces in the west and, at least for now,
a lingering American presence in NATO countries.

But the creation of such a force depends on an ever-elusive

ceasefire. Steve Witkoff, Mr Trump’s envoy to Russia, is reported to
have said that the quickest way of securing one would be to let
Russia take four Ukrainian provinces which it claims, including
territory it has failed to conquer. That would be unacceptable to
Ukraine and its European partners.
All this reinforces the need for the second track: increasing Europe’s
military assistance to Ukraine. David Shimer, a former official in Mr
Biden’s National Security Council, says there is no time to waste.
Europeans should give away more of their stocks of weapons despite
the risks; finance Ukraine’s military industries; negotiate with Mr
Trump to buy American air-defence systems for Ukraine; and use
frozen Russian assets to pay for it all.

With Russia determined to press its invasion, and America seemingly

determined to pull away, Ukraine will have to fight on, Mr Shimer
says. “Now is the time for the Europeans to intensify their aid to
Ukraine—so that Ukraine has the support it needs to defend itself
and to push Putin to engage in meaningful negotiations.” ■

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When politics becomes the weak point

Power is being monopolised

in Ukraine
Critics say the presidency is becoming too mighty, and making
mistakes
4月 17, 2025 10:53 上午 | Kyiv

Not above criticism

BEHIND THE nondescript façade of a light-industrial building in Kyiv,

an eclectic crew of video-gamers, architects, scientists and film-
makers is mass-producing deep-strike drones and cruise missiles.
They do not look like old-style defence types, but they are
transforming Ukraine’s war. Three years ago they were making 30
drones a month. Now they are up to 1,300 a month, ranging from
slow drones ($580,000 for a set of ten) to a new ballistic missile (at
$1m a piece). They cost a fraction of what foreign ones do, and are
based on open-source designs, meaning that they are not bound by
foreign-usage restrictions. “We don’t want to have any dependence
on America’s politics,” says the firm’s founder, whose name cannot
be disclosed for security reasons.

When Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, Ukraine’s war-

fighting effort utterly depended on American and European supplies.
Yet over the past three years its own military manufacturing capacity
has gone from $1bn- to $35bn-worth of materiel per year, according
to Oleksandr Kamyshin, a presidential adviser overseeing the
industry. Faster than anyone would have predicted, Ukraine is
becoming self-sufficient in many types of weaponry. But big gaps
remain. Ukraine still cannot make systems capable of knocking out
incoming Russian missiles.

Read more of our recent coverage of the Ukraine war

Manpower is another problem. Mobilisation has been mishandled:

troops’ rotations away from the front are infrequent; draft agents
seize people arbitrarily; and the government has hesitated to lower
the age of conscription. Still, the army has grown, and elite units
continue to attract recruits. Most important, drones have sharply
reduced Russia’s numerical advantage: according to some estimates,
75% of all casualties suffered by the Russian army are inflicted by
them.

Ukraine’s worst fragility may be not military but political. Since the
start of the war, many liberal and moderate Ukrainians have faced a
dilemma. Drawing attention to incompetence, corruption or
mismanagement by the government risks undermining international
support. But keeping silent means accepting Mr Zelensky’s increasing
monopoly of power, which has sometimes undermined the state’s
effectiveness and even the war effort itself. “While the Western
media and European leaders have lionised Zelensky and turned him
into a celebrity, we feel trapped,” says Yulia Mostovaya, the editor of
ZN.UA, an independent online daily.

If criticising Mr Zelensky was difficult before Mr Trump attacked him

in February for being “a dictator”, doing so now is all but impossible.
Ukrainians have rallied around the president to such an extent that
he appears to be considering holding elections. “If Zelensky feels he
has no competitors, that means elections are approaching,” quips
one official. In preparation for the possibility of them, the state
appears to be tightening its grip.

In February Petro Poroshenko, who leads the largest opposition

party, was penalised for unspecified “threats to national security”. His
assets have been frozen. He is also being charged with “treason” in
a legal case which looks to critics like lawfare. The sanctions in effect
bar him from contesting any election. However much Ukrainians may
dislike Mr Poroshenko, many see this as a dangerous precedent. “If
Poroshenko can be barred from an electoral process without any
court decision, so can anyone else,” says Olexiy Honcharenko, a
member of Ukraine’s parliament, the Rada.

Civil-society activists are also being harassed. Vitaly Shabunin, an

anti-corruption crusader, who had enlisted in the first days of the
war while also exposing graft in Ukraine’s defence ministry, has long
been targeted. His latest investigation was met with snide
vengeance. To punish him, he has been sent close to the front;
details of his work there are sent daily to the authorities. Such
methods recall Vladimir Putin’s early years of rule, says Mr Shabunin,
at least in their pettiness.

Ukraine’s politics is a far cry from Russia’s, and concentrating power

is a natural consequence of war. But some of Ukraine’s staunchest
supporters increasingly worry it may be going too far. True, Ukraine’s
democracy was never really based on the rule of law. Its pluralism
was provided by the diversity of its regions, the competing interests
of its power groups, and a vocal civil society that relied on the
support of Western embassies and the media. But all these checks
are being weakened or removed.

In the name of efficiency, power is being concentrated not in the

government or the parliament, but in the hands of a few unelected
officials in the presidential administration, including Andriy Yermak,
the chief of staff, Dmytro Lytvyn, Mr Zelensky’s speechwriter, and
Oleh Tatarov, who oversees the security agencies. The
administration is reluctant to share power not just with opponents
but with anyone seen as a potential rival. Loyalists are rewarded
with seats on the boards of state firms. Those who show too much
independence, have too much popular support or enjoy direct lines
of communication to Western countries have been fired or sidelined.
This includes Valery Zaluzhny, the popular commander of Ukrainian
forces, removed in February 2024 and sent to be ambassador in
London. Others pushed out include Oleksandr Kubrakov, a former
minister of infrastructure; Dmytro Kuleba, a former foreign minister;
and Mustafa Nayem, who led the agency for reconstruction.

Differences of opinion and critical media are seen as a threat, rather

than a strength. Sevgil Musaeva, the editor of Ukrainska Pravda, the
country’s leading independent online publication, complains that
instead of dealing with the reasons that prompt journalistic
investigations, the presidential office responds by restricting access,
targeting advertisers and seeing any contact with its journalists as
treachery. “This is not systemic censorship, but if we don’t resist, the
free space will disappear before we know it,” she says.

Ukraine’s move towards more authoritarian rule is unsurprising given

the pressures it faces as the war grinds on well into its fourth year.
Yet the risk is that it undermines the country’s self-organising
resilience. As Mr Honcharenko puts it: “We have demonstrated that
a small democracy can resist a larger autocracy and turn itself into a
porcupine. But a small autocracy can be swallowed by a larger one.”
■
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Germany’s gag reflex

The threat to free speech in

Germany
One of the freest countries in the world takes a hammer to its own
reputation
4月 17, 2025 05:49 上午 | BERLIN

IN 2003 Barbra Streisand, an American chanteuse, sought to block

the publication of an aerial photo of her Malibu mansion. When news
of her frivolous lawsuit spread, so did the number of people who
downloaded the image. The phenomenon of unwittingly publicising
information by seeking its suppression became known as the
“Streisand effect”. Something similar has recently unfolded in
Germany.
Last year David Bendels, a journalist, published a doctored
photograph of Nancy Faeser, Germany’s interior minister, appearing
to hold a sign saying Ich hasse die Meinungsfreiheit or “I hate
freedom of opinion”. (The original photo, a reference to victims of
Nazi atrocities, is shown above.) Such images are a dime a dozen on
social media. Yet Ms Faeser seemed determined to prove Mr Bendels
right. She filed a criminal complaint, and earlier this month a court
handed Mr Bendels a seven-month suspended prison sentence, a
hefty fine and an order to apologise.

The verdict led to the widespread distribution of the picture, and

inspired armies of amateur satirists to circulate their own faked
photos of Ms Faeser, including some that plumbed fresh depths of
crassness. It has also shocked many observers in a country whose
constitution guarantees the free expression and distribution of
opinions, explicitly including images.

German law has long weighed such protections against competing

demands. Holocaust denial and Nazi glorification have been
outlawed for decades. As long ago as 1955 the constitutional court
ruled that “slander and defamation” posed a risk to democracy if it
led politicians to withdraw from public life. In 2021 politicians
tightened the rules further, worried by the spread of abuse and
disinformation on social media. Courts may now punish insults
against politicians especially severely, if their work is “significantly
impeded”. In Mr Bendels’s case the court ruled, dubiously, that an
impartial observer would not be able to tell that the image of Ms
Faeser had been altered. That ensured her right to protection from
defamation was given priority over his to freedom of expression. Mr
Bendels may appeal.

Prosecutors are happy to argue that defamation may impede

politicians from exercising their duties. A Bavarian court has ruled
that insults “beyond the absolute minimum of respect” can be
punished. And more may be to come. The governing agreement
between Germany’s incoming coalition partners pledges to empower
a regulator to crack down on the “deliberate dissemination of false
factual claims”.

No wonder there has been overreach. Last year a pensioner who

had shared an image on X calling Robert Habeck, Germany’s vice-
chancellor, an “idiot”, was subject to a dawn raid on his home by
police after Mr Habeck complained. A court fined a journalist who
had suggested Mr Habeck might not look out of place “in a gathering
of railway station alcoholics” (the ruling was overturned). Christian
Schertz, a lawyer representing a politician who is suing Titanic, a
satirical magazine, for lampooning him, says politicians deserve
“special protection” in law, given the “massive increase” in hate
speech against them, and that the current criminal code gets the
balance right. But even he regards the Bendels ruling as excessive.
J.D. Vance, America’s vice-president, has said soldiers stationed in
Germany risk imprisonment for a “mean tweet”. That may be rich
coming from an administration that has detained foreign students for
wrongthink. Germany is not an outlier in freedom-of-expression
rankings. But it is not just foreigners who are worried. In 2024 just
40% of Germans told Allensbach, a pollster, that they felt able to
express themselves freely. The figure has halved since 1990 (see
chart).
In Germany, as in America and elsewhere, free-speech crusades are
often regarded as the preserve of the dissident right. Mr Bendels is
close to the hard-right Alternative for Germany party, which often
complains that its views are unfairly suppressed. Yet left-wing
activists, especially pro-Palestinians, have also fallen prey to police
and prosecutors. Police in Berlin have shut down conferences and
demonstrations in attempts to see off hate speech. Academics who
supported pro-Palestine students have been threatened with a loss
of funding. The risks to free expression do not go only in one
direction. ■

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The battle on the right

Young men in Spain love the

hardline Vox
They find the rough populism of the hard right appealing
4月 16, 2025 07:04 上午 | MADRID

Franco would be glad

THIS HAS already been quite a year for Santiago Abascal, the leader
of Vox. In January he was the only Spanish politician (and one of
very few Europeans) to be invited to Donald Trump’s inauguration.
The next month, as president of the Patriots for Europe grouping, he
hosted in Madrid a gathering of hard-right leaders from across
Europe, including Viktor Orban of Hungary and Marine Le Pen of
France. And after years of gently declining support from a peak of
15% in a general election in November 2019, since September Vox
has steadily revived in the opinion polls from around 10.5% to over
14% (see chart). Among Spanish men aged under 25 Vox is now the
leading party, and among males under 45 it enjoys more support
than the mainstream conservative People’s Party (PP).
This worries the PP. So far it has avoided the fate of its counterparts
in France and Italy, which have been displaced by upstarts further to
the right. But at the last election, in 2023, Vox probably cost the PP
the victory that was expected to bring it to office. Pedro Sánchez,
the Socialist prime minister, successfully invoked the bogey of the
“extreme right” to scare disillusioned centrists into voting for him.
Division on the right meant that, all told, it fell four seats short of a
majority, letting Mr Sánchez cling on with the parliamentary support
of the hard left and Catalan and Basque nationalists.

Founded in 2013 as a splinter of the PP, Vox initially grew because of

alarm that Catalonia’s drive for independence would break up Spain.
As that threat has receded, the party has focused on illegal
immigration and waging a culture war against feminism, trans and
animal rights.

It has benefited from the PP’s flaws. Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the PP’S
leader since 2022, was a successful regional president of Galicia. He
is decent and moderate but has struggled to make his mark on the
national stage. “He lacks the killer instinct needed to be prime
minister,” says a former PP minister. Since 2023 he has constantly
sought Mr Sánchez’s downfall, but has been unable to bring this
about.

The PP has failed to project a positive alternative. “There’s a lack of

clarity and strategic sense,” concedes a PP MP. “Spaniards need to
see that there’s a clear project.” One strand in the party is
confrontational, another less so. Mr Feijóo has oscillated between
sniping at Vox and treating it as a potential ally. “The PP is like a
gentleman; these guys break your legs,” says the MP, referring to
Vox.

Vox has benefited in particular from the catastrophic

mismanagement of floods and mudslides in Valencia last October
(which killed 224 people) by Carlos Mazón, the PP’s regional
president. While the PP squabbled with Mr Sánchez over the relief
effort, Vox sent volunteers to stricken towns and popularised a
catchy slogan: “Only the people will save the people”. Yet Mr Feijóo
has so far shrunk from forcing Mr Mazón out.

Vox has gained ground despite lurching further to the right. The
party “hasn’t departed from its ideas and principles”, insists Jorge
Martín Frías, who runs Disenso, its think-tank. Nevertheless, the
party’s most prominent economic liberals have left; those now in
charge are identified with the kind of traditional Catholic nationalism
and protectionism that marked the dictatorship of Francisco Franco.
Last summer it walked out of governing alliances with the PP in six
regions, including Valencia, saying that the PP was not tough enough
on illegal immigration (actually the national government’s
responsibility).

Vox’s international alignments could hurt it. Last summer it left the
European Conservatives and Reformists group, of which Giorgia
Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party is a prominent member, to join the
Patriots. It had earlier accepted a €9.2m loan from a Hungarian
bank; Mr Frías says this was because no Spanish bank would lend to
it, and that the loan has been repaid. Having criticised Russia’s
invasion of Ukraine, Mr Abascal now temporises. His support for Mr
Trump may backfire on Vox if American tariffs hurt Spanish exports.

The switch to the Patriots has prompted disquiet in Vox’s ranks. So,
too, has the ruthlessly centralised way the party is run. In February
around a hundred Vox dissidents held a meeting and issued a
statement complaining that the leadership has “entrenched itself in
power”. They included regional and municipal councillors and former
MPs. However, Mr Frías dismisses their significance, pointing to “new
people who have come in”.

Vox has undoubtedly attracted younger Spaniards who are offended

by Mr Sánchez’s concessions to Catalan and Basque nationalists and
feel that the welfare state is failing them. But it is hard to see it
displacing the PP, which retains deep roots in many of Spain’s
regions. Even so, Vox could still make it hard for the PP to return to
power unless Mr Feijóo and his party up their game. ■

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Charlemagne

Europe’s streets are alive with

the sound of protests
An arc of discontent runs through Serbia and Turkey
4月 16, 2025 07:02 上午

POLITICAL RALLIES come in all shapes and sizes—and speeds.

Spanish trade unionists amble gently, carrying banners at a leisurely
pace. French manifestants in 2018 occupied roundabouts during the
“yellow vests” movement, milling about as cars zoomed past their
encampments. Those wishing to meet the protesters who have
gripped Serbia for the past five months will need a touch more
energy, and a pair of trainers. University students marching down
Belgrade’s boulevards do so at such a brisk clip that out-of-shape
middle-aged types—including this visiting columnist—can find it hard
to keep up. Luckily, anyone running out of puff can simply fall behind
and wait for the next of a slew of parades organised throughout the
day to speed-march their way past. Onlookers of all ages seem to
have a whistle tucked away in a pocket, ready to contribute to the
cacophony generated by a few dozen or hundred students scurrying
along. Five minutes later all is quiet again, until the next lot arrives.

Europe’s south-eastern quarter is traversed by an arc of discontent.

Starting in Slovakia and Hungary in the north, crossing Serbia and
others in the Balkans before arriving in Turkey and Georgia farther
east, this crescent has for months been rocked by recurring protests.
The causes behind the marching vary from one country to the next,
as does the intensity of the griping. But not coincidentally the arc
includes countries run by leaders who have mixed elements of
democracy with an autocratic bent. Many such strongmen have less
to fear from the ballot box than they do from “the street” should
they wish to extend their (often already over-long) time in office.
Whether the protests will succeed depends on what one thinks they
are meant to achieve. Those who see them as a revival of the
“colour revolutions” of the noughties, which toppled repressive
regimes in Ukraine or Georgia, are bound to be disappointed when
today’s leaders ride out the disgruntlement. Those with more modest
ambitions—keeping politicians somewhat honest and reminding
them that impunity has a cost—may just end up satisfied with the
outcome.

The most restless bit of the arc has been Serbia. On March 15th an
estimated 300,000 people marched in Belgrade, a staggering figure
for a country of 6.5m inhabitants. Miniature reprises of the protests
are now organised daily via social-media apps, not just in the capital
but far beyond (students have since been joined by many others).
The proximate cause of the public ire was the collapse in November
of a train-station canopy in the city of Novi Sad, which left 16 dead.
The shoddy construction, part of an infrastructure push financed by
China, hinted at a mix of corruption, official ineptitude and state
capture. Sit-ins at universities and high schools have resulted in civic
assemblies that have issued a slew of demands revolving around
increased accountability of institutions. That is a thinly veiled dig at
Aleksandar Vucic, the Serbian president who has in effect ruled the
country since 2012.

A fire in a nightclub in North Macedonia last month sparked similar

discontent. In Turkey it was the jailing on March 19th of Ekrem
Imamoglu, the mayor of Istanbul, who stood the best chance to
dislodge Recep Tayyip Erdogan from the presidency in 2028.
Georgians have been in the streets since October, when the
opposition claimed parliamentary elections won by an illiberal, anti-
Western faction had been rigged. Lots of Hungarians and Slovaks,
meanwhile, are fed up with pro-Russian governments run by Viktor
Orban and Robert Fico respectively, which have turned the duo into
pariahs within the European Union.

For all the enthusiasm of the protesters from Istanbul to Bratislava,

the dramatic ousting of regimes seems unlikely. For one, the
seasoned strongmen are well-versed in how to defuse public ire. Mr
Vucic has been careful to let the protesters vent their displeasure
without being clobbered by police—though the probable use of a
“sound cannon” (which the authorities deny) to disperse crowds has
riled the demonstrators. Promises of change, including sacking the
prime minister and installing a new government, may have taken
some steam out of the protests. Mr Erdogan has leaned on pliable
media to play down the scale of the marches. Mr Orban for his part
has galvanised his supporters by fuelling the culture wars: on April
14th Hungarian lawmakers voted for a constitutional amendment
that includes a ban on gay-pride marches.

Mr Vucic claims he is foiling a “colour revolution” of his own, a plot

funded by international foundations and foreign governments. In
fact the anger is home-grown. Serbia is in the midst of democratic
backsliding, a partial descent into autocracy. If anything, the
Westerners usually on hand to lend succour to such protests have
been notable by their absence of support for those defying the
strongmen. Russia holds sway in much of this part of Europe,
meaning the EU dares not lecture for fear of pushing potential allies
into Moscow’s arms. Mr Vucic helps keep the peace in the Balkans,
and Serbia has lithium Europe needs for its green transition. Mr
Erdogan has helped stem a migration crisis for Europeans farther
west, and so mostly gets a free pass. As for America, Donald
Trump’s family is putting up a hotel in Belgrade.

Don’t you know it’s gonna be all right

That is dispiriting to some—but not to those still pounding the

Serbian streets. “Changing the regime is not the only way this ends
positively,” says Milena Mihajlovic of the European Policy Centre, a
think-tank in Belgrade. Some revolutions take a more circuitous
route. When the marching started, youngsters were seen as having
little interest in the politics of a country many were considering
leaving anyway, says Slobodan Markovich at the Faculty of Political
Science in Belgrade. Now they are invested in the country’s future,
dissecting the inner workings of institutions from courts to state
media. If that is not revolutionary, what is? ■

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Britain
Britain’s government has entered the steel
industry with no plan
British Steel :: Even its strongest argument, national security, needs closer scrutiny

Birmingham’s bin strikes reveal local

problems—and a national one
When “equal value” comes to town :: Rubbish policy and rubbish on the streets

Are hits like “Adolescence” good or bad for

Britain?
The Hollywood of Europe :: Commissions by streaming services are a mixed blessing
for British production companies

The splintering of British politics

The Economist poll tracker :: Nine months into power, the Labour Party has
haemorrhaged support

How Britain decides which drugs to buy

The value of a life :: The NHS can’t afford all the latest miracle drugs. A quango
decides who misses out

What is a woman? Britain’s Supreme Court

gives its answer
Gender wars :: The terms “woman” and “sex” refer to “a biological woman and
biological sex”

In praise of flag-shagging
Bagehot: Patriotism :: To govern Britain, it helps to like it

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British Steel

Britain’s government has

entered the steel industry
with no plan
Even its strongest argument, national security, needs closer scrutiny
4月 16, 2025 07:35 上午

THE TONE has been breathless and nostalgic. On April 12th MPs
were recalled from their Easter recess, a move typically reserved for
wars and other national crises, to prevent the closure of the
country’s last remaining blast furnaces, operated by British Steel,
nowadays a Chinese-owned firm. There were stirring speeches about
the country’s industrial heritage and excitable accusations of foreign
sabotage. At one point the Royal Navy was “on alert” to escort fuel
shipments. By April 15th Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary,
who had gone to direct action from the Scunthorpe steelworks,
could reassure a restless nation that he had “secured the raw
materials to save British Steel”.

In all this what was harder to find was a clear rationale. It was
obvious that the Labour government, which won back voters in
towns like Scunthorpe at the last election and likes to talk up the
prospects of an industrial revival, was caught between a rock and a
steel-hard place. The plant’s closure would have brought thousands
of job losses; MPs on all sides insisted that it would “threaten
national security”. Yet the government has leapt into a sector that
has been in decline for five decades, and looks ever less competitive,
without much of a plan. That is worrying for taxpayers, and raises
questions about its priorities.

