Deep Press Analysis

American business circles are ramping up pressure on the Trump administration, demanding the removal of tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico (aluminum, steel, lumber) ahead of the USMCA review in 2026. Major business groups warn that protectionism will disrupt established supply chains and hit American consumers through rising prices. This highlights a split between corporate pragmatism and the White House political agenda. For investors, this signals continued high volatility in North American trade and risks for sectors dependent on cross-border logistics.

Diplomatic efforts by Trump's team (envoy Witkoff and son-in-law Kushner) to settle the conflict in Ukraine have hit a wall of strict demands from Moscow regarding territorial concessions and security guarantees. Despite intensive talks in the Kremlin, the sides are far from compromise, confirmed by Putin's rejection of several US proposals. The situation demonstrates Russia's intent to exploit the US transition period to maximize its leverage. This suggests a prolonged diplomatic process and persisting geopolitical risks for markets hoping for a swift resolution.

A scandal is unfolding in Canada involving a healthcare businessman suspected of bypassing political donation limits via a straw donor scheme for both leading parties in Alberta. The investigation reveals deep corruption risks and the vulnerability of political institutions to lobbying, particularly in sensitive public procurement sectors. For business, this signals tighter compliance controls and potential reputational risks when interacting with politically exposed persons. The crisis of trust in local institutions may lead to an overhaul of party financing and procurement rules.

Canadian defence contractor Roshel has won a contract to manufacture armored vehicles for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), sparking ethical and political debate amid Trump's tough migration policy. Production has moved to US soil, bypassing direct Canadian export controls but creating political tension between Ottawa and Washington. This is an example of defence business adapting to protectionism ("Made in America"), trading ESG reputation for access to US government contracts. The trend points to the militarization of US domestic security and rising demand for special vehicles.

Leading consultancy firms are freezing starting salaries and cutting junior hiring as AI automates basic analyst tasks. This marks a fundamental shift in the white-collar model: entry into prestigious professions is becoming harder, and career ladders are slowing down. Companies leveraging AI to boost margins win, but long-term this creates a risk of a mid-level talent shortage. For the labor market, this signals the start of structural wage deflation in intellectual sectors.

Footage of a US military strike on a boat carrying suspected drug traffickers, killing survivors of the initial attack, has sparked sharp criticism in Congress and debate over the legality of Trump administration orders. The admiral leading the operation cited aggressive directives from Defense Secretary Hegseth, questioning US adherence to the laws of war. The incident highlights the militarization of the drug war and the new administration's readiness to use lethal force disregarding international norms. This creates legal risks for military personnel and may complicate relations with Latin American partners.

The Pentagon Inspector General concluded that Defense Secretary Hegseth's use of the unsecured Signal app to discuss military operations in Yemen posed a direct threat to operational security. Despite Hegseth's claims of "total vindication," the report confirms a disregard for secrecy protocols at the highest level. This evidences a systemic governance crisis in the defense department and the erosion of institutional norms under the new administration. For investors, this is a marker of heightened unpredictability and incompetence in key national security decision-making.

China is actively using its monopoly on tungsten mining and processing as leverage in the trade war with the US, restricting exports of this metal critical for the defence industry. Beijing demonstrates readiness to use raw materials for geopolitical blackmail, threatening supply chains for Western defence and tech companies. This will accelerate Western efforts to diversify supply, but risks shortages and price spikes in the short term. The situation confirms the trend towards the fragmentation of the global economy into geopolitical blocs.

Scientific studies have shown that AI chatbots can effectively persuade voters (1 in 25 changes position) through personalized, even if factually dubious, dialogues. This opens a Pandora's box for public opinion manipulation and threatens democratic procedures. Tech platforms are becoming key players in the political process, inevitably leading to attempts at strict AI regulation. For business, this means rising risks associated with using generative AI in communications and marketing.

Under pressure from appointees of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (a known vaccine skeptic), a CDC committee postponed a decision on mandatory Hepatitis B vaccination for newborns. This marks the politicization of US scientific and medical institutions, where ideology begins to override evidence-based medicine. Undermining trust in immunization programs carries long-term public health risks and may trigger disease outbreaks. For the pharma industry, this signals the onset of an era of regulatory turbulence and potential revision of established medical standards.

