Latest news with #defensespending
Russia Today
8 hours ago
- Business
- Russia Today
Macron's popularity hits record low
French President Emmanuel Macron's approval rating has dropped below 20% for the first time since taking office, as criticism mounts over rising defense spending and cuts to social programs. Prime Minister Francois Bayrou also performed poorly in the same poll, with the two forming the most unpopular executive pair of the Fifth Republic. Macron's approval rating has fallen to 19%, with Bayrou at just 18%, making a combined approval of 37% – the lowest in modern France, according to a new IFOP survey published on Monday. Even during the Yellow Vest protests – a major anti-government movement that began in 2018 over fuel taxes and economic inequality – the French leader's lowest rating was 23%. Macron's support has dropped sharply among his 2022 voters, with only 49% still backing him – down 12 points. His approval has also declined among business leaders and executives, falling by 18 and 8 points, respectively. Bayrou, who was appointed after Michel Barnier's government collapsed in late 2024 following months of coalition infighting and public backlash over mishandled pension reforms, is now advancing a controversial austerity plan. Last week, he introduced new tax measures on high-income earners to help close a €43.8 billion ($48 billion) budget gap. The austerity package includes a freeze on pensions and social benefits, healthcare spending caps, and the scrapping of two national holidays to increase productivity and reduce government spending. Left-wing leader Jean-Luc Melenchon has called for Bayrou's resignation, calling the measures 'intolerable injustices.' Despite cuts in social services, defense spending continues to rise. Macron has pledged €6.5 billion more for the military over two years, citing heightened threats to European security. This comes as France's public debt reaches €3.3 trillion – around 114% of GDP. A new French defense review has warned of a potential 'major war' in Europe by 2030, identifying Russia as a leading threat. The Kremlin has denied having any intention to attack the West, and has accused NATO countries of exploiting perceptions of Russia to justify their military build-up.
Washington Post
a day ago
- Politics
- Washington Post
AOC office vandalized with red paint after vote on defense spending bill
The campaign office of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) was vandalized Sunday night, and the congresswoman has received several death threats in the days since a Friday defense spending bill vote, her staff said. 'Last night, our campaign office in the Bronx was vandalized and we are in the processing of cleaning it up,' Oliver Hidalgo-Wohlleben, Ocasio-Cortez's campaign manager, wrote on X on Monday night. '... In the past few days, we also have received multiple threats on the Congresswoman's life and we are treating this seriously with our security partners to make sure she, our staff, and volunteers are safe.'
Al Jazeera
3 days ago
- Business
- Al Jazeera
Southeast Asia's foreign assistance to fall more than $2bn next year
Development financing to Southeast Asia is expected to fall by more than $2bn in 2026 due to recent cutbacks by Western governments, according to a major Australian think tank. The Sydney-based Lowy Institute predicted in a new report on Sunday that development assistance to Southeast Asia will drop to $26.5bn next year from $29bn in 2023. The figures are billions of dollars below the pre-pandemic average of $33bn. Bilateral funding is also expected to fall by 20 percent from about $11bn in 2023 to $9bn in 2026, the report said. The cuts will hit poorer countries in the regions hardest, and 'social sector priorities such as health, education, and civil society support that rely on bilateral aid funding are likely to lose out the most', the report said. Fewer alternatives Cuts by Europe and the United Kingdom have been made to redirect funds as NATO members plan to raise defence spending to 5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in the shadow of Russia's war on Ukraine. The European Union and seven European governments will cut foreign aid by $17.2bn between 2025 and 2029, while this year, the UK announced it will cut foreign aid spending by $7.6bn annually, the report said. The greatest upset has come from the United States, where earlier this year, President Donald Trump shut down the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and slashed nearly $60bn in foreign assistance. More recently, the US Senate took steps to claw back another $8bn in spending. The Lowy Institute said governments closer to home, like China, will play an increasingly important role in the development landscape. 'The centre of gravity in Southeast Asia's development finance landscape looks set to drift East, notably to Beijing but also Tokyo and Seoul,' the report said. 'Combined with potentially weakening trade ties with the United States, Southeast Asian countries risk finding themselves with fewer alternatives to support their development.' After experiencing a sharp decline during the COVID-19 pandemic, Chinese overseas development assistance has started to bounce back, reaching $4.9bn in 2023, according to the report. Its spending, however, focuses more on infrastructure projects, like railways and ports, rather than social sector issues, the report said. Beijing's preference for non-concessional loans given at commercial rates benefits Southeast Asia's middle- and high-income countries, but is less helpful for its poorest, like Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos and East Timor. As China and institutions like the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank play a more prominent role in Southeast Asia, less clear is how Japan and South Korea can fill in the blanks, according to experts. Japan, South Korea Grace Stanhope, a Lowy Institute research associate and one of the report's authors, told Al Jazeera that both countries have expanded their development assistance to include civil society projects. '[While] Japanese and Korean development support is often less overtly 'values-based' than traditional Western aid, we've been seeing Japan especially move into the governance and civil society sectors, with projects in 2023 that are explicitly focused on democracy and protection of vulnerable migrants, for example,' she said. 'The same is true of [South] Korea, which has recently supported projects for improving the transparency of Vietnamese courts and protection of women from gender-based violence, so the approach of the Japanese and Korean development programmes is evolving beyond just infrastructure.' Tokyo and Seoul, however, are facing similar pressures as Europe from the Trump administration to increase their defence budgets, cutting into their development assistance. Shiga Hiroaki, a professor at the Graduate School of International Social Sciences at Yokohama National University, said he was more 'pessimistic' that Japan could step in to fill the gaps left by the West. He said cuts could even be made as Tokyo ramps up defence spending to a historic high, and a 'Japanese-first' right-wing party pressures the government to redirect funds back home. 'Considering Japan's huge fiscal deficit and public opposition to tax increases, it is highly likely that the aid budget will be sacrificed to fund defence spending,' he said.
Bloomberg
5 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Senator Warren Sets Target on $1.7 Trillion Private Credit Market
Welcome to Going Private, Bloomberg's twice-weekly newsletter about private markets and the forces moving capital away from the public eye. Today, we're looking at how private credit is poised to take advantage of a boom in European defense spending and a regulatory probe down in Australia. But first, Senator Elizabeth Warren has taken aim at private credit ratings. If you're not already on our list, sign up here. Have feedback? Email us at goingprivate@ — Isabella Farr US Senator Elizabeth Warren has a new target: the $1.7 trillion private credit market.
Wall Street Journal
6 days ago
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
Eurozone Countries Will Find Buyers as They Increase Debt, But at a Cost
Eurozone countries should find plenty of buyers as their debt issuance increases, albeit at a higher cost and tilted more towards shorter-dated bonds, analysts said. Government bond supply is set to grow after North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies agreed to raise defense spending to 5% of GDP by 2035 from 2% now, with only Spain getting an opt-out. The eurozone's stable political backdrop and slowly recovering economy are expected to attract investors, with demand already strong.