The urgent state intervention followed failed negotiations with the

plant’s Chinese owner, Jingye. Nearly two years of tense rescue talks
unravelled last month when Jingye rejected £500m ($650m) of state
funding to help the plant switch to greener production. The
company, which bought British Steel out of insolvency in 2020, says
the blast furnaces are no longer viable: it claims the Scunthorpe site
is losing around £700,000 a day, despite £1.2bn of investment. From
iron pellets to coking coal, essential supplies needed to keep the
blast furnaces going were due to run out imminently. Ministers
accuse Jingye of acting to hasten that outcome. Instead, they
granted themselves sweeping powers over the site; experts now see
full nationalisation as the likely result.
British steel producers have faced recurring problems for years. High
energy prices have made them less competitive—a problem that has
worsened recently because the country is particularly exposed to
high gas prices (see chart). Heavily subsidised steel from China,
which accounts for more than half of the world’s production, is more
carbon-intensive. But it is cheap and plentiful. While other countries
have thrown money at their steelworks, using subsidies and energy-
price controls to prop up struggling producers, those in Britain have
been left more vulnerable, and thus prone to underinvestment and
low productivity. America’s 25% tariff on steel imports, announced
by Donald Trump in February, has compounded the problem.

The national-security case for rescuing Scunthorpe’s blast furnaces is

not the slam-dunk many MPs seem to have assumed. Most of the
steel used by Britain’s defence industry is already imported, including
steel for submarine hulls and thin-plate shipbuilding, which British
mills no longer produce at sufficient quality. Nor are Britain’s
steelworks self-sufficient: they rely on imports of coal and iron ore
from countries like Australia, Brazil, South Africa and Sweden, and
have done for years. In the period leading up to the second world
war, Britain sourced large quantities of iron from Sweden to make
weapons.

It is true that the plant’s closure would have made Britain the only
G7 country unable to produce primary steel (ie, directly from raw
materials such as iron and coke). Military planners may worry
whether, in a conflict where steel production was highly relevant,
allies would divert steel to Britain for its particular production needs.
Yet other smaller countries, including Denmark and Ireland, rely on
imports; Britain could diversify its supply chains and strike advance-
purchasing agreements. Electric arc furnaces, using recycled scrap
steel, can nowadays produce high-grade steels: one at Rotherham
supplies the steel for aircraft landing gear, for example. It is worth
asking if primary steel is indeed the most significant potential
bottleneck compared with other pressing military priorities.

Mr Reynolds also argues that the steel industry can have an

“enormous role” in driving growth. Yet the notion that propping up
an ailing sector will somehow boost Britain’s productivity is bizarre.
Britain does need to build lots of houses, railways and wind turbines.
But that can be done using metals from elsewhere, which are
typically cheaper.

If the government wants an industrial strategy that boosts sectors

where Britain has advantages, steel is not an obvious place to start,
says Giles Wilkes, a former business-department adviser. Already,
the government has committed £2.5bn to the industry, on top of the
£500m the last government gave to a plant in Port Talbot. The risk is
that steel becomes a financial black hole, with ministers compelled
to throw good money after bad, or force other firms to “buy British”.

Despite such concerns, there was near-complete consensus over the

effective nationalisation—from the Liberal Democrats and the
Conservatives to Reform UK. Several MPs accused Jingye of
deliberate sabotage, and argued for tighter restrictions on Chinese
ownership of critical infrastructure. So far, there is little evidence to
back up the charge. Jingye appears to have been poorly run, but its
rapid exit looks more likely to have been driven by heavy losses and
Mr Trump’s tariffs than by a concerted strategy to degrade Britain’s
industrial capacity. British governments have already limited Chinese
involvement in nuclear power and telecoms, but the current
government is likely to continue to try to woo investment elsewhere.

The emergency bill gives ministers extensive powers to intervene in

“strategic” sites, which is hardly likely to help make Britain look
attractive to foreign investors. They are seeking alternative backers
for the Scunthorpe plant, but may be forced to complete a
nationalisation within weeks. At that point, taxpayers will take on the
plant’s losses (now £230m a year), and ministers will grapple with all
the problems private operators have long faced. The question MPs
should be asking, with the same urgency that characterised the
government’s intervention, is this: if this nationalisation is, in effect,
defence spending or employment subsidy, are there not better ways
to spend the money? ■

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When “equal value” comes to town

Birmingham’s bin strikes

reveal local problems—and a
national one
Rubbish policy and rubbish on the streets
4月 16, 2025 07:03 上午 | Birmingham

Bags of trouble

ON BIRMINGHAM’S POORER streets, veiled mothers push their

prams through scattered litter. The remarkably sunny spring would
normally be a thrill for their children. Less so this time. The
abundant rubbish, in some places piled in heaps two metres high,
rots faster in the heat. It has taken on the sweet-and-sour smell of
decay. Residents report that rats the size of cats roam, with 17,000
accumulated roadside tonnes to feed on—though your
correspondent did not spot any.

The binmen are on strike, and have been for weeks. On the surface,
the dispute sounds as common as any other. Birmingham City
Council, which employs the binmen, wants to cut jobs—specifically,
that of the “waste recycling and collection officer” (WRCO), the
fourth man on each collection lorry. The council wishes to reform a
service it says is underperforming. The binmen think they are doing
a good job already, thank you very much. After talks between the
council and Unite, a union, broke down in December, workers first
walked out for a stint in January. By mid-March they had decided not
to walk back in again. On April 14th they “overwhelmingly” rejected
a settlement that was on offer to them, and kept striking.

That they are mainly binmen (and not binwomen) is the crux of the
mess as far as the council is concerned. (Unite claims the dispute is
more narrowly about budget cuts.) Staff employed in predominantly
female jobs, such as cleaners and care-home workers, have been
arguing in courts that their work is of “equal value” to ones typically
done by men, such as waste workers and WRCOs, and so they
should be entitled to the same pay and perks.

Judges have agreed. The right to equal pay for work of “equal value”
has a long, if meandering, history in Britain. Workers under the
same employer have been entitled to claim that their work is of
“equal value” since 1983, when Parliament amended the Equal Pay
Act to better align with European law.

Britain has turned out to have a greater zeal for the principle than its
continental peers. A series of legal tweaks also made cases of this
kind easier to bring. “No win no fee” rules for lawyers were
loosened. Litigants won the right to more time to make their claims,
and to more back-pay if they were successful. The laws might not
have changed much, but the economics did. The number of “equal
pay for equal value” lawsuits shot up. Next, a clothes shop, is on the
hook for £30m in compensation for paying warehouse workers more
than shop staff.

No organisation has had to open its pockets as much as Birmingham

City Council. It has paid out more than £1bn ($1.3bn) to claimants.
It owes at least another £250m. These settlements, as well as a
botched IT reform, forced the council in effect to declare bankruptcy
in 2023. Getting rid of WRCOs would go a long way towards
stanching the flow of new claims against it, the council’s external
auditors reckon: city leaders “have to follow through”, urged Mark
Stocks of Grant Thornton, the auditing firm. The council has offered
WRCOs other employment at the same grade, training to be a driver,
or a redundancy payout.

Such reforming zeal may be Unite’s biggest fear. In an effort to

eliminate all future equal-value claims, the council is busy
reassessing how it pays all its other workers, too. Taking the safest
course could see other male-dominated jobs squeezed. In rejecting
the latest deal by the council, the union complained that the offer
did not tackle potential future pay cuts for 200 bin-lorry drivers.

This is not the first time that Birmingham has tried to fix its bin
service. One attempt, in 2017, was met with seven weeks of strikes.
Equal-pay fears, along with complaints about the quality of the
service, motivated reformers then too: the fourth man on the lorry
was, as now, for the chop. In the end the council caved. Will it do so
again? That would only kick the bin down the road once more. ■

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The Hollywood of Europe

Are hits like “Adolescence”

good or bad for Britain?
Commissions by streaming services are a mixed blessing for British
production companies
4月 16, 2025 07:03 上午

ARE HITS like “Adolescence” good or bad for Britain? A couple of

years ago Warp Films, the Sheffield-based production company
behind the Netflix drama, was on the brink. With covid-19 shutting
production and delaying new releases, work was drying up across
the industry. Months away from “turning the lights off”, Warp Films
sought new investment. Now its four-part series, set in nearby
Doncaster, has been watched more than 114m times, making it one
of Netflix’s most popular offerings.
Such successes have established Britain as the “Hollywood of
Europe”. Tax breaks, an abundance of talent and cutting-edge studio
space have made Britain a magnet for productions such as “The
Crown” and “Bridgerton”. Global streaming platforms such as
Disney+, Netflix and Amazon commissioned 123 new British TV
series in 2024, a figure surpassed only by America’s 505 titles,
according to Richard Broughton of Ampere Analysis, a research firm
(see chart). American cable companies, studios and TV networks
have also waded into Britain, shooting films such as “Wicked,”
“Barbie” and “Andor”, the latest in the Star Wars saga.

But beyond the red carpets and star-studded sets, the arrival of
major content platforms with deep pockets has left Britain’s cash-
strapped broadcasters and local production houses falling behind.
Warp Films’ near-closure is mirrored elsewhere. Staff at Euston
Films, the production company behind “Nightsleeper”, a six-part
series, were all laid off days before the show premiered on the BBC
in September 2024, attracting more than 8m viewers. “Wolf Hall:
The Mirror and The Light”, a much admired historical drama that
aired two months later, would not have made it to screen without
the project’s producer, writer, director and leading actor giving up
part of their pay. The question of whether British hits such as
“Adolescence” are a blessing or a curse for the industry is being
widely debated.

Critics say increased competition has strangled local markets. A

handful of high-budget projects have fuelled competition for cast,
crew and studio space, inflating costs and squeezing margins for
others. Streaming platforms have doubled their commissions in
Britain since 2019, ploughing hundreds of millions of pounds into
British content. By contrast, spending by public-service broadcasters
like the BBC has plunged. This contributed to a 25% decline in
overall domestic spending on high-end TV productions last year.

The influence of American content giants poses another challenge.

Although streamers have meant higher wages for the people
working on their shows, jobs have become less secure. After a post-
pandemic production surge, most streaming services reined in their
spending in 2023. As commissions out of Hollywood fell, so too did
job numbers in Britain. Strikes exacerbated the problem: thousands
of American screenwriters, actors and other media professionals
walked out in 2023. By July 2024 more than half of people who had
been working in Britain’s TV and film industry were still unemployed.
Just 6% had returned to their usual workload, according to BECTU,
a trade union.

British politicians are contemplating intervention. The House of

Commons’ Culture, Media and Sport Committee has recommended
that major streaming platforms should voluntarily contribute 5% of
their subscriber revenues in Britain to a fund aimed at financing
drama for domestic productions. The committee concluded that the
government should mandate this if necessary. A number of countries
have already been taking similar steps. Canada introduced a levy in
2024 (though it faces legal challenges). Denmark introduced one this
year. Several other European countries, including France, Germany,
Italy and Spain, have imposed levies or investment obligations.

Netflix has warned that extra taxes will lead to price rises for
audiences. A spokesman for the company urged politicians to “create
a business environment that incentivises rather than penalises
investment”. Netflix and its peers already work with traditional
broadcasters through co-productions. Amazon and the BBC have
pooled their resources and talent to create shows such as “Fleabag”,
a comedy-drama; Netflix and the BBC joined forces on “Bodyguard”,
a political thriller. This is a boon for audiences. And taxing the
streamers won’t solve the long-term financial viability of Britain’s
broadcasters. ■

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The Economist poll tracker

The splintering of British

politics
Nine months into power, the Labour Party has haemorrhaged
support
4月 16, 2025 07:03 上午

THE LABOUR PARTY faces a test of its popularity at local elections

on May 1st. Sir Keir Starmer began his premiership last July
promising to deliver a programme of “national renewal”. But nine
months on things are not exactly going to plan. Voters have quickly
lost patience with his government.

Our poll tracker, relaunched this week, makes clear how dramatic
this shift has been. National polls of voting intentions show that, in
the 50 years for which comparable data exist, Labour’s ten-
percentage-point decline is the largest slump of any governing party
in its first months in office. By contrast, nine months after Sir Tony
Blair’s landslide victory in 1997 Labour had increased its support by
ten points.
Political preferences are fragmenting across the country. Reform UK
is now in a three-way race with Labour and the Conservatives: each
party attracts about a quarter of prospective voters. Backing for the
Liberal Democrats and the Greens has nudged up, to 14% and 9%
respectively (see top chart). Sir Keir’s party has haemorrhaged
support among voters of all kinds over the past nine months: the
young and old; rich and poor; men and women; and north and
south (see bottom chart).

Labour is being squeezed from all quarters, too. Among people aged
under 35, 44% of whom voted Labour last July, support has fallen to
one-third, to the benefit of both the Greens on the left, the Lib Dems
in the centre and Reform to the right. Fewer than one in five blue-
collar workers say they would vote Labour. Sir Keir’s party is sitting in
fourth place in the south of England and third in the Midlands. North
of the border, the Scottish National Party enjoys a commanding lead:
if a general election were held tomorrow, Labour would lose many of
its 37 seats there.

But such an election will not be held tomorrow. The next one does
not need to take place until August 2029. The question is whether
the splintering will persist. Nigel Farage, Reform’s leader, remarked
recently that this fragmentation is something he “never thought we’d
see”. As Mr Farage knows only too well, Britain’s first-past-the-post
system does not reward small parties whose support is spread thinly.
Reform won 14% of the ballots last July but gained just five MPs
(less than 1% of seats).

In truth British politics have been splintering for some time. For the
past decade the British Election Study (BES) has been asking a large
representative sample of Britons about their party affiliation. When it
first asked the question, in 2014, some 31% of respondents said
they identified themselves with Labour. Five years later, the figure
had fallen to 25%, about the same as today. Meanwhile the share of
voters that do not identify themselves with any party has risen from
16% in 2014 to 25% now.
The Labour Party’s ruthless electoral efficiency—winning 63% of the
seats in the Commons last year with just 34% of the vote—now
makes it look remarkably vulnerable. Sir Keir has not had the kind of
honeymoon period that many of his predecessors in Downing Street
enjoyed. The local elections will bring the first ballot-box evidence of
the extent to which his election-winning machine is going into
reverse. ■

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The value of a life

How Britain decides which

drugs to buy
The NHS can’t afford all the latest miracle drugs. A quango decides
who misses out
4月 16, 2025 07:04 上午

ZOOM CALLS are rarely matters of life and death. But on April 3rd
one such meeting carried grave consequences for 33 children in
England with a form of Batten disease, a rare degenerative brain
disorder. For hours a committee of health experts and economists
pored over spreadsheets, weighing the benefits of Brineura, an
enzyme therapy. Brineura slows the disease’s progress, but has a list
price of £523,000 ($673,000) per patient a year. The task was to
decide whether the drug provides enough value for money for the
National Health Service (NHS) to keep funding it (untreated, children
rarely make it past the age of 12 and lose the ability to walk, talk
and swallow). One parent put it bluntly: “You’re putting a value on a
child’s life.”

NICE would disagree. Since 1999 the National Institute for Health
and Care Excellence has weighed costs against benefits to help the
NHS decide what it should buy. The institute’s boss, Sam Roberts,
calls it a mindful “health-care innovation shopper”. Within a fixed
budget, every new drug it buys risks squeezing essentials like GPs or
ambulances among existing health-care services.

Not all countries are so explicit about such trade-offs. In America

access is often shaped by the ability to pay or navigate insurance,
though an increasingly influential non-profit drug evaluator, the
Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER), is NICE-inspired.
France and Germany initially rely on clinical evidence, though prices
are later negotiated down. Other national agencies use cost-
effectiveness analyses, but NICE is known for being the most
transparent and rigorous, and its guidelines are the most widely
cited among its international peers.
Its task is getting harder. The number of new treatments it reviews
each year has quadrupled over two decades (see chart ). Many are
expensive. Health-care systems everywhere are struggling to cover
game-changing weight-loss drugs for millions and gene therapies
with high one-off costs for a few.

Central to NICE’s decisions is the QALY, or quality-adjusted life year.

A year in perfect health is worth one QALY; years lived in poorer
health count for less. NICE compares each new treatment with the
current NHS standard. It generally approves a drug if it delivers an
extra QALY for £20,000–30,000 or less.

Other countries use different figures: the thresholds are around

$50,000–150,000 in America. Health is also valued differently in
other areas of public spending, such as transport or the
environment. The Treasury’s “Green Book”, its guide for evaluating
public projects, puts a QALY at £70,000—based on how much people
are willing to pay to reduce their risk of injury or death. NICE
focuses on trade-offs within the health system, not across
government.

Beyond such numbers, NICE takes into account wider benefits, such
as savings to social care or the emotional toll of bereavement. It also
worries about fairness. A recent appraisal of Casgevy, the first
licensed gene-editing treatment, explicitly considered health
inequalities, specifically the systemic neglect of sickle-cell patients,
most of whom are black. And to spur treatments for ultra-rare
conditions, NICE uses a more generous cost-effectiveness threshold
of £100,000–300,000 per QALY.

NICE is under pressure—from politicians and the public—to back

innovations. It has begun accepting routinely collected “real-world”
data rather than relying solely on the gold standard of randomised
control trials. A fund launched in 2022 gives patients faster access to
promising new treatments with uncertain evidence, which will
benefit patients with ultra-rare diseases. Some worry about political
pressure pushing down NICE’s standards: the government sees life
sciences as vital to reviving Britain’s lacklustre growth.

It is a bit of a lottery. Only treatments for diseases which afflict

fewer than one in 50,000 people, and with no more than 300 eligible
patients, can qualify for NICE’s ultra-rare route. The process is
arduous: Orchard Therapeutics spent 18 months preparing its
submission for a life-saving gene therapy called Libmeldy (with a list
price of £2.8m); it was approved in 2022.
NICE has also become more open to surveys and focus groups
aimed at capturing public preferences. In 2022 it replaced its rules
which prioritised terminal-cancer treatments with a broader “severity
modifier” designed to give more weight to the most serious
conditions. Yet an industry-funded study found different preferences,
and NICE introduced far harsher cut-offs than severity modifiers
applied in the Netherlands and Norway, probably because the shift
had to be cost-neutral.

Nasty trade-offs

Such changes have consequences. NICE recently rejected Enhertu, a

life-extending breast-cancer drug, for a subset of patients—though
Scotland approved it at a lower price. For a few additional months,
some desperate women are considering moving north. “You have to
draw a line somewhere,” says Victoria Charlton, a philosopher at
Imperial College London. “But that line will probably be arbitrary.”

NICE sometimes tells patient groups to expect a “provisional no” in

the appraisal process: the aim is to spur commercial negotiations
between the manufacturer and the NHS. Increasingly appraisals are
at least partially redacted. Since 2017 the NHS has been allowed to
delay the roll-out of a new intervention if it will cost more than £20m
in the first three years (soon to rise to £40m). This disadvantages
treatments that target many patients.

Mounjaro, a weight-loss drug, met NICE’s cost-effectiveness bar

(obesity is estimated to cost Britain £75bn a year). But the NHS
argued that providing Mounjaro would limit other “life-saving” care,
taking up one in five GP appointments and consuming 28% of the
medicines budget by year two. NICE agreed that only 220,000 of
3.4m eligible patients should receive the jab in the first three years.

Some academics worry that the more special cases are worked into
this system, the less efficient it becomes. A study led by Huseyin
Naci of the London School of Economics reviewed decisions from
2000 to 2020. It found that new drugs delivered 3.8m QALYs to
19.8m people, at a cost of £75.1bn. That same sum, spent on
existing services, might have yielded 5m QALYs. Most gains went to
users of cancer and immunology drugs (the sort that, when rejected,
see NICE hauled before select committees). The losers are “invisible
patients”, often in poorer areas. “It’s not that this is costing too
much in money,” says Dan Howdon, an economist at the University
of York. “It’s costing too much in health.”

Researchers don’t know the real opportunity cost, counters NICE’s

Dr Roberts. Most NHS services—like ambulances—lack formal benefit
estimates. Drug costs are often overstated: prices fall, and
manufacturers pay rebates. And patients want access to the best
and latest drugs. England ranks in the top quintile in Europe for how
quickly patients can get new medicines—a good showing for a tax-
funded system. Lower the threshold, she warns, and that standing
may slip.

Drugs firms argue that NICE’s thresholds are too stingy. Medicines
made up around 9% of health spending in Britain in 2018, they point
out, compared with 17% in Germany and Japan. But spending more
on drugs would mean cutting health spending in other areas, or
boosting NHS funding to the detriment of other public services.

With researchers and drugmakers both grumbling, NICE may feel it

is getting the balance about right. It is trying to be more innovative.
Hemgenix, a gene therapy for haemophilia B, was recently approved
using outcome-based pricing: the NHS pays more if the drug works.
But deeper questions, such as whether the NHS should fund ultra-
costly drugs for a few very sick children while thousands wait to see
a GP, are becoming ever more pressing. ■
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Gender wars

What is a woman? Britain’s

Supreme Court gives its
answer
The terms “woman” and “sex” refer to “a biological woman and
biological sex”
4月 17, 2025 05:54 上午

THAT MOST divisive of questions, “What is a woman?”, received an

answer from the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom on April
16th. In For Women Scotland v The Scottish Ministers, the court
ruled that, for the purposes of the Equality Act, which covers
discrimination in every area of British life including employment,
education and public services, the terms “woman” and “sex” refer to
“a biological woman and biological sex”. Lord Hodge, announcing the
ruling, said it had been unanimous. The ruling also said that the
definition of sex under the Equality Act “makes clear that the
concept of sex is binary”. “This is a landmark in the gender debate,”
says Michael Foran, a legal academic at Glasgow University. “In all
the sensitive areas such as sport, prisons, single-sex spaces, this
means that woman means biological woman and sex means
biological sex.”

The origins of the case go back to 2018, when the devolved Scottish
government proposed legislation that half the people sitting on the
boards of public companies in Scotland must be women. It initially
said that would mean anyone who identified as a woman. When
challenged by For Women Scotland (FWS), an advocacy group, it
changed its guidance to say that the term “woman” could include
trans women (natal males) who hold a “gender-recognition
certificate” (GRC). FWS challenged again and lost, and the case
escalated beyond Scotland to the UK Supreme Court.

GRCs came into being with the Gender Recognition Act of 2004.
They allow people of either sex to be permanently, legally
recognised as the opposite sex, if they have been diagnosed with
gender dysphoria by two doctors and lived in their acquired gender
for two years. This week’s ruling said that trans women holding a
GRC should not be considered to be women in any of the areas
covered by the Equality Act. “We are thrilled and relieved that
women across the UK can now be assured their rights are protected
in law, and their safety and dignity will be protected and respected,”
said Susan Smith of FWS.

The conflicts arise because one of the foundational claims of the

trans-rights movement is that trans women are women and trans
men are men (though the Scottish government only claimed that
those with a GRC were respectively women and men). Many trans
people say they should be allowed to have access to services and
protection from discrimination in line with their “gender identity” not
their biological sex. “Gender critical” feminist groups, such as FWS,
disagree. Stonewall, a charity that has campaigned for trans rights,
says it is deeply concerned about the “widespread implications” of
the ruling. Its chief executive, Simon Blake, said: “It will be
incredibly worrying for the trans community and all of us who
support them.”

