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January 26, 2026

The BBC once made the arts ‘utterly central’ to television – 100 years later they’re almost invisible

Source: The Conversation – UK – By John Wyver, Professor of the Arts on Screen, University of Westminster

On the evening of January 26 1926, members of the Royal Institution and other guests climbed three flights of draughty stairs to a tiny workshop in Soho’s Frith Street. They were there to witness the first public presentation of what inventor John Logie Baird called “true television”. A hundred years later, we are now marking the centenary of British television.

Throughout the following 13 years, until the second world war imposed a seven-year hiatus, television developed rapidly. From November 1936 onwards, a regular “high definition” service was transmitted from the BBC’s television station at Alexandra Palace. Alongside countless variety performances and outside broadcasts of pageantry and sports, television established a productively rich relationship with the arts of 1930s Britain.

More than 300 plays were broadcast in these years, including productions of William Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw and Noel Coward, with appearances by Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson, Valerie Hobson and Sybil Thorndike among many others. West End productions were restaged in the studio and outside broadcast cameras relayed shows such as J.B. Priestley’s When We Are Married, and the Lupino Lane musical comedy Me and My Girl, to tens of thousands of viewers across London.

This article is part of our State of the Arts series. These articles tackle the challenges of the arts and heritage industry – and celebrate the wins, too.

Artists and architects made frequent appearances, as did a regular selection of classical and contemporary works from London galleries. Other visual artists who featured included Paul Nash, Laura Knight and Wyndham Lewis, along with architects Frank Lloyd Wright, Berthold Lubetkin and Serge Chermayeff. There were numerous performances of opera, including excerpts of contemporary work like Albert Coates’ Pickwick and an ambitious staging of Act 2 of Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde.

Ballet once appeared regularly on the BBC.

Once the transmissions could present a full-length figure on the tiny portrait-format screens of the first receiving sets, ballet enjoyed a central presence in TV schedules. Prima ballerinas who performed in the studios included Alicia Markova, Lydia Sokolova and the young Margot Fonteyn.

Touring companies like the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo and the Ballets Jooss made appearances. The troupes benefited from modest fees, exposure and association with modernity’s latest marvel, while television gained cheap access to the best classical dancers of the day as well as cultural credibility.

In so many ways the end of television as we have known it – when YouTube has topped the BBC in viewing share for the first time – could hardly be more different from its pre-war beginnings. But there are also clear continuities across more than half a century, even if early ballroom dancing lessons have morphed into Strictly, and EastEnders is the soap du jour rather than the sedate five-part romance Ann and Harold. One of television’s left behinds, however, is a close relationship with the arts.

The arts on the BBC today

Writing in The Stage in January 2026, critic Lyn Gardner lamented the limitations of television’s coverage of theatre, arguing that “the BBC remains more interested in Glastonbury than the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the world’s biggest arts festival” and that the corporation is “more interested in sport rather than culture”.

She also recalled director general Tim Davie’s words from a speech at the Royal Academy in autumn 2024: “The arts remain utterly central to the BBC’s mission. We want to send out a strong signal, that arts and culture matter, they matter for everyone, and they matter even more when times are tough.”

Yet there is no sense that Davie’s words are borne out by the current television schedules. There is no regular slot for imaginative and creative arts documentaries, such as Omnibus which lasted from 1967 to 2003, nor space for reviews and debate, like The Late Show, a nightly arts magazine show that ran throughout the early 1990s. Today’s and tomorrow’s visual artists and performers have only the most minimal presence.

The vanishingly rare presentations of stage work, whether dance, opera or theatre, are invariably acquisitions from cultural organisations that provided most of the funding and all of the production expertise. Complexity and challenging contemporary creativity are almost entirely absent. Far from being “utterly central”, the arts are today utterly marginal to BBC television.

Times are tough, of course, and the BBC faces numerous problems, many of which are the result of a precipitous fall in available funds. Streamers are cannibalising audiences and the licence fee is threatened. The BBC’s response has been to funnel what monies there are to news and current affairs and to high-end drama, which increasingly has to rely on co-production deals.

Television in the pre-war years faced a comparable funding crisis, and yet its producers and executives had confidence and belief in the arts, and were prepared to work collaboratively in partnerships with the cultural institutions of the day. Today, that vision is absent, with little sense of a deep commitment to, or passion for, the arts.

Last year, the BBC sought the views of its audiences with an online questionnaire, and in October a collated report of responses was released as Our BBC, Our Future. In neither the questionnaire nor the report was discussion of the arts “utterly central”.

The arts had next-to-no presence, and as I noted at the time only deep into the report was it acknowledged that: “Among the bigger areas [for which respondents asked] for ‘more’ were: educational content, films and then science and technology, arts and culture and history.”

Fortunately, there is currently a much more substantive and less biased consultation underway. In December, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport published Britain’s Story: The Next Chapter – BBC Royal Charter Review, Green Paper and public consultation, which invites us all to “begin the conversation about how to ensure [the BBC] remains the beating heart of our nation for decades to come”.

In this centenary year for television, this is an important opportunity to express a desire to see the arts returned to the “utterly central” place they occupied in the early years of BBC television.

John Wyver has received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

– ref. The BBC once made the arts ‘utterly central’ to television – 100 years later they’re almost invisible – https://theconversation.com/the-bbc-once-made-the-arts-utterly-central-to-television-100-years-later-theyre-almost-invisible-274162

January 26, 2026

Ukraine: Zelensky upbeat on US deal – but Davos showed the US president to be an unreliable ally

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Stefan Wolff, Professor of International Security, University of Birmingham

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has said a security agreement with the United States has been finalised following his most recent meeting with Donald Trump. Taken at face value, Zelensky’s repeated assertions that the document is ready to sign looks like major win for Kyiv. The reality is very different.

The meeting came after a particularly turbulent period for the transatlantic alliance. The disagreement over Greenland has further undermined western unity and cast yet more doubt on the trustworthiness and dependability of the current incumbent of the White House.

If there was even a hint of Trump being capable of self-reflection, one could add that it was a rather embarrassing week for him – on at least three counts.

First Trump seemed to perform a climb-down in his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos on January 21 when he ruled out the use of force to acquire Greenland for the US. He also dropped the threat of imposing tariffs on European Nato members which had dispatched military personnel to Greenland in a highly symbolic show of support.

Second, he insisted that the US would always be there for its Nato allies, in contrast to earlier pronouncements that the American security guarantee for Europe was conditional on allies’ financial contributions to Nato. But, as is usually the case with Trump, it was one step forward, two steps back, as he went on to cast doubt on the allies reciprocating in an American hour of need.

