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Gavin Newsom speaks at the Vogue World: Hollywood Announcement at the Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood, CA on March 26, 2025.
California launches Canadian charm offensive
California governor Gavin Newsom kicked off a campaign to promote Canadian tourism in his state, pitching its sunny beaches, lush vineyards, and world-class restaurants.
Why now? California tourism operators are feeling the pinch as relations between the US and Canada sour under Trump. Newsom reports that Canadian tourism to his state has fallen 12% compared to last year.
But his charm offensive may fall flat for reasons beyond his control. A US travel association says three times as many Canadians are staying away from the US as the industry first predicted, and southbound car trips were down by a third in March, according to Statistics Canada.
The lost business from their northern neighbors could cost Americans $6 billion this year. Canadian anger at Trump’s annexation threats are part of the problem, but so is the fear of mistreatment: The widely reported story of a Canadian actor who was held in custody for 11 days after a visa problem isn’t helping, nor are stories of people of other nationalities being turned away, detained, or having their personal devices examined. A Canadian satirical site joked that Canadian visitors could look forward to an unexpected side trip to El Salvador.
Until there is a thaw in Canada-US relations, many Canadians aren’t interested in spending their vacation dollars in Gavin Newsom’s Golden State, or anywhere else in the US for that matter.
U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) speaks to the media during a visit to El Salvador to advocate for the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man deported without due process by the Trump administration and sent to the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), in San Salvador, El Salvador, on April 16, 2025.
HARD NUMBERS: Maryland senator flies to El Salvador, Russian journalists jailed, California sues Trump admin over tariffs, EU tilts right on asylum, Peru’s ex-president guilty of money laundering
1: On Wednesday, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) flew to El Salvador to advocate for the release of Kilmar Abgrego Garcia, a Maryland resident wrongfully deported to a brutal high-security prison there. Van Hollen, who met with the Salvadoran vice president, is the only US lawmaker to make the trip. The Supreme Court ruled last week that the Trump administration should “facilitate” Garcia’s return to the United States, but US President Donald Trump has shown no willingness to do so. (Does that mean the United States is facing a constitutional crisis? Here’s what Ian Bremmer has to say).
4: Four Russian journalists were convicted of extremism and jailed in a closed-door trial in Moscow for associating with the Anti-Corruption Fund — a group founded by the late opposition leader and political activist Alexei Navalny. The individuals pleaded not guilty, arguing they were merely doing their jobs as independent journalists.
-0.2: Before Washington unveiled sweeping tariffs that rocked the global economy, the World Trade Organization forecasted global goods trade to grow by 2.7% in 2025. The updated forecast shows a decrease of 0.2%, a swing of 2.9 percentage points. WTO director general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala also warned that trade between the US and China could plunge by 81-91%, due to the superpowers’ trade war.
5th: California, the fifth-largest economy in the world, sued the Trump administration over the “emergency” rule that allowed the executive branch to impose tariffs — a power constitutionally reserved for Congress, the Golden State alleges.
7: The European Union has designated seven countries—Kosovo, Colombia, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Bangladesh, and India — as“safe” places for migrants to return, a decision that will result in the denial of asylum applications for citizens from those countries. The move comes amid growing anti-immigrant pressure from far-right parties across the continent.
15: Peru’s former president Ollanta Humala and his wife Nadine Heredia have been found guilty of money laundering and each sentenced to 15 years in prison. The couple was convicted of accepting nearly $3 million in illegal campaign funds from construction giant Odebrecht and hundreds of thousands of dollars from the late Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chávez. Humala was taken into custody, whereas Heredia sought asylum at the Brazilian embassy in Lima and was granted safe passage to Brazil.
Trump’s inaction on wrongful deportation may spark constitutional crisis
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
If the US won't work to return a wrongly deported man to El Salvador despite a Supreme Court ruling, are we headed towards a constitutional crisis?
It certainly appears that way, and I think this is the constitutional crisis that the Trump administration would love to have. Because wrongfully deporting someone without evidence who is in the country illegally and therefore guilty of a misdemeanor, but sending them to a max security prison, which the Supreme Court says you shouldn't do, but now is in another country. Very few Americans are sympathetic to the case of this person. And indeed, Trump won on the basis in part of being sick and tired of allowing illegal immigrants to spend enormous amounts of time in the United States without recourse.
So he's breaking the law here. He's flouting independent judiciary and their decision-making, but he's doing it on an issue that most Americans have no sympathy on the other side. So the Democrats would have to be very wary of making this a hill they want to die on, and Trump knows exactly what he's doing. It is pretty impressive playbook for undermining rule of law and checks and balances on an increasingly authoritarian leaning executive. That's where we are.