One notable area of dissent has come from some lesbians. Three
lesbian groups were among the intervenors on behalf of FWS. If
FWS had lost, it would have become illegal for women to form clubs
or associations of more than 25 members that excluded trans
women (natal males), thus making it illegal for lesbians to do so,
too.

Those who oppose allowing trans women into female-only spaces

say employers have long felt under pressure to let anyone claiming
to be trans use whichever facilities they feel most comfortable with,
regardless of whether the person has a GRC or not. For example,
two employment tribunals are under way in which nurses say the
NHS has endorsed a policy allowing trans women without a GRC to
use female staff’s changing rooms.

“So many organisations have been trained to operate on the basis of

gender self-identification,” says Naomi Cunningham of Sex Matters, a
gender-critical charity. The Supreme Court’s ruling “will make it
much easier to push back against this de facto self-ID across the
board”.

Other supporters of trans rights have weighed in. The Good Law
Project, a non-profit campaign group, said “this ruling sets a
dangerous precedent and erases trans women from protections. It
puts trans rights back 20 years.” That claim was at odds, however,
with the words of Lord Hodge. He reiterated that trans people are
already, and will continue to be, protected from discrimination and
harassment by the Equality Act.
The debates over sex and gender do not look likely to subside. But it
is noticeable that the ruling drew supportive responses from both
the Labour government, which said that “single-sex spaces are
protected in law and will always be protected by this government,”
and from Kemi Badenoch, leader of the opposition Conservative
Party. She tweeted: “Saying ‘trans women are women’ was never
true in fact and now isn’t true in law, either.” ■

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Bagehot: Patriotism

In praise of flag-shagging
To govern Britain, it helps to like it
4月 16, 2025 07:03 上午

THERE ARE no prizes for subtlety in British politics. But there are
prizes for the winners of “Tapp Into Reading”, a scheme where
children in Dover and Deal, the constituency home to the White
Cliffs, compete to perform the best theatrical reading of patriotic VE
Day-themed literature. It is the brainchild of its Labour MP, Mike
Tapp, a military veteran who since his election in 2024 has taken to
generating AI pictures of himself in the style of first-world-war
recruitment posters captioned: “YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU TO
UNITE AGAINST FAKE PATRIOTS”.
Flag-shagging, the uncouth vernacular for overt displays of
patriotism, abounds in the Labour Party of Sir Keir Starmer. It starts
at the top. Sir Keir began his first party broadcast with the words: “I
love this country.” A Union flag was installed in his office. When the
queen died shortly before Labour’s conference in 2022, the party
went overboard with patriotic garb. (“It looks like Ibrox,” said a
Scottish union figure, referring to the stadium of Glasgow Rangers
Football Club, whose fans love king and country.) Patriotism for Sir
Keir is a simple mix of the NHS, NATO and, in his own words,
“belting out Three Lions in the crowd at Wembley in ’96”.

Watching Mr Tapp herald British values while “Rule Britannia” plays

in the background, a viewer might wonder: is it possible to lay it on
a bit too thick? Consider the alternative. Attempts at thoughtful
patriotism got Labour nowhere. In 2007 Gordon Brown offered
elegies on what it was to be British. It did little for a Scottish prime
minister leading a governing party that won fewer votes than the
Conservatives in England at the 2005 election. Under Ed Miliband,
Labour agonised over national identity. The then Labour leader
spoke thoughtfully about what it meant to be British, English, Jewish
and a Leeds United fan. It failed. Jeremy Corbyn, from the hard-left,
tried to detach patriotism from jingoism. He ended up the most
unpopular opposition leader on record.

Party staffers may have grumbled about Sir Keir’s embrace of flag-
shagging. There is a long-standing aversion to blatant nationalism
on the British centre-left, where it is seen as at best cheap and at
worst nasty. “Are you really so blind to what happens when you start
pandering to the language and concerns of the right?” whimpered
one Labour type (to the Guardian, the home of liberal whimpering).
The results are in. What happens? A huge majority for a centre-left
party.

If Labour once overthought national identity, now the party happily

underthinks it, with great success. St George’s Day, which falls on
April 23rd, was a festival of leftie worrying about how English and
British identity fit together. No more. Why does Mr Tapp talk of
British values rather than English values? “They’re the same thing,”
he says, Dover’s White Cliffs visible over his shoulder. A decade ago
this would cause palpitations. What about Scottish Labour? Perhaps
the union can bear a Labour MP in Dover having a different sense of
British identity from one in Dunfermline.

Anyway, England agrees with Mr Tapp. In the 2011 census 58% of

the country identified itself as “English-only” and 19% as “British-
only”. In 2021 there was a stunning reversal: 55% identified itself as
British-only and 15% as English-only. What caused it? They switched
the answer order: most people care so little about the question, they
simply ticked the box that came first. If no one else in England (85%
of the United Kingdom’s population, remember) thinks too deeply
about their identity, why should Labour?

It is not as if other parties offer a more subtle critique. Nigel Farage,

the leader of Reform UK and a man fond of a gimmick, wears Union-
flag socks. (“I have about 20 pairs,” he told one interviewer. “People
send them to me.”) Labour making every party broadcast look like
the Last Night of the Proms gives space to land more substantial
blows against Mr Farage and his team, such as on their doveish
stance on Russia. Reform UK “claim to be the party of patriotism”,
said Sir Keir at a local-election campaign event (while standing in
front of a big Union flag, as ever). “I’ll tell you this, there’s nothing
patriotic about fawning over Putin.” You have no right to wear those
socks, Mr Farage!

Labour’s claim to love the country is made easier by the

Conservative Party seeming to hate it. Conservative nostalgia has
soured into nihilism. Sir John Major, a former Tory prime minister,
drew on George Orwell to describe a country of “long shadows on
county grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers
and…old maids bicycling to Holy Communion through the morning
mist”. Listen to the shadow cabinet today and Britain is a land of
grooming gangs, machete fights and migrants on Deliveroo bikes. It
is not a description someone in Surrey, once a Conservative
heartland of prosperous commuter villages, would recognise. Self-
hate, so long a feature of a certain type of socialist, has infected the
party that once monopolised unthinking patriotism.

Lie back and think of England. Or Britain. Either works

Of all the compromises Labour made to take power, flag-shagging

has done the least harm. A foolish pledge not to raise any of VAT,
income tax or national insurance has left the chancellor without the
means to noticeably improve public services. Refusing to move much
closer to Europe manages to be both unpopular and make the
country poorer. It is those mistakes that will hinder Labour’s attempt
to stay in power. By comparison, decking a conference hall out like
Ibrox and belting out the national anthem was a small price to pay
for electoral victory. If Paris is worth a mass, Downing Street is
worth a series of theatrical VE Day readings.

Flag-shagging is simple. An instinctive affection—sometimes sincere,

sometimes silly—is all it takes. “Wave the flag,” says Mr Tapp. “Have
a bit of fun with it as well.” Labour learned this lesson during its 14-
year stint in opposition; the Conservatives are learning it anew. If
you want to lead Britain, it helps to like it. ■

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International
Plastics are greener than they seem
Polymeramory :: Even if the world needs to become much better at managing their
waste

Xi Jinping’s Trump-sized puzzle

The Telegram :: For all its strength and swagger, China is struggling to handle an
impulsive America

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Polymeramory

Plastics are greener than they

seem
Even if the world needs to become much better at managing their
waste
4月 17, 2025 02:30 上午

MICHAEL PHELAN, a famous billiards player and supplier, lamented

in 1858 that the growing popularity of the game had made the ivory
needed for the balls scarce and costly. “If any inventive genius would
discover a substitute”, he wrote, “he would make a handsome
fortune for himself, and earn our sincerest gratitude.” Five years
later, Phelan’s company offered a reward of $10,000 (about
$250,000 today) for anyone who could do just that. The result, after
some tinkering, was celluloid—the world’s first major synthetic
plastic.

Though he never claimed the prize, John Hyatt, the inventor, was
indeed richly rewarded. Ever since, the world has had an almost
insatiable hunger for plastics. This is because plastics’ structure—
made up of repeating molecular units called monomers, which can
be combined and arranged in an enormous variety of ways to form
polymers—meant that they could be used to replicate the properties
of almost any other material. They could also improve on it:
becoming lighter, more durable, cheaper or easier to manufacture.

Their impact has been stunning. The ability to ship goods much
more efficiently—and perishables more safely—allowed supply chains
to stretch across borders, then oceans. In 2000 some 234m tonnes
of plastic were produced. By 2021 annual production had roughly
doubled, with the trade in plastics (and goods containing it)
estimated to be worth $1.2trn each year.

Don’t overlook the many benefits of plastics·

A new way to recycle plastic is here·
Microplastics have not yet earned their bad reputation·

Without plastics the modern world would look decidedly different.

Plastic packaging is significantly lighter than other materials—the
weight of a one-litre plastic bottle is just 5% that of a glass one; a
paper bag is nearly six times heavier than a plastic one (and takes
three times as much energy to produce). Using cans or glass bottles
for soft drinks results in greenhouse-gas emissions two and three
times higher respectively than using plastic, even taking recycling
into account.

Lightweight, airtight plastic containers allow luxuries like Argentine

beef to be sold cheaply in British supermarkets. But they also
facilitate the transport and storage of essentials like rice, cooking oil
and powdered milk in poor countries, where refrigeration is scarce
and roads are poor. Doing away with them would make global trade
so much more fuel-intensive and expensive that much of it might
disappear.

Other industries would suffer, too (see chart 1). In construction, PVC
pipes and plastic-based insulation materials have reduced the cost of
building and maintaining homes, making housing more affordable.
Plastic casings and circuit components are needed to make mobile
phones, laptops and fibre-optic cables. In health care, single-use
plastic syringes and protective equipment, such as gloves and
masks, are crucial for infection control.

But all those gains have come at a cost. The production of plastics,
which generally involves breaking down fossil fuels into their
constituent hydrocarbon building blocks, such as ethylene and
propylene, releases lots of carbon dioxide. The production and
disposal of plastics is currently responsible for around 3.4% of the
world’s annual greenhouse-gas emissions, more than the aviation
industry’s 2.5%.

Then there is what happens to the 350m tonnes that are thrown
away each year. Roughly 50% of plastic waste ends up in landfills.
This is less environmentally ruinous than widely thought, as long as
they are properly built and managed to prevent harmful chemicals
(like those used in flame retardants) and microplastics from leaching
out and contaminating the surrounding soil and water, or gases such
as methane from escaping to the atmosphere.
The problem is collecting the waste in the first place. McKinsey
reckons that 95% of all the plastics used in packaging (itself roughly
30% of the total plastic produced by volume) are disposed of after
just one use. Of this, a third is never collected at all. Instead, it
litters the natural environment and clogs up ecosystems (see chart
2).

In recent decades alarm has been growing about how exposure to

the elements, particularly within the oceans, causes plastic litter to
break down into minuscule “microplastics”, and even smaller
“nanoplastics”. These enter the food chain, including sources such as
table salt, and wind up in various parts of human bodies.

It is unclear exactly how damaging this is to people, not least

because a large proportion of the thousands of chemicals found in
plastics have not been assessed for health risks·. But worries are
growing that plastics may cause irreversible health effects. These
have been intensified by the finding that microplastics trigger
inflammation, the basis for many chronic diseases.

Possible health risks have generated a renewed focus on where

much of the world’s plastic waste ends up, and have led to a
growing number of countries adopting ambitious recycling targets.
The EU, for example, wants to recycle 55% of all plastic packaging
by 2030.

Yet only 9% or so of used plastic is ever turned into something else,

up from 4% in 2000. In part, that is because even well-intentioned
people often slip up when trying to recycle: you can contaminate an
entire batch when binning the wrong sort of plastic. And the
chemical diversity that makes plastics so wildly useful also makes it
hard to turn one type into another. No amount of washing,
shredding or melting will turn polystyrene (used for takeaway
containers and packaging inserts) into PET (used for drinks bottles
and some food trays). Many additives, such as colouring dyes, can
make plastic entirely unrecyclable.

Moreover, no plastic can be recycled indefinitely. Each time it is

broken down it loses some of its structural integrity. That means
most do not become another version of the object they once were.
Instead they are turned into something with lower-quality
requirements—a drinks bottle becomes the filling used in jackets or
carpets, for example. After two or three cycles, most plastic
becomes so degraded that it is no good for anything. Yet recycling is
so expensive that used stuff is sometimes more expensive than its
virgin predecessor.

Dealing with plastic waste is arduous, grubby and not very lucrative,
which means that a good deal of this work happens in poor
countries. The UN estimates that 2% of all plastic waste is exported
for processing, though others think the actual figure is far higher. In
the past almost all of the West’s plastic waste went to China. In
2018, however, worries about the impact of pollution and
contamination led the country to, in effect, ban imports of rubbish
from abroad. For a few years, chaos ensued as waste was rerouted
to places such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam—many of which
lacked the infrastructure to manage it safely (or at all). Plastic piled
up at ports, was dumped or burned illegally, or processed in
inadequate facilities, often exposing workers and local communities
to toxic fumes and contaminated water.

In 2021 the EU revised its waste shipment rules to permit exports of

plastic waste only to other OECD countries. Almost 40% of the bloc’s
trash now ends up in Turkey, which jumped at the chance of a
business to bolster its ties with the rest of Europe and, crucially, see
it paid in euros. (The EU’s announcement came shortly before Recep
Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s president, declared he would ban waste
plastic imports—a decision hastily reversed.) But, explains Krista
Shennum, who investigated the Turkish waste industry for Human
Rights Watch, an NGO, the country has done little to ensure that the
plastic is dealt with safely. Workers are often undocumented
migrants (sometimes children), many of whom endure dreadful
working conditions and huge amounts of chemical exposure. The UN
reckons roughly 59% of all waste plastic worldwide ends up being
sorted by some 20m informal workers.

Such unintended consequences have led to calls for countries to

agree on how to deal with plastics. A study in 2023 concluded that,
with the right mix of policies, it should be possible to reduce the
annual volume of plastic that is “mismanaged” (neither recycled nor
disposed of correctly) by 90% by 2040. The rub, of course, is that
the policies needed would have to be instituted everywhere and be
incredibly wide-ranging. These span from levying fees on virgin
plastic to banning all avoidable single-use plastics. Global rules
would be needed to enact them.

Hitting the bottle

Reaching that kind of agreement is extremely difficult in today’s

fractured geopolitical world. In 2022, 175 countries agreed to
develop a legally binding treaty to reduce plastic pollution “from
source to sea” (meaning across its entire life cycle). But talks failed
to reach consensus by the end of 2024, the original deadline. More
haggling is scheduled.

Deep divisions remain. Oil-producing countries (and companies)

oppose production caps; poor countries are demanding that rich
ones should compensate them for the costs of compliance. It seems
unlikely that a comprehensive solution can be reached to match the
scale of the problem. But some change is possible. Some 69
countries (plus the EU) have banded together in a “high-ambition
coalition”. They are responsible for a significant share of the world’s
plastic waste. Regardless of what happens elsewhere, they can
improve how they manage it at home. That means expanding
recycling, as well as more use of unpopular solutions like landfills
and burning plastic waste for energy (while capturing the released
carbon).

Greens might prefer a return to an age of glass jars and paper bags
to incinerators. But economics and a hard-headed look at the
environmental costs and benefits suggest that, despite the many
drawbacks, plastics still have a great future. ■
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The Telegram

Xi Jinping’s Trump-sized
puzzle
For all its strength and swagger, China is struggling to handle an
impulsive America
4月 16, 2025 07:03 上午

IF TOUGHNESS ALONE decided great-power contests, China could

afford to feel cocky about its confrontation with America. Though
Chinese exporters have been winded by President Donald Trump’s
tariffs, they have yet to suffer a knockout blow. Communist Party
bosses have worked to build an economy that can take American-
inflicted pain, whether that involves ordering China’s technology
sector to become more “self-reliant” and less dependent on foreign
inputs, or expanding its dealings with Russia and other countries
that oppose Western trade and financial sanctions. The same
economy stands ready to impose pain on foreign rivals, for instance
by curbing exports of rare-earth minerals, the supply of which China
dominates.

Personal toughness matters, too. The party’s supreme leader, Xi

Jinping, was a hard man when Mr Trump was merely playing one on
reality television. As a youth, Mr Xi was exiled to a dirt-walled rural
cave, jailed three times and threatened with execution when his
family fell foul of Mao-era purges. Those years left him with a bleak
view of politics. While still a provincial official, a quarter-century ago,
Mr Xi told an interviewer: “What I see is not just the superficial
things: the power, the flowers, the glory, the applause. I see the
bullpens [a reference to Mao-era detention sites] and how people
can blow hot and cold.”

Alas for Mr Xi, internal fortitude is not the only deciding factor in
China’s contest with America. Two big disadvantages are sure to
weigh on China’s dealings with the wider world. The first involves
the party’s rigidity. The second handicap involves an unhelpful
flipside of Chinese strength: it frightens others. China is seeking to
recruit neighbours and trade partners into a Trump-resisting
coalition. But its leaders’ warm words are undercut by the dread
their country inspires as a manufacturing juggernaut, and by its
taste for economic and military coercion.

China’s system is “too slow” to handle Mr Trump’s “messy” style of

statecraft, laments a well-travelled Chinese scholar. It was
wrongfooted, early on, by a public invitation for Mr Xi to attend Mr
Trump’s inauguration in January. That was an impossible request. Mr
Xi is presented to his people as a ruler for the ages: a worthy
successor to China’s greatest emperors. He does not attend
barbarian ceremonies where he would merely be one of several
VIPs. More quietly, Trump aides proposed that Mr Xi send in his
stead Cai Qi, his right-hand man in the Politburo’s Standing
Committee. Trump aides spurned offers to manage relations via the
party’s foreign-policy chief, Wang Yi, who was China’s principal
channel to Joe Biden’s administration. But Mr Cai, an austere Xi
loyalist and enforcer of his leader’s will, “is not the right person in
our system”, explains the scholar. In the end, China sent a largely
powerless figurehead, its vice-president, Han Zheng.

Inside Trumpworld senior figures insist that the current trade war is
not intended to burn bridges with Mr Xi. Their boss remains open to
exploring a grand bargain with his Chinese counterpart, thrashed out
leader-to-leader, they say. Yet Mr Xi is not about to pick up the
telephone to haggle with an American president on the fly. Chinese
officials are even less keen on suggesting that he meet Mr Trump in
person for unscripted negotiations. Memories of the Oval Office
scolding of Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenesky, are too fresh
and painful for that. More simply, China’s system cannot send Mr Xi
into an open-ended, high-risk summit. Mr Xi may have jailed or
toppled rivals and amassed vast power. But he is presented by
propaganda chiefs as a sort of supremely wise technocrat-in-chief,
guiding a party apparatus that weighs and crafts policies, then
enacts them with absolute obedience to the leader. Dignity and
authority are at the core of Mr Xi’s brand.

Mr Trump’s breezy style has long disconcerted China’s leaders. In the

spring of 2017 he called Mr Xi so often to ask for help with North
Korea that Chinese envoys eventually delivered a discreet message
to American contacts. Mr Xi is “not our North Korean desk officer”,
they pleaded: let underlings handle most of this.

In this second term, Chinese officials are aghast as Mr Trump’s

cabinet secretaries offer contradictory justifications for tariffs in
duelling television appearances. Amid this chaos, China does not
know whom to speak to. It also fears that American interlocutors will
leak to the press “and embarrass the top leader here in China”, says
the scholar. Nor, reportedly, can Chinese authorities agree whether
to link trade talks to the most sensitive dossiers, including curbing
sales of Chinese chemicals used to make fentanyl sold to American
drug abusers, or the fate of Taiwan. China can be expected to
observe factional fights raging in Washington, to see who emerges
on top in three or six months. “Then the Chinese side will feel a little
bit safer,” the scholar predicts.

China, the bully that talks of friendship

That caution is matched among China’s neighbours, including three

South-East Asian countries that are threatened with steep Trump
tariffs, and were due to host Mr Xi from April 14th. The Chinese
leader talked of jointly defending free trade and resisting “unilateral
bullying”. His hosts, Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia, could be
forgiven some scepticism. All three profit from trade with China but
resent how one-sided such commerce can be, as investors bring
their own Chinese supply chains and even workers. Some regional
governments mutter about imposing defensive tariffs on Chinese
goods. Conceivably, Mr Trump may give them political cover to do
just that, blaming American arm-twisting.

Few neighbours believe China’s talk of “win-win” outcomes, even if

they loathe Mr Trump’s approach: “We win, you lose.” America is
rapidly squandering trust built up over many years. But China never
enjoyed much trust to begin with. In these friendless times, Chinese
toughness is both a strength and a vulnerability. ■

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Business
Pity American firms in China. Xi Jinping is
hitting back
Uncle Sam v the dragon :: From Apple and Boeing to Nike and Starbucks, there is a
lot of money at stake

How to swerve Donald Trump’s tariffs

When the levies break :: Using cunning or flattery is a good start

Spanish business thrives while bigger

European economies stall
Europe’s sunny south :: Cheap energy and high immigration are the motors of
success

LinkedIn’s unlikely role in the AI race

Mutual connections :: People are using the social network differently. It is using them
differently, too

A new way to recycle plastic is here

Trash talk :: Environmentalists hate it

Reclaiming the office lunch

Bartleby :: Why stopping to eat is a good idea

The trade war may reverse Hong Kong’s

commercial decline
Schumpeter :: Asia’s once-dominant business centre is regaining ground lost to
Shanghai, Singapore and New York

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Uncle Sam v the dragon

Pity American firms in China.

Xi Jinping is hitting back
From Apple and Boeing to Nike and Starbucks, there is a lot of
money at stake
4月 16, 2025 07:35 上午 | SHANGHAI

FOR DECADES politicians in Washington might have been mistaken

for lobbyists for American companies in China. They pushed for the
country to be opened up to American banks, planes and fast-food
chains. Boeing, an American plane manufacturer, for example, began
receiving orders from China just after Richard Nixon visited the
country in 1972. Now many American executives in China believe
they are witnessing their government dismantle much of that work.
Donald Trump’s heavy use of tariffs is rendering their supply chains
untenable. Retaliation by the Chinese government threatens to
unwind years of commercial success. On April 15th China’s aviation
regulator told airlines to stop taking deliveries of aircraft from
Boeing, according to Bloomberg, a news agency. The symbolism of
the move will not be lost on American bosses in Shanghai or Beijing.

