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Politics
What We’re Watching: Nvidia chips head east, Trump threatens tariffs on Russia, India balances alliances
Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, speaks during the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France, June 11, 2025.
US will end restrictions of AI chips exports to China, says Nvidia
The US-based chipmaker Nvidia is on a hot streak. After becoming the first ever company to be valued at $4 trillion, the firm said that the Trump administration ended its export limits on US-made H20 artificial-intelligence chips to China. The initial White House decision to curtail these exports, made in April, came after the Chinese firm DeepSeek released a powerful AI model that required far less computer power than its American cousins. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang argued that these restrictions were counterproductive, because they spurred Chinese firms to develop their own chip industry. His argument appears to have resonated, and shares in Nvidia shot up 4% on Tuesday morning.
Trump threatens tariffs to force Putin into peace deal
US President Donald Trump increased pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine on Monday by imposing a 50-day deadline for Moscow to strike a peace deal or face 100% tariffs on the few goods still traded between the US and Russia. He also threatened harsh secondary sanctions — up to 500% tariffs — on any other countries still doing business with Moscow. That could in principle cripple Russia’s economy, but it would put the US at odds with major trade partners China and India, which still import most of their crude from Russia. Are people buying Trump’s threat? The ruble reversed quickly initial losses on the news, buoyed by the 50-day grace period and Trump’s tendency to extend deadlines on his most severe threats.
India’s juggling act
During a visit to Beijing this week for a gathering of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, India’s lead diplomat Subrahmanyam Jaishankar praised China’s leadership of an organization it hails as an alternative to Western clubs like the G7. It’s another reminder that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, which is also a member of the Quad security group with the United States, Japan, and Australia, and buys large volumes of Russian crude oil, is working to protect solid relations with all the major players on the world stage. Relations with China, though improved, are the most difficult balancing act, given recent violence along disputed parts of the India-China border.
Malibu, California, USA: A pickup truck with a President Donald Trump decal and decorated in U.S. Flags drives on Pacific Coast Highway on July 4th in Malibu, California.
Even still, with six months under their belt, US allies and adversaries continue to be confounded by the pace of dynamics coming their way. The influx of volatility is largely treated as an unknown variable to be built into strategic conversations and planning. An imperative to hold space for the “known unknowns” that will require navigation and policy response. The United Kingdom’s 2025 National Security Strategy released in June, for instance, labels this moment “an era of radical uncertainty” with no “stable equilibrium” in sight.
For the US administration, dysregulation is part of the end game. The intention is keeping global stakeholders on their toes, or as the White House calls it, “Keeping America in the Driver’s Seat.”
Security sphere uneasiness
Without a clear sense of what lies ahead, the working global response is to brace for impact, hope the ripples emerging from the US are not directed your way, and when they are, to do the best to ride the waves. In Europe, where the memory of US Vice President JD Vance’s remarks at this year’s Munich Security Conference still brings a shudder, there is a fleeting sense of relief at surviving June’s NATO Summit unscathed. A commitment to invest 5% of annual GDP on core defense requirements and defense- and security-related spending by 2035 feels like a fair price to keep the US engaged. After a decade or so wandering through the wilderness and being chided by successive US presidents about fair dues, European capitals find themselves buoyed by a reenergized NATO alliance.
With the hurdle of the NATO Summit cleared, Europe returns its focus to another summer offensive in Ukraine. Initial optimism that a change in the US administration might provide exit ramps for the war has subsided. Trump’s own promises to bring the war to an end quickly have been frustrated by the realities of an intractable conflict and the limits of relational diplomacy. Amidst an intensifying Russian missile and drone campaign of late, Europe is not sure which messaging from Washington is noise and which is signal. Reporting that the US Defense Department would halt the delivery of air defenses and artillery to Ukraine as part of a stockpile review had a chilling effect. Trump’s subsequent critical comments of Russian President Vladimir Putin at a US Cabinet meeting, alongside plans to sell weapons bound for Ukraine to NATO allies, reduced some of Europe’s anxiety. But each time Europe thinks it is doing a two-step with Trump only to find itself facing radical uncertainty, the known unknowns leave a mark.
A cresting trade tidal wave
Alongside security, the other major wave rippling around the globe this summer is a trade tidal wave. Just under the wire, the Trump administration extended implementation of so-called “reciprocal tariffs” from July 9th to August 1st. According to the White House, the further pause was based on “information and recommendations from senior officials, including information on the status of trade negotiations.” Thus far, a “Liberation Day” target of 90 deals in 90 days has resulted in trade agreements with the UK and Vietnam and a temporary trade truce with China (even as it has imposed new export restrictions on rare earths).