Trump claims China-Vietnam talks are intended to "screw" the US. Does this run the risk of pushing Vietnam to China?
Certainly, most Vietnamese now are more well-disposed towards China than the US. First time we've seen that since the war. It's not true across Southeast Asia. Philippines, about 80% still pro-US, not pro-China. But it is a problem, and Xi Jinping understands that. And that's why he went in and was received directly by the president as opposed to the prime minister last time who met him at the airport. 45 big deals that they're signing on trying to improve economic coordination. Clearly a bit of a surprise to Trump, just as the direct retaliation from the Chinese, even though the Americans warned them, "Negotiate, don't retaliate." But that's exactly what China did, and Trump frankly should have expected that was coming. Now he looks a little bit weaker in the way he's backing down and creating exemptions for a lot of people in this space.
Saudi Arabia plans to pay off Syria's World Bank debt. Could this be a major turning point for Syria's future and its ties with regional allies?
It certainly helps. We've also seen the Qataris already say they're going to offer gas through Jordan into Syria. I think that this is all promising. The Saudis were never going to do that, provide any support as long as Assad was in place. Now they are. The Americans are pulling troops out, and Turkey is going to be the most important country on the ground. But economically, it's going to be the Gulf States, and that gives this new Syrian regime a better chance to succeed. Something we all clearly are rooting for in terms of one of the places that we'd like to see a little more stability from. Anyway, that's it for me, and I'll talk to you all real soon.
- Zelensky snubs China’s peace push, Trump vows to end war “very quickly” ›
- China’s vows to pump up its economy — with one eye on Trump’s tariffs ›
- El Salvador's president wins big. What does this mean for the country and its neighbors? ›
- El Salvador's Bukele refuses to return wrongly-deported Maryland man, and offers to jail US citizens too ›
Sphen, one half of the world’s most famous gay gentoo penguin couple, has died at the age of 11.
Hard Numbers: Bye-bye birdie, High Court sides with Maduro, Feds intervene in Canadian rail strike, El Salvador ain’t so safe, Aid trickles into Darfur, World’s oldest woman
11: Sphen, one-half of Sydney Sea Life Aquarium’s beloved same-sex gentoo penguin couple, passed away of natural causes this week, his caretakers announced on Thursday. Sphen and his partner, Magic, spent six years together and successfully adopted and raised two chicks. When keepers showed Magic Sphen’s body to help him understand his partner had died, the entire colony reportedly broke into birdsong.
0: Venezuela's Supreme Court has confirmed President Nicolas Maduro’s victory in last month’s presidential elections, even though the opposition says they are the rightful winner. But the court's impartiality – which is closely aligned with his regime and has ruled against the government exactly zero times – is highly questionable. The court’s certification contradicts experts from the United Nations and the Carter Center who were invited to observe the election and sided with the opposition.
9,000: After Canada’s top two railroads, Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific Kansas City, locked out more than 9,000 unionized workers on Thursday, the government moved to issue a back-to-work order. Canadian National Railway will begin returning to work, while the stoppage at Canadian Pacific Kansas City will continue. But the union and company officials are scheduled to meet the board Friday morning.
1: Data from the attorney general’s office of El Salvador shows that one person in the tiny Central American country goes missing each day despite frequent claims from strongman President Nayib Bukele that his mass arrests of suspected gang members have made El Salvador the “safest country in the Western Hemisphere.” The Working Group for Missing Persons in El Salvador, an association of nine NGOs, says this represents a 10% annual increase, and it has set up a website where Salvadorans can register missing loved ones.
15: A tiny trickle of humanitarian aid managed to enter Sudan’s Darfur province on Wednesday, but just 15 of 131 trucks were allowed to cross the border from Chad before Sudan’s army shut the route. The trucks are carrying enough food for 13,000 people in a region on the brink of famine, but there are more than 6 million people in Darfur who don’t know where their next meal will come from.
116: The Guinness Book of World Records confirmed that 116-year-old Tomiko Itooka of Japan is the world’s oldest living person after she proved she was born on May 23, 1908, in Osaka. She played volleyball in high school, managed her husband’s textile factory, and was an active hiker, summiting the 10,000-foot Mount Ontake twice. When informed of her new global status, she replied simply, “Thank you.”
Ecuador's President Daniel Noboa looks on as his wife Lavinia Valbonesi (not pictured) takes part in a referendum that asks voters to support mostly security-related questions to fight rising violence, in Guayaquil, Ecuador April 21, 2024.
Ecuador votes to get tough on drugs
Ecuadorians showed overwhelming support for a government crackdown on drug-related violence in referendums this weekend in what could become a regional trend. Quito won support for joint police-military patrols, extradition of wanted criminals, tighter gun control, and tougher punishments for murder and drug trafficking, among other measures.