American firms in China are still attempting to get a grip on what the
future will look like. Tariffs on Chinese imports stand at 145%. On
April 11th the White House announced exemptions on consumer
electronics, to the great relief of companies such as Apple. Since
then, however, the president has said these are temporary, valid
until the results of a probe into semiconductors, electronics and
pharmaceuticals. And on April 16th America clamped down on
Nvidia's sale of AI chips to China.

China has matched America’s increases, with duties of around 125%,

but said recently that it would no longer respond to new tariffs
because, given much higher prices, the market for American imports
had already disappeared. At the same time Chinese regulators have
launched investigations and added American companies to lists that
will disadvantage their operations in the country. Companies such as
Boeing can expect rapidly falling orders or cancellations. An
American executive describes the trade war in one word:
“destruction”.

Mr Trump cites a goods trade deficit with China of around $300bn in

2024 as one justification for tariffs. American bosses in China view
things differently. Revenues in 2024 for American listed companies
that report Chinese sales were around the same amount. Apple, Nike
and Starbucks are omnipresent; Tesla, an electric-vehicle maker, sold
around two-fifths of its cars in China in the first three months of this
year. Their local operations employ tens of thousands of often highly
skilled workers. By comparison, Chinese firms in America have been
far less successful, bringing in just $50bn in revenues last year.
Spotting a Chinese consumer brand on the streets of an American
city is a rare event.

For American executives, operating in China just became far more

challenging. Over the past few years many have been reducing
investments (see chart), driven out by unfriendly policies and low
interest rates. In future it will be American policy inhibiting
investments.
Most American firms with complex supply chains are still reeling
from the impact of the pandemic, during which many sought to end
total reliance on Chinese manufacturing by setting up in other
countries in the region. This partial diversification may work against
American firms as the trade war sets in. Vietnam, for instance, has
proposed stopping the rerouting of Chinese goods in exchange for
Mr Trump lowering tariffs, according to Reuters, a news agency. This
means that American firms operating between the two countries
could face even higher tariffs.

American bosses will also have to contend with the wrath of the
Chinese state. Since 2019 regulators have developed a sophisticated
legal framework for striking back against companies and countries.
These include sanctions for following other countries’ sanctions,
export restrictions and an “unreliable entities list” (UEL), which,
when a company is added to it, can stop its staff from entering the
country and block it from doing trade with China. According to a
paper by Evan S. Medeiros of Georgetown University and Andrew
Polk of Trivium, a consulting firm, these three mechanisms were
used 15 times in 2023, but 115 times last year. In the first two and a
half months of 2025 alone additions to the UEL and export controls
have been deployed around 60 times.

New forms of retaliation are becoming clearer. On April 8th an

unofficial list of six measures began circulating on Chinese social
media. Some are relatively straightforward, and suggest bans on the
imports of American poultry and soyabeans as well as the
suspension of all talks on policing the trade in fentanyl. Another
suggested halting the imports of American films. The list also
included a crackdown on American-owned intellectual property (IP)
and professional services, such as law firms. The list was written by
two well-connected bloggers. Two days later the film regulator
announced that it would reduce the number of American movies it
allows into China, suggesting the posts were based on reliable
information.
The list may also bring more clarity to an announcement made on
April 4th concerning a Chinese investigation into DuPont, an
American chemicals group. DuPont has clashed with China on IP
issues for many years. The probe into the company alleged
unspecified monopolistic practices, leading some analysts to believe
that the investigation could be an attack on its IP within China.
Multinationals have previously sought IP protection as a prerequisite
for investing in China. Any sign that those promises will be rolled
back would be devastating for all foreign firms, not just American
ones, says a company adviser.

An assault on American services, meanwhile, has yet to materialise

fully. Any such measures could damage the ability of other American
firms to operate. Law firms, banks, advisory firms and accountancies
are a backbone for commerce. China has already made it hard for
some of these services to function. Corporate investigations, for
example, have become riskier as regulators have tightened rules
related to national security and the types of information that can be
disclosed. Many law firms have already scaled back or closed offices.
If this pressure is increased, says one lawyer in Beijing, the ability to
deal with Chinese companies will be hampered.

In the past American law firms might have been backed by their
government when facing such challenges. But Mr Trump has
launched a crackdown on law firms in America that have
investigated him in the past. It is unlikely that he will be sympathetic
to their plight in China.

The Chinese government will have to tread carefully as it imposes

punishments on American companies. Hurting Apple or Tesla will
inevitably hit local manufacturing capacity and lead to layoffs. Other
foreign firms might be spooked by probes into American
counterparts. This could also hurt the Communist Party's efforts to
attract foreign investment and keep the private sector onside. But
there are clear benefits for Chinese firms, too. Some American
bosses fear a backlash against their consumer products, driven by
the Chinese government or by ordinary consumers. Huawei, a local
tech giant, may gain at Apple’s expense.

In this sense the trade war could be a gift to China’s leaders. Local
consumers adore American culture and American goods; many have
ignored the state's attempts to promote local brands. The rage Mr
Trump has directed towards China will make the Communist Party’s
job of purging the country of American brands and companies all the
easier. ■

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When the levies break

How to swerve Donald

Trump’s tariffs
Using cunning or flattery is a good start
4月 17, 2025 01:41 上午

“NOBODY IS GETTING off the hook for unfair trade balances,” insists
Donald Trump. The exemptions and exclusions to the tariffs he has
imposed on imports to America would suggest otherwise. His
“reciprocal” tariffs announced on April 2nd included a 37-page
annexe with exemptions for $644bn-worth of American imports,
about a fifth of the total. On April 11th another 20 products were
exempted, including smartphones and computers.
These weren’t the first exclusions. Some types of steel and
aluminium are exempt. So too are products imported across
northern and southern borders that comply with the United States-
Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), a free-trade deal signed in
2020. If Mr Trump intends the exemptions to leave him room to
negotiate, he has lots of leeway.

All this could change rapidly, of course. Mr Trump has already

ordered an investigation into the supply chain for copper, which is
also currently free from tariffs. As well as probes into
pharmaceuticals and semiconductors on April 15th he added one
into critical minerals. But for now another U-turn, Mr Trump’s 90-day
pause on the high levels of tariffs threatened on “Liberation Day”, as
well as the thicket of exemptions lessens the blow for countries and
companies.

Levies are currently set at a blanket 10%, down from rates set as
high as 49% on Cambodia and 46% on Vietnam. With the latest
exemptions, the effective rate on Vietnamese goods will fall to about
7% as close to a third of its exports to America, largely technology
products, are exempt.

Others stand to gain relief, too. South Africa was initially hit with
duties at 30%, but because over a third of its exports to America
include untariffed metals such as gold, platinum and palladium, that
will lower the overall rate. Even for Chinese goods the eye-watering
145% tariff will in effect be closer to 106%, because currently duty-
free smartphones and computers make up about a quarter of
America’s imports. As a result of the latest exemptions, the overall
effective tariff rate on American imports is now 22%. That is much
higher than it has been in decades, but is at least below the 27% at
the height of Mr Trump’s threatened rates.

Can American businesses wriggle out of these levies? Some will have
the scope to do so. For industrial companies, raw materials can
make up as much as 50% of costs. Relief for basic chemicals and
their derivatives, as well as silicon and rubber, is a help. Several of
the ingredients in pharmaceuticals and chemicals are also used in
foodmaking, an industry that accounted for about a third of
America’s manufacturing output last year.

Moreover, if more than a fifth of a product is made in America, tariffs

apply only to the value of its foreign-made content. That could be a
considerable concession. According to a report from the Commerce
Department in 2023, about half the content by value of goods sold
in America is made there. Besides the latest exemptions, remnants
of previous tariff-exclusion programmes are in force, affecting such
things as crabmeat, animal-feeding machinery and some electric
motors.

Another way to get around tariffs is to evade them. Goods can be

shipped through third countries to disguise their provenance, or their
value might be under-reported to incur lower duties. And then there
is the tried-and-tested route of currying favour with Mr Trump by
lobbying and funnelling money to political campaigns. Expect
businesses to do all they can to seek relief. ■

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Europe’s sunny south

Spanish business thrives

while bigger European
economies stall
Cheap energy and high immigration are the motors of success
4月 16, 2025 07:03 上午 | MADRID

“THE FUTURE IS bright” is a phrase rarely uttered by European

business leaders these days. But José Manuel Entrecanales, the chief
executive of Acciona, is brimming with optimism for both Spanish
business and his family’s company, which he has transformed from a
construction firm to one focused on renewable-energy infrastructure.
He reflects a mood in Madrid that is happy and enthusiastic—in
contrast to the anxiety in Berlin or Paris.
Spain’s economy grew by 3.2% last year, nearly four times the euro-
area average, while France’s expanded only tepidly and Germany’s
shrank. The IBEX 35, tracking Spain’s biggest listed firms, was up by
14.8%, one of the best showings among Europe’s leading
stockmarket indices. The tourism industry, which was hard-hit by the
pandemic, welcomed a record 94m visitors to a country of 48m
people. It expects 100m this year. Tourism contributes 13% of GDP
directly and 20% indirectly, through spending on restaurants,
transport and retailing. “It’s our oil,” jokes José García Cantera, the
chief financial officer of Santander, a bank.

Plenty of Spain’s largest companies are thriving. Inditex, perhaps the

principal corporate success, has long been one of the world’s biggest
fashion retailers. Spain is also home to two of Europe’s top ten
banks by market capitalisation (BBVA and Santander), as well as
leading construction and infrastructure firms (Grupo ACS, Acciona,
Ferrovial and Grupo FCC). Repsol is one of Europe’s oil majors and
Iberdrola one of its biggest electric utilities.

Less known are the country’s smaller stars. One is Sener, an

engineering firm with around 4,000 employees, which is based in
Bilbao. “Ninety percent of our sales are abroad but we still feel very
Spanish,” says Andrés Sendagorta, chairman of the family business.
“Demand in all areas we are operating in is exploding at the same
time.” One of his biggest headaches is finding qualified staff. Sener is
building a gas terminal and a data centre in Germany. It is also
helping build a high-speed railway from Abu Dhabi to Dubai and
another in California. And in January it won the contract to refurbish
five airports in Saudi Arabia.

Two big factors have been working in Spain‘s favour. The first is
cheap electricity, with prices almost as low as those in America.
Twenty years ago Spain imported 50% of its electricity. Today it has
achieved a high degree of self-sufficiency by harnessing solar, wind
and hydroelectric power. According to BBVA, the share of renewables
in power generation increased from 45% in 2021 to 65% in 2024,
which led to a 20% fall in electricity prices. Reaching the
government’s target of 80% by 2030 would mean a further fall of
around 20%, the bank says. In ten years some 90% of Spain’s
electricity will come from renewable sources, predicts Mr
Entrecanales.

A second advantage, business leaders say, has been immigration. In

the past 12 years Spain’s population has grown from around 46m to
49m (see chart); in the past six the foreign-born workforce has risen
by 1.2m. Perhaps because most new arrivals speak Spanish and
have a similar culture, immigration has not brought the same
political tensions as in other countries. Vox, a hard-right party,
campaigns on culture wars (eg, abortion) rather than on anti-
immigrant sentiment.

High levels of immigration are expected to continue but that has

fuelled demand for housing, which is already outstripping supply.
Tens of thousands took to the streets of Madrid and 40 or so other
cities at the beginning of April to demand affordable homes. A report
by Spain’s central bank found that nearly 40% of families who rent
spend more than 40% of their income on housing. Over the past ten
years rents have doubled, while salaries have risen by just 20%.

Spanish business is not immune to other problems visible elsewhere

on the continent. It needs to boost investment and productivity, says
Rafael Doménech, chief economist of BBVA. Private-sector
investment is still below the level of 2019. Low business investment
affects productivity if firms don’t invest in, say, the latest technology.
In the past ten years labour-productivity growth has averaged a
measly 0.2%, well below the OECD average of 0.9%.

Uncertainty about new laws and regulations and excessive red tape
from both regional and central governments are deterring investors,
explains Juan María Nin of the Circulo de Empresarios, a business
think-tank. At the centre, a fragile Socialist-led coalition has been
unable or unwilling to pass business-friendly reforms. Last month the
cabinet approved a bill to shorten the working week from 40 hours
to 37.5 hours without loss of pay. Some regions, such as Madrid, are
kind to businesses; others, such as Catalonia, are not. The
enlargement of Barcelona’s airport has been stalled for 15 years.

The other government causing concern is across the Atlantic. Pedro

Sánchez, the prime minister, is trying to promote alternative trade
partnerships. On April 10th he was the first European leader to visit
China since Donald Trump unveiled his “reciprocal” tariffs. It helps,
too, that Spain exports less to America than many other countries,
so will be less vulnerable to Mr Trump’s levies—another reason for
Spanish bosses to be more cheerful than their peers elsewhere in
Europe. ■

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Mutual connections

LinkedIn’s unlikely role in the

AI race
People are using the social network differently. It is using them
differently, too
4月 16, 2025 07:04 上午

CONGRATULATE LINKEDIN on its work anniversary! Next month the

business world’s favourite social network will turn 22. The 1.1bn
users of LinkedIn—which is a year older than even Facebook—can
celebrate two decades of humblebrags, motivational quotes and
automated congratulations from long-forgotten acquaintances.
Microsoft, its owner, can meanwhile toast a canny acquisition. Since
the tech giant bought LinkedIn eight years ago, for $26bn, the
platform’s annual revenue has grown from $3bn to $17bn.
As LinkedIn matures, two aspects of its business are evolving. First,
people are using the platform differently. What used to be simply a
contact network is increasingly becoming a content channel. This
presents LinkedIn with an opportunity in advertising—but at a risk to
its professional identity. Second, LinkedIn is taking on a new
strategic function for Microsoft. As the tech giant bets big on artificial
intelligence (AI), LinkedIn is providing its owner with a billion willing
guinea pigs, perhaps giving it an edge in the AI race.

With its profile pages and newsfeed, LinkedIn looks much like other
social networks—until you see the content. Whereas the most
followed people on other platforms are athletes and models, the king
of LinkedIn is Bill Gates, who treats his 37m followers to posts about
subjects as varied as agriculture and tuberculosis. “The stuff that
bores people at parties works really well on LinkedIn,” says Dan
Roth, who runs its editorial team, citing a recent viral discussion on
the merits of em dashes—a worthy subject for debate.

Its business model is also different. Every other social network lives
on advertising: Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, gets
98% of its revenue from them. LinkedIn sells ads too—$7bn-worth
last year, analysts estimate—but makes the largest share of its
revenue from its recruitment business. LinkedIn claims that it is the
world’s biggest, filling a job vacancy every couple of seconds. The
company also made $2bn last year from paid subscriptions, a
business no other social network has cracked. Every platform is
trying to diversify, says Jeremy Goldman of eMarketer, a data
company. “LinkedIn solved that before a lot of them did.”

This success disguises a weakness: although more than 1bn people

have signed up for LinkedIn, many do not use it all that much. The
company does not reveal usage figures. But Sensor Tower, a data
provider, estimates that Android-phone users with the LinkedIn app
spend an average of only 48 minutes a month on it. For TikTok the
figure is around 35 hours.
Lower engagement means fewer chances to show ads, an area
where the opportunity for LinkedIn is large. Business-to-business
(B2B) advertising, LinkedIn’s speciality, is a laggard in the great
move online. Of all adverts sold in America this year, more than 80%
by value will be digital, estimates eMarketer. By contrast, less than
half of B2B ads will be. Some $20bn-worth of such ads are ripe to be
plucked from offline channels, such as trade journals and
conferences, if LinkedIn can make people spend enough time on its
platform to see them.

An effort is under way. Three years ago LinkedIn began adjusting its
algorithm to show users more content suited to their interests,
rather than just from people in their network (think more posts from
Mr Gates, fewer from your colleague in accounts). Last year it
introduced puzzles. Users get reminders to post more often. Mr
Roth’s team cultivates star creators such as the boss of McDonald’s,
Chris Kempczinski, who posts deadpan video reviews of the chain’s
international dishes (“A very, very lemony taste. You gotta like lemon
if you want this Koldskål McFlurry”).

In profile

External factors are helping. People are changing jobs more often,
making them more eager to polish their public brand. Covid-19
lockdowns blurred the line between work and home, encouraging
more personal posts. Meta’s decision to reduce the visibility of news
on its platforms, and X’s feral turn, have also driven conversation to
LinkedIn. Comments there have risen by 37% year-on-year; video
uploads have increased by nearly as much. This attention is being
monetised. LinkedIn’s ad business will grow by 11.6% this year,
forecasts eMarketer. Paid membership has risen 50% faster in the
past two years.

The flood of content risks trapping LinkedIn into quagmires it has

thus far avoided. More news and debate could politicise a platform
that strives to stay above the fray (and whose owner has to deal
with America’s mercurial regulators). Content moderation is a
growing chore. In the first half of 2020 LinkedIn removed 56,000
posts for violating its community rules; in the same period last year
it took down nearly 500,000, owing to more content and tougher
policing of it.

Perhaps the main danger is that its business-focused brand gets

watered down. The LinkedIn feed is seeing more “thirsty” content
from people desperate for likes, says Simon Kemp of Kepios, a
digital-advisory firm. Such posts may get traction, but they provoke
complaints that “this belongs on Facebook”, he says. LinkedIn has
responded by tuning its algorithm to send most personal posts only
to the author’s network, giving wider distribution to work-oriented
content. AI makes this sorting easier, it says.

AI is also central to the second big change at LinkedIn. Eight years

ago Microsoft bought the platform to complement its suite of
enterprise software. Although LinkedIn is still independently run, it
has become integrated with the Microsoft machine: Outlook,
Microsoft’s email and calendar app, can retrieve contact information
from LinkedIn; Dynamics, its customer-relationships software, uses
data from LinkedIn to help salespeople reach the right people in
companies they are hoping to do business with. “Microsoft very
much has a view of thinking of the whole…they’re driven by
synergies between what they own,” says Mark Moerdler of Bernstein,
a broker.

Now those synergies are changing. As Microsoft pushes at the

frontiers of research into AI, LinkedIn is emerging as a test-bed for
ideas. The network was given a sneak preview of the “inflection
point” that had been reached in generative AI around six months
before ChatGPT was released by Microsoft’s partner, OpenAI, says
Dan Shapero, LinkedIn’s chief operations officer. LinkedIn
immediately began developing the AI tools that users now have
access to for tasks like writing posts or evaluating a job opportunity;
users can even practise their people-management skills on a voice-
activated chatbot. More AI tools are on the way, including an agent
that tracks down job candidates. Siemens, a German technology
company which got early access, reports that it radically reduced
time spent searching for staff.

As LinkedIn gets to use Microsoft’s AI technology, Microsoft gets to

use the data that LinkedIn’s tests generate. It is a “symbiotic
relationship”, says Mr Shapero: “These models that are being built
are incredibly powerful, but they’re most powerful when you
combine them with very specific data.” LinkedIn’s rich demographic
information could give Microsoft insights into not only which AI
features work, but also what kind of users engage with them. “The
reason why Microsoft is better positioned than its hyperscaler peers
—Amazon, Google, etc—is not simply, as some people argue,
because of OpenAI…They’ve also had an enormous amount of
lessons learned from all the places in which they themselves are
using the technology,” says Mr Moerdler.

The new technology comes with risks. LinkedIn consistently polls

better than other social networks for trust, partly because it is more
cautious about how it shares users’ data. Some people are unsettled
by Facebook’s micro-targeted adverts, which seem eerily familiar
from their web-browsing history. As LinkedIn and Microsoft race to
develop and test AI features, their deep knowledge of their
customers could turn out to be a big advantage. The companies
must only hope that users do not feel that their chatbots know them
a little bit too well.■

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Trash talk

A new way to recycle plastic

is here
Environmentalists hate it
4月 17, 2025 02:30 上午

One person’s rubbish is another’s treasure

PLASTIC IS UBIQUITOUS. Around 1m plastic· water bottles are sold

every minute and 5trn plastic bags are used around the world every
year, according to the UN’s Environment Programme. Half of all
production, which is growing faster than that of any other material,
is designed for single-use applications. The world’s annual output of
over 400m tonnes is set to reach 1,100m by 2050. Mountains of
waste mean pressure from both the public and regulators to improve
recycling.
There is a problem, though. Much plastic waste is soiled and
composed of several different layers, making it too complex for the
usual recycling method of chopping it into bits before remoulding it.
Despite efforts to increase recycling rates, more than 90% of plastic
ends up incinerated, in landfills or dumped in nature. ln response,
large consumer-goods companies such as Nestlé, PepsiCo and
Procter & Gamble are exploring new ways of recycling to transform
waste back into feedstocks from which new plastic can be made.

The interest of these firms is understandable because much of their

packaging is unsuitable for existing recycling techniques. If they can
buy plastic made from hard-to-recycle waste, they can wash their
hands, says Philippe von Stauffenberg, boss of Greenback Recycling
Technologies, which opened an advanced-recycling plant with Nestlé,
in Mexico in 2023. “We are their Catholic church. They are the
sinners and we sell them absolution.”

Don’t overlook the many benefits of plastics·

Plastics are greener than they seem·
Microplastics have not yet earned their bad reputation·

Other companies are getting in on the act. Plastic Energy, a British

firm, already supplies recycled feedstocks for packaging in Europe,
including for PepsiCo’s SunBites snacks and Unilever’s Magnum ice-
cream tubs. But what seems like a boon for the environment is, in
fact, controversial. Environmentalists denounce it as a polluting way
to keep using plastic. In September California sued ExxonMobil, an
oil major, in part for “deceiving” the public about the technology’s
ability to solve the plastic-waste crisis.

The problem is the method of recycling. One of the most common

approaches, pyrolysis, involves heating waste until it breaks down
chemically. The output is oil and synthetic gas, which is recaptured
to power the recycling plants. This and other processes also release
toxic waste because of hazardous substances in the plastic, says
Veena Singla, an environmental-health scientist at Columbia
University in New York. Nor is it clear that recycling results in fewer
emissions than manufacturing virgin plastic.

Policymakers and regulators are therefore sceptical of the new

approach, says James Kennedy, an analyst at IDTechEx, a market-
intelligence firm. Perhaps the stickiest point is labelling, which can
determine whether a company meets recycling requirements or
enjoys tax breaks. The oil produced by advanced recycling must be
heavily diluted with “fresh” crude before it can be turned into plastic.
That means that, say, a batch of hummus tubs might contain
recycled oil while another might have none. Yet if 10% of feedstocks
overall are from recycled sources, the industry wants to say that
10% of the tubs are 100% recycled, even if some contain no
recycled material at all—a form of accounting they call “mass
balance”.