Worse still, in a subsequent interview with Fox News, he denigrated the sacrifices of allied servicemen and women in Afghanistan, prompting a chorus of justified outrage from across the alliance.

After a phone call with the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, on Saturday and an expression of concern in a message conveyed “through backchannels” from King Charles III, Trump changed his tune. He did not exactly apologise, but he used his TruthSocial platform to praise the bravery and sacrifices of British soldiers in Afghanistan. No other Nato ally has received even that acknowledgement yet.

Third, by the end of the week we were also reminded that progress on one of Trump’s flagship projects – making peace between Russia and Ukraine – is as elusive as ever. The US president appeared to have had a constructive meeting with Zelensky in Davos.

But the much-touted agreement on US security guarantees has not been officially signed yet. And there’s been no progress on a deal for Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction.

Contrary to how swiftly the US president threatened the imposition of tariffs on supposed allies for sending a few dozen soldiers to Greenland, Trump failed – yet again – to get tough on Putin. There is still no sign of a vote on a bipartisan Russia sanctions bill which Trump allegedly greenlit in early January.

The bill, in the making since the spring, aims to cripple Russia’s ability to finance its war against Ukraine and “to provide sustainable levels of security assistance to Ukraine to provide a credible defensive and deterrent capability”.

Ominous signs from Washington

One could, therefore, argue that it was a bad week for Trump and a much better week for the rest of the western alliance. After all, Nato is still intact. Europe seems to have discovered more of a backbone. Perhaps more importantly, they are realising that pushing back against Trump is not futile.

The US president has neither abandoned Zelensky nor walked away from mediating between Russia and Ukraine. And Trump might soon get distracted by plans for regime change in Cuba or Iran, preventing him from wreaking any more havoc in Europe.

But such a view underestimates both the damage already done to relations between Europe and the US and the potential for things to get worse. Consider the issue of Greenland. Trump’s concession to renounce the use of force was, at best, only a partial climb-down. Throughout his speech, Trump reiterated several times that he still wants “right, title and ownership” of Greenland.

And, as it’s not at all clear what his framework deal actually entails, his closing comments on Greenland included an unambiguous warning to other Nato members that they can “say ‘yes‘ and we will be very appreciative, or … ‘no’ and we will remember”.

There is already, it seems, some advance remembering happening in Trump’s renamed Department of War, which released its new national defence strategy on Friday night. According to the document, the Pentagon will provide Trump “with credible options to guarantee US military and commercial access to key terrain from the Arctic to South America, especially Greenland, the Gulf of America, and the Panama Canal”.

On Nato, Trump’s ambivalence towards the alliance goes deeper than his most recent comments. Critically, it is the casual nature with which Trump treats this core pillar of international security that has fundamentally undermined the trustworthiness of the US as a dependable partner.

Combined with the efforts to set up his board of peace as an alternative to the UN, there can be little doubt left that the US president has his sights trained on the very institutions that Washington spent decades building.

Fools’ gold?

When it comes to Ukraine, meanwhile, Trump may well just be dangling the prospect of an agreement to try to get Zelensky to make territorial concessions that will please Putin. If past encounters are any guideline, the Russian president will accept the concessions but baulk at the prospect of the US (or anyone) offering security guarantees.

Trump, going on what we have seen over the past year, is then likely to water down what he apparently agreed in order not to jeopardise a deal with Putin. I think it most likely that Zelensky and Ukraine will, yet again, be left out in the cold.

For Trump, ending the war more and more seems primarily as a way to enable future business deals with Russia, even it means sacrificing 20% of Ukrainian territory and the long-term security of European allies in the process.

The conclusion to draw for European capitals from London to Kyiv from a week of high drama should not be that Trump and the relationship with the US can be managed with a new approach that adds a dose of pushback to the usual flattery and supplication.

After one year of Trump 2.0, America-first has become America-only. Europe and its few scattered allies elsewhere need to start acting as if they were alone in a hostile world. Because they are.

Stefan Wolff is a past recipient of grant funding from the Natural Environment Research Council of the UK, the United States Institute of Peace, the Economic and Social Research Council of the UK, the British Academy, the NATO Science for Peace Programme, the EU Framework Programmes 6 and 7 and Horizon 2020, as well as the EU’s Jean Monnet Programme. He is a Trustee and Honorary Treasurer of the Political Studies Association of the UK and a Senior Research Fellow at the Foreign Policy Centre in London.

– ref. Ukraine: Zelensky upbeat on US deal – but Davos showed the US president to be an unreliable ally – https://theconversation.com/ukraine-zelensky-upbeat-on-us-deal-but-davos-showed-the-us-president-to-be-an-unreliable-ally-274223

January 26, 2026

New study: Some crimes increased, others decreased around Toronto supervised consumption sites

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Dimitra Panagiotoglou, Associate Professor, Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Occupational Health, McGill University

There have been more than 53,000 opioid-related deaths across Canada since 2016. As part of public health efforts to reduce these deaths, many cities offer overdose prevention and supervised consumption sites.

These centres allow people who use illegal drugs to do so under the supervision of a person trained to reverse opioid poisonings. They also offer clean drug use equipment, safe disposal of used equipment and take-home naloxone, a drug that can reverse the effects of opioid overdose.

Between 2020 and 2025, 48 overdose prevention and supervised consumption sites operated in Canada. While studies show they can reduce mortality and health service use for people who use drugs, they are controversial.

People opposed to these sites worry they increase local crime and disorder by attracting drug-related activity like theft, assault, open drug use and hazardous discarded equipment. In Toronto, opposition to the sites increased after a woman was killed near one in east-end Toronto in 2023. The facility later closed after the Ontario government mandated sites within 200 metres of schools or daycare be shuttered.

Recently, our team at McGill University published a study looking at the association between these sites and crime near nine Toronto locations.

For this study, we used publicly available data from the Toronto Police Service and looked at the five major crime indicators (assault, break and enters, auto theft, robbery and theft over $5,000), as well as thefts from motor vehicles and bicycle thefts. These geo-coded data included all incidents reported at the offence or victim level.

What we found

We looked at the number of crimes within 400 metres of a site in the three years after they were opened, and compared that with the number of crimes expected for each neighbourhood had the sites not begun operating. To determine that figure, we accounted for the trends in crime occurring in each neighbourhood in the three years before the sites opened.

In other words, we looked for changes in crime trends as well as crime spikes immediately after sites were opened. We reported our findings for each site, and summarized results across all nine sites.

The results were mixed. The sites were not consistently associated with changes in local crime.

