World Briefing Plus: Placate or Push Back?
Canada’s Asia pivot and Ukraine’s survival diplomacy reveal the same global fault line.
🔒 World Briefing Plus
In Asia this week, I’ve been sensing quiet anxiety from Canadian business leaders trying to pivot away from the United States - and discovering just how hard geography, history - indeed our risk-averse demeanour - make that shift.
At the same time, in Kyiv, Volodymyr Zelensky faces his own delicate balancing act: how far do you go to placate Donald Trump while your country is still under full-scale invasion?
During my live interview with Times Radio in London, we discussed what I bluntly called the “bone-headed” idea of holding elections in Ukraine in the coming weeks - a proposal that risks playing directly into Moscow’s hands.
The bigger question is this:
Do leaders like Zelensky - and Keir Starmer in the UK - continue buttering up Washington?
Or do they take a page from countries like South Africa and Brazil and assert a more independent course?
I’ve also included a brief on-the-ground segment from here in Southeast Asia, examining how Russia continues to blunt sanctions - including through commercial channels involving countries such as Thailand - underscoring how porous and political the global sanctions regime has become.
➡️ In this World Briefing Plus video, I connect the dots - from Ottawa’s Asia gamble to Kyiv’s survival diplomacy - and explain why this moment is about far more than personality politics.
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The turbulence isn’t temporary. The need for clear-eyed analysis isn’t either.
