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Almost all of Donald Trump’s nominees for critical positions within his presidential administration have been non-traditional. Fox News presenter Pete Hegseth was just named as Trump’s possible defence secretary. Alongside Elon Musk, pharmaceutical company entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy has been tapped to lead a newly named Department of Government Efficiency.

With little background in border protection, South Dakota governor Kristi Noem has been nominated as the director of the Department of Homeland Security. Linda McMahon, World Wrestling Entertainment co-founder has been named Trump’s pick for secretary of commerce.

All of these people have been incredibly loyal to Trump. Few have experience of being elected and representing the public.

That makes the nomination of Florida senator Marco Rubio a little surprising. Rubio wasn’t an election denier, something that the other picks have been vocal about, and he has years of experience as a senator. Rubio also famously made fun of Trump’s hands when he was vying against him for the Republican nomination in 2016.

In Trump’s usual fashion, he responded by referring to Rubio as “Little Marco”. But these two have clearly buried the hatchet, which is unusual for Trump. Rubio ended up campaigning on behalf of Trump and became one of his biggest fans.

Read more:
How the Trump presidency might change the global economy

So what makes Rubio a surprising pick for Trump’s foreign policy leader? Rubio is seen as more of a traditional interventionist and isn’t a fan of Russia. He called Vladimir Putin a “killer”, although within the last two years, Rubio has moderated his position.

This month, Rubio said that though he supports Ukraine, the war has to end. Rubio reasoned the US was funding a stalemate and this was no longer in Ukraine or US interests. Although he added: “That doesn’t mean that we celebrate what Vladimir Putin did or are excited about it.”

However, Rubio was also one of the Republicans who voted against the Ukraine aid bill in April 2024. It is likely that Rubio will support Trump’s desire to make a deal with Russia, that would involve Ukraine capitulating and giving up significant territory.

Rubio on Nato

While Rubio has clearly changed his tune on Ukraine to align with Trump, he is not in lockstep with Trump on Nato. In fact, Rubio co-sponsored legislation alongside Democratic senator Tim Kaine, that would make it more difficult for Trump to withdraw from Nato by requiring two-thirds of the Senate to ratify withdrawal.

As Trump has notoriously been critical of Nato, this is likely to be an area of disagreement between the two, but might be seen as a hopeful sign by other Nato member nations.

Trump, however, seems to be willing to look past this because he agrees with Rubio’s hawkish approach to China and Iran. Rubio has proposed banning companies controlled by the Chinese Communist Party or the Chinese military from accessing US capital markets.

Donald Trump plans to appoint Marco Rubio as his secretary of state.

Rubio also advocated that electric cars that use Chinese technology not receive subsidies, and sponsored a law to prevent the import of Chinese products that were manufactured with forced labour.

Rubio on Iran

When it comes to Iran, Rubio sees no difference between the leadership of hardliner Iranian former president Ebrahim Raisi
and the more moderate current president, Masoud Pezeshkian. Rubio has advocated for tougher sanctions on Iran, and more pressure applied to curb the regime’s nuclear ambitions. A staunch supporter of Israel, Rubio has argued that Iran’s main goal is to make Israel unliveable.

If confirmed, Rubio would make history as the first Hispanic American secretary of state, and is fluent in Spanish. In Latin American politics, Trump has demonstrated blind faith in Rubio’s knowledge of the region.

During Trump’s first term, Rubio was certainly involved in US foreign policy towards Latin America, acting almost as a de facto secretary of state. Rubio worked to reverse the Obama administration’s softer stance on Cuba, and levy tougher sanctions against the Cuban military.

Rubio also was instrumental in cracking down on Venezuela. Rubio has made clear his position that Venezuela has become a “narco”state that cannot be negotiated with.

Rubio has clarified that all options should be on the table when dealing with Venezuela, and thus has not ruled out a military response to remove Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro from power. Though it’s unlikely that the US would invade Venezuela, Rubio will likely advocate for much harsher sanctions against the country.

So what best characterises Rubio’s foreign policy? He definitely wants to take a tough approach towards America’s adversaries, but wouldn’t advocate military invasions.

More importantly, Rubio is very transactional. He has made his peace with changing his mind on key foreign policy issues in order to be invited into Trump’s inner circle. Rubio was willing to turn his back on Ukraine in order to more closely mirror the Maga agenda, and in return will be given free rein to direct US foreign policy in Latin America and a plum secretary of state role.

While Trump’s main foreign policy agenda is to try to enforce an ”America first” agenda, where US national interests are always predominant, and be unpredictable, Rubio could bring some predictability to the role.

He might be closer in attitude to Rex Tillerson, Trump’s former secretary of state who was ousted in 2018. Tillerson claimed that Trump had almost no understanding of global events (behind closed doors Tillerson allegedly called Trump a moron). Or he might be more like former secretary of state Mike Pompeo who regularly sung Trump’s praises.

While Tillerson had no political aspirations beyond his tenure in the cabinet, Pompeo clearly did and Rubio certainly does. He might even challenge J.D. Vance for rising star status.

Though there are likely to be some tensions that will erupt between Trump and Rubio, given the dominance that Trump currently has over the Republican party, we might expect Rubio to hitch his wagon to Trump world. Once in place and in charge of international negotiations, his differences in position might become a little clearer. Läs mer…

For centuries, it has been held that the ideas and movement for the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade came from western abolitionists. No input from Africans has been acknowledged.

As a professor of African and Atlantic history, I challenge this notion in a book titled Lourenço da Silva Mendonça and the Black Atlantic Abolitionist Movement in the Seventeenth Century. The book is based on new material found in Portuguese, Spanish and Vatican archives. Its key argument is that the ideas and movement for ending transatlantic slavery began largely among Africans in the Portuguese empire in the 17th century. And not, as most accounts would have it, as a European idea in the 18th century.

Cambridge University Press

The book is based on two decades of research into abolition, universal freedom and justice. In it, I explore the role played by Angolan prince Lourenço da Silva Mendonça. He became a central figure in championing the abolition of slavery after he was exiled in 1671 to Brazil and then Portugal.

By exploring Mendonça’s life, and the detailed records surviving from an important court case in the 1680s, I offer a new perspective on the slave trade, the Black Atlantic, Catholicism, imperialism and abolition. These are all central to global history.

Lourenço da Silva Mendonça

The Atlantic slave trade began in 1415 and ran for four and a half centuries. During that time, more than 16 million Africans were kidnapped and transported to Europe, South and North America and the Caribbean.

Prince Lourenço da Silva Mendonça was born in the kingdom of Pedras of Pungo-AnDongo in 1649, in Angola. (His place of death remains unknown.) His birth coincided with Portugal tightening its grip on the slave trade in west central Africa. This trade’s brutal effects defined his early childhood and adulthood.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, Portugal was in the forefront of European maritime empires and of the Atlantic slave trade. In 1585 Luanda (modern Angola’s capital) was established as a port south of the Kongo kingdom, in the Pungo-AnDongo kingdom, serving this trade.

