5 d. ago Trump’s tariffs get one thing right: capitalism is changing | Avram C Alpert

The president’s protectivist trade vision is deeply flawed. But he has picked up on something Democrats are missingTrying to understand Donald Trump’s across-the-board tariffs based solely on economic theory won’t work. As the US president himself said: “Chronic trade deficits are no longer merely an economic problem, they’re a national emergency that threatens our security and our very way of life.” That may be why, as many economists have pointed out, there’s simply no good economic case for his plans.But few commentators have understood that facts and figures aren’t the whole point of the tariffs. As always, economics is part of a broader political vision. The tariffs help Trump make his claim that a way of life is under threat and he alone can protect it. Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago Despite Pope Francis’s wishes, there’s little appetite for richer nations to help the poorest

Trump’s tariffs will make it tougher for emerging economies to service loans but debt relief has fallen off the political agendaPope Francis’s vast funeral in Rome on Saturday featured a certain amount of politicking amid the splendour, against the magnificent backdrop of St Peter’s basilica.If the meeting between Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Donald Trump results in progress towards a less inequitable peace than the one currently envisaged by the US, perhaps that will be fitting, given the late pontiff’s consistent calls for an end to war. Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago Nigel Farage thinks net zero is the new Brexit. Starmer can prove him wrong | Rafael Behr

Labour must deliver the green transition voters want, leaving Reform and the Tories on the side of economic decline and dictatorsWhich former British prime minister described the climate emergency as “a clock ticking to the furious rhythm of hundreds of billions of pistons and turbines and furnaces and engines quilting the Earth in an invisible and suffocating blanket of CO2”?The florid style gives it away. You’d guess Boris Johnson even if you’d forgotten that the master of Brexit bombast also had a sideline in net zero evangelism. It wasn’t the most memorable part of his repertoire and it didn’t catch on as a Conservative catechism.Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago US’s $2.36tn tourism business fears ‘Trump slump’ over tariff turmoil

Warnings emerge even as effect of economic and political turbulence on the foreign visitors to the US is hard to defineBatman said business was so-so, and King Kong beat his chest in agreement. But neither could predict that it would improve. Gotham’s caped crusader and his muscular ape neighbour could only hope. As with Times Square’s superhero-themed visitor-photography business last week, so it is with the US tourism business at large.The effect of economic and political turbulence on the number of foreign visitors coming to the US is for now hard to define. But both – whether through tariffs, currency exchange chaos, or fears over political ill-winds – are sending chills through the $2.36tn business, the world’s most powerful travel and tourism market. Continue reading...

Economics

3 w. ago Inflation, currency woes worsen Venezuela's complex crisis as Maduro declares 'economic emergency'

Erick Ojeda has no money

Economics

4 w. ago Will global climate action be a casualty of Trump’s tariffs?

Clean energy investors likely to pull back from US, but other countries may seize opportunity to speed transitionDonald Trump’s upending of the global economy has raised fears that climate action could emerge as a casualty of the trade war.In the week that has followed “liberation day”, economic experts have warned that the swathe of tariffs could trigger a global economic recession, with far-reaching consequences for investors – including those behind the green energy projects needed to meet climate goals. Continue reading...

Politics