Trump brings back "The Snake" - after more than an hour, the first people are already heading home
Friday night in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Donald Trump has been talking for more than an hour, the first people in the room are already starting to leave, and the president decides there is still enough time for an old campaign staple. "It's Friday night, we have plenty of time," Trump says, reaching for a piece that has followed him through his appearances for years.
He reads "The Snake," a song from the 1960s whose lyrics he repeatedly used in earlier campaigns to warn about people entering the United States without authorization. The story is about a woman who takes in a freezing snake, saves it, and ends up getting bitten by it. For Trump, the message has always been clear: If you let people into the country whom he considers dangerous, they will eventually hurt you. This time, too, the song comes immediately after his remarks about the border and people entering the U.S. without permission. Then the president starts reading, even though the night is already well underway and parts of his own audience are already heading for the exits.
"Trump brought out his old snake one more time. Parts of his own audience were already on their way out by then."
When he is finished, Trump says, "Haven't done that in a long time." Then he puts the old message right back where it has always been: "That's our border." Not much has changed about this act. Trump is standing in front of supporters in South Carolina again in 2026 and reaching for a text he used years ago to stoke fear of immigration. The only new thing is the picture around it: A president who keeps talking after more than an hour while people leave the room, and who eventually lands on a song his political opponents and migrants have known for years. The old fear act is back. The difference from before: This time, people are already leaving before Trump is finished.
Fewer ships through Panama - drought squeezes global trade, but it will not bring it to a halt
Starting September 3, the Panama Canal Authority will reduce the number of daily transits from 36 to 34 ships, then to 32 starting September 15. The reason is a severe drought in Central America caused by El Niño. Water is running low in the two artificial lakes that feed the canal, and from May through August, the region already received 34 percent less rainfall than the historical average. Canal authorities warn that El Niño could make the situation even worse. For global trade, this is no side issue.
Around five percent of global maritime trade passes through Panama, and for U.S. container traffic the figure is about 40 percent. The route is especially important for trade between the U.S., China, the rest of Asia, and countries such as Japan, Chile, and South Korea. Even now, 9 out of 10 transits happen only with advance reservations, while the remaining slots are auctioned off. Before the Iran war, the average winning bid was around $135,000, but in April one shipping company paid as much as $4 million for a single slot. Anyone without a reservation will now have to wait even longer. This has happened before. In 2023, water levels in the lakes fell so low that the number of daily transits was cut from 38 to 22. Ships backed up at the approaches, and companies switched to alternative routes.
It has not gotten that far this time, but the pressure is growing. There is another problem, too: Those same lakes provide drinking water to about half of Panama's 4.2 million residents. So the canal is not just a trade route, but a lifeline. Financial analyst Maxim Blant says a collapse in global trade is still not on the table. Panama is not a closed bottleneck like the Strait of Hormuz. Ships can take other routes, things will simply take longer and cost a little more. For the U.S., that will probably mean more traffic through its own ports on the East and West Coasts. For China and other Asian countries, it will become more inconvenient, and for South America as well, but not existential. The canal remains open. It just is not getting cheaper, faster, or easier right now.
After big words and threats: Trump pays the UN $850 million - after his administration spent a year and a half putting it under pressure
The Trump administration plans to pay more than $800 million in outstanding dues to the United Nations and has informed Congress of the plan. It would be Washington's largest payment to the UN since Trump made continued U.S. support dependent on the organization restructuring itself according to his demands. According to State Department notifications, $725 million is supposed to go toward the United Nations' regular budget, with another $125 million going toward peacekeeping operations in Haiti and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Altogether, that comes to $850 million. But that does not come close to settling the bill.
The United States still owes the UN several billion dollars. For a year and a half, Trump treated the organization as though it first had to earn the money Washington owed it. His administration demanded sweeping changes, questioned programs, and cut funding while humanitarian organizations warned about the consequences. Numerous programs and services have already been cut back. Now part of the withheld money is coming after all. Not because of any sudden love for the United Nations, but after Washington used its financial pressure long enough. The U.S. has traditionally been the organization's largest donor, and Trump has used exactly that position to push his demands.
If you owe billions and impose conditions at the same time, you are not negotiating like an ordinary member. You hold back the bill until you like what is happening on the other end. $850 million sounds enormous, but compared with the billions still outstanding, it is only a partial payment. For the UN, it means urgently needed money; for Trump, it does not mean a change of course. The message remains the same: Washington pays when Washington is satisfied. And an organization that depends on American billions gets a very clear reminder of who has their hand on the money valve.
Trade war with Canada escalates - Carney breaks off talks, Trump hits with 50 percent tariffs
Weeks of negotiations between Canada and the United States collapsed at the last minute, and now the trade war both sides had still been trying to prevent is beginning. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney suspended the talks on Friday after Washington, according to his account, put new conditions on the table shortly before the deadline that were "unfair and uneconomic" and raised the question of whether any agreement with the United States could be trusted at all.
Minutes later, Trump's trade representative Jamieson Greer said exactly the opposite: Canada had backed away from terms that had already been agreed to and had destroyed the painstaking progress made in recent days. At 12:01 a.m., Trump's new 50 percent tariffs on a broad range of Canadian goods took effect. According to calculations by the U.S. government, they hit exports worth around $20 billion. Carney announced that Canada would retaliate "dollar for dollar." Cheese, hockey sticks, and hundreds of other Canadian products are likely to become significantly more expensive in the U.S. market, while Ottawa in turn makes American goods more expensive. Just hours earlier, Trump had said he believed a deal could be reached. On Tuesday, he had even claimed that an agreement was basically done and only a few details remained. Those exact details have now blown everything up.