Angola was named after the title of its king. Portuguese influence gradually spread inland and Lourenço’s grandfather, Hari I, was made a king by Portugal in 1626. During his 38 years of service to Portugal, he was forced to pay 3,800 enslaved people to the crown, a tax known as baculamento.

Hari I had to fight wars alongside Portuguese troops stationed in Angola in which two of his sons, including Mendonça’s father, died. Two of Mendonça’s uncles, however, rebelled against Portugal and refused to pay tax in human persons. Hari II, who took the throne of Pungo-AnDongo, was executed. The Ndongo polity was finally conquered in 1671 and brought fully under Portuguese control. Members of the royal group were exiled.

Mendonça witnessed these processes and was part of this exile network in Brazil, which was colonised by Portugal at the time. By order of the Portuguese crown, Mendonça studied for four years at the Convent of Vilar de Frades in Braga, a city in Portugal. By the 1680s, he was elected as an international lawyer for Black Christians across Africa, Portugal, Brazil and Spain. He was allowed to practise “throughout the whole of Christendom in any kingdom or dominion” and “using the economic and political right which is conferred to him”.

In 1684, Mendonça presented a court case to Pope Innocent XI, petitioning the Vatican, Portugal, Italy and Spain to stop enslaving African people. He demanded abolition not only for Africans, but also for New Christians (Jews converted to Christianity) and Native Americans.

This petition was made more than a century before British abolitionist leaders William Wilberforce and Thomas Buxton fought for the passage of Great Britain’s Act of Abolition.

The Vatican was the leading court in the Catholic world. In the 15th and 16th centuries the Vatican had issued a series of papal bulls permitting the enslavement of Africans, meaning it also had the judicial authority to ban slavery under ecclesiastical law.

In his address to the Vatican, Mendonça exposed the hypocrisy of the institution of Atlantic slavery, using four core principles of law to argue his case: human, natural, divine, and civil laws. He argued for the abolition of slavery and included Black Brotherhoods and interest groups of men, women and young people of African descent in Spain, Portugal, Brazil and Africa. The scale of this international initiative led by Africans in the Atlantic region has not been fully researched.

Mendonça’s thinking developed in part because of his legal role for the Black Christian Brotherhood, a role conferred on him by the king of the Christian Kingdom (Spain), Carlos II, and the archbishop of Toledo, Luis Manuel Fernández de Portocarrero y de Guzman.

His argument for abolition included non-Iberian empires in Africa, the Americas and Europe, and enabled him to take his criminal court case to the Supreme Court of Christendom in an attempt to overturn Pope Nicholas V’s bull, which was the foundation of perpetual Atlantic slavery.

Misunderstood history

Proponents of slavery at the time argued that Africans enslaved their own people and that this practice was embedded in their socio-political, economic, religious and legal systems.

The abolition of Atlantic slavery has subsequently been told mainly as a narrative in which morally superior European Christians rescued Africans both from their own and subsequent imperial systems of slavery. Both the slave trade itself, and colonialism after British abolition, were justified by these linked, usually Christian, narratives.

Mendonça regarded the narratives about African slavery as treacherous tales aimed at justifying the unjustifiable. The records of the case not only reveal the role taken by Africans in the early abolition movement but also their sophisticated development of arguments to connect divine, natural, civil and human law.

Read more:
African leaders in Sierra Leone played a key role in ending the transatlantic slave trade

They also show the political nous of Mendonça and his networks in attempting to unite oppressed constituencies within the Atlantic and the broader Catholic world.

Mendonça’s relationship with new Christians, Native Brazilians and other Africans was central to the case he made for universal human rights, liberty, reparation and humanity. It is striking that the Vatican court’s verdict on Mendonça’s case in 1686 was a universal condemnation of the Atlantic slave trade. But the Christian states of Europe failed to honour it. It would take another 200 years before slavery was finally abolished, first in 1834 in the British Empire, and then in 1888 in Brazil. Läs mer…

The realities of climate change are hitting home for many people living in the global south. Food security, water access and health have been jeopardised by the increased temperatures, extreme weather events and sea level rise.

In many places women are the primary caregivers for children, the sick or the elderly, as well as being responsible for cooking and cleaning in the household. This kind of work can be described as care work, which is often unpaid or underpaid.

The impacts of climate change will add to the required care work. This will put a strain on those who are responsible for these vital tasks. While women often do this work, it is also performed by children and other family members who can all take strain in these circumstances.

Read more:
Water scarcity on Nigeria’s coast is hardest on women: 6 steps to ease the burden

We are a group of gender equality and climate change and inequality researchers and economists who, in a recent working paper, proposed a set of principles that should be used for a “gender just transition”. These are based on a review of empirical literature mainly from the global south on some of the unjust transitions already underway, as well as contributions by feminist scholars.

The transition to a low-carbon economy is underway across the world. However, gender justice is often neglected – and there is a risk that the transition won’t be just at all.

In our paper we argue that a just transition requires a reckoning with power dynamics in climate policymaking.

The just transition

A just transition refers to the way in which a low- or zero-carbon economy is achieved. It should take economic and social justice concerns into account.

But there has been a lack of serious engagement with the gendered dimensions of justice in policies being developed for the just transition. This raises the risk that transition policies sustain or worsen gender (and other) inequalities.

This is particularly true in the global south, which is facing the greatest threats due to climate change and transition impacts.

Gender equality

Evidence suggests that the shift to renewable energy does not necessarily improve gender equity. Improved access to electricity can reduce the time needed for much housework. However, one case study in Zambia found that men often benefited from the increase in leisure time afforded by efficiencies in housework whereas women’s labour was shifted to other tasks.

In India, a large renewable energy development led to land used for agriculture being sold or rented for renewable energy plants so the agricultural workers – most of whom were women – suffered loss of income.

In Zambia, electrification did not necessarily reduce the workload for cooking. This was mainly because solar minigrids did not have enough capacity to power electric cookstoves. While the minigrid increased incomes for local businesses, these benefits were mostly enjoyed by men who were the business owners.

In the case of a large solar power project in Morocco, women did not benefit because they were not landowners who could earn rental income. They did not participate in decision-making either.

Renewable electrification cannot be assumed to improve gender relations. If the energy transition ignores these inequalities, they could grow.

A just transition and gender justice

We combined insights on the gendered impacts of transition with feminist theory. This allowed us to expand on the key principles for just transition in a way that supports gender equality. These principles include:

Participatory justice: taking an equal part in decision-making and having accountable governance.
Distributive justice: the equal distribution of positive and negative impacts of transition.
Recognitional justice: recognising existing inequalities and contributions, and aiming to incorporate diverse knowledges and values.
Restorative justice: Acknowledging existing harms of environmental degradation and climate change which must be redressed and remediated.

