The Economist - 19 April 2025

Год выпуска: April 2025

Автор: The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group

Жанр: Экономика/Политика

Издательство: «The Economist Newspaper Ltd»

Формат: PDF (журнал на английском языке)

Качество: OCR

Количество страниц: 76

HOW A DOLLAR CRISIS WOULD UNFOLD

• If investors keep selling American assets, a grim fate awaits the world economy: leader, page 7.
• The dollar looks vulnerable, page 57.
• Europe’s opportunity, page 59.
• Poor countries would miss King Dollar, page 60.
• The greenback’s troublesome past: Free exchange, page 63.

China’s hold over America

• The big losers in the trade war will be American firms, page 50.
• In Trumpworld, China hawks are ceding ground, page 31.
• China struggles with an impulsive America: The Telegram, page 49.

Why Meta deserves to win

• Social media has plenty of problems. Lack of competition isn’t one of them: leader, page 8.

In praise of plastics

• They are not the problem, it is how they are managed: leader, page 9.
• Why it is hard to do without them, despite their health and environmental risks, page 47.
• A new generation of experiments could uncover the harm from microplastics, page 64.
• Better recycling, page 54.

Mario Vargas Llosa, a passionate liberal

• Obituary: page 74.

The world this week Politics

• Russia was widely denounced for its missile strikes on the city of Sumy in Ukraine, which killed 35 people. Russia claimed that it had targeted a meeting of Ukrainian commanders. The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine reported a 50% rise in civilian casualties from Russian attacks during March. Friedrich Merz, Germany’s incoming chancellor, described the attack on Sumy as “a serious war crime” and suggested that he was ready to start supplying Ukraine with Taurus cruise missiles. Two days earlier Ukraine’s allies, led by Britain and Germany, confirmed that they will give Ukraine €21bn ($24bn) in military support.
• Before the attack Donald Trump said “Russia has to get moving” on peace talks. Mr Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, held a four-hour meeting with Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg to discuss aspects of a ceasefire. Reports emerged that America won’t endorse a G7 statement condemning Russia’s strike on Sumy because it wants to keep the talks alive.
• The United Kingdom’s Supreme Court unanimously ruled that “the terms woman and sex in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex”. The case was brought by a women’s rights group against the Scottish government, which had said that the word “woman” could also include transwomen (natal males) who have a “gender recognition certificate”. The court pointed out that the Equality Act also separately gives transgender people protection from discrimination and harassment.
• A diplomatic spat between France and Algeria intensified when the French authorities charged an Algerian consular official and two other men with the brief abduction last year of Amir Boukhors, a critic of the Algerian government who is followed by im people on TikTok. In response Algeria expelled 12 French embassy workers, which prompted France to expel 12 Algerian consular staff and recall its ambassador from Algiers.

An innocent abroad

• The Trump administration confirmed that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadorean migrant whom the government admits was wrongly deported to a jail in El Salvador, was “alive and secure”. The Supreme Court has ruled that the government should facilitate his return. The judge overseeing the case criticised the government for doing “nothing” so far.
• Meanwhile, El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, visited the White House and said he would not return Mr Abrego Garcia, comparing him to a terrorist, even though he has not been charged with a crime. Mr Bukele is positioning himself as a regional ally of Donald Trump and has struck a deal that allows America to deport alleged gang members to a prison in El Salvador.
• Daniel Noboa was re-elected as Ecuador’s president by a comfortable margin of victory. His opponent from the left, Luisa Gonzalez, said Mr Noboa’s declaration of a state of emergency in seven states where she enjoys widespread support was intended to suppress her vote.
• Iran and America held a first round of talks in Oman about Iran’s nuclear programme. It was the highest-level meeting between the two countries since 2018. Both sides described the talks as “constructive”. Steve Witkoff, Mr Trump’s envoy, said that Iran would have to abandon its enrichment programme. Previously he had suggested that it could be allowed to enrich uranium at a low level in a new nuclear deal. The negotiations will continue.
• An Israeli air strike destroyed parts of the last fully functioning hospital in Gaza City. Medics said they received only 20 minutes’ warning before the attack. There were no casualties but one girl died because she was unable to get the care she needed. Israel said it was targeting a Hamas command-and-control centre there.
• Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema, who took power in Gabon in a coup in 2023, won the country’s presidential election with 90% of the vote, cementing his hold on the state. The vote took place under a new constitution and electoral code designed to ensure his victory.
• Two years into Sudan’s civil war more than 200 civilians were killed in attacks by the Rapid Support Forces in Darfur. The rebels targeted el-Fasher, the last city in the region still under the control of the Sudanese government, and surrounding refugee camps. Among those killed were the entire medical staff of Relief International, who were operating the last remaining clinic inside Zamzam camp.
• China and Vietnam signed dozens of co-operation agreements on everything from Al to joint maritime patrols to railway development. The agreements came as China’s leader, Xi Jinping, visited Vietnam on the first leg of his tour of South-East Asia. Mr Xi warned that protectionism “leads nowhere” and that a trade war would have “no winners”.
• The Democratic Party in Hong Kong held a preliminary vote among members to dissolve itself. The news marks a symbolic moment for the former British territory. For decades the Democrats were the city’s largest opposition party, but a new national security law in 2020 led to its leaders being arrested and imprisoned amid a more general crackdown on free expression.
• Singapore is to hold a general election on May 3rd. The People’s Action Party, which has been in power since independence in 1965, is all but guaranteed another victory, though the prime minister, Lawrence Wong, wants to ensure a bigger mandate. The pap took 61% of the vote in 2020, down from 70% in 2015.
• Harvard University refused to comply with the Trump administration’s demands that academic departments must have diverse views and that it curb the power of students and faculty, among other things. In a defiant message, the university referred to its constitutional rights and said no government should dictate what private colleges can teach. The government promptly carried out its threat to freeze $2.2bn in grants to Harvard.