Summarizing the situation at all sites, we found they were associated with a 50 per cent increase in break and enters, and it would take approximately 34 months to return to levels normally expected around the sites. Meanwhile, monthly trends in robbery, theft over $5,000 and bicycle theft declined after sites were implemented.

There were also site-specific associations. Assaults rose about one per cent faster than expected per month near the South Riverdale and St. Stephen’s sites. While that may seem like a modest increase, after three years, assaults were approximately 43 per cent higher than expected in these neighbourhoods. At the same time, the Regent Park site was associated with declines in assault, robbery and bicycle theft trends.

More research needed

While our study provides more insight into how overdose and supervised consumption sites impact their surrounding areas, it also has its limitations. We cannot explain why crime increased near some sites but declined at others. We couldn’t look at changes in open drug use, discarded equipment or mental health act apprehensions because of data availability and quality issues or a lack of geo-co-ordinates.

Nevertheless, our results match what other researchers have found when looking at the associations between sites and crime. In the United States, a 2021 study found that reports of assault, burglary, larceny theft and robbery decreased in the area near one site.

In New York, some researchers have found overdose prevention sites did not cause significant increases in crimes. Other research, however, did find that there was an increase in property crimes near a supervised consumption site.

Here in Canada, recently published research found that there was not a significant change in the rate of fatal shootings and stabbings near supervised consumption sites in Toronto.

Our findings also corroborate what people have observed locally – crime can increase following the opening of overdose prevention or supervised consumption sites. But it doesn’t always.

Instead, the relationship between these sites and crime is complicated. Further research needs to focus on understanding why crime declined in some neighbourhoods but increased in others. These distinctions can help policymakers and public health service providers understand what works, where and why. This is crucial if we are to continue to work with communities.

Dimitra Panagiotoglou receives funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and Health Canada.

– ref. New study: Some crimes increased, others decreased around Toronto supervised consumption sites – https://theconversation.com/new-study-some-crimes-increased-others-decreased-around-toronto-supervised-consumption-sites-273320

January 26, 2026

Groundhogs are lousy forecasters but valuable animal engineers – and an important food source

Source: The Conversation – USA – By Steven Sullivan, Director of the Hefner Museum of Natural History, Miami University

Marmot chomping and digging can keep trees at bay and fields flower-filled. DieterMeyrl/E+ via Getty Images

Whether you call him groundhog, woodchuck, whistle-pig or use the full genus and species name, Marmota monax, the nation’s premiere animal weather forecaster has been making headlines as Punxsutawney Phil for decades.

The largest ground squirrel in its range, groundhogs like Phil are found throughout the midwestern United States, most of Canada and into southern Alaska. M. monax is the most widespread marmot, while the Vancouver Island marmot (M. vancouverensis) is found only on one island in British Columbia.

In total, there are 15 species in the genus Marmota, found around the world from as far south as the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico and the Pyrenees Mountains of Spain, north to regions of Siberia and Alaska so dark and cold that the marmots must hibernate for up to nine months of the year.

Hibernating to escape tough times

Marmots, including all the actors who have played Phil over the years, are the largest “true” hibernators: animals that enter a torpor that reduces their biological functions to a level closer to dead than alive.

Because this phenomenon is so interesting, scientists pay attention to all aspects of marmot anatomy and physiology. Basic observational science like this is important to advance our understanding of the world, and it sometimes leads to discoveries that improve human lives. Marmot studies are the foundation for experiments to address obesity, cardiovascular disease,
mpox, stress, hepatitis and liver cancer, and they may inform work on osteoporosis and
organ transplantation.

Aging seems to nearly stop during hibernation, as the marmot heart rate drops from nearly 200 beats per minute when active to about nine during hibernation. Similarly, their active body temperature can be 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius) – about the same as a dog or cat – but plummet to 41 F (5 C) when hibernating. Humans, in comparison, become hypothermic at a core temperature of 95 F (35 C).

Fueling feast and famine

Marmots’ only source of energy during the hibernation period is stored fat, which they may metabolize as slowly as 1 gram per day. But even that is a large amount when it must suffice for more than half a year.

So, marmots need to double their weight during the summer, even in places where the season is only a few months long. To do so, they double the size of their hibernation-state gastrointestinal tract and liver, and then carefully select the most nutritious plants, including legumes, flowers, grains and grasses. Despite their corpulence, they can also climb trees to eat buds and fruit.

Gardener, architect and menu item

The digging and seed dispersal that accompany foraging create flower-filled meadows. Some marmots, like Mongolia’s Tarbagan marmot (M. siberica), are keystone species whose presence is associated with increased diversity of plants and predators.

marmot standing on hind legs at the opening of its burrow hole — Spacious marmot burrows are valuable real estate for other animals.
somnuk krobkum/Moment via Getty Images

Marmot burrows are a key architectural component of many other animals’ habitats. Abandoned marmot excavations can provide temperature- and humidity-controlled housing for dozens of species, from frogs to foxes and snakes to owls.

The same activities can make groundhogs a pest to people. In most of the Midwest, groundhog predators were largely eliminated at the same time that agricultural fields became vast marmot buffets. Today, many groundhog populations are tightly controlled by invasive coyotes, as well as recovering populations of bobcats.

Because they are such a high-quality meal, marmots are an important conduit of energy from plants to carnivores. Everything from hawks to eagles, weasels to wolves may eat them. And, like most native birds and mammals, marmots are on the menu of house cats, too. Humans also have long exploited marmots for meat and fur. As a result, once-common marmot species are rare in many places.

But marmots breed like the proverbial bunnies and so have the potential to come back quickly from population declines. They can be reintroduced to former haunts, benefiting the ecosystem.

Hibernation must end at the right time

Shortly after waking from hibernation, marmots mate, giving birth about 4½ weeks later to half a dozen or more offspring. Ideally, pups are born just as the first plants peak through the snowmelt – maximizing the time available to pack on fat for the coming hibernation season.

Given the food needs of these big ground squirrels, and the fact they may be seen poking their heads above the snow before any food is available, it seems reasonable to assume that they have some power of weather prediction. Indeed, people celebrate scores of individual groundhogs across the U.S. and Canada for their ability to anticipate weather six weeks hence.

This American groundhog tradition apparently started with German immigrants recalling the spring emergence of badgers and hedgehogs in the old country. Brown bears have a similar spring schedule and are still celebrated in Romania and Serbia.

People ascribe weather-predicting abilities to other species, too, including woolly bear caterpillars, sheep, cats and dormice.

