
The five things you need to know today:
UNITED STATES. The president keeps his promise to be a day-one dictator.
MEXICO. CANADA. Trump may discover the leverage isn’t one-sided.
CENTRAL AMERICA. Attempts to counter Chinese influence could backfire.
CHINA. TAIWAN. The ground shifts beneath technology supply chains.
BRICS. Sudden shifts on aid cede influence to US competitors.
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UNITED STATES. Vir trumphalis
The president keeps his promise to be a day-one dictator.
Donald Trump was sworn-in Monday, declaring in his inaugural address a "golden age" and signing 46 executive orders, memoranda and proclamations, including one to revoke 78 Biden-era policies and pardon 1,500 January 6 defendants.
INTELLIGENCE. Around 100 orders were originally promised but by any other standard the day was head-spinning. Issuing sweeping changes by decree, including via emergency legislation, Trump at least fulfilled a vow to be a “dictator on day one”. Republicans in Congress, used to being consulted on matters of law, cheered but many will privately be livid. His pardons, just hours after Joe Biden made several of his own, also smacked of imperial hubris.
FOR BUSINESS. Executive orders used to be common. FDR passed even more at the start of his second term in 1937. In this, Trump is returning to an older style of governing, mirroring especially William McKinley (1897-1901), whom he also renamed Alaska’s Mt Denali for Monday, and whose tariffs and annexations he claims to admire. McKinley’s term was cut short when assassinated in Buffalo. He never got to oversee the Panama Canal he helped negotiate.
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MEXICO. CANADA. Tax Americana
Trump may discover the leverage isn’t one-sided.
Trump determined an invasion at the southern border Monday, assigning the military under emergency orders. The president also designated Mexican cartels as terrorist organisations and warned of potential tariff hikes for 1 February.
INTELLIGENCE. Trump is giving Mexico and Canada time to negotiate on borders and deficits. Yet coming alongside the Gulf of Mexico’s renaming,