For weeks, the Trump administration has waged a brutal war on Iran. But now that Iran has successfully shifted the conflict’s nexus to the oil-shipping bottleneck in the Strait of Hormuz, the White House has a new plan to inflict maximum pressure: economic warfare, the “financial equivalent” of a bombing campaign, said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent during a White House briefing last week.

What did the commentators say?

Blocking Iranian ports and shipping lanes and pivoting from “kinetic to economic warfare” is an attempt to “end the conflict without a new U.S.-Israeli onslaught,” said CNN. Per the White House’s “rationale,” the “ruinous financial and humanitarian consequences” of being unable to ship and sell oil leave Tehran with “no choice but to accept U.S. terms” to end the conflict.

Although focused on Iran specifically, the administration’s threats stretch beyond the Islamic Republic to those who would do business with it. Countries that are “buying Iranian oil” or hold Iranian funds in their banks now risk “secondary sanctions, which is a very stern measure,” Bessent said on PBS News. Iranians themselves will feel the “financial equivalent of what we saw in the kinetic activities.”

Bessent’s threat came one day after his Treasury Department notified “financial institutions in China, Hong Kong, the UAE and Oman” that they are at risk of secondary sanctions for “allowing Iranian illicit activities to flow through their financial institutions,” said The Associated Press. The “argument being made to Trump” is that no matter if the Iranians think they can “weather the storm,” any inability to pay their “loyalists” could “pressure Iran to the table.”

Approximately one-third of the oil Iran exports through the Strait of Hormuz “directly funds the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,” said The Foundation for Defense of Democracies Senior Fellow Miad Maleki on Fox News. Bessent’s threats will “shut down a lifeline that the regime desperately needs right now to keep its economy on some life support.”

Trump himself has been a “heavy user of financial sanctions” targeting “countries, individuals and companies,” The Washington Post said. At the same time, his administration seems to have been “caught unawares” when rivals like China and Iran “weaponized their economic advantages.”

While sanctions have long been the “instrument of choice for applying pressure on Iran,” the White House’s pivot toward “more kinetic forms of economic coercion” blurs the line between “financial restriction and military intervention,” said Harsh Pant, an international relations professor with King’s India Institute at King’s College London, at The Economic Times. “By physically interdicting maritime traffic” with its naval blockade, Trump is showing a willingness to enforce America’s “economic objectives through direct control of global commons.”

What next?

In many ways, the “damage” caused by economic weapons is already “sparking a response,” with nations that depend on the Strait of Hormuz “making plans to reduce their vulnerability to a future closure,” the Post said. But critics warn that attempts to impose other financial consequences on Iran could ultimately backfire on the United States and its allies. Much of the previous phase of war has “helped Iran’s economy,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), per the AP. Imposing further economic conditions is simply an attempt by Bessent to “mop up the mess that Donald Trump has created by initiating this war.”

The administration could still be making a “sound bet,” said CNN. Iran’s economy has been “shattered by sanctions” and could “quickly suffer critical food shortages, hyperinflation and a banking crisis” that would push Tehran to settle with the Trump administration. But this hope shared by “U.S. officials, conservative editorial pages and analysts” may ultimately “rest on an assumption” that has “led the U.S. astray in the Middle East” many times in the past.

What happens if two of the country’s largest airlines combine? It may not be a hypothetical, as American Airlines and United Airlines have reportedly discussed merging into one company. But experts say this move is likely to face antitrust scrutiny, and many are concerned about what a merger could do to airfares in a market already seeing rising prices.

What did the commentators say?

United CEO Scott Kirby has allegedly spoken with Trump administration officials about getting clearance for a merger. If United and American were to combine, it would “create an unprecedented concentration of power in the commercial aviation industry,” said CNN. The joint company would “control roughly 40% of U.S. capacity when the available seats are adjusted for miles flown.” This has aviation analysts worried about a potential monopoly.

The “idea that we would have one airline responsible for four out of 10 flights every day is beyond horrific,” William McGee, an aviation and travel fellow at the American Economic Liberties Project, said to CNN. But airline consolidation has long been a part of the aviation business, and the White House “has shown a warmth toward mergers in the industry,” said CNBC. Combining companies “allows carriers to better control capacity.” Consolidation could also create a lifeline for American, which has fallen behind United and Delta as it “struggled to capitalize on higher-spending customers who are driving major airlines’ revenue in recent years.”

The potential merger may create a problem for customers, with the “main concern” being “higher fares,” said MarketWatch. Fares have already been climbing due to fuel shortages from the war in Iran, and “your next plane ticket and the pile of unused miles sitting in your account could both take a beating” if United and American joined, said Money Talks News. The two airlines “overlap heavily in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Washington,” which means customers should “expect higher fares on a lot of the routes you actually fly.”

When it comes to the less-traveled routes, airline consolidation means “secondary hubs tend to get thinned out,” said Money Talks News. It would put “pressure on cities like Philadelphia, Phoenix and Charlotte — places where American currently runs big operations,” and locals would “pay for it in both schedule choices and ticket prices.” People who take advantage of frequent flier miles may especially lose out, as “when airlines merge, the combining loyalty programs almost always end up repricing awards — upward.”

What next?

The details of the new proposed company are not yet clear. Any deal would “invite extraordinary scrutiny from regulators, labor unions and consumer advocates,” said Reuters. Prior governments have stopped smaller mergers in the past; the Biden administration “blocked JetBlue’s attempt to acquire Spirit Airlines, arguing it would eliminate ‌a low-cost ⁠competitor.”

The talks are also coming at a time when the Trump administration is “concerned about affordability issues,” and such a deal would “reduce choices and give the airlines more pricing power,” antitrust ⁠lawyer Andre Barlow told Reuters. “I would think this would get a rigorous review.”

The price of crude oil could rise to $150 a barrel under a US blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

Jorge Montepeque, managing director of oil traders Onyx Capital Group, said prices “should be $140, $150” if the naval blockade goes ahead, said The Telegraph.

The US blockade was due to begin at 3pm today UK time. Writing on social media, Donald Trump said that the US was going to start “BLOCKADING any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz” and will “interdict every vessel in International Waters that has paid a toll to Iran”.

How will it work?

Under Trump’s plan, instead of having navy ships escort commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz, US forces will board and potentially seize any vessels that pay Iran’s toll, a move that would effectively close the strait off entirely.

The US Central Command said that its forces would not impede the freedom of vessels travelling to and from non-Iranian ports. It also pledged that it would release additional information to commercial mariners.

The president warned that “any Iranian who fires at us, or at peaceful vessels, will be BLOWN TO HELL”, but “at some point” an agreement on free passage would be reached. He said that other countries would be involved in blockading the strait, but did not specify which. Keir Starmer said the UK would not join the blockade.

What will the effect be?

The consequences for the global economy could be serious. There’s “little clarity” about how the US navy will take control of the strait without “reigniting” the conflict with Iran and “causing another shockwave” in the money markets, said Michael Evans in The Times.

The blockade “might risk worsening a war-driven global energy crisis”, said The Washington Post. Although Iran would “potentially suffer the most economically”, it may also “come as a blow to the rest of the world”, particularly nations in Asia, which “rely heavily” on oil and gas from the Gulf.

So the president is “once again playing loose with the fortunes of financial markets and the global economy as he struggles to find a way out of the war”, said Australia’s ABC News.

As for Trump, the plan “reflects his hope” that he can repeat the “model of his intervention” in Venezuela, said the Financial Times. There, the US “seized” the then president Nicolás Maduro in a military operation after a naval blockade of the Latin American nation.

“You saw what we did with Venezuela,” Trump told Fox News. “It’ll be something very similar to that, but at a higher level.”

What did experts say?

Initially, Trump’s plan will only affect the small number of vessels that are still navigating the waterway, shipping expert Lars Jensen told the BBC. If the US does blockade the strait, it will “halt a very tiny trickle” of vessels and “in the greater scheme of things, it doesn’t really change anything”.

But three legal experts in the US said the blockade could violate maritime law. One of them suggested the blockade, which will be enforced militarily, would violate the current ceasefire agreement.

The blockade is a good “counterpoint” to Iran’s closure of the strait, Dennis Ross, the former senior US diplomat and Middle East negotiator, said on X. It puts “greater pressure on Iran” and “great pressure on China to pressure Iran”.

But Vali Nasr, a former US official and a professor at Johns Hopkins University, told the Financial Times that the plan will be “fine by the Iranians” because it “prolongs the chokehold on the global economy”.

Tehran might respond by shutting down the Bab el-Mandeb, a chokepoint off the coast of Yemen, said Nasr, and “then the US will have to deal with that”.

Nationwide fuel protests in Ireland are now in their fourth day – and the government has put defence forces on standby to help police clear vehicles blockading roads and fuel depots.

The protestors, primarily farmers, hauliers, and others who drive for a living, are causing “significant disruption” that threatens “critical supplies”, said The Independent. They are angry at the sharp rise in diesel and petrol prices, caused by the conflict in the Middle East, and are demanding “immediate government intervention” to protect the risk to their livelihoods.

With the International Monetary Fund warning that the world will experience diesel and jet fuel shortages “for some time”, there are signs, and concerns, that the protests in Ireland are spreading beyond its borders.

What did the commentators say?

The Irish government finds itself “locked in a highly polarised debate with an implacably opposed group”, said Johnny Fallon in The Journal. The protestors see it as a “straightforward”: they can’t afford fuel, and any “lack of political will” to cut costs means the government is “corrupt” or “misallocating funds”. But the government needs “sustainable, fact-based, long-term solutions rather than short-term fixes”. The wider public, “though sceptical of the protests”, is growing “impatient” for “meaningful government action.”

Over in Britain, the markets are “already reacting as if shortages are coming”, said Hannah Barnes in The New Statesman. “If they do materialise, they are likely to spread through the economy in ways that go far beyond queues at petrol stations”. And “the longer the disruption continues”, the bigger the impact on food prices, in particular. Some experts are already predicting a challenging winter ahead, with protests more than a possibility.

Protests at fuel shortages and rising prices for diesel have already spread to France, said Radio France Internationale. Landscaping firms have blockaded ring roads around Nantes, road-freight firms have organised protests in Lyon and Clermont-Ferrand, and fishermen in Corsica have been blocking the island’s six main ports. Nearly one in five French petrol stations were temporarily out of at least one type of fuel after the Easter weekend.

Last month in Germany, a “convoy of around 50 trucks drove through” Cottbus in protest, said Agnieszka Kulikowska on Trans.INFO. “Tensions are also becoming increasingly visible in Italy”, where truckers have protested in Ravenna.

What next?

“A situation that not long ago was described as difficult is now being openly called an existential crisis by many business owners,” said Kulikowska on Trans.INFO. “The protests that are just beginning may only be the start of a broader movement.”

If governments and industry regulators do not ease pressures on businesses, the next steps could be “far more radical”. “One thing is certain: road transport – the lifeblood of the European economy – has reached a critical point.”

Oil prices jumped last night after Donald Trump said the Iran conflict was “nearing completion”. Despite the US president saying the attacks on Tehran would end in “two to three weeks” and America doesn’t “need their oil”, the markets were not soothed.

“A word – or social media post” – from Trump “used to spark big moves in prices”, said the BBC. Investors would leap on “signs” that things “could escalate or come to an end”. But now traders seem “to be growing more sceptical about the value of his comments”.

What did the commentators say?

At the outset of the conflict, oil prices were “sensitive to Trump’s comments” but his view of the war “seems to change hour by hour”, said Tom Saunders and Eir Nolsoe in The Telegraph. “His stream of often contradictory statements” have made many wonder “whether they can trust the messaging” coming from the US administration, and some traders have drawn back from the market, “leaving prices increasingly untethered from reality”.

However many solutions to the current global oil crisis Donald Trump comes up with, the oil market isn’t listening anymore – “and the price of oil keeps rising”, said Matthew Lynn in The Spectator. There’s simply no point in Trump “trying to talk the price of oil back down again. It just won’t work.”

His “Persian Taco” tactic “may have run its course”, said Eduardo Porter in The Guardian. “Making extreme threats” and then walking them back may “provide Trump with the illusion of agency” but he “no longer has control of events in Iran”. The markets are “figuring out” that it will probably be Tehran, not the US, that gets to decide when the conflict ends.

What’s next?

UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper is today chairing a virtual summit with almost three dozen nations, to explore measures to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz. And Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said his government is determined to find a solution to the energy challenges, although “it will not be easy”.

And yet, “after nearly three weeks of this conflict”, the global financial system is “functioning without panic or alarming signs of stress”, said Zachary Karabell in the The Washington Post. “It’s important to distinguish between price movements” and stability. “The smooth functioning” of the financial system, “in the face” of crises like the oil shock, “gets little attention, probably because stability is not news”. But central banks, financial institutions and governments have “improved at monitoring” risks, and that should “at least provide some relief in a world full enough of fears”.

With oil and gas prices soaring and supply severely disrupted by conflict in the Middle East, households fear a corresponding spike in their energy bills and calls are coming for the government to act.

Keir Starmer today outlined government measures to “bear down on costs”. The prime minister pointed to Ofgem’s new energy price cap, which amounts to a 7% decrease in energy bills, as well as increases to minimum wages. Starmer also pointed to the £1 billion-a-year Crisis and Resilience Fund that will help vulnerable households with heating oil prices. But the best way to bring down costs for families is to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, Starmer stressed. That means “pushing for de-escalation in the Middle East”.

The price cap resets at the end of June – and according to forecasts, the next is set to increase by 18%. The Conservatives have called on the government to remove VAT from household energy bills for the next three years, while the Green Party said ministers should increase the tax on energy firms’ profits. Reform UK’s Robert Jenrick accused Rachel Reeves of “acting like a bystander” and not the chancellor.

What did the commentators say?

“The prime minister seems to be suffering from a dangerous degree of complacency in the face of the mounting energy crisis,” said The Independent in an editorial. While other countries’ governments implement measures to conserve energy and support families, such as Australia making some public transport free and Ireland cutting fuel duty, Starmer “has merely urged the British people to ‘act as normal’”. The government is “silent” on any plans it might have to “ameliorate prospectively crippling gas and electricity bills later in the year”.

The soaring price of fuel oil and petrol is playing out against “stagnating living standards” and a “succession of tax rises on work and employment”, more of which kick in this month.

Charities say this month’s increases to council tax, water, broadband and mobile phone tariffs are also “threatening to stretch many households to breaking point”, said the Press Association.

Businesses aren’t protected by the price cap, either. They’re set for “painful increases in their gas and electricity tariffs” as the situation in the Middle East “sends wholesale prices soaring”. Electricity costs have already increased by between 10% and 30% since the conflict began, while gas prices have soared by between 25% and 80%, according to energy analyst Cornwall Insight.

This April 1st is “no joke” for millions of families and small businesses, said the Liberal Democrats in a statement. We need an “urgent cost-of-living plan”.

But we can’t afford more state aid in the form of energy bill subsidies, said The Times. Reeves talks of “targeted” help, but with millions of pensions and welfare claimants, “that could be a very big target”.

The “ruinous spending” of lockdown “crippled this country’s finances”, which Liz Truss ignored when she proposed a universal cap to blunt the impact of the Ukraine war. Gilts “went into freefall” and Truss “was toast”. Since then, the bond market has “consigned Britain to the naughty step”.

Our national debt is at a “crippling 96%” of GDP, the servicing of which will cost £112 billion this year. Inflation and interest rates are set to keep rising, and recession is a “distinct possibility” if the war continues. The government “dare not increase the debt with another universal handout”. The bond markets “will not wear it”.

What next?

Reeves told BBC Breakfast that any support for energy bills would be based on household income, targeted at those who need it most, unlike the universal support rolled out in 2022. “I want to learn the lessons of the past because when Russia invaded Ukraine, the richest, the best-off third of households got more than a third of the support,” the chancellor said. “That makes no sense at all.”

The chancellor said it was “too early” to say who would get help, as demand for energy is at its lowest in the summer. But she “hinted help might not come” until autumn, said the broadcaster.

The Bank of England published its financial stability report today, its first since the US-Israeli war broke out. Domestically, the “economic outlook has deteriorated”, but the UK banking system “has the capacity to support households and businesses”, it said, “even if economic and financial conditions were to be substantially worse than expected”.

Much has been made of the closing of the Strait of Hormuz during the Iran war, given that the passage is a major lifeline for the global economy. But it is just one of five major waterways that play a significant role in world trade — several of which have their own history of conflicts.