One tradition holds that tree squirrel nests, called dreys, can predict the severity of the coming winter. Leafy dreys are well ventilated and private – good choices if you need less protection during a warm winter. More insulated hollow trees are cozy in the cold but communal, and so come with the risk of sharing parasites. As a squirrel researcher, I’ve noted the location, number and size of nests for years but seen no discernible patterns related to weather.

Weather responders, not weather predictors

groundhog dressing in a cape and hat standing on a rock with snow in the background — Flatiron Freddy did cast a shadow on Feb. 2, 2023, in Boulder.
Matthew Jonas/MediaNews Group/Boulder Daily Camera via Getty Images

Despite traditional claims, you’ve probably already guessed that Phil and his friends are about as good at predicting the coming weather as that kid who answers “C” for every multiple choice question. A 2021 study on the subject reported that groundhogs’ “predictions of spring onset (are) no better than chance.” That’s right, groundhogs are correct 50% of the time.

One big problem with relying on any species on a specific calendar day is that seasons follow latitude and altitude. Anyone who has hiked the Appalachian Trail can tell you that trekking from south to north maximizes your time in cool spring weather. Similarly, if you venture to the peaks of the Rockies in August, you’ll find spring wildflowers.

For this reason, groundhogs in Alabama emerge from their dens much earlier than those in Wisconsin. As one Canadian newspaper put it in 1939, “Here in Manitoba, no woodchuck in his senses would voluntarily emerge into the cold on February 2.”

Animals’ senses are tools for survival

Modern technology can accurately predict the average weather – that is, climate – far into the future, and the precise weather five days in advance. But the accuracy of a forecast at a given point on Earth 10 days in the future is only about 50% – as good as a groundhog.

However, many animals are sensitive to phenomena that humans need tools to even notice.

Flocks of warblers, sparrows and other birds sometimes seem to appear out of nowhere before a storm. These species often migrate at night, navigating across land and sea by the stars and Earth’s magnetic fields. To avoid getting lost in fog or blown off course, they’ll “fall out” of the sky at good resting spots when bad weather is building. At such times, take the warbler’s advice and don’t venture out on the water.

Frogs chirping in spring indicate that water temperatures are warm enough for eggs, while air temperatures influence caterpillar hatching and activity. Farmers over the centuries have recorded the blooming dates of flowers over the years as a way to predict when to plant and harvest.

family of marmots on grass with a few snow patches — Phenology keeps track of the emergence of the first groundhog’s emergence, the melting of the last snow patch, and countless other natural phenomena.
Matthias Balk/picture alliance via Getty Images

Noticing and tracking timing of annual events

Phenology is the study of these natural phenomena and their annual cycles, from the first springtime peek of a groundhog to the last autumn honk of a goose. When does the first flower bloom in your neighborhood, the first thunder clap rumble, or the last cricket chirp?

No individual observation, even Phil’s, has the power to predict the weather. But in aggregate, these observations can tell us a lot about what the world is doing and predict how it will change. You can be like Phil and look for your shadow, or a nice legume to eat, and then contribute to science by adding your observations to the National Phenology Network.

Traditions don’t need to be factually true to be useful. Groundhog shadows bring people together at a cold time of year to look at the clouds, notice buds on the trees and track down the earliest green sprouts, such as skunk cabbage, which warms the snow around it. This Groundhog Day, get out there and enjoy nature as you celebrate the lengthening days and increased activities of the organisms we share this planet with.

Steven Sullivan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Groundhogs are lousy forecasters but valuable animal engineers – and an important food source – https://theconversation.com/groundhogs-are-lousy-forecasters-but-valuable-animal-engineers-and-an-important-food-source-273421

January 26, 2026

Why the shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis is so significant – expert Q&A

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Mark Shanahan, Associate Professor of Political Engagement, University of Surrey

Federal immigration agents in the city of Minneapolis are accused of having wrestled a 37-year-old intensive care nurse called Alex Pretti to the ground and then shooting him dead. The killing took place just over a mile from where another American citizen, Renee Good, was allegedly fatally shot by federal agents weeks earlier.

The latest incident prompted angry protests from people in Minneapolis who want the immigration enforcement operation in their city to end. We spoke to Mark Shanahan, an associate professor of political engagement at the University of Surrey, to address several key issues.

Why has sending in federal immigration agents caused such trouble in Minnesota?

Since returning to the White House in January 2025, the national guard has been deployed to several US cities to quell what have generally been Donald Trump-inflated crises, with illegal migration among the most prominent. However, in December, the Supreme Court ruled that Trump did not have authority for such deployments.

So, since then we have seen federal agents with US Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement taking the battle largely to minorities in cities with Democratic party leadership as part of the president’s violent attack on illegal immigration, a situation he has described as “the greatest invasion in history”.

Minneapolis is a Democrat-run city in a Democrat-led state. The governor is Tim Walz who ran for vice-president on the Kamala Harris ticket against Trump in the 2024 election. Walz has faced allegations, which he denies, of overlooking alleged widespread fraud in the financing of public safety net programmes, supposedly involving segments of the Somali-American community.

While most of these allegations have been refuted, they gave Trump reason to send in federal agents. This has ramped up tensions between state officials and the administration, causing brutal and unnecessary deaths in the community and pitting ordinary Minnesotans against federal government officials.

How does the situation in Minnesota reflect the second amendment right to bear arms?

It’s a reversal of virtually all of the second amendment debates that have been seen in recent years. The second amendment was introduced to the US constitution in 1791 through the Bill of Rights due to a deep mistrust of centralised military power and a desire to ensure that the newly formed federal government could not disarm the populace.

The founding fathers envisaged a “natural right of resistance and self-preservation”. Trump’s actions in sending in armed federal agents to conduct enforcement operations in various states appear to fulfil the founding fathers’ concerns.

The agents are trampling all over not only citizens’ second amendment right to bear arms (officials seemingly connected Pretti’s killing to him carrying a weapon) but also their first amendment right to freedom of assembly.

How have the fatal shootings affected Trump’s popularity?

Trump’s popularity is on the decline. His failure to deliver on the economic promises outlined in his election campaign, scatter-gun approach to international relations and the widening gulf between rhetoric and achievement have all damaged his standing in the polls.

In a CNN poll published on January 16, almost six in ten respondents described Trump’s first year back in office as a failure with the president focused on the wrong priorities.

And what support he does have is ebbing rapidly as federal immigration agents appear out of control, targeting many more documented citizens than illegal migrants, spreading fear and operating as if they are above the law.

