Bad lever event
The US, China, Iran, Ukraine, Russia, and Greenland.
Hello,
Here are the five things you need to know today:
UNITED STATES. The White House scrambles to rebuild leverage.
CHINA. Xi finds a new purchase on Taiwan.
IRAN. As pressure mounts, a winner emerges.
UKRAINE. RUSSIA. Putin’s power increasingly relies on energy.
GREENLAND. Trump’s hospital ship is fake, but the damage is real.
UNITED STATES. Walking back the plank
The White House scrambles to rebuild leverage.
Futures fell Monday after an initial bounce on the Supreme Court's tariff ruling gave way to uncertainty. Slamming the court, Donald Trump lifted a new global tariff from 10% to 15%. The annual goods deficit grew to the widest on record.
INTELLIGENCE. Trump will claim economic, fiscal, and security emergencies to invoke other laws to reinstate his signature tariff policies. While many in the GOP privately hope he’ll use the ruling against the International Emergency Economic Powers Act as a face-saving way to ease the cost-of-living burden on consumers ahead of November, to Trump, the tariffs were always about leverage. Few other tools provide him so much power, or invitations to treat.
FOR BUSINESS. In his concurring opinion, Neil Gorsuch, a Trump appointee, wrote “the duty to pay taxes and tariffs are funnelled through the legislative process for a reason” and “the deliberative nature of the legislative process was the whole point of its design.” That may be true, but it deprives Trump of a cudgel, which was the whole point of the tariffs. He’ll need to find other ways, legislated or not, to restore control over his opponents, domestic and foreign.
CHINA. When the chips are down
Xi finds a new purchase on Taiwan.
China’s commerce ministry said Monday it would make a “full assessment” of US tariff changes and would “firmly safeguard its interests.” The White House confirmed that Trump would visit Xi Jinping between 31 March and 2 April..
INTELLIGENCE. The tariff ruling comes at an awkward time. Not only does it deprive