So far, America’s Environmental Protection Agency has rejected the

approach, calling it “deceptive”. There is similar scepticism among
European environmental groups such as Zero Waste Europe, which
say the recycled element is so low that it hardly counts as recycling
at all.

Such resistance could jeopardise a fledgling industry, which needs

lots of investment to build plants and infrastructure to get hold of
waste. And there is a need for advanced recycling, argues Stuart
Coles at the University of Warwick. Ultimately, he says, “we want to
keep as much material as we can within society.” That means
reusing where possible, but it also means encouraging recycling.

There are signs that his argument may be winning. In October

Britain accepted a version of the mass-balance approach, and while
the EU is still mulling it, most member states appear to be in favour.
Innovation might yet make processes more efficient and kinder on
the environment. Mura Technology, a British company with a plant in
Teesside, claims its hydrothermal technology produces better yields
and less carbon dioxide than pyrolysis. Samsara Eco, an Australian
firm, says its technology, which uses enzymes to break down the
plastic waste, could sidestep the need for adding new oil altogether.
Such advances may help keep plastic in circulation rather than
consigning it to the rubbish tip. ■

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Bartleby

Reclaiming the office lunch

Why stopping to eat is a good idea
4月 16, 2025 07:07 上午

WHEN MONICA LEWINSKY, once an intern at the White House, was

cajoled into a lunch date by Linda Tripp, a colleague wearing a wire,
she was met by FBI agents and taken to a room in Washington’s
Ritz-Carlton Hotel to be interrogated. What seemed like an innocent
lunch date was one of the first steps towards a presidential
impeachment. Yet one of the more remarkable aspects of the story
is that even lowly workers took lunch in a restaurant back in those
days.

The clearly delineated lunch break has fallen out of favour in these
more pressured times. Knocking off for a midday meal could now be
perceived as a sign of idleness. What was once called a “lunch hour”
is now more likely to consist of a sandwich “al desko”. According to a
study by the Hartman Group, a market-research firm, 62% of
American office workers regularly eat at their workstations.

Some will mourn the decline of sybaritic three-course affairs with

wine, perhaps bookended with cocktails and a cigar. Once these
feasts regularly punctuated the working day for the likes of bankers,
lawyers and journalists (older ones, in particular, mourn long and
loud). Merrily weaving back to the office for a gentle snooze is a
thing of the past.

Such lunches are not only increasingly rare, but more probably
lubricated with nothing fancier than sparkling water. A main reason
for their demise is that expense accounts are no longer so lavish.
Another is that the general mentality has changed: alcohol-fuelled
corporate entertaining is losing its appeal.

But have workers lurched too far in the opposite direction? The case
for the seamless, industrious day has encouraged a trend for
snatching mouthfuls of sushi or a ham-and-cheese baguette
between strikes of the keyboard. Working from home has cemented
it in place. According to research conducted by Nicholas Bloom at
Stanford University, there is no midday dip in remote employees’
online activity.

Grabbing something fast and eating hunched over a laptop may

result in crumbs on the desks and sticky keyboards, but that is far
from the only drawback. Eating lunch at your desk also means
staying seated longer, which can cause sore joints. Sitting for hours
on end increases the risk of high blood pressure and even heart
disease.

What about the cognitive fatigue that accumulates when someone is

“always on”? The need for a pause in the middle of the day has
never been stronger. Monotony can lead to a dearth of fresh ideas
and ultimately to reduced productivity.

Moreover, coming together to share food has been a ritual for

millennia. Forming bonds with colleagues or clients with some
informal chatter over a meal goes to the heart of the joys of having
a job in the first place. And there are measurable benefits to
downing tools and joining colleagues over lunch. According to a
study by Kevin Kniffin and co-authors at Cornell University, firemen
who eat together are more co-operative and generally better at their
jobs. Platoons that shared a meal during the working day were
found to achieve higher marks for their teams’ performance.

Engagement goes up, too. A survey of employees in North America

by Tork, a hygiene company, found that those who took a lunch
break every day scored higher on measures of job satisfaction, and
were more likely to recommend their employer to others.

Bosses can also profit from a lunch break. N.R. Narayana Murthy, co-
founder of Infosys, a giant Indian technology firm, ate lunch in the
cafeteria with employees whenever he could, even standing in line
for his meal. Displaying a down-to-earth demeanour by dining with
employees may not only cast bosses in a more favourable light with
the rank-and-file. Managers may also find this a useful informal way
of catching up with their teams. As a consequence, meetings
scheduled around one o’clock surely ought to be considered a
serious breach of office etiquette.

Going out for an elegant work lunch should never be completely off
the table, of course; the occasion may call for one a few times a
year. But a pause in the middle of the working day does not require
china plates or cloth napkins. Ditch your desk and step into the fresh
air to buy your falafel wrap to eat with workmates in the communal
kitchen, or even bring in your own leftover lasagne. Afterwards
resume at full post-prandial speed, powering through the day and
getting things done. ■
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Schumpeter

The trade war may reverse

Hong Kong’s commercial
decline
Asia’s once-dominant business centre is regaining ground lost to
Shanghai, Singapore and New York
4月 16, 2025 07:02 上午

AS DONALD TRUMP’S tariff tantrum destroyed trillions of dollars in

shareholder value, shrieks of horror from American chief executives
grew high-pitched. If you think America Inc had it bad, then spare a
thought for Hong Kong. The self-governing Chinese territory is the
world’s gateway to Asia, and China in particular. It is also Asia’s, and
China’s, gateway to the world. And for the trade-warmonger-in-chief,
China and Asia are enemies number one and two.

In the week after “Liberation Day” on April 2nd, the Hang Seng
index of Hong Kong-listed shares fell by 13%. April 7th was its worst
day since the Asian financial crisis of 1997. Despite a subsequent 90-
day pause to most of Mr Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs and a temporary
exemption for some electronics, a tit-for-tat with China has ended
(for now) with mutual levies in excess of 100% on most goods, plus
a Chinese ban on exports of some critical minerals for good
measure. This amounts to a trade embargo which prises apart the
world’s two largest economies.

You would expect their historical go-between to be freaked out by all

this. Yet throughout the turmoil, Hong Kong’s business elites have
displayed a surreal calm. Some could simply be frozen in stupor.
Some may be shrieking at ultrasonic frequencies and so be
inaudible. But many seem to believe that Hong Kong can withstand
the trade shock. And a few reckon that after years of losing ground
to rival commercial centres in the region and beyond, the
realignment of global business gives it a shot at clawing some of this
back. It is not just a trauma-induced hallucination.

Hong Kong has had a rough few years. Before the outbreak of covid-
19 it was upstaged by Shenzhen, Shanghai and, for the most
ambitious Chinese firms, New York as the place to go public and plot
global expansion. Between 2010 and 2019 mainland bourses added
2,100 listings, over two and a half times the increase in the 2000s. A
little over 700 Chinese businesses picked Hong Kong, not much
better than the 450 or so in the preceding decade.

During the pandemic, city authorities made things worse, first by

mishandling the response with harsh lockdowns, then by enforcing a
draconian national-security law which made outsiders feel
unwelcome. In both cases they became “extremely overcompliant”
with edicts from Beijing, recalls a Western banker.
Nineteen global law firms had closed their Hong Kong practices by
2023. FedEx opted to ship its regional headquarters to expat-
friendlier Singapore. So did other multinationals, from L’Oréal, a
French maker of posh cosmetics, to Lidl, a German cut-price retailer.
LVMH started running its luxury labels from the mainland.

Hong Kong’s capital markets hit snooze. Companies sold new shares
worth a combined $40bn in 2022 and 2023, down from more than
$200bn in the two previous years, according to data from Dealogic,
which tracks such things. Offerings declined in mainland China, too,
but only from $288bn to $234bn. Bond sales in Hong Kong followed
a similar pattern. Investment banks shifted some staff to Singapore.
A couple of Australian lenders, Westpac and National Australia Bank,
moved out altogether.

All rather unpropitious—until Mr Trump stepped in. Since he won the

election in November Hong Kong’s prospects have brightened
relative to its challengers’ in direct proportion to the intensity of his
China-bashing. The entrepot now looks like the only place for
Chinese companies to gaze abroad and for foreigners to get a look-in
on unmissable pockets of Chinese growth.

Start with Chinese businesses. Shanghai is great if your focus is the

domestic market. But as China’s economy slows, many spy future
profits overseas. To do that they need dollars (or other hard
currency) and international expertise. They will not find them on the
mainland, surrounded by a perimeter of capital controls and
growingly hostility towards foreign advisers. Mr Trump’s anti-Chinese
antics are putting a target on the back of American lawyers and
consultants, many of whom were packing up as it is.

Singapore has the worldly know-how but its financial markets remain
too shallow. And under Mr Trump Chinese companies might as well
forget about New York. Chagee, a Shanghainese teashop chain
which on April 10th inexplicably chose to launch an initial public
offering on the Nasdaq exchange despite the market chaos, may be
the last Chinese firm to try for some time.

That leaves Hong Kong. In March BYD, a Chinese firm bent on world
domination in electric vehicles, and Xiaomi, a phonemaker with a
growing sideline in EVs, sold nearly $6bn-worth of shares apiece in
follow-on offerings. These were the biggest of their kind on the city’s
stock exchange since 2021. All told, this year companies have raised
$15bn in such sales plus $26bn in dollar debt—not far off the total in
all of 2024 and nearly twice as much as in the entire year before.
Initial public offerings have picked up, too. Many bankers are making
the return trip from Singapore. The number of foreign law firms is
up to 84, from a covid-era low of 73.

When red is green

All this excitement has not been lost on Western investors. In the
words of a finance bigwig, China was uninvestible only until its
dormant stockmarkets surged. Artificial-intelligence darlings like
DeepSeek are bolstering confidence in Chinese ingenuity. The trade
war is pushing President Xi Jinping to discard his aversion to
economic stimulus, which may prop up other firms. For foreigners
fearful of missing out but fretting about repatriating returns from the
mainland, Hong Kong is a way to get a piece of the action. The Hang
Seng is 9% higher than at the start of the year. Its tech sub-index is
up by 15%.

It could all still go horribly wrong. As Mr Xi warned Mr Trump on

April 14th, the trade war will have “no winner”. But it may help Hong
Kong notch up a few points against its entrepot rivals. ■

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commercial-decline

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Finance & economics

How Trump might topple the dollar
Check your privilege :: For the first time in many decades, the greenback looks
vulnerable

Can the euro go global?

A time for bravery :: With the dollar faltering, European policymakers have an
opportunity

Poor countries would miss King Dollar

Collateral damage :: Even though they normally like a weaker greenback

America is turning away China’s goods.

Where will they go instead?
The coming flood :: South-East Asia is exposed to both Chinese import competition
and American ire

Stockmarkets do not reward firms for

investing in Trump’s America
Buttonwood :: The perils of reshoring

Hell is other people’s currencies

Free exchange :: As the Trump administration may soon find out

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Check your privilege

How Trump might topple the

dollar
For the first time in many decades, the greenback looks vulnerable
4月 16, 2025 11:35 下午 | Washington, DC

STOCKS DOWN, yields down, dollar up. A reliable relationship

between America’s listed companies, government bonds and the
value of the currency has held, in moments of panic, for most of
modern financial history. Until now.

The turmoil in financial markets over the past month, driven by an

extraordinary rise in American tariffs, has been unsettlingly different.
During the stockmarket slumps of 2008 and 2020, for instance, the
dollar rose. When investors are fearful, they normally rush to the
safety of American debt, bidding up the greenback in the process.
This time round, investors are eschewing Treasuries. Yields on
American ten-year government bonds, which rise when prices fall,
have increased from 4.2% to as high as 4.5% over the past month.
Meanwhile, the dollar has fallen by over 9% against a basket of
other currencies since its peak in mid-January.

The breakdown of the once-solid relationship reflects the

impulsiveness of the current American government. President
Donald Trump’s belligerent trade policy, his administration’s
incompetent policymaking and some of his advisers’ suspicion about
the dollar’s global role have shaken foreign investors. Since they hold
some $32trn-worth of American stocks and bonds, their opinion
matters. Overseas demand not only lifts American stockmarkets, it
pushes down interest rates on the government’s vast debts, making
them manageable—a feature of dollar dominance known as
“exorbitant privilege”.
Policymakers and investors everywhere once rolled their eyes at the
idea of the dollar being dethroned. America’s economic heft, deep
and profitable markets, openness to capital flows and reliable rule of
law all helped make its position formidable. But in recent weeks,
they have had to take the notion more seriously. Even imagining
what might come next is hard. For eight decades, America’s currency
has been the linchpin of trade and finance. About half of all lending
across borders is in dollars, and the currency is involved in 88% of
foreign-exchange transactions (see chart 1). The modern world has
been built on the greenback.

Some members of the Trump administration would cheer if the dollar

lost its crown. During his time as a senator, J.D. Vance, now the
vice-president, was critical of the currency’s international role,
arguing that the accumulation of American securities by foreigners
had artificially lifted its value, damaging American industry. In
November Stephen Miran, now head of the White House’s council of
economic advisers, published a briefing suggesting the president
could unilaterally tax Treasuries held as reserves overseas, so as to
discourage investors from purchasing them. Rarely has a single
paper so spooked central bankers around the world.
Policymakers overseeing foreign-exchange reserves had begun to
diversify well before Mr Trump won re-election (see chart 2). Some
fear America’s Treasury, and its ability to impose sanctions; others
simply want to ensure their eggs are not all in one basket. The
dollar’s share of global reserves has declined from 73% in 2001 to
58% today. Over the same period, a wide variety of currencies—
including the Australian and Canadian dollars, the Swedish krona and
the Swiss franc—have seen their share rise. Central banks have
diversified out of currencies, too, buying more than 1,000 tonnes of
gold in each of the past three years, an increase of more than 140%
on the three before that.

Such diversification will only accelerate, reckons Gary Smith of

Columbia Threadneedle Investments, who works with central banks
and sovereign-wealth funds. Before America’s tariff barrage got
under way, Mr Smith had expected that the dollar’s share of reserves
would decline by another ten percentage points over the
forthcoming decade. It is now clear that was a sizeable
underestimate, he says.

Looking a little green

Over the past decade, international demand for dollar assets has
mostly come from sources other than central banks, particularly
giant government pension funds and life-insurance companies, many
in Asia (see chart 3). These often have investments that run into the
hundreds of billions of dollars, which are directed by committees that
meet irregularly—meaning their strategy cannot turn on a dime.
Despite this shock-absorbing feature, their enthusiasm for America
has diminished. “Many international investors are fretting about the
end of US hyper-exceptionalism,” says Huw van Steenis of Oliver
Wyman, a consultancy. “The need for better diversification will be
the lasting conclusion of whatever happens from here.”
Even if dollar dominance is only diminished at the margin—with
institutions reducing their holdings of American assets, rather than
fireselling them—that will make America’s fiscal profligacy much
more difficult to maintain. The government runs a budget deficit
worth 7% of GDP and its interest bill has ballooned in recent years,
meaning higher bond yields would cause profound problems. On
April 10th the House of Representatives approved the Senate’s plan
for a budget that could add $5.8trn to deficits over the next ten
years, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget,
a think-tank. That is more, in cash terms, than Mr Trump’s first-term
tax cuts, the response to the covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and
President Joe Biden’s stimulus and infrastructure bills combined.

Overseas investors do not lack for reasons to park their money

elsewhere. Yet those looking to limit exposure to Mr Trump’s whims
face a challenge: the dollar has no obvious successor. Following the
second world war, when Britain’s immiseration meant that the pound
could not function as a global currency, the greenback was a perfect
candidate to replace it. The currencies into which central bankers are
today shifting their investments are relative minnows, with stock and
bond markets too small to replace the dollar.

The euro was once seen as a possible replacement for the

greenback. It may eventually prove to be so, if the continent’s
politicians take advantage of the present opening·. But investors will
want proof that the design flaw in the currency union—credit risk in
its government debt, arising from uncertainty about which borrowing
will ultimately be backstopped by the European Central Bank—truly
has been resolved. Germany’s debt, regarded as the safest kind by
global investors, runs to $3trn or so, around a twelfth of the
American total. Europe’s corporate-debt markets are also small.

Could the yuan climb the currency hierarchy? Although China’s

economy is big enough to support a far larger role, progress in
internationalising the currency has been halting at best. The yuan
makes up just over 2% of global central-bank reserves, a figure that
has declined since a peak four years ago. Chinese officials show no
interest in scaling back their extensive capital controls, a move that
would be required to entice foreign money. And the state’s
occasional and unpredictable shakedowns of the private sector have
been more damaging than any policy pursued by the Trump
administration.
Instead of liberalising its currency, China wants to fortify its financial
system against America. The People’s Bank of China has established
swap lines with central banks overseas, and set up its own platform
for overseas payments to reduce reliance on SWIFT, a messaging
system for bank payments based in Belgium. Such experiments will
not see the yuan supplant the dollar. But, according to Martin
Chorzempa of the Peterson Institute for International Economics,
another think-tank, they may limit the influence of the greenback
beyond America’s borders, providing an alternative to countries that
have been severed from Western finance.

The dirtiest shirt

If America’s government degrades the dollar’s role, whether by

design or by accident, other countries may try to defend themselves
by throwing up barriers to capital and falling back on new and less
sophisticated financial networks. Without a true successor, the result
would probably be a world of competing currency blocs, inadequate
alternatives to Treasuries, barriers to trade and reduced efficiency.
The past few weeks have been a taste of such a future—and they
have not been pleasant. ■

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A time for bravery

Can the euro go global?

With the dollar faltering, European policymakers have an opportunity
4月 16, 2025 08:50 上午

EUROPE’S FIRST reserve currency was the tetradrachm, upon which

was inscribed an owl. The symbol of wisdom was intended to inspire
trust in the rulers of ancient Athens. Indeed, the bird features on the
Greek version of the €1 coin today.

That is not the only way in which the tetradrachm would be

recognisable to modern economists. As Barry Eichengreen of the
University of California, Berkeley, notes, across history every leading
currency has belonged to a republic or democracy; Athens was the
latter. Restraint on the powerful, as provided by voters, promises a
degree of stability—a crucial ingredient, along with a large economy
and military might, for any reserve currency. It is the absence of
such stability in America today that is prompting investors and
policymakers to question the dollar’s role as the world’s reserve
currency.

How a dollar crisis would unfold·

Poor countries would miss King Dollar·
Hell is other people’s currencies·

With the greenback struggling, could this be the euro’s moment?

Both Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank
(ECB), and Paschal Donohoe, head of the Eurogroup, a forum for
euro-zone finance ministers, have recently spoken about ways to
enhance the currency’s international role. The euro is not about to
supplant the dollar. But it may serve an increasingly important
function. And if policymakers seize the moment, potentially epochal
shifts in the global financial order could work to Europe’s benefit.
Since its birth in 1999, the euro has been a contender for global
status. In the run-up to the financial crisis of 2007-09, European
officials were hopeful that it might, in time, rival the dollar. Then
came the euro crisis of the 2010s. The ECB was not set up to be a
lender of last resort, which made government bonds vulnerable to
runs. Europe’s banking system was split along national lines and
prone to doom loops connecting shaky sovereign debt with shakier
financial institutions. Capital markets were too small to compensate
for such risk. The euro zone provided few safe assets for those
looking to park cash: bond issuers were either too parsimonious (in
the case of Germany) or lacked credibility (in the case of Italy and
Spain). Common debt, backed by the whole bloc, barely existed.
Dismal economic-growth prospects then forced short- and long-term
yields below zero. With European assets offering low returns, there
was little demand for euros, and no global role for the currency.

Shifting plates

Today the euro is a solid but distant second to the dollar, counting
for a fifth of global central-bank reserve holdings against the
greenback’s three-fifths, with similar numbers for foreign-currency
bond issuance. Over the past decade, as the world has gradually
diversified away from the dollar, the euro has struggled to gain
ground. Yet some European officials now believe that may change,
for four reasons.

The first is that the euro zone’s financial architecture has become
more secure. The ECB has emerged as a lender of last resort in all
but name, a process that began in response to the euro crisis under
Mario Draghi, then the central bank’s president. During the covid-19
pandemic the bank established a bond-buying programme with a
budget of more than €1.8trn ($2.1trn). When yields on sovereign
bonds widened uncomfortably quickly amid inflation in 2022,
policymakers set up an unlimited bond-purchasing scheme to
prevent such spreads from blowing out in future.

Investors have also seen that the European Union will support
struggling governments, and will do so in a generous fashion. During
the pandemic, the bloc created a recovery plan worth €807bn,
funded by common EU debt, to aid laggards. Moreover, the ECB is
now firmly established as the supervisor of Europe’s 114 largest
banks, which together hold 82% of the continent’s total banking
assets.
On top of this, investing in Europe has become more straightforward
—a second reason for optimism. Europe’s pandemic-recovery fund
created lots of common debt, and thus safe assets that are truly
European. Germany is even about to start spending big, amid a
continent-wide, deficit-funded binge on defence spending, which
officials believe should rise from 2% to 3.5% of GDP in the coming
years.

The third reason is that Europe’s institutions now look more

attractive, at least when compared with America’s. Hard-right parties
are strong and gaining ground in countries including Germany and
France. One is in power in Italy. At the same time, however, the euro
is the common currency of 20 sovereign states, and has a fiercely
independent central bank overseeing it. Members would struggle to
agree on any change to how the currency is governed, let alone the
sort required to weaponise it for geopolitical gain. What is more,
sanctions on other countries would require the consent of all 27 EU
members. The rule of law is central to every aspect of the EU; the
bloc’s checks and balances are not in doubt. Nor is the broad
consensus, forged over decades of compromise and conciliation, that
the EU should be as open as possible to trade and foreign
investment. The ECB has created a framework for providing euro
liquidity to non-euro countries, which could be more attractive to
crisis-stricken countries than the Fed’s swap lines if Mr Trump
continues on his current course. Nobody wants to give the American
president leverage.

