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Hard Numbers: Tesla approves $1 trillion Musk package, Kazakhstan wants to join Abraham Accords, Typhoon rips through Vietnam, & More
Elon Musk attends the opening ceremony of the new Tesla Gigafactory for electric cars in Gruenheide, Germany, March 22, 2022.
$1 trillion: Tesla shareholders approved a $1-trillion pay package for owner Elon Musk, a move that is set to make him the world’s first trillionaire – if the company meets certain targets. The pay will come in the form of stocks. Musk had threatened to quit Tesla if shareholders didn’t approve the package.
30: During a visit to the White House on Thursday, Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said he expects to sign the Abraham Accords, an agreement that normalizes relations between Arab nations and Israel. To eagle-eyed observers, this is a rather odd move: In addition to not being an Arab country, Kazakhstan has already had full diplomatic ties with Israel for 30 years. The idea, however, is reportedly to give some momentum to the accords, as the US encourages Saudi Arabia to join them.
5: Typhoon Kalmaegi, which tore through the Philippines earlier this week, is now smashing through Vietnam, killing at least five in the communist Southeast Asian country. The Central Highlands region, where lots of coffee is produced, was largely spared. Meanwhile the death toll in the Philippines keeps rising, reaching 188, with another 100 missing.
1.1 million: US employers have made 1.1 million job cuts so far this year, according to Challenger Gray and Christmas, a major outplacement firm. That’s the highest since the pandemic – these types of numbers in the past have indicated the US economy is in, or nearing, a recession.
Over 100: Protests in Tanzania against the election results have turned deadly. Estimates vary on the death toll in the East African nation of 67 million people: Amnesty International confirmed at least 100 deaths, a security source said the number was above 500, while the opposition party said over 700 people had been killed. The opposition has accused President Samia Suluhu Hassan of campaign repression – she won 97% of the Oct. 29 vote, per the official tally.
Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Germany's Chancellor Friedrich Merz walk after a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP30), in Belem, Brazil, on November 7, 2025.
When it comes to global warming, the hottest ticket in the world right now is for the COP30 conference, which runs for the next week in Brazil.
What’s COP30? It’s the 30th installment of an annual UN-backed event that brings together world leaders, diplomats, and experts for two broad purposes: finding ways to slow global warming and to address the impacts of climate change.
This year’s meeting, held in the Amazon rainforest city of Belém, comes amid huge new challenges to the climate agenda. The government of the world’s largest economy, the US, is once again actively hostile towards climate policy. The world’s leading philanthropist, Bill Gates, has recently downgraded climate change as a key concern.
What’s more, it’s been ten years since nearly 200 countries signed the Paris Agreement, pledging to reduce emissions in order to keep global temperature rises within specific targets. The efforts have largely failed, and the targets are now unreachable.
So what is achievable at this year’s COP? To learn more we sat down with Herbert Crowther, an energy and climate expert at Eurasia Group. Our conversation has been lightly edited.
GZERO: Herbert, you’re on your way to COP 30 in Brazil. How does this COP feel different from previous ones? Are the stakes higher? Lower?
This COP feels different because there isn’t a single trademark deliverable or negotiating point. Most other recent COPs have had that: last year at COP29 it was about setting financing targets, for example.
This year the larger question is how to find ways to address the current geopolitical obstacles. The Brazilian COP hosts have tried to frame this in terms of COP30 being about “implementation” of prior commitments rather than negotiating new commitments, but that framing has faced some pushback.
So it’s all much more unpredictable than other recent gatherings. From a negotiating point of view, the stakes are perhaps lower – but from a political sentiment point of view, the stakes are higher.
GZERO: The Trump administration has left the Paris Agreement. Bill Gates is focusing on other things. That means two huge, longstanding pillars of support for climate policy are now gone. Who is going to drive this stuff now?
Those are real headwinds. But there are other data points that are less foreboding. Besides the US, no other country has departed the Paris Agreement. The costs of low-carbon energy continue to drop, driven in significant part by Chinese manufacturers. The private sector generally remains bullish on decarbonization technologies. And many philanthropies will still engage in climate work, even as they change their public framing around it or prioritize other issues. The area where politics may be most disruptive is in the question of financing: projects may be more difficult to finance and more reliant on government support.
GZERO: What’s a realistic expectation of what can be achieved at this COP? What are you most optimistic about and what are you most pessimistic about?
We will likely see more agreements between countries on carbon trading, as well as some new targets for financing and monitoring projects that help countries to adapt to climate change.
