The Economist - 14 June 2025

Год выпуска: June 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: 80

American disorder

• What happens when a radical performance artist has command of an army: leader, page 9.
• The meaning of the protests in California, page 19.
• Donald Trump has the legal authority to deploy troops in a crisis, page 20.

Hard truths about manufacturing

• Governments’ obsession with factories will be self-defeating: leader, page 10.
• Factory work is overrated. Here are the jobs of the future, page 60.
• The economic lessons from Ukraine’s spectacular drone success: Free exchange, page 66.
• Can India seize its iPhone moment? Page 28.

Delivery drones and flying cars

• Airborne packages and people will soon be whizzing through China’s cities: briefing, page 15.

Ecuador’s gang-busting

• A crucial experiment in dealing with gangs: leader, page 11.
• President Daniel Noboa explains how he intends to do both, page 25.

Europe’s defence cities

• Extra money is reviving some blighted places, page 42.

The world this week Politics

• Violent protests were triggered in Los Angeles by an attempt to arrest illegal migrants. Donald Trump’s decision to deploy the National Guard to the city, backed by US marines, to support immigration agents was condemned as a provocation by Democrats; Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, described the uninvited deployment as an abuse of presidential power. Karen Bass, the city’s mayor, eventually imposed a curfew in the protests’ hot spots. The Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, had no hesitation in putting the National Guard on standby there, as demonstrations spread to the state.
• A Salvadorean migrant who was mistakenly deported by America to El Salvador was returned to the United States. American courts had told the Trump administration to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. After months of foot-dragging, it eventually relented, and sent him straight to a courtroom in Nashville on charges of transporting illegal migrants within the US.
• Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Norway placed sanctions on two far-right government ministers in Israel, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, for their alleged “repeated incitements of violence against Palestinian communities”.
• In Gaza the Hamas-run health ministry said that more Palestinians had been killed near aid centres run by the American-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Israel has accused militants of trying to disrupt
• the distribution of supplies, which remain far short of what is needed to feed the population. Five workers from the GHF were shot dead, which the foundation blamed on Hamas. Adding to the carnage, Israel confirmed that it had armed a criminal gang in Gaza in the hope it will fight Hamas. The gang is thought to have stolen aid in the past.
• Israeli naval forces boarded a ship being used by activists, including Greta Thunberg, to bring aid to Gaza. Israel said the ship was a stunt, describing it as a “selfie yacht” with little actual aid on board. Ms Thunberg was deported.

Let’s get out of here

• Wagner, a mercenary group backed by Russia, said it was leaving Mali. The group claimed it had accomplished its mission of helping the junta wrest back control from jihadists. Yet there is little evidence that the threat from jihadism, which is spilling from the Sahel into neighbouring countries, has diminished.
• At least 20 people were killed in attacks in north-central Nigeria. It was the latest flare-up of violence in the region, where clashes between nomadic herders and settled farmers are common.
• An Air India flight destined for London’s Gatwick airport crashed soon after taking off from Ahmedabad. More than 240 people were on board.
• The government in Pakistan announced a new budget, which cuts overall spending by 7% to help comply with an IMF loan agreement. But following the recent military clash with India, defence spending was increased by about 20%.
• Sara Duterte, the vice-president of the Philippines, was thrown a lifeline in her impeachment trial in Congress when the Senate decided to return the case to the House to reconsider its constitutionality.
• Ms Duterte, who may run for president in 2028, hopes to count on the support of a newly elected Congress when it convenes in late July.
• The high court in Seoul decided to indefinitely postpone a trial of South Korea’s new president, Lee Jae-myung, for alleged breaches of election law in 2022. The announcement allows Mr Lee to begin his term without the distraction of a potentially embarrassing court case.
• In Colombia Miguel Uribe Turbay, a conservative senator and presidential candidate, was in a critical condition after being shot in the head at a campaign rally. A 15-year-old suspect was arrested. Marco Rubio, America’s secretary of state, said the shooting was engendered by “violent leftist rhetoric” from the government. Meanwhile, at least eight people were killed in bomb-and-gun attacks centred on the city of Cali and nearby towns.
• Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s president from 2019 to 2023, gave testimony at his trial in the Supreme Court for allegedly trying to stop Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking power after he won the 2022 election. Mr Bolsonaro denied plotting to overthrow the government, but admitted he had sought “alternatives” to stay in office. He also apologised to the court’s judges, who hold his fate in their hands, for making untrue claims of corruption against them.
• Rachel Reeves, Britain’s chancellor of the exchequer, unveiled a review of public spending. New money was allocated to health and defence, but other departments, such as the Home Office, which oversees policing and immigration, were kept short of cash. Ms Reeves also announced a huge new programme for affordable housing by reallocating capital spending.
• Russia continued its bombardment of Ukraine, conducting intense airstrikes and launching one of its biggest drone attacks on Kyiv since the war began. Meanwhile, NATO’s secretary-general, Mark Rutte, called for a 400% rise in spending on air defences. A summit of the alliance starting on June 24th is expected to call on member states formally to increase defence spending, broadly defined, to 5% of GDP. Predicting that Russia could strike NATO within five years, Mr Rutte believes that “We’re all on the eastern flank now.”
• In Poland the centrist Civic Coalition easily won a vote of confidence in parliament, where it holds a majority. The vote had been called by Donald Tusk, the prime minister, to shore up his government following the victory of Karol Nawrocki, a conservativenationalist, in the recent presidential election.
• Ten people were shot dead and 11 injured by a gunman at a school in Graz, Austria’s second-most-populous city. The shooter, a 21-year-old former pupil at the school, killed himself.

