On December 8 we reported that Damascus is Now Ruled By ‘Al Qaeda In Suits’ As Assad Emerges In Moscow. A mere months later, these Al Qaeda in suits have already been invited to Paris.

Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa (aka. Abu Mohammad al-Jolani) arrived in Paris on Wednesday for his first official visit to a European country since declaring himself interim leader, state news agency SANA reported. He was issued formal invitation by French President Emmanuel Macron.

Sharaa, or Jolani, is still at this very moment a designated terrorist according to the United States and several other countries. The FBI dropped its long-running ten million dollar bounty on his head, but the terror designation still stands.

The Syrian leader’s ruling Islamist faction – Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS) – has been conducting sectarian attacks on ethno-religious minorities in Syria. Thousands of Alawites, Druze, and Christians have been killed and/or driven from their homes.

All the while, Sharraa has sought to claim before international cameras that he’ll ensure equality for non-Muslims as well as women, but the actions of his HTS gangs are the opposite.

The Syrian leader will seek to press President Macron on sanctions relief and funds for the war-ravaged country’s reconstruction. France, it should be remembered, was part of the US-Gulf coalition behind the decade-long covert push for regime change in Syria targeting Assad.

Macron has meanwhile expressed hope for a “new, free, and stable Syria that respects all components of its people.” This is darkly ironic, given Jolani first came back to Syria from Iraq as a high-ranking ISIS emissary early in the Syria conflict.

🧵1/ Macron is about to welcome Syria’s “new president,” Ahmed al-Sharaa, to Paris.

You might know his name. Not his body count.

Meet al-Jolani, “former” al-Qaeda Emir. While the West cashes in, Syria bleeds — its worst sectarian massacre in a decade. 👇 pic.twitter.com/lq1VslroJb

— Karim Franceschi (@karimfranceschi) May 6, 2025

He started in ISIS, founded Al-Qaeda in Syria (al-Nusra Front), and is now jet-setting off to the Elysee Palace. 

Whatever London or Washington PR firm is advising Damascus, they thought it good for al-Qaeda linked HTS leader Jolani to shoot some hoops this week… for ‘normalcy’ or something:

Syria is upside down, the people are poor & miserable, militias committing massacres, Israel is bombing the hell out of the country.

Julani and his foreign minister: pic.twitter.com/pezOiWSWV3

— Kevork Almassian (@KevorkAlmassian) May 6, 2025

Regional Middle East observer Kevork Almassian summed up the Paris trip, amid ongoing HTS attacks on Druze communities in Syria’s south and Damascus suburbs, and attacks on Alawites along the coast, in saying…

So, Emmanuel Macron has no problem with a self-appointed President who just committed genocide and ethnic cleansing. The land of “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité.”

Yet another signal that the trade war has hit its peak came overnight, as President Trump took to Truth Social to tease a “big news conference” Thursday morning, where he plans to unveil a “major deal.” As U.S. markets began coming online, Trump continued promoting what he called “a very big and exciting day” for U.S.-U.K. trade. The official announcement is expected around 1000 A.M. ET.

Late Thursday night, the president wrote on Truth Social:

Big News Conference tomorrow morning at 10:00 A.M., The Oval Office, concerning a MAJOR TRADE DEAL WITH REPRESENTATIVES OF A BIG, AND HIGHLY RESPECTED, COUNTRY. THE FIRST OF MANY!!!

Around 0542 ET, he posted again:

This should be a very big and exciting day for the United States of America and the United Kingdom. Press Conference at The Oval Office, 10 A.M. Thank you!

Trump continued in a separate post around 0608 ET:

The agreement with the United Kingdom is a full and comprehensive one that will cement the relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom for many years to come. Because of our long time history and allegiance together, it is a great honor to have the United Kingdom as our FIRST announcement. Many other deals, which are in serious stages of negotiation, to follow!

Then followed by: 

“The Golden Age of America is coming!” 

A resolution to the US-UK trade spat would be the Trump administration’s first step in renegotiating trade worldwide. 

Last month, the U.S. imposed a 10% tariff on most imported goods from the UK as part of the baseline tariff it imposed on all nations. On March 12, the administration also imposed a 25% tariff on all steel and aluminum imports.

UK officials would most likely want to see the 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum completely removed. If this is part of the upcoming trade deal, the UK could then give concessions on a digital tax it levies on Silicon Valley tech giants.

Trump’s series of Truth Social posts provided fresh tailwinds for equity markets overnight in Europe. 