We incorporated feminist perspectives to provide new interpretations of these principles:

Distributive justice: Equal access to resources and employment for all genders is central to feminist thought. The transition to a low-carbon economy is expected to benefit some and disadvantage others. Those who don’t have access to water, land or livelihoods are at greater risk in the transition.

Therefore, a gender just transition requires public and affordable provision of social goods. This includes education, healthcare, child and elderly care, energy and water infrastructure, and social protection – to relieve and redistribute care work.

Read more:
Climate change is hitting women the hardest. What to do about it — economists

A feminist approach to distributive justice requires thinking about how the economy is organised, what types of labour are valued, and how economic resources are distributed.

Participatory justice: Feminist theories focus attention on inequality, whether based on gender, race, class, ethnicity, or other categories. Feminists highlight the role of power in knowledge creation and who is called an “expert”. Participatory justice for a gender just transition should shift the focus of participation in policymaking from elites to excluded groups, whose input should be valued as experts in their own contexts.

Recognitional justice: Feminist theory promotes a view of climate change and just transition as complex social problems. This recognises that humans are embedded in nature and acknowledges the important work that many groups are doing for sustainability and climate change. Recognitional justice should therefore acknowledge existing inequalities and contributions, and aim to incorporate diverse knowledge systems and values.

Restorative justice: Restorative justice should acknowledge, compensate and repair harms which are gendered. For example, industries such as coal mining have affected men and women in different ways. The environment also needs repair. Options for climate reparations must be explored at the local and global level.

Exploring the evidence of the gendered impacts of climate change and transition in the global south, and using feminist theory to extract key lessons which can be applied to the commonly used pillars of justice, allows for a more expansive and radical view of justice for a gender just transition.

A gender just transition requires a reckoning with power dynamics in climate policymaking.

Governments, development banks and all stakeholders working on efforts to achieve a just transition should use an expansive view of justice in order to address inequality of all kinds. Läs mer…

In Zimbabwe’s Shona language, mental illness is known as chirwere chepfungwa or kupenga. Before British colonial settlers arrived in 1890, traditional healers (n’anga) played an important role in helping people to manage their mental as well as their physical health.

But, from the late 19th to the mid 20th century, the British colonisers, particularly Christian missionaries, cracked down on the work of the n’anga. They insisted that communities should abandon their traditional beliefs and healing practices. Instead, people were cajoled and threatened to embrace western biomedicine, relying on its psychiatric and psychological methods to treat mental illness.

The British government of what was then Rhodesia introduced the Witchcraft Suppression Act in 1899. It also used the colonial education system to push people away from what the British perceived as “superstitious” ways of understanding and healing illnesses.

The colonial crackdown succeeded only in driving healing practices underground. Shona people no longer openly expressed their interest in using traditional rituals. Unfortunately, they did not always receive the help they needed from western biomedicine, since there were only a limited number of nurses, medical doctors, psychiatrists or psychologists available to treat those with mental illnesses. The system favoured white “Rhodesians” and Shona people weren’t given priority.

In the 1980s, in the early post-colonial Zimbabwe, the government introduced several strategies to try to restore the respect and function of cultural beliefs and traditional healing practices. It created Zinatha (the Zimbabwe Traditional Healers Association) and later amended the witchcraft suppression law, so that traditional healers were no longer viewed as witches or “witch-doctors” or their healing practices as witchcraft.

I am a researcher who focuses on traditional healing, mental health and neo-liberal regimes in north-eastern Zimbabwe. I wanted to know what role n’anga play in helping the Korekore (a sub-group of Shona people) in the country’s Rushinga district manage their mental health. I also wanted to know how people think about mental illness and what factors they believe influence it. In a recent study I did just that.

The Korekore strongly believe that mental illness is largely caused by sorcery, witchcraft, the breaking of cultural taboos, or aggrieved or avenging spirits. They acknowledge that other psychosocial and physical factors can play a role, too, but largely see kupenga as a social and cultural issue.

This means that traditional healers are key to managing mental illness. I argue that the public health system, which still values western biomedicine over other approaches to healing, needs to take the role of traditional healers more seriously and work towards helping patients holistically, in a way those patients value and recognise.

Traditional healers at work

I must point out that people in Rushinga district also consult with psychiatrists, psychologists and medical doctors. But many do so in conjunction with the guidance, advice and interventions offered to them by traditional healers.

A traditional healer, Ambuya Faustina, and her assistant in Chanjira, Rushinga district.
Maja Jakarasi, Author provided (no reuse)

While individual interactions will differ, the healers’ approach follows an overall pattern.

Firstly, healers divine the causes of kupenga and suggest healing methods. These proposed methods differ from individual to individual, even if their challenges appear to be the same. They include exorcising bad spirits (mweya yakaipa or mamhepo), witchcraft and sorcery, through inducing vomiting (kurutsisa), and the use of spiritualised (ritually prepared) and non-spiritualised herbs.

Read more:
Traditional versus contemporary medicine: mental illness in Zimbabwe

These herbs are ingested into the body in various ways: via incisions into the skin, smoking, sniffing, steaming, applying animal fats, and conducting traditional healing rituals (bira/mizva).

The study

Rushinga is a district in the Mashonaland Central province, home to about 77,000 people. My study focused on people living in Katevera, a rural area in the district. I spoke to traditional healers, faith healers, people who had previously been treated for mental illness and were considered cured, and relatives of mentally ill people.

The Korekore do not see mental illness as residing only in the human body, but also outside it, in social and cultural environments. The human body is believed to take in and leak out various spiritual and ancestral influences. This is why most healing seeks to make the body flush out bad things and to make it more resistant to evil spirits, witchcraft and sorcery.

Read more:
God and illness: for some South Africans, there’s more to healing than medicine

The respondents told me about their experiences of mental illness. One, Jada, explained what had caused his illness.

I saw two very small “goblins” (zvidhoma) coming to fight me. This was the last time I knew what was happening. I was later told that I had been carried to Chimhanda Hospital. The traditional healer later told me that I was bewitched by the zvidhoma. They were sent by one of my jealous family members. Somebody in our family has money-making goblins and wants political power. The zvidhoma thrive on using other people through mental illness. They suck blood. This is how their business or political power is strengthened. They usually cause mental illness in a family.

Jada consulted with a traditional healer, doing so at night to avoid public scrutiny – he said he didn’t want to be judged by his colleagues for working with n’anga. He made a full recovery, returned to work, and was even recently promoted. He was very pleased with the traditional healer’s methods.

A number of people I spoke with insisted that traditional healing methods were efficacious in treating mental illness. The n’anga I interviewed, meanwhile, said they offered lasting healing because they tackled the root causes of mental illness.

Strong beliefs

It is clear from this study that the Korekore people in the Rushinga district have not wavered in their beliefs about and ways of healing mental illnesses. This is despite colonial attitudes that persist in hospitals, clinics and schools, where only western and colonial knowledge is valued. People told me that nurses and psychiatrists openly denigrated traditional healers.