Panama Canal

As the only entry in this list located in the Americas, the Panama Canal is a vital waterway for one main reason: It connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. This shortcut lets ships “avoid the lengthy and hazardous voyage around Cape Horn at the southern tip of South America,” said the International Trade Administration. Not forcing ships to circumvent an entire continent “contributes to the reduction of carbon emissions and helps mitigate the environmental impact of global maritime transportation.”

President Donald Trump has pushed for the U.S. to gain full control of the canal, but the “facts are that Panama has managed the canal incredibly well,” said the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. The “revenues generated by the canal are important for Panama, representing about 4% of their GDP. They represent less than 1/10,000 of the U.S. GDP.”

Strait of Hormuz

The strait, which cuts between Iran, the United Arab Emirates and Oman, is one of the “world’s busiest oil shipping channels,” said BBC News. It is used by almost all of the world’s major oil companies, and in 2025, about “20 million barrels of oil and oil products passed through the Strait of Hormuz per day,” equivalent to nearly $600 billion of energy production per year.

The recent closure of the waterway could impact more than just gas prices, as the strait is also a “vital channel for imports to the Middle East, including food, medicines and technological supplies,” said BBC News. If it is not reopened soon, the ripple could “go far beyond the region, affecting energy markets, maritime transport and global supply chains,” said the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development.

Strait of Malacca

Like the Panama Canal, the Strait of Malacca in Southeast Asia is a passage between two oceans: the Indian and the Pacific. It represents “one of the most strategically, economically and politically significant maritime chokepoints in the world,” said The National Bureau of Asian Research. The strait is important to the nations around it as well as “great powers with interests in the Indo-Pacific.”

But climate change is leading to “increasing heavy rainfall and extreme flood heights” around the strait, said a study from World Weather Attribution. This could threaten the strait’s “densely populated regions,” particularly near heavily populated countries like Sri Lanka.

Suez Canal

The Suez Canal is the “only place that directly connects the waters of Europe with the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean and the countries of the Asia-Pacific,” said CNN, making it an essential waterway for cargo. If the canal didn’t exist, ships in the region would have to “traverse the entire continent of Africa, adding hefty costs and substantially extending their journey times.”

An example of the canal’s importance was seen in 2021, when a cargo ship became stuck across the waterway, cutting off the shipping lane. Any disruptions “can have outsized impacts on global commerce and energy markets,” said the Atlantic Council, given that over $1 trillion goods are transported through the Suez annually.

Turkish Straits

The two Turkish Straits hold “strategic importance as the only waterway connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea,” said Turkey’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. But crossing these two straits, the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, is not easy, as “strong currents, sharp turns and unpredictable changes in weather conditions make it all the more difficult to navigate safely.”

During a war, the straits also become vital due to a 1936 treaty regulating their passage, which “states that, at times of conflict, ‘vessels of war belonging to belligerent powers shall not pass through the Straits,’” said Arab News. The implication of this treaty has often demonstrated Turkey’s “ultimate say over any warship if it deems its movement to be a security threat.”

“It’s not easy to topple a $30 trillion economy,” said Alicia Wallace in CNN.com. But if the war in Iran keeps driving fuel prices higher, things will soon “start getting dodgy” for America. With Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz stopping the export of oil from many Gulf Arab states, and missiles and drones raining down on oil and natural gas facilities across the Middle East, the International Energy Agency warned last week that the world is facing the biggest energy crisis in history.

The U.S. is already feeling the shock waves. Oil has rocketed by roughly 30% to about $100 a barrel. Gasoline has hit a national average of $3.98 a gallon—up by a dollar since February—and is over $5 in California, Washington, and Hawaii. Understandably, some 45% of Americans say they are “extremely” or “very” concerned about gas prices, according to an Associated Press poll. For a “first glimpse” of where we may be headed, “look at Asia,” said Alexandra Stevenson in The New York Times. In a region that relies on Middle Eastern energy, gas stations in Thailand and Vietnam are posting “Sold Out” signs. People in India are hoarding cooking gas. Asian airlines have canceled thousands of flights, after the price of jet fuel more than doubled—and all this after only one month of a conflict “with no clear end in sight.”

The war is also “driving the world toward a food crisis,” said Heather Stewart in The Guardian. Hormuz is a “key choke point” in the global supply of urea, a nitrogen-based fertilizer that’s made using natural gas, and sulfur, “a by-product of oil and gas refining and another critical fertilizer ingredient.” Once farmers get hit by the “double whammy of higher energy bills and more costly fertilizer,” it could push some 45 million people around the planet into “acute hunger,” according to a U.N. estimate. Americans won’t starve, said Max Zahn in ABCNews.com, but they will pay more for everything “from groceries to smartphones.” A third of the world’s helium travels through the strait; that gas is essential for the production of microchips used in phones, AI servers, and almost all electronics. The chaos in the Middle East is also pushing up the cost of plastics, which are made of petrochemicals, and aluminum, because the region is home to several key smelters.

There is some “good news” for Americans, said John Cassidy in The New Yorker. Thanks to decades of tightened emissions standards—so detested by President Trump—our economy is “far less energy-intensive” than it used to be, with “every dollar of GDP created” requiring only half the energy it needed back in 1980. As long as the war ends soon, many economists think the U.S. can probably “scrape through this year without a recession.”

It’s already too late, said The Economist in an editorial. Even if fighting stopped today, it would take at least four months for oil facilities in the Middle East to restart production and process back-logged crude into usable fuel, and for markets and prices to regain “some semblance of normality.” And that’s a best-case scenario, said Rogé Karma in The Atlantic. If fighting escalates instead, Iran could reach for the “doomsday option” it previewed last week, when it responded to an Israeli strike on its largest natural gas field by attacking a Qatari facility that produces 20% of the world’s supply of liquified natural gas—causing natural gas prices to spike 35% in Europe. If there are more such attacks on energy infrastructure in the target-rich Middle East, our current energy crisis may become a global “economic catastrophe” that we’ll be living with for years.

Given the current uncertainty, the Bank of England’s decision to hold interest rates at 3.75% last week was “the only one possible”, said Nils Pratley in The Guardian. “Policymakers are as clueless on the length of the war, and the cost of energy six weeks or six months from now, as stock market investors.” So why did the London bond market throw such a wobbly?

UK borrowing costs soared to their highest level since the 2008 financial crisis on the day after the Bank’s meeting, with the yield on benchmark 10-year gilts surging to 5%, “deepening a three-week long rout”, said the Financial Times. Two-year gilts – the part of the market most sensitive to interest-rate moves – were also pummelled.

Britain has been hit hardest in the global bond sell-off since the outbreak of war, because our dependency on imported energy means spiking oil and gas prices “quickly feed through to broader inflation”. When combined with flatlining growth and rising household borrowing costs, the risk of recession is plain.

‘The spectre of stagnation’

Perhaps last week’s turmoil was “a weird overreaction” to the Bank’s hawkish new tone, said Katie Martin in the same paper – rather than interest rate cuts this year, we are now contemplating hikes. But “the spectre of stagnation stalks the land”. The market has stabilised, but “in aggregate, more than £100 billion has been erased from the market value of UK government bonds in a matter of weeks”, said Stuart Fieldhouse on The Armchair Trader.

“UK rate expectations have been on a remarkable journey in barely a month,” said Chris Beauchamp at IG. “A full 100 basis points rise in rates is now expected for this year.” The bad news for consumers and business is compounded by the implications for the Government of “a fiscal squeeze”. If there’s further escalation in the Middle East, “this may be just the beginning of the crisis”.

The ‘Maradona Effect’

As data on demand weakness becomes evident, the Bank of England won’t want “to compound the damage with higher interest rates”, said Karen Ward of J.P. Morgan in the Financial Times. I suspect it is deploying the “Maradona Effect”, named after the footballing legend whose greatest skill was feinting. Conveying a very hawkish signal about the outlook for rates may obviate the need to actually raise them.

The Bank “faces an acute dilemma”, said Roger Bootle in The Telegraph. As we learnt in 2022, the issue at stake is what happens to inflation after the initial, oil-induced spike. The case for higher rates is to ward off “second-round effects” and stop inflation becoming embedded. “The art of central banking lies partly in not overreacting, but also in not taking action too late.”

With oil markets in flux, suspending an early-20th century law might help stabilize energy prices. President Donald Trump certainly hopes so: Last week he signed a 60-day waiver from employing the Jones Act, a law that requires U.S.-flagged vessels be used to carry goods and passengers if they’re traveling between American ports. The law was created to protect the domestic shipping industry, but detractors say it hobbles trade and creates more problems than it solves.

Fewer ships, higher prices

The Jones Act was passed after World War I to “rebuild U.S. shipping after German U-boats decimated America’s merchant fleet” during the war, said The Associated Press. Advocates say the law protects national security and homegrown jobs, but those in opposition say sidelining foreign competition has “driven up the cost of carrying cargo domestically.” Presidents can waive the law during crises, and Trump is using that power for one reason: U.S.-flagged ships are “generally more expensive to operate,” and those added costs fall heavily on places like Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico that rely on overseas shipping.

Trump’s pause will allow foreign tankers to transport oil and gas between ports in the United States. That should “lead to lower transportation costs and increased supply” and eventually lower gasoline prices by 10 cents per gallon, Christopher Niezrecki said at The Conversation. It could be “months, not days or weeks,” before drivers notice the benefits at the pump, however, and that is likely only if Trump extends the waiver’s duration. “Fuel prices would fall more steeply” if the law is fully repealed.

American shipbuilding “has shrunk” despite the law’s best efforts, said Marketplace. The U.S. now has only 55 tankers legally qualified to carry oil and gas between domestic ports. Trump’s interruption of the Jones Act will “dramatically expand the universe of ships available” to do that work, said Cato Institute’s Colin Grabow to the outlet. Places like California, Florida and the Northeast will benefit most from the waiver, said Marketplace, “because those areas rely on ships instead of pipelines.”

Significant costs

The law does have defenders among American shipbuilders and vessel operators. There is “nothing more America First than the Jones Act,” Jennifer Carpenter, the CEO of the American Waterways Operators, said at DC Journal. Repealing it would allow foreign companies to “undercut American companies on labor costs” and hollow out the domestic industry, which raises national security concerns. Without the law, America’s “most sensitive cargo” would be transported between U.S. ports “by foreign mariners, including Chinese shipmen who ultimately answer to the Chinese Communist Party.”

Those against the law hope Trump’s waiver is “the beginning of the end of the Jones Act,” The Washington Post said in an editorial. A South Korean-built tanker costs $170 million less than one made in the United States, and “it costs millions more to operate every year thereafter.” The law has failed to save American shipbuilding but has imposed “significant costs.” Those are “much longer-running issues than anything having to do with the war in Iran.”

If the price of oil continues to rise, it could trigger a “steep and stark” global recession, said Larry Fink, CEO of US financial giant BlackRock. There will be “profound implications” for the world economy if Iran “remains a threat” and oil prices hit $150 a barrel.

The BlackRock boss has a “unique insight into the health of the global economy”, said the BBC’s business editor Simon Jack, because of his investment management company’s colossal “size and spread”, controlling assets worth £11 billion across the world.

What did the commentators say?

“The Iran war is metastasising into a global economic calamity,” said the Financial Times’ editorial board. Until now, financial markets have been “lulled by the belief that the conflict would not last long” but, as hostilities enter a fourth week, the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, “lasting damage” has been inflicted on critical energy infrastructure in the region, and “the worst-case scenarios for investors and policymakers are coming into view”.

If this crisis continues, “no country will be immune to the effects”, said Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency on Monday. The global economy faces a “major, major threat” as the Iran war has a worse impact on energy prices than the twin oil shocks of the 1970s and the Russia-Ukraine war.

“Prepare for the price of oil to reach $200 a barrel,” said Ebrahim Zolfaqari, spokesman for Iranian militias last week. And what seemed then “like bravado” is now “closer to becoming reality”, said Jesus Servulo Gonzales in El Pais. Were prices to rise above $150, let alone near $200, there would be “an inflationary crisis”: “the world would become poorer, and economic activity would grind to a halt until the situation recovered”.

The current oil-price “ructions” would have “to get much worse” to trigger a global recession but “less happily, they will almost certainly further stoke popular anger over the cost of living”, said The Economist. The price of Brent Crude is currently around $100 a barrel (it was $60 at the start of the year); two months at $140 “would push parts of the global economy” into a slump. Consumer confidence is already “close to an all-time low in America and scarcely higher elsewhere”, given many countries “seemed primed” for an economic downturn “even before the Middle Eastern chaos began”.

In the US, “many economists believe” the country “will scrape through this year without a recession”, said John Cassidy in The New Yorker. “But this is simply guesswork.” Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell has said the surge in oil prices is “an energy shock” that has created so much uncertainty, “we just don’t know” what will happen.

What next?

We urgently need to get the Strait of Hormuz opened, oil market expert Rory Johnston told The New Statesman. It’s “too important” to the global economy to remain closed. The most likely path “is that the Trump administration and Israel pull back on their attacks in Iran, and Iran says, OK, we’ll re-allow” tankers down the waterway. But even if the strait “reopened to 100% of its prior flow” today, it would take two to three months “to renormalise the global system”.

Under the “doomsday scenario”, in which the strait stays closed indefinitely, “we’re not talking recession; we are talking depression”.

At least half of the steel used in Britain should be made in the country, the government has said as it launched its new strategy for the struggling industry.

This is a “watershed moment”, said Sky News, and, in “economic and historical terms”, it’s “dynamite”.

What are they?

The strategy is an attempt to save Britain’s beleaguered steelmakers. At its heart is a new tariff on many steel imports and a reform of quotas on those imports. Imported steel quotas will be reduced by 60% and anything brought in above that level will be subject to a 50% tariff, said the Department for Business and Trade.

The government’s “ambition” is to raise the proportion of domestically produced steel to 50%, from its current record low of 30%.

Up to £2.5 billion will be given to steel producers that have effectively been nationalised and to support private steelmakers around the UK in their quest to produce lower carbon metal.

Why are the tariffs so important?

This is a “significant” moment, said Sky News, because these are “probably the biggest increases” in trade barriers imposed by a British government in “at least a generation”.

Other countries, “most glaringly” America under Donald Trump, have raised many of their tariff barriers, but Britain had “held firm”. For many ministers it was a “matter of national pride”, because they “felt that to raise tariffs, even in an environment where everyone else was, would be an abomination”. But now Britain is “dipping its toes into the waters of protectionism”.

Will they work?

A leading HS2 contractor has warned that raising tariffs on foreign steel imports will “exacerbate” cost pressures for the UK construction industry. Mark Reynolds, chair of construction company Mace, told The Guardian that with energy costs rising and an already depressed construction sector, the move is “ill-timed and unhelpful”.

But Gareth Stace, director general of UK Steel, said this was a “crucial moment” because “with global markets distorted by overcapacity and subsidy, a clear and ambitious domestic strategy is exactly what is required to ensure steelmaking not only survives in the UK but thrives”.

The Conservatives’ shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith described the measure as “red tape” and said that raising the cost of imported steel “means more cost for the construction industry, less infrastructure investment and is a further blow to the diminishing number of firms making things in the UK”.

The government’s approach to the industry has “always looked like a cross between inveterate, unshakeable optimism and the panicked thrashings of a drowning man clutching for a flotation aid”, said Eliot Wilson on CapX.

The tariffs are “not so much a strategy as a sticking plaster”. If the UK’s steel sector is “unable to compete on the world stage” we shouldn’t have a policy of “allowing it to survive financially” without “some notion of the limits of that”.

The Bank of England today held interest rates at 3.75% and warned of higher-than-expected inflation, as the US-Israel war with Iran delivers a “new shock” to the UK economy.

“War in the Middle East has pushed up global energy prices,” said Bank governor Andrew Bailey. “You can already see that at the petrol pump and, if it lasts, it will feed into higher household energy bills later in the year.”

The direct impact of rising energy prices is likely to add about 0.75% to inflation this autumn, instead of an expected fall. And, if businesses pass their higher costs on to consumers, that could add a further 0.25%. All the signals point to “households and homeowners” suffering “further financial hardship”, if the Iran war does not end soon, said The Times.

What did the commentators say?

Seventy years ago, we had petrol rationing, triggered by the Suez crisis, said Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian. That’s “ancient history now – or it would be, if it weren’t for what looks increasingly like” America’s “version of Suez”. Yet again, a global superpower is “starting a war it seemingly doesn’t know how to finish, against an enemy it woefully underestimated”.

Oil experts have warned that Britain “could be only weeks away from needing to ration fuel”, if tankers don’t resume sailing through the Strait of Hormuz soon. Other countries are “already being forced into drastic steps”. In Pakistan, schools have been closed and government offices have been put into a four-day week, Vietnam is “urging people to work from home”, and Bangladesh has stationed soldiers at fuel depots.

