Wall Street Journal (September 9)
“A new superpower is about to enter the fray, one that is unknowable and unending and potentially dwarfs the U.S. and China individually or collectively.” Artificial intelligence already poses significant threats, “yet AI’s most consequential advances—starting with recursive self-improvement—are still ahead.” At their upcoming summit, Trump and Xi “need to make AI safety the top priority for the rest of their tenures.”
Tags: Advances, AI, China, Consequential, Priority, Recursive self-improvement, Safety, Summit, Superpower, Threats, Trump, U.S., Unending, Unknowable, Xi
Market Watch (September 6)
“The U.S.’s status as a financial safe haven has begun to clash with President Trump’s growing barrage of economic and military threats to advance his agenda.” There seems be a common fear behind the Netherland’s recent withdrawal of reserve gold from the U.S., the drawdowns of France and Germany’s U.S.-based reserves, and a current plan in Norway to cut Treasury holdings. Basically, what’s to stop Trump from simply seizing their assets? His “sweeping tariff fight shocked the world last year. Then came the capture in January of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, February’s launch of the U.S.-Iran war, and plans in late August to control of more than 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan oil. In between, there’s been taunting of European and NATO allies, a campaign to takeover over Greenland and its natural resources and, lately, an escalating U.S.-Canada trade war.” So even if seizure sounds far-fetched, it is a legitimate risk for central banks to mitigate.
Tags: Allies, Assets, Barrage, Canada, Capture, Clash, Economic, Escalating, Europe, Fear, France, Germany, Gold, Greenland, Iran war, Maduro, Military threats, Nato, Netherlands, Norway, Reserves, Risk, Safe haven, Seizing, Seizure, Tariff, Taunting, Trade war, Treasury, Trump, U.S., Venezuela, Venezuelan oil, Withdrawal
The Economist (August 29)
“The background music of Donald Trump’s second term has been the sound of norms breaking. On economic policy alone, the president has used tariffs to usurp Congress’s taxing powers and launched attack after attack on the independence of the Federal Reserve, which he accuses of keeping interest rates too high.” While it may be “tempting to tune the noise out,” the Treasury’s recent intervention in bond markets “deserves to echo far and wide.” And “so long as government debt stays high,” more of these unconventional Treasury follies will probably ensue, but America will ultimately come to “regret Scott Bessent’s bond-market misadventures.”
Tags: Attack, Background, Bessent, Bond markets, Congress, Debt, Economic policy, Federal Reserve, Government, Independence, Interest rates, Intervention, Misadventures, Noise, Norms breaking, Regret, Tariffs, Taxing powers, Treasury, Trump, Unconventional, Usurp
The Atlantic (August 22)
“Yes, Trump can hurt Canada more than Canada can hurt Trump. That part of Trump’s thinking is true. But wars are not decided only by the question Who can inflict more pain? Wars are also decided by the question Who can endure more pain? Trump’s failure to accept this truth is why he lost the Iran war—and why he is losing his trade wars.”
Tags: Canada, Endure, Failure, Hurt, Inflict, Iran war, Lost, Pain, Thinking, Trade wars, True, Trump, Truth, Wars
Wall Street Journal (August 20)
Donald Trump’s “attitude of constant haggling over everything that isn’t nailed down, and some things that were supposed to be, isn’t helpful. Mr. Trump has put into doubt the future of his own U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Someone should tell him the biggest beneficiaries of free North American trade are Republican states, especially Texas.”
Tags: Agreement, Attitude, Beneficiaries, Canada, Doubt, Free trade, Future, Haggling, Mexico, North America, Republican states, Texas, Trump, U.S.
The New York Times (August 8)
“President Trump’s war against Iran has depleted U.S. weapons stockpiles to troubling levels, siphoning supplies from Asia and Europe…. The rapidly shrinking supply of air-defense missiles and other critical weaponry in Europe and Asia not only leaves the U.S. military less equipped, but could also leave Russia and China feeling emboldened should they contemplate a potential conflict with the United States.”
Tags: Air-defense missiles, Asia, China, Conflict, Depleted, Emboldened, Europe, Iran, Military, Russia, Shrinking supply, Troubling, Trump, U.S., War, Weapons stockpiles
The Times of London (July 16)
“Even as US vessels launched hundreds of missiles at Iranian military targets in the past few days, Trump still seemed reluctant to unleash the type of all-out war necessary to bring the enemy to heel. As was the case during the initial five weeks of conflict this spring, the president seems rigidly focused on a low-risk, stand-off warfare, minimising the risks of close-up combat.” With the tactics of Trump’s campaign “explicitly designed to avoid high-intensity battle,” his “objectives are rooted more in hope than in strategy.”
Tags: Campaign, Conflict, Cose-up combat, Enemy, High-intensity battle, Hope, Iran, Low-risk, Military targets, Missiles, Objectives, Reluctant, Stand-off, Tactics, Trump, U.S., Vessels, Warfare
Time (July 16)
“Iran’s return to conflict is best read as a calculated gamble…. Above all, Tehran’s leadership fears a staged unwinding of its leverage. Once it stops threatening shipping and restrains its regional partners, those tools become difficult to recover.” While Iran may be “running a familiar playbook of escalating to deescalate” and may have an “accurate reading” of President Donald Trump’s desire “to avoid rising energy prices, American casualties, and another open ended war in the Middle East;” there’s less certainty about how that deescalation will come about. “There is no formal consensus… and no faction willing to move first on anything that could be portrayed as surrendering leverage, legitimizing the bombing campaign, or handing Trump a clear victory.”
Tags: Calculated, Casualties, Certainty, Conflict, Deescalate, Energy prices, Escalating, Fears, Iran, Leadership, Legitimizing, Leverage, Middle East, Recover, Shipping, Threatening, Tools, Trump, War
Bloomberg (July 6)
“Donald Trump’s war against Iran may be over, but the repercussions for global monetary policy are here to stay.” In particular, “the path for central bank interest rates around the world has now shifted higher for years to come.” Forecasts for borrowing costs calculated by Bloomberg Economics (BE) “show trajectories elevated by as much as half a percentage point or more through 2028 compared with those envisaged before the war. That’s both on BE’s global gauge for rates, and its measure for advanced economies.”
Tags: 2028, Bloomberg Economics, Borrowing costs, Central bank, Elevated, Forecasts, Global, Higher, Interest rates, Iran, Monetary policy, Repercussions, Trump, War
Fortune (June 22)
“The U.S. farm economy has been fighting one battle after another in recent years, but a new threat is on the horizon that evokes memories of one of the worst agricultural disasters ever.” U.S. farmers were left reeling from low prices, tariffs and most recently Trump’s Iran War, which sent the prices for fertilizer and fuel soaring. Bankruptcies have been rising and now they may face the existential “risk of a ‘mini-Dust Bowl’ as a rare Super El Niño looms.”
Tags: Agricultural disasters, Bankruptcies, Existential, Farm economy, Farmers, Fertilizer, Fuel, Iran war, Low prices, Mini-Dust Bowl, Reeling, Risk, Super El Niño, Tariffs, Threat, Trump, U.S.