Canada wanted Trump's existing tariffs of up to 50 percent on steel and aluminum, as well as the burden on autos, substantially reduced or eliminated and also wanted relief from the decades-old dispute over softwood lumber. In return, Washington demanded an end to Canadian boycotts of American wine and spirits, the removal of Canadian retaliatory tariffs on U.S. cars, and easier access for American dairy products to Canada's tightly controlled market. Even the last U.S. proposal would only have reduced steel and aluminum tariffs to 25 percent for a limited amount; anything above that would still have faced a 50 percent tariff. For autos, 15 percent was on the table. Industry representatives warned that even under those terms, production in Canada would often be unprofitable and plants could close. Carney still decided against making further concessions. A current poll gives him political backing: 56 percent of Canadians do not want any further trade concessions to Washington.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford immediately backed him. The relationship between two countries that for decades could hardly have been more closely connected economically is now being damaged further, after Trump already hit Canada with tariffs and repeatedly treated it as a possible 51st U.S. state. His new 50 percent tariffs are based on Section 338 of a 1930 law, a provision that has never been used before and could now end up in court. For businesses and consumers, that review will come too late. Americans will pay more, Canadian companies will lose customers and investment. A trade war that both sides know will hurt them is beginning anyway - because Washington wanted more at the last minute, and this time Canada said no.
AI is eating billions - and America's tech giants are taking on debt like never before
America's biggest technology companies are pouring so much money into artificial intelligence that even their enormous cash reserves are no longer enough. Since the beginning of the year, the leading AI companies have issued around $220 billion in bonds. During the same period in 2025, it was just $12.5 billion. The debt taken on for the AI race has therefore increased almost eighteenfold within a year. Amazon, Alphabet, and other tech giants were long considered dream borrowers in the credit markets, with high revenues, strong balance sheets, and comparatively little debt. But data centers, chips, power supplies, and new computing facilities are swallowing sums so large that even these companies are increasingly financing them with borrowed money.
BNP Paribas estimated the largest companies' AI spending for 2026 at $725 billion as early as May, almost twice as much as had been expected in the middle of last year. Now lenders are starting to put a price on it. Investors do not doubt that Amazon or Alphabet can repay their debts, but they are demanding higher yields. "This is not a blank check," says George Catrambone of asset manager DWS. That is exactly what the market is now showing. Technology companies currently have to pay around 89 basis points more on their debt than the yield on U.S. Treasury bonds, nine points more than the average for other major U.S. companies. In the past, tech companies could usually borrow more cheaply than the rest of the market. Amazon had to offer a premium of around 120 basis points on a new $25 billion bond issue, roughly twice what would have been normal just a year ago. Alphabet also had to add another 10 to 15 basis points on its latest issue to get investors to buy. The problem is not just with the companies. Pension funds and insurers are often allowed to put no more than two or three percent of their assets into securities from a single borrower. If the same five or six tech giants keep coming to market with tens of billions in new debt, those limits will eventually be reached. At the same time, they are competing for the same money as the U.S. government, which itself is selling enormous amounts of new debt.
No one is calling it a crisis yet. The companies are still making billions and still have excellent credit ratings. But for the first time, the AI frenzy is visibly costing more than servers, chips, and electricity. The longer Silicon Valley pays for its multibillion-dollar race with new debt, the more expensive every next step becomes. The big question is no longer just who will build the best artificial intelligence. It is how long even the richest companies in the world will be willing to keep borrowing billions to pay for it.
He was convicted of hacking election websites - now he is showing up in Trump's election monitoring operation
A man convicted of breaking into American election systems is now showing up, of all places, in an election operation run by the U.S. Department of Justice. David Michael Levin, a Florida attorney, is reportedly now working for the department's Civil Rights Division and was recently involved in an election monitoring operation in Minnesota. The Justice Department has confirmed neither his hiring nor his exact role.
His known history is remarkable enough. In 2016, Levin was charged with three felonies after gaining access to the Florida state elections website and another county election website. The attack had no effect on vote counting or the election result, but Levin pleaded guilty. His explanation at the time: He had simply wanted to check the "integrity of elections." He spent 20 days in jail and then served two years of probation. Ten years later, the same man is now appearing where the federal government monitors elections. During the Minnesota operation, according to reporting, Levin worked alongside William F. Mohrman, a senior attorney in the Civil Rights Division. Mohrman is also the attorney who represented Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer convicted of killing George Floyd.
Whether Levin was actually hired by the department remains unclear. That he showed up in an election operation alongside a senior Justice Department official, however, is documented. And it fits with an administration that has repeatedly brought people with a history of interfering with elections back into political proximity. Tina Peters, the former Colorado election official, was convicted of tampering with voting machines and was hosted at the White House just last month. At the same time, Harmeet Dhillon, as head of the Civil Rights Division, has significantly changed its work on voting rights. Now the Justice Department is preparing for the midterm elections and plans to deploy around 1,000 election monitors nationwide. That is exactly why Levin's possible role is far more than some bizarre personnel story. A man who illegally gained access to election systems himself and was convicted for it could now be working for the very agency that is supposed to safeguard the integrity of American elections. The Justice Department could end the contradiction with one simple answer. So far, it has not.