Old continent, new tricks

And then there is the final reason for optimism: the state of
international commerce. As America withdraws from global trade,
Europe will come to play a more important role. Goods and services
invoiced in euros will create ancillary markets in the currency,
including in trade financing, insurance, and hedging derivatives for
interest rates and currencies. Although over-the-counter (off-
exchange) currency derivatives remain dominated by the dollar,
interest-rate derivatives in euros have recently overtaken those in
the greenback. New trade links will also lead to the creation of euro-
based credit and deposit accounts across the world, which will, in
turn, create demand for euro assets and, ultimately, euro central-
bank reserves, since any lender of last resort must stock up on the
currencies held by local financial institutions.
Europe has a chance to assume leadership of a new liberal trading
order, which would create opportunities to shape the financial
system. Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European
Commission, cheerfully notes how “many countries around the world
[want] to work closer with us”. According to research by the ECB, in
the 2000s the euro zone’s eastern neighbours began to invoice trade
in euros because of closer commercial ties with the bloc; the same
dynamic may now play out elsewhere. Capital tends to follow
geopolitical alignment. Research by Elisabeth Kempf, then of
the University of Chicago, and co-authors finds that asset managers
and banks invest less in countries led by governments with political
leanings different to their own (as measured by their political
donations or affiliations).

Yet such opportunities will not fall into the lap of European
policymakers. Difficult reforms will be required, too. For a start,
countries with lots of debt, not least France and Italy, will have to
foster economic growth so that they remain fiscally sustainable,
rather than adding to the pile of investible bonds simply to make
their budgets work. Germany, the Netherlands and the Scandinavian
countries face the opposite task: they need to use their fiscal space
for investment, in the process creating safe assets. Economic growth
across the EU would help lift returns of all euro assets, including
government bonds, in turn making them still more attractive.
Europe also needs larger and deeper capital markets to give
investors more assets in which to put their money. Policymakers
have so far focused on easy gains when seeking to tie fragmented
national markets together, concerning themselves with matters such
as the process by which assets are securitised, rather than more
contentious topics such as the harmonisation of bankruptcy laws and
business regulation. Faster progress on the ECB’s plans to connect
third countries to its internal payments system would help, as would
an international leg for the digital euro.
European officials would like to make the continent less dependent
on both America and China. A more international euro would lower
borrowing costs for national governments, which would be
supremely helpful at a time of rising defence spending. For the
moment, few politicians will spell out such ambitions, since they are
aware that doing so would provoke the wrath of the Trump
administration. But that does not matter. International finance has a
logic of its own, and it can bring down currencies even in the
absence of grand speeches. Just ask the Athenians. ■

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Collateral damage

Poor countries would miss

King Dollar
Even though they normally like a weaker greenback
4月 16, 2025 07:03 上午 | Bangkok

A FALLING DOLLAR is normally good for the developing world.

Because poor countries borrow more in the greenback than rich
ones, their debt bills become less burdensome. At the same time,
imports become cheaper, providing a balm to foreign reserves that
are often stretched, and investors become more optimistic. So it was
from 1971 to 1978 (the last time poor countries really splurged on
infrastructure) and from 2004 to 2008 (when commodity exporters
became unexpectedly flush).
This time things will be different. Since April 1st the dollar has
dropped by 4% against a basket of rich-world currencies and a
Treasury sell-off has threatened its position as the world’s reserve
currency. Yet emerging economies are more vulnerable than before
Donald Trump’s tariff announcement. Today’s dollar weakness
reflects not a typical downturn, but Mr Trump’s bid to reshape the
global trading order. A combination of weaker American demand and
higher trade barriers will hurt economic growth in poorer countries,
which depends on exports. Cheaper dollars will not cushion the
blow.

How a dollar crisis would unfold·

Can the euro go global?·
Hell is other people’s currencies·

An MSCI index which tracks 24 currencies relative to the dollar is up

by 0.5% since April 2nd, when Mr Trump let loose his tariffs on the
world, hardly enough to boost governments’ balance-sheets.
Countries that will be hit hard by Mr Trump’s measures, including
those in “Factory Asia” and many in Africa, have seen their
currencies fall even more sharply than the dollar. Vietnam’s dong
plunged to a record low on April 8th, for instance. Even after Mr
Trump rolled back many of his levies, few have recovered their
losses. Meanwhile, stockmarkets are struggling even more—since
April 1st, the Dow Jones emerging-markets index has fallen by 4%—
and, according to Schroder’s, an asset manager, the value of
emerging-markets corporate credit is falling, too.

Poor economies tend to grow by selling to consumers in rich ones.

In the best-case scenario, goods that would have gone to America
will now head to China and Europe, albeit at a discount and with the
expense of navigating new borders and markets. In the worst-case
scenario, big economies might raise their own trade barriers in order
to protect domestic industries. Emerging markets are struggling with
both tariffs and the uncertainty they engender. The combination has
sent growth forecasts into the red, and pushed up risk premia (the
extra costs that poor countries pay to borrow) on bonds and stocks.
This shock may drive central banks to cut interest rates. That, in
turn, would wipe out any remaining benefits of a weaker dollar for
government balance-sheets.

Indeed, the cost of borrowing in dollars has already increased for

emerging economies, according to JPMorgan Chase. The bank’s
index of yields on emerging-market sovereign bonds is now 0.8
percentage points above its five-year average. It is not just the most
heavily indebted countries, such as Pakistan and Sri Lanka, that are
affected. So far this month no emerging market has issued any
foreign bonds, according to Tellimer, a research firm.

Whereas developing countries will adapt to the trade shock, the

dollar may be gone for good as the world’s dominant currency. Barry
Eichengreen of the University of California, Berkeley, does not expect
any single currency to claim its crown, with dollars, euros and yuan
vying for supremacy. In this world, nobody would benefit much from
“exorbitant privilege”, the discount on borrowing America now
enjoys.

Developing countries would be even worse off, however, since they

would bear the risk of the transition. Central banks in the world’s
poorest countries might get caught out as they attempt to manage
decades-long dollar obligations while financing imports and
investments in euros or yuan. Most would have to choose one of the
three big currencies, Mr Eichengreen believes. Imports and exports
would then orientate towards other countries in that bloc,
representing a temporary but extra cost for companies; transactions
between blocs, meanwhile, would be hostage to geopolitical tension.
The dollar’s loss may be good news for China and Europe. It is
anything but for the rest of the world. ■

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The coming flood

America is turning away

China’s goods. Where will
they go instead?
South-East Asia is exposed to both Chinese import competition and
American ire
4月 16, 2025 06:47 下午 | Singapore

Trumpian nightmare

DONALD TRUMP’S sky-high tariffs are not a ban on trade with

China·, but they come close. Although it is hard to estimate quite
how sharp the decline in business between the two countries will be,
since firms will find new routes and Mr Trump keeps changing the
scope of the levies, a vertiginous drop is assured.
Once turned away, where will China’s exports to America go instead?
As supply chains adjust, firms will expand abroad to qualify for lower
tariffs·, as many did in Mr Trump’s first trade war. Less scrupulous
types may try to dupe American customs officials. But rerouting,
legal or otherwise, is unlikely to offset a steep drop in demand from
the world’s biggest goods importer. The rest of the world will make
up much of the difference, whether it wants to or not.

By the end of Mr Trump’s first term American tariffs covered two-

thirds of imports from China at an average rate of 19%, up from 3%
before. However, newly incentivised tariff-dodgers found
workarounds. They undervalued shipments, relabelled goods, forged
paperwork and rerouted goods via third countries. Goldman Sachs
estimates that Chinese exports worth around $120bn bypassed
tariffs in 2023.

This time it will be much harder to avoid border levies. One reason is
that Mr Trump has introduced prohibitive tariffs on all Chinese goods
—bar, for the time being, certain electronics and pharmaceuticals—
rather than a subset, meaning exporters have less to gain from
relabelling products. Rerouting hubs including Mexico and Vietnam
have become wary of Chinese firms using them to dodge tariffs,
owing to threats of American retaliation against their own export
industries. Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s president, has announced
her willingness to work with Mr Trump on transshipment, including
with new tariffs aimed at Chinese goods and raids on Chinese-owned
stores.

There is a reason for her obsequiousness. Mr Trump’s fixation on

bilateral trade balances observes little distinction between dubious
rerouting and supply chains legally adjusting to tariffs. At risk are
countries such as Cambodia, India, Mexico, Thailand and Vietnam,
which all now supply more of America’s imports than before Mr
Trump’s first trade war. Thai negotiators have offered a crackdown
on “counterfeiting from third countries”; Vietnamese officials promise
to stamp out “trade fraud” and tighten rules of origin.
Building barriers

Chinese goods that cannot be sold to America will head elsewhere.

This comes at a time when neighbours are already concerned by
Chinese industrial production. In response to weak economic
growth, the country’s policymakers are funnelling cash and loans to
manufacturers, leading output to surge. Chinese firms have cut
export prices by 20% since 2023, and the country’s manufacturing
trade surpluses with Asian and Latin American countries have grown
much more quickly than those with America or Europe. Last year
198 complaints were filed against China at the WTO, a record,
including 37 from India.

Although a flood of cheap goods would be a boon for consumers,

politicians worry it will put domestic manufacturers out of business.
Take Thailand, where industrial production has shrunk by a tenth
since 2019, at the same time as the country’s trade deficit with
China has doubled in size. Computer and electronics firms have
suffered most of all, with their output falling by 40%, despite hopes
that Thailand could fashion itself into a production centre for
laptops. China last year exported portable computers worth $33bn to
America, which will have to find a new home.

This could bite even in countries that benefited from the first trade
war. One example is the toy market in Vietnam, worth $1bn a year,
in which firms such as Bandai Namco and Lego have invested. The
industry now faces competition from cut-price Chinese goods that
would have gone to America. Another is textiles, where America
imported $29bn-worth of goods from China last year. Mr Trump has
scrapped “de minimis” rules, which let packages under $800 into
America duty-free, aiding Chinese firms including Temu and Shein.
Trade deflection could hurt manufacturers in Bangladesh and India.

More protectionist countries will not hesitate to hit back against

China. India and Indonesia were fast to do so last time round.
Others were more cautious, however. Malaysia and Thailand have
largely refrained from counter-measures, for instance, fearful of
angering their imposing neighbour. The pressure on their leaders will
only grow in the months to come. ■

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Buttonwood

Stockmarkets do not reward

firms for investing in Trump’s
America
The perils of reshoring
4月 16, 2025 07:03 上午

WHAT DO THE following three companies have in common?

Stellantis, owner of the Fiat, Jeep and Chrysler brands; Merck, which
makes the world’s bestselling cancer drug; and Barry Callebaut, a
Swiss chocolate-maker, which is particularly proud of its ruby flavour,
neither sweet nor bitter.
One answer: their capital-expenditure (capex) plans. All three have
announced investments in America since Donald Trump won last
year’s presidential election. In January Stellantis (whose largest
shareholder part-owns The Economist’s parent company) said that it
would build the next Dodge Durango in Detroit and reopen an
assembly plant in Illinois, putting union members back to work. Two
months later Merck announced the opening of a vaccine plant in
North Carolina. And on April 10th Barry Callebaut said it would
expand a plant in America to help it cope with the “disruptive
environment” Mr Trump’s new administration has created.

Mr Trump is, of course, delighted by this kind of news. The White

House added the chocolate-maker to a list of more than two dozen
companies that have announced investments in America since the
president’s return to power. “We are already seeing progress in
reshoring American industry,” it said.

The spending is presumably good for America. But is it good for the
companies themselves? Even the president should care about this
question. Trump Media, one of his firms, has just launched new
investment accounts that let people bet their money on MAGA
themes like “Made in America”. So do capex announcements
that gratify Mr Trump also please shareholders?

In theory, the answer is ambiguous. The impact of capex on a

company’s share price can be sweet, bitter or neither. An optimistic
view is that such spending ought to lift share prices. Why else would
companies do it? Managers have strong incentives to care about
what shareholders think. And shareholders have reason to defer to a
firm’s judgment about the deployment of capital. That is, after all,
why investors entrust their capital to a firm in the first place.

Other theories are less optimistic. Institutional investors may have

short time horizons, punishing any costly plan that privileges distant
years over the next quarter. Alternatively, managers may have
skewed incentives of their own. They may be tempted to build a
corporate empire with money that would be better returned to
shareholders. According to a third, “efficient markets” view,
investment is neither bitter nor sweet. A company’s share price will
already reflect its expected capital outlays in the future. Capex
announcements will move the price only if they deviate from these
expectations.

Most studies find that share prices respond positively to capex

announcements, if only weakly. The firms showcased by the White
House have a couple of extra things going for them. Moving
production to America will help them escape Mr Trump’s tariffs, as
he himself points out. Another potential benefit is winning the
president’s goodwill. Indeed, some bosses made their
announcements standing alongside Mr Trump.

Despite all this, shareholders appear unconvinced. Of the listed

companies that are featured in the White House press release, 20
have made firm capex announcements. In only 11 out of these 20
cases was the company’s share price higher on the day after the
announcement than on the day before. Moreover, 15 of these
companies have underperformed their national equity market since
Mr Trump won last year’s election. A simple, equal-weighted average
of these stocks has fallen by almost 12% in dollar terms since
election day, compared with the 7% decline in the S&P 500 index of
big American firms.

Many of the companies have idiosyncratic problems. Barry Callebaut

has been hurt by the volatile price of cocoa. Merck has encountered
weak demand in China for its otherwise successful human-
papillomavirus vaccine. Stellantis bade farewell to its contentious
chief executive in December.

And the firms’ plans may reflect fear more than enthusiasm. Their
decision to expand operations in America so early in Mr Trump’s term
could suggest they were unusually exposed to his tariff plans, and
the “disruptive environment” levies have created. Certainly, for
Stellantis, Merck and Barry Callebaut, Mr Trump’s second term has
not been a box of chocolates. Another thing all three have in
common: a slump in their share price since election day of over
20%. ■

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Free exchange

Hell is other people’s

currencies
As the Trump administration may soon find out
4月 17, 2025 01:52 下午

COULD IT HAVE been the rouble instead? The question is a strange

opening gambit for a history of dollar dominance, with Russia’s
economy sealed off from the West and its output less than a tenth of
America’s. The idea of the rouble as a global reserve currency is
laughable—and that is why Kenneth Rogoff considers it near the
start of his new book, “Our Dollar, Your Problem”. What is obvious
now was not at all so in the 1960s and 70s, when the rouble bloc’s
economy was fast becoming the envy of the world. Soviet growth
was red-hot. Plenty of economists believed parity with America was
“not just likely but inevitable”.

In reality, of course, there was nothing inevitable about it: the Soviet
Union stagnated and then fell apart. Had Mr Rogoff’s book been
published a few weeks ago, framing his analysis of the dollar’s global
role with this story of imperial collapse might have seemed lurid.
Now questions over the position of America’s currency at the heart
of the global trading and financial systems have become widespread.
Donald Trump’s erratic protectionism has threatened both with a
wrecking ball, denting confidence in America’s policymaking and
even shaking investors’ faith in its government debt. The central
argument of “Our Dollar, Your Problem”—that the greenback’s pre-
eminence was never guaranteed and might plausibly be overturned
—could hardly be more timely.

How a dollar crisis would unfold·

Can the euro go global?·
Poor countries would miss King Dollar·

It is not the first time that Mr Rogoff, a former chief economist at the
IMF and now a professor at Harvard University, has made a
provocative case which then suddenly went mainstream. He spent
much of the 2010s arguing that quiescent inflation and low interest
rates were an aberration which would soon disappear. Although well
outside the consensus at the time, his views began to be vindicated
in 2022, as consumer prices and bond yields rose rapidly. He was
also early to warn about the potential for a Chinese property crisis
and consequent economic slowdown, having published a working
paper entitled “Peak China Housing” in 2020. The next year a default
by Evergrande, a Chinese construction giant, sent those concerns
global, too.

Today China’s lingering growth problem, which may cause its

economy to flatline in relative terms long before it gets as big as
America’s, is perhaps the biggest obstacle to the yuan supplanting
the dollar. (Other barriers, such as controls over capital flows and
the exchange rate, could at least in theory be overcome.) In the
1980s, notes Mr Rogoff, the Japanese yen looked as if it might rival
the dollar, since after years of strong growth and superior
manufacturing “Japan’s economy seemed to be bearing down on the
entire United States like an express train.” This was before the
bursting of two enormous bubbles in its equity and property
markets, which a soaring exchange rate helped inflate. Japan’s
economy suffered decades of stagnation; the yen fell by the
wayside.

Mr Rogoff is most compelling when discussing the trials the global

dollar has caused for smaller economies—unsurprisingly, since at the
IMF he had a front-row seat for many of these. Some of the worst
arose from countries’ attempts to fix their exchange rates against
the reserve currency, a system originally mandated by the Bretton
Woods agreement of 1944. Fixing exchange rates against the dollar
seemed desirable because it simplified trade, eased the integration
of other countries’ banks into the global financial system and helped
maintain faith in their currencies. Protecting such pegs, though,
entailed a mix of capital controls and mimicking the Federal
Reserve’s monetary policy, which could make downturns worse.
American inflation, meanwhile, wreaked havoc everywhere. The
system collapsed in the 1970s.

Yet the lure of fixed rates remained, with inflationary and

hyperinflationary episodes in places such as Argentina, Mexico,
Venezuela and Zimbabwe vividly demonstrating why. Before the
creation of the euro, Europe’s internal efforts to fix its countries’
exchange rates led to one attack after another by speculators. Raids
in the early 1990s on Finland, Sweden, Italy, Spain and Britain all
forced devaluations. Later, the dollar pegs maintained in South-East
Asia resulted in enormous capital inflows that then suddenly
reversed, sparking the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98. The Russian
crisis of 1998, also triggered by an unsustainable fixed-rate regime,
helped propel Vladimir Putin to power.
These various crises forged the present system, dominated by the
dollar, the euro zone’s free-floating single currency and what Mr
Rogoff dubs the “Tokyo consensus” in Asia and Latin America. This
imitation of Japan’s exchange-rate policy has seen many other
countries’ central banks amass “war chests” of dollar reserves that
can be used to stabilise their currencies amid volatility, while
stopping short of pegging them outright. By comparison with
previous regimes, the Tokyo consensus has so far been remarkably
successful.

All the devils are here

A gradual erosion of the dollar’s role might be bearable. Mr Rogoff’s

book argues that the yuan is more likely to gnaw away at the dollar
bloc than to overthrow the greenback entirely. It is already used to
price a rising share of China’s trade, encouraging countries across
Asia’s supply chain to include it in their exchange-rate regimes. In
time, innovative use of digital currencies could add to the pressure
to de-dollarise. America would have less control of the global
financial system than before, but neither its rivals nor its allies would
complain about that.

Even writing before this year’s ructions, though, Mr Rogoff worried

most about the threats from inside America—whether ballooning
government debt or political interference at the Fed. A loss of faith
among investors that causes the dollar to lose its role not gradually,
but suddenly, might seem fanciful. Once upon a time, so did the idea
that the Soviet Union might fall. ■

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Science & technology

Microplastics have not yet earned their bad
reputation
Plastic and health :: There are worrying signs. But more thorough studies of their
health effects are coming

AI models could help negotiators secure

peace deals
Artificial diplomats :: Some are being developed to help end the war in Ukraine

Scientists are getting to grips with ice

Deep freeze :: Climate change is making water freeze in unexpected ways

Electric vehicles also cause air pollution

Well informed :: Though fume-free, their brake pads and tyres disintegrate over time

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Plastic and health

Microplastics have not yet

earned their bad reputation
There are worrying signs. But more thorough studies of their health
effects are coming
4月 17, 2025 02:30 上午

IN 2018 A TEAM of Austrian scientists discovered tiny fragments of

plastic, known as microplastics, in stool samples from people in
several countries. Since then, such particles have been found in
human blood as well as organs, including the lungs, liver, kidneys,
heart and even the brain. They have also turned up in the placenta
and breast milk. And, according to some recent studies, the amount
making its way into the body is increasing.
A barrage of papers tentatively suggests these foreign bodies may
play a role in a wide range of diseases. A study of about 250
patients in America, published in 2024 in the New England Journal of
Medicine, linked the presence of microplastics in arterial plaque with
a higher risk of heart attack and stroke. A small study published in
Nature Medicine in February reported that the brains of people with
dementia had much higher amounts of microplastics than the brains
of those without. In studies conducted with human tissues in the
lab, microplastics have been found to trigger inflammation (the basis
for many chronic diseases), fuel the growth of cancer and reduce the
efficacy of antibiotics.

These findings have raised alarm bells. But the true impact of
microplastics on human health remains hard to determine. For one
thing, the field is so new that few of the headline-grabbing studies
have been replicated. Questions of contamination and accuracy also
loom large: the brain study in Nature Medicine, for example,
suggests that as much as 7 grams of plastics may accumulate in the
brain, roughly the weight of a disposable plastic spoon. Others find
that figure unrealistically high.

Don’t overlook the many benefits of plastics·

Plastics are greener than they seem·
A new way to recycle plastic is here·

More pressing, most research thus far on the health effects of

microplastics has been conducted on human cells in Petri dishes or
in animal models such as mice, rather than on groups of people.
That is, in large part, because researchers have lacked the tools to
conduct the large-scale population studies and randomised trials
necessary to establish any definitive causal effects. This is now
starting to change.

Containing multitudes
Part of the problem has been the mind-boggling non-uniformity of
microplastic particles. Some come from disintegrating rubbish;
others result from the wear and tear of everyday products like
synthetic textiles, car tyres, paints, toys, utensils and packaging.
Their composition is no less varied. A wide range of polymers, such
as nylon and polypropylene, are used to make plastics, along with
over 10,000 chemical additives (including at least 2,400 of potential
health concern).

What is more, plastics do not remain factory-fresh forever. As they

circulate in the environment, microplastics pick up contaminants
such as heavy metals, as well as viruses, bacteria and moulds
(collectively known as their “corona”). And they come in all sorts of
shapes—from fibres and spheres to needles and shards—as well as
carrying different electrical charges.

All this matters because microplastic particles with different

properties can have dramatically different effects. Several research
groups have found that chemical and biological contaminants in the
corona affect how the particles interact with cells involved in
inflammation. Research on other nanoparticles, including those of
carbon and silver, has shown that jagged or elongated shapes are
more likely to damage cells, says Virissa Lenters of Vrije University,
in Amsterdam. And the strength of the electrical charge that a given
microplastic particle possesses can change how easily it can enter a
given cell.

Thus far, however, most lab studies have used a single, sterile type
of microplastic particle: the smooth polystyrene beads that are the
only ones available for laboratories to buy. This has led some
research groups to develop their own microplastic particles with
different charges, compositions, shapes and sizes, for use in studies.
These are then exposed to processes that simulate natural wear and
tear (one group, for example, has aged its microplastic fragments by
dousing them in water from the Rhone river) so that they more
closely resemble microplastics found in the world outside the lab.
The process is painstaking. Lukas Kenner from the Medical University
of Vienna says that it has taken his colleagues around two years to
work out how to make particles of PET (polyethylene terephthalate),
a plastic found in everyday products such as disposable water
bottles, that suitably replicate those found in the environment. The
particles are then given fluorescent labels so they can be tracked
inside tissue. Such work is a necessary step towards achieving the
replicable conditions required in experiments, says Dr Kenner. “We
can’t just take particles from the street.”