Not on the same page

• The Pentagon sacked the commander in charge of America’s space base in Greenland, after she criticised a recent visit there by J.D. Vance, the vice-president. Mr Vance had said during his trip that Denmark was failing to protect its territory from Russia. Colonel Susannah Meyers reportedly responded that his views did not reflect those of Pituffik Space Base. The Pentagon said that Colonel Meyers’s remarks were subversive.

The world this week Business

• The Trump administration’s chaotic pronouncements on tariffs caused more uncertainty among investors. America’s customs agency said that smartphones, computers and chips, among other things, would be exempt from Donald Trump’s punitive levies, only for the president to say later that the exemptions would be temporary, as nobody is getting “off the hook”. Tech products will be exempt from reciprocal tariffs for a time but included in other duties on the chip industry that may be two months away, said Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, sowing more confusion. Mr Trump also said he was looking to help car companies, though without saying how.
• In a regulatory filing Nvidia warned that it expects to book a $5.5bn charge as it will now have to obtain special licences to sell its H20 chip in China. America’s Commerce Department issued new export restrictions to China on the H20 and AMD’s MI308 chip to “safeguard our national and economic security”. Both chips are used in artificial-intelligence applications.
• China continued its retaliations in the trade war. It emerged that the country’s shipments of a range of rare-earth metals critical to the production of electric vehicles have come to a halt after they were subjected to export controls. The government also reportedly told Chinese airlines not to accept deliveries of Boeing aircraft. Meanwhile, China’s exports rose sharply in March, an indication that companies rushed to fulfil orders before tariffs took full effect. That helped GDP grow by a robust 5.4% in the first quarter, year on year.
• Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley reported a surge in revenues from trading stocks in the first three months of the year, boosted by the volatility in the
• markets. Goldman’s equity traders had their best quarter ever. Revenues from market trading at JPMorgan Chase were up by 21%, year on year.
• Britain’s annual inflation rate fell in March to 2.6%. Inflation is widely expected to pick up again later this year in part because of a steep rise in utility bills for households.

Not happy

• A survey of American consumer sentiment published by the University of Michigan showed a sharp fall in April. The index registered a reading of 50.8. That was the second-lowest score since the survey began in 1952, though it was taken before Mr Trump announced some relief from his tariffs. Expectations of higher inflation rose sharply. The decline in sentiment is “pervasive and unanimous across age, income, education, geographic region and political affiliation”, said the survey’s director.
• The Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust trial against Meta got under way in Washington. The regulator argues that the acquisitions of Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014 by Facebook, as it was then, were intended to hobble competition and that Meta has since built “monopoly power” in personal socialnetworking, a narrow definition that excludes the likes of X and LinkedIn. If the FTC wins its case Meta could be forced to break up its socialmedia empire.
• Intel struck a deal to sell a 51% stake in its Altera business to Silver Lake, a private-equity firm, for $4.5bn. It is Intel’s first big sale of a non-core asset since Lip-Bu Tan became chief executive in March. The deal values Altera at $8.75bn. Intel paid nearly $iybn for it in 2015.
• The Chinese owner of British Steel, Jingye Group, said that it was on the brink of closing Britain’s last blast furnaces in Scunthorpe, warning that the plant was losing £700,000 ($925,000) a day. The closure would have left the country as the only G7 member without primary steel production. The government recalled Parliament to pass emergency legislation to keep the facility going and give the government direct control over British Steel. A £2.5bn fund will help maintain production.
• NATO announced that it had recently procured Palantir’s Maven Smart System, which provides Al military capabilities to the alliance’s operations and “data-enabled warfighting”. It was one of NATO’s quickest ever procurements, taking only six months from outlining the requirements to obtaining the system.

Handbags at dawn

• LVMH’s share price slumped after it announced a steep decline in sales of fashion and leather products. Demand remained subdued in China, which used to be a big source of growth for the luxury-goods industry. In a bad week for LVMH its stock fell so far after its announcement that its market capitalisation was overtaken by Hermes, a rival Parisian luxury house that it had once tried to buy.

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