While the Trump team will be privately disappointed by the number of deals achieved to date, it is unlikely to be discouraged. As the world looks to interpret what comes next on trade, global stakeholders would do well to hold firm to a couple of framing principles. The first is that the US administration is ideological on trade, and has positioned these ideals at the center of its current-term ambitions.
The second grounding principle is that the president views himself as dealmaker-in-chief. He prefers to anchor negotiations by naming a price early in the process: in this case the Liberation Day reciprocal tariff rates. The anchoring position may not be where negotiations land, but it has the effect of shifting perspectives and forcing behavioral change. Europe’s 2025 NATO defensive spend commitments provide Trump with proof that this approach (plus patience) works. Likewise, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s rescission of a digital services tax (DST), disfavored by the US administration, is another data point for Trump’s negotiating strategy. Canada, for its part, is being repaid for its cooperation with a renewed threat of 35% tariffs on US imports.
Given all its levers of power, the US administration has taken to a tariff-letter-writing campaign. South Korea, Brazil, Philippines, Malaysia and a dozen or so others have been the recipients of letters notifying them of US willingness to continue its trading relationship but on new terms. What gets overlooked by too narrow a focus on the latest trade threats, and viral memes suggesting “Trump always chickens out,” is that against the wider perspective the US administration has already succeeded. Whether Brazil is hit with 50% tariffs over Trump’s displeasure with former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s legal investigations, whether Japan’s government falls over the precariousness that the threatened 25% tariffs have wrought, whether copper imports face 50% duties now and pharmaceuticals 200% in a year’s time or not; trade is at the top of everyone’s priorities.
The Trump administration has set a target of a new Golden Age for the American people. Through adopting an elusive approach to security expectations and defensive support, unsettling the global trade infrastructure, exporting risk, the president makes clear the US will be driving the agenda. Everyone else is sitting in the passenger seat.
Hard Numbers: French prime minister on the ropes, Hong Kong dissidents appeal convictions, Lesotho MP accuses his king, & More
French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou speaks during a news conference to present a major public finance recovery plan in Paris, France, July 15, 2025.
€40 billion: French Prime Minister François Bayrou is set to present a 2026 budget Tuesday that aims to cut the size of the country’s 2026 annual deficit by €40 billion ($46.7 billion). However, all opposition parties are expected to reject the proposal – and that could spell the end for Bayrou’s minority government.
12: Hong Kong’s pro-democracy dissidents aren’t going to go gentle into that good night. Twelve of them have appealed their recent subversion convictions in a move that shines a fresh light on Beijing’s anti-democracy crackdown in the city. The case, which challenges China’s draconian 2021 national security law, is drawing international attention: foreign diplomats from over six countries were present at the trial. The appeals are expected to take 10 days.
59: Lesotho won independence from the United Kingdom 59 years ago, but one member of the tiny southern African nation’s parliament has accused its king of signing parts of the country away again – to its neighbor South Africa. The accusation stems from a decades-old border dispute, but the MP who leveled the charge now faces criminal charges for doing so. Lesotho gained notoriety in March when US President Donald Trump said “nobody has ever heard of” the country.
6: Six members of United Torah Judaism – an ultra-Orthodox political party – have quit Israel’s ruling coalition again over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s failure to guarantee military exemptions for yeshiva students. While Netanyahu has survived this once before, their departure leaves him with yet another slim majority in parliament.Myanmar's military chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing leaves after a military parade on Victory Day, marking the 80th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two, in Red Square in central Moscow, Russia, May 9, 2025.
23: At least 23 people were killed on Friday in an airstrike on a Buddhist monastery in northern Myanmar. The attack is believed to have been carried out by the country’s ruling military junta. Since seizing power in a 2021 coup, the junta has been locked in brutal civil war with several powerful rebel groups.
15%: The US State Department is about to lay off 15% of its 18,000 US-based staff, as part of an efficiency drive. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says the move will make Washington’s foreign policy more agile, while critics say it will downsize America’s diplomatic capabilities at a critical moment.
$4 trillion: The AI chipmaker Nvidia has become the world’s first company valued at more than $4 trillion. Its remarkable rise in value is one of the fastest in Wall Street history, leaving its main domestic rivals Apple and Microsoft feeling.. Nvious indeed.