“The financial impact on the UK from” this war is “yet to fully play out, but the outlook is bleak”, said Rosa Prince on Bloomberg. Donald Trump’s “folly” has “kiboshed” Keir Starmer’s “economic revival”. For a “brief moment”, green shoots emerged, and a path opened up for him “to salvage his beleaguered premiership”, only for “Trump’s addiction to foreign escapades” to crush it.

The Iran crisis could “easily accelerate the death of manufacturing” in Britain if “vicious” energy-price rises last longer than a few weeks, said Ben Marlow in The Telegraph. They could crush “the life out” of our heavy industry, shutting down production lines and mothballing “entire factory complexes”. There is a “real risk of widespread de-industrialisation”.

There is “deep energy-linked frustration” in Europe, too, said the BBC’s Katya Adler. “The knock-on effects” of this Middle East conflict is “awakening ghosts of crises past” when Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine rocked the EU’s energy market. Europe has since ended its reliance on Russian gas and oil but it now depends heavily on the US and Norway for energy provision – “which won’t solve its problem with energy security” and won’t shield it from the current price spikes.

What next?

I see a “similar financial anxiety” in the UK as when Russia invaded Ukraine four years ago, said Albert Toth in The Independent. “And that had a long-standing impact on the cost of living.” Volatility in the oil market directly impacts household finances in various ways, some of them more “subtle” than others. People will expect energy bills and petrol prices to go up but “less obvious” will be the rising cost of food, pushed up by increasing transport costs and disrupted fertiliser supply chains.

For Starmer, dealing with Trump’s demands for military back-up may be difficult, but managing the “war’s economic blow is trickier”, said Bloomberg’s Prince. He may as well blame the US president for “sending Britain’s cost of living spiralling”. This week, he announced £53 million in support for low-income households who are most exposed to the sharp increase in heating-oil prices but his government “will need a much bigger package if the conflict drags on”. And “that won’t be easy, given existing strains on the public purse”.

In the immediate aftermath of Poland’s Communist collapse, the country was considered one of the most economically dire in Europe — but the status quo has changed in a major way. Poland now has the 20th largest economy in the world, the country’s statistics agency announced last week, marking its highest-ever global ranking. Experts say there are a variety of factors that led to Poland becoming Europe’s new economic gem.

What did the commentators say?

Poland entered the top 20 economies by leapfrogging Switzerland; it reported more than $1 trillion in economic output for 2025, with its gross domestic product increasing 3.6% year-over-year, according to Poland’s statistics agency. This is a far cry from the early to mid-1990s, when Poland “rationed sugar and flour while its citizens were paid one-tenth what West Germans earned,” said The Associated Press.

But in “35 years — a little less than one person’s working lifetime — Poland’s per capita GDP rose to $55,340 in 2025, or 85% of the EU average,” said the AP. One of the most important factors in Poland’s economic growth was “rapidly building a strong institutional framework for business,” economist Marcin Piatkowski of Poland’s Kozminski University told the AP. This includes the creation of antimonopoly agencies and regulatory bodies, ensuring that Poland’s economy “wasn’t hijacked by corrupt practices and oligarchs, as happened elsewhere in the post-Communist world.”

Poland was also given significant help from the European Union both “before and after it joined the bloc in 2004,” said the AP. Once Poland became an EU state, it got additional funding as a result of its membership that “helped modernize Polish industry and expand an increasingly digitalized services sector,” said The Wall Street Journal. Above all, Polish business leaders “do not feel intimidated or constrained by any lingering sense of inferiority,” Dominik Kopiński, a senior adviser at the Polish Economic Institute, told Deutsche Welle. They “take opportunities when they see them and, more importantly, they are trailblazing for other companies.”

What next?

Even as Poland enjoys economic prosperity, not everyone is convinced that it will last. The country has a low birth rate and an aging society, meaning that “fewer workers will be able to support retirees,” said the AP. Wages in Poland are “lower than the EU average,” and “while small and medium enterprises flourish, few have become global brands.”

The country “must also contend with rising public debt,” said the Journal. Poland’s budget deficit of 6.8% is “significantly higher than the 3% benchmark for EU member states.” If Poland wants to continue climbing the economic ladder, its government will “need to rein in spending and raise taxes in order to ease debts over the coming years.” But there is also some good news, as Poland’s private-sector debt “remains low by EU standards.”

There is also the possibility of Poland leaving the EU, which could create further economic turmoil; dubbed ‘Polexit,’ Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has accused “right-wing opposition parties of steering the country toward leaving the bloc,” said Politico. “Polexit is a real threat today!” Tusk said on X. If his country left the EU, it “would be a disaster for Poland. I will do everything I can to stop them.”

The Bank of England’s decision to jettison historical figures, like Winston Churchill, from its banknotes and feature British wildlife instead has caused quite a stir.

The design change follows a public consultation during which animals and birds emerged as the most popular image choice. But critics are lining up to register their horror. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch accused the Bank of “erasing our history”, and an audience member on BBC’s “Question Time” said it was “surrendering to the radical left”.

‘Values under attack’

“For more than 50 years, we’ve chosen to honour our greatest citizens” on our banknotes, in tribute to their “genius, courage and creativity”, said Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat in The Telegraph. Swapping them for “badgers, puffins and red squirrels” shows we now “lack the courage to state publicly who we are”. Erasing Second World War cryptanalyst Alan Turing from the £50 note severs “the link between citizen and story” and suggests “we care less for codebreakers than cuddly carnivores”.

This is “not a neutral act”, said James Price on City A.M. It’s dangerous to flatten “our visual realm” and “erase the uniqueness of our national story”. Britain feels ever more “like an airport terminal with a welfare state attached”, rather than “a home”. No wonder there’s a backlash: the “penny is dropping that our history and our values are under attack. We should never, never, never surrender them.”

It’s goodbye to the “proud tradition of honouring our greatest Brits”, said Matthew Lynn in The Spectator. “Charles Dickens, George Stephenson, the Duke of Wellington and Elizabeth Fry have all made appearances” on our banknotes over the years; “somehow, a red robin is never going to have the same resonance”. I think the Bank of England “is doing its best to kill off paper money”; certainly, rejecting tradition and favouring what will look “suspiciously like an emoji” will only help.

Silly controversy

I hear the “scoffs and cries of wokery” but I think “the move is a stroke of genius”, said Emily Watkins in The i Paper. “I’ll take a badger over Winston Churchill any day.”

“Our nation is too various to be represented by a handful of dead people stamped on notes – that’s something to be celebrated rather than bemoaned.” There is “no figure in history who can represent, let alone please, everyone”, so, really, the Bank is “saving us all endless grief”. By “representing no one, animals represent us all”.

I can’t think of a sillier public controversy, said Oliver Kamm in The Times. Depicting historical figures on banknotes “is not some hallowed tradition”; it only began in 1970. Presumably, the Bank was not “captured by forces of wokeness” for the 276 years of its existence before then.

Counterfeiters have more “sophisticated printing equipment”, so it is in everybody’s interests that the Bank “thwarts their efforts by regularly changing the appearance” of notes. It is more important to have a paper currency that “commands trust in the corner shop” than one “that bathes us in a patriotic glow”.

What happened

The Trump administration on Wednesday said it was opening investigations into alleged unfair trading practices by 16 major U.S. trading partners, including China and the European Union, as President Donald Trump tries to resurrect sweeping global tariffs struck down by the Supreme Court. The investigations, based on Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act, will look at “excess capacity” in manufacturing, said U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in an announcement. Other targets of the investigation include Mexico, Japan, South Korea and India.

Who said what

The new investigations give the administration “an avenue to rebuild a credible tariff threat against trading partners to keep them negotiating and implement trade deals” after Trump’s earlier tariffs were thrown out, Reuters said. “The policy remains the same,” Greer told reporters. “The tools may change depending upon the vagaries of courts.”

Section 301 investigations “typically take several months or even years, but Greer said his team would aim to complete the probes by mid-July,” when Trump’s temporary 10% tariffs — under Section 122 of the 1974 law — expire, The Wall Street Journal said. Greer “didn’t specify how high the new tariffs would be, saying he would not prejudge the investigations.” The Section 301 tariffs are “meant to address specific and legitimate unfair trade practices,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said. “They should not be used to drag the United States back into a cost-raising, broad-based tariff regime.”

What next?

Greer said his office expects to open a second Section 301 investigation today targeting forced labor involving about 60 nations. The Trump administration “is required to carry out an investigation and hold consultations and hearings before it can impose those import taxes,” The New York Times said. But the inquiries “will almost certainly result later this summer in permanent new taxes on U.S. imports,” The Washington Post said.

For the past week, oil and gas traders have watched as a long-feared “worst-case scenario” played out in energy markets, said Bloomberg. Tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's oil and gas production flows, “has all but ground to a halt”, while Iranian missile and drone attacks have forced the closure of the world's biggest liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility in Qatar, along with Saudi Arabia's largest oil refinery.

Real and present threat

It used to be thought that all bets would be off for the global economy in such a scenario. And yet, while prices have surged higher, the scale of the moves has been far smaller than in previous crises. “We're still a long way from ‘oil shock' territory,” said Nils Pratley in The Guardian. The jump in prices to around $80/barrel is nowhere near the highs of $125 seen shortly after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. “A gas shock, however, looks a real and present threat.” European wholesale prices hit the stratosphere – jumping by 50% on two consecutive days, before falling back – as QatarEnergy halted production, taking “20% of the world's LNG offline at a stroke”.

UK gas (which hit 114p a therm) on Monday, would have to go to 250p – and stay there for a while – to match the intensity of the 2022 energy crisis, said Pratley. “But suddenly it is not unimaginable.” We may only import 2% of our gas from Qatar (Britain is mainly dependent on Norwegian pipeline imports and its own North Sea supplies), but a tighter market would see Asia and Europe compete more aggressively for LNG cargoes, pushing up prices across the board.

Guessing game

“The irony is that the US is largely insulated from a global gas price shock because of its own domestic production,” James O'Brien of D.Trading told Bloomberg. The pressure “hits allies first and hardest”. Trump won't feel the domestic energy pain he would with, for instance, a gasoline spike.

One reason why the reaction of the oil market has been comparatively tame is that traders are “second-guessing” Trump, said Malcolm Moore in the FT. “The White House has a strong incentive to keep a lid on inflation” ahead of midterm elections in November. Historically, oil shocks have often preceded recessions. “But the world has changed.” Developed economies are “far less oil intensive” than in the 1970s, “and much less dependent” on the Middle East. The US is the world's largest producer – and now has command of Venezuelan reserves too. What happens to prices in the longer run is contingent on “the biggest unknown”, said The Economist: how long the war lasts. It could yet cause “the biggest oil shock in years”.

What happened

A coalition of two dozen Democratic-led states on Thursday sued President Donald Trump at the U.S. Court of International Trade, arguing that the 10% global tariffs he imposed after the Supreme Court struck down his earlier sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs are similarly illegal. The lawsuit was filed a day after a judge on the trade court ordered the Trump administration to start refunding the more than $130 billion collected under the nullified tariffs.

Who said what

Trump imposed his new tariffs, which he plans to raise to 15%, using the never-before-invoked Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. “The president has once again exercised tariff authority that he does not have — involving a statute that does not authorize the tariffs he has imposed — to upend the constitutional order and bring chaos to the global economy,” the lawsuit said.

White House spokesperson Kush Desai said Trump was using his legal authority to address America’s ”large and serious“ trade deficit, and the administration ”will vigorously defend” the tariffs in court. The legal question is whether Section 122’s reference to “fundamental international payments problems” — originally meant to address a 1960s crisis tied to gold-backed dollars — applies to modern trade deficits. “They are not the same thing at all,” Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes said. “The president either doesn’t know the difference or he doesn’t care,” but “he is breaking the law” either way.

What next?

The states want the trade court to “declare the new tariffs illegal” and “refund states the cost of the new tariffs while they were in effect,” Politico said. “The focus right now should be on paying people back,” said Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield.

The US Supreme Court has finally stood up to President Trump, said David Frum in The Atlantic. Last week, it quite rightly struck down the tariffs that have been the signature initiative of his presidency. “A tariff is a tax.” A president who imposes them without Congress’s permission is “on his way to becoming a tyrant”.

‘Lashing out’

The move is “a long-run positive”, said Alan Beattie in the FT, but at the cost of short-term uncertainty all round. After the ruling, the US president behaved like “an enraged toddler lashing out after his favourite toy is taken away”, damning the Supreme Court justices and promising new tariffs.

The “smart play” after the legal defeat would be “to take an off-ramp”, said The Wall Street Journal. Instead, the White House “dusted off Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 as a work-around”, enabling Trump to impose tariffs of at least 10% across the board for up to 150 days (possibly rising to 15%). What happens after that is anyone’s guess, bar the prospect of an “unending Trump tariff mess”.

“Certain trading partners don’t look too clever right now,” said Beattie: principally the UK, whose 10% early deal with Trump may now be redundant. On the other hand, it was “an excellent day” for America’s most defiant partners, China and Brazil, whose imports to the US will now cost much less.

Endless litigation

The ruling certainly gives Beijing “a stronger hand” ahead of forthcoming high-stakes talks with Trump, said DealBook in The New York Times: “any decision that removes a tactical weapon from the Trump administration’s hand is welcome news in Beijing”. Potential refunds are another big issue.

Companies such as Costco, Toyota, Goodyear and Alcoa have already sought to reclaim levies; others will follow. Indeed, some economists reckon “a refund windfall” could kickstart “a huge economic stimulus”. Up to $175 billion is on the table, said Irwin Stelzer in The Sunday Times. But Trump is defiant – promising endless litigation for those claiming the tariffs back. The real winners in all this are lawyers.

Whether or not the refunds get paid, there are huge financial implications to this ruling, said Bloomberg. The US government’s fiscal calculations – already dubious – “have now been torn up”. Even the most “expansive” alternative measures are unlikely to bridge the $250 billion a year in expected tariff revenues. If Trump’s efforts to reimpose tariffs by other means are rejected by the Supreme Court – a clear possibility – who knows what he might do to intimidate the justices? In a worst-case scenario, Trump’s setback might become “a fiscal emergency (real, not imagined), an economic body blow and a constitutional crisis all in one”.

The value of the U.S. dollar has been steadily declining, but one person who doesn’t seem worried is President Donald Trump. On the contrary, he has been lauding the dollar’s fall as a positive change for the American economy. “I think it’s great,” Trump said to reporters last week. The president has repeatedly stated that a declining dollar is good for U.S. businesses. But with the dollar recently hitting a value of 95.56, a four-year low, some economists are sounding warning bells.

‘Interferes with his priorities’

Trump’s main argument is that having a weaker dollar breeds more competition among American businesses, and in his view, a “strong dollar, like higher interest rates, interferes with his priorities: faster growth, reshored manufacturing and a smaller trade deficit,” said The Wall Street Journal. This is an idea Trump has had since his first term. “I think our dollar is getting too strong,” and “that’s hurting — that will hurt ultimately,” Trump told the Journal in 2017.

A weaker dollar could provide “near-term benefits to the U.S. economy,” as a “lower currency also boosts exports, without the uncertainty and distortions that tariffs entail,” said the Journal. This occurs even as the weakening currency, combined with Trump’s sweeping tariffs, can “discourage imports.” Historically, Trump has also felt that the dollar “appreciated when the U.S. economy outperformed.”

Some seem to be fine with this economic stance, as trading floors are “abuzz with talk of the ‘debasement trade,’ a broad term for bets on the deterioration of American financial exceptionalism,” said The Economist. Another reason some economists aren’t panicking is that the dollar is “not actually all that weak,” as its real exchange rate (which accounts for inflation discrepancies between countries) was, in 2025, “13% above its average of the past 30 years.”

‘Signifies diminished confidence’

Trump may not have a problem with a weakened dollar, but most economists feel differently. A weak dollar is “not the weather, it’s the barometer,” said Steve Englander, a researcher at U.K. bank Standard Chartered, to CNBC. A weaker currency “reflects the fact that something’s going wrong, either domestically or internationally, and the currency weakness is sort of an escape valve.” Having a weak dollar also “signifies diminished confidence in the U.S. as foreign investors grow wary over the country’s fiscal outlook,” said CNBC.

Since the dollar has been doing well for a long time, many people might be “unable to process the scenario of a weakening dollar and a strong U.S. economy,” said Stephen Jen, founder of asset management group Eurizon SLJ Capital, to Bloomberg. If the dollar’s slide continues, it could mark the “beginning of the next leg lower in the dollar, and many may not be prepared for it.”

