North Korean soldiers are making their way to Ukraine to fight alongside the Russian army, in a "grim reality" confirmed by South Korea's intelligence agency, said Edward Howell at The Spectator. The move represents a "huge" escalation risk, Ukraine Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha warned last weekend. While the troop numbers are small compared to the millions of people involved in the overall war effort, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that any third country wading into the conflict in his country would be the "first step to a world war." 

Growing numbers
About 1,500 troops from North Korea's special forces have already been deployed to Russia en route to Ukraine, and that number could rise to 10,000, according to Zelenskyy. It's not clear whether they will be involved in front-line fighting or a support role, but any public display of their military insignia would signal that Pyongyang is "publicly invested in the war against Ukraine and its alliance with Russia," said The Interpreter. 

Strategic partnership
Russian forces have become increasingly reliant on millions of rounds of North Korean artillery shells and, in recent months, ballistic missiles, in a clear breach of U.N. Security Council resolutions. Moscow's "obstinacy toward continuing the war, coupled with North Korea's desire for financial and technological assistance (and for food), has allowed relations between the two pariah states to reach a whole new level," said Howell. 

Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a comprehensive strategic partnership treaty last summer committing both countries to providing military assistance to each other if either were attacked. The current deployment of North Korean soldiers to fight in Ukraine "highlights just how far the partnership has escalated." 

Global threat
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has warned that Pyongyang's involvement in the Ukraine conflict would pose a "grave security threat" to the world. The deployment of North Korean troops to Ukraine is a hugely symbolic moment in the "new anti-Western coalition" being forged between China, Iran, North Korea and Russia, said Howell. Moscow will do "all it can to prolong its now-global war."

In his third campaign for the presidency, Donald Trump is promising further tax reductions. But he's pairing them with aggressive tariffs on imported goods, which function as a kind of tax on the importing company that's ultimately passed on to consumers.

More tax cuts coming
One of Trump's signature legislative achievements as president was the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). The TCJA permanently lowered the corporate tax rate to 21% from 35% for most companies. The Trump campaign has discussed another round of corporate tax-cutting, to a rate of 15% for domestic manufacturers.

In addition to corporate taxes, the Trump campaign wants to make further changes to the tax code for individuals and families. The TCJA "reduced statutory tax rates at almost all levels of taxable income," said a report by the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, meaning that most Americans paid lower taxes after the law was implemented. Many of those provisions, however, expire at the end of 2025, and the Trump campaign wants Congress to make them permanent. 

Additional deductions and how to offset them
The Trump campaign has reversed course on one TCJA change that capped the State and Local Tax deduction for homeowners at $10,000. The Trump campaign now promises to restore that deduction to where it was before the TCJA was passed. 

Trump has also proposed two new individual tax exemptions, one for income from tips for restaurant workers and others who draw a significant percentage of their income from gratuities and another for overtime pay. The Trump campaign has promised to offset the revenue losses from these proposals with new tariffs on imported goods. 

The exact shape of those tariffs has been a moving target during the campaign. Most economists are skeptical that Trump's proposed tariffs would help the economy. Even the lower-range tariff proposals could "cost a typical household in the middle of the income distribution at least $1,700 in increased taxes each year," said Kimberley Clausing and Mary Lovely in a Peterson Institute for International Economics report.