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President-elect Donald Trump attends the America First Policy Institute gala at Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, on Nov. 14, 2024.
Hard Numbers: Trump talks tough tariffs, Opposition wins in Uruguay, DHL plane crashes in Lithuania, Israeli drone targeted journalists, Ireland asylum claims spike
25: President-elect Donald Trump took aim at Canada and Mexico via Truth Social on Monday, posting about his plan to charge the countries — currently America’s No. 1 & No. 2 trading partners, — a whopping 25% tariff on all products entering the US. The tariff would be enacted on Jan. 20, 2025, Trump said, and would “remain in effect until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!” He then posted that he would charge China, where the precursor chemicals to fentanyl are made, “an additional 10% tariff, above any additional Tariffs, on all of their many products coming into the United States of America.”
49: Uruguay’s left-wing opposition leader Yamandú Orsiwon the small South American country’s presidential election with 49% of the vote in a neck-and-neck runoff contest on Sunday. It was yet another rebuke of an incumbent party — the theme of many global elections this year — but not to worry: Uruguay is remarkably stable, and Orsi is a moderate with no radical plans.
1: One crew member died on Monday when a DHL cargo flight crashed during its attempted landing in Vilnius, Lithuania, with surveillance video showing a huge ball of flames as the plane went down. Lithuanian officials said they could not rule out whether Russia played a role in the crash, following months of suspicions over Moscow’s possible role in other cases of sabotage against the German shipping giant. Germany, meanwhile, is sending investigators to Vilnius to aid with the probe.
3: Human Rights Watch has determined that an Israeli drone strike that killed three journalists in Lebanon last month was most likely a deliberate attack on civilians, which is a war crime. More than 3,500 people in Lebanon have died amid Israel’s invasion, and more than 1 million have been displaced from their homes in the 5.3-million-strong country.
300: Asylum applications in Ireland have spiked 300% so far this year – with a fourfold increase from Nigeria – compared to last. The rise has been driven by tougher immigration stances in the UK, including a quixotic plan to house asylum-seekers in Rwanda. The uptick is becoming a political issue in Ireland, with voters increasingly concerned by the impact of increased migration on scarce housing.Geert Wilders, leader of the Dutch Party for Freedom party, part of the hard-right coalition government.
Hard Numbers: The Netherlands nixes asylum-seekers, Sudan strife escalates, South Koreans agitate, Beijing condemns US-Taiwan arms deal, Bulgarians vote – again
51,000: The Dutch nationalist government on Friday approved tough new migration measures in Parliament, including enhanced border checks, an end to mandatory municipal settlement of asylum-seekers, and limits on family reunification. The policy comes after 51,000 asylum applications were made in the past 12 months and reflects shifts in Italy, Sweden, and other EU nations towards tighter migration controls.
124: An attack by the Rapid Support Forces on Friday killed at least 124 people in Al-Sareeha village in Sudan, with reports of over 200 injured and 150 detained. The attack marked the latest escalation in the conflict between the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces, which has displaced millions and triggered a severe humanitarian crisis.
230,000: South Korean Christians held a mass protest in Seoul on Sunday to oppose a court ruling granting same-sex partners spousal health benefits, fearing it paves the way for legalizing same-sex marriage. The protest disrupted traffic as organizers claimed over a million participants, while police estimated the crowd at 230,000.
2 billion: China on Saturday condemned a $2 billion US arms sale to Taiwan, the 17th of the Biden administration to the island, vowing “countermeasures” to defend its sovereignty. Beijing warns that the deal, which includes advanced air defense systems, “seriously damages China-US relations, and endangers peace and stability” in the strait.
7: Exit polls show Boyko Borisov's GERB party leading Bulgaria’s seventh election in three years, but forming a coalition could be difficult: The last election in June produced a hung Parliament. This time, the pro-Russian Vazrazhdane party underperformed, while the Reformist PP-DB exceeded expectations. Final results are expected on Monday.People cast their votes during general election in Utena, Lithuania October 13, 2024.
Lithuanians want change but shun populists
Lithuanians voted in the first round of general elections on Sunday, where exit polls indicate they will empower a center-left coalition and reject far-right populists. The small Baltic state has enjoyed economic growth and low inflation — a rarity these days. Still, the ruling center-right coalition has been criticized for its handling of Russian and Belarusian migrants, as well as health care access.