I’m more pessimistic on the ability of COP30 to find a political message that will respond effectively to this geopolitical environment. In many ways, a positive vision for COP30 is simply to maintain credibility for the multilateral process, and to create conditions for a COP31 next year that has more time to identify solutions tailored to this geopolitical environment.
GZERO: A lay reader, or a person who doesn’t follow climate policy closely, might look at the headlines about how countries keep failing to meet their obligations, and wonder “why keep having COP at all?” How would you answer that?
That’s a very understandable concern. What is sometimes lost by those headlines is the value of the COP process as a choreography mechanism to encourage countries to regularly deepen their long-term climate ambitions. Most countries have done this ahead of COP30 with new 2035 targets, even if those commitments are not as ambitious as many observers would like. Recalibrating expectations and finding a new political framework for the whole process will be a topic of discussion in Belém.
No matter what happens, you’ll be in Brazil! What’s one thing you’re excited to do there that has NOTHING to do with climate change?
I am looking forward to seeing Belém – my first time in the Amazon! I will be consuming lots of Brazilian espressos throughout the week.
Have a couple for us too – enjoy!
What We’re Watching: Orbán seeks Russian oil carveout from Trump, Nigerien uranium to pass through risky area, Israel hits southern Lebanon
US President Donald Trump and Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán shake hands as they pose for a photo, at a world leaders' summit on ending the Gaza war, amid a US-brokered prisoner-hostage swap and ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on October 13, 2025.
MAGA’s European hero comes to Washington – with a mission
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán will visit the White House today to try to convince US President Donald Trump to allow him to continue purchasing Russian oil despite new US sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil firms. Oil refineries in China and India – the largest two buyers of Russian oil – are already exploring alternatives. But Orbán is hoping he can leverage his personal and ideological connection to Trump to gain a carveout. Landlocked Hungary relies on Russian pipelines for nearly 90% of its oil, though other non-Russian import routes via the Balkans are also possible. With the opposition surging ahead of next April’s election, there’s a lot on the line for Orbán. Will Trump give his mate a favor, or put his foot down?
Will Nigerien uranium reach Russia?
French officials believe Russian nuclear giant Rosatom struck a $170-million deal with the ruling military junta in Niger to purchase 1,000 tons of uranium from a mine formerly run by a French firm. The reported deal is the latest sign of Russia’s growing influence in the region, at the expense of the former colonial power, France. The greater concern with this purchase, though, could be that the uranium will have to pass through areas of Burkina Faso that are controlled by jihadist groups. Islamist militants are gaining momentum in West Africa – they have the Malian capital surrounded – sparking concern among governments in the region.
Israel attacks southern Lebanon
Israel temporarily breached its ceasefire deal with Lebanon on Thursday, issuing evacuation orders before bombing buildings in southern Lebanon it claimed were a part of Hezbollah’s military infrastructure. One person was killed and three were injured, per media reports. The Israeli military said the strikes were due to Hezbollah rebuilding its military capabilities, despite the Lebanese government agreeing to disarm the group. Fears are rising in Lebanon that Israel may resume major airstrikes if Hezbollah doesn’t give up its weapons soon, but Lebanon's government worries about inflaming local tensions if they push Hezbollah too aggressively.
What We’re Watching: Milei sticks to his guns, Putin gets ready to test, Central Asia comes to Washington
Argentina's President Javier Milei gestures after the La Libertad Avanza party won the midterm election, which is seen as crucial for Milei's administration after US President Donald Trump warned that future support for Argentina would depend on Milei's party performing well in the vote, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on October 26, 2025.
Argentina’s Milei says no float just yet
Argentine President Javier Milei says he still won’t float the peso freely, signaling he’ll continue to spend his country’s central bank reserves to artificially manage the exchange rate until the 2027 presidential election. Why is that a big deal? Just last month, ahead of the midterm elections, Milei got $2 billion from the United States – as well as a $20 billion credit line – to shore up dwindling reserves. Keeping the currency strong is part of his broader effort to bring down inflation, which includes taking a chainsaw to government spending. But investors expected that after the midterms – which he won handily – he’d move in a more market- friendly direction, letting the peso float. So much for that. If the policy puts reserves in danger again, will the self-styled “anarcho-capitalist” president get another bailout from Tío Sam?