Goldman analyst Jasmin Schneider told clients:

Europe trading firmly in the green this morning (SXXP +70bps, SX5E +1.3%) on progress surrounding US-UK trade talks and some solid earnings on the tape. The big focus overnight on trade talks between the U.S. and UK: *TRUMP: TRADE DEAL ANNOUNCEMENT `THE FIRST OF MANY’. Trump is expected to announce a limited trade agreement with the UK later today (UKX +30bps), which may signal the direction of the U.S. president’s global trade war. Our EU Tariffs Exposed basket (GSXETRFS +1.2%) and UK Consumption names (GSXEUKCO +1.7%) trading well with the deal likely to focus on reducing tariffs on cars and steel, and may include discussions on tech, AI, and digital trade (BBG).

Across the Atlantic, equity futures are also higher, with hopes that the US-UK trade deal will be the first of many resolutions. 

Goldman analyst Rich Privorotsky’s take on the developing trade situation:

Will be watching to see what the shape of the UK deal looks like as it could serve as a global template. Into the weekend the market should grow hopeful for a temperature reduction in the China/U.S. escalation. Although I’m a long term bearish  on U.S./China trade relations, I’m of the opinion that U.S. corporates have a degree of urgency in reducing the 100%+ tariffs imposed (can’t replace supply quickly). Think the landing zone is something back to the 30-50% mark and that will be the travel and arrive event.

Looking ahead, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and his Chinese counterpart will discuss the framework for a trade deal on Saturday in Switzerland.

“The negotiations will begin on Saturday,” Bessent said in testimony before the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday.

Goldman offered some good news last week: Peak trade war.

Goldman chief economist Jan Hatzius noted earlier this week: “The mood music with China has improved, and we expect the U.S. tariff rate on China to drop from around 160% to around 60% relatively soon. (China is likely to reduce tariffs on the U.S. by a similar amount.)”

Earlier this week, attendees at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills warmed up to Trump’s trade war but wanted to see near-term trade deals. KKR co-founder George Roberts told the audience: “Stay calm and carry on.” 

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum warned the United States is at risk of suffering from blackouts that recently brought most of Spain to a halt due to over-subsidizing intermittent renewable energy sources. 

“We just saw in Spain, they were celebrating on April 12th of this past month that they’d shut down their last coal plant. A week after that, they were celebrating the fact that they had their first day of 100% renewables on their system,” Burgum said in an interview with All-In podcast co-host David Friedberg. “Then, the next week, they were a global news story because people were trapped in subways, all airline flights canceled, hospitals were panicking with a lack of power because they had a rolling blackout and grid failure.”

.@SecretaryBurgum to @friedberg: China’s Energy Dominance in AI Race Keeps Me Awake at Night

“If you were to ask me what’s the thing that keeps me awake at night, this is the issue. It’s so thrilling and refreshing that you understand the scale, the magnitude, and the importance… pic.twitter.com/VD8kDU2wt7

— Josh Caplan (@joshdcaplan) May 7, 2025

The Interior secretary attributed Spain’s blackouts to a fundamental flaw in relying solely on intermittent power sources like solar and wind, saying, “It just defies physics. You can’t run an electrical grid with just intermittent power. You cannot run with something that is based on intermittent, which is the definition of solar or wind, because the sun doesn’t shine at night, and the wind doesn’t blow every day.”

Burgum then said that the U.S. is teetering on the edge of a similar fate due to misguided energy policies embraced by the Biden administration.

“We became dangerously close to that right now. We’ve got parts of our country that are at risk for those same kind of—what I’ll call the Biden brownouts and blackouts—to happen,” the Trump official told Friedberg.

Burgum criticized the over-subsidization of intermittent renewable energy and the stringent regulations on stable base load power sources like coal and nuclear, arguing that these measures, driven by the goal to “save the planet,” are jeopardizing national energy security. “All we’re doing is potentially putting our own country at risk,” he stressed, urging a reevaluation of energy policies to ensure a reliable grid capable of supporting the Trump administraion’s technological and economic ambitions, especially in the face of China’s rapid energy expansion.

Watch the full interview:

Spain faced severe blackouts just weeks after celebrating the closure of its last coal plant and a day of 100% renewable energy. The grid, reliant on intermittent solar and wind, collapsed, trapping people in subways, canceling flights, and leaving hospitals in chaos.

As Michael Shellenberger reports at PUBLIC, the blackout in Spain was not an isolated incident—it reverberated across the entire European grid.

