The Economist - September 20 2025

Год выпуска: September 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: 88

HOW ISRAEL IS LOSING AMERICA

• The vision of Israel as a stand-alone “super-Sparta” is a tragic misconception: leader, page 9.
• America is falling out of love with Israel, page 16.
• Israelis do not like to think about estrangement from their closest ally, page 19.
• The latest attack on Gaza, page 41.
• The Trump administration is policing speech on campus: Lexington, page 26.

The Trumpification of Britain

• As Donald Trump receives a royal welcome, Britain adjusts to a MAGA world, page 49.
• Populists are on the march across Europe, but not all in the same direction: leader, page 10.
• The AfD is dividing Germany, page 45.
• How France’s hard right is secretly courting the Paris elite, page 46.

Steve Witkoff, the apprentice

• He was determined to get the Gaza hostages out. Instead, Donald Trump’s omni-envoy got an education: 1843, page 57.

China’s precarious gig economy

• How 200m temporary workers will shape China, page 69.
• Lessons for the future of jobs everywhere: leader, page 12.

Sunlight: in praise of rays

• Might the sun’s health benefits outweigh the risks of skin cancer? Page 75.

The world this week Politics

• The Israel Defence Forces said it had gained control of widespread parts of Gaza city, as Israel launched its long-expected ground attack. Scores of Palestinians were reportedly killed and thousands more fled; the IDF said 600,000 people remained. It says its aim is to defeat the 3,000 Hamas fighters still in the city. Meanwhile, Marco Rubio met Binyamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem to discuss “what the future holds” for Gaza. The American secretary of state admitted that Donald Trump was unhappy with Israel’s attempt to assassinate Hamas’s leaders in Qatar, although he also said that America stands with Israel.
• Saudi Arabia signed a mutualdefence pact with Pakistan, a nuclear-armed country, strengthening their decades-long security partnership. The accord comes after Gulf states and other countries in the region were rattled by Israel’s attack in Qatar. The office of Pakistan’s prime minister said the agreement “states that any aggression against either country shall be considered an aggression against both”. When asked if that includes the use of nuclear weapons, officials said the pact was “comprehensive”.
• America, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates called for a three-month truce in Sudan’s civil war. This temporary break would be followed by an immediate permanent ceasefire and a ninemonth transition to civilian rule. The proposal comes after renewed efforts by America to broker an end to a war that has displaced millions.
• Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s president, said that the guilty verdict handed down to Jair Bolsonaro, his predecessor, by the country’s supreme court safeguarded the rule of law and democracy. He also criticised Donald Trump for trying to undermine the court during its deliberations. Four of the five justices deciding the case found Mr Bolsonaro guilty of conspiring to stop the transfer of power after he lost the 2022 election. He was sentenced to 27 years’ confinement.

Frenemies

• American forces struck a second Venezuelan boat suspected of transporting drugs, killing three “narcoterrorists” according to Mr Trump. Meanwhile, America added Colombia to a list of countries judged to be not co-operating in the war on drugs. Cocaine production has soared in Colombia, but the leftist president, Gustavo Petro, has been less robust than his predecessors in supporting action against drug gangs. He often remarks that whisky kills more people than cocaine.
• The government in Indonesia announced another stimulus package, which includes providing poorer households with rice. Street protests are still taking place against the perks enjoyed by politicians amid a cost-of-living crisis, but not on the same scale as the recent deadly disturbances. Separately, the central bank surprised markets by cutting interest rates.
• Following the recent student-led unrest in Nepal, in which 72 people were killed, Sushila Karki, the newly appointed interim prime minister, promised to hand over power to the government that emerges from elections planned for March 5th. “We have to work according to the thinking of the Gen Z generation,” said Ms Karki.
• The Taliban banned fibre-optic networks across the north of Afghanistan “to prevent immorality”. It is thought to be the first time fibre-optic links have been prohibited in any part of the country, though more expensive mobile connections are still allowed.
• The right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party tripled its vote share in municipal elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state, which includes the cities of Cologne and Düsseldorf. The AfD overtook the Greens to come third, increasing its vote from 5% in 2020 to 14.5%. The Christian Democrats came first, holding their vote steady at 33%.
• The cause of Alexei Navalny’s death in a Russian prison was poisoning, according to his wife, Yulia Navalnaya, who managed to smuggle biological samples from her late husband to foreign laboratories for testing. Navalny, Russia’s main opposition leader, was found dead in February 2024.
• Prosecutors in Romania charged Calin Georgescu, who came top in the first round of a presidential election last November, with plotting a coup. The prosecutors allege that Mr Georgescu met a group of military types to discuss seizing power after his victory was annulled by the courts over concerns that Russia had given material support to his campaign. The election was voided and Mr Georgescu was barred from standing in May’s re-run.
• Tyler Robinson was charged with the murder of Charlie Kirk, a conservative commentator and activist. Enraged by the killing, J.D. Vance, America’s vice-president, promised to clamp down on “radical left lunatics”. Mr Trump said he might designate Antifa, a far-left movement, as a domestic terrorist organisation.

He believes in free speech?

