Trump didn't write Art of the Deal (ghostwriters do that for the rich and famous). But did he even read it? Our analysis of his dealmaking skills: www.economist.com/united-state...

"The White House maintains that it doesn't need the help of any country." I will just remind anyone struggling this that "I Hate You, Don't Leave Me" is a classic book on being in a relationship with someone with borderline personality disorder.

A more thought-through argument than what I tried to say the other day: governments shouldn't blunt the price signal for consumers when genergy prices surge. It expensive, un-green and pushes the pain on countries that can't afford to do so. www.economist.com/leaders/2026...

In an interview with The Economist, Christine Lagarde says expectations of a swift return to normal may be “overly optimistic” and that there is “no way” the Gulf’s lost energy supply can be restored within months

Because if there's one thing I saw in the cross-tabs after 2024 it's that people didn't care about prices so much as they did about the threat from Iran.

The former bishop of Tenerife tells a victim: "I have experience of this, as a priest--boys and girls of 13 or 14 that provoked me..." elpais.com/sociedad/202...

I suppose it’s technically a sort of regime change. The Revolutionary Guards are taking over Iran economist.com/middle-east-... from The Economist

Hungary spends an extraordinary 5.5% of GDP on child-support measures. Yet in 2025 the birth rate fell to 1.31, with just 72,000 babies born, the fewest on record

www.ft.com/content/1171... Traders placed $580mn in oil bets ahead of Donald Trump’s social media post on Iran talks

You didn’t used to use to describe a doctor as a vaccine proponent, any more than you described them as a proponent of the germ theory of disease. But here we are.

"What if ICE did airport security?" sounds like the premise of a black-comedy sketch.

Judge Rules Pentagon Restrictions on Press Are Unconstitutional www.nytimes.com/2026/03/20/b...

EV NEWS: Growing global adoption of electric vehicles helped avoid the consumption of 2.3 million barrels of oil per day last year, according to BloombergNEF. Always fun to work with @akshatrathi.bsky.social ! read our latest Bloomberg Green story for FREE www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

This is what not to do. Expensive and wasteful. Just give poorer people more money for a limited period.

15 years ago today, at the party for my first book. I sometimes feel old when I think "I finished graduate school 27 years ago." "I've worked at The Economist longer than I've *not* worked at The Economist". Well here's another. But it's been a lovely ride.

Hey kids and people, it's EXCERPT TIME, Y'ALL CAN READ AN EXCERPT!

There has long been a theory that he and team put these mistakes in to tweak the eggheads and bond with his base. But he’s too vain about his brains for this to seem plausible to me.

The second best Irish phrase I’ve heard, used to describe someone who’s always engaging in one-upmanship, is “if you’ve been to Tenerife, he’s been to Elevenerife.” My number one favourite Irish phrase, and one of the most crushing burns you’ll ever hear, is “he looks like his mammy knitted him.”

Wow. A couple of days ago I read The Atlantic's long gambling cover. Among other depressing things in it, athletes are routinely harassed and threatened by losing bettors, and have to get used to it. Now journalists too? Jesus.

When my parents decided to call me by my middle name, they couldn’t have anticipated how easy it would be to mistype “Lame“ on a smartphone.

Second paragraph calls the New York accent a "twang". Never heard that one before. That was a hint about how good this piece was going to be. The study didn't find the accent was dying. It asked people about accents they *think* are on the wane. New York's was 12th on a list of 15.

Why hasn't Trump received a "rally around the flag" bump in his approval rating? I made every presidential approval chart you could ever want to explain www.gelliottmorris.com/p/i-graphed-...

Grammarly's "Expert Review" seems to have been taken down. But... 🧵

Amazing... but the feature is still live on Grammarly's site where I'm sitting in Spain. CC @bcdreyer.social and all others whose names have been taken in vain. (Hi there @timnitgebru.bsky.social. I told it to write a slightly incompetent try-out article for The Economist, on the dangers of AI.)

Back to back in my timeline: "Yeah, I think they should use the straight" / "attempting to navigate the Strait of Hormuz is currently unthinkable".

Politicians in many places also thought that the right response to the Ukraine war was to cut energy taxes. This subsidizes consumption rather than doing everything possible to reduce it (not to mention that it racks up debt).

I warmly recommend this piece by @brendanboyle.bsky.social on Spain, (over)tourism, and an a brilliant new ad campaign from Andalusia. Come on down and be a tourist in Spain. But be a good one. brendyboyle.substack.com/p/spains-eig...

This piece/photo was begging for a headline about "The war between a swagging theocracy with a Supreme Leader and Iran".

Easy mistake to make, but still unfortunate, in today's @elpais.com newsletter. "The decision of Pedro Sánchez to not allow the use of American bases in the US and Israel's war in Iraq..." Sánchez is explicitly trying to recover some of the fire of 2003 and the campaign against that war, but...

Just realised an obvious tension in Trump and Hegseth's arguments. A four-week, easy air-only war with few American and allied casualties will rather undercut the argument that Iran was imminently becoming an unstoppable regional colossus.

Ted Cruz to Dana Bash: "He did not say there would be no more wars. He said there would be no more *forever* wars." Would have been interesting if Trump had run on short little fun feel-good wars. But that is not what he did. www.vanityfair.com/news/story/d...

“The man who kept Iranians isolated from the world for more than three decades, who ruined their economy and who, when they dared speak out against his misrule, ordered them slaughtered by the thousands, is gone.” economist.com/obituary/202...

This was a nice reflection, and I'm looking forward to the book version.

I wrote last June about the difference between preventive and preemptive strikes

Yep. Like lonelyhearts being pig-butchered... www.nytimes.com/2026/02/25/b...

When I get a spam call I like to hit the hang-up button extra hard, to show them how mad I am.

The war is now longer than America's part in WW2, and has cost Russia about as many lives. All while MAGA politicians have swaggered around belittling Ukraine's efforts, and its chances. www.economist.com/graphic-deta...

"As a strategy for managing allies, the message 'You’re on your own, suckers, but do as America tells you', has a number of flaws." Lovely lead from our geopolitics column, The Telegram. www.economist.com/internationa...

Danish PM on Facebook this morning: “I am happy to live in a country where there is free and equal access to healthcare for everyone. Where insurance and wealth do not determine whether you receive proper treatment. The same approach exists in Greenland. Happy Sunday to you all”

This is not a free-enterprise party. This is a big-business-buddies party. Not the same thing, at all. www.ft.com/content/1658...

A retired British primary school administrator with a British passport and a valid visa was shackled, chained and detained for six weeks by ICE www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Have already seen several versions of this, as if tariffs don’t hit workers.

So much of the news has felt unreal—a nightmare, a bad trip or you name it—that it is bracing to see the decision restore some semblance of reality. Presidents can’t do this. Congress has powers. Words have meanings.

This is an excellent analysis by Sophie of a great European conundrum. French leaders, from De Gaulle, through Chirac to Macron, have been prescient about the need for greater European independence from the US. They are getting grudging, belated credit from other Europeans. BUT…1/

When your cabin only has Scrabble in Slovenian.

A timely valentine from Dr Grammar: pronouns have histories.

A great piece from @alibreland.bsky.social on Epstein's race science obsession—one he shares with much of the contemporary right wing elite www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...

The Epstein files are sullying Norway's squeaky clean image www.economist.com/europe/2026/...

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