For America’s anxious European allies, few questions matter as much as whether Donald Trump’s re-election in 2024 marks a permanent shift in the role played by the United States in the world, or whether it is just a passing phase. On trade, the answer is reasonably clearcut. As US average tariffs congeal somewhere in the […]
I first heard the names Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes when I was a high-school sophomore. My teacher announced, as if it were a fact as firm as any law of thermodynamics, that the Great Depression was caused by laissez-faire policies advocated by Smith, and that salvation came from the more scientifically sound ideas […]
The decision by US Court of International Trade to block Donald Trump’s tariffs, declared by the President under International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), comes as a relief after the weeks of uncertainty and policy reversals that followed the ‘Liberation Day’ on April 2. It also shows that, while businesses had good reasons to be rattled […]
The King and Queen of Canada have made it home to open the 45th Session of Parliament. While King Charles III is the Canadian head of state through the development of unique constitutional doctrines, he, of course, remains the British monarch. Their Majesties’ presence in Canada raises the question of where the long-standing relationship between […]
David Cameron was regarded as a rather establishment figure as prime minister. This is partly due to having been educated at Eton College – through no fault of his own. For most of his time in Downing Street, he was also constrained from operating in a true coalition with the Liberal Democrats. Yet in terms […]
Under one particularly charitable reading, Donald Trump’s discontent with the global financial status quo, reflected in his administration’s drastic trade policies, is a response to the pressure that a chronically overvalued dollar puts on the competitiveness of US industry. As the prospect of a likely trade war-induced recession shows, tariffs carry large economic costs, including […]
Shortly after becoming president, Vladimir Putin held a now-historic meeting in the Kremlin with Russia’s oligarchs. The deal he put on the table in the summer of 2000 was simple: the country’s economic elite could keep and further cumulate their enormous wealth, more often than not acquired through legally and ethically dubious means, but they […]
The blunt reality is that there will be dwindling appetite and patience in the US Congress – and in the American body politic writ large – to expend increasingly precious funds on behalf of nations that are apparently unwilling to devote the necessary resources or make the necessary changes to be serious and capable partners […]
Last summer’s production of Richard III at Shakespeare’s Globe decided to be ‘brave’. Trump quotes were added to the script. The Duke of Buckingham was sporting a red baseball cap. The cultural resistance was back. Putting aside the cringe, it didn’t even work. Richard III tells the tale of a physically deformed but intellectually cunning […]
So, what happens now? There is general agreement that last Friday’s White House meeting was a disaster. Nothing like that has ever occurred in the Oval Office. It was the sort of way in which Stalin might have treated one of his colleagues, before ordering him to be taken off and shot. The Western Alliance: […]
Since the ‘peace process’ of the 1990s, the St Patrick’s Day event at the White House has become a much-anticipated junket for politicians north and south of the Irish border. This annual celebration of paddywhackery brings traditional enemies together in pursuit of US patronage and cash, while the backdrop of shamrocks and Guinness appeals to […]
In the latest episode of our weekly podcast, The Capitalist: Microsoft’s Satya Nadella says it’s time to separate AI’s real impact from the noise: true success isn’t measured in viral demos but in global GDP growth. So, is AI delivering – or are we buying into a bubble? Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s approval ratings are slipping as […]
Next year will be 20 years since we first published the ‘Bumper Book of Government Waste’. It put public spending under the spotlight, challenged Whitehall and local government to up their ante and encouraged people to hold ministers and budgetholders to better account. It won an Atlas Award in Washington DC in the process, for […]
If you need to hold a summit, Paris comes highly recommended: since the peace conference which produced the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, there have been at least four similar major meetings in the French capital. It was natural enough, then, that European leaders responded to President Emmanuel Macron’s invitation and converged on Paris on […]
Since his inauguration as US President, Donald Trump has not wasted any time upsetting the applecart. Within days, federal aid had been paused to ensure spending matched the administration’s agenda. Further actions include the freeze on hiring federal employees and the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency, otherwise known by its acronym, DOGE. The […]
Donald Trump might take this as a compliment, but he resembles two very different pursuits: Wagner and red-deer stalking in the Scottish highlands. In both cases, nobody is indifferent. Some find themselves addicted: others repelled. The same is true of Trump. His supporters revel in MAGA. His opponents believe that the Oval Office has been […]
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