$20 million: Former Columbia University student and Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil filed a $20-million claim Thursday against the US government for damages incurred during his Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention. The lawsuit accuses ICE of false arrest and imprisonment, malicious prosecution, abuse of process, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The Department of Homeland Security dismissed Khalil’s claims as “absurd.”
5,000: Gang violence has killed nearly 5,000 people in Haiti since last October alone, according to a new UN report. The Caribbean country has been mired in a deepening political, economic, and humanitarian crisis since the 2021 assassination of president Jovenel Moïse. An international police force sent to the island last year has failed to dislodge the gangs, which control large swathes of the capital, Port-au-Prince.An armed PKK fighter places a weapon to be burnt during a disarming ceremony in Sulaimaniya, Iraq, July 11, 2025, in this screengrab obtained from a handout video.
Kurdish militants burn their own guns
In a symbolic ending to more than 40 years of rebellion against the Turkish government, fighters from the PKK — a Kurdish militia — melted a cache of weapons in a gigantic cauldron on Friday. Earlier this year jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan called for disarming as part of a process expected to deliver more cultural autonomy for Kurds, who make up 20% of Turkey’s population. The move shifts attention onto the future of affiliated Kurdish militias in Syria, as well as to Turkey’s parliament, where President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is courting support from Kurdish parties as he seeks to soften term limits.
Is the White House done with legislating?
A week after signing the One Big, Beautiful Bill into law, and just six months since taking office again, US President Donald Trump is reportedly done with pushing major legislation through Congress. As he goes into campaign mode ahead of the 2026 midterms, he will instead focus on key issues like trade and immigration via executive actions, which don’t require congressional approval but are susceptible to legal challenges. However, it seems not everyone is aligned: House Speaker Mike Johnson has said he still wants to pass two further budget reconciliation packages. Which is it? More bills or no more bills?
German constitutional court clash embarrasses Chancellor Merz
Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz's government had to shelve a vote on appointing three judges to the Constitutional Court after one of them was accused – spuriously, it turned out – of plagiarism, and criticized by conservative coalition members for supporting abortion rights. Critics are likening the drama to US-style culture wars over the judiciary, and have warned it undermines the legitimacy of Germany’s top court. The debacle also reflects the fragility of Merz’s three-month-old coalition, which holds just a slim, 12 seat majority in the Bundestag.
HARD NUMBERS: Houthis attack ships again, US Measles cases reach new high, message in a bottle finally arrives, & More
Plumes of smoke rise from what is said to be a Greek-operated bulk carrier, in a handout video released on July 8, 2025
3: The Iran-backed Houthi rebel group is once again attacking cargo ships passing through the Red Sea, killing three people while snatching a Liberian-flagged, Greek-owned cargo vessel on Monday night. This was the Houthis’ second such attack over the last few days. Until this past weekend, the group hadn’t targeted cargo ships since late 2024.
33: Measles cases in the US have already reached a 33-year high in 2025, with the disease spreading most rapidly in parts of New Mexico and Texas. At least 1,288 cases have been reported in the first half of this year, surpassing the 2019 full-year total of 1,274, when there was an outbreak within the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community of New York. The spread has come amid falling nationwide vaccination rates, driven in part by skepticism about vaccines from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
52: A South Korean court on Thursday issued another arrest warrant for former President Yoon Suk Yeol, who faces trial on a range of charges related to his decision to place the country under martial law back in December. Yoon has already spent 52 days in jail, but was previously released on technical grounds. Prosecutors are now expected to expedite their probe into Yoon, who was impeached and officially removed from office back in April.
5.2: A 5.2-magnitude earthquake struck Guatemala on Tuesday afternoon, with authorities urging residents of the Central American country to evacuate. Some of the aftershocks have registered even higher on the Richter scale than the original quake, reaching magnitudes of 5.6.
13: While most of the world now has instant communication, some people have sought out alternative ways of getting their message across the globe – even if it takes a little longer. Thirteen years ago, a young couple in Newfoundland, Canada, placed a message into a bottle and dropped it into the Atlantic Ocean. This week, it was found on a beach on the west coast of Ireland. The note included a request to contact the original writers. After an appeal on social media, they were found: Anita and Brad Squires are now married with three children.
The US Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed President Donald Trump to proceed with widespread cuts to the federal workforce, pending a full trial, overruling a San Francisco judge’s order in May that temporarily blocked layoffs at 22 agencies. Prior to the Supreme Court’s ruling, thousands of government employees had been preparing for mass layoffs, with many notified of their pending terminations but awaiting official confirmation.
Here’s a look at the changing size of the federal workforce, which includes the US military, since Trump first took power in 2017.