
Last look: Should Mexico be electing its judges?
Fareed explains how Mexico's controversial judicial elections could radically reshape the country's rule of law — for the worse.
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Carlos Slim Is Quietly Becoming Pemex's Partner of Last Resort
The transformation of Mexico's richest person into its most important oil baron came about slowly, almost subtly. Carlos Slim built up a stake in Talos Energy Inc. before flipping it for the company's Mexican unit. There was a 2023 deal for $530 million to buy a pair of oilfield assets from a fellow billionaire. Then a $1.2 billion plan to develop a gas deposit in the Gulf of Mexico. Add it all up, and Slim has spent more than $2 billion to become the most prominent private partner to state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos — and, really, one of the only investors willing to do business with the heavily indebted, operationally challenged oil monopoly.


New York Times
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The Vertiginous Novelty of America's Debt Pile
At the start of the year, we didn't know how Trump policy would shape up. We still don't. Nor did we know how markets would react. And we still don't. First markets rallied, then after tariffs were imposed and Liberation Day, everything sold. Then, as President Trump pulled back on tariffs, equities rebounded. The concern now is shifting to the biggest market of all, the $29 trillion market for U.S. Treasuries. The Treasury market is where macroeconomics and politics meet, in their purest form, and when it begins to wobble, it is a real cause for concern. Unlike stocks, the Treasury market deals in one asset — U.S. government debt — of various vintages. In the model that most market players have in their heads, on the side of macroeconomics, there is inflation, where a high rate makes bonds less valuable. On the side of politics, there is Congress's ability (or lack thereof) to balance the budget. In between macroeconomics and politics stands the Fed with its power to set interest rates and, in extremis, to buy Treasuries en masse. Given the Fed's ultimate power, it makes little sense to worry about default on U.S. debt. Assuming there isn't willful interference from the White House or Congress, the bills will always be paid. But if the Fed is printing money to do so, the value of the currency you get paid in, and hence the value of the outstanding pile of $29 trillion in debt, could change drastically. And that is why we are beginning to see jitters in the Treasury market. The downgrade of U.S. Treasuries from a perfect AAA score by the ratings firm Moody's doesn't help matters. But it reflects market anxiety rather than being a cause of it. Inflation isn't the big worry right now, either. At below 3 percent, inflation is under control. The real issue is politics. The market is waking up to the scale of Republican deficits — rising up to 7 percent of gross domestic product from under 6 percent; the party's complete refusal to consider serious measures to raise revenue; the state of denial, reminiscent of Saddam-era Baghdad, that pervades Trump administration communications around the issue; and what appears to be a concerted effort to dissuade investment of foreign money in America by depreciating the dollar. There is even talk of a tax on foreign capital inflows. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Yahoo
Populist Nawrocki's triumph threatens Poland's place at Europe's top table
The victory margin of the nationalist Karol Nawrocki in Poland's presidential elections may have been wafer-thin, but it marks a huge upheaval in the country's political landscape whose impact will be felt not just in Warsaw but across the EU. Backed by the previous ruling conservative Law & Justice (PiS) party and, openly, by Donald Trump's Maga movement, Nawrocki, a radical-right historian, defeated his liberal rival, the capital's mayor, Rafał Trzaskowski, by 50.89% to 49.11%. His win means PiS retains a size-11 boot in the door of Poland's politics that could seriously destabilise the coalition government of the centre-right prime minister, Donald Tusk, and threaten the country's newfound place at Europe's top table. Tusk's election in 2023 brought to an end eight years of PiS rule and signalled Poland's return to the European fold. Over the past two years, the bloc's sixth-biggest economy has become a key player at the heart of mainstream European policymaking. Nawrocki's victory hands him a presidential veto that will make it difficult for Tusk's government to pass promised legislation rolling back the judicial and other changes implemented by PiS that led to repeated clashes with Brussels. default But it heralds more than just a delicate period of cohabitation between a pro-EU prime minister and a nationalist, Eurosceptic president. The 42-year-old, who has never held elected office, will seek to actively undermine Tusk wherever he can. Poland's outgoing PiS-aligned president, Andrzej Duda, deployed his veto, but sparingly. Nawrocki will do so more aggressively and systematically, analysts say, aiming to weaken the prime minister before 2027 parliamentary elections. PiS and its allies will portray Sunday's presidential vote as a full-scale rejection of Tusk's progressive and reformist agenda – and may even be tempted to try to bring down his already fractured coalition government before the end of its term. Snap elections could be triggered, for example, if Nawrocki, whose campaign focused on conservative Catholic values, attacks on EU migration and climate policy and opposition to Ukraine's accession to the bloc, decides to stall the budget, which he could do by sending it to the PiS-dominated constitutional tribunal. Polls suggest that PiS and the far-right, libertarian Confederation party of Sławomir Mentzen, who won nearly 15% of the vote in the first round of the presidential ballot, could control a majority of seats in parliament if they were to unite. So far, Mentzen has ruled that out, even refusing to endorse Nawrocki. But an analysis of Sunday's vote showed that almost 90% of Mentzen's first-round voters backed Nawrocki in the presidential runoff, and the potential affinity is clear. Amid growing speculation about the government's future, Tusk on Monday called for a confidence vote to force junior partners to commit to his coalition and head off any defections towards a possible PiS-Confederation majority. In Europe, while Tusk will continue to represent Poland at EU summits, he will inevitably be weakened by the challenge to his domestic legitimacy. Nawrocki, as commander-in-chief, may also seek to sway Poland's strongly pro-Ukraine stance. He has not shied away from tapping into Polish anti-Ukrainian sentiment over refugees, has criticised Kyiv and its EU and Nato accession plans, and his attendance at Nato summits could significantly complicate Europe's united pro-Ukraine front. Nawrocki will have somewhat less influence over other EU issues to which he is also opposed, such as deeper integration, joint borrowing and Europe's green deal, but the overall effect of his election on Poland's pro-EU ambitions will be chilling. The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said on Monday the EU would continue its 'very good cooperation' with Poland. But analysts note Polish conservatives cast Sunday's vote as a refendum on Tusk's whole pro-EU agenda. The nationalist's win is also a boost for Europe's populist EU-critical parties, led by Italy's prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, and to Viktor Orbán, Hungary's prime minister and the bloc's disrupter-in-chief, whose illiberal rule-of-law playbook PiS follows. Nawrocki's triumph was a 'fresh victory for patriots', Hungary's foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, said on his Facebook page on Monday. Nawrocki, who was invited to Washington by Trump and has shared a selfie with the US president, is opposed to Europe's recent security shift away from the US and favours closer transatlantic ties – another source of tension with Tusk, and Brussels.