With what looks like high levels of gaslighting coming from Homeland Security officials, voters are turning against the increasing autocracy of this administration, believing in the evidence widespread across the media rather than highly contentious statements from Trump’s lieutenants.

Is it unusual for former presidents to speak out the way Barack Obama and Bill Clinton have?

It certainly is. There is a longstanding tradition in the US of, and implicit agreement among, former presidents to avoid public criticism of the incumbent. Such reticence to speak is generally a sign of respect for the office and an acknowledgement of the unique and difficult challenges of the presidency.

But Trump 2.0 is no normal presidency. The 47th president’s style is both combative and retributive, and there seems to be an increasing feeling of it being out of step with the desires and best interest of the country he leads.

Trump’s march to autocracy creates crises where he regards himself as the hero the country needs to overcome its ills. His predecessors take a different view.

Whether it’s Obama calling out the assault on core American values or Clinton’s condemnation of the “horrible scenes” in Minneapolis as “unacceptable” and avoidable, Democrat past presidents have not held back. Notably, the only living previous Republican president, George W. Bush, has so far kept his own counsel.

What can be done to prevent further violence?

Most simply, Trump could end the deployment of federal immigration agents to Minneapolis and refrain from similar actions in the future. He is clearly looking for an off-ramp and sending his “border czar”, Tom Homan, to Minneapolis to direct operations could be the first step to de-escalation. But Trump abhors being called out as wrong and, at least beyond Minneapolis, is far more likely to double down on the immigration enforcement activities.

Realistically, the most likely de-escalator is Congress showing some teeth and refusing to fund further federal immigration enforcement activity. Democrats could force another government shutdown over the issue, and need just a handful of Republicans to flip in order to refuse to sanction a 2026 budget for the Department of Homeland Security.

At a public level, the greater the scrutiny of immigration enforcement agencies, the closer the fact-checking of official statements and the more cohesive the opposition to Trump’s deportation policy, the greater the chance of effectively opposing it.

It is midterm year – and the greater the public pressure, the more likely Republican legislators are to cleave away from the Trump line. While he currently controls the levers of power, that control remains fragile. Even Trump may soon realise that overt, violent, coercive autocracy is not a vote winner.

Mark Shanahan has a new edited collection, Trump Unbound, coming out in October 2026 to be published by Palgrave Macmillan.

– ref. Why the shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis is so significant – expert Q&A – https://theconversation.com/why-the-shooting-of-alex-pretti-in-minneapolis-is-so-significant-expert-qanda-274318

January 26, 2026

Canada’s new Grocery Code of Conduct is here, but don’t expect any instant price drops

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Michael von Massow, Professor, Food Economics, University of Guelph

Canada’s Grocery Code of Conduct came into full effect as of Jan. 1, 2026. Governed by an independent organization, the code sets out guidelines for dealings between retailers and suppliers.

It’s intended to provide transparency and predictability in the relationship between food retailers and their suppliers. All five of Canada’s largest grocers — Empire, Loblaw, Metro, Walmart Canada and Costco Canada — have registered with the code.

The code sets out specific objectives: to contribute to a “thriving and competitive grocery industry,” promote trust between grocery value chain stakeholders, allow for informed business decisions and provide an effective and fair dispute settlement mechanism.

That dispute resolution mechanism, administered by the Office of the Grocery Sector Code of Conduct (OGSCC), is intended as a last resort. The possibility of mediation may encourage parties to resolve disagreements informally before they escalate to formal adjudication.

In addition, the OGSCC will publish an annual report highlighting key trends, challenges, recommendations for code improvements and anonymized case studies of disputes, without naming specific companies.

Was the code ever about food prices?

Public discussion of the code was often conflated with a desire to reduce food prices. While food price regulation is not part of the code, it has been raised in wider discussions about food price inflation.

Statistics Canada data shows that food prices continued to rise across the country in 2025. Prices increased by 3.4 per cent across Canada’s 10 provinces and three territories between May 2024 and May 2025.

Concerns about food price inflation have been longstanding. In 2023, the federal Standing Committee on Agriculture held a meeting to investigate the issue. Members questioned Walmart Canada CEO Gonzalo Gebara and Galen Weston, then president and CEO of Loblaws (and now chair of the board).

Liberal MP Heath MacDonal asked Gebara:

“What do you say to us when we’re seeing the hesitation of Walmart to sign on to the grocery code of conduct? How do we relay that message back to our constituents, who, over the past couple of years, due to all the items and many of the issues you talked about, have been facing a lot of challenges, including the price of groceries?”

While this question does not explicitly tie the code to food prices, many interpreted this, and other statements, as suggesting the code might lower food prices.

Could the code raise prices?

Some industry leaders, however, have suggested the code could increase prices. For example, Weston says he was hesitant to participate in the code due to fears that prices would go up.

The mechanism of potential price inflation is relatively straightforward. The code discourages certain charges and states payment schedules should be negotiated. If grocers lose some benefits due to the limitations of the code, it will cost them money. In such a scenario, it is difficult to imagine that grocers would forgo money from consumers by lowering prices.

Walmart and Loblaws, who were originally resistant, eventually accepted the code after further negotiations. Loblaws’ new president, Per Bank, said the company was content with the revised code and no longer felt it would raise prices. It is worth noting, however, no one has said the code will reduce prices.

Some observers have suggested the code could lower food prices over the longer term. But they were commenting about the benefits of lower charges to suppliers and the potential for investment and innovation in the Canadian food processing sector. These indeed may be long-term benefits, but they’re not written into the code and would take time to materialize.

Are there any benefits to consumers?

There will likely to be some indirect consumer benefits. A more predictable and transparent relationship between retailers and their suppliers could increase choice for consumers by reducing the barriers to new product introduction.

Price stability and predictability make life easier on suppliers and could help sustain Canadian food processors. A loss of food processing capacity in Canada would lead to increased prices.

The code would also help smaller retailers with less bargaining power. By limiting the concessions large grocers can extract from suppliers, it narrows the gap between big and small chains and makes smaller grocers more viable. This is especially important in under-served neighbourhoods where limited retail options restrict consumer choice.

What actually drives food prices?

Food price inflation is primarily driven by supply-side factors and, to a lesser extent, demand. Between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2025, food prices rose by four per cent — faster than the rate of general inflation. Much of that increase was driven by sharp price rises in beef (16.8 per cent), coffee (30.8 per cent), and sugar and confectionery (12.5 per cent).

Beef and coffee prices have been affected by the increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather events. Beef cow herds are at their lowest point in almost 40 years, due in part to drought in Western Canada and the midwestern United States. High beef prices have also pushed consumers toward other proteins, such as pork and chicken, which saw smaller price increases. Turkey prices remain relatively flat, providing an option for those feeling protein price pressure.