Public health staff need to recognise that social and cultural factors can cause mental distress and that, in some cases, traditional healing could complement their work or even be a better way to treat a particular patient.

I recommend that schools in the district begin to teach learners about the importance of local understandings of mental illness. Textbooks, too, could feature content about traditional healing alongside information about biomedical treatments. Läs mer…

For generations, cod fishing was a way of life in Newfoundland and Labrador, the easternmost province in Canada. But in 1992, after cod stocks in the north Atlantic plummeted, the federal government imposed a moratorium on cod fishing. It was to last for 32 years until it was lifted in June 2024.

The decision was controversial and in this week’s episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast we speak to a fisheries expert to shed light on what’s happened. It offers a cautionary tale for those politicians trying to balance the complex demands of protecting ecosystems that also support substantial economies.

Newfoundland is a sleepy place with colourful wooden houses and icebergs that pass by its northern shores in early summer. The island is perched out in the north Atlantic near the grand banks, some of the most prolific fishing waters in the world.

Fishing has been the backbone of the economy for centuries, and so when the Canadian government imposed a cod moratorium in 1992 it had a huge impact, with an estimated 30,000 people in Newfoundland and Labrador out of work overnight. Some cod fishing was permitted in inshore waters from the late 1990s in boats less than 20 metres long, but all commercial offshore trawler fishing was prohibited.

A number of factors led to the decline of the cod population, but the most significant was overfishing, explains Tyler Eddy, a research scientist in fisheries science at Memorial University of Newfoundland.

When they started to put the brakes on the fishing it was already too late, the population had been already reduced to a low level.

The expectation was that the moratorium would last for a few years, enough for the cod stocks to recover. But that didn’t happen, explained Eddy.

That was one of the big surprises of the moratorium was that we stopped fishing and fish didn’t come back.

Inshore fishermen had continued to cod throughout much of the moratoirum period, and they’re angry at the decision to reopen fishing to offshore trawlers.
Ramon Cliff/Shutterstock

Moving goalposts

There was a little uptick in 2016, but the recovery stalled. Then, in 2023, a new historical dataset tracking how many baby cod made it to adulthood back in the boom years of the 1960s was introduced into the annual assessment of the cod stocks.

The effect, explains Eddy, who was one of the scientists involved in the decision, was to reduce what experts believed the cod population could recover to. It also lowered the reference points for whether a stock is in the critical, cautious or healthy zone.

It would be as if a car was doing 80km/hour and the speed limit used to be 60km/hour, so it was over the speed limit. Now the speed limit is changing to 80km so the car is actually doing within the speed limit. The car hasn’t changed speed at all, it’s just the reference point has changed.

And this is what happened: the 2024 assessment of cod stocks using this new dataset put cod in the cautious zone, rather than the critical zone.

In June, the Canadian government used this shift to justify lifting the moratorium. It increased the total allowable catch for the year from 13,000 to 18,000 tonnes and reopened some cod fishing in offshore waters in 2024, including to some international trawlers.

It’s since emerged that this decision went against the scientific advice of officials within Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the department which manages fishing. They had recommended maintaining the existing level of total allowable catch and continuing to limit it to inshore fishers.

A spokesperson for Fisheries and Oceans Canada told The Conversation that it makes fishery decisions informed by the best available science and a range of other factors, including socioeconomic considerations.

Newfoundland is now waiting until early 2025 when the next stock assessment of the Atlantic cod takes place, to see what the impact will be. Eddy explained how finely balanced the situation is:

Even though we are in the cautious zone, we’re just barely in the cautious zone … we’ve just barely crossed this threshold, and there’s actually a probability that we could still be within the critical zone. And if we look at the projections for the next three years, I think there’s a two-thirds to three-quarter chance that we’re going to end up back in the critical zone.

Listen to the full episode on The Conversation Weekly podcast, which also includes an introduction from Harris Kuemmerle, environment and energy editor at The Conversation Canada.

This episode of The Conversation Weekly was produced by Gemma Ware and Katie Flood with assistance from Mend Mariwany. Sound design was by Michelle Macklem, and our theme music is by Neeta Sarl.

Newsclips in this episode from CBC News NL – Newfoundland and Labrador, CTV Your Morning and CBC News.

You can find us on Instagram at theconversationdotcom or via e-mail. You can also subscribe to The Conversation’s free daily e-mail here.

Listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed or find out how else to listen here. Läs mer…

It’s been a whirlwind week for Indonesian president Prabowo Subianto. On Nov. 9, he was breaking bread with Chinese leader Xi Jinping; three days later he was sitting down with President Joe Biden in the White House. In between, Subianto found time to reach out to Donald Trump to congratulate the incoming U.S. president on his election victory.

The visits to the U.S. and China form part of a two-week overseas tour for Subianto that will also take him to Peru, Brazil and the U.K., as well as several Middle East countries.

The itinerary hints at the diplomatic priorities of the newly seated president of Southeast Asia’s biggest economy: balancing Indonesia’s relations with key members of both the West and the Global South, while seeking a more assertive leadership role in Southeast Asia.

Indonesia’s balancing act

Subianto’s back-to-back meetings with Xi and Biden highlight the role Indonesia tries to play in ensuring regional stability and security in the Indo-Pacific.

The meetings coincided with an ongoing U.S.-Indonesian marine exercise off the Indonesian island of Batam. The third annual military exercise of its kind, such maneuvers between U.S. and Southeast Asian partners have tended in the past to be framed as a countermeasure to China’s assertiveness in the contested waters of the South China Sea. But while U.S. and Indonesian marines were engaged in drills, Subianto and Xi were making nice – pledging greater maritime cooperation between the two countries.

The big question now is how a Trump White House will affect Indonesia’s balancing act on security in the Indo-Pacific region.

Trump’s Indo-Pacific strategy

Trump’s first presidency offers some clues into what his second term may look like regarding its Indo-Pacific policy. The 2019 Indo-Pacific Strategy Report issued by the Trump administration marked China as a “revisionist” power – that is, one that is dissatisfied with the current status quo – and an aspiring regional hegemon.

To counter this, Trump adopted an “offshore balancing” strategy – in effect utilizing regional allies to keep China in check. This approach involved security pacts with traditional allies and joint military training exercises with countries such as the Philippines and Indonesia. It also included providing military equipment to partners in the region and occasional U.S. Navy “freedom of navigation” operations.

China’s nine-dash line takes in territory claimed by other nations..
AP Photo/Andy Wong

But there was another side to Trump’s Indo-Pacific strategy. Aware of the U.S.’s lack of direct security interests in the region – no U.S. territories are threatened – but concerned that any escalation could lead to military conflict, Trump was willing to back down on potential flash points with China in the South China Sea in exchange for Beijing’s cooperation in confronting one of the region’s key threats to stability: North Korea.