• Donald Trump launched a lawsuit against the Neiv York Times, claiming it published defamatory articles about him.
• He is seeking $i5bn in damages. He is also currently suing the Wall Street Journal. ABC News and CBS News’s parent company have settled lawsuits brought by Mr Trump. ABC pulled Jimmy Kimmel’s nightly talk show after he suggested Mr Robinson supported MAGA. The show drew criticism from the Federal Communications Commission. Last month Mr Trump pressed the FCC to revoke the broadcast licences for the ABC and NBC networks, claiming they were biased.
• Mr Trump made a state visit to Britain, becoming the first American president to have been given the honour of two official trips to see the monarch (he paid his first visit in 2019, to see Queen Elizabeth II). Mr Trump was greeted with an unprecedented amount of pageantry by King Charles III. Coinciding with the trip American companies, including Microsoft and OpenAi, announced big new investments in the country.
• The president landed in a restless Britain, where scandal has claimed senior Labour politicians and advisers alike. A “Unite the Kingdom” protest, mostly against mass migration, saw 150,000 people march in London (the far-right organisers claimed attendance was much higher). Meanwhile, the courts blocked the deportation of the first migrant under the government’s new “one in, one out” scheme, which is supposed to be its flagship policy to deter illegal migrants. Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage, is the main beneficiary of Britain’s febrile mood. A Tory MP defected to the party this week.

The world this week Business

• The Federal Reserve cut interest rates for the first time this year, reducing its benchmark rate by a quarter of a percentage point to a range of 4% to 4.25%. Donald Trump has waged a bitter campaign pressing the Fed for bigger and more frequent cuts. The president’s nominee for the board of governors, Stephen Miran, was this week approved by the Senate in a super-swift process that allowed him to vote at the Fed’s meeting; he dissented from the decision, arguing for a half-point cut. Lisa Cook, whom Mr Trump is trying to sack from the board, also got to vote after an appeals court ruled that she could stay in her job for now.
• Britain’s annual inflation rate remained unchanged in August, at 3.8%. Food and drink were again among the main upward forces in the consumerprice index, growing by 5.1%, up from 4.9% in July.
• Companies should not be required to issue quarterly earnings and should report just twice a year, according to Mr Trump. The Securities and Exchange Commission said it would consider the proposal, a more favourable response than when Mr Trump raised the issue during his first term as president. Quarterly reports have long faced criticism as a distraction for companies from long-term goals, but supporters of the system say investors need frequent financial updates, without which market speculation would be rife.
• The SEC found itself mired in a separate controversy amid criticisms that it is curbing shareholders’ rights. The regulator decided to allow ExxonMobil to create a new system for its annual meetings that automatically counts the votes of small retail investors who opt in to the scheme as being in favour of management (they also have a chance to opt out). The plan follows Exxon’s battles with activist investors pushing it to curtail oil output.
• Separately, the SEC said that firms seeking an IPO could now require investors to resolve claims of fraud through arbitration rather than the courts.
• Alphabet’s share price pushed it past a market valuation of $3trn, only the fourth company ever to do so. Of the other three, Nvidia is now worth over $4trn, Microsoft has briefly crossed the $4trn threshold and Apple is worth $3.5trn. Alphabet’s stock has been boosted by a judge’s recent decision in an antitrust case to allow Google to keep its Chrome browser.

Because you’re worth it

• Tesla’s stock also rallied after it emerged that Elon Musk had bought $1bn-worth of its shares. Mr Musk has said he wants to boost his stake in the carmaker to prevent a takeover.
• Robyn Denholm, Tesla’s chairwoman, has gone on a media offensive to defend a proposed $itrn compensation package for Mr Musk, referring to his “unique characteristics”.
• Mr Trump said a deal had been reached with China to transfer TikTok’s American assets to American owners. The deadline for ByteDance, the owner of the social-media app, to divest its holdings or risk being shut down in America was again extended, to allow the details to be worked out.
• The accord on TikTok did not extend to other sources of friction in tech between America and China. According to reports, China’s internet regulator has stopped tech firms from buying Nvidia’s RTX Pro 6000D chips, which had been made specifically for the country. China also said that Nvidia had violated antitrust laws when it bought Mellanox, a provider of networking equipment, despite conditionally approving the deal in 2020.
• Paul Bulcke said he would step down as chairman of Nestle amid shareholders’ disquiet about his handling of the dismissal of Laurent Freixe as chief executive for having a romantic affair with an employee. Mr Bulcke was due to retire next April.
• The EU has done almost nothing to implement the recommendations of a report on competitiveness in the year since its publication, according to Mario Draghi, the report’s author. Mr Draghi, a former head of the European Central Bank, released his findings to great fanfare a year ago, calling for competition rules to be relaxed, capital markets to be integrated and huge investments in innovation. Europe is now “in a harder place”, Mr Draghi lamented. “Sometimes inertia is even presented as respect for the rule of law.”

Half baked

• The Jerry in Ben & Jerry’s decided to leave the ice-cream company he helped found. Jerry Greenfield says he can no longer pursue his values of justice, equity and love at the firm, which “were more important than the company itself”. It’s been a rocky road for Ben & Jerry’s in recent years, as it clashed with Unilever, its parent company, notably over its attempts to stop selling ice cream in Israeli settlements.

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