The opposition Social Democrats said they will begin coalition negotiations after taking around 20% of the vote. They are promising to raise taxes on the wealthy and build a stronger social support net, but the exact makeup in parliament will be decided in run-offs on Oct. 27. Even with the expected change of government, Lithuania’s strong support for Ukraine and efforts to bolster its own military are points of broad mutual agreement.
Far-right populist parties have had strong showings in Europe this year, surging in elections in Austria, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. Lithuania has its homegrown variety, the Nemunas Dawn party, whose leader is on trial for allegedly inciting hatred with antisemitic remarks. Other parties have promised to sideline the far right in Lithuania, a tactic that has kept the populists out of power elsewhere.
Polish soldiers and a local dog walk along the border fence on the Polish-Belarusian border in Usnarz Gorny, Poland.
Poland boosts defenses, Lithuania secures leadership win
The Eastern front isn’t taking any chances. Faced with cyberattacks, arson attempts, and a migrant crisis manufactured by Minsk, Poland said Monday that it will spend US$2.5 billion on the Shield-East system to beef up its 700-kilometer eastern border with Russia and Belarus. Construction is to be completed by 2028. Shield-East will include anti-drone towers, anti-tank barriers, bunkers, and space for potential minefields, designed to deter possible aggression by Russia.
Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamyszdescribed it as “… the largest operation to strengthen Poland’s eastern border, NATO’s eastern flank, since 1945.” Shield-East will be part of a regional defense infrastructure built jointly with neighboring NATO nations Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.
With over 4% of its GDP already allocated to defense, Poland is also seeking financial support from the European Union to strengthen the 27-member bloc’s eastern border. The Shield-East announcement comes just two weeks before elections to the European Parliament, in which Poland’s Foreign MinisterRadoslaw Sikorski accused Russia of interfering to “destabilize Europe” – and his country’s security.
Also watching those elections will be newly reelected Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda, who defeated Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė with 74.5% in Sunday’s vote. A moderate conservative, Nausėda is a strong supporter of Ukraine and has provided safe haven to refugees fleeing Belarusian and Russian repression. In his victory speech, Nausėda highlighted the country's alignment with allies including the US, Germany, and Poland, with whom his country also shares a 104-kilometre border, the scene of joint military drills in April of this year.A man casts his vote during a presidential election in Vilnius, Lithuania May 12, 2024.
Lithuanians decide on dual citizenship
On Sunday, Lithuania held both a presidential election and a referendum on dual citizenship, an issue that has divided the Baltic nation of 2.8 million people since its independence from the Soviet Union 34 years ago.
President Gitanas Nauseda took the most votes against seven other contenders, but did not win an outright majority and will face Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte in a runoff election scheduled for May 26. While the candidates broadly agree on defense, they diverge on other issues, including Lithuania’s relations with China and same-sex unions. The referendum on dual citizenship, however, failed to pass.
The presidential race – and the referendum – took on heightened significance since over half of Lithuanians fear a Russian attack if Moscow wins its war against Ukraine. Lithuania banned most forms of dual citizenship after the country declared independence from the former Soviet Union in 1990. While the Russian-speaking population in Lithuania is relatively small, few Lithuanians support granting Russian citizens dual nationality.
However, without changes to the law, brain drain is likely to keep sapping away at Lithuania's population, which has fallen from 3.5 million to 2.8 million since independence. Roughly 1,000 Lithuanians currently renounce their nationality each year, and substantial diasporas have formed in Canada, Brazil, Russia, and the United States, which alone is home to 600,000 former Lithuanian citizens.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman meets Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi upon his arrival in Cairo.
What We’re Watching: MBS on tour, Lithuania vs. Russia, Spain’s moderate swing
MBS makes BFFs ahead of Biden visit
With barely a month until his controversial summit with President Joe Biden, the Saudi crown prince is on a regional tour this week to show that he’s hardly the “pariah” that America’s president once promised to make him. In Jordan, Mohammed bin Salman will look to patch up a monarchy-to-monarchy relationship that became strained last year over allegations of Saudi involvement in a plot to overthrow King Abdullah II. The Jordanians hope MBS’s visit leads to a resumption of lavish Saudi financial support. In Egypt, Crown Prince Mohammed will be highlighting Riyadh’s tight relationship with the Arab world’s most populous country. Egyptian strongman Abdel Fattah el-Sisi enjoys strong backing from the Saudis, who have gifted or invested billions of dollars in Egypt in recent years. But the most significant stop on MBS’s tour will be in Turkey, where always-dicey relations between the regional rivals nearly broke off entirely over the Saudi government’s 2018 murder of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul. But with Turkey looking for financial help to right a listing economy, and MBS looking to shore up ties with a mercurial member of NATO, it seems that bygones are bygones.