These two policy tweaks under Trump’s first administration – easing pressure on Beijing in the South China Sea while outsourcing regional stability to Washington’s Indo-Pacific allies – handed to Indonesia a challenge and opportunity.

As Southeast Asia’s largest and most populous nation, Indonesia was required to show leadership in the negotiation of the code of conduct in the South China Sea as part of its key diplomatic mission to maintain regional stability.

Subianto tilts toward China

Indonesia has long been willing to shoulder the burden of managing regional security. Successive leaders have taken the role seriously, especially given the country’s constitutional mandate to pursue an “independent and active” foreign policy. Historically, this has meant Indonesian leaders avoiding being too close to either the U.S. or China in order to boost their credibility as an independent actor.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, shakes hands with Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto.
Xie Huanchi/Xinhua via Getty Images

But since Subianto was inaugurated as the president of Indonesia in October 2024, Indonesia’s foreign policy has shown a nascent shift away from the West. Days after his inauguration, Subianto sent his new foreign minister to Kazan, Russia, to attend the meeting of BRICS nations and express Indonesia’s desire to join the expanding bloc of non-Western economies.

BRICS’s largest member is China, and the group seeks to position itself as an alternative to Western security and financial architecture.

This formal expression of intent to join BRICS marks a change from policy under Subianto’s predecessor, Joko Widodo.

Furthermore, a joint statement issued during Subianto’s visit to Beijing suggests that Indonesia is starting to entertain Beijing historical maritime claims in the South China Sea.

For decades, Indonesia refused to acknowledge Beijing’s claims on rocks and atolls within Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone in the waters around Natuna – an Indonesian island that intersects with China’s “nine-dash line” denoting the area Beijing sees as Chinese.

But the joint statement issued during Subianto’s visit to Beijing stated that the two countries had reached “an important common understanding on joint development in areas of overlapping claims” that was consistent with “respective prevailing laws and regulations.”

Talk of “overlapping claims” is a departure for Indonesia and suggests that Subianto is willing to move closer to accepting the boundaries set by Beijing in the South China Sea.

OECD or BRICS? Or both?

This isn’t to say that Indonesia is cutting off its options for greater cooperation with the West, too. During the White House leg of Subianto’s visit, Biden signaled the U.S.’s strong support for Indonesia’s push to join the Western-dominated Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

OECD membership would serves as a benchmarking platform for Indonesia, with the organization setting international standards and support for Indonesia to help attract better quality foreign investment.

BRICS membership, meanwhile, would represent more of a political and economic move that would place Indonesia alongside other countries seeking an alternative to the U.S.-dominated international institutions.

The impetus for Indonesia to join could only deepen should Trump’s plan to slap heavy tariffs on overseas goods come to fruition.

Providing cover for Subianto

Certainly, it appears that Indonesia under Subianto could develop a more pro-Beijing stance in the face of a Trump White House.

Wars in Ukraine and the Middle East are likely to take up much of Trump’s immediate attention, pushing issues such as security in Southeast Asia – and more generally in the Indo-Pacific region – further down the list.

Meanwhile, the Chinese government shows no signs of deviating from a policy that includes incremental moves to control the South China Sea and exert its economic influence on nations in Southeast Asia.

Already, some observers are questioning whether Indonesia’s shift in how disputed territory in the South China Sea is discussed is tied to economic cooperation with China that includes the US$10 billion worth of deals signed during Subianto’s Beijing visit.

And a more insular, anti-interventionalist White House under Trump could give Subianto cover to forge Indonesia’s path as a regional leader, encouraging it to do so while also developing closer economic and strategic ties to China and the Global South. Läs mer…

When Eliza arrived on her West Coast college campus in the fall of 2020, building community was difficult due to the raging COVID-19 pandemic. Yet over time she forged a network of friends, anchored by her sorority.

Three years later, those relationships were severely tested by events over 7,000 miles away: the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack in Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza.

Due to her support for Israel, she was ostracized by people she once considered close friends, including her sorority sisters. Walking around campus, she removed her Star of David necklace. To be clear, Eliza was not concerned about her physical safety. But she sensed a social penalty for being Jewish and wanted to avoid dirty looks and political confrontations.

As the civilian death toll in Gaza mounted, progressive campus activists, including some Jews, fervently adopted the Palestinian cause as an extension of their battles for racial and social justice. Opposition to the war has become a generational cause for earnest Zoomers, akin to the Vietnam War for baby boomers and opposition to South African apartheid for Gen Xers.

Critics contend that protesters are unfairly holding Jewish classmates accountable for the actions of the Israeli government – especially since Jewish Americans are not unified in their attitudes about the war and very few hold dual citizenship in Israel. Where protesters see manifestations of anti-Zionism – opposition to the existence of a Jewish nation state in present-day Israel – many Jewish students, staff and parents see antisemitism, pure and simple.

People attend a menorah lighting ceremony on the seventh night of Hanukkah in December 2023 in Harvard Yard.
Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images

Eliza – a pseudonym, like all the student names in this article – was one of 36 undergraduates across the country whom I spoke with as part of a study of Jewish students’ responses to the conflict and its consequences. Their views on Israel and the war ran the gamut – but regardless, most felt unsettled by the death, abductions and destruction abroad, as well as the protests outside their dorms.

Many of them were surprised to find themselves wrestling with what it means to be Jewish in the U.S. and questioning their place in American society. But for more than 100 years, college campuses have been a testing ground for Jewish identity – and Americans’ acceptance of their Jewish compatriots.

Changing fortunes

The parents of today’s students, in particular, find themselves in a state of whiplash. Most attended college in the 1980s and ’90s, at the height of a golden age of Jewish life on American campuses. They view their children’s experiences not merely as a reversal but a betrayal.

“I went to college in the 1990s, and cannot recall a single moment when I felt uncomfortable as a Jew,” Sarah Hurwitz, a former speechwriter for the Obamas, recalled soon after the Oct. 7 attack.

Hurwitz’s alma mater, Harvard University, is embroiled in a lawsuit over allegations of antisemitism. Similar lawsuits were filed against Columbia University, UCLA and other schools. Meanwhile, federal investigations proceed over both antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents at dozens of colleges and universities.

Her recollections reflect many competitive colleges’ conscious efforts to welcome Jewish students in the 1980s and ’90s, such as by building new campus centers, offering an array of new Jewish studies courses and providing kosher dining options. In the 1990s, about 25% of undergraduates at Harvard and Yale claimed Jewish heritage. The numbers were even higher at Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania.

The trend was not confined to the Ivy League. Similar demographic stories played out at schools such as Boston University, Washington University in St. Louis and Northwestern University in Chicago.

Jews not wanted

It was not always so.

A century ago, first- and second-generation Jewish Americans flocked to higher education, seeing a degree as a ticket into the middle class. In response, elite colleges and universities notoriously restricted Jewish enrollment.

