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Graphic Truth: China ramps up military activity near Taiwan
Chinese incursions into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) have skyrocketed since Taiwanese President William Lai assumed office last year. Lai, who campaigned on a tougher stance toward China, has been an outspoken critic of Beijing: his inauguration speech referenced the word “sovereignty” seven times. Beijing considers self-governing Taiwan part of its territory, and Chinese president Xi Jinping has said “reunification” is inevitable. For more on this, click here for Ian Bremmer’s discussion with Bonny Lin, director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
June 2025 inflation rate.
Graphic Truth: Inflation accelerates in June
Inflation ticked up to 2.7% in June as the effects of tariffs took hold, potentially complicating Donald Trump’s economic playbook. Consumer prices rose 0.3% since May, fueled by higher gas and apparel costs. Core inflation – which is seen as more reliable because it discounts volatile food and energy prices – also edged up to 2.9% year-over-year. With new tariffs looming Aug. 1, policymakers are bracing for more turbulence.
Graphic Truth: Trump increases tariff threats on top trade partners
US President Donald Trump is threatening to impose 30% tariffs against the United States’ top two trading partners, the European Union and Mexico, demanding that Europe open its markets more to US products and that Mexico combats local drug cartels. Without new trade deals, the levies would come into effect on Aug. 1, and are higher than the previous duties that Trump had threatened. The announcement has put both Mexico and the European trading bloc on their heels: they have each now scrapped earlier plans to retaliate, favoring negotiations to smooth things over in the next two weeks. However, as Trump continues to drive an extremely hard bargain with even the US’s closest trading partners, he increases the risk that they will look elsewhere for alliances – for some, this process has already begun.
Graphic Truth: Federal employment already dropping
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.
Graphic Truth: The BRICS+ in a "G-Zero" world
The BRICS, a loose grouping of ten “emerging market” economies led by Brazil, Russia, India and China, held their 17th annual summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, this weekend. While the official readout from the summit emphasized their commitment to multilateralism, the guestlist begged to differ. Five of the 10 leaders were no-shows, including Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
While the group’s declaration took aim at tariffs increases and recent attacks against Iran, it stopped short of mentioning the US or naming President Donald Trump directly. For more, here’s GZERO writer Willis Sparks’ explainer on why the BRICS are a bad bet.Graphic Truth: Iran has a rial big problem
Iran’s Supreme Leader faces a number of challenges in the wake of the devastating 12-day war with Israel, and the perennial weakness of Iran’s economy is chief among them. Economic mismanagement, corruption, and strict Western sanctions have sapped output, weakened the currency and contributed to high inflation for years. But the recent spike in tensions with the US and Israel has accelerated the collapse of the Iranian rial, which has halved in value against the dollar since the end of last year. Here is a look at how the Iranian Rial has performed against the greenback since 2022.
Graphic Truth: Mexico and Brazil seek to boost trade ties
Mexico and Brazil are exploring ways to boost their trade ties, and there’s certainly room for improvement: bilateral commerce between Latin America’s two largest economies amounted to just $13.6 billion last year. That’s less than 10% of Brazil’s trade with China, and not even 2% of Mexico’s trade with the US. While the two countries have historically competed for dominance, the Trump administration’s latest tariffs and the election of left-wing leadership in both Brazil and Mexico have motivated closer cooperation.
Here’s a look at where trade between Brazil and Mexico currently stands.
The Graphic Truth: The majors least likely to get you a job out of college
A rising number of US college graduates are having trouble securing jobs. The Class of 2025 is up against the toughest labor market in four years, with the unemployment rate for recent graduates sitting nearly two percentage points above than the national average of 4%. Trade tensions are also raising fears of a global recession.
On top of these short-term economic factors is a major long-term one: experts say that many entry-level positions – particularly in the tech sector – are being displaced by artificial intelligence. Here’s a look at the majors least likely to lead to a job after college.
Maybe majoring in history was not such a bad idea after all.