The Trump administration is preparing a massive privatization of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, potentially the largest IPO in history, bringing billions to the treasury. The key question is the deal structure, determining who profits: the state or speculative shareholders (including major hedge funds). Implementation will radically reshape the US mortgage landscape, potentially raising borrowing costs for homeowners. This event will be a primary driver for the financial sector in the near term.

The Pentagon is starting to use cheap disposable drones copied from Iranian designs, acknowledging the effectiveness of asymmetric warfare methods. This marks a shift in US military strategy from expensive high-tech systems to mass-produced, affordable solutions (Drone Dominance initiative). Beneficial for manufacturers of cheap UAVs and startups capable of rapid reverse engineering. The trend confirms the changing nature of modern conflict, where quantity and cost of munitions become decisive factors.

Warner Bros. Discovery has entered exclusive talks to sell its studios and HBO Max streaming business to Netflix, potentially radically reshaping the media landscape. If completed, the deal would cement Netflix's dominance and effectively end the old "studio vs streaming" competition model. It is an admission of defeat by traditional media giants in trying to build their own ecosystems. For the market, this signals further industry consolidation where content becomes fuel for a few global winner platforms.

Trump's pardon of convicted drug trafficker and ex-president of Honduras Hernandez was the result of lobbying via a network of allies at Mar-a-Lago. This decision undermines DOJ efforts and sends a signal that loyalty to Trump outweighs the rule of law and the drug war. The institutional crisis of justice deepens: foreign policy becomes transactional and personalized. This creates international security risks, encouraging corrupt regimes to seek personal patronage in Washington.

Meta (Facebook) plans to cut spending on its ambitious Metaverse project, redirecting budgets to AI technologies and wearables. This is an admission of the failure of a strategy that cost the company over $77bn in losses, and a return to pragmatic capital management. The move benefits shareholders by reducing unproductive spending. The trend confirms AI has become the dominant vector of tech sector development, displacing speculative virtual world concepts.

Donald Trump's attempt to initiate peace talks via envoys in Moscow has yielded no immediate breakthrough. Vladimir Putin is hardening his rhetoric, sensing a battlefield advantage, while Europe displays dangerous disunity on funding and strategy for Kyiv. The situation risks the US withdrawing from the conflict, leaving the EU alone with an aggressive Russia and huge defence costs. If Europe cannot rapidly agree on using frozen Russian assets or issuing common bonds, Ukraine faces defeat, and the EU a catastrophic loss of geopolitical weight. Events are pushing the EU toward forced strategic autonomy, for which it is politically and financially unprepared.

AI-powered toys and educational tools are rapidly entering the lives of the new generation, offering personalized learning and entertainment. Short-term, this promises to level educational opportunities, but carries fundamental long-term risks: from early echo-chamber formation to the loss of live social skills and conflict resolution. Children raised by "flawless" algorithms may grow up unable to compromise or interact with imperfect humans. For EdTech investors, this signals a massive growth market, but for society, a warning of the need for strict regulation and preserving "human" zones in upbringing.

A recent conflict with Pakistan (Operation Sindoor) exposed India's vulnerabilities in drones and air defence, giving a powerful boost to the local private defence tech sector. The Modi government is actively stimulating "indigenization" of the military-industrial complex, opening military contracts to startups previously accessible only to state corporations. This creates a new high-growth market for venture capital seeking to reduce Delhi's reliance on Russian and Western imports. However, risks remain regarding bureaucracy and dual-use technology access, potentially stalling sector scaling.

Hostile US migration policy and counter-espionage initiatives are driving an exodus of Chinese scientists and students back to the PRC. Beijing is exploiting the situation, increasing R&D funding and creating conditions for returnees, threatening American leadership in critical technologies, including AI. For the US, this is a strategic blunder: by closing off "risky" talent, they are strengthening their main geopolitical rival. Long-term, this could shift the center of global innovation to Asia.

Electorate fragmentation in the UK means the first-past-the-post system no longer guarantees stability, generating random, disproportionate results. The rise of Reform UK and the Greens dilutes traditional party bases, making election outcomes unpredictable like a casino. This creates risks of weak government with dubious mandates, unable to enact unpopular but necessary reforms. For business, this means a period of heightened political volatility and potential constitutional crisis, likely ending in inevitable electoral reform.

The official UK inquiry has placed personal responsibility for the chemical weapon use in Salisbury on Vladimir Putin, calling the GRU's actions "astonishingly reckless." This conclusion legally cements Russia's status as an aggressor state in British law and entails new sanctions against Russian intelligence. The report highlights failures by British security services in assessing risks to defectors, requiring protocol revisions. For London-Moscow relations, this means decades of fixed hostility, ruling out normalization under the current Russian regime.