Couldn’t be bothered

• A referendum in Italy that would, among other things, have lowered residency requirements for migrants to apply for citizenship was declared invalid because not enough people voted. Turnout was 30%, well below the 50% threshold for referendums. Giorgia Meloni, the right-wing prime minister, had described the plebiscite as unnecessary, because Italy’s immigration laws were already “very open”.

The world this week Business

• America and China reached a tentative agreement on trade following talks in London that were attended by senior members of both governments. America’s main sticking-point was greater access to China’s rare earths, which the White House said had been resolved. Under the framework America will still charge a 55% tariff on Chinese goods, made up of a 10% reciprocal levy, 20% tariff related to fentanyl smuggling and 25% in existing duties. Donald Trump described it as a done deal, which would include Chinese students “using our colleges and universities”.
• Constrained by Mr Trump’s trade war, China’s exports to America plunged by 35% in May, year on year. Many businesses brought forward their orders for Chinese goods earlier in the year to beat the imposition of tariffs. Still, China’s exports in total increased by 5% in May, and were up by 12% to the European Union.
• Despite Washington’s new-found bonhomie with China over trade, the United States embassy in Panama announced that the American government would replace telecoms towers in the country that have been made by Huawei, a Chinese company, with “secure American technology”. This would help “counter the malign influence of China throughout our hemisphere”, it said.
• The World Bank cut its estimate of global growth this year because of “trade-related headwinds”. The world economy is now expected to expand by 2.3%, down from the bank’s January forecast of 2.7%. America’s GDP is now expected to grow by 1.4%, down from 2.3% in January. The bank said that “Without a swift course correction, the harm to living standards could be deep”.
• Central banks worldwide now hold almost as much gold as they did in 1965, according to the European Central Bank, which found that bullion had replaced the euro in 2024 as the second-biggest store of official reserves, after the dollar. Gold prices have rocketed from $2,320 a troy ounce a year ago to around $3,350.

A stitch-up?

• In France the Senate voted for a bill to ban advertising for fastfashion companies such as Shein and Temu amid concerns that their cheap almost-dis-posable clothing is not environmentally sustainable. The bill has a whiff of protectionism about it by making a distinction between “ultra” fast fashion, such as that sold by the two Chinese companies, and “classic” fast fashion supplied by European retailers, such as Zara and H&M.
• Following Mr Trump’s imposition of tariffs on cars made in Mexico, General Motors announced plans to invest $4bn in its factories in the United States, bringing home the production of some vehicles that currently takes place across the border.
• America’s annual rate of inflation rose slightly in May, to 2.4%. There is little evidence so far that the higher costs of imported goods, because of tariffs, are being passed on to consumers, though economists expect that to change in the coming months.
• The British government confirmed that it would invest a further £11.5bn ($15.5bn) in the Sizewell C nuclear plant on top of the £2.7bn it put in last year. The plant is expected to start supplying energy to homes in the mid-2030s, but the funding commitment is only for the current parliament, or around three to four years.
• Warner Bros Discovery decided to split into two separate companies, one focused on its film studio, HBO and streaming assets and the other on its television channels, which include CNN. The split frees the fast-growing streaming side of the business from the waning cable-TV side.
• Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference was an unusually subdued affair. The main announcements were an upgrade to Apple’s operating system and a decision to let app developers access its artificial intelligence, but there were no big developments in AI. Apple is reportedly struggling to create the large language models it needs and investors are worried that it is falling behind in the Al race. Its share price has fallen by more than 20% this year, an even worse performance than Tesla’s.

When bros become foes

• Tesla’s stock clawed most of its losses, after falling by 14% when Mr Trump threatened to end government contracts with Elon Musk’s companies following the spectacular breakup of their relationship. Mr Musk has left the government and criticised Mr Trump’s “big, beautiful” spending bill. “I regret some of my posts” about the president, he said, without elaborating if that meant his claim (for which he produced no evidence) that Mr Trump is mentioned in secret files on Jeffrey Epstein, a deceased sex offender. Mr Trump said he had “no hard feelings” and opened the door to a reconciliation.

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