And the dollar’s fall has largely been Trump’s own doing, as it has been “driven, in part, by concerns about Trump’s unpredictable, and often unorthodox, approach to economic policy,” said NPR. Having a weaker dollar can also make items overseas more expensive, a “major issue given that the U.S. has traditionally imported more from abroad than it exports.” As the dollar continues to drop, alternative assets like gold, which has risen nearly 8% year to date, are “outperforming as a safe haven for investors,” said Fortune.

Located around Yokohama train station, there is an “especially unique watering hole”, specifically designed for customers who are contemplating quitting their jobs, said Japan Today.

At Tenshoku Sodan Bar, the bartenders are all trained counsellors, who offer impartial advice which you wouldn’t find from high-pressured friends and family, or unrelenting bosses who demand round-the-clock loyalty.

Though “job-hoppers” are still much less frequent in Japan than in Western countries, they are “on the rise”, said The Economist. The concept of a one-company-for-life worker – or “salaryman” – is “eroding”, as younger generations have “started to question this way of working”.

‘Resignation angst’

One “niche but increasingly popular” industry which helps workers break out from the “salaryman” cycle is “proxy quitters”, said The Washington Post. For a fee of up to ¥50,000 (£235), dissatisfied employees can hire someone to quit their job for them.

The service has boomed since the pandemic, with employees’ reasons including that they have been “bullied or harassed at work”, lack the nerve to confront their boss, or simply don’t know how to quit, as it is so rarely done. Nearly one in 10 Japanese companies have “received resignations via proxy quitters”, according to a 2024 survey by Tokyo Shoko Research.

This rise in proxy quitters has revealed a “darker side of Japan’s work culture” to the rest of the world, said CNA. Bosses often have “disproportionate power over employees”, which leads to the expectation of “long hours and unpaid overtime”. Workers are bound by the concept of “messhi hoko” – or “self-sacrifice for the public good” – which is “ingrained” in the Japanese working culture. The expectation to prioritise company needs over personal ones is often cited as one of the culprits for Japan’s declining birth rate. At its most extreme, it can “even be fatal”: the term “karoshi” refers to the phenomenon of “death by overwork”.

Proxy quitting services have emerged as a “direct answer” to these “intricacies of Japanese tradition and social conventions”, but their legality operates in a “grey area” and some employers argue they are “exceeding their authority”, said Leo Lewis in the FT. Even without legal challenges, however, the industry could peter out on its own. Predicated on “resignation angst” and a rigid workplace hierarchy, as office culture evolves, “demand will evaporate”.

Increased ‘leverage’

Evidence suggests that more and more people are defying traditional taboos and choosing to switch jobs, said The Japan Times. According to government data, around 940,000 people switched from one full-time employment to another in 2023, compared with 750,000 in 2018.

Changes in demographics are now working to young people’s favour, said The Washington Post. With a falling birth rate, “rapidly aging” population and “shrinking” workforce, employees wield considerably more leverage. Younger generations are less accepting of the excessively long days which are a “hallmark of Japanese corporate culture”. What was once the “revolutionary idea” of quitting for better terms is now a much more frequent possibility.

The numbers support this, said CNA. In the annual survey undertaken by the Tokyo Chamber of Commerce and Industry, 26.4% of young employees said they would “change jobs if given the chance”, while 7.6% planned to be self-employed in future.

Younger workers are also now more likely to claim the benefits which their employers are legally obliged to provide, said The Economist. “The share of men taking paternity leave has jumped from 2% of those eligible a decade ago to 30% in 2023.” More labour fluidity has caused Japan’s rigid payment structures to loosen, with salaries catching up with the rest of the world due to workforce demands. Though employers may be bracing for the impact of an influx of young, empowered workers, it could also “inject dynamism into Japan’s ossified institutions”.

President Donald Trump threatened a massive new trade war against Europe in his bid to acquire Greenland. And the financial markets immediately tanked. Then on Wednesday, he backed down.

Trump dropped his tariff threats after meeting with European leaders in Switzerland, said CNN. NATO leaders agreed to a “framework of a future deal” on Greenland, Trump said on Truth Social. “I think it puts everybody in a very good position,” he told reporters. But the preliminary agreement came the day after “bond yields spiked and stocks sank” as investors registered the alarm over Greenland and raised fears of a surge in “Sell America” trading, said Politico. Some observers saw an old pattern at play in the president’ s sudden backpedaling. Trump is “being mocked for another ‘TACO’ (‘Trump always chickens out’) moment,” said CNN, likely because he was “spooked by the result of his own actions.”

The Greenland adventure has investors newly wary, said the Financial Times. The president’s unpredictability is “chipping away at the credibility of U.S. institutions,” said Altaf Kassam at State Street Investment Management. Others are more willing to stick it out, confident in the long-term trajectory of the U.S. economy. “We have seen plenty of bluster from Trump before,” said Mark Dowding at RBC BlueBay Asset Management.

What did the commentators say?

The “Sell America” trade is “not as bad as it sounds,” said Madison Mills at Axios. Investors are not worried that the “American economy is crashing” because of Trump’s actions. Rather, they think they can “make more money abroad.” That is true because of profits, not global tensions: International stocks “outperformed the S&P 500 in 2025,” making them more lucrative to stockholders. But financial realities should keep investors attached to the United States. “There is no alternative to U.S. Treasury bonds in terms of liquidity, safety and scale.”

Investors are “struggling” to adjust to the “fundamental shifts in the world’s geopolitical tectonic plates,” said Jamie McGeever at Reuters. How can the markets price in the “end of NATO and the U.S.-Europe alliance” or the rise of a “multi-polar world” divvied up between the U.S., Russia and China? Financial markets had maintained “relative calm” in the face of all that instability. This week’s market sell-off, though, was a sign that the “calm is fracturing.”

What next?

Europe is quietly lining up its weapons for the next trade war, if it comes. The continent owns $8 trillion of U.S bonds and equities, making Europe the “world’s biggest lender to the U.S.,” said Fortune. If Trump is willing to disrupt longstanding alliances in pursuit of his aims, said Deutsche Bank’s George Saravelos, it is “not clear why Europeans would be as willing to play this part.”

Wednesday’s news seemed to calm the markets, said CNBC. Tuesday’s “Sell America” trading “reversed on Wednesday,” with the Dow Jones Industrial Average surging nearly 600 points after Trump announced the Greenland deal.

It’s astonishing how quickly the flames of protest have spread across Iran, said Ara. On Sunday 28 December, a couple of small protests in central Tehran, one outside the Alaeddin mobile phone centre and another by the Sabzeh Meidan currency exchange, led shopkeepers in the grand bazaar to close their doors in solidarity, and in a matter of days the unrest had spread like wildfire across the country.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the powerful military force that underpins the regime and controls somewhere between 20% to 40% of Iran’s economy, has reacted with severity, using bullets, water cannon and tear gas against the demonstrators; at least 35 people have been killed and some 1,200 protesters arrested.

Expression of the ‘political fracture’

The spark for all this was yet another sharp fall in the exchange rate, said Middle East Eye. The depreciation of the rial, the Iranian currency, has been a constant feature of life under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but since Israel’s strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities in June, the rial’s fall has accelerated mightily: it has lost 40% of its value, making it hard for Iranians to import many essential goods. And adding to the hardship has been a hike in petrol prices: Iran has some of the cheapest petrol in the world, but mounting economic pressure has obliged the regime to cut back on the massive subsidy for it.

Such setbacks are just the latest reflection of deeper economic woes, brought about partly by international sanctions, but also by the grotesque economic mismanagement and corruption of Khamenei’s theocratic regime, said Sanam Vakil in The Sunday Times. People’s “household savings have been wiped out; real wages have collapsed; large segments of the middle class have been pushed into precarity”. That is why the present unrest shouldn’t be seen as a “simple reaction to the economic crisis”, said Pegah Moshir Pour in La Repubblica . What we are seeing is an expression of the “political fracture” that for decades has run through Iranian society, but only burst into the open in September 2022, when mass protests broke out over the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested by the morality police for not wearing her hijab properly.

Indeed, many Iranians are now expressing their frustration at the “entire system”, said Maryam Sinaiee in Iran International. They’ve no faith in the president, Masoud Pezeshkian, and his promises of economic reform. They know he is merely a figurehead, that the real power lies with the 86-year-old Supreme Leader Khamenei, who has been in power since 1989, controls the IRGC and holds billions of dollars worth of Iranian properties and companies. This is why so many of the protesters’ slogans – some have openly chanted “Death to the dictator” – are targeted not at the exchange rate but “at the theocratic system itself, and its supreme leader”.

‘Disorganised and leaderless’

After Israel’s military strikes in June, analysts thought Iranians might “rally behind their regime”, said The Wall Street Journal. They couldn’t have been more wrong. And what makes these protests “all the more remarkable” – protests that have been concentrated not in Tehran but, most unusually, in the smaller cities outside it – is the fact that the authorities have ramped up their repression since the summer. They’ve rounded up 21,000 “suspects” and increased the number of executions: somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000 are believed to have taken place.

But let’s not get carried away, said The Economist. The protesting crowds are not nearly as large as those of three years ago; the protest movement itself is “disorganised and leaderless” and the opposition is “adrift”. So the most likely outcome of all this is that the demonstrations “will fizzle out or be crushed, much like past rounds”. But, then again, Donald Trump has told Tehran that it will get “hit hard” if it kills any more protesters, and that the US is “locked and loaded and ready to go”. And given what has happened in Venezuela, you can never be sure.

What began as dissatisfaction over a downtrending economy among Tehran-area store owners blossomed into a full-fledged protest movement across Iran this week, with Iranians taking to the streets to decry the broader state of their nation. On campuses in multiple cities, students have clashed with security forces as slogans decrying Iran’s acute economic anxiety give way to calls for regime change and wider national progress. After years marked by destabilizing regional violence and domestic unrest, is Iran on the brink of major change?

What did the commentators say?

Beginning as a strike by “shopkeepers and bazaar merchants” over the rampant devaluation of Iran’s rial currency, the growing protests have since become an “outcry of political anger,” said DW. The Tehran bazaar is seen as a “political early warning system and a potential multiplier,” and demonstrations there affect “not just the food supply but also the conservative backbone of the Islamic Republic.”

While Iran has for years grappled with “raging inflation, anemic economic growth and international isolation,” the situation there has recently “grown acutely worse,” said The Washington Post. The fact that these protests were “sparked by the country’s ‘bazaari’ merchant class” signals that “severe economic distress had spread beyond the poor and to those relatively better off.” The student protesters have “added a youthful contingent” to the growing demonstrations, “increasing domestic pressure over a sinking economy alongside mounting foreign threats,” said The New York Times.

“Peaceful livelihood protests are part of social and understandable realities,” said Iranian Prosecutor General Mohammad Movahedi-Azad, according to Al Jazeera. However, any attempt to “turn economic protests into a tool of insecurity, destruction of public property, or implementation of externally designed scenarios” will be met with swift consequences.

Iran’s depreciating currency is “not the only challenge” facing Iranians who live with inflation levels at around 50%, “consistently one of the highest in the world for several years,” said Al Jazeera. The nation is also “facing an exacerbating energy crisis,” and dams leading to all major cities are at “near-empty levels amid a severe water crisis.”

But while the growing demonstrations “mark the latest chapter in growing discontent” in a country where the population “quietly reclaims public spaces and personal freedoms through uncoordinated acts of defiance,” the reaction from Iran’s theocratic leadership has been conspicuously muted, said CNN. Instead, it appears to be “overlooking the growing civil disobedience” to “focus on its own survival.” With “limited options” available, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has adopted a “cautious waiting game” and is “avoiding major decisions and drastic strategies despite the mounting domestic challenges.”

What next?

The “widening demonstrations” have since spread from population centers into Iran’s “rural provinces,” resulting in seven of the “first fatalities reported among security forces and protesters,” said NPR. The deaths may signal a “heavier-handed response” moving forward by the government over protests, which have slowed in the capital but “expanded elsewhere.”

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, who ran on “promises of good governance,” has agreed to meet protest representatives to “show he’s cut from a different cloth than his hard-line predecessor,” said The Atlantic. But he “doesn’t control the security forces.” So his statements supporting the right to peaceful protest “ring hollow.” To achieve the economic and social stability sought by protesters, the Khamenei regime would need to reach an agreement with the Trump administration that “lifts the sanctions or at least keeps Iran safe from war.”

The Trump administration and Iranian government have “exchanged dueling threats” over the protests, “further escalating tensions” between the two nations, said The Associated Press. The U.S. is “locked and loaded and ready to go” to defend protesters against state violence, President Donald Trump said on his Truth Social platform. But Trump should understand that “interference in this internal issue” would be “equivalent to chaos across the entire region and the destruction of American interests,” said top Khamenei adviser Ali Larijani on X.

Ultimately, if there is to be change, it “cannot be imposed on Iran from the outside,” said Scott Lucas, a professor of American studies at University College Dublin, to DW. Anything seen as endorsing violence against the regime will “give them the pretext to strike back and strike back hard.”

India’s “quick commerce” bubble may be about to burst, said the CEO of Blinkit, an app that promises delivery of orders within 10 minutes.

Albinder Dhindsa issued the warning as some competitors in the market are running on losses. He believes his company will thrive, but there has been unrest, and Blinkit's riders took industrial action over pay and working conditions earlier in the year. The strike is just part of a wider crisis developing in India’s growing gig economy, where “speed trumps safety and workers are easily replaced”, said The Independent.

“The pendulum has already swung once from scepticism to exuberance,” Dhindsa told Bloomberg and believes he does not know when “correction” will come, but only that it will.

Dark stores

Blinkit allows customers to order groceries, fresh produce and daily essentials, which they expect to be delivered in around 10 minutes. To achieve this speedy turnaround, the platform relies on a network of “dark stores” – retail spaces that act as dedicated hubs for fulfilling online orders, rather than in-person shopping.

It forms part of India’s rapidly growing quick commerce sector, funded by investors attracted by the country’s “dense cities, lower cost of labour and ubiquitous digital payments”, said Bloomberg.

The company launched in 2013 as Grofers, but rebranded in 2021 as Blinkit, invoking the idea that service will happen “in the blink of an eye”. Acquired by the country's food delivery giant Zomato in 2022, it’s now active in many cities across India, delivering “everything from eggs to iPhones” to a client base of millions.

But, it has yet to turn a profit, hampered by “capital costs and supply chain complexity” as it pursues further expansion, including into rural areas.

Straightforward demands

Earlier this year, more than 150 Blinkit workers in the city of Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, went on a two-day strike to protest “unsafe working conditions, falling earnings, and retaliatory ID suspensions” (when gig platforms deactivate workers' accounts without due process or a means of redress), said The Independent.

The striking riders had “straightforward demands”, including “weather-appropriate uniforms and shaded waiting areas” alongside an end to a “punishing rule that effectively forces them to work the hottest hours of the day”.

They also want the company to “restore the original incentive pay structure”. They are paid on a per-order basis, with “fluctuating incentives”, with terms having “ been quietly changed over time”. Riders claim that they used to receive Rs 555 (£4.93) per 32 orders delivered, but now earn just Rs 448 (£3.98) per 43, which means they are “doing more work for less”.

In November, the Indian government introduced new labour laws so that the fleet of self-employed workers will now receive social security, but they still have no right to a fixed wage or paid leave.

The April strike was a “flashpoint” but not the last in what is becoming a “growing struggle” between “speed-driven platforms” and the workers holding up a gig economy that’s forecast to employ over 23 million Indians by 2029.

Americans may find themselves paying more for a bourbon neat these days. U.S. whiskey distillers throughout the liquor industry are facing financial hardship lately, and economic experts are pointing to the Trump administration’s tariffs as a major cause. This includes Jim Beam, whose troubles have led to a drastic step: closing its distillery.

What brands are being impacted?

The economic slump has affected several iconic American brands. This includes Jack Daniel’s, Old Forester and Woodford Reserve, which are all owned by parent company Brown-Forman. The company previously announced it was “laying off about 650 employees, or 12% of its workforce, in the face of declining demand,” said The New York Times. Several other whiskey brands, including Garrard County Distilling Co. in Kentucky and Uncle Nearest in Tennessee, have been placed into receivership in 2025.

But Jim Beam has taken perhaps the most extreme move by announcing it would halt production at the plant’s main distillery in Clermont, Kentucky, for an entire year. The brand will “pause distillation at our main distillery on the James B. Beam campus for 2026 while we take the opportunity to invest in site enhancements,” the company said in a statement. This marks a significant step for the country’s largest bourbon manufacturer, given that this distillery “produces about a third of the company’s annual output of approximately 26.5 million gallons,” said the Times.

