The US: Why the caged candidate sings
Also: Israel, Palestine, Ukraine, Russia, Malaysia, and Argentina.
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UNITED STATES. Why the caged candidate sings
A jury, and the Democrats, hand Donald Trump a win.
Donald Trump was found guilty on 34 charges Thursday, after a New York jury considered claims he broke campaign law by falsifying documents to cover payments to a porn star. It was the first criminal conviction of an ex-US president.
INTELLIGENCE. Sentencing has been set for 11 July. The charges carry a maximum four-year jail term, though it will likely be less. Trump will almost certainly appeal. Yet privately he will be jubilant. Trump's political style, appropriating the tropes of television wrestling, which first brought him to fame beyond real estate, needs drama. His trailing campaign fund has seen a surge in donations. His claims of official persecution no longer seem so absurd.
FOR BUSINESS. What doesn’t kill Trump makes him stronger. Joe Biden’s campaign was right to say the only way to defeat him is at the ballot box. But Biden will find it harder to mobilise passive voters, particularly with many young Americans deploring his support to Israel. He is meanwhile facing indirect allegations of sleaze. A donor to the campaign of Robert Kennedy Jr said Tuesday he would publish a memoir of the mother of Hunter Biden’s lovechild.
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ISRAEL. PALESTINE. Popular front
Netanyahu sees a turnaround in the polls.
The National Unity party lodged a bill to dissolve the Knesset Thursday, following calls by its leader, Benny Gantz, for early elections. An opinion poll Wednesday showed Benjamin Netanyahu leading Gantz for the first time in a year.
INTELLIGENCE. Since the attack of 7 October, Netanyahu has been on the back foot, stuck between hardline tactic demanded by his right-wing coalition partners and the need to unite a grieving nation. Including centrist opposition leader Gantz in a war cabinet was part of this attempt but the relationship is now breaking. Luckily for Netanyahu, however, his ratings are improving just as the war in Gaza reaches its final stages and elections seem inevitable.
FOR BUSINESS. Netanyahu still faces an uphill re-election. Whatever the outcome for his Likud Party, he will almost certainly need to govern in coalition, which will likely involve the hard-right again. Still, he should not be discounted. And as much as he is disliked by allies, international opprobrium reliably sees Israelis rally around the flag. His team estimates the war will take another seven months, but Israel already controls most of Rafah, including the border.
UKRAINE. RUSSIA. Open season
As the mud dries, a two-way surge looks set to commence.
Joe Biden has permitted Ukraine to strike Russian targets with US munitions, provided they are close to Kharkiv, officials said Thursday. France would likely announce its decision on sending military trainers next week, diplomats said.
INTELLIGENCE. As NATO edges towards more explicit involvement, Russia is mounting forces along the border and threatening again to use tactical nuclear weapons. Once bluster, this shouldn’t be ignored, following Ukraine’s recent strike on a Russian early-warning radar, allegedly with a NATO drone. The radar is part of Moscow’s nuclear shield. Its disabling, which doesn’t appear to have happened, could have led to a nuclear response under Russian doctrine.
FOR BUSINESS. Russia will want to keep the fight conventional. A mass infantry assault could be an effective if costly way to force a ceasefire before Western aircraft arrive, or Kyiv risks further strikes at Russian strategic systems. A diplomatic battle is meanwhile being fought over peace talks. Next month’s summit in Switzerland will be a dud – Russia and China won’t join; Biden will attend a Hollywood fundraiser – but another may be held soon in Saudi Arabia.
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MALAYSIA. Peninsula campaign
Anwar attracts new investment, but not for the first time.
Google announced a $2 billion data centre in Malaysia Thursday, days after Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said he intended to attract $100 billion in semiconductor investments. Malaysia and China marked 50 years of ties with Friday.
INTELLIGENCE. With its first Apple store to be opened and speculation about more investment from Tesla, Malaysia is reclaiming its mantle as an Asian tiger. Balancing good ties with China and the West, while espousing Islamist sensibilities on Hamas as it does deals with Israeli tech, it is also playing a deft game of hedging. Yet Malaysia has seen this before, ahead of the 1997 Asian financial crisis and Anwar being jailed on trumped-up sodomy charges.
FOR BUSINESS. If Malaysia can maintain momentum, it could escape its lost decades. The ringgit is off a 26-year low. GDP grew 4.2% in the last quarter, the fastest pace in a year. Yet it risks alienating China if it attracts too much repatriated investment. Its chipmaking sector is dominated by 1990s icons like Intel. The US has questioned its relationship with Iran. Its relationship with Singapore, and its ethnic-Chinese minority, remains politically neuralgic.
ARGENTINA. Hero’s journey
Milei woos Silicon Valley but faces constraints at home.
President Javier Milei was due to meet Mark Zuckerberg Friday after meeting the CEOs of Apple, Google and OpenAI earlier in the week. Milei sacked his cabinet chief Monday as reforms languished in Congress and a market rally paused.
INTELLIGENCE. Since becoming president in an unconventional campaign, Milei has vowed to shake up Argentina’s sclerotic economy and he has had some success. Yet Argentina’s woes are fundamentally political and this requires the cajoling of an opposition-dominated congress. While many Argentines quietly yearn for a return to its historic bouts of authoritarian rule, Milei also knows his Western enthusiasts could desert him should he take that step.
FOR BUSINESS. Milei likes to compare himself to El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, whose second term starts Saturday (he will attend the inauguration). Yet few inside or beyond Argentina would let him to mimic Bukele’s quasi-dictatorship. Argentina’s economy is 30 times larger, even at current levels, and previous dictators have done things like invade British territory. Milei may play the anarchist, but he is constrained by domestic reality and global markets alike.