What just happened
- Nicolás Maduro claimed victory in Venezuelan parliamentary elections boycotted by the opposition.
- Chungha, the K-pop star, and Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s lawyer, tested positive for Covid.
- Kayleigh McEnany, Trump’s press secretary, appeared to accept Joe Biden had won last month’s election.
There are two ways of looking at the Brexit talks that kept lights on until after midnight last night in the Berlaymont. One is that the fact they are continuing today is a sign there is a good and improving chance of a last-minute deal:
- The European Commission’s Ursula von der Leyen and Boris Johnson decided on Saturday it was worth keeping on talking.
- The EU side spoke yesterday of a breakthrough on fisheries; specifically on a 5-to-7-year timetable for adjusting to new and restricted access to UK waters for EU boats. (The British side denied any such breakthrough but in this analysis it had to, to mollify the Tory absolutists who’ve threatened a leadership challenge against Johnson in the event of anything that can possibly be seen as a concession.)
- There was a more conciliatory tone from the EU side on divergence. By some accounts Johnson persuaded von der Leyen in their Saturday call that he won’t be able to sell a deal that seems to hold the UK to the level playing field rules that the EU has hitherto said are non-negotiable. A few hours later Clément Beaune, France’s minister of state for European affairs, said slightly sniffily: “We are ready to put in place a system in which a divergence of standards would be allowed but beyond which corrective measures would be taken.”
The other way of looking at the talks as of Monday morning is that they are doomed:
- The problem of divergence discussed here on Friday remains fundamental.
- Britain is demanding access to the EU single market on terms the EU cannot afford to grant.
- If Johnson reinserts law-breaking clauses on the Northern Ireland Protocol into the Internal Market Bill before a Commons vote today, as planned, that would burn what little goodwill remains between him and von der Leyen and the EU generally.
Which of these is the right way of looking at this mess? Probably the first. Quite possibly the second.
China is booming
Chinese exports are soaring as its factories operate at full tilt and the world keeps buying stuff, while western manufacturers stumble along under varying degrees of lockdown. Exports in November were 21 per cent higher than in the same month last year. They were growing nearly twice as fast as in the previous month, producing a record monthly trade surplus with the rest of the world of $75 billion, almost half of which was with the US. If there was one number President Trump wanted to reduce to zero or below during his time in office it was China’s trade surplus with the US. At the time of his inauguration in January 2017 it stood at $24 billion. It now stands at $37 billion.
Drones and homes
Future homes may need drone pads. Architects are producing new-build designs with roof sections that retract to reveal mini helipads where tomorrow’s shopping will arrive. Apartment buildings may have platforms at every level or shared pads on the roof, with automated, gravity-assisted delivery to individual flats via special chutes. And so on ($), the WSJ reports. What’s wrong with gardens? Well, not everyone has them and some have trees, telephone wires, washing lines and other impediments to safe landings. And why take any of this seriously? It’s a fair question. Driverless cars, for example, seem to have been overhyped, at least for now. But drone delivery really might happen. It involves no fumes, no (terrestrial) traffic and no people. It offers a neat way of getting prescription drugs to the housebound, for example. And the promise of a rooftop “skyport” for drones is already boosting prices in at least one new high-rise development in Miami.
