Daily flyovers
Latest news for 25 August 2026
Quick hits of consequential news from all corners of the world.
- 01
CANADA
More tariffs?
President Trump says he’ll double his tariffs on Canada’s auto sector to 50% from 1 January, as the two neighbours trade blame for their last-minute collapse in trade talks. Meanwhile, Canada’s Carney is flagging he’ll return to the negotiating table if the US comes with “the right attitude”. (Reuters)
Comment: To give you a sense just how integrated US-Canada automotive supply chains are, parts and components routinely cross the border a half a dozen times before a finished vehicle rolls off the line. So the US president is now risking real blowback in Detroit, right as he needs midterm votes in Michigan.
- 02
SOUTH SUDAN
UN peacekeepers killed.
Unidentified gunmen have ambushed and killed two UN peacekeepers from Ethiopia while they were on patrol in South Sudan’s restive east. (UN News)
Comment: The location (Jonglei state) is telling, with strategic corridors and towns routinely getting seized by opposition forces then re-seized by the government, as the country teeters on the verge of another civil war. But why target the UN? Multiple groups have a history of hostility towards the local mission (UNMISS), believing it’s biased towards rivals.
- 03
PAKISTAN
Capital market comeback?
Pakistan is signalling a return to commercial capital markets (Eurobonds, sukuk, and even rupee-linked dollar bonds) in hopes of gradually restoring international investor confidence. (FT $)
Comment: Islamabad is also framing it as an effort to diversify away from dependence on bilateral loans from China, but it’s got no beef with the yuan — Pakistan just debuted in China’s domestic bond market in May, and is planning another $750M ‘panda’ bond as part of this same raise.
- 04
RUSSIA
Mobilisation dry-runs?
The Wall Street Journal is reporting — per Western intel — that Putin has been running nationwide exercises to test his ability to absorb a fresh wave of mobilised troops for his ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Moscow denies the claims. (WSJ $)
Comment: Publicly, Putin insists a second wave of mobilisation isn’t even needed, relying on lucrative signup bonuses to attract contract soldiers. But he *has* to say that, both to maintain the fiction that his war is going just fine, and to avoid another generation of young men fleeing before the order drops (presumably after September’s Duma elections). The news comes amid reports Putin is suffering heavy losses around Ukraine’s Lyman, and just as Ukraine uses its own 35th anniversary of independence to flaunt its increasingly impressive drone capabilities.
- 05
SYRIA
Terrorism designation lifted.
The US has officially removed Syria from State’s terrorism sponsor list after more than four decades, lifting a major legal wall that’s long barred foreign investment and banking transactions with the country. (Le Monde)
Comment: Coming after Damascus joined the US-led anti-ISIS coalition, DC is basically declaring that post-Assad Syria has now changed enough to justify the risk. Plus it’s betting that the benefits of a stable Syria will outweigh the frustration of US allies next door in Israel, where Bibi still harbours suspicions from al-Sharaa’s jihadi origin story, and is unlikely to take any comfort from the US also now de-listing al-Sharaa’s HTS movement.
- 06
INDIA
Porsche hands the keys to TCS.
India’s Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) just inked a $1.5B deal to revamp Porsche’s IT and digital architecture, while buying the German automaker’s 4,500-employee IT consulting arm for $373M. (Bloomberg $)
Comment: Lots of ways to look at this, but one of Europe’s most iconic brands effectively outsourcing its AI future to India’s largest IT firm to stay competitive? That feels like another quiet data point in an industrial shift eastward, and a valuable TCS foothold to keep selling westward.
- 07
EUROPEAN UNION
Draghi 2.0?
Italy’s famed European central banker Mario Draghi and Ireland’s billionaire young Stripe co-founder Patrick Collison have launched the Rhine Group, aimed at turning Draghi’s 2024 competitiveness report into concrete reforms towards European revival. (EuroNews 🇮🇹)
Comment: We dig the ambition (rise above the daily politics towards a common destiny), the reformist strategy (laid out in Draghi’s report), and even the method (pooling 52 of Europe’s sharpest minds, including Shopify and Klarna co-founders plus a former president of Estonia). But there’s also a dash of irony in Europe’s elite answer to stagnation being… another elite working group, not to mention some of the early responses reflecting more European division (like why dynamic Poland didn’t get an invite). But anything’s worth a try.