The decision by Eurovision organizers to admit Israel to the 2026 contest has sparked a boycott by Ireland, Spain, Slovenia, and the Netherlands. The cultural event has turned into a platform for geopolitical rift, demonstrating Israel's deepening isolation in Europe amidst the Gaza conflict. Organizers face financial and reputational losses, and the fragmentation of a unified European cultural space. The situation shows how international institutions are losing the ability to remain neutral in a polarized world.

UK regulator Ofgem has approved a £28bn investment plan to modernize energy grids, inevitably leading to higher consumer bills. This is the price of the green energy transition and reducing gas reliance, necessary to integrate renewables. In the short term, this increases inflationary pressure on households and business, creating political risks for the government. However, for infrastructure and energy investors, it signals the start of a massive state-guaranteed capex cycle.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage faces new accusations of racism from his youth, responding with an aggressive attack on the BBC, accusing the corporation of bias. This "best defence is offence" tactic aims to consolidate the anti-elite electorate and undermine trust in traditional media. The scandal is unlikely to deter Farage's core base but may limit his ability to expand into moderate conservatives. It is a classic populist strategy where any scandal is used to reinforce the "us vs them" narrative.

The construction PMI has fallen to critical levels, signaling a sharp drop in projects and jobs due to budget uncertainty. This threatens Labour's ambitious housing and infrastructure plans, key to their economic program. Slowdown in such a multiplier sector could harbinger a broader recession. For the market, this signals that government tax and regulatory changes are cooling the real economy faster than expected.

Despite growing threats from Russia and China, the British government is effectively cutting military capabilities due to the budget deficit. Chiefs of staff warn of inability to fulfill strategic tasks, while elite unit morale is undermined by legal prosecution of veterans. This comes as the US expects more autonomy from European allies, leaving London vulnerable. Britain's weakness undermines its NATO leadership claims and sends a dangerous signal to adversaries about unreadiness for real conflict.

Rising social security costs, especially for disability, are creating a structural budget deficit the government tries to plug by taxing workers. This creates a vicious cycle: work incentives drop, state dependence rises, cementing poverty in former industrial hubs. Politically, this opens a flank for populists on the right (Reform UK) offering radical benefit cuts. Economically, it is a time bomb, as resource redistribution from productive to non-productive sectors slows growth.

A global rollback from the aggressive climate agenda is observed: corporations leaving Net Zero alliances, politicians (including US Democrats) dropping climate as a central theme. The reason lies in the inefficiency of subsidized renewables for modern economy needs (especially AI data centers) and voter fatigue with apocalyptic rhetoric. Emphasis shifts to adaptation and affordable energy, including gas and nuclear. For markets, this means a renaissance of traditional energy and a revision of investment strategies previously solely focused on ESG.

In an era of declining British hard power (economic and military), the monarchy remains a unique "soft power" asset impossible to replicate. King Charles III's visits and interaction with world leaders show the royal family opens doors closed to ordinary politicians. However, using the monarchy for political lobbying or "charming" figures like Trump carries risks of politicizing the crown. Nevertheless, in a fragmented world, this institution remains one of Britain's few stable brands generating global attention and trust.

A Belgian police investigation into top EU foreign service (EEAS) officials undermines Brussels' moral authority. Though the sums involved are small, cronyism in structures that lecture others on rule of law destroys the EU's reputation. This plays into the hands of eurosceptics and external adversaries (Russia), allowing them to accuse the EU of hypocrisy. Institutional dysfunction in EU foreign policy is becoming increasingly evident, weakening the bloc's position globally at a critical moment.

The appointment of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as HHS head and the shift in official CDC stance on vaccines marks the institutionalization of anti-scientific skepticism in the US government. This is not just a political gesture, but a dismantling of public health based on evidence-based medicine. Risks include outbreaks of forgotten diseases (polio, measles) and loss of trust in scientific guidance during future pandemics. For pharma and biotech, this signals an era of regulatory unpredictability and state hostility.

Political violence in America has ceased to be an anomaly and become a systemic factor influencing official behavior at all levels. Death threats and attacks force moderate politicians out of the public sphere, making way for thick-skinned radicals. This degrades governance quality and furthers polarization as dialogue is replaced by force. The problem is exacerbated by violence often being justified or ignored by party leaders for political gain, eroding democratic norms.