Another problem facing researchers is working out how high a dose

of microplastics to administer to their subjects. Up until now, says
Juliette Legler at Utrecht University, the doses associated with
negative effects in cell cultures and animal studies have been far
higher than the amounts likely to be found in living human bodies.

But knowing what amount is realistic remains elusive. That is

because scientists lack tools to both accurately and speedily measure
the quantity of microplastics found in human bodies. The usual
method, which involves inspecting biological tissue with a specialised
microscope, is not sensitive enough to detect the smallest
microplastics. For more sensitivity, scientists turn to chemical
detection, which destroys the sample (meaning that information
about the cell types that contain the particles gets lost) and is prone
to confusing plastics with biological molecules such as lipids. Those
methods also require samples to be elaborately prepared prior to
testing, which slows down the analysis.
 No problem too small

The expensive and laborious nature of measurement means that

studies on specific health consequences, such as, for example, the
correlation between microplastics in stool and irritable bowel
syndrome, have been limited to a few dozen people. For reliable
conclusions to be reached, that number would need to be far higher.

Promising solutions to these measurement hurdles are coming along

at a fast clip. Dr Kenner’s group has come up with a new, laser-
based method to determine the composition of microplastics without
damaging their host tissue. This allows the researchers to better
assess the biological effect of the microplastics, as well as allowing
the tissue samples to be reused in future research. It is a “game-
changer”, he says, enabling work that would have been unthinkable
just a year ago.

A group at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Western

Switzerland, for their part, have adapted existing spectroscopy
software with machine-learning techniques to detect smaller and
more complex particles, and to do so automatically—which makes
analysis faster, more accurate and more thorough, capturing 15%
more particles. Others, such as Douglas Walker and his team at
Emory University, are seeking to minimise the chemical
misidentification of plastics.

Wrapping up

Such advancements mean that larger and more comprehensive

studies are finally becoming possible. One group of researchers is
using these new methods to study 800 mother-and-child pairs in
Belgium and Spain, looking for links between microplastics in
placenta, urine and blood and health outcomes such as premature
birth and early child development.

In another study, which involves 100 Dutch women, researchers are

tracking microplastics in household dust and in participants’ urine.
They are trying to understand how various sources of the particles
compare and whether certain lifestyle habits, such as vacuuming
more often, make a difference. Austrian scientists are looking at the
same issue with a “plastic fasting” study (in which volunteers reduce
their use of plastics for a week) to find out how it changes the
amount of microplastics in their blood and stool.

All being well, results from these studies should start coming in by
the end of 2025. But many more such studies will be needed to
reach definitive conclusions about what microplastics do to human
bodies. With each generation exposed to ever greater amounts from
the day they are born, says Dr Legler, convincing answers are
urgently needed. ■

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Artificial diplomats

AI models could help

negotiators secure peace
deals
Some are being developed to help end the war in Ukraine
4月 16, 2025 07:35 上午

IN A MESSY age of grinding wars and multiplying tariffs, negotiators

are as busy as the stakes are high. Alliances are shifting and political
leaders are adjusting—if not reversing—positions. The resulting
tumult is giving even seasoned negotiators trouble keeping up with
their superiors back home. Artificial-intelligence (AI) models may be
able to lend a hand.
Some such models are already under development. One of the most
advanced projects, dubbed Strategic Headwinds, aims to help
Western diplomats in talks on Ukraine. Work began during the Biden
administration in America, with officials on the White House’s
National Security Council (NSC) offering guidance to the Centre for
Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a think-tank in
Washington that runs the project. With peace talks under way, CSIS
has speeded up its effort. Other outfits are doing similar work.

The CSIS programme is led by a unit called the Futures Lab. This
team developed an AI language model using software from Scale AI,
a firm based in San Francisco, and unique training data. The lab
designed a tabletop strategy game called “Hetman’s Shadow” in
which Russia, Ukraine and their allies hammer out deals. Data from
45 experts who played the game were fed into the model. So were
media analyses of issues at stake in the Russia-Ukraine war, as well
as answers provided by specialists to a questionnaire about the
relative values of potential negotiation trade-offs. A database of 374
peace agreements and ceasefires was also poured in.

Thus was born, in late February, the first iteration of the Ukraine-
Russia Peace Agreement Simulator. Users enter preferences for
outcomes grouped under four rubrics: territory and sovereignty;
security arrangements; justice and accountability; and economic
conditions. The AI model then cranks out a draft agreement. The
software also scores, on a scale of one to ten, the likelihood that
each of its components would be satisfactory, negotiable or
unacceptable to Russia, Ukraine, America and Europe. The model
was provided to government negotiators from those last three
territories, but a limited “dashboard” version of the software can be
run online by interested members of the public.

The Futures Lab is also designing add-on models for the simulator.
Each is a bot trained on studies of, and speeches and writings by, a
different political or military leader. To help negotiators work out how
China’s president, Xi Jinping, might react to a scenario, for example,
an AI alter ego, dubbed “Xibot”, is being developed. The bots also
stimulate creativity, says Benjamin Jensen, the lab’s director. His
team has already produced three such AI “advisers” that reason in
the distinct styles of George Patton, Genghis Khan and Sun Tzu.

Britain’s Foreign Office, meanwhile, is helping fund a more ambitious

AI negotiations adviser that is being developed at the University of
California, Berkeley. A lab there is training a model exclusively on
documents relating to America’s NSC, including minutes of meetings
that stretch back to 1951. The idea, says Andrew Reddie, the
project’s leader, is to produce a versatile AI adviser for negotiators.
The model will produce talking points in a wider range of “voices”
than CSIS’s bot advisers.

Demand for such models is high, reckons a negotiator based in

London who advises senior government officials in talks on war and
peace. When discussions are in full swing behind closed doors,
negotiators can lack a way to quickly gauge the opinion of superiors
back home, says the adviser (who asked to remain anonymous
owing to the sensitive nature of her work). She therefore often
needs to pause talks to make contact, which breaks momentum and
gives the other side time to regroup. A negotiating team with an AI
model that allows it to speed up its tempo in talks, she says, could
gain an edge. A good simulator may also be able to flag potential
sticking-points early, she adds, as well as helping negotiators see
through the eyes of an unsavoury or unrelatable adversary.

Consummate AI diplomats of this sort are still some way off. In tests
to identify differences in the negotiation styles of seven AI models,
the Futures Lab found that some, including DeepSeek, Gemini and
Llama, are particularly “escalatory”. In one scenario Llama opted to
use force in a whopping 45% of runs. In other cases, notes
Jacquelyn Schneider of Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, a
model’s code may be overly conciliatory. Her team compiles data on
how various AIs play war games involving negotiation, and briefs
congressional staffers on the findings. The “risk-averse” camp
includes GPT-4, an OpenAI model Dr Schneider describes as partial
to “Obama’s foreign policy”.

Comparative analysis such as Dr Schneider’s could improve future

models. So might a new AI project at DARPA, a research agency at
the Pentagon. Called CODORD, it aims to convert natural human
language about acceptable and unacceptable actions, as well as
obligations, into code. That, it is hoped, will help models better hew
to a human leader’s intent.

Futures Lab’s next step is to soup up its Ukraine-talks simulator with

game theory, which models decision-making by predicting the likely
actions of stakeholders based on their goals, motivations and levels
of influence. Whereas language models make inferences from
existing data, game theory employs deductive reasoning from first
principles. Folding it in should give the simulator firmer footing to
spot logical errors or unmerited results, says Yasir Atalan, a data
scientist at the lab.

One game-theory model to be added is called “Competition in the

Shadow of Technology”. Its equations, developed by Futures Lab to
increase a country’s negotiating power, calculate the best time for
secret military capabilities to be revealed.

The lab also has its eyes on a game-theory model called

Predictioneer’s Game which, as a stand-alone system, has an
impressive record. Its developer, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, has used
the model to advise clients, including America’s Central Intelligence
Agency and the Pentagon, on subjects including nuclear negotiations
with Iran and North Korea. A three-day session with the software
(and Dr Bueno de Mesquita) can cost $300,000. Though cagey with
details, he says he currently discusses the model’s take on “a wide
array” of crises with officials at the State Department.

The model has had impressive results. In 2023 Predictioneer’s Game

forecast that peace talks on Ukraine would begin in early 2025. In
the early days of the conflict in Gaza, the model laid out how Israeli
positioning might change if Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh, two
leaders of Hamas, were ever to exit the picture. That has been
borne out by developments following their deaths in 2024, says Dr
Bueno de Mesquita. Now 78 years old, he plans to publish the
model’s equations for anyone to use.

All this is heady stuff. AI’s potential to reshape security talks, says
Rose Gottemoeller, America’s chief negotiator with Russia for New
START, a treaty on nuclear arms that took effect in 2011, is “really
remarkable”. If the technology catches on, diplomacy may become a
field in which AI models reach deals with one another. Whether
humans can hold on to a seat at the table is up for discussion. ■

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Deep freeze

Scientists are getting to grips

with ice
Climate change is making water freeze in unexpected ways
4月 16, 2025 07:03 上午

JACK FROST is a tricky adversary. As the mercury falls, water’s

behaviour becomes erratic, leading to ice and snow with physical
properties that can vary enormously depending on environmental
factors such as temperature and moisture. That can complicate tasks
as varied as developing new ice-repellent materials and predicting
the likelihood of an avalanche. New research is suggesting ways to
put this slippery field on firmer foundations.
“Ice is a complicated material,” says Jean-Denis Brassard, an anti-
icing specialist at the University of Quebec. Although one chunk may
look like any other, each is a messy collection of individual crystals
formed in ways that are sensitive to the conditions. Everything from
the air pressure to the size of water droplets and the type of surface
can affect the type of ice that will form and, thereby, its clinginess.
To make matters worse, climate change brings with it different types
of ice.

This is a problem for those creating materials to protect aircraft,

roads, bridges and power lines from dangerous build-ups of ice. At
present, such materials are tested in a number of different ways,
from checking how easily a layer of ice can be pulled vertically away
from a surface, to measuring ice-on-ice friction. Writing in Cold
Regions Science and Technology, Dr Brassard and his colleagues
argue that such tests do not replicate the way ice is removed from
surfaces in the real world, which can lead to inconsistent and
misleading results.

Dr Brassard’s team has, therefore, built a tool that mimics the way
people scrape their car windscreens. Rather unimaginatively called
the human-motion-inspired automated apparatus, it uses
compressed air to steadily push an angled blade along an icy
surface. By measuring the force applied, it can rate the effectiveness
of different de-icing techniques.

Such a device will help ice-clearers tackle the novel forms of ice
produced in a warming world. Climate change is increasing the
likelihood of mixed-phase precipitation—a weather forecaster’s way
of saying one of those wintry spells when you get a bit of
everything. As a result, says Dr Brassard, clients are increasingly
finding hitherto unseen types of ice with no sense of how best to
clear them. “Then they come to see us,” he says.

Based on photographs and a handful of on-the-ground

measurements, his team can try to replicate the unusual ice. Their
device can then be used to test combinations of coatings and
chemicals to see which might be most effective.

Another type of ice test, carried out routinely on ski slopes, seeks to
measure the stability of snow packs in order to assess the chances
of an avalanche. This is often done by counting how many taps it
takes for cracks to appear and propagate in a column of snow. The
tests are typically performed in three sets of increasing power,
hinging the hand tap from either the wrist, elbow or shoulder.

Havard Toft, then a PhD student at the Centre for Avalanche

Research and Education at the Arctic University of Norway in
Tromso, was concerned that these avalanche tests were not reliable.
Dr Toft and his team therefore persuaded almost 300 avalanche
experts to have the strength of their hand taps measured, collecting
more than 8,500 data points in total.

In a paper published in Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences,

Dr Toft showed that different individuals delivered taps of the same
type with varying degrees of force. Most striking, many experts
produced more load with wrist taps than colleagues did with
shoulder taps, which the researchers say could lead to some
dangerous misclassification of avalanche risk. The field should
proceed with caution. ■

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technology/2025/04/16/scientists-are-getting-to-grips-with-ice

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Well informed

Electric vehicles also cause air

pollution
Though fume-free, their brake pads and tyres disintegrate over time
4月 16, 2025 07:03 上午

PEOPLE ARE dying for clean air. According to the most recent
estimates from the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the
University of Washington, air pollution caused 4.7m early deaths
worldwide in 2021—about the same as dementia, road-traffic
accidents, malaria and suicides combined.

Road traffic is a leading contributor to dirty air; in London, for

instance, it is responsible for 60% of outdoor particulate dust.
Electric vehicles (EVs) are often preferred because they can be
powered by clean, sustainable energy sources and, in contrast to
petrol and diesel cars, produce no exhaust fumes. But EVs
nevertheless emit other pollutants common to all cars: particles
originating not from the exhaust, but from brakes, tyres and roads.
These, too, can be dangerous for human health.

The most dangerous particles are those smaller than 2.5 microns in
diameter, which get into the lungs and reach other organs via the
bloodstream. Such dust can increase the risk of heart disease,
stroke, lung disease and cancer. According to British government
statistics, 60% of road-traffic particles below 10 microns do not
come from the combustion, but from the gradual breakdown of
tyres, brake pads and roads.

In addition to being less well regulated than exhaust fumes, non-

exhaust particles are also less well studied. That is changing. One
study published in February by researchers at the University of
Southampton found that some brake-pad dust seems to be more
damaging to dish-grown human lung cells than diesel-fume particles.
This was in part because of its higher levels of copper, which can
damage cells and DNA.

Though exact figures are elusive, scientists estimate that EVs

produce more of these non-exhaust particles than other cars. This is
because their batteries make them heavier, causing them to
generate more friction. (According to Hannah Ritchie, a data
scientist at the University of Oxford, in 2023 the mean weight of an
EV was 2,133kg, whereas regular cars weighed around 1,500kg in
Britain and 1,800kg in America.) As cars continue to get bigger, the
risk is that EVs become more polluting.

Although EVs may be dirtier than you think, they are still mostly less
polluting than other cars. That is partly because they use an extra
braking system called regenerative braking. When the driver
removes their foot from the pedal, the continued forward motion of
the car is harvested to recharge the battery, thereby slowing the car
down. That system works independently of brake pads, potentially
eliminating one source of emissions. One study from 2021 estimated
that, when regenerative braking was used for all braking, EVs
produced a total of about 14 milligrams of fine particles per vehicle
per kilometre on urban roads, whereas petrol cars produced about
18 and diesel cars 20 (exhaust included).

More radical steps can also be taken. Regulating non-exhaust

emissions in a similar way to fumes would be one way to minimise
harm to human health. Encouraging people to consider smaller cars,
though difficult, would be another. Enormous cars are disastrous for
road safety and most people will never need the extra range that the
largest car batteries provide. Ensuring EVs run on clean electricity is
also important: if their power is ultimately generated by burning
coal, say, that just moves the pollution from the exhaust to the
power plant chimney. Though EVs are necessary for the energy
transition, they are currently far from emission-free.■

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Culture
The success of “LOL: Last One Laughing” is
no joke
Humour me :: It is a rare comedy show that has gone global

Bill v Melinda Gates: whose memoir should

you read?
He said, she said :: The battle of the billionaire books

The six best films about financial turmoil

The Economist watches :: Watch these titles when you can no longer watch the ticker

A celebrated novelist grapples with “Moby-

Dick”
Literary retellings :: Xiaolu Guo, a fisherman’s daughter, reimagines the whaling epic
with added Taoism

Feral teen “Minecraft Movie” fans might

just be a good sign
Mobbed :: These days it is unusual to see a crowd of teenagers at the cinema

A century on, Art Deco is as stylish as ever

Looking sharp :: Minimalist furniture is out; opulent interiors are in

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Humour me

The success of “LOL: Last One

Laughing” is no joke
It is a rare comedy show that has gone global
4月 16, 2025 07:35 上午

EACH OF THE comedians has a method for suppressing their mirth.

Harriet Kemsley gently coughs, in the manner of a child pretending
to be ill. Richard Ayoade bites down on a finger. Daisy May Cooper
scrunches up her face into a ghoulish expression that is at once a
pout and a scowl.

They and seven other contestants are locked in a room together;

over the course of six hours they must try to make each other
chuckle without cracking a smile themselves. Anyone who smirks
receives a “yellow card” warning; a second transgression results in a
“red card” and elimination from the game. The idea of “LOL: Last
One Laughing”, a reality-TV show, is straightforward: “You laugh,
you lose.”

Viewers have found this a winning concept. Ms Kemsley, Mr Ayoade

and Ms Cooper competed in the British version of the programme,
which first aired on March 20th; almost a month on, it is still one of
Amazon Prime Video’s top TV shows there. But “LOL” is not just a hit
in Blighty. To date, more than 25 versions of the show have been
produced in countries around the world, including Argentina, Brazil,
Canada, Denmark, Italy, Mexico, Nigeria and the Philippines.
(Surprisingly, there is no American version yet.)

This week “LOL” will return for its fifth season in France and sixth
season in Germany. Parrot Analytics, a data firm, estimates that
between 2020 and 2024 the “LOL” franchise brought in more than
$110m worldwide in advertising and subscription revenue for
Amazon.

All this is unusual. Streamers frequently have big, global hits with
dramas; comedies, not so much. Television history is full of failed
attempts to take a beloved sitcom from one country to another. Even
places which share a language have different comic sensibilities. As
one Reddit user has put it: “American comedy starts with everything
being shit and ends happy. British comedy starts happy and ends
with everything going to shit.”

That “LOL” has lived up to its name in so many countries offers

lessons about how to make an international comic hit. One is the
power of a simple idea, rather than a subtle conceit or witty script:
anyone who watches “LOL” will recognise the exquisite torment of
trying to suppress the giggles at, say, a work meeting or funeral.
Another lesson is the value of drawing on local talents and allowing
them to come up with the jokes themselves.
Matsumoto Hitoshi, a Japanese comedian, launched the format in
2016 because he “wanted to see what truly funny people are really
like”. Many comedians work in standup or sitcoms, modes which are
rehearsed rather than off-the-cuff. The set-up of “LOL” reveals which
performers rely on tried-and-tested material and which are quick-
witted, able to spot the comedy potential of a breadstick or a
footstool.

Though the contestants must adopt deadpan expressions

throughout, the show is structured to maximise viewers’ enjoyment,
observes Louise Peacock, a historian of comedy. First there is the
funny material—comedians must endure challenges as well as
challenging conversations. Then there is a contestant’s stifled
reaction to that material.

Viewers are primed to laugh at these moments by the host, who is

merrily observing the action from another room. (After contestants
are eliminated from the game, they sit with the host.) The
comedians themselves also offer light-hearted commentary on their
performance to the camera. By framing the action in this way, the
producers give laughter an opportunity to catch on.
“LOL”, then, deals in easy, cheerful entertainment. The comedians
are generally pleasant to each other. The jokes are avowedly
apolitical, which gives the show a broad appeal. (That is by design, it
seems: Amazon provides a “steer...in the right direction” when it
comes to the content, says Kelly Day, the streamer’s head of
international original programming.)

The tone is farcical rather than edgy. Many contestants try for
physical comedy, as slapstick and buffoonery have been making
people laugh since the ancient Greeks. In the Irish version, one
comedian attempts to do Evel Knievel-style stunts on a child’s
bicycle. Shock tactics are another constant ploy: an Australian
comedian opens an icebox to reveal a pig’s head; a Japanese one
tries to defecate on a table.

It is telling, though, that “LOL” has gone global because the

universal elements of the format leave enough elbow-room for local
tastes. It embraces the fact that what someone in Quebec finds
funny is not the same as what someone in France likes. “It’s subtle
nuances,” says Lucas Green of Banijay Entertainment, a production
group whose labels make “LOL” in 11 markets, “but you’re able,
through your cast, to reflect the sense of humour of your territory.”

Inside jokes

The comedians are attuned to what their peers will appreciate.

Aisling Bea’s performance of “Only a Woman’s Heart” is funny partly
because it is a famous ballad in Ireland and partly because, she
says, “Irish people hate vulnerability.” Germany’s Max Giermann does
a skit about Jorge González, a choreographer and TV personality,
that is incomprehensible to someone unfamiliar with Mr González’s
work, but it has his fellow competitors close to breaking. In the
South African version Jason Goliath does a bit involving an oversize
replica of boerewors, a traditional sausage.
Because the contestants have generally been on the comedy circuit
for some time, they have a sense of where the line is for their
audience. In buttoned-up Britain, for instance, it does not seem to
occur to the comedians to take their clothes off at any point. In
Australia and Japan, however, contestants are happy to expose their
private parts to the public (though thankfully such bits are blurred
out).

The show has given Amazon’s executives plenty to celebrate. It is

crowd-pleasing and cost-effective—most of the season is filmed in
one day. If it tempts other broadcasters and streamers to
commission more funny material alongside po-faced dramas, then
“LOL” will have proved its point: laughter is contagious. ■

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He said, she said

Bill v Melinda Gates: whose

memoir should you read?
The battle of the billionaire books
4月 17, 2025 07:07 上午

From lovers to literary rivals

Source Code: My Beginnings. By Bill Gates. Knopf; 336 pages;

$30. Allen Lane; £25

The Next Day: Transitions, Change and Moving Forward. By

Melinda French Gates. Flatiron Books; 176 pages; $25.99. Bluebird;
£17.99
BILL AND MELINDA GATES divorced in 2021 after 27 years of
marriage. But lately the tech billionaire-turned-philanthropist and his
ex-wife have been spotted together in an unusual setting: on the
shelves of bookshops. Both have published memoirs in recent
weeks, telling new stories about their unusual and gilded lives. In
some ways the books are similar: they aim to burnish the public
personas of their authors. But the ways in which the books differ are
more telling.

In “Source Code”, the first of a planned three-volume series, Mr

Gates recounts his origin story, from his birth in 1955 to the early
years of Microsoft in the late 1970s. Folk tales abound about the
childhoods of American innovators such as Thomas Edison and
Benjamin Franklin. This book seems to be an effort to define the
mythology around the young Mr Gates.

It is no rags-to-riches tale: Mr Gates freely admits that his was a

middle-class upbringing. A crucial event in his life was gaining access
to a computer at school for the first time at 13. But he also describes
his love of hiking with friends in the mountains round Seattle,
sometimes for days at a time—a counter to the stereotype of the
lonely nerd who never goes outdoors. In these passages you can
sense the presence of a ghostwriter.

