Trump and circumstance
The UK, the US, Mexico, Canada, the Balkans, Turkey, Ethiopia, and Somali.
The five things you need to know today:
BRITAIN. UNITED STATES. The president wants to be king without an empire.
MEXICO. CANADA. Trump slaps back on the threat of tariffs.
THE BALKANS. The jailing of Srpska’s president lights a fire.
TURKEY. A call for the PKK to surrender could see it splintering instead.
ETHIOPIA. SOMALIA. A historic visit mends ties but the future remains uncertain.
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BRITAIN. UNITED STATES. Aukward
The president wants to be king without an empire.
Donald Trump described Britain as a "fantastic country" after being invited for a state visit. The president said he was “inclined' to support Keir Starmer’s Chagos deal with Mauritius but asked what the prime minister meant by "AUKUS.”
INTELLIGENCE. TStarmer’s visit also yielded promises of a “very good” trade deal. But beyond the moment’s headlines (Ukraine, Gaza, freedom of speech), the big outcomes were an invitation to visit King Charles and more evidence that Trump remains fundamentally uninterested in global leadership beyond the Western Hemisphere. The Chagos deal will endanger the US’s major Indian Ocean base. AUKUS is supposed to be a pillar of the US-led order in East Asia.
FOR BUSINESS. AUKUS, which commits Britain, the US and Australia to long-term military cooperation, seems not to be on Trump’s radar. Coupled with his indifference to Britain’s handover of the Chagos Islands, this suggests he either doesn’t care or sees such assets as dispensable (should, for instance, the US retrench from the region). Such signs will be as welcomed in Beijing as his noncommittal stance on Ukraine would have been welcomed in Moscow.
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MEXICO. CANADA. Rough trade
Trump slaps back on the threat of tariffs.
Donald Trump said 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada were due to start on 4 March, after earlier suggesting 2 April. He also said he'd place an extra 10% on China. Mexico extradited 29 jailed cartel bosses, including the killer of a DEA agent.
INTELLIGENCE. Mexico and Canada continue to act on Trump's fentanyl concerns (China is so far behaving as if they