The transformation of sports arenas from public spaces into elite complexes with dynamic pricing reflects growing inequality in leisure access. Club owners maximize profit via corporate boxes and tech, pushing out the traditional working class. This changes the essence of fan culture, turning sport into a product for the rich, which long-term may undermine teams' social support base. Economically, this is a bet on "premiumization" of consumption, vulnerable to recession.

The attempt to standardize Romansh in Switzerland (creating Rumantsch Grischun) backfired, sparking resistance from local communities defending dialects. This is a case of technocratic top-down solutions crashing against bottom-up cultural identity. However, new technologies (AI/neural networks) may paradoxically save linguistic diversity by offering cheap translation and preservation tools without homogenization. A lesson for globalists: tech can foster hyper-localization, not just homogenization.

(From Talk of the Town/Comment). Critique of the new US administration's approach to health, proposing to replace medical research with "healthy lifestyle". Defunding science and vaccines under the guise of fighting chronic disease ignores the reality of infectious threats. This is a populist decision saving budget today but creating colossal bio-security risks for the future. For investors, a signal of reduced government spending on science and medicine in favor of ideologically motivated but scientifically baseless initiatives.

Google plans to sell access to its specialized chips (TPUs) to third parties, challenging Nvidia's monopoly on AI hardware. TPUs are more efficient for specific machine learning tasks than general GPUs, potentially lowering model training costs for tech giants. This marks the start of AI hardware diversification, beneficial for software developers but threatening Nvidia's margins. For the industry, this means a shift from compute scarcity to architectural competition.

James Webb Telescope data points to the possible existence of "dark stars" — giant early universe objects powered by dark matter annihilation, not nuclear fusion. If confirmed, this solves the mystery of supermassive black hole origins and provides a key to understanding dark matter. This is a fundamental shift in astrophysics that could rewrite the history of cosmic evolution.

Congo Basin forests, the planet's second "lungs," have stopped absorbing carbon and started emitting it due to logging and degradation. This critically alters the global carbon balance, making climate goals harder and more expensive to reach. For business, this means increased pressure on supply chains linked to timber and minerals from Africa, and rising demand for carbon capture tech as nature fails to cope.

Scientists propose a new law of thermodynamics to describe living systems functioning in non-equilibrium but with a "set point" (homeostasis). Classical physics cannot accurately describe biological process efficiency. This is a theoretical breakthrough with practical implications for synthetic biology and creating biotech systems working on living matter principles, not mechanics.

Technology developed to embed DNA-mimicking chemical structures into plastic triggers decomposition on command or after a set time. This is a potential solution to the global plastic waste crisis, retaining material convenience but eliminating its persistence as trash. For the packaging and petrochemical industry, this is a path to creating truly biodegradable polymers without losing consumer properties.

The UK National Health Service (NHS) faces a crisis due to an early, aggressive mutated flu strain outbreak. Hospitalizations are already ten times higher than last year. The situation is worsened by planned doctor strikes, risking system collapse in winter. For the government, this is a serious domestic challenge requiring emergency measures/funding; for the public, a threat to care access.

The Labour government delayed regional mayor elections in four counties until 2028, officially for reorganization, unofficially fearing loss to Reform UK. This decision sparked accusations of democracy manipulation and may fuel anti-establishment sentiment. Delaying elections also implies switching to a voting system less favorable to small parties, an example of using administrative resources to hold power.

A memorandum signed to launch direct trains between London, Cologne, and Frankfurt by the early 2030s. This is a key infrastructure project strengthening post-Brexit UK-Europe ties and offering a green alternative to flights. For business/tourism, new opportunities; implementation faces technical/border hurdles. The project symbolizes pragmatic transport rapprochement with the EU.

The UK Home Office raided illegal migrants working as couriers via rented accounts. Fines introduced for platforms (Deliveroo, Uber Eats) for lack of checks. A signal the government intends to strictly regulate the gig economy "grey zone," a magnet for illegal migration. For business, this means rising compliance costs and potential cheap labor shortage.

EV sales growth in November was the lowest in two years, indicating cooling private buyer interest. Reasons: high prices, lack of infrastructure, and looming EV taxes. This threatens government decarbonization plans and demands incentive revision. For automakers, a warning signal of market saturation among early adopters and difficulty transitioning to the mass consumer.