While other schools deliberated about their “Jewish problem” in secret, Harvard President A. Lawrence Lowell publicly announced his university’s intention to admit fewer Jews, which made the front page of The New York Times.

Harvard President A. Lawrence Lowell, right, walks with former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt in 1910.
Library of Congress

Explaining the quota, Lowell essentially blamed the victims. Attributing a rise in antisemitic attitudes to Jews’ supposed “clannishness,” he argued that admitting too many Jews would impede Jewish assimilation and further heighten anti-Jewish sentiment.

Odious as his plan was, Lowell’s views were common. The “tribal twenties” was a time of widespread nativism and racism. As Harvard and other schools were instituting Jewish quotas, the U.S. Congress passed a restrictive immigration law that reduced Jewish immigration to a trickle.

Antisemitism was fueled by multiple and often conflicting conspiracy theories that appealed as much to cultured elites as to the unschooled.

Genteel antisemitism

On campus, antisemitism often manifested as social snobbery. For example, Greek organizations routinely discriminated on the basis of race and religion.

A Jewish fraternity and sorority gathering in Minneapolis, Minn., in 1949.
Upper Midwest Jewish Archives, University of Minnesota, CC BY-ND

Meanwhile, New York’s upper crust responded to an influx of Jewish students at Columbia by sending their sons to out-of-town institutions. Indeed, Lowell’s fear that Harvard would suffer Columbia’s fate and scare away the “Boston Brahmins” motivated his efforts to reduce his university’s Jewish presence.

Harvard students’ feelings about Jewish classmates were revealed in 1922 when a professor invited his class to share opinions about Lowell’s “race limitations” plan on their final exams. “The Jews tend to overrun the college, to spoil it for the native-born Anglo-Saxon young persons for whom it was built and whom it really wants,” one student wrote. “Jews are an unassimilable race,” concluded another, “as dangerous to a college as indigestible food to a man.”

Harvard ultimately adopted a more indirect but equally effective plan to curb Jewish enrollment that capped the number of undergraduates and emphasized geographic diversity. Specifically, it admitted fewer students from Northeastern cities with large Jewish populations, while expanding its program of legacy admissions. From 1921 to 1928, Jewish enrollment dropped from over 21% to Lowell’s original target of 10%.

Other schools followed suit. As late as the 1950s, universities were designing their own restrictive admissions policies.

Fitting in − or not

Jewish college students realized that the genteel antisemitism they experienced on the quad was a taste of the discrimination they would face on the job market. Many compensated for the prejudice around them by avidly Americanizing, even by legally changing their names. By midcentury, many Jewish teens and young women were “whitening” themselves by getting nose jobs and straightening their hair.

As much as they tried to blend in, many continued to feel disaffected. As historian Daniel Greene noted, they inhabited an in-between space: a conflicted middle ground between their American and Jewish identities, never fully at home in either world.

Others immersed themselves in Jewish life. Some were attracted to Zionism, then a relatively new movement that supported a Jewish national home in the region of Palestine, the biblical land of Israel. Many joined Jewish fraternities and sororities or campus groups. The first chapter of Hillel, presently the largest Jewish campus organization, was founded at the University of Illinois in 1923.

Jewish members of the armed forces from Columbia University prepare for a Passover Seder service at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in 1944.
Bettmann via Getty Images

The climate for Jewish students improved in the late 1950s and ’60s, as elite schools, beginning with Harvard, adopted admissions policies that prized academic merit, reflected primarily in SAT scores. In the words of journalist Sarah Leonard, universities shed “a portion of academically mediocre bluebloods in favor of scrappier kids with impressive test scores.”

Now versus then

It is tempting to compare the contemporary experiences of Jewish students with those of a century ago. And there are similarities, to be sure. Inevitably, some students are galvanized to action, while others prefer to melt into shadows. Some turn inward and find comfort in community, while others challenge themselves to adapt to the disequilibrium.

But there are also significant differences, including that Jewish Americans wield far more political power as a group than they did in the 1920s.

The spectacle of university presidents being hauled before a U.S. congressional committee in 2023 over accusations of antisemitism on their campuses may have been a political ploy by Republicans. In part, it underscored the GOP’s alliance with evangelical Christian supporters of Israel and its desire to attack institutions of higher education as “woke.” Yet it also signaled that Jews enjoy a level of influence in the halls of government that would have baffled their great-grandparents.

Many parents and students are dissatisfied with campus leaders’ responses to the anti-Israel protests. But their concerns have been afforded a level of consideration that was almost entirely absent in earlier times. Consider the swiftness with which Columbia dismissed three mid-level administrators in July 2024, after images of snarky text messages trafficking in antisemitic tropes were leaked to the media.

In recent months, some students like Eliza may be downplaying their Jewishness to diffuse tense situations. But that does not mean they are rejecting their identities.

Jewish students and allies hold a Shabbat event and prayer in solidarity with the pro-Palestinian encampment at George Washington University on April 26, 2024.
Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images

Even Jewish students who support the campus protests often frame their concern for Palestinian life in terms of their Jewish values. Ava, a student I interviewed at an East Coast university, no longer feels comfortable attending Sabbath services, due to the campus rabbi’s pro-Israel politics. Yet she finds Jewish connection through a Jewish anti-Zionist organization led by students.

Ezra, a student leader at the Hillel chapter on a particularly volatile campus, bemoaned some protesters’ excesses. He had little patience for white progressive activists spouting slogans like “Globalize the Intifada!” without understanding their meaning. But he evinced greater sympathy for Arab and Muslim demonstrators, especially those who had been personally touched by the death and devastation in Gaza.

Ezra viewed their activism as a form of “punching up.”

“We have a Hillel house – probably one of the nicest in the country – and the ear of the administration through donors and alumni,” he explained. “We’re fighting to maintain our privilege while they’re fighting for representation.” Läs mer…

The gentle, slow-moving Florida manatee has no natural predators.

And yet, these charismatic mammals face numerous threats.

Manatees are struck by vessels in busy waterways across the state, and a majority bear scars from these collisions.

Harmful algal blooms – characterized by the rapid growth of algae that degrades water quality – can impair their nervous systems.

With less blubber, or fat, compared with other marine mammals like whales, dolphins, seals and sea lions, manatees are vulnerable to cold-stress syndrome during winter months.

And they can ingest or get entangled in marine debris like derelict fishing gear and drown or be crushed by floodgate and water control structures.

I am a doctoral candidate in marine biology at Florida International University’s Institute of Environment. Over the past 15 years, I have gained extensive experience working with marine mammals, particularly manatees.

Recently, my colleagues at the United States Geological Survey, Florida Department of Environmental Protection and I documented a change in the dietary pattern of manatees. We found that manatees are eating less seagrass – traditionally their primary food source – and more algae than in decades past. This change occurred along Florida’s Atlantic coast during a period of extensive seagrass decline.