Mr Gates’s programming prowess and entrepreneurial zeal were

entwined from the start. Even as a youngster, he had a propensity to
bend rules and push boundaries. Mr Gates describes how, as a
schoolboy, he would climb out of his bedroom window and sneak off
to use the computer at night. At Harvard he and a friend, Paul Allen,
made unofficial use of the university’s computers to develop Altair
BASIC, the first product of the company they founded, known as
Micro-Soft.

Also striking is how Mr Gates lucidly describes his childhood

awkwardness. These days, he speculates, he would probably be
diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum. This makes the self-
awareness on display in the book (“my ability back then to filter my
reactions wasn’t very highly developed”, he recalls of his Harvard
days) all the more surprising.

By contrast, his ex-wife’s book, “The Next Day”, surprises with its
lack of self-awareness. In what is pitched as an inspiring self-help
book, Ms French Gates recounts various turning-points from her life,
in each case explaining—using quotes from TED talks, mindfulness
teachers and psychology books—how she navigated difficulties and
transitions. Like her ex-husband, she admits that she has “benefited
from a tremendous amount of privilege...that has insulated me from
some of life’s hardships”. However, she writes, “I believe that there
are many aspects of the human experience that are universal.”

As the ex-wife of one of the world’s richest people, though, her

examples of how to handle life’s hardships come across as tone-deaf.
She recounts the heart-stopping moment when one of her children
nearly falls out of a hot-air balloon over the Maasai Mara. (What
parent has not experienced that?) When she starts to realise her
marriage is falling apart, her immediate response is to distract
herself with a trip to South Africa, followed by a retreat in New
Mexico. Oprah Winfrey, a media personality, offers advice. Ms French
Gates eventually asks for a divorce. Her advice to others is “Distill
your inner voice.” (Other suggestions include “Be a greenhouse.”)

Both accounts are self-justifying in places. And, thanks to its limited

scope, “Source Code” avoids tricky topics from later in Mr Gates’s
life, such as antitrust investigations, marital infidelity and his
controversial association with Jeffrey Epstein, a now-dead convicted
sex offender.

His association with Epstein is not mentioned in Ms French Gates’s

book either. The episode that triggered the end of their marriage, in
her telling, was that Mr Gates offered a generous severance package
to a “toxic” employee who was being pushed out at the Gates
Foundation, the charity they co-founded, which made her feel
“disrespected and disregarded”.

Neither book offers any insight into the workings of the Gateses’
marriage. Ms French Gates notes that Mr Gates admitted to infidelity,
but she always refers to him respectfully. Indeed, she dishes no dirt
whatsoever. Presumably their divorce agreement has some pretty
strict terms; readers may at times feel the hand of the lawyer, not
the ghostwriter.

All the same, the books offer very different portraits of their now
very separate authors. Mr Gates’s memoir emphasises “the set of
unique circumstances—mostly out of my control” that shaped him;
Ms French Gates’s tries to make her seem down-to-earth, even
ordinary. Good luck trying to be like me, says Bill; I am just like you,
says Melinda. Somehow it is the ruthless, socially awkward business
titan who comes across as the more sympathetic. ■

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The Economist watches

The six best films about

financial turmoil
Watch these titles when you can no longer watch the ticker
4月 16, 2025 07:04 上午

FINANCE IS NOT an obvious subject for dramatists. Interest rates,

term sheets, mark-to-market accounting: these are phrases to make
the average viewer’s eyes glaze over. But when markets plunge—
dragging down Main Street along with Wall Street—screenwriters’
interest surges. Perhaps viewers can expect some terrific films about
the tariff-induced chaos in years to come. Until then, here are the
best films made about financial turmoil.
“The Big Short” (2015)
The financial crisis of 2007-09 was decidedly serious, but this film—
about a group of outsiders and hustlers who bet on the housing
bubble bursting, and hence foresaw the crisis—is very funny. (It is
adapted from a book of the same name by Michael Lewis.) Various
celebrities make cameos to explain financial concepts directly to
viewers, while Steve Carell, Christian Bale (pictured below) and a
frighteningly tanned and venal Ryan Gosling play three of the men
who profit from the crisis. This film is morally complex and gripping;
it informs and outrages.

“Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room” (2005)

This documentary is about financiers who ended up in prison
because they thought they were cleverer than everyone else. Greedy
and hubristic, Enron’s executives used dodgy accounting and
aggressive PR tactics to make their energy-trading firm seem more
profitable than it was. Investors lost billions and the top executives
were convicted of fraud, though the boss, Kenneth Lay, died shortly
before his sentencing. Based on an equally enjoyable book by
Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind.
“The Grapes of Wrath” (1940)
The Joad family, kicked off their land in Oklahoma during the Great
Depression, head west to California to make a better life. The story
could easily have been leaden, but Henry Fonda’s spiky lead
performance as Tom Joad, and the extraordinary cinematography of
Gregg Toland (who also filmed “Citizen Kane”), make it a work of art.
John Steinbeck’s novel is an American masterpiece; this film is
better.

“Margin Call” (2011)

A young analyst at an investment bank finds out that the firm is
overexposed to risky mortgage-backed securities. This film (pictured
below), set in 2008, focuses on the next 24 hours, as the firm sells
everything and panic spreads across Wall Street. The ensemble cast
is terrific, in particular Paul Bettany as a shark with a well-hidden
heart of gold. But watch it for its portrayal of the rituals and culture
of high finance: how people dress and defer to superiors, what they
talk about outside the office and how they cut each other’s throats.

“Too Big to Fail” (2011)

Another film about the crisis of 2007-09, this time about the
headliners. After the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Hank Paulson,
America’s treasury secretary (William Hurt), Ben Bernanke, the chair
of the Federal Reserve (Paul Giamatti), and the leaders of the
biggest banks gather. They negotiate the Troubled Asset Relief
Programme, the government’s purchase of bad assets from banks to
unfreeze credit. The script is instructive—characters explain things to
each other for the viewer’s benefit—so you’ll finish the film having
learned something as well as having been entertained.

“The Wolf of Wall Street” (2013)

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Jordan Belfort, a smooth-talking huckster

who, in real life, made millions in penny-stock scams before going to
prison. Martin Scorsese may have intended to make a morality tale
about the dangers of filthy lucre, but Belfort and his buddies are
clearly having more fun than the honest lawmen who eventually do
them in. Jonah Hill offers a grotesque supporting performance aided
by a gargantuan set of false teeth. ■

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Literary retellings

A celebrated novelist grapples

with “Moby-Dick”
Xiaolu Guo, a fisherman’s daughter, reimagines the whaling epic with
added Taoism
4月 17, 2025 02:25 上午

Call Me Ishmaelle. By Xiaolu Guo. Chatto & Windus; 448 pages;

£18.99

XIAOLU GUO has always been interested in people who leave. “A

Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers”, her novel published
in 2007, follows a Chinese woman studying in London. The
protagonist in “20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth” (2008) forsakes
her sleepy home in rural China for Beijing, an ever-changing city
“that never showed its gentle side”.

Her tales of migration have won several prizes and have been
translated into 30 languages. Along with Yiyun Li, Ha Jin and Gao
Xingjian, Ms Guo is part of a cohort of celebrated writers of the
Chinese diaspora who explore the experiences of émigrés. In “Once
Upon A Time in the East”, an acclaimed memoir published in 2017,
Ms Guo wrote about growing up in a fishing village in Zhejiang in
eastern China, before moving to Beijing to attend film school and
then to London for further study. She has lived outside China ever
since.

In her tenth book in English—she has also written six in Chinese—Ms

Guo takes the theme of journeys both physical and personal in a
strikingly different direction. “Call Me Ishmaelle” retells one of the
most famous adventure novels ever published: Herman Melville’s
“Moby-Dick”. Like that classic tale, it chronicles a whaling voyage run
by an obsessive captain. Yet, as the title implies, the narrator is an
English woman disguised as a cabin boy.

Ishmaelle seeks money and freedom; she also hopes to join the man
she loves in America (he is a captain aboard another ship). When
she crops her hair and binds her breasts, she feels that “a truer me
was somehow being born”.

Ms Guo makes other changes to Melville’s story. Her version is set

two decades later, in 1861, at the start of the American civil war.
Captain Ahab is reimagined as Captain Seneca, a free black man.
(“My war is not with the Confederate soldier in the field,” he says,
but with “a leviathan in this goddamn lost place”.) His crew includes
Muzi, a Taoist monk and sailmaker, who guides the ship using
divinations from the “I Ching”, an ancient Chinese text.
When the author read “Moby-Dick” for the first time while studying
in Beijing in the 1990s, its Shakespearean references and biblical
framework were “completely lost” on her. “I always wonder how I
should engage with Western cultures from a culture with no
connection to biblical Christianity,” she says. Her version still explores
man’s desire to establish dominion over nature. Seneca, like Ahab,
considers the relationship between man and whale to be a contest
between good and evil.

In her telling, however, Ms Guo toys with Manichaean ideas, not

least through her cross-dressing heroine. She overlays the story with
Buddhist and Taoist philosophy. The author also drops Chinese
cultural references into her prose, from the bloom of “auspicious”
flowers to a deckhand described as a “cockroach” (a common
Chinese insult). She likens human life to a dragonfly skimming
across the surface of water, touching the universe only briefly and
superficially.

Ishmaelle’s time on the ship leads her to conclude that “We can only
know ourselves by acting in the world.” This evokes the Taoist idea
of “the way”: the question of how to chart a path through life that
leaves the balance of the universe—and natural environment—
undisturbed. The contest the author is interested in is an internal
one. Ishmaelle’s voyage to sea is ultimately an exploration of her
own psyche.

Ms Guo says recasting Melville’s work was a “bold” but obvious

choice. (Other bold, strange choices include passages from the
perspective of the whale: “Wwwoooooohhhhhh kkkkkkkkkkkkkkk
www.”) As a fisherman’s daughter, raised on “ocean adventure
stories”, she grew up knowing that life and death could be separated
by a mere “three inches of deck”. She had the knowledge to imagine
the “alternative possibilities” of the story.

In the end “Call Me Ishmaelle”, like Ms Guo’s other works, is about

the impossibility of return. After the voyage, Ishmaelle finds England
cold and different: she realises she is “made for the ocean and for
that permanent exile”. ■

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Mobbed

Feral teen “Minecraft Movie”

fans might just be a good sign
These days it is unusual to see a crowd of teenagers at the cinema
4月 16, 2025 07:03 上午

HOLLYWOOD’S FIRST hit of 2025 arrived on April 4th with “A

Minecraft Movie”, a blockbuster adaptation of the block-building
video game. The film took over $300m at the global box office in its
opening weekend, putting it on a similar trajectory to “The Super
Mario Bros Movie”, which went on to make nearly $1.4bn and
become the second-most successful film of 2023. For cinema
operators, whose overall takings last year were 30% below their pre-
pandemic peak, the hit comes not a moment too soon.
Not every cinema-owner is happy, however, for something about
“Minecraft” seems to send audiences berserk. Footage has spread
online of crowds of teenagers screaming during screenings.
Following a TikTok trend, they react to particular phrases in the
movie: hurling their drinks in the air when a character mentions a
“water bucket”, for instance, or jumping out of their seats at the
entrance of a “chicken jockey” (ask a gamer). Some cinemas in
America and Britain have banned children from evening showings
unless a parent joins them.

Ushers may be fed up with the mess and damage. But there is
something quietly encouraging about the phenomenon. Crowds of
teenagers at the movies are a rare sight these days, as most prefer
to stay at home and stream films after their release. Cinemas have
tried to “eventise” moviegoing by improving their catering, laying on
entertainment in the lobby and other gimmicks, but without huge
success. Now, with their “Minecraft” antics, teenagers are getting a
taste for the shared cinematic experience.

Can the trick be repeated with less mess? Three years ago TikTok
inspired a similar trend when teenagers flocked to a “Minions” movie
in formal wear (some were banned for rowdiness). Gaming movies
make good material for group crazes, as existing fandoms—
“Minecraft” boasts more than 100m monthly players—share in-jokes
online. More gaming titles are on the way: the next 12 months will
see sequels to “Mario” as well as “Mortal Kombat”. Ushers may want
to brush up on their karate skills.■

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Looking sharp

A century on, Art Deco is as

stylish as ever
Minimalist furniture is out; opulent interiors are in
4月 16, 2025 07:04 上午

ELON MUSK has positioned himself as an innovative thinker, with

bold ideas on what everything from efficient government to life on
Mars should look like. His aesthetic principles, however, are nothing
new. In 2021 he posted “I love Art Deco” on Twitter; in July 2023,
nine months after he acquired the social-media platform, he gave it
a distinctly late-1920s rebrand. “If X is closest in style to anything”,
he wrote, “it should, of course, be Art Deco.” And when he unveiled
the new Tesla Robovan in October, he was clear about the inspiration
for its sleek look. The “Futuristic Art Deco Bus” was based on—you
guessed it—“Art Deco trains”.

Mr Musk’s enthusiasm has coincided with, and perhaps even

contributed to, a renewed interest in a decorative style that
originated a century ago. Art Deco emerged in France in the years
before the first world war, but it was the International Exhibition of
Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts, which opened in Paris in April
1925, that helped popularise the aesthetic and disseminate it
globally. (Some 16m people visited the exhibition: almost twice as
many as visited the Louvre, the world’s most popular museum, in
2024.)

The French government, which hosted the show, wanted to flaunt

the Style Moderne of architecture, furniture, jewellery and other
decorative arts. The new style was a celebration of all things avant-
garde and, as a result, lacked a coherent manifesto or direction. It
drew on a wide variety of influences: ancient Egyptian and Byzantine
art, Cubism, Futurism, ballet and emerging technologies. Art Deco
has therefore defied easy categorisation. The term itself was not
widely adopted until after 1968, when it was used by Bevis Hillier, an
art historian, based on the name of the exhibition.

Art Deco may be hard to define, but you know it when you see it. Its
architecture is at once angular—associated with shapes such as
chevrons and triangles—and arcs. Consider, for instance, the top of
the Chrysler Building in New York (pictured), completed in 1930 to
become the world’s first “supertall” skyscraper.

The decorative arts incorporated streamlined forms as well as

intricate patterns; many designers favoured fine materials including
burr walnut, ivory, lacquer and precious metals. Stephen Bayley, a
critic, notes that key figures—including Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann, a
furniture designer, and René Lalique, a jeweller—often sought to
evoke “the romance of travel, glamour, colour, luxury and
sensuality”.
A century later, that opulence is back in fashion. Art Deco is
becoming more popular, says Sandrine Zhang Ferron, the founder of
Vinterior, an online marketplace for antique and vintage furniture
and home decor. Searches for Art Deco items on the website are up
by 50% year on year. Sales tripled in the second half of 2024.

Why might people be decking out their living rooms with Art Deco
pieces? The pared-back “mid-century modern” look has dominated
interior design for two decades. Though covid-19 has receded and
governments no longer require people to stay at home, many are
choosing to anyway; some may want to have something unusual,
rather than utilitarian, to admire.

Art Deco jewellery is dazzling people, too. The style “produces fine,
delicate pieces” that still feel contemporary, says Bobby Leigh-
Pemberton of Humphrey Butler, a fine-jewellery dealer in London.
Advances in diamond-cutting technology and the use of platinum
caused a dramatic shift from the frillier and clunkier Victorian and
Edwardian styles to something more refined and modern. Visit the
new Cartier exhibition at the Victoria & Albert museum, Mr Leigh-
Pemberton says, and the highlights will be pieces of Art Deco
jewellery: those are “the things that people want to go and see”.
The centenary may be part of the reason for Art Deco’s revival:
exhibitions are being held this year in cities including Brussels,
Houston, New York and Paris (naturally). But part of the mode’s
appeal, in the interwar years as now, is how adaptable it is. Mr Hillier
has argued that Art Deco was “the last of the total styles”:
something that could be applied to everything from tower blocks to
trinket boxes.

In Jazz-Age America it fused with ideas about modernity and mass

production: factories churned out everything from Art Deco radios to
travel posters. In France, meanwhile, it remained a more elite
endeavour, with a greater emphasis on one-of-a-kind creations,
traditional craftsmanship and expensive materials.

As it incorporates many influences, Art Deco offers something for

almost everyone, whether you like clean, geometric lines or bold
colours and elaborate patterns. Such plurality is welcome in the
digital era, when algorithms flatten aesthetic differences by pushing
users towards the most popular content. After looking at versions of
the same white-and-grey living rooms on Pinterest, Art Deco
buildings—such as the Tuschinski Theatre in Amsterdam, Eltham
Palace in London or Grauman’s Egyptian theatre in Los Angeles—are
nothing short of visual delights.

Glamour and escapism have always been a key part of Art Deco’s
raison d’être. The style was most popular in the late 1920s and early
1930s as the global economy crashed and fascism was on the rise.
Rather than face the sad reality, people often preferred to retreat to
gilded fantasy spaces such as cinemas and speakeasies. Today, as
stockmarket chaos and the darkening political mood make headlines,
people may be looking for glitz to take their minds off the grim. ■

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4月 16, 2025 07:04 上午
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Obituary
Mario Vargas Llosa was shaped by
authoritarianism
A passion for freedom :: The Peruvian novelist and liberal died on April 13th, aged 89

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A passion for freedom

Mario Vargas Llosa was

shaped by authoritarianism
The Peruvian novelist and liberal died on April 13th, aged 89
4月 16, 2025 08:38 上午

HIS MANNERS were impeccable. That was the first impression Mario
Vargas Llosa made on others. He was polite and cordial, his fluent
conversation punctured by the tic of a nervous laugh. Yet, as with
many great rationalists, beneath the polished surface lay a man of
passion.

In his case, it was a passion for freedom—cultural, political and

personal. From that came the themes that lay at the heart of many
of his novels: the struggle of the individual against dictatorship, and
the temptation of utopia, deadly when applied to politics (as it so
often was in Latin America). In that field, he was not just an acute
observer but also an unsuccessful participant.

He discovered politics at the age of 12, when General Manuel Odría

overthrew a democratic government in Peru headed by a cousin of
his maternal grandfather. It contributed to his lifelong hatred of
dictators. So too did his authoritarian and abusive father. It was not
until he was ten that Mario, nurtured by numerous maternal
relatives, was told his father was not dead but had abandoned his
wife and son.

Already, the boy knew he wanted to be a writer. His father, after

returning, sent him to Lima’s military academy, hoping it would
knock literature out of him. Perched above the Pacific on a foggy
cliff, its clammy claustrophobia and sadistic bullying gave him his
first novel, entitled in English “The Time of the Hero”. At 26, he was
catapulted into the group of talented Latin American writers who
achieved fame in the 1960s and 1970s, including Gabriel García
Márquez and Carlos Fuentes. Like García Márquez, he later won the
Nobel prize. But their close friendship ended in a quarrel—over
women, he said much later. Passion, always passion.

On leaving school, he had worked as a cub reporter on a Lima

tabloid, covering crime and hanging out in low-life dives. That
provided material for “Conversation in the Cathedral”. Set during
Odría’s rule, it was a fierce indictment of dictatorship, in which
unchecked power unleashed moral degradation and sexual
perversion. Like “The Time of the Hero” it bore what became his
stylistic trademarks: a narrative that cut between multiple stories,
written with a craftsman’s precision. It was a subject he returned to
in “The Feast of the Goat”, on the misrule, torture and sexual
depravity of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, a dictator in the Dominican
Republic. In “The War of the End of the World” he addressed the
search for utopia through the prism of a backland rebellion in north-
east Brazil in the 1890s.
His inspirations were Jean-Paul Sartre, William Faulkner and above
all Gustave Flaubert, from whom he learned to be obsessively careful
of form, writing and structure. Like Flaubert, he saw literature as a
serious vocation. And as a realist writer, he deeply researched his
novels. Though he looked like a Latin American playboy, he was a
hard and disciplined worker. Each morning he rose early, went for a
walk, and then sat down for several hours of writing. In the
afternoons, he would correct. He drank little, although towards the
end he enjoyed long lunches with friends and good Spanish Rioja.

His output was prodigious: 20 novels, several books of essays, plays

and short stories. From 1990 to 2023 he wrote a fortnightly column
in El País, a Spanish newspaper. He could write humorously too, in
books such as “Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter”, a hilarious farce, or
the black comedy of “The Bad Girl”, a veiled satire on what he saw
as the rape of Peru by Alberto Fujimori, its authoritarian ruler in the
1990s. He was also the Spanish-speaking world’s most perceptive
literary critic, publishing essays not just on Flaubert but on the novel
and on Peru’s indigenist writers.

Politics was never far away. In his pursuit of freedom he at first

embraced the Cuban revolution and then rejected it, because it
stifled cultural liberty. Disillusioned, he began a long journey towards
liberalism, accelerated by living in England under Margaret Thatcher,
whom he met and admired. In Latin America, where the intellectual
class tends to the radical left, this was a brave stance that won him
enemies. He put it into practice in Peru: when a leftist president tried
to nationalise the banks, he plunged into a quixotic and successful
campaign to stop it. That led to a run for the presidency in 1990. His
discomfort with the flesh-pressing of campaigning was palpable. He
lost, to Fujimori.

Some lovers of his novels hated his political columns. But he

believed that the failures of the hard left were pushing Latin America
his way. He became a kind of conscience, for Peru and for the
region. Liberalism was not just concomitant with progressive
democracy, but also included accepting that one might be wrong.

The same principle applied in his own life. Maybe because of the
trauma of his father’s rejection, he married twice within his mother’s
extended family. In 2015 he abruptly left Patricia, his wife of 50
years and first cousin, for Isabel Preysler, an ageing Spanish-Filipina
socialite. She was a pillar of ¡Hola!, a gossip magazine which he had
pilloried in an essay. The affair was a mistake. In his final years, his
mind dimming, he returned to Patricia and the house they shared
(by then on separate floors) overlooking the ocean in the Lima
district of Barranco.

From his 20s he had lived mainly in Europe. He was the most
universal of Latin American writers. He hated nationalism as much as
communism. But he was umbilically attached to his country. Peru, he
wrote, was for him a kind of incurable disease from which he could
not free himself. His final novel, published in 2023, “Le dedico mi
silencio” (“I give you my silence”), was a bittersweet reflection on
his country, dedicated to Patricia.

The book’s protagonist is a failed journalist who dreams of uniting

his country through la canción criolla, an elegant Peruvian musical
style. It is a utopia, but a benign one, expressing Peru’s rich cultural
creativity. Of that, he was the foremost example. ■
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