Putin signals he’s ready to match any new US nuclear tests
Just days after US President Donald Trump announced that the Pentagon would resume nuclear testing – without going into some key details – Russian President Vladimir Putin signaled he is ready to do the same, asking members of his security council yesterday for proposals. Neither country has tested a nuclear warhead in decades, although both still test and maintain delivery systems such as rockets and missiles. A return to actual warhead testing could provoke a dangerous new arms race at a time when arms control agreements are already withering fast. For more, see our recent report here.
The ‘stans come to stan Trump
The leaders of the five Central Asian republics – can you name them? – will meet with Trump at the White House today. Russia has long dominated the resource-rich former-Soviet region, but China has made significant commercial inroads in recent years. Trump is seeking greater US access to critical minerals and other resources there, while the Central Asians – wary of both Russian intentions and China’s heft – are keen to diversify their economic and security ties. (Btw, the five are: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Did you get ‘em all?)
Hard Numbers: Bank of Canada slashes staff, US flights grounded by shutdown, Mexico’s president groped in viral incident, Japan targets ursine enemies
Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks during a press conference on the sidelines of the 47th ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on October 27, 2025.
10%: The Bank of Canada plans to lay off 10% of its staff. The move comes amid broader cuts of thousands of government workers as Prime Minister Mark Carney tries to streamline operations and gird the country against the longer-term impacts of Donald Trump’s trade war.
40: The US government shutdown will hit travellers this weekend, as the Trump administration plans to cut 10% of air traffic at 40 of the country’s busiest airports. Thousands of flights will be canceled. The move is meant to ease working conditions for air traffic controllers, who have been on the job without pay since the shutdown began more than a month ago.
501: Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has filed a criminal complaint against a man who groped her breast and tried to kiss her on Tuesday. The incident was captured on video and went viral. “If I don’t file a complaint, then what message does that send to all Mexican women?” Sheinbaum said. The incident shines a fresh light on the country’s huge problem of violence against women – there have been 501 femicides in the country so far this year. Experts say that’s a vast undercount.
100: Japan hasn’t fought a war in 80 years, but the government has just deployed troops to deal with an internal enemy: bears. This year there have been more than 100 attacks by the animals – including at a hot springs, a bus stop, and inside a supermarket – leaving a record 12 people dead. Overpopulation and shortages of natural food is driving the bears more into settled areas to fatten up ahead of the winter hibernation.
20: Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s 20th term in Congress will be her last, as the 85-year-old representative for San Francisco and announced she would retire. A fierce leader who has politics in her blood, Pelosi was the first woman to ever serve as speaker, holding the gavel for eight years cumulatively. She was also the Democratic leader in the House for 20 years. Arguably her biggest legislative achievement was shepherding the Affordable Care Act through Congress – although she hated the final version of the bill.October 21, 2025: The owner of this cattle feedlot in Sergeant Bluff, Iowa, USA, used to fly a Trump/Vance flag. The Trump/Vance flag is no longer flying at the feedlot.
These days, US farmers aren’t just worried about the weather jeopardizing their harvests. They’re keeping a close eye on geopolitical storms as well.
The American agricultural industry exports roughly 20% of its production, making it heavily reliant on global trade. This year, China – the third biggest buyer of US agriculture – has drastically cut back orders in response to President Donald Trump’s tariffs. While China agreed to resume buying soybeans, a major import crop, after meeting with Trump at the ASEAN summit last week, it has not bought any US corn, wheat, sorghum, or soybeans so far this year. Accordingly, the USDA projects that American agricultural exports to China will fall 30% compared to last year, to $17 billion. That’s down more than 50% since 2022.
“There’s uncertainty in the markets,” Farm Bureau economist Dr. Faith Parum explains. “Farmers are making decisions now for next year, unsure of where the markets are for what they planted this year.”
Parum says she is “optimistic” about the trade deals Trump made with Southeast Asian countries at the ASEAN summit last week, as Malaysia, Cambodia, and Vietnam all opened up to more US exports. The region is now the fastest-growing export market for US agriculture, with over $12 billion in products shipped there last year.
But the US-China trade tensions come at a bad time for many farmers. Despite a record corn harvest this year, many US growers are losing more than $100 an acre, according to Parum, squeezed between falling crop prices, a result of losing their major buyer, and rising production costs. Parum says production costs, like fertilizer, transportation, and labor, have increased over the past few years. Fertilizer prices have not stabilized since Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine, and have risen since July because of China limiting exports. Meanwhile, immigration crackdowns have caused the price of farm labor to go up.