Kaliningrad set to be next flashpoint?
Leaders of NATO countries have taken extraordinary steps to ensure that Russia’s war against Ukraine doesn’t extend into NATO territory. So far, they’ve been successful. But the Russian government says it’s furious that Lithuania – a former Soviet Republic that’s now a NATO and EU member – is blocking Russian goods shipments to Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave set between Lithuania and Poland that’s hundreds of miles away from the rest of Russia. Kaliningrad, home to about 1 million people, is a strategically important spot. It’s home to Russia’s Baltic Fleet headquarters and, though Russia denies it, there may also be nuclear-capable Iskander missiles stored there. Lithuania is now blocking rail supplies from Russian territory to Kaliningrad, which Russia claims is a violation of international law. Lithuania says it’s simply enforcing an EU ban on the transport through EU territory of a range of Russian products, from heavy machinery to luxury goods. If Lithuania keeps it up, Russia would be forced to ship the equipment to Kaliningrad’s port on the Baltic Sea. But Moscow warns that Lithuania will face “serious” consequences unless it allows the trains to pass. The EU has backed Lithuania’s refusal to resume the rail shipments, so it’s up to President Vladimir Putin to decide how high tensions will rise.
Spain swings to the center
In late 2018, an election in the southern region of Andalucía upended Spain's politics after Vox became the first far-right party to win representation since the late 1970s. Vox later exploded nationwide and is now the third-largest force in parliament. But on Sunday, another vote in the same bellwether region, Spain's largest and most-populated, saw the traditional center-right People’s Party secure an outright majority for the first time, while Vox fell short of expectations. What's more, the ruling center-left PSOE party, which until recently dominated Andalusian politics, got its worst result ever there. The PP has been riding high in the polls since it picked the moderate Alberto Núñez Feijóo to lead the party following a messy internal crisis, and now its odds of returning to national power in 18 months are looking good. Amid an increasingly polarized political environment and rising inflation, Feijóo is pitching himself as an anti-populist nerd to voters fed up with parties that won’t talk to each other, and as a pair of safe hands to manage the economy in turbulent times. Will making Spanish politics boring again take him all the way to La Moncloa?
War in Ukraine sets energy transition in "hyperdrive"
GZERO Media caught up with Microsoft's Chief Environmental Officer Lucas Joppa at the World Economic Forum in Davos to discuss ways to keep nations focused on climate change amid the converging crises of war and pandemic.
Tony Maciulis: When you have these very immediate and acute crises happening concurrently like pandemic and now of course the war in Ukraine, has it been a challenge to keep the focus on climate change?
Lucas Joppa: I would say yes and no. It's a challenge because obviously these are crises in and of themselves and they need to be dealt with and focused on. But on the other hand, I think that these crises, what they've done is they've really shown society that we have things that are going to happen to us. And if we know that they are coming, it would behoove us to do something about them now to prepare for it now. The biggest thing that we have coming for us is the impacts of a rapidly changing global climate system. It's front and center of our minds. We know we have to get out and do something about it. And so on the one hand, yes, we're focusing on these crises, but it hasn't shifted focus off of climate either.
Tony Maciulis: One thing that the war in Ukraine has certainly done is make some countries like Lithuania, for example, rethink their dependence on Russian gas. To what extent do you think the war has an opportunity to change the way countries think about energy in general? And will it in some way hasten a shift toward alternative energies?
Lucas Joppa: Well, it's really put everybody's thinking about the energy transition in hyperdrive. It has forced people to start thinking about the future of energy in a way that they hadn't had to before. We are at a critical juncture where people can choose a more clean, just, equitable future from an energy perspective or double down on the energy sources of the past. I think we know what a mistake that latter option would be. And so I'm just really excited about the fact that people are getting out there really thinking through and starting to put in place the infrastructure investments that they're going to need to pull off that net zero carbon transition.
