Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe by Niall Ferguson review
(Evening Standard) – From plagues and volcanic eruptions to the current Covid pandemic, mankind has always been faced with catastrophes.
Thought Leader: Niall Ferguson
Ian Bremmer: Why the US-Ukraine minerals deal changed
Ukraine President Zelensky once called Trump’s critical minerals deal “colonial.” Now, he’s close to signing it. What’s behind the shift—and who really wins here? Ian Bremmer examines in this Quick Take.
Ian Bremmer’s Quick Take:
A Quick Take on Ukraine, the United States and Ukraine. Donald Trump and Zelensky now have a preliminary agreement on a critical minerals deal. Remember this is the deal that originally President Trump had the secretary of treasury show up in Kyiv, and say, “You got to sign this right now in the meeting.” Zelensky was unhappy, and said it was a colonial deal, it was exploitative. And Trump got angry and said Zelensky’s a dictator who only has 4% approval. And now, have they kissed and made up? Well, not exactly, but they’re certainly talking again. And it looks like Zelensky will be coming to Washington on Friday to meet with President Trump, and sign this agreement, which ill go through parliament fairly easily. Zelensky has a majority in Parliament with his party, so he can get it approved if he wants it.
What is this going to matter? What changes here? Well, a couple of points. First of all is it’s a win, and we shouldn’t be surprised. Back at the beginning of January, in our top risks, one of the things that we suggested was that Trump was going to get a lot more wins than a lot of his opponents believed, because he is the most powerful leader in the world. He’s in a very strong position and he’s willing to use that power against both adversaries and nominal friends. And a lot of people are scared of him, and so they give him what he wants. And that is what we are seeing here, especially for the Ukrainians who are in as weak a position as pretty much anyone that Trump is pushing around right now. So, he gets to say, “Look at this deal. Biden was giving away all of this American aid, and now I’m going and getting money back.”
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