How are tariffs causing these issues?

The ongoing challenges “straining the liquor industry” are “part of the fallout of Trump’s trade war,” said CBC News. These tariffs (and subsequent counter-tariffs from countries like Canada) led to a trade deficit as “overall exports of American spirits fell 9% in the second quarter of 2025 compared to the same period last year.” Boycotts of American alcohol brands have also contributed to this decline.

However, there are other factors afoot beyond tariffs; the statement put out by Jim Beam did not even mention tariffs. Another culprit is the skyrocketing supply of aging barrels. Kentucky has an “all-time high of 16.1 million aging barrels of bourbon in its warehouses,” said the Kentucky Distillers’ Association. Because these barrels are taxed by the state, Kentucky distillers paid a “$75 million tab in aging barrel taxes this year, a 27% increase from 2024 and an astronomical 163% increase over the last five years alone.”

Overall demand for whiskey and bourbon has decreased, which has now “caused an oversupply of whiskey,” said Bloomberg. Sales have slumped as “consumers rein in spending and drinking” during downward economic times. And much of the available product can’t even be sold right now — most of the 16.1 million barrels of bourbon currently being aged “won’t be ready to bottle until after 2030.”

Despite these other factors, Kentucky politicians seem to place the blame on the Trump administration’s shoulders. It is “hard to overstate just how devastating Trump’s tariffs are for America’s signature spirit,” said Rep. Morgan McGarvey (D-Ky.) in a post on X, referring to the Jim Beam closure. “Thousands of Kentuckians power the bourbon industry — we will all feel the impact of this.”

There’s money to be made in the business of extending lifespans, and this so-called longevity economy has become a flourishing part of the financial system. While humans have always looked for ways to live longer, recent health advancements alongside shifting demographics mean people are investing in the longevity economy like never before.

How much money is in the longevity economy?

Trillions of dollars are flowing into this economy. In 2020, just as the Covid-19 pandemic was surging, the longevity sector was valued at $15 trillion globally, according to market research from Data Bridge. It has been growing at a steady rate every year and is expected to have a value of $27 trillion by 2030, and some analyses have the longevity economy possibly reaching this mark by 2026.

This is due to several factors, most notably a shift “toward health span — the years we spend in peak physical and mental condition,” said Entrepreneur. Customer demand also plays a large role, as by 2034 the “U.S. will have more people over 65 than 18,” and one in six people globally will be over 60 by 2030. This is “not just demographics — that’s a new consumer majority.” Increasing health care costs also factor into the money being pumped into the economy, as “chronic diseases and mental health conditions already account for 90% of U.S. health care spending.”

What other factors make up the longevity economy?

There may be more to the longevity economy than many people realize. As “elders live longer and healthier lives and continue to actively participate in the global economy, possibilities open to potentially turn longevity into an asset for society,” said BBC News. In the U.S., it is estimated that by 2030, people over 55 “will have accounted for half of all domestic consumer spending growth since the global financial crisis.” In Japan, this figure will be 67%; in Germany, it will be 86%.

Demographics also play a large role. For the first time in history, the longevity economy “includes four generations of age 50 and older: the GI Generation (1901-1926); the Silent Generation (1927-1945); the Baby Boomers (1946-1964) and Generation X (1965-1980),” said the Los Angeles Daily News. But even though “populations may be aging in significant numbers, we can’t let the idea of ‘oldness’ and its implications stifle the way we think about economic opportunity,” Dr. Joseph Coughlin, the director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s AgeLab, said to BBC News.

Even though “millennial demands are linked to the rise of the on-demand economy, older adults benefit immensely from its convenience,” Coughlin told BBC News. This has resulted in a slew of products and services surrounding the longevity economy. Most notable are tech entrepreneurs like Bryan Johnson, who is at the “forefront of the movement looking for new ways to reverse aging and extend health span, and live to age 150,” said Fortune. Also emerging is the invention of technologies like wearable aging clocks and more devices designed to keep you younger longer.

President Donald Trump’s tariff-driven trade war is not slowing down China’s export economy. Beijing this week reported a record $1 trillion trade surplus with the rest of the world in 2025, raising concerns about “growing imbalances” in the global economy.

The trillion-dollar milestone puts China’s well-known “dominance” of world trade “into even starker relief,” said The Wall Street Journal. While Trump’s tariffs have limited the country’s exports to the United States this year — plunging nearly a third in November compared to last year — China’s exports to Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America have “surged” significantly. The trend has “raised alarms around the world, especially in Europe,” whose automotive and luxury goods sectors find themselves threatened by “nimble Chinese competitors.”

That leaves Europe “squeezed between an ultra-competitive China and a protectionist America,” said Politico. China’s trade surplus “is untenable,” said French President Emmanuel Macron to the Les Echos financial newspaper. European companies were once big investors in China, he said, and now it is time for Chinese businesses to “create value and opportunities for Europe.” Europe could impose Trump-style tariffs on imports, Politico said, but Macron would prefer a “truce” with Beijing.

What did the commentators say?

China’s gigantic trade surplus reveals the difficulty that Trump and others will have “trying to rebalance global trade,” said Amy Hawkins at The Guardian. But it also demonstrates how much Beijing’s economic might is “still overwhelmingly reliant on foreign markets.” And it has raised fears that the country is now flooding non-American markets with “cheap goods that threaten local industry.” It is more likely, though, that those goods will “ultimately end up in the U.S.” after traveling through third countries to avoid Trump’s tariffs.

We could be looking at a “second China shock,” said Alexandra Stevenson at The New York Times. The first shock came two decades ago when American and European companies outsourced manufacturing to China while closing factories at home. The second will come now that China is “redirecting more of its exports to developing countries” that have “less control over how it unfolds.” And there could be “profound” social consequences like unemployment and unrest in countries like Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia. “They’re going to need to brace for impact.”

What next?

The next developments may depend on whether the current trade “truce” between the U.S. and China can hold. Some observers believe the relative peace “may not last,” said CNBC. That failure — and a second effort by China to push its exports to other markets — “might compel Europe to impose more restrictive measures to protect its manufacturing sector,” said Jing Wang, a China economist at Nomura, to the outlet.

China’s economy will increasingly “ride on the strength of domestic demand,” said Bloomberg. For now, though, Beijing “faces a worsening economic picture” at home. There has been a slowdown in domestic consumption and investment is also falling. As a result, analysts believe that China will continue to rely on exports and take “only incremental steps” toward relying on its own people to be customers for the goods it makes.

Last week, it was announced that the Office for Budget Responsibility will only check if the government is meeting its fiscal rules once a year, instead of twice (though it will continue to publish two sets of forecasts annually, to accompany the Spring Statement and the Budget). That change, according to analysts, was a recognition that the everchanging economic outlook has contributed to economic uncertainty and rampant speculation about future tax rises. The disastrous leak of last week’s Budget on the OBR website, meanwhile, has piled pressure on the watchdog.

On Monday, it said the leak had been the “worst failure” in its 15-year history; and admitted that a previous report, published in March alongside the Spring Statement, had also been accessed “prematurely”. Its chair, Richard Hughes, resigned.

Why was the OBR set up?

The OBR was created by David Cameron’s coalition government, in 2010. Before then, the Treasury had produced its own economic and fiscal forecasts ahead of Budgets and spending reviews; being produced by the chancellor’s own staff, these were vulnerable to political manipulation and were consistently over-optimistic. In opposition, George Osborne had promised to set up a new official independent economic and fiscal watchdog. This, he said, would be made up of “wise men” who would “hold up a yellow card when the chancellor steps out of line”.

Osborne vowed that it would “change the way Budgets are made for ever”; and in the 15 years since, the OBR has emerged as one of Westminster’s most powerful bodies.

What does it actually do?

It monitors the government’s spending plans and provides forecasts for the economy and public finances covering the next five financial years – typically issuing them twice a year, at the Budget and Spring Statement. The forecasts assess possible changes to gross domestic product (GDP); population and employment rates; migration; productivity; borrowing costs; and inflation. It also evaluates the government’s performance against the fiscal targets it sets itself. (This government’s main fiscal rule is that day-to-day costs should be met by revenues by 2029/30, at which point it should only be borrowing to invest.)

The OBR issues a “pre-measures” forecast to the chancellor two or three weeks ahead; then a “post-measures” forecast assessing tax and spending plans, which is published on the day. It also assesses, at least twice every two years, the long-term sustainability of the public finances. The forecasts it produces are hugely influential: they move financial markets, and can leave governments scrambling to fill yawning gaps projected in the public finances.

Are its forecasts accurate?

It is widely regarded as one of the more credible official forecasters. Over one to three years, the OBR’s assessment of GDP growth tend to be “more accurate than the average of other official forecasters in Europe”, according to a 2023 review, and certainly better than the historic Treasury forecasts, which were plagued by optimism bias; though it has also had a tendency to underestimate government borrowing, and, in the longer term, to overestimate GDP growth.

Professor David Miles of the OBR likens its forecasts to a satnav estimate of a long journey: they are probabilistic long-term predictions, easily thrown off by changes in real conditions, and unlikely to be 100% right – but still a useful guide.

Why has the OBR been criticised?

Forecasts are obviously speculative and partial. Some argue that the OBR – an unelected body – exercises disproportionate influence over major fiscal decisions, reducing the scope for democratic debate or political discretion. On the Left, think-tanks such as the New Economics Foundation say the OBR has consistently underestimated the benefits of large public investments and bold social spending – that it has a structural bias towards austerity or “status quo” economics. But it has critics on the Right, too.

Kwasi Kwarteng, who refused to consult the watchdog before his infamous mini-Budget of September 2022, said recently that the OBR focuses too much on balancing the books, and not enough on growth. William Hague has complained that its five-year forecasts encourage short-term thinking.

Is the OBR too powerful?

Arguably. In April, the FT’s Chris Giles warned that we were already “witnessing a terrible spectacle of the fiscal watchdog’s tail wagging the government dog”, citing the example of Rachel Reeves announcing a package of welfare cuts (later abandoned) in response to an OBR forecast downgrade. “It is unacceptable,” he added, “that public services and taxes are set not in the ballot box, but by unelected and barely accountable officials in a small office above the Ministry of Justice.”

Giles redoubled his criticisms this week, following the leak of the entire Budget 45 minutes before Reeves announced it to the House of Commons, saying: “As the Budget showed, the fiscal watchdog’s predictions indirectly set our taxes. The minimum we require in return is competence.”

What’s the case for the defence?

That the OBR’s powers are conferred on it by Parliament, and that chancellors retain the right to set the fiscal rules by which they will be judged – they can change the assessment criteria if they wish – and also have a say in who fills the positions in the OBR’s top team. It was the current chancellor who chose to give the OBR more responsibility and independence, by allowing it to produce forecasts even when the government does not ask it to – an apparent response to the Truss mini-Budget. Besides, many of the fiscal problems encountered by Reeves in the past year could have been averted if she’d left herself more fiscal “headroom” in her first Budget, as previous chancellors have done.

The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, accused Rachel Reeves of lying to the public so that she could fund increased welfare spending with tax rises in last week’s Budget. Reeves faced calls from the Conservatives, the SNP and Reform UK for her resignation.

In a speech on 4 November, the chancellor had raised expectations of tax rises by warning that the UK’s productivity was weaker “than previously thought”, and that this would have consequences for the public finances. But it emerged last Friday that the Office for Budget Responsibility had told the Treasury on 31 October that the downgrade in productivity would be offset by larger tax revenues from higher wages, meaning that Reeves was actually on course to meet her fiscal targets with £4.2 billion to spare.

Downing Street rallied to Reeves’s defence, insisting that there had been “no attempt to deceive in any form”. She also denied the charge, arguing that she had needed to put up taxes to increase her buffer against unexpected costs. On Monday, the OBR’s chair, Richard Hughes, resigned over his organisation’s accidental early publication of its analysis of the Budget.

Reeves is guilty of “staggering mendacity”, said The Daily Telegraph. In the run-up to the Budget, she spun a “tale of doom and gloom” while neglecting to mention the OBR’s forecast about tax revenues. There was no urgent need to raise £26 billion in taxes; she just pretended there was so that she could buy off Labour MPs with an extra £16 billion in welfare spending. It’s outrageous that the OBR chief Richard Hughes had to resign after this “Budget fiasco”, rather than Reeves, said the Daily Mail. Polling shows that Labour is now even less trusted with the public purse than the Tories were under Liz Truss. If the chancellor “had an ounce of honour”, she’d stand down.

“Liar” is a strong word, said The Independent, and not one that can be fairly applied to Reeves in this case. While she could have been more transparent and perhaps overdid “the gloom”, she didn’t utter any falsehoods. What’s more, Reeves was right to point out that she needed to increase her fiscal headroom, and that the OBR’s £4.2 billion surplus didn’t take account of U-turns on the winter fuel allowance and disability benefits. A more valid charge against the Budget is that the combination of tax hikes and higher welfare spending is “not what Labour said it would do, nor was elected to do last year”.

The pressure on Rachel Reeves that has been “building all year” culminated yesterday in her much-anticipated autumn Budget, said Ailbhe Rea in The New Statesman. The chancellor stepped up to the despatch box with her “political fate” tied to Keir Starmer’s: “they went into it together, fighting for their political lives”.

The “extraordinary spectacle” of the Office for Budget Responsibility accidentally publishing details of the Budget before Reeves announced them “simply added to the already heightened sense of Labour having a bumpy ride”, said City A.M.

‘Narrow interests’

The Budget itself was “Labour to the core”, said City A.M. From scrapping the two-child benefit cap to raising the minimum wage, the announcements were “very much in line with the party’s history of combatting poverty” – and Labour MPs “seemed to love it”.

However, there is a “gulf between the relatively narrow interests of 405 Labour MPs and voters more broadly”, said The Times. To pay for welfare, the NHS and higher wages for low earners, Reeves is bringing in “more than a dozen tax rises on workers, pensioners and savers” that will be felt just as Labour is gearing up for the next election.

She “clearly hopes” the economy will have improved by then, and she can potentially scrap planned income tax freezes or offer other incentives to the public. But if “global uncertainty continues to weigh on the UK economy”, there is a risk that Labour will go into the next election with many voters “feeling poorer than ever”.

‘Scandinavian’ tax levels

The chancellor is “trapped by the same problems that plagued her predecessors”, said UnHerd. Improving public services requires “significant tax rises” that are “the quick route to political death“. But “letting services continue to atrophy is the slow one”. Reeves and Starmer may have “bought off their most immediate opposition” by “pleasing the parliamentary party” but the unpopularity of the announcements outside of Westminster “could still cost them”. This “timid” Budget risks falling into “the regular trap of indecision: half-measures that please no one”.

It was billed as the “smorgasbord” Budget, and it will “certainly” bring Britain closer to “Scandinavian levels of taxation”, said the Financial Times. This may well be Reeves’ “last Budget as chancellor” but “if all else fails, there should be an opening in the OBR’s IT department”.

After months of speculation, Rachel Reeves has finally delivered her long-awaited Budget but not before she was upstaged by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) releasing their growth forecast two hours early by accident.

The “extraordinary” error, said the BBC’s economics editor Faisal Islam, meant “all the policies and all the market critical fiscal numbers” were released before Reeves had said anything in the House of Commons.

With the chancellor already facing criticism for her handling of the lead-up to the Budget, the OBR leak “robbed her of the chance to set the tone and the credibility to be heard”, said Times Radio’s Kate McCann on X. “While not her mistake it may not matter in the minds of many.”

Reeves for her part admonished the OBR for the leak, before telling the Commons: “I will not return Britain back to austerity, nor will I lose control of public spending with reckless borrowing. And I will push ahead with the biggest drive for growth in a generation.”

The need to maintain her strict fiscal rules, keep her spending commitments and not break Labour’s tax pledges left Reeves relying on a “smorgasbord” of revenue-raisers that she hopes will be enough to keep Labour MPs, the markets and voters onside.

Here are five key changes the chancellor set out today:

Freeze to income tax thresholds

Having backed down from a manifesto-busting rise to income tax, Reeves’ “biggest money-raiser” will be extending the freeze on tax thresholds for another two years until 2030, said The Times. Maintaining the basic-rate threshold of £12,570 and the higher-rate threshold of £50,270, will hit millions of workers and pensioners through “fiscal drag”, said the paper.

It is nevertheless a “stealthy but valuable move” that will raise around £8 billion, said George Eaton in The New Statesman.