Cocaine boom: Ecuador had long maintained a reputation for tranquility despite being sandwiched between the major cocaine production hubs of Colombia and Peru. Coke is in the midst of a major resurgence, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, with seven straight years of growing use.
Consequently, traffickers are trying to ship more blow than ever to the US, and increasingly doing so through Ecuador’s conveniently located ports. With the drugs come weapons, money, and violence, tearing at the social fabric. In August of last year, presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was assassinated after receiving death threats from gang leader Jose Adolfo Macias, who later escaped prison.
Iron fist: Ecuador is far from alone in experiencing a surge in drug violence, and leaders in Latin America are looking at Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s “mano dura” (iron fist) crackdown as an example.
“Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa took from the Bukele playbook in realizing that citizens are open to more draconian type measures,” says Eurasia Group associate Yael Sternberg, though she emphasized that the actual policies and problems are different.
If it pays off for Noboa like it has for Bukele, Sternberg says Chile is the country to watch next, with a growing crime issue and elections next year.
FILE PHOTO: El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele speaks during the inauguration of the 3 de Febrero hydroelectric power plant in San Luis de La Reina, El Salvador October 19, 2023.
El Salvador’s president gets “super” powers.
The authoritarian world’s hottest young thing – Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele – has won a Congressional supermajority.
Bukele, who won a landslide reelection last month, will control a staggering 54 of 60 seats in the Central American country’s legislature, empowering him to do … whatever he likes.
What might that be? Hard to say. He’s already jailed nearly 2% of the adult population as part of a ferocious crackdown on gang violence, and he already got a friendly court to rule he could flout term limits. His allies even openly say he aims to “dismantle” democracy.
And … his success at slashing the murder rate to pieces has made him incredibly popular. That’s true not only at home but also abroad, where some in other violence-wracked Latin American countries – Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, Chile – are increasingly enamored of Bukele.
Not so fast, say experts. El Salvador is a tiny country (6 million people) whose gangs – fearsome as they are – pale in comparison to the size and firepower of the transnational cartels running amok elsewhere in the neighborhood. Bukele’s model plays well at home, but it might not – for now at least – export as well.
El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele, who is running for reelection, greets people, on the day of the presidential and parliamentary elections in San Salvador, El Salvador, February 4, 2024.
Crime fighter cruises to victory in El Salvador
Salvadorans voted overwhelmingly on Sunday to reelect President Nayib Bukele, the self-styled “world’s coolest dictator” – even though the constitution says he can’t serve a second term. Provisional results show he won 83% of the vote.
Bukele came to power five years ago promising to clean up rampant crime and corruption that had turned El Salvador into a lawless state. Today, 75,000 people, or 1.7% of the country’s adult population, are in jail, which is the highest incarceration rate in the world.
Despite criticism for his authoritarian methods, and accusations that his government colludes with the very gangs he vowed to stamp out, Bukele remains wildly popular. Pre-election polls had his main rivals receiving barely 12% of the vote between them.
Bukele's second term faces challenges, however, as poverty remains high and the IMF describes the country’s fiscal situation as "fragile." Since 2019, extreme poverty has doubled and almost half the population is food insecure. Bukele’s economic reforms have been unorthodox: In 2021, the government declared Bitcoin legal tender, attracting attention but also criticism for its volatility. Today, Bukele says El Salvador’s investments in the cryptocurrency are in the black, but it remains to be seen if he has as much success tackling poverty as he did crime.
El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele takes part in the inauguration of the Vijosa pharmaceutical plant in Santa Tecla, El Salvador November 20, 2023.
El Salvador’s election math: 2 + 90 = 71
You need three numbers to understand this Sunday’s presidential election in El Salvador.
The first is 2. Since taking office in 2019, President Nayib Bukele’s sweeping anti-gang crackdown has resulted in the incarceration of 2% of the country’s adult population. In US terms, that’s the equivalent of throwing 5 million people in jail.
The second is 90. The official homicide rate has fallen more than 90% since 2015, including roughly 75% since Bukele took office.
The third is 71. Polls show Bukele leading his nearest competitor by 71 points. He will cruise to victory in a free and fair election.
The meaning of this math: Bukele has been criticized by human rights groups for thousands of abuses. He has used the military to strong-arm congress and twisted the constitution to run for a second term. But ordinary Salvadorans are OK with it because their cities are liveable again after years when the country was one of the bloodiest in the world.
It may be that his strongman tactics are planting the seeds for future upheavals. But for now, Bukele is seen – not only at home but by other right-wingers in the Americas – as the Salvador (savior) of El Salvador.