- Trump sent the special forces to Caracas to kidnap Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro and his wife. It actually worked, and the sheepish mustachioed Chavista ended up in New York in chains. Just to make sure we remember who he really is, within hours Trump was declaring that the US needs “access to Venezuela’s oil.” Yup. Then he decided to not demand that the criminal regime resign, saying that the rightful president Maria Machado has no support, because he’s angry that she won the Nobel Prize he covets. Then she gave it to him, so now he likes her more. Not a joke.
- Progress of a sort in Gaza, where Trump again proves weirdly useful. The US-led end-of-war machination appointed a technocratic government which is really — and needs really to be — in effect the Palestinian Authority. We are pretending otherwise to placate Netanyahu’s fanatical government. But Hamas is still refusing to disarm, which is holding up reconstruction, and this, oddly, is where Trump’s Board of Peace absurdity may be potentially helpful. Why an absurdity though? Well, a permanent seat requires handing over a billion dollars to chairman-for-life Trump, who controls everything. Putin and Netanyahu have joined. The Europeans, not so much. Meanwhile, Israel and Syria may be edging toward something big.
- Trump overplayed his hand on the immigration issue — on which, had he kept his powder drier, he might have been aligned with public opinion. Instead his ICE goon squad murdered two US citizens (both of them, err, non-minority) in plain view of cellphone video, for no conceivable reason, quite misaligned with public opinion. We examined the absolutely incredible government mendacity around these events (the cartoonish Homeland “Security” Secretary Kristi Noem called one of the victims a “domestic terrorist”), and the complicity of the right wing media — which, truly now, people, is shameless cynicism at its worst.
- We also looked at the corrosive effect of Trump’s crazy White House plaques mocking his predecessors in the most vulgar fashion — and examined the case for removing him from office via the 25th Amendment after his letter to the Norwegian PM, in which he … well, you just have to read it to believe it.
It is amazing how the seemingly dimwitted US president dominates events, and also frustrating for analysts — because one cannot predict the actions of a single person the way you can do with societies and institutions. While it would be silly to deny this, the below highlights nonetheless show that AQL found time for other topics as well, with sharp analysis from a host of talented writers.
The US Senate Should Ratify The High Seas Treaty
Tatiana Der Avedissian argued that the High Seas Treaty is a historic breakthrough that finally gives the world a legal framework to protect the vast, ungoverned ocean that sustains climate stability, food security, and biodiversity. She contended that by failing to ratify it, the United States is voluntarily surrendering influence over ocean governance, environmental standards, and emerging industries like deep-sea mining. This weakens both American strategic interests and global conservation efforts.
There’s No Reason to Concede that Trump has Killed the World Order
After Canadian PM Mark Carney played the anti-Trump at Davos, we argued that treating Trump’s narrow, unpopular victory as a civilizational “rupture” is a dangerous mistake. Unlike a scenario where Americans decisively chose to destroy the liberal order, Trump won narrowly, denied Project 2025, and wields his wrecking ball without broad support. Most Trump-era policies are reversible; the deeper harm is to credibility but even that can be rebuilt over time. And it’s actually good that he has scared the Europeans into growing up.
The Case for Intervention in Iran
We conceded that intervention is usually a bad idea, being morally complex, legally dubious and historically prone to disaster. Most foreign interventions create chaos rather than freedom. But Iran is the exception because non-intervention has already enabled decades of catastrophe. The Islamic Republic is not only a brutal domestic dictatorship; it is an aggressively interventionist regime that exports violence through militias, terrorism, nuclear brinkmanship, and regional destabilization.
Will MAGA Make China a Hegemon Again?
Check out our twice-weekly podcast with Claire Berlinski! In this episode we examined whether the MAGA obsession with tariffs, indifferent to allies, and disdain trading partners might be leaving China as the big winner. Considering that the EU just signed a major free trade agreement with India, in general it is looking like the world is doing its best to give the US a wide berth.
Six Reasons Why Trump’s Greenland Obsession Is a Huge Threat to US National Security
Robert Hamilton argued that any US coercion of Denmark over Greenland would be a catastrophic and unnecessary act that would likely destroy NATO, cripple America’s global military posture, and gravely damage US national security. It would undermine overseas basing, devastate the defense industry, and legitimize Russia’s and China’s territorial aggression by setting a precedent for seizure by force. Trump’s justifications are factually baseless, since the US already has extensive military rights in Greenland and can pursue resources through partnership, not coercion. Seizing Greenland would be illegal, unconstitutional, strategically reckless, and profoundly self-destructive. Trump must have read this, because he turned tail.
America Can Create a Workable Third Party. Here’s How.
Dan Perry argued that the Republican Party has been captured by MAGA authoritarianism, while the Democratic Party is constrained by a progressive wing far to the left of most voters, leaving the pragmatic majority politically homeless. The solution, he argued, is a serious, well-funded centrist third party, built from the top down by sitting legislators and major donors, that could unite moderate Democrats, traditional Republicans, and independents and finally allow the exhausted center to govern.
Why is the Inflation Target Never Zero??
In an interview, economist James Gutman argued that central banks target about 2 percent inflation not because they like rising prices, but because the risks of missing a zero-inflation target are far more dangerous than tolerating mild inflation. Deflation, he told a skeptical interviewer, is economically suffocating: it freezes investment, encourages hoarding, forces layoffs instead of wage adjustments, and breaks monetary policy tools. Moderate inflation, by contrast, keeps money circulating and allows real wages to adjust without traumatic nominal pay cuts. Two percent is not sacred, but it is a proven “sweet spot” that stabilizes modern credit-based economies.
Estonia wants an transeuropean entry ban for Russians: here’s why