Increase in minimum wage

From April the minimum wage will rise for over-21s by 50p to £12.71 an hour. Workers aged 18-20 will receive a bigger 85p increase to £10.85, while under-18s and apprentices will now get £8 an hour.

This should be “one of the easier-to-sell retail offerings to the public, along with easing energy bills and freezing prescription costs and rail fares”, said Politico’s London Playbook, but it has garnered criticism from “unlikely quarters”. Businesses big and small were “always going to be concerned about the chunky hike (particularly for the under-21s)”, but so too is the left-wing Resolution Foundation think tank, which has warned it risks “causing more harm than good” if it suppresses youth employment.

Mansion tax

A new property tax will be imposed on homes worth more than £2 million through a revaluation of council tax bands F, G and H. This so-called “mansion tax” could see those with the most expensive properties in the UK face council tax bills of more than £6,000 a year, said The Times, and “if implemented, would mark a radical departure from the way we buy and sell homes – and have a lasting impact on the wider economy”.

The changes will, however, prove popular with large sections of the public as well as Labour MPs, with one minister telling The New Statesman: “Everybody knows it doesn’t make sense that a terraced house in the north of England pays more council tax than a mansion in central London”.

Limit salary sacrifice and tax-free ISA schemes

There will be a reduction in the amount that can be saved in tax-free cash ISAs for the under 65s from £20,000 to £12,000 “in a bid to get households investing more in UK stocks”, said Bloomberg. A £2,000 annual cap will also be introduced on the amount workers can put into their pensions under “salary sacrifice” schemes without paying national insurance. At the moment there is no limit and the change “would mean any contributions above the cap would be subject to NI payments by both employees and employers”, said the BBC. The move is set to raise a “whopping £4.7 billion”, said Sky News’ Sophy Ridge, “which shows how many people will be impacted by this”.

Combined with the two-year freeze in income tax thresholds, the tax raid on pension contributions will leave a “middle-class family with two earners facing a £1,600 hit” over two tax years, said The Times.

Scrapping the two-child benefit cap

Introduced by the Conservatives in April 2017, the controversial cap prevents parents from claiming universal credit or tax credit for more than two children. Campaigners estimate it pulls 109 children into poverty each day and now affects 1.6 million children across the UK.

There had been some debate within government about whether to tweak the limit or introduce a taper rate but scrapping it altogether “will be hugely welcomed by Labour MPs across the spectrum, and will give them a much-welcomed win to tout to activists wavering further leftward”, said London Playbook. Whether the £3 billion move will be “popular with the public is less clear” as the majority of voters support the cap but also expect Labour to bring down child poverty. Either way, “don’t expect this to go quietly”.

Crypto is supposedly the currency of the future, but it is not doing so well presently. The sector has lost more than $1 trillion in value over the last few weeks.

The crypto industry is having a “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad month,” said USA Today. Bitcoin has lost more than 10% of its value for the year, dropping from a high of $126,000 in October to under $90,000 last week. The drop in digital currency values is due to a “whirlwind of factors” that include shaky showings for artificial intelligence and technology stocks amid growing concerns about the overall economy. “No one can say” when the dust might settle.

“It was supposed to be crypto’s year,” said The Wall Street Journal. Since 2025 brought a “crypto-loving White House, Wall Street adoption and friendly legislation,” it seemed poised to erase the industry’s regulatory obstacles. Instead, the “sky-high expectations of a golden age” have foundered. Cryptocurrency’s original reputation was as an “antiestablishment asset” coming out of the Great Recession. Now the sector is trying to “go legit” but having trouble shedding its standing as the “deranged, foul-mouthed little sibling of Wall Street.”

What did the commentators say?

“Brutal” selloffs in the crypto sector happen “every few years, or whenever sentiment snaps,” said Emily Nicolle at Bloomberg. But those previous cycles did not match the “speed and scale” of crypto’s collapse in recent weeks. The difference this time is that crypto is now “woven into the fabric of Wall Street and the broader public markets.” That means its fate is now “tied to AI-fueled market optimism.” Amid growing fears of an AI bubble, though, it does not take much prompting to “spook investors into selling.”

Crypto in recent years has gone from an “object of mockery” to “broadly accepted, even encouraged” by mainstream financial institutions, said The Economist. That victory actually poses a problem. The “wider acceptance” has deepened crypto’s links to the broader financial markets, so that the “pain from a crypto crash will be felt more widely than in the past.” A government intervention seems remote, but “surprises can never be ruled out” in politics and in crypto.

What next?

Crypto believers see it as a “safe store of value against inflation and rising national debt,” said Marketplace. But the current instability comes amid “sticky inflation and a rising national debt.” The sector’s growing acceptance on Wall Street means your 401(k) probably includes some crypto stock. If the downturn lasts, that would produce “some knock-on effects on spending” in the broader economy, said Columbia Law School lecturer Todd Baker to the outlet.

There are now some fears of a “crypto winter,” said MarketWatch. But other observers say the sector is likely still in solid shape for the long term, thanks to its integration with financial markets. Banks like J.P. Morgan now accept crypto assets as collateral. We are not seeing a crypto winter, said Frontier Investments CEO Louis LaValle. “I think we’re watching bitcoin grow up.”

McDonald’s golden arches might as well be made of real gold and Burger King’s burgers may be reserved for kings. Fast food was once a cheap and accessible source of food, but now many lower-income Americans are being priced out of the restaurants. This is largely attributed to higher prices coupled with the high cost of living. At the same time, the gap between the wealthy and the poor is widening, making upward mobility difficult.

Why is fast food more expensive?

Across the country, prices are rising across the board, including at fast food restaurants. “Higher costs of restaurant essentials, such as beef and salaries, have pushed food prices up and driven away lower-income customers,” said the Los Angeles Times. The average price of a menu item at McDonald’s increased by approximately 40% between 2019 and 2024, according to a company fact sheet.

At the same time, consumer income is not keeping up with the cost of living. “You are seeing across the country that rents are at pretty high levels. You are seeing food prices are high, whether it’s in restaurants or grocery. You are seeing child care is high,” said McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski to investors. “There’s some significant inflation there that the low-income consumer is having to absorb.”

McDonald’s is not the only chain seeing fewer customers. Chipotle, Burger King and Wendy’s have also reported fewer lower-income patrons. So some restaurants have attempted to create value menus with cheaper items to bring back clientele.

President Donald Trump attended McDonald’s Impact Summit on Nov. 17 and praised McDonald’s for “recommitting to affordable options.” He also claimed that the Biden administration “started the affordability crisis” and that his administration is “ending it.” However, the Trump administration has played a significant role in making fast food more expensive. “Price hikes, in part due to the Trump administration’s tariffs, disproportionately affect lower-income Americans since they spend more of their incomes on goods than services, which are not directly impacted by levies,” said The Independent.

What are the economic outcomes?

Economic strain is not all equal. Over time, the U.S. economy has been turning more K-shaped. This means that the “high-earner cohort” is “doing better and better while others fall further down the economic ladder,” said NBC News. This has particularly affected those ages 25 to 30. This group is “facing several headwinds, including unemployment, increased student loan repayment and slower real wage growth,” said Chipotle CEO Scott Boatwright to NBC News. As a result, those who are not rich are opting to budget and eat at home. On the flip side, the global luxury conglomerate that includes brands like Christian Dior and Tiffany & Co. had a “better-than-expected quarter, sending its stock 12% higher,” said USA Today.

Affordability continues to be a major policy issue for Americans, and “discontent will continue to increase so long as they perceive affordability as an issue, even if economic indicators improve,” said Fortune. This will “not only keep lower-income Americans from spending but could also lead some to harbor anger that could drive workplace resentment.” That is to say, confidence in today’s economy is deep-fried.

The UK’s unemployment rate hit 5% last week, the highest since the Covid-19 pandemic and higher than most analysts had predicted.

The Office for National Statistics figures, although in some dispute because of concerns over the quality of the data, indicate a weakening jobs market and slowing wage growth. Taking out the “skewed levels” of the pandemic years, the current unemployment rate is “the highest seen since August 2016”, said the BBC.

Two days after the unemployment numbers, it was revealed that GDP grew by only 0.1% in the third quarter of this year. The sluggish growth and rising unemployment rate are ringing alarm bells for economists about the risk that the UK will soon be entering a recession.

What did the commentators say?

To count as a recession, the economy has to have “two consecutive three-month quarters in negative territory”, said The Independent’s chief business commentator James Moore. In the first quarter this year, UK plc grew by 0.7%; in the second, by 0.3%. Now we’re “flatlining”.

And last week’s unemployment stats “caught most economists on the hop” – they “weren’t expecting anything quite as bad”. The jobs market “looks increasingly like a pile of industrial slag dumped in an area of outstanding natural beauty”.

Donald Trump’s state visit in September was accompanied by “a blizzard of announcements” on investment in AI, a “genuine vote of confidence in the UK economy”, said The Telegraph’s assistant editor Jeremy Warner. But outside of tech, there is “gathering gloom”; AI is “unlikely to save the UK” from “the growing drumbeat of an incoming recession”.

In September, a group of chief executives “fired warning shots at the Treasury”, said Christian May, editor-in-chief of City A.M. John Roberts, boss of British retail giant and FTSE-listed AO World, thinks “things are so bad he feels the UK is heading into recession”. The R-word is “a big call”, said May. More people are talking about stagnation – “an equally ugly phrase”. But the fact that we’re talking about recession at all is in itself “telling, and alarming”.

Fears of a recession are growing because all “the signals are lining up at the same time”, said Nigel Green, of the deVere Group, in the Daily Mail. “Weak output, higher unemployment and looming tax increases form a combination that investors cannot ignore.”

Britain’s economy is “in the dog house”, said The Economist. “Inflation is sticky, debts and deficits are high, and productivity growth is low.” Infrastructure and housing projects are “turning out to be a sorry disappointment” rather than drivers of growth.

But “some of the doomsaying is overdone”. Britain is not in a recession – yet. Its strengths, such as its universities, the English language, service sector, and the City of London, are “enduring”. In many ways, Britain “can look to continental Europe and count its blessings”.

What next?

No mainstream economist has “a fully blown UK recession pencilled in” for the coming year, said The Telegraph’s Warner. Recessions “generally require some sort of trigger” – although in this case it may not be necessary, given that the economy “seems instead to be simply dying”.

Office for National Statistics figures published today show the government has “inched a little closer to its 2% inflation target”, as inflation fell to 3.6% in October, down from 3.8% in September, said The Spectator. This “slight improvement offers limited relief” – “the real test” will be whether inflation falls to 2% by mid-2027, in line with Bank of England projections.

A further cause for modest optimism is that a December interest-rate cut is “all but nailed on, which will please mortgage borrowers”, said The Independent’s Moore. But tax increases will “inevitably attach a lead weight to Britain’s economic legs”. There’s “a lot riding” on next week’s Budget – “that R-word could at least be in play”.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has abandoned plans to increase income tax in the Budget on 26 November, and will instead focus on a range of smaller tax-raising measures.

The U-turn – leaked mere days after briefings about a plot to challenge Keir Starmer – comes after new Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts decreased the size of the economic “hole” Reeves needs to fill. This means she no longer feels under pressure to break Labour’s manifesto and put up income tax rates.

What did the commentators say?

The OBR told the chancellor that the hole in the public finances is now “closer to £20 billion than the £30 billion originally expected”, said Steven Swinford and Mehreen Khan in The Times. Reeves promptly ripped up the manifesto-busting plan she knew would “aggravate mutinous” Labour MPs and “fuel anger among voters”.

Downing Street officials “insisted” the Budget re-write was not a “response to the leadership crisis that has engulfed Keir Starmer” this week, said George Parker, Anna Gross and Sam Fleming in the Financial Times. But the chancellor’s about-turn has had an immediate effects on the markets, with gilts having their “worst one-day sell off since September” when the news broke.

When Reeves finally delivers the Budget, she will probably favour a “smorgasbord” approach, raising money from multiple avenues, including levies on gambling and taxes on expensive properties. She is also expected to “extend a freeze on personal tax thresholds” for a further two years, pushing more people into higher tax brackets as their wages rise.

“Rachel Reeves is Queen of the U-turn,” said Harvey Jones in the Daily Express. “She was forced to backtrack” on scrapping the winter fuel payment” and “caved on” over proposed cuts to the “ballooning” benefit bill. In fact, she has been made “to correct everything from her CV and childhood chess achievements to claims she didn’t know she needed a licence to rent out her property”.

“It is a mess,” said Matthew Lynn in The Telegraph. The Budget is “turning into a shambles”. In a week of “in-fighting, plotting and leaks”, the chancellor is being “buffeted” by political events, instead of controlling them. The proposed “series of minor tax rises” to try to stay within the fiscal rules shows that her preparation has “descended into a farce”.

What next?

A gap of £20 billion is “still a big number”, said Pippa Crerar in The Guardian. In addition to freezing income tax thresholds, we should expect “taxes on salary sacrifice schemes” and even a “fuel duty equivalent for electric vehicles”.

Talk of a new “exit tax” on entrepreneurs leaving the country has dwindled somewhat, said Swinford in The Times, but, if it is brought in, it could have a “significant impact on investment and growth”, particularly “in the artificial intelligence and broader tech sectors”.

“Make no mistake, this is a major moment for the government – and quite the twist on the usual cheery breakfast telly,” said Sam Blewett in Politico. With less than a month to go until her Budget announcement, Chancellor Rachel Reeves made a televised speech with the aim of “setting the context” for what is to come on 26 November.

Reeves refused to confirm whether the Labour government would reverse its manifesto pledge not to raise income tax, stoking speculation that her blueprint for balancing the books could come at the cost of public opinion.

What did the commentators say?

The chancellor’s claim that “each of us must do our bit” was the “clearest indication yet that broad-based tax rises are coming”, said James Heale in The Spectator. Her 25-minute address had “echoes of Mrs Thatcher’s famous TINA: There Is No Alternative” speech. The question is whether Reeves “has a solution to stop this vicious cycle from repeating again in another 12 months’ time”.

The prolonged trailing of the sacrifices to be made in the Budget could well be a tactical ploy, said Politico: “setting expectations so low that the budget doesn’t sting as much as people fear”. This “by no means typical” televised speech proves that “senior strategists are trying to handle this make-or-break fiscal statement with the utmost caution”.

Reeves’ expected pledge to prioritise the NHS in the Budget is a “gamble” to leverage national support, said Kate Devlin in The Independent. She is banking on the fact that the public sees the health service “as a kind of religion”, and looking to fulfil the commitment of reducing waiting times – one of the consistent themes of the Starmer government – to curry favour. She hopes that those who are “hit” by reported National Insurance rises “will prefer to be able to see their GP than have some extra money in their pockets”. Whether this will pay off, “time will tell”.

“Households will not be fooled” by Reeves’s tax “wheeze”, said Adam Smith in The Telegraph. Labour is already in a situation that “no amount of communications spin will be able to fix”. The heart of the matter is that, if the rumours are true, “the government will have increased income tax after repeatedly promising not to”. No. 11 will be “kidding themselves” if they believe the public will think otherwise.

What next?

Reeves will claim that Trump’s tariffs, increased defence spending, and a dire fiscal inheritance from the Conservatives, have all affected her decisions, said George Eaton in The New Statesman. This cannot work forever: by next autumn, Labour will have been in office for more than two years and “memories” of their “economic inheritance will be even less fresh than they are today”.

While the “politics of raising tax remain fraught”, another potential pitfall for the Labour government is the “perception of inaction”. Reeves can only gamble that the road she chooses for the country “leads somewhere better”.

Nigel Farage today sought to position Reform UK as the “party of alarm clock Britain” championing both business and workers.

In a speech in the City of London this morning, the former stockbroker said the country was being “led by human rights lawyers, not entrepreneurs”, and blamed a “political class who are not business people” of wasting the “opportunities to deregulate and become more competitive” offered by Brexit.

Promising to balance the budget, and that the party would “never borrow to spend” if it came to power, “marks the first time Reform has articulated something resembling a fiscal rule”, said the Financial Times. It also raises serious “questions over the spending cuts or tax increases needed to achieve this goal, as well as the precise definition of the pledge itself”.

What did the commentators say?

This is a “big moment” for Reform, said Matthew Lynn in The Spectator. Headline-grabbing promises made at the last election such as lifting the income tax threshold to £20,000, scrapping inheritance tax on estates of less than £2 million, and taking water companies back into public ownership, are set to be junked.