Coffee prices tell a similar story. Extreme weather and disease pressures have reduced yields in producing regions and led to increased prices.

Sugar and confectionery prices increased largely due to tariffs. The U.S. already had protection for its sugar industry, but introduced significant new tariffs on Brazil, Argentina and Columbia, raising organic sugar prices and pulling conventional sugar prices up with them.

Canada responded with reciprocal tariffs, increasing prices here. While some of the tariffs have been reduced, there remains considerable uncertainty. Notably, despite the 12.5 per cent annual increase in prices, prices for sugar and confectionery fell by 4.1 per cent in December 2025.

What comes next?

Canada has experienced significant food price inflation, but the drivers are largely external to and outside the scope of the Grocery Code of Conduct.

While the code may enhance transparency, fairness and competition in the grocery sector, it is not a tool for controlling or lowering grocery prices directly.

But there is room for optimism about grocery costs. The rate of food price increases will slow and we might see some price reductions. Beef cow herds are expected to recover over time, which should ease prices. Beef prices went down marginally in December by 0.2 per cent. Weather remains unpredictable, but in the absence of new extreme events, supply issues should improve and prices should ease for those commodities.

These changes, however, will not be due to the Grocery Code of Conduct, though they will be welcome nonetheless.

Michael von Massow does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Canada’s new Grocery Code of Conduct is here, but don’t expect any instant price drops – https://theconversation.com/canadas-new-grocery-code-of-conduct-is-here-but-dont-expect-any-instant-price-drops-272878

January 26, 2026

How to make sure the nature credits you buy are real – new research

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sophus zu Ermgassen, Postdoctoral Researcher, Nature Finance, University of Oxford

Global leaders have committed to halting and reversing the ongoing degradation of nature within the next few decades. But with tight public budgets, governments around the world are looking towards nature markets as one way to attract more private investment into nature.

Nature markets are systems for measuring an ecological improvement on some land, then creating a representation of that improvement as a credit, which can then be bought and sold. In theory, they allow governments to attract more private investment and diversify funds that help restore nature. The reality is much more complicated.

My colleagues and I recently published a paper that outlines a checklist that can be used to sense-check whether a nature or nature-based carbon credit is likely to be real – and to make sure you really do get what you’re paying for.

Nature markets include both voluntary and mandatory nature-based carbon and biodiversity markets. Examples include the EU’s nature credits roadmap, England’s biodiversity net gain policy and the international voluntary carbon market.

Most of these are offset markets – the buyers of credits use them to claim they have achieved an overall net neutral outcome from their damaging activities; such as improving grasslands in one place to compensate for the conversion of grassland to buildings in another.

These types of nature credit markets are not new. They have been used around the world for more than 30 years and there’s plenty of research that tries to quantify what makes them effective or ineffective.

Some nature markets, like the US wetland mitigation markets, have attracted a lot of investment and now create nearly as much new wetland as gets destroyed each year. Other nature markets, such as Australia’s human-induced regeneration carbon credits, have delivered limited ecological outcomes and has involved awarding credits to projects claiming to regenerate trees in the Australian desert.

So how can citizens, the commercial buyers of these credits and the governments that oversee some of these systems, ensure that a nature-based carbon or nature credit represents a real improvement in nature?

Our study evaluates lessons from seven major nature markets around the world. It summarises several key elements that are crucial for establishing scientifically credible nature markets.

Ensuring integrity

The environmental feature that the nature market measures and trades needs to actually correlate with the environmental improvement that you want. So if you want to capture more carbon, it often makes sense to have a credit that measures changes in tree cover or biomass, because there’s plenty of evidence that trees in a forest store atmospheric carbon.

Some nature markets use proxies that are based on assumptions that are not always true. For example, England’s biodiversity net gain system aims to deliver a 10% improvement in biodiversity, but the specific metric that it used measures the extent and quality of habitats such as wildflower meadows. Subsequent work found that this does not necessarily lead to more diverse insect life, for example because the land might be affected by pesticides.

For nature markets to deliver scientifically credible improvements, it’s necessary to make sure they’re not paying people to deliver ecological improvements that they would have been delivering anyway. This has been the fundamental problem with carbon credits based on the premise of preventing deforestation that would otherwise have occurred – they have mostly paid for the protection of forest that wouldn’t have been cleared.

wetlands and river with city skyline in distance — Some nature credits support wetland restoration projects.
HiTecherZ/Shutterstock

Over the last few decades, there has been immense research effort into studying so-called “additionality” in carbon credits (this means a project’s emissions reductions or removals wouldn’t happen without revenue from selling carbon credits). Academics have created new methods that allow us to rigorously estimate the additionality of many land management interventions using satellite data.

Evaluations of nature markets consistently show that, in all nature markets, some projects are highly successful while some are unsuccessful. By only issuing credits once they’ve been proven to work (using advanced statistical techniques such as ‘matching’ and carefully designed regression analysis), credits are much more likely to represent something additional and this would enable only successful projects to generate credits, giving buyers confidence in the product.

The next consideration is public data availability. Every single evaluation of a nature market that has ever been conducted was enabled by public data availability. And every single nature market that has been evaluated to date has been found to not have achieved its full environmental objectives. Without public data, there’s no way of checking whether things are working. Public transparency of data is essential for improving nature markets.

Nature credits often aim to improve nature over relatively long timescales, say 30 years. So laws and regulations that hold people, businesses and markets accountable are essential to avoid the reversal of nature credits in the future. With forward planning and legally binding accountability, the system can maintain its scientific integrity and live up to its promise of attracting more high-quality investment into nature.

Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?

Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead. Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 47,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.

Sophus zu Ermgassen receives funding from NERC and the EU Horizon 2020 programme. He is on the EU Commission’s expert group for the EU Nature Credits Roadmap.

– ref. How to make sure the nature credits you buy are real – new research – https://theconversation.com/how-to-make-sure-the-nature-credits-you-buy-are-real-new-research-273090

January 26, 2026

On Being Ill at 100: Virginia Woolf’s ‘best essay’ still shapes how we read sickness

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Lucyl Harrison, PhD Candidate, School of Humanities, University of Hull

The year is 1926. Queen Elizabeth II is christened. Wage cuts and increased working hours for coal miners precipitate a general strike of workers. A.A. Milne publishes Winnie-the-Pooh. The League of Nations accepts Germany as the sixth permanent member on the council deeming it a “peace-loving country”.