From 2020 to 2022, 61% of the hired farm workers were immigrants, and only 7% were US born – the rest were immigrants who had obtained US citizenship. As a result, according to Eurasia Group US policy expert Noah Daponte-Smith, “A lot of [workers] are losing their authorization to work or being deported outright. And that is creating labor market pressures in the food supply chain that are pushing prices up.”
“[Immigration] is one of these issues where administration policy counteracts other policies, namely: keeping food prices down,” Daponte-Smith added.
This tension can also be seen in the meat aisle. Beef prices are at record highs due to droughts which have shrunk herd sizes. Trump’s solution was to quadruple imports of Argentine beef. The deal gave Argentine President Javier Milei, an ideological ally of Trump’s, a lifeline ahead of midterm election but enraged US beef producers who were suddenly subjected to more foreign competition. The pushback was immediate, prompting Vice President JD Vance to hold a private meeting with lawmakers from leading agricultural states to hear out their grievances.
There’s a political component to this: America’s agriculture industry is disproportionately consolidated in Republican led-states like Iowa, Texas, and Nebraska, and farmers are an “ancestral” contingent of the GOP, says Daponte-Smith. Republicans have a 25-point advantage over the Democratic party in rural areas of the country, according to Pew Research Center.
“Trump’s between a rock and a hard place,” says Daponte-Smith. “The administration campaigned on an anti-inflation message, but his efforts to bring prices down anger a core Republican constituency.”
Yet farmers remain optimistic about the country’s direction, according to Purdue University, with 71% saying the US is “headed in the right direction.” However, confidence in tariffs has declined: only 51% now believe tariffs will strengthen the agricultural economy, down from 70% in spring. Meanwhile, 30% think tariffs will weaken it.
Politically, Trump appears to be moving quickly to neutralize the farm backlash, offering farmers a multibillion dollar financial support package drawn from tariff revenues.
“They don’t want this to be happening next August,” says Daponte-Smith. “That’s when it really could be an issue.”
The United States is #winning.
At least that’s how it looks if you’re tracking the economy, market indices, or the parade of countries lining up to cut deals with President Donald Trump. Asian and Gulf countries have pledged trillions of dollars in foreign direct investment in the US during the Trump presidency. The United Kingdom, the European Union, and several Southeast Asian nations have offered non-reciprocal trade deals. Canada folded on its plan to impose a digital services tax. Japan made unilateral concessions on automotive tariffs and Nippon Steel. European pharmaceutical companies are relocating production stateside to avoid punitive tariffs. Consumer confidence may be in the doldrums, but spending remains resilient (driven by the wealthiest Americans). Combined with an artificial intelligence spending boom and massive deficit spending – enabled by the dollar’s ongoing status as the global reserve currency – markets continue betting on American liquidity and growth.
It’s a heady moment. But while the short-term picture looks strong, the United States is systematically trading long-term strategic advantages for immediate tactical gains, with the accumulating costs hiding in plain sight.
Start with immigration. For decades, the cornerstone of America’s technological, economic, and soft-power dominance has been its ability to attract the best and brightest from around the world. Talented engineers, scientists, and entrepreneurs long chose the US because it promised opportunity, freedom, openness, and meritocracy – a fair shot at the American Dream. Now, the welcome mat is fraying. The Trump administration is increasingly hostile to immigrants (whether legal or illegal, skilled or unskilled), nativist sentiment among Americans is growing, and civil liberties (especially for non-white immigrants) feel increasingly uncertain. The numbers speak for themselves: International student arrivals to the US have declined by nearly 20% relative to last year. Meanwhile, China is rolling out new visas explicitly designed to poach high-skilled workers from the United States, and Canada is plastering airports with recruitment pitches. As America becomes a less attractive destination for top global talent relative to its competitors, the long-term economic damage will compound.
Then there are the universities. Yes, many humanities departments had grown intellectually insular and politically captured. Taking on these echo chambers for fringe woke ideology was long overdue. But the Trump administration has gone much further, slashing research infrastructure at America’s (and the world’s) finest universities. These institutions are what keep America at the cutting edge of advanced science and technology and draw the most talented students globally – the ones who become tomorrow’s leading researchers, inventors, and entrepreneurs. Undermining that ecosystem will erode one of the most important pillars of the US economy at a time when public trust in science itself is declining. Growing vaccine skepticism, embrace of conspiracy theories, reflexive rejection of expertise – these aren’t just cultural quirks, they’re a structural disadvantage when competing against countries where faith in science remains strong. They’re making Americans less capable of driving the next wave of technological advances, and therefore less likely to dominate the commanding heights of the world economy and geopolitics.