“Although political leaders promised that renewable energy would provide stable, affordable power, in practice, Spain grew more reliant on the remaining nuclear and natural gas plants to sustain inertia — even as the government pushes them to close,” Shellenberger writes.

“Despite all these warnings, political and regulatory energy in Europe remained focused on accelerating renewable deployment, not upgrading the grid’s basic stability. In Spain, solar generation continued to climb rapidly through 2023 and early 2024,” he added. 

An American businessman close to the royal family (not for long) was caught on undercover footage with damning claims about Prince Andrew’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

John Bryan, a trusted advisor to the Duke of York, claims that Prince Andrew lied to him about his involvement with minors, according to the footage, obtained by O’Keefe Media Group (OMG).

“I knew he [Prince Andrew] saw him [Jeffrey Epstein],” said Bryan, “But he lied to me that he was such a close friend,” revealed Bryan, referring to Prince Andrew’s personal relationship with Epstein.

More via OMG;

After Prince Andrew’s 2019 BBC interview, where he denied knowing Virginia Giuffre and famously claimed he was physically incapable of sweating, Bryan says he was quietly brought into “Royal Lodge,” Andrew’s private residence, to provide “crisis” management advice. In a previous interview with the New York Post, Bryan revealed “They [the British Royal Family] brought me in to help him [Andrew].” Bryan told the publication, “Andrew was so distressed, he wasn’t able to focus for more than 40 minutes.”

According to previous reporting by The Daily Mail, Bryan also admitted to crafting a five-page PR strategy titled the “House of Kroy,” advising Andrew to publicly express sympathy for victims of Jeffrey Epstein while maintaining his own innocence. At the time, Bryan publicly supported the Prince, stating, “I believe Prince Andrew is innocent.” 

“I did a big thing in The Daily Mail saying that I believed Andrew,” Bryan recounted to our undercover OMG journalist, adding, “And then I found out he was lying. I was so pissed.” When asked what Andrew had lied about, Bryan didn’t mince words: “That he was fucking underage girls. That’s not cool.”

O’Keefe Media Group has reached out to both the Royal Family and John Bryan for comment regarding Bryan’s admissions.

Meanwhile, what’s this?

👀 https://t.co/79iMHUdbaj pic.twitter.com/pQ2cLf0GTW

— ALX 🇺🇸 (@alx) May 7, 2025

Authored by Spencer Morrison via American Greatness,

India is taking President Trump up on his offer for reciprocal free trade, proposing zero-for-zero tariffs on specific goods like pharmaceuticals, steel, and automobile components.

This has electrified President Trump’s base—the reciprocal tariffs are working! India’s coming to the table!

Sorry to burst your bubble: America will not benefit from free trade with India—or any other Third World country. 

Why? 

One word:

Externalities.

President Trump would be wise to remember that tariffs are not about moving factories from China to India—they’re about moving factories back to America.

Hunting Unicorns

Real international free trade—much like real communism—has never been tried. Why? It’s impossible.

The reality that economists & libertarians refuse to recognize is that different countries are different. And not just different in a nominal sense—different in real and practical ways that prevent economic integration.

First, America and India have different levels of economic development that cannot be reconciled without seriously rebalancing the factors of production.

The average annual wage in America is $63,000, while the average annual wage in India is just $2,500—the average American earns 25x more than the average Indian. Labor is often the largest input cost for making products, accounting for approximately 30–35% of the cost of American manufacturing—and it’s an even higher proportion in many service industries.

If America and India traded freely, India’s low wages would undercut America’s labor market—either Americans will need to accept lower wages domestically, or the factories will relocate to India to take advantage of dirt-cheap labor.

How do we know this will happen? The exact same thing happened after China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001.

In 2001, the average annual wage in America was $30,846, while the average annual wage in China was just $1,127—the average American earned 27x more than the average Chinese. What happened when American workers competed with Chinese workers? American factories moved to China, and wages stagnated.

The pace of offshoring was harrowing. Since 2001, more than 60,000 factories have moved abroad, killing over 5 million manufacturing jobs. This has decimated America’s industrial capacity and hollowed out local communities. And no, robots and automation had nothing to do with this process, in case you were curious.

In fact, the process has been going on even earlier than 2001. America has run global trade deficits every year since 1974. The cumulative value of these deficits is $25 trillion, after adjusting for inflation. This has decoupled wages for American workers from their productivity—even though workers produce more value, they aren’t paid for it. Why? Because the wages are suppressed by competition with cheap foreign labor.

Notice how the price differentials respecting America and China in 2001 and America and India today are almost identical. Why do we think the result will be different this time around?

