Not your average bear market

The US, Germany, China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Syria, and Turkey.

As the tariff-war must end, Udo Keppler, 1901, illustration in Puck (49:1274), Library of Congress, Washington DC.

The five things you need to know today:

• UNITED STATES. Policy-induced recession fears go mainstream.

• GERMANY. The return of coalition Korinthenkacker politics.

• CHINA. TAIWAN. Xi projects confidence ahead of a possible visit from Trump.

• THE PHILIPPINES. The former president is arrested on an ICC warrant.

• SYRIA. TURKEY. As the SDF joins Damascus, the PKK dissolves.

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UNITED STATES. Troubled shares

Policy-induced recession fears go mainstream.

The S&P 500 lost 2.7% and the Nasdaq fell 4% Monday, adding to a $4 trillion cumulative loss in market value since last month's all-time high. Donald Trump said the economy was in "a period of transition". Scott Bessent said it was a “detox”.

INTELLIGENCE. The White House will want to paint the correction as a part of a script, but it’s a sign of narrative collapse. Many investors, including Warren Buffett, have been sitting in cash for months. Valuations were (and in some cases still are) excessive. An AI-themed bubble was emerging. Yet the crash is mainly due to policy uncertainty, particularly Trump’s erratic moves on trade and public service cuts, which are consuming his finite political capital.

FOR BUSINESS. Talk of a recession has gone mainstream, and the VIX index is up 20%. This may lead Trump to course-correct, but an about-face on tariffs or DOGE might only embolden his critics ahead of budgetary negotiations and the start of the mid-term primary season. The need for a scapegoat could rise. Blaming Joe Biden can only go so far. Ditto a nebulous deep state or globalist elite. Elon Musk seems due for his own medicine. And won’t be missed.

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GERMANY. The Greens’ new deal

The return of coalition Korinthenkacker politics.

The Greens held emergency talks late Monday with chancellor-elect Friedrich Merz's Christian Democrats and its likely coalition partners, the Social Democrats, after earlier rejecting debt limit reforms and a €500 billion infrastructure fund.

INTELLIGENCE. The Greens say they want what Merz wants, but just not in the same way, with opposition to his