We believe this represents an emerging threat to the species’ survival.

Protected species

Manatees were listed as an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act of 1973. By the early 1990s, the manatee population in Florida had dwindled to less than 1,300.

Researchers believe that federal protection, along with additional state measures such as slow-speed zones and no-entry refuges, has contributed to the growth of the manatee population in Florida.

In 2017, manatees were reclassified from endangered to threatened. Surveyors counted 5,733 individual manatees during a statewide aerial survey conducted in 2019.

Florida manatees average 9-12 feet (2.7-3.7 meters) in length and typically weigh about 1,000 pounds (450 kilograms), but they can grow as large as 3,500 pounds (1,600 kilograms). As the largest fully aquatic herbivore, they consume 5% to 10% of their body weight in vegetation each day.

While manatees eat a broad diet of over 60 different plants, they most commonly feed on species of seagrass. Seagrasses are marine plants that, like land plants, have leaves, flowers, roots and seeds, and make their food through photosynthesis.

So what happens when these seagrasses are no longer available?

A changing estuary

The Indian River Lagoon is an estuary along Florida’s east coast that covers roughly 350 square miles (560 square kilometers) between the mainland and barrier islands, from Ponce Inlet to Jupiter Inlet.

It is a critical habitat for manatees, which feed on native seagrass meadows in the lagoon during their seasonal migrations.

Seagrasses are vital to the health of marine ecosystems. They are a habitat for juvenile fish and other marine organisms, provide food for aquatic herbivores, reduce carbon in the atmosphere and improve water quality. They also protect coastal habitats by stabilizing sediments and reducing wave energy that can erode shorelines and damage coastal infrastructure, especially during hurricanes.

For more than a decade, the Indian River Lagoon has experienced extensive loss of seagrass meadows, due to a series of algae blooms associated with nutrient runoff and degraded water quality from septic overflow leaching into the environment.

When untreated sewage and fertilizers flow into the estuary, they add nitrogen, phosphorus and other nutrients that drive excessive algal growth. These harmful algal blooms deplete oxygen levels and block sunlight, which seagrass needs for photosynthesis.

Between 2011 and 2019, over 50% of all seagrass in the lagoon was lost. This led to an increase in macroalgae and even led to a change in the animal communities that live in the lagoon. For example, among finfish, sheepshead populations declined, while seabream numbers increased. Invertebrate communities were also affected, with bryozoans colonizing areas previously dominated by barnacles.

Manatees along the Atlantic coast have suffered two unusual mortality events since the seagrass decline, including one that is ongoing. Researchers attribute the increase in manatee deaths to malnutrition due to a shortage of seagrasses in the Indian River Lagoon.

Manatees typically eat 50 to 100 pounds of seagrass per day.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images

A shift in manatees’ diet

In our study, we examined 193 manatee stomach samples collected from carcasses recovered from the Indian River Lagoon during two time periods – one before and one after the onset of the seagrass loss in 2011.

We compared stomach sample contents from carcasses collected between 1977 and 1989 with samples collected between 2013 and 2015.

Our findings indicate that manatees consumed 45% less seagrass and 74% more algae after the seagrass decline.

Recently, in a study supported by FIU’s Center for Aquatic Chemistry and Environment, I investigated differences in the nutritional composition – like protein, fat, carbohydrate and fiber – of items identified in manatee stomach samples. My preliminary results show notable differences in the nutritional composition of seagrass and algae.

Marine mammals are particularly vulnerable to dietary shifts due to their large size and high energy demands. Such changes can worsen their physical health and increase the likelihood of starvation.

Depleted oxygen levels are having a similar impact on aquatic vegetation and seagrass meadows in other regions of Florida, like Biscayne Bay and the Caloosahatchee River and Estuary. This suggests that the ecological challenges seen in the Indian River Lagoon could become more widespread.

What is the solution?

Remediation efforts within the lagoon have incorporated the restoration of seagrass through aquaculture and replanting strategies, similar to efforts to restore coral reefs.

While the lagoon’s seagrass has recently shown signs of regrowth, the rehabilitation of the ecosystem must begin with improving and maintaining water quality.

Counties along the lagoon have enacted fertilizer bans that aim to reduce the levels of nitrogen and phosphorus in the water that drive algal blooms.

New research, however, indicates that these restrictions alone will not fix the problem, as residential septic systems are the primary source of nutrient pollution in the lagoon.

Furthermore, many of the factors contributing to harmful algal blooms are intensified by global warming and changing climate, which could accelerate the decline of seagrass in Florida and elsewhere.

Given the multiple, synergistic threats facing manatees, I believe that improving water quality, protecting their food sources, and further research – coupled with community outreach and education – are critical to ensure the long-term survival of this iconic Florida species. Läs mer…

These days, it’s hard to escape news stories discussing how climate change is contributing to extreme weather disasters, including the recent U.S. hurricanes. Aid agencies are increasingly worried about the widespread damage.

A growing question as these disasters worsen in a warming world is how to pay for recoveries, particularly in poorer countries that have contributed the least to climate change.

I am a climate scientist who researches disasters, and I work with disaster managers on solutions to deal with the increasing risk of extreme events. The usual sources of disaster aid funding haven’t come close to meeting the need in hard-hit countries in recent years. So, groups are developing new ways to meet the need more effectively. In some cases, they are getting aid to countries before the damage occurs.

Disaster aid funds aren’t meeting growing need

Countries have a few ways that they typically send money and aid to other countries that need help when disasters hit. They can send direct government-to-government aid, contribute to aid coordinated by the United Nations, or support disaster response efforts by groups like the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.

However, the support from these systems is almost never enough.

In 2023, the amount of humanitarian funding through the U.N. was about US$22 billion. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimated that countries hit hard by disasters actually needed about $57 billion in U.N. humanitarian aid. This does not even include the costs borne directly by disaster-affected people and their governments.

To help address damages specifically from climate change, the global community agreed at the U.N. climate conference in 2022 to create a new method – a Loss and Damage Fund. Loss and damage is generally defined as consequences of climate change that go beyond what people are able to adapt to.

The goal of the fund is for countries that historically have done the most to cause climate change to provide funding to other countries that did little to cause it yet are experiencing increasing climate-related disasters.

So far, however, the Loss and Damage Fund is tiny compared to the cost of climate-related disasters. As of late September 2024, total pledges to the Loss and Damage Fund were about US$700 million. According to one estimate, the costs directly attributable to climate change, including loss of life, are over $100 billion per year.

One goal of the 2024 U.N. climate conference, underway Nov. 11-22 in Azerbaijan, is to increase those contributions.

Sending aid before the disasters hit

In response to these growing needs, the disaster management community is getting creative about how it helps countries finance disaster risk reduction and response.

Traditionally, humanitarian funding arrives after a disaster happens, when photos and videos of the horrible event encourage governments to contribute financial support and a needs assessment has been completed.