In their place the “new-look ‘Nigel from Accounts’” is promising “a far more sober approach to the public finances”. But still “don’t be fooled: this doesn’t mean that Reform is abandoning the economic radicalism that the UK desperately needs if it is to break out of its doom loop of stagnant growth and rising taxes”.

One area the party appears willing to challenge the status quo is on the pension triple lock. The policy of raising the UK state pension each year by whichever is highest out of inflation, average earnings or 2.5% has “trapped Britain’s two main parties since 2012 in a bind that, for some, has come to symbolise the paralysis of the state”, said Politico’s Dan Bloom.

While economists have long argued this has become unsustainable, successive governments of both main parties have shied away from touching it in fear of angering older voters.

Reform, by contrast, has been “remarkably open” about whether the triple lock would survive, said Bloom. While any decision appears a “long way off”, when Farage does make up his mind, “he has the power to radically alter the political landscape in the UK – and set a new bar for insurgent parties across Europe telling hard truths that the centre cannot”. But saying that, “he would also come under ferocious attack”.

Another major spending area the party appears ready to start a fight over is reforming public sector pensions to bring them more in line with those offered by companies.

When spending is “under control” and borrowing costs down, said Farage, “then, and only then, will I cut taxes to stimulate growth”.

What next?

There is a belief among Reform insiders that the economy is “only going to worsen before the next election,” said The Times, which will mean the Tories “having to abandon many of their promises to cut taxes”.

Farage may choose to keep his cards close to his chest until then, but he is “at least trying to signal a more traditional coding when it comes to the economy, entering the financial stability battleground on which elections are routinely fought”, said Politico’s London Playbook.

“On that front, the insurgent is straining to sound a little more like the opponents he’s trying to banish”.

Right on cue, Labour last night attacked Reform’s claim to be “on the side of working people, whilst also promising to slash the public services they rely on”, saying Farage’s plan would mark “a return to austerity, pure and simple”.

Meanwhile, Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, said Farage has committed to “extra welfare spending and a huge expansion of the state”, adding it is “impossible to take Reform seriously on the economy when their promises disintegrate after five minutes”.

Herein lies both the danger and opportunity for Reform as it looks to hone its offering to voters on both the left and the right.

Officials were “understandably chuckling at the opposing attacks from each angle – but there’s a serious point here”, said London Playbook. “Each new bit of detail that Farage fleshes out will give his rivals, and the public, more to unpick him on.”

They call it the Great Freeze. That’s how some analysts describe the U.S. job market recently — a “low-hire, low-fire” environment where workers who have jobs are not losing them but finding a new job is difficult. But a thaw may be coming.

A “slew” of “large-scale layoffs” may be a sign that the labor market is “starting to tip over,” said Axios. Amazon announced it will slash 14,000 jobs, UPS said it was cutting 48,000 positions, and Paramount said it was laying off 1,000 workers. The unemployment rate had hovered around 4% for more than a year, but that “apparent stability” has concealed “change beneath the surface.” Now, companies appear ready to “take advantage of the potential of AI to transform work.” This could mean fewer jobs for humans.

The massive layoffs suggest the job market’s “current state of suspension has changed for the worse,” said MarketWatch. While companies are still comfortably profitable, they are waiting on the “dust to settle” from tariff negotiations, the government shutdown and the corporate adoption of AI. Amazon’s layoffs could be the tipping point. “We may see others join the fray,” said John Challenger, the CEO of career-services firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

What did the commentators say?

The job market “could get ugly,” Dan DeFrancesco said at Business Insider. “About 20 more Amazon-sized layoffs” would upend the labor market. That scenario is “not out of the realm of possibility” because “companies are known to follow the lead of their bigger peers.” Meta’s 2022 layoff of 11,000 workers led to a much larger wave of tech sector job cuts. American companies have recently been in a “holding pattern,” but if they start to let workers go without replacing them, the “somewhat resilient job market could start to show some real cracks.”

“The labor market is undeniably going through a transition,” Adam Hardy said at Money. Young workers are “canaries in the coal mine” since they are often the first to feel job market instability, and “young workers and recent college grads aren’t doing so well” at the moment. AI is often blamed, but there are other factors. Right now, there are “more graduates than there are jobs that require grads.” That’s a challenge that predates the rise of AI by “several years.”

What next?

The Federal Reserve cut interest rates by a quarter point this week to “shore up the softening job market,” said NPR. On top of private sector layoffs, the federal government has already cut about 100,000 jobs this year. American employment “may well be shrinking already,” Fed Governor Christopher Waller said earlier in October.

Bad news for the job market might be good news for graduate programs. “Applications are on the rise” at law schools and MBA programs, said Fortune, with law school applications up 3% over last year. Gen-Z job seekers are buying “more time to figure out what’s next” instead of “facing the bleak job market head-on.”

“Labour promised not to increase income tax, not to increase National Insurance and not to increase VAT. Does the prime minister still stand by his promises?” That was Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch’s opening salvo at Prime Minister’s Questions this week.

The answer from Keir Starmer was eyebrow-raisingly non-committal, stating only that the government would “lay out” in the Budget its plans to “build a stronger economy” and “deliver a better future for our country”.

That Budget is still a month away but there are widespread reports that Rachel Reeves is considering a manifesto-busting move to increase the top 45p rate of income tax rate or to lower the threshold at which people have to start paying it.

What did the commentators say?

Come the Budget, the Chancellor faces “a terrible choice”, said Martin Wolf in the Financial Times. Either she must “cut spending that people want and raise taxes that people feel they cannot afford” or she has to “allow explosive rises in public debt”. That, in short, is “the plight of Rachel Reeves”.

With the Office for Budget Responsibility expected to deliver a further £20 billion-plus blow to public finances by downgrading its productivity forecast, the chancellor has limited options. She is under pressure from many within her party to increase spending, rather than cut it, and has already confirmed she will not borrow more to balance the books.

To avoid breaking Labour’s manifesto pledge, Reeves could impose some wholly new taxes. She has been “holding discussions over a raft of” possibilities, said David Maddox and Caitlin Doherty in The Independent. These are said to include a 1% mansion levy on properties worth over £2m, a gambling tax and a bank profits levy. There is also talk of further capital gains reforms, and “ending tax relief on pensions”.

But raising money in this way risks causing “unnecessary amounts of economic damage” and adding “needless complexity to the system”, Isaac Delestre of the Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank, told the paper.

There is a “persuasive case for ignoring the Labour manifesto”, said Adam Smith in The Telegraph. Raising income tax will “demonstrate that the government is serious about getting a grip on public finances” and it will be rewarded by the bond markets with a “multibillion-pound fall in government borrowing costs”. It will “be less damaging to GDP than any further raids on business taxes” and the increased revenues will “help the Bank of England tackle inflation”.

What next?

Economists and Treasury mandarins may be lining up to agree that there’s a “powerful case” for a small income tax rise, said Smith in The Telegraph, but it would be “a misjudgement so grave, it would destroy Reeves’ career and this government”.

“Promises made” must be “promises kept”, said The Guardian’s editorial board. If not, “it will be terrible for politics”, said Lewis Goodall on his Substack. “Backtracking on one of the only promises about which voters might be aware” would mean it’s “game over for the party”.

Breaking the income tax manifesto promise would “come with a colossal political hit”, said the BBC’s political editor Chris Mason. But such is the state of the economy, “some within the party” are telling Reeves “to go for it” anyway.

In Washington DC last week, Rachel Reeves “started laying the groundwork for a painful Budget”, said Hugo Gye in The i Paper.

Speaking at the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund, the Chancellor “adopted a strategy of doom and gloom”, confirming that both tax rises and spending cuts are on the table for 26 November, to help reverse an estimated £22 billion black hole in the public finances. Reeves blamed a likely growth downgrade by the Office for Budget Responsibility on Brexit, and warned that “those with the broadest shoulders should pay their fair share”.

‘Sitting on their assets’

Having already gone after non-doms and private schools, Reeves clearly believes the wealthy can be squeezed a bit more before the pips squeak, said Fraser Nelson in The Times. Problem is, we currently have a tax system “where the top 100 super-taxpayers contribute almost as much as the North Sea oil industry; where the top 0.1% pay more income tax than the entire bottom 50%”. The wealthy are already contributing their fair share – “and the fair shares of many others”.

Actually, in some ways the well-off are criminally “untaxed”, said Vicky Spratt in The i Paper. The UK’s vast property wealth – which has increased by almost £3 trillion in a decade – is hardly touched by the taxman. Homeowners who rode the historic house-price inflation wave through the 2010s have become “incredibly rich”. Reforming property taxes is the obvious answer. What’s wrong with asking them to contribute a small amount of the wealth they attained simply “by sitting on their assets”, when those on lower incomes are struggling to choose whether to “heat their homes, eat or pay rent”?

‘Electoral suicide’

A property tax is one option; Reeves is also reportedly looking at targeting pensions and cash Isas. But even if the Chancellor does choose to soak the better off, it still won’t be enough, said Andrew O’Brien on UnHerd. The Treasury now “needs huge amounts of cash”: the NHS alone has a £37 billion capital shortfall; we need another £17 billion just to fill potholes. It would be quicker and fairer to “stick this all on income tax”, where an extra 4p would raise around £30 billion a year. Unfortunately for Reeves, that would break a manifesto pledge, so it would be “electoral suicide”.

All options are painful, said Chris Blackhurst in The Independent, but the worst situation is the one we have now: a Treasury with a “tin ear” that feeds us a “drip, drip” of threats about November’s Statement – while also claiming to be kickstarting economic growth. In reality, businesses are putting decisions on hold, and the wealthy are eyeing the exits; “Britain is at a standstill”. All of this, and “the Budget is still over a month away”.

It often seems that economists are perpetually warning us about the next U.S. recession. One influential analyst says an economic slowdown is already a fact of life for many Americans.

Twenty-two states are “now experiencing persistent economic weakness and job losses that are likely to continue," said Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, to MarketWatch. The overall American economy is “on the precipice. Government data released before the shutdown showed the “broader economy was in pretty good shape,” said MarketWatch, but some are skeptical. The gross domestic product might be rising, said Zandi, but the “job market is weaker.”

Other observers are warning of a bifurcated “K-shaped economy,” said CNBC. Wealthy Americans are “engaging their purchasing power,” but lower- and middle-class consumers are struggling with “rising costs on daily essentials like groceries and gas.” Meanwhile, “unofficial signals” like rises in missed car payments and women leaving the workforce are offering “early warning signs about what is to come,” said Quartz.

What did the commentators say?

“This moment feels much like late 2007 and early 2008,” said Ball State University economics professor Michael J. Hicks at The Indianapolis Star. For a time during that period, the economy felt stable “even as we entered recession.” Today is similar. While the gross domestic product is still rising, driven by the AI boom, “nearly every other measure of economic activity has stagnated or is in deep decline.” The United States may already be in recession. But “we don’t feel it yet.”

The U.S. economy is in a “weird place right now,” said economist Paul Krugman at his newsletter. Policymakers are “flying blind” because of the government shutdown and unemployment is “relatively low by historical standards.” And Americans “feel very bad about the economy,” with consumer sentiment surveys rivaling the lows of the Great Recession. One problem is that President Donald Trump’s “wildly erratic policies” are creating “huge uncertainty” for businesses and consumers. We may not be in a recession yet, but the “frozen state of the U.S. economy has already made life much worse for many workers.”

What next?

The government shutdown is “complicating the Fed’s ability to help the economy,” said CNN. The Federal Reserve “relies heavily on official economic statistics” from the government to make decisions about interest rates to help goose or slow down the American economy, but the shutdown has “effectively cut off access to that data.” The available information is not great, though, with August data showing the “weakest pace of hiring since 2010.” The Fed is expected to announce its latest policies at a meeting on Oct. 29.

Americans are not happy with all of this. A new poll from the Public Religion Research Institute shows that most voters — including nearly 30% of Republicans — gave the president “low marks on the economy,” said Axios. That dissatisfaction could “test the durability of Trump’s support.”

Donald Trump has targeted the “economic equivalent of Russia’s crown jewels” with a new wave of sanctions, said Sky News.

The president has slapped fresh restrictions on Russia’s two largest oil companies, in response to what he calls Vladimir Putin’s “lack of serious commitment to a peace process to end the war in Ukraine”.

What did the commentators say?

The new measures, which target Russian giants Rosneft and Lukoil, as well as more than 30 subsidiaries, “aren’t just any sanctions”, said Sky News, they’re a “punch to the gut of Moscow’s war economy”. They’re “no slap on the wrist” because oil is “Russia’s bloodstream”, and Trump “just cut off the blood flow”, said the broadcaster.

The timing is significant too, said the BBC, because the new measures were announced “just days after the UK sanctioned the same two Russian oil companies”, and European Union countries have issued new measures that ban the import of Russian liquefied natural gas from 2027.

Putin’s “tactical triumph didn’t last long”, said The New York Times – last week “it looked as if the Russian president had outmanoeuvred his adversaries yet again” by making a “deftly placed call” to Trump that “scuttled any expansion in American support for Ukraine”. But yesterday “Russians awoke to new American sanctions against their oil industry”.

The sale of oil and gas accounts for about a quarter of the Russian budget, and Moscow’s oil industry is already under pressure from increasingly long-range strikes by Kyiv. So the measures “take aim at the heart of the Russian economy” and deal a major blow to Putin’s “effort to cajole” Trump into “forcing Ukraine to capitulate to Russia’s main demands”.

Actually, the sanctions are “not a maximal blow,” Daniel Fried, a former US assistant secretary of state for Europe, told Atlantic Council, and there may need to be tougher US actions, such as “joining Europe in lowering the price cap on Russian oil, enforcing the oil price cap by putting sanctions on the Russian shadow fleet of tankers, and sanctioning ports that service them”.

But the measures are still a “strong move” and they could “put even more downward pressure on Russian oil revenues” by pushing Moscow to further discount its oil and “forcing purchasers to consider alternative sources of oil”.

What next?

Some experts in Russia said that the new measures would have a “muted impact”, said The New York Times. Moscow has “become adept at evading restrictions” by using “hundreds of old vessels uninsured by Western companies” and by processing transactions “through buffer companies in third countries”.

So although oil prices “rose sharply” yesterday, the sanctions’ “potential potency” may “ultimately depend on how the penalties are enforced and how energy buyers react to them”.

In response to the move, four Chinese state oil companies have suspended purchases of Russian seaborne oil. Indian refineries have also announced that they will slash imports of Russian crude to comply with the new sanctions. If these cancellations “prove permanent”, Russia “faces a serious economic hit”, said The Telegraph.

France’s attempt to bring its spiralling debt under control has sparked a political crisis that has seen off a series of prime ministers and left Europe’s second largest economy teetering on the brink.

At a moment when “the very sovereignty and freedom of France and Europe are at stake”, the country finds itself “paralysed by chaos, impotence and debt”, veteran political commentator Nicolas Baverez told the BBC.

How bad is the debt crisis?

The French economy “appears strong at first glance”, said The New York Times. Before Donald Trump’s tariff war, “growth was slow but steady and employment was picking up” but “behind the scenes, outsize government spending and falling tax receipts strained finances”.

In absolute terms, France now holds the highest consolidated national debt in Europe, currently at around €3.4 trillion, according to the country’s National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies. Its debt-to-GDP ratio – 113% – is surpassed in the EU only by Greece and Italy, which were at the heart of the European debt crisis a decade ago.

How did the debt get so high?

France has long been among the most “spendthrift” countries in the EU relative to its economic output, said CNN. Social welfare, like pensions and unemployment benefits, represent the largest chunk of expenditure, but the state also funds some “unusual benefits”, such as financial support to families employing a nanny for children under six. “We do reimburse a lot of things that we basically can no longer afford to reimburse,” said Alexandra Roulet, a former economic adviser to Emmanuel Macron.

These commitments, combined with huge public spending to soften the blow of the Covid pandemic and the energy crisis sparked by the war in Ukraine, alongside the rising cost of government borrowing, has contributed to a massive increase in debt over the past two decades: from 60% of GDP at the start of the 2000s to a projected 125% by 2030.

The cost of servicing the national debt alone is estimated to be €67 billion this year, more than the budgets of “all government departments except education and defence”, said the BBC.

“In short, debt service is rising because the debt itself is rising,” said Le Monde. This means that “to cover its ongoing deficits year after year, the state has had to increase its borrowing. The interest that must be repaid accumulates, which further increases the debt and creates a vicious cycle.”

What will happen next?

While deficit-reducing measures such as attempts at pension reform have been met with mass protests through the Macron presidency, much of the current paralysis stems from the president’s disastrous decision to call a snap election last summer, resulting in a divided parliament and an intransigent opposition.