Tony Maciulis: We last spoke to you, of course, in Glasgow for COP26. That's more than six months ago. What kind of progress has been made since then? And are you optimistic that by the time we get to Sharm el-Sheikh, there'll be something tangible to show?
Lucas Joppa: Well, I think that the world has been occupied with dealing with some of these crises that are in front of them. But I think that, especially with the energy crisis in Europe, there is actually a lot of progress, a lot of unexpected progress in a clean energy transition. And so that's fantastic. I think as we go from Scotland to Egypt, from COP26 to COP27, you're going to see a significant shift from not just focusing on mitigation from a climate perspective, but also adaptation and helping to build a more just and equitable future. And so I think that that's going to be an incredibly important addition to the conversation that the world's been having over the past decade or so.
Tony Maciulis: When you say adaptation, explain what that means exactly.
Lucas Joppa: Well, adaptation simply recognizes that climate change isn't something that's going to happen into the future. Climate change is something that's already happening today. And no matter how quickly we achieve a net zero economy, there are going to be human impacts of climate that have changed. And so we need to be able to help people adapt to that. We need to be able to shift our energy, our agriculture, and our other socioeconomic systems to help people adjust to the changing climates that we know are going to come. Whether that's a 1.5 degree celsius temperature increase, a two degree celsius increase, or something in between. We know that that temperature increase is going to lead to changes for human society and it behooves us to start focusing now on how we're going to help people adjust to those climactic changes.
Tony Maciulis: So one thing that you hear as a solution out there when it comes to adaptation is, okay, the temperatures are getting hotter. So we have to rely on more coolants, more air conditioning, right? How do you adapt to climate change without creating a bigger carbon emission problem?
Lucas Joppa: Well, that is the question. You can either adapt to climate change by making it worse or you can adapt to climate change by making it better. I mean, even if you just think about the built environment, the built environment is one of the largest sources of emissions across all sectors. And why is that? Well, it's because we've never been all that efficient with the way that we build, the way that we design, site, build, and then operate these buildings all around us. And so we know there are incredibly simple things, whether it's just the directional facing that we put buildings, the insulation and the energy efficiency that we build into these buildings. I think all of that is stuff that we can start doing now. It's not rocket science. We've known how to do it. But really it just sharpens the focus on making sure that all of this is coming together in a way that, as you said, adapts people to the changing climates, but does so in a way that also hastens our net zero transition as opposed to postpones it.
Tony Maciulis: And finally, here we are in Davos as the world economic forum is now in day two. Obviously climate and energy are on the agenda, but what are you hoping to hear and see? And what do you think would be a great result to have come out of this?
Lucas Joppa: Well, I think, A, it's fantastic to see that climate and sustainability remains as a top priority on the world economic forum agenda. That's fantastic. And now we really need to see the organizations, whether that's public, private sector that are here really start moving the conversation from pledges, which was really a focus of Davos in 2020, people pledging the progress that they were going to make. We need to move from the pledges to actually the progress that we need to make. And so seeing people really doubling down on their commitments, seeing people really doubling down on operationalizing and executing against their commitments, that's going to be critical.
Unpacking Lithuania's energy independence strategy
Over the past two years, Lithuania's economy was hit hard first by COVID, then by the Belarusian migrant crisis, and finally high energy prices late last year.
But now it's proving more resilient than others to the effects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Why? Mostly because they prepared for it, Lithuania's Finance Minister Gintarė Skaistė tells Eurasia Group's Shari Friedman in a GlobalStage conversation.
Indeed, the Baltic nation recently grabbed headlines when it became the first EU member state to stop buying Russian oil and natural gas.
But the Lithuanians started the process seven years ago, soon after Russia annexed Crimea.
How did Lithuania do it? Skaistė explains they put a lot of effort into achieving energy independence from Russia, for instance by investing in LNG terminals and connecting to the Nordic countries and Poland.
"Today we have the fruits of … of this prudent policy in the energy sector."
What's more, Skaistė says Lithuania's energy strategy has facilitated the country's transition to renewables and helped lower overall energy consumption.
Watch more of this Global Stage event: Live from Washington, DC: Financing the Future
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