It is also the year that Virginia Woolf published her essay, On Being Ill, in January’s volume of The New Criterion – the literary review headed up by T.S. Eliot. The essay had been written from her sickbed, as Woolf lay recovering after fainting at her nephew Quentin’s 15th birthday dinner months before.

In the essay, Woolf argues that illness is “the great confessional” which is never talked about in literature because of the “poverty” of language when it comes to sickness and disease. Books on influenza, poetry on pneumonia and tomes on toothache and typhoid are “null, negligible and non-existent”, she declares, reckoning with Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, Proust, Donne and Keats.

T.S. Eliot smoking — Eliot was ‘not enthusiastic’ about Woolf’s essay.
National Portrait Gallery

Recounting a conversation with her husband Leonard Woolf about the essay in her diary a month before its publication, she remarked it was the “article which I, & Leonard too, thought one of my best”. However, not everyone was of the same opinion.

Woolf’s diaries reveal that a postcard sent by Eliot illustrated that he was “not enthusiastic” about the piece, prompting her to write: “So, reading the proof just now, I saw wordiness, feebleness, & all the vices in it.” It “increased” her “distaste” for her own writing and “dejection at the thought of writing another novel”.

Nevertheless, a revised version of On Being Ill was published months later, in April 1926, in an American magazine called The Forum. This time it was under the title Illness: An Unexploited Mine. Despite her critics, Woolf persisted with the topic, believing the absence of our ailments in literature called for censure.

In November 1930, a slim quarto of 250 numbered and signed copies of On Being Ill was hand-printed by the Woolfs’ printing press, The Hogarth Press. It was printed in an original vellum-backed green cloth with marbled endpapers, woodcut vignette on final leaf and an original dust jacket designed by her sister, Vanessa Bell. Woolf set the type herself. She spent Sunday June 15 1926, in the full swing of summer doing so, writing in her diary: “I was so methodically devoting my morning to finishing the last page of type setting: On Being Ill.”

On or about December 2019, human character changed

Two years before the writing of On Being Ill, in one of the most quoted lines in literature, Woolf wrote “on or about December 1910, human character changed”, in her essay, Mr Bennett and Mrs. Brown (1924), continuing that when “human relations change there is at the same time a change in religion, conduct, politics, and literature”.

Human character changed in December 2019, when SARS-CoV-2 was discovered and the COVID pandemic began in earnest.

Pandemic Pages, the podcast that I founded and co-host with Dr Catherine Wynne at the University of Hull, charts this tectonic shift in our lives and literature through interviews with authors, creatives, academics and medical professionals. Previous guests include Booker Prize winner and chair Roddy Doyle; NHS doctor and award-winning author, Dr Roopa Farooki and Professor Lucy Easthope, the UK’s leading expert on disaster recovery and advisor to the Prime Minister’s office during COVID.

The podcast has just launched its third season, which aims to create a living dialogue with the centenary of Woolf’s On Being Ill. In one episode, I chat to associate professor of Graphic Design from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts, Ane Thon Knutsen, a letter press print artist who printed one sentence of On Being Ill every day in the early days of lockdown.

Knutsen, whose wedding was postponed due to COVID, said this project “fell into her life” when lockdown began in Norway after everything she had planned fell apart: “A couple of days into the pandemic, I read On Being Ill. I’d read it before and I had planned to work on it, but I read it again and I was just like, my God, this essay is about just what’s happening right now.”

In the introduction to Knutsen’s book, Mark Hussey, emeritus professor of English at Pace University in New York, writes that her daily meditations on a single sentence painstakingly rebuild Woolf’s words one letter at a time, resulting in a collective slow reading. Her work urges us to savour words, to ponder them, to roll them around on the tongue before swallowing.

In the UK’s National Year of Reading 2026 – a UK-wide campaign designed to inspire more people to make reading a regular part of their lives – Woolf’s essay and Knutsen’s diary feel particularly poignant to press books into the hands of everyone we can – to regift ourselves the slowness of suspended pandemic time, the stillness in that season of survival.

Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here.

This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something from bookshop.org The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

Lucyl Harrison does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. On Being Ill at 100: Virginia Woolf’s ‘best essay’ still shapes how we read sickness – https://theconversation.com/on-being-ill-at-100-virginia-woolfs-best-essay-still-shapes-how-we-read-sickness-274061

January 26, 2026

What the Beckham family feud reveals about social media and our love of ‘mess’

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Carolina Are, LSE Fellow in Interdisciplinary Social Science, London School of Economics and Political Science

My social media feed has been full of Brooklyn Beckham memes. That is, since January 19, when David and Victoria Beckham’s eldest son posted a series of Instagram stories criticising his parents, their curated public personas and what he described as long-standing slights towards him and his wife, actress Nicola Peltz.

As a researcher of online harms and freedom of speech, I’m less interested in whether the memes are funny than in what Brooklyn Beckham versus brand Beckham tells us about how social media – and public shaming – are changing.

After months of rumours of a rift between the Beckhams and their eldest, in his posts Brooklyn publicly accused his parents of a lifetime of carefully managed media narratives about the family. He alleged that family love hinged upon engaging with “performative social media posts, family events and inauthentic relationships”.

The memes posted by the public in response range from critiques of Brooklyn’s shortlived stint as a photographer to parodies of Victoria Beckham’s alleged “inappropriate” first dance takeover at Brooklyn’s wedding.

Some are undeniably funny. But taken together with other recent outbreaks of celebrity “mess”, the episode highlights social media’s shift from a space of connection to one of spectacle – where intimate conflict becomes collective entertainment, with real-world consequences.

No one’s 20s and 30s look the same. You might be saving for a mortgage or just struggling to pay rent. You could be swiping dating apps, or trying to understand childcare. No matter your current challenges, our Quarter Life series has articles to share in the group chat, or just to remind you that you’re not alone.

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In a recent study, my colleague Pam Briggs and I found that social media users are becoming disillusioned with digital spaces where their belonging depends on an algorithm’s whim. Participants described feeling overwhelmed by targeted commercial content while struggling to see posts from friends and family.

Brooklyn alleged that for the Beckhams: “Family ‘love’ is decided by how much you post on social media.” That logic sits uneasily at a moment when social media platforms are no longer primarily “social” spaces, but increasingly function as sites of entertainment, surveillance and sales. Our collective appetite for viral celebrity mess appears closely connected to this shift.

Public betrayals, viral memes

Late last year, singer Lily Allen made a return to our playlists with West End Girl, a self-described work of “autofiction” originating from the breakdown of her marriage to Stranger Things actor David Harbour.