However, with today’s technology, it’s possible to forecast many climate-related disasters before they happen, and there is no reason for the humanitarian system to wait to respond until after the disaster happens.

In 2015, the Uganda Red Cross used early storm forecasts to send workers to distribute thousands of water purification tablets, water storage containers and other items to people in rural areas likely to be flooded by the storm.
Denis Onyodi/URCS-Climate Centre, CC BY-NC

A global network of aid groups and researchers I work with has been developing anticipatory action systems designed to make funding available to countries when an extreme event is forecast but before the disaster hits.

This can allow countries to provide cash for people to use for evacuation when a flood is forecast, open extra medical services when a heat wave is expected, or distribute drought-tolerant seeds when a drought is forecast, for example.

Insurance that pays out early to avoid harm

Groups are also developing novel forms of insurance that can provide predictable finance for these changing catastrophes.

Traditional insurance can be expensive and slow to assess individual claims. One solution is “index insurance” that pays out based on drought information without needing to wait to assess the actual losses.

African nations created an anticipatory drought insurance product that can pay out when the drought starts happening, without waiting for the end of the season to come and the crops to fail. This could, in theory, allow farmers to replant with a drought-resilient crop in time to avoid a failed harvest.

A woman in Ivory Coast prepares a dish made from manioc, or cassava, a drought-tolerant crop.
Sia Kambou/AFP via Getty Images

Without insurance, disaster-affected people usually bear the costs of disaster. Therefore, experts recommend insurance as a critical part of an overall strategy for climate change adaptation.

Boosting social protection systems

Another promising area of innovation is the design of social services that can scale up when needed for extreme weather events.

These are called climate-smart social protection systems. For example, existing programs that provide food for low-income families can be scaled up during and after a drought to ensure that people have sufficient and nutritious food during the climate shock.

This requires government coordination among the variety of social services offered, and it offers promise to support vulnerable communities in the face of the rising number of extreme weather events.

Future of the Loss and Damage Fund

To complement these innovative disaster risk finance mechanisms, aid from other countries is crucial, and the Loss and Damage Fund is a key part of that.

There are still many areas of debate around the U.N.’s Loss and Damage Fund and what counts as true financial support. There have been discussions over whether investing in a country’s resilience to future disasters counts, whether existing financial systems should be used to channel finance to countries in need, and what damages are truly beyond the limits to adaptation and qualify.

The new Loss and Damage Fund is only of a part of a mosaic of initiatives that is seeking to address climate disasters.

These novel mechanisms to finance disaster risk are exciting, but they ultimately need to be created in conjunction with investments in adaptation and resilience so that extreme weather events cause less damage when they happen. Communities will need to plant different crops, build flood drainage systems and live in adaptive buildings. Managing climate risk requires a variety of innovative solutions before, during and after disaster events. Läs mer…

Although coverage of the 2024 election was dominated by the economy, taxes didn’t get much attention in the run-up to the vote. That’s a bit of a surprise, since 2025 will be a major year for America’s tax system – in fact, the fate of the most significant tax reform in three decades hangs in the balance.

That would be the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which Congress passed during President-elect Donald Trump’s first term in office in 2017. If lawmakers don’t take action, the whole package is set to expire at the end of next year. Western Governors University School of Business tax expert Jim Franklin explains what might be in store for the act, and for taxpayers.

What do the election results mean for Republicans’ ability to advance their tax agenda?

We know there will be a Republican president, and it appears the Republican Party will have the majority in both chambers of Congress. That means Republicans will be able to pass a tax bill along party lines, similar to how Democrats passed the Inflation Reduction Act using budget reconciliation.

This would allow Republicans to pass key policies with a simple majority. The Republican majority is narrow, so it will be interesting to see how the leaders unify their constituent groups.

Republicans have traditionally supported lower tax rates for businesses and individuals, as well as tax incentives to help boost economic activity.

What’s next for the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act?

Currently, the act is set to expire at the end of 2025, but Trump and Republicans favor renewing many of its provisions.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office in May 2024 estimated that extending the act would cost the government US$4.6 trillion, and there’s a split within the party, with one bloc of congressional Republicans calling for a full extension and another asking for the balancing of tax policy and annual federal deficits.

Republicans are likely to fight to keep key components in place, including the higher standard deduction, reduced corporate tax rates, individual rate cuts and an increased estate tax exemption.

There’s even talk of lowering the corporate tax rate further, possibly to 15% for domestic production, which would be a significant move.

What other tax measures are Republicans considering?

Trump mentioned a variety of tax relief ideas on the campaign trail, including exempting tips, Social Security benefits and overtime pay from income taxes, and creating an itemized deduction for auto loan interest.

However, Republicans aren’t entirely unified on tax policy. Some deficit hawks are concerned about revenue losses, so there could be internal pushback on all these points. The real question is whether there will be enough opposition within the party to alter or block certain proposals.

But I expect many parts of the act to be renewed, and we may see some additions. For example, there’s been a lot of pressure around increasing the state and local tax deduction cap, also known as SALT, which has bipartisan support in states with higher state income taxes like New York, California and Illinois. It will be interesting to see if that gains any traction. There’s a lot of pressure among representatives, both Republicans and Democrats, to gain some relief in that area.

Where will they find revenue?

Good question. Observers are indicating that Republicans are likely to look at cutting green energy subsidies from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. These could be eliminated to help balance out the cost of their new tax proposals.

Another area to watch is tariffs. There’s talk of raising tariffs on Chinese goods — potentially up to 60% — and even imposing a universal tariff on all U.S. imports at a 20% rate. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Will it be more targeted? For example, will there be continued tariffs on select imports such as automotive imports from China to protect the U.S. electric vehicle market?

What will you be watching between now and Tax Day?

One factor will be Trump’s cabinet appointments. Whoever he nominates for Treasury secretary, for instance, could have a big influence. They can help shape what the tax bill looks like. Another key factor will be who ends up on the congressional tax committees. The composition of key committees will affect the direction of policy and the specific details.

What do you think will happen with tariffs?

Tariffs are unpredictable: They could be applied broadly, or more selectively. It could be similar to the way that Trump and his first administration placed some tariffs on steel, aluminum and solar panels. Interestingly, many of the tariffs were retained by the Biden administration.

Blanket tariffs could slow down the economy, so there is always a risk. Tariffs impact inflation because they affect the cost of imported goods, which would likely reduce consumers’ purchasing power. Domestic political pressure will play a role, as higher tariffs could raise prices on many goods that are imported, including essential products like medications.

Do you have advice for people struggling to keep up with the latest tax news?

Observers often take every policy suggestion on the campaign trail literally — exempting tips, Social Security benefits, overtime pay, etc. — as if all these proposals will pass exactly as stated. But the details matter, and policies are rarely implemented without adjustments. So it’s wise to read beyond the headlines. Läs mer…