François Bayrou, who made attacking the deficit the central plan of his government, was forced to resign as prime minister last month after failing to pass €44 billion in spending cuts, which included scrapping two public holidays.

The resignation of his successor Sébastien Lecornu last week, followed by his rapid reinstatement, has “raised doubts over whether the 2026 budget – including much-needed debt-cutting reforms – can be passed in time”, said CNN.

France is still not at “immediate risk”, said Le Monde. The possibility of an intervention by the International Monetary Fund, which has been touted by some even within the government, seems “highly improbable”.

The best-case scenario is that “the country’s inherent strengths – its wealth, infrastructure, institutional resilience” – will allow it to weather what may prove a temporary storm, said the BBC. “But there is another scenario: that it emerges permanently weakened, prey to extremists of left and right, a new sick man of Europe.”

Rachel Reeves faced a difficult balancing act as she addressed the Labour faithful in Liverpool today.

Ahead of what many see as a make-or-break budget next month, the chancellor needed “to assure her restive colleagues that she can put the economy in the service of beating the populist right without undermining her reputation for fiscal prudence”, said Joe Mayes on Bloomberg.

Her speech had to be “a mix of pro-growth initiatives, back-to-work support and pledges of fiscal restraint” amid growing alarm that “poll-topping” Reform are successfully exploiting Britain’s seemingly intractable economic problems of high debt, slow growth and low productivity.

What did the commentators say?

The UK’s public finances are, in one sense, “eminently fixable”, said The Economist. While the financial crisis and pandemic have driven up Britain’s net public debt from 25% of GDP in 2005 to 95% today, the “belt-tightening needed to stabilise debts is about 2% of GDP, some of which is already budgeted for”.

“By historical standards, it is not a demanding target” yet the “inability of the political system to grapple with a solvable problem is itself a symptom of decline”.

A series of forecasts released just before this week’s Labour conference have made the chancellor’s task even more challenging. The OECD has forecast for the UK the highest rate of inflation in the G7 this year, and predicted growth to slow to 1% next year, caused by “increased trading costs and uncertainty” and a “tighter fiscal stance”, said Nick Edser at the BBC.

In another “blow” for Reeves, the Office for Budget Responsibility “will substantially reduce its estimates for productivity in the economy”, said David Maddox in The Independent, meaning the chancellor “will need to find even more money to balance the books”. Many economists have warned that Reeves “has not done enough to change the trend on productivity”.

What is required is nothing less than a complete “reset” of the UK economy, Shanker Singham, chair of the Growth Commission, told The Independent’s Maddox. The fault for the current situation is not just down to the current government, he said, but goes back “30 years or so”. Economic growth in that period “has been anaemic”, not only in the UK but “across the G7 more widely, with the exception of the US”.

Pointing to the upwards regulation of the price of energy, the lack of flexibility in labour markets and the UK “persistently failing to take an axe to planning regulations”, Singham concluded that “these countries seem to be hell-bent on doing all the things that damage economic growth, while simultaneously paying lip service to it.”

What next?

The levers available to Reeves to reset the economy are limited, and it’s no surprise that today she confirmed she no longer stands by her pledge last year not to raise taxes. She said the world had changed, “due to a mixture of conflicts, US tariffs and higher borrowing costs”, said Peter Walker in The Guardian.

UK 30-year gilt yields are at multi-decade highs, leaving her “little wriggle-room as she contemplates 2026’s budget”, said Bloomberg’s Mayes. This is “the big issue so many people are fixated with right now”, said Sky News economics editor Ed Conway. It is “very hard to unpick precisely how much” this can be blamed on Liz Truss’ disastrous mini-budget in 2022 and “how much was down to the Bank of England” and its controversial policy of “quantitative tightening” but the sums involved are “staggering”.

There are potential parallels here with “the market panic that followed” Truss’ budget, said The Economist. “The difference between her cavalier leap and today’s cautious drift is a lot smaller than it looks. If Britain cannot budget responsibly by choice, then markets will force it to do so by necessity – thereby damaging the entire economy.”

In another sign that the economy may be faltering, average credit scores across the country have taken a nosedive in 2025, according to a report released last week. And Gen Z is one demographic that's particularly feeling the pain of slumping credit. People in this age bracket have seen their credit scores drop by an average of three points this year, and economists are worried the numbers could keep dropping if historical trends hold.

Much lower than the national average

The average American’s credit score dropped to 715 in April 2025, according to a report from credit scoring institution FICO. The average American’s score had been “717 a year earlier, marking the second consecutive year-over-year drop,” said Bloomberg. This is largely due to the “resumption of reporting student loan delinquencies” by the Trump administration.

While the average score across all demographics remains 715, the situation is much more dire for Gen Z, a group defined by FICO as people ages 18 to 29. Gen Z Americans have an “average score of 676 — 39 points lower than the national average,” said FICO. This represents a three-point drop from Gen Z credit scores from the same time last year.

Several factors are weighing down Gen Z scores. This includes the aforementioned student loan reporting: about “34% of Gen Z have open student loans — double the 17% of the total population that has an open student loan,” said FICO. And because they are younger, Gen Zers have “had less time to build savings and are less likely to benefit from stock market gains and home price appreciation.”

This also means that Gen Zers have more substantial swings in their credit scores than older people who've had more time to build credit. Gen Z was “most likely to see their scores fall dramatically, with 14% of the group having a score decrease of 50 points or more, compared to 10% of the total population,” said Bloomberg.

‘The one most important factor’

While dealing with lower credit scores, Gen Zers are also working around another obstacle: They are “contending with the most difficult job market in years for new college graduates,” said CNN. Many Americans across demographics are now having to make tough choices. Nearly one in five consumers, 19%, have either skipped bills or borrowed money from friends and family in the past year, according to a survey from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

“My credit score took a drastic hit because I had to compromise and take a job where I’m severely underpaid,” Dimitri Tsolakis, a 22-year-old who graduated from American University with a degree in international relations, told CNN. Tsolakis “owes $35,000 in student debt but has had to pause repayments to focus on making his car payments and paying for other living expenses.”

But there are ways to improve the situation, experts say. The “one most important factor in the FICO score calculation is whether you make your payments on time. And that’s about 35% of the score calculation,” Tommy Lee, a senior director at FICO, told The Associated Press. A person’s credit score is “dynamic.” It changes based on “how you make your payments.” So if you ”want to maintain it or improve it, you can do so by exhibiting good credit behavior.”

President Donald Trump has struck another blow against immigration. His White House has imposed a new $100,000 fee on H-1B visas that American companies use to bring top talent from overseas. Experts suggest U.S. workers may not benefit from the change.

Friday’s “abrupt” announcement “stunned and confused employers, students and workers” around the world, said The Associated Press. The affected businesses — including tech giants like Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and Tesla — “don’t actually know what that process will be like,” said León Rodríguez, a former U.S. immigration official. The White House defended the move. The H-1B visa program was being used by American companies to “fire their American staff and outsource IT jobs to lower-paid foreign workers,’’ the administration said.

Why is Trump changing the H-1B?

The argument for making H-1B visas harder to get is that “big technology companies shouldn’t be spending billions to train and import foreign employees,” said The Dispatch. Trump’s most hawkish anti-immigration allies like Steve Bannon and Laura Loomer have called for an end to the program, focusing particularly on Indian migrants who make up more than 70% of H-1B recipients. “How is it America First to let Indians replace America’s top talent?” Loomer asked last year. The H-1B program was capped at 85,000 visas a year. With the new fee, the president is “essentially saying that the number is too high,” said Hiroshi Motomura, co-director of UCLA’s Center for Immigration Law and Policy.

Will American workers really benefit?

“Economists aren’t so sure,” said The Wall Street Journal. Some research suggests H-1Bs helped U.S. workers and the overall economy “far more than it has hurt.” The visas “cause innovation, they cause entrepreneurship, they cause more R&D investment,” said George Mason University economist Michael Clemens. But others argue the program has displaced American workers. “The typical H-1B visa employee” is usually doing a job for which “otherwise available workers exist,” said University of Notre Dame economist Kirk Doran.

The fee “threatens to worsen a shortage of U.S. doctors,” said Bloomberg. The visa program has produced a “pipeline” of trained doctors, “especially in rural and underserved communities,” said American Medical Association President Bobby Mukkamala. International medical school graduates are a “critical part of our physician workforce.”

What next?

Trump has “scrambled a popular path” between the United States and India, said The New York Times. Making visas more difficult to obtain could “dent India’s economy” by reducing the money migrants send home and might result in “weakened ties between Indian and American companies.” While American tech companies are “globe-spanning behemoths,” India has produced more English-speaking engineers and scientists than “any other country.”

Trump’s new fee is a “significant opportunity for Canada,” said Bloomberg. “Cities like Vancouver or Toronto will thrive instead of American cities,” said Garry Tan, CEO of Y Combinator. Europe is also poised to reap the benefits, said CNBC. The continent’s nations may be the “beneficiaries of a potential rigorous brain drain,” said Paul Achleitner, former chair of Deutsche Bank’s supervisory board.

Nearly two decades ago, the collapse of the subprime home loan market sparked the Great Recession and devastated the economy. There are echoes of that history in the recent collapse of Tricolor Holdings, a subprime auto lender.

Tricolor’s bankruptcy filing last week has “prompted questions about the health” of the auto finance sector, said Financial Times. The Texas firm was a “fast-growing lender” that quadrupled in size in recent years, making most of its loans to low-income Latino immigrants and other “borrowers with limited credit histories.” Tricolor charged that “financially precarious” customer base an average interest rate of 17% for loans. President Donald Trump’s deportations undercut that business model. Many borrowers were “deported back to Mexico, and they abandoned the vehicles,” said one former Tricolor employee.

There were additional problems: Tricolor faces a federal fraud investigation, and the broader auto loan market has been marked by a growing number of borrower defaults and car repossessions. The company’s unraveling is "just an extreme example" of the sector’s challenges, said Rod Dubitsky, an independent financial analyst.

How does this affect the financial markets?

The crisis is “ensnaring giants including JPMorgan Chase and BlackRock,” companies that are among outlets that “lent hundreds of millions of dollars” to Tricolor, said Bloomberg. Perhaps that should not be a surprise: The auto loan market has shown “clear signs of strain,” with “mounting consumer stress and a surge in delinquencies” forcing other subprime lenders into bankruptcy, and car repossessions rising to their highest level since 2009. With the economy continuing to show signs of slowing, “market watchers say more pain is likely ahead.”

Is this like the subprime mortgage crisis?

Opinions differ. Tricolor’s troubles “aren’t likely to upend the broader financial services industry” as happened in 2008, said CNN. That crisis forced the federal government to “pour billions into each of the nation’s major banks” in order to keep the American economy from collapsing entirely. But the $1.7 trillion car loan market is an eighth the size of the home mortgage sector. That makes subprime auto loans a “very different animal.”

The unraveling of Tricolor could be a “canary in a subprime debt mine,” said The Wall Street Journal editorial board. The company’s troubles raise the possibility that creditors and investors ignored “financial and other risks hiding in plain sight.” The firm’s business “grew amid the Biden-era surge in migration and auto prices,” and more than two-thirds of Tricolor’s borrowers had no credit score. Despite the broader warning signs, investors still “snap up” subprime debt owed by low-income borrowers. That could be a “harbinger” of more problems.

What’s next?

“Tricolor’s collapse isn’t just about one company,” said Moneywise. When an auto lender fails and borrowers cannot pay their loans, “it signals trouble for the whole economy.” It also becomes a headache for borrowers in general. Lenders are “getting pickier” about who they lend to, so “buying a car will get even harder.” The one spot of hope is that the Federal Reserve could soon cut interest rates, which could “provide some relief.”

Amid a difficult job market, many have resorted to “job hugging,” or “holding onto their jobs for dear life” even if they aren’t progressing in their careers or lack motivation, said consulting firm Korn Ferry. The lack of higher career aspirations is a result of the poor job market that has made people uncertain about their employment futures.

Background

It is no secret that the job market has not been promising recently. The revised data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that the U.S. job market was “much weaker in 2024 and early this year than originally reported, adding to concerns about the health of the nation’s economy,” said The Associated Press. “Employers added 911,000 fewer jobs than originally reported in the year that ended in March 2025.”

Overall, the “economy has been in a low-hire, low-fire equilibrium,” said The Atlantic. This has extended to almost all sectors aside from health care. The “amount of time a worker has spent looking for a job has climbed to an average of 10 weeks, meaning that Americans are spending two weeks longer on the job market than they were a few years ago.” Many are unable to find jobs altogether.

The latest

In a job market without many new jobs or potential for upward mobility, job hugging naturally occurs. Given the “activity that happened post-Covid and then some of these constant layoffs, people are waiting and sitting in seats and hoping that they have more stability,” said Stacy DeCesaro, a managing consultant at Korn Ferry, to Fortune. A July 2025 report found that a majority of employees plan to remain in their current jobs for at least the next six months. This trend aligns with quiet quitting and quiet vacationing, as many are not necessarily engaged in their jobs and are more concerned about not having one. “They don’t seem happy, they don’t give 100% — and they don’t quit,” said The Wall Street Journal.

However, job hugging does not just apply to those who are only trying to keep a job. “The phrase ‘job hugging’ just kind of coined itself, because of the reluctance of especially top performers to leave where they’re currently at,” DeCesaro said to Insider. In many cases, workers who have outgrown their current roles are “sitting in the wrong seat at this time in their careers and clinging to it because of market fear,” said Forbes.

The reaction

“The process of getting a job has become a late-capitalist nightmare,” said The Atlantic. This has led many people to feel that they must remain in their current jobs and not seek out new opportunities. “When people were moving during the Great Resignation, that allowed others to get promoted, perhaps ahead of schedule and have a stretch job,” said Alan Guarino, the vice chairman of Korn Ferry, to the Journal. “Now people can’t move up and they potentially get demotivated because of the lack of opportunity.”

This can be bad for both employers and employees as “go-getters hankering for promotions might lose out if mediocre co-workers refuse to vacate the next rung on the corporate ladder,” said the Journal. There is also less room for new grads to be hired. However, it could also be an opportunity. “Great teammates are not leaving for external jobs every couple years," said Korn Ferry, “which means firms can develop those talents and create more internal career paths.”

Waiting for a small package from overseas? You might not get it, at least anytime soon. A growing number of postal services and shippers around the world are cutting off deliveries to the United States, citing President Donald Trump's new tariff rules.

The interruption of deliveries is "threatening the flow of hundreds of millions of packages a year," said Axios. That's because Trump in July revoked the so-called "de minimis" exemption that had long blocked tariffs from being applied to packages valued at $800 or less. That exemption fueled a lot of e-commerce from China-based companies like Shein and Temu. Now, postal authorities and private shipping companies in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, India, Japan and a host of other countries are putting at least a temporary stop to American deliveries, "citing uncertainty about the new rules."

What did the commentators say?

Critics of de minimis say the exemption has made it too easy to let "drugs and unwanted goods" enter the United States, said The Hill. But the suspension of the rule "will likely impact the global economy significantly." Research suggests dropping de minimis "could result in costs of $11 billion to $13 billion for American consumers." For now, "more countries will likely continue to cease certain shipments" to America rather than deal with the headache.

"Ding-dong, de minimis is dead," said George E. Bogden, a former trade official in the Trump administration, at The New York Times. Changes to the rule had raised the threshold from $5 in 1978 to $800 in 2015. That allowed overseas exporters to "flood the U.S. market" with packages "without adequate inspection," with the result that "American industries were gutted." Trump's order revoking the rule "infuriated de minimis defenders," but it reasserted the principle that "all goods must face the full scrutiny, and the full weight, of U.S. law."

"Trump's trade war has come to your Etsy shopping cart," said Ryan Teague Beckwith at MSNBC. The de minimis exemption was created in the late 1930s, as the country "shook off the tariff hangover" from a trade war that "prolonged the Great Depression." The $800 exemption is "pretty high" and gave a boost that retailers like Shein "didn't really need." The sudden cutoff will have a dramatic impact, however. A "normal president" would be trying to "avoid needlessly harming" small businesses and U.S. consumers, but "Trump doesn't seem particularly concerned."

What next?

Small businesses are "scrambling" to make new arrangements, said CNN. Depending on the country of origin, previously exempt packages coming into America will face at least an $80 charge, or as much as $200 for countries with a tariff rate of 25% or more. Some foreign exporters have decided to stop shipping to the U.S. for now, regardless of whether their postal services will carry the shipment. "Clearly this is not something we want to do," said Wool Warehouse, a U.K.-based yarn and crafting company. The de minimis exemption formally ends on Friday.