USA

It is hard to find a more contradictory and painful image for Venezuela than this one: a country whose president was bombed, captured, kidnapped and taken out of its own territory by the United States is now celebrating oil agreements with the very same power that, only yesterday, was exercising a relationship of force over it.

Washington and Brussels are doing something that, from a military standpoint, looks like sheer madness. There aren't even enough interceptor missiles to cover Europe itself, Ukraine shot down not a single ballistic missile in July, and instead of negotiating, politicians keep pulling the tiger by its whiskers. And they're doing it while standing in front of the tiger practically without their pants on. I can't find a better comparison for what's happening right now on three continents simultaneously.

The world is offloading American bonds, and faster than almost anyone would have predicted just a couple of years ago. The share of Treasuries held in foreign central bank reserves has collapsed to 12%. After the 2008 crisis, that figure held above 40%. Back then, US Treasury debt was considered practically the safest place on the planet to park money. Today, money still flows there - but with hesitation.

Where the Distrust Comes From

The U.S. Treasury has recorded a historic milestone: on August 18, the nation’s total public debt surpassed $40 trillion. This figure concerns not only Washington: how long the market continues to believe in American obligations will determine exchange rates, borrowing costs, capital flows, and the stability of the global financial system.

A Trillion in Five Months

Cuba on the Edge: Why the U.S. Is Squeezing the Island Harder Than Ever

How far can the economic pressure of one superpower on a sovereign state actually go? Cuba in 2026 is a living textbook case: the country is going through its worst crisis since the 1959 revolution, worse even than the "Special Period" that followed the collapse of the USSR, and this is happening not because of a natural disaster but because of a deliberate oil blockade orchestrated by Washington.

The Familiar Logic of Protection

Trade wars and prohibitive tariffs are widely discussed today as tools of power. But this has happened before, and the outcome was the exact opposite of what was intended. In 1930, the United States passed the Smoot-Hawley Act, raising customs duties on more than 20,000 categories of imported goods, in some cases by as much as 60%.

Market capitalization is not an objective valuation of a company but a form of collective hypnosis among investors, multiplied by the number of shares outstanding. It reflects not the real worth of a business but what the market thinks about its future — and that thinking can shift easily under the influence of a single tweet or a report that almost nobody actually read.

If you're tracking where global capital flows are heading after the era of unconditional dollar dominance, here's a concrete indicator: trade turnover between China and Africa hit a record 1.41 trillion yuan in the first half of 2026, and each new transaction in this chain increasingly bypasses the American currency altogether.

Libya Opens a Direct Settlement Channel

The New Dollars: What Will Replace the Familiar World Reserve Currency by 2040

Exactly one year ago, on August 15, 2025, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump met in Anchorage. Their talks at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson lasted nearly three hours. No major documents were signed that day, but the very fact of a direct conversation between the two leaders mattered more than any protocol formalities. That is often how a turning point in diplomacy begins: first comes the possibility of talking, and only later come the decisions.

Why "Spirit Of Anchorage"