The album played with dissonance by blending fast-paced beats and clinically detailed, seemingly personal tales of infidelity. In the process, Allen rode the wave of memes as a marketing strategy. Allen herself recently posted an image of her album cover with Brooklyn’s head photoshopped onto it to her Instagram story, suggesting she recognised parallels in how they each shared their “mess” online.

These viral instances of celebrity mess don’t happen in a vacuum. The case of Brooklyn Beckham is connected to the internet’s never-ending obsession with “nepo babies”, the children of famous people who are often seen to be benefiting from their fame and wealth, and who are frequently maligned in times of rising inequality. Add to this the recent Netflix documentaries that reintroduced the Beckhams to gen-Z audiences, and the conditions for virality were already in place.

This passion for mess that doesn’t involve us personally marks a shift from the polished, “brand safe” aesthetic of Millennial social media. We’re in the era of “goblin mode” (the rejection of social norms through behaviour that is unapologetically unpolished), in a climate of disillusion with an “always on” life.

Traditional social media platforms and dating apps alike are losing subscribers and users to hobby apps. Audiences crave reality, imperfection and mess – all more relatable than marketing.

In times of rising inequality, schadenfreude can feel like guilt-free entertainment. But this shift also carries serious emotional and legal implications for those caught in the viral spotlight.

The dark side of the (viral) public eye

In my work on online abuse against people in the public eye, I found that mainstream media narratives about public figures were often repeated, amplified and reworked by trolls, gaining a new lease of life online. When thousands of users participate in reinforcing these narratives, the experience can feel indistinguishable from harassment for those targeted.

So think before you share: is the post you’re amplifying playful or is it made to hurt the person at the centre of it? Is it factual, or can it contribute to creating damaging narratives?

This matters not only because speculation can worsen a public figure’s mental health, but because it can also have consequences for those who post. When online commentary veers into allegedly unsubstantiated claims or questionable opinions, posters may expose themselves to defamation risks, particularly when the subject has the means to pursue legal action, as Justin and Hailey Bieber have previously done.

If the start of 2026 is anything to go by, we are in for a turbulent year in politics, on television and online. Audiences’ thirst for messy drama reflects broader uncertainty and fatigue with digital spaces that thrive on comparison, division and commercialisation. Gossip can be cathartic. But the challenge is not whether we enjoy mess, but whether we can do so without turning real people into collateral damage.

Carolina Are does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. What the Beckham family feud reveals about social media and our love of ‘mess’ – https://theconversation.com/what-the-beckham-family-feud-reveals-about-social-media-and-our-love-of-mess-274150

January 26, 2026

Who really holds the cards: Trump or the bond market?

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Alex Dryden, PhD Candidate in Economics, SOAS, University of London

When a Danish pension fund recently announced it would sell its US$100 million (£74 million) holding of US government bonds, the move was tiny in financial terms – just a drop in a US$30 trillion ocean. But it touched on a much bigger issue. Foreign investors now hold around one-third of all US government debt, amounting to roughly US$9.5 trillion.

Of these foreign holdings, Europe has US$3.6 trillion, making it collectively the largest holder of US debt, larger than Japan (which holds US$1.2 trillion) or China (which owns around US$700 billion).

Could this financial exposure be turned into political leverage – a way for Europe to push back against Donald Trump’s recent threats over Greenland and European sovereignty? Or, as the US president has claimed, does the US still “hold all the cards” in debt markets?

At the World Economic Forum in Davos recently, Trump threatened a “big retaliation” if European countries sold US assets as a response to tariff threats. When politicians talk about Europe “dumping” US government debt, it sounds like a simple, almost mechanical, act whereby political leaders make a decision and trillions of dollars’ worth of bonds are sold. But that’s not how financial markets actually work.

In Europe, US government bonds aren’t owned by governments. They’re held by pension funds, insurance companies, banks and investment funds. These are independent financial institutions that manage the savings of millions of ordinary people. There is no single switch a government can flip to make all of these investors sell at once, even if it wanted to.

Even if governments are able to cajole European investors into selling their US Treasuries, there is the tricky question of where the money would go. The US Treasury market is the largest bond market in the world. There is no easy alternative home for the US$3 trillion of US government bonds held by Europeans.

The euro area does have a large amount of government bonds and in principle they could absorb some reallocation. But shifting even a few trillion dollars at speed would drive prices sharply higher and yields sharply lower, creating enormous distortions.

Then there’s the problem of self-harm. European banks, insurers and pension funds are packed with US Treasuries. A forced or panicked sell-off would punch a hole in their own balance sheets as price fell sharply.

At the same time, if European institutions collectively opt to move all their investments out of dollars into euros the financial market shockwaves would be massive. The surge in demand would likely drive the euro sharply higher, making European exports more expensive and quite possibly tipping the economy into recession.

This is one reason China, despite years of tough talk, never actually followed through on threats to weaponise its Treasury holdings. In modern finance, trying to use these assets as a blunt political weapon tends to look a lot like mutually assured economic damage.

Why the bond market still has a vote

So does this mean Trump really does hold all the cards? Not quite. While European governments are highly unlikely to try to weaponise their holdings of US government debt, that does not mean the United States is free to ignore international investors.

America is now heavily reliant on global capital markets to fund its large, and growing, budget deficits. Every year, the US government needs to persuade investors, at home and abroad, to buy vast quantities of new Treasury bonds. That normally happens quietly and routinely, on the assumption that the US remains a predictable and reliable steward of the world’s financial system.

But that assumption is precisely what Trump’s broader political project puts at risk. Efforts to rewrite the rules of international trade, to pressure allies or to treat economic relationships as instruments of coercion all increase uncertainty about how the US will behave in the future. Financial markets are often patient, but they are not indifferent to this kind of uncertainty.

us national debt clock digital display in new york showing a figure of around US$31 trillion as of May 2023. — The US’s national debt is large and growing. It has now passed US$38 trillion, much of this in bonds.
rblfmr/Shutterstock

If international investors became less willing to hold US government debt then bond prices would fall, yields would rise and the cost of financing America’s government debt would increase. That would feed through into higher borrowing costs across the entire US economy, from mortgages to business loans to government spending itself.

This kind of adjustment would not happen overnight but it is exactly the sort of slow, grinding financial pressure that even the US cannot avoid. Trump may believe he holds all the cards but, in a debt-dependent world, the bond market still gets a vote.

Alex Dryden does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Who really holds the cards: Trump or the bond market? – https://theconversation.com/who-really-holds-the-cards-trump-or-the-bond-market-274245