Consider artificial intelligence. The United States is racing ahead in consumer-facing AI – chatbots, engagement-maximizing social media algorithms, generative tools to produce yet-more-addictive slop, ever-larger language models that claim to be one step closer to superintelligence – because that’s where the money is. But these technologies are also fragmenting society, amplifying misinformation, and possibly contributing to a kind of collective psychosis. China, by contrast, has channeled AI development away from consumer applications in favor of defense and industrial uses, which carry less risk of social fragmentation and more strategic upside.
It’s a similar story when it comes to energy. The United States has become the world’s most powerful petrostate, producing more oil, gas, and coal than any other country. That’s not inherently a problem – fossil fuels will continue to power data centers, agriculture, and heavy industry for decades to come. But the US has effectively ceded leadership on post-carbon energy to China, which already dominates battery technology, solar power, next-generation nuclear, and supply chains for critical minerals. Washington is doubling down on hydrocarbons while letting the future of energy pass it by.
Or take trade policy. The Trump administration is imposing the highest US tariffs in a century – including on major allies, on countries with no bilateral trade imbalances, and on sectors where America lacks capacity to ramp up domestic production quickly enough to avoid shortages or inflation. Following Trump’s Oct. 30 meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping – which put escalation on hold for a year and lowered fentanyl tariffs on China from 20% to 10% in exchange for politically-sensitive soybean purchases – the effective US tariff rate on Chinese imports now sits at 32%, close to the rate on ASEAN countries and lower than on its strategic partner India and South America’s largest economy, Brazil, which actually runs a trade surplus with the United States.
The cumulative result is a roughly 17% regressive tax on American businesses and consumers, which are forced to pay more for intermediate inputs and final goods. Paired with a sharp turn toward industrial policy and state capitalism, the US is moving away from the free-market principles that made its economy so competitive in the first place. Targeted government intervention in select sectors (e.g., semiconductors, banking) can sometimes be justified on specific grounds (e.g., national security, financial stability), but history shows that broad protectionism and state direction tend to make economies less, not more, dynamic over time.
This short-term thinking extends to geopolitics. As I wrote last week, most countries are prepared to give the US wins – some pyrrhic, some significant – to avoid open conflict. But these same countries are also working to ensure they’re never in that position again. The EU has finalized trade agreements with Mexico, Indonesia, and the South American trading bloc Mercosur. Brazil is deepening economic ties with Europe, China, and Canada. India is working to stabilize relations with China while accelerating infrastructure projects that reduce its dependence on US markets. Saudi Arabia has signed a nuclear deal with Pakistan to hedge against future security neglect from Washington.
These moves aren’t costless – they require years of political capital, billions in investment, and new institutional architecture. Once built, they’re hard to reverse. But countries have learned the hard way that US policy can change course every election cycle with little in the way of policy continuity or long-term strategic planning, and they’re building alternatives now while accommodating Washington in the short run. Every four years, there’s a 50/50 chance that everything – not just the winners and losers but the rules of the road – shifts. Gone are the days when politics ended at water’s edge. That structural volatility reduces American leverage over time, even as it delivers wins for the world’s largest economy.
So when asking whether the United States will retain its lead over its allies and adversaries, the answer depends on the time horizon. Short-term? Absolutely. America remains by far the world’s most powerful country, so there’s a lot of room for damage before structural decline sets in. Moreover, artificial intelligence is about to change everything, and the US is one of only two games in town (China being the other) and still the preferred partner for most of the West and parts of the Global South.
But long term, the trajectory is troubling. The historical advantages the United States enjoyed over its peers – better physical and institutional infrastructure, superior demographics driven partly by immigration, public tolerance for inequality undergirded by perception of meritocracy, greater capacity for deficit spending – are all heading in the wrong direction, arguably unsustainably so. China, despite being in a weaker overall position, is doing what it can to exploit these shifts. And while Beijing faces severe structural challenges of its own, it benefits from the increasingly accurate perception that it takes the long view while America chases the next election.
Perhaps most worrying is the one thing everyone in a deeply divided America now agrees on: that the country’s biggest threat is domestic. They just disagree on who that threat is. That kind of inward turn ensures the bulk of the national energy and focus will remain on fighting internecine political battles rather than making the deeper, patient investments – in people, institutions, research, and infrastructure – required to keep the United States competitive a generation from now.
America is giving up long-term leadership in exchange for short-term wins. The question isn’t whether the United States will pay for this addiction to immediate gratification. It's only when the bill will come due – and how much it will cost.