From India With Love

In addition to obvious market asymmetries like the price of labor, the cost of doing business in India is lower because of externalities. Essentially, there are many costs of doing business in America that are baked into the final price of a product, such as the costs of environmental remediation, labor standards, and upholding higher quality control standards.

These costs are not baked into the price of Indian products. Instead, the costs of pollution or abusive labor standards are externalized to the environment or society at large.

But of course, we always pay the piper. Rather than pay 10 cents more per spatula, we live with plastic trash from India floating up on American beaches or mercury poisoning the fish we eat—we may not pay the price at the store, but we certainly pay it with our health and with our soul—all for the sake of “cheap” goods.

Often, foreign goods are not actually cheaper than American goods: they simply do not reflect the full cost of production. For this reason, America cannot produce goods as cheaply as China or India—not unless we are willing to destroy our standard of living—not unless we are willing to sacrifice our environment—not unless we are willing to outlaw morality in the name of business and sell our very soul for profit.

No. Reducing the cost of business to compete with India on price is simply not desirable. Nor is it possible.

Remember, even if America allowed manufacturers to externalize all costs, our economy is structurally distinct from India’s. In America, private corporations dominate the market. Although these corporations are large, and many are owned by the same few investment firms—like BlackRock—they remain private entities.

This is not the case in India, where the state is crafting a cohesive industrial policy designed to industrialize the country. Part of this policy appears to be to piggyback on America’s consumer market when it comes to strategic industries, like steel or pharmaceuticals—just like China.

Ultimately, the only way to protect America’s market from asymmetrical competition from countries like China or India is to price in these externalities by imposing protective tariffs. This is discussed in detail in my book Reshore: How Tariffs Will Bring Our Jobs Home & Revive the American Dream.

The Shock and Awe of Reality

Different countries have different levels of economic development, legal systems, tax structures, histories, geographies, languages, cultural and business norms, and demographics. All of these differences can create market asymmetries that are simply not relevant domestically.

At best, free traders can reduce tariffs and other visible trade barriers, like taxes, transportation costs, and legal disharmonies. However, they cannot uproot the sort of cultural norms and political corruption that make doing business in India—or China, or Mexico, or Italy—different than doing business in America.

Ultimately, America’s interests are not served by moving industry from China to India. The industry needs to come home. Let’s not make the same mistake with India that we did with China—say no to free trade and raise the tariff walls.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is calling for the fast-tracking of EU accession talks for Ukraine, though we can imagine quietly behind the scenes other European officials aren’t looking forward to the day that one of the world’s most corrupt countries joins the bloc.

Speaking at a Europe Day event on Wednesday, von der Leyen urged for the process to start this year, in 2025, in order to “help Ukraine stand strong” and “defy Putin’s intimidations” – according to a readout.

“Today, I would like to focus on how we can do so, and on three priorities for our action,” she said. “First, support Ukraine’s defense. Second, complete the phase-out of Russian fossil fuels. And third, accelerate Ukraine’s accession path to our Union.”

She then emphasized that Brussels is “working hard with Ukraine to open the first cluster of accession talks, and to open all clusters in 2025.”

The Kremlin last year said that it is open to Ukraine joining the EU, but stressed that the question of joining NATO remains an impossibility, and that Moscow will never allow it.

Still, at around same time the EU question was raised, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had asserted that the EU itself, which is supposed to be a purely economic and politically-linked bloc, is “becoming militarized at a record pace.”

Meanwhile, the European Union has of late seemed much more open about its willingness to sabotage Trump efforts toward achieving peace in Ukraine. 

The EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas last week told the Financial Times in an interview that the bloc will not recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea under any circumstances. Really, this should be the most obvious and ‘easiest’ concession to make, but alas Brussels is saying no!

The White House is seeking to pressure the Zelensky government to get to the negotiating table fast, and the quickest and easiest concession would be expected to center on letting go of Crimea, which Moscow declared part of the Russian Federation after a 2014 popular referendum.

“I can’t see that we are accepting these kind of things. But we can’t speak for America, of course, and what they will do,” Kallas had said. “On the European side, we have said this over and over again… Crimea is Ukraine.”

“There are tools in the Americans’ hands that they can use to put the pressure on Russia to really stop this war,” Kallas continued. “President Trump has said that he wants the killing to stop. He should put the pressure on the one who is doing the killing.”

This has basically been the Ukrainian government’s position all along as well. For this reason, she said Brussels and other European capitals are