T he capital of Malawi, one of the world’s poorest countries, runs on aid. A city built in the 1970s by the World Bank, Lilongwe’s straight streets are filled with charities, development agencies and government offices. Informal villages house cooks and cleaners for foreign officials; the entrance to each is marked with the flag of

Mar 5th 2025 | Mexico City, Ottawa and Washington, DC K eeping abreast of Donald Trump’s utterances on tariffs, from actual announcements to vague threats, is a dizzying task. One day he is set on wrecking the integrated North American economy; the next he wants to appease carmakers that depend on it. When it comes

I t is a fabulous time to be a gold bug. Not long ago, outing yourself as one was a good way of getting people to back away from you at an investment conference. The popular image was of someone in possession of their own electricity generator, stacks of water-purification tablets and several years’ supply

Mar 3rd 2025 | Washington, DC H E HAS ACTUALLY gone and done it. President Donald Trump had long threatened to impose hefty tariffs on Canada and Mexico, America’s two biggest trading partners. Last month, when they were first due to take effect, he offered both countries a last-minute reprieve. This time, he was in

Mar 3rd 2025 | Washington, DC H E HAS ACTUALLY gone and done it. President Donald Trump had long threatened to impose hefty tariffs on Canada and Mexico, America’s two biggest trading partners. Last month, when they were first due to take effect, he offered both countries a last-minute reprieve. Now he is in no

Mar 2nd 2025 | Washington, DC “T he golden age of America begins right now.” So declared Donald Trump on January 20th in his inaugural address. In the six weeks since that chilly day, investors and economists have started to grapple with a less upbeat possibility: that his arrival in the White House is both

Mar 2nd 2025 | Washington, DC “T he golden age of America begins right now.” So declared Donald Trump on January 20th in his inaugural address. In the six weeks since that chilly day, investors and economists have started to grapple with a less upbeat possibility: that his arrival in the White House is both

Mar 2nd 2025 F or much of the time since Nayib Bukele became president in 2019, El Salvador has teetered on the brink of default. The warning signs were familiar: high debt and interest payments, exacerbated by a wide fiscal deficit; low dollar reserves; anaemic investment and GDP growth. Negotiations with the IMF over a

T hirty years ago Siddharth Dube, a writer, visited a small village in northern India near the site of a historic peasants’ revolt. He found plenty that remained enraging: mud huts, primitive ploughs, “barefoot old men” and “bone-thin children”. One older villager, Ram Dass, recalled the bitter deprivation of his younger years, when he would

Feb 27th 2025 | San Francisco “A single man of large fortune; four or five thousand a year. What a fine thing for our girls!” In “Pride and Prejudice” Jane Austen did not have to explain to the 19th-century reader what Mr Bingley’s “four or five thousand a year” meant, or why it excited Mrs