"Free trade, RIP," wrote Irwin Stelzer in The Sunday Times. Donald Trump's threat to impose 25% tariffs on all goods from Mexico and Canada while also hiking levies on products from China has been widely viewed as the opening salvo in a global trade war – and the death knell for the free-market "Washington Consensus".

What did the commentators say?
Trump's second coming does not signal a definitive break with the "economic orthodoxy that had dominated American policy-making for nearly half a century", said The Atlantic. Rather, it is just the latest step in a near decade-long process that includes his first-term protectionist agenda, which was quietly continued – and in some cases expanded – by Joe Biden's administration, as well as the Covid-19 pandemic, and the emergence of increasingly independent global trading blocs.

Imposing tariffs on foreign goods as part of a pledge to push back against economist globalisation was "central to Trump's initial appeal to left-behind, post-industrial areas across the US", said Harrison Griffiths, from the free-market Institute of Economic Affairs, in City A.M. But it makes little sense economically. A study of the effects of Trump's first-term tariffs on Chinese products shows they cost each American household an average of $831 per year, as well as a reduction in investment, real wages and long-term GDP.

The effect of crippling tariffs on Canada and Mexico, two of America's biggest trading partners, will "hurt American consumers most of all", said The Economist.

Trump hopes to use tariffs to "increase government revenues without overtly raising taxes", said Stelzer, a business adviser. The aim would be "to shift the burden of taxation from income and wealth to consumption, a long-held goal of conservatives but too regressive to propose".

What next?
How much Trump truly believes that an end to free trade is in America's – and his – best interest is difficult to determine. It may be tempting to "breathe a sigh of relief that these tariffs are a theatrical way to gain leverage", said The Economist.

But others point to a broader turn towards protectionism. While the approach of the US and EU, for example, may differ, said Politico, "what we observe among developed nations is a gradual but perceptible shift away from uncontrolled free trade, and a move toward the imposition of more controls and obstacles".

A multinational dairy company says calls for a boycott over its methane-cutting additive are based on "misinformation". Thousands of social media users have threatened to stop buying Arla's goods after the Danish-Swedish firm launched a trial of a new supplement.
"The fight to reduce cow flatulence just turned nasty," said The Telegraph. But what is actually going on?

Rigorous tests
In a "seemingly innocuous" announcement, said The Telegraph, Arla revealed that 30 of its British farmers were teaming up with Morrisons, Aldi and Tesco to test a new feed additive, Bovaer. Research has found that Bovaer reduces methane emissions from dairy cows by an average of 27%.

The company insists the additive has been "rigorously and extensively tested", and emphasises that it is put into cows' feed, rather than directly into their milk, as some have claimed on social media. Contrary to other claims on the internet, Arla's product is not connected to Bill Gates, although the Microsoft founder did invest millions in Rumin8, a company developing similar methane-reducing supplements last year, through his investment firm, Breakthrough Energy Ventures.

Methane struggles
"A particularly bilious bovine can happily expel over 300 litres of methane a day," said The Telegraph. And aside from carbon dioxide, said New Scientist, methane is the "most significant" contributor to climate change, responsible for "about a quarter of overall warming".

The burping and defecation of livestock is the second biggest emitter of methane, behind fossil fuel production. With "around 1.5 billion cows on the planet being raised as livestock", said Vox, the production of meat and dairy is a "climate problem we've struggled to solve".

"Questions remain over such additives' long-term effectiveness and impact on animal health and welfare," said The Independent. But an Arla spokesperson told The Grocer that the health and safety of both consumers and animals "is always our number one priority". Bovaer "has already been extensively and safely used across Europe" and regulatory bodies, including the European Food Safety Authority and UK Food Standards Agency, have approved its use "based on evidence" that it "does not harm the animals or negatively impact their health", the company said.

Few experiences evoke the festive spirit more effectively than a stroll through a Christmas light trail. More and more of these twinkling displays have been cropping up across the country in recent years, helping to brighten the winter gloom.

Christmas at Kew, London
With "futuristic tree gardens" and "strobing light tunnels flashing like paparazzi bulbs", the Christmas light trail at Kew Gardens is "the closest most of us will get to starring in a sci-fi film", said The Times. Winding for almost two miles, it's one of the country's longest trails.

Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire
As well as its illuminated outdoor trail, Blenheim Palace has added an indoor option this year, taking visitors on an adventure through the state rooms as Tinkerbell "sprinkles fairy dust over baubles and Christmas trees", said Country Living. Guests can also go ice-skating and stock up on festive gifts at the Christmas market.

Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh
The Scottish capital's beautiful botanic gardens "take on a whole new kind of magic" at Christmas, said Time Out. Expect "dazzling light tunnels", "shimmery rainbow-tinged tree branches", and a visit from Father Christmas. After wandering through the light trail, warm up with a hot chocolate and toasted marshmallows. "Yum."

The Festival of Light at Longleat, Wiltshire
Longleat opened in 1966 as the world's first drive-through safari park outside Africa, but in recent years it's also carved out a reputation for its "dazzling displays of thousands of Christmas lanterns", said The Times. This year's theme invites guests to turn back the clock and take a journey through time, with the light trail "waltzing guests from the dinosaurs to Egyptian pyramids, Roman chariots and the Chinese Shang dynasty".

George Osborne is a walking ad for a wealth tax. Labour should target the inheritocracy
Polly Toynbee in The Guardian
Having "retired from casting millions of people into poverty", George Osborne has become a "flaunting, flamboyant example" of how the "social heft of inherited wealth" accelerates the "great divide between those with some and those with none", writes Polly Toynbee. As the former chancellor collects another multimillion "windfall", "tax wealth, not work" is a "good message", provided Labour can tell it with a "fiery, class-war radicalism so that people understand". 

We're all suffering from qualitynesia now
Sarah O'Connor in the Financial Times
I recently found the "portable CD player" my parents gave me on my 13th birthday, writes Sarah O'Connor, and "even using headphones from the 1990s, I was staggered by the richness of the sound". Hundreds of millions of us have traded audio quality for the "convenience and variety" of Spotify without even realising. This phenomenon is the "opposite" of "rose-tinted glasses" – it's "forgetting something was better in the past when it objectively was".

What does being 'uncomfortable' with Gregg Wallace mean? Either make an allegation, or don't
Celia Walden in The Telegraph
"I'm starting to feel uncomfortable about the word 'uncomfortable'," writes Celia Walden. It's a "grenade of an adjective" and a "debate silencer" that has "accrued some pretty sinister connotations". It's now "primarily used" as a vague "accusation" and we should be "wary" of its "power". We must "find a better word, or a whole series of more accurate words, if we feel a wrong has occurred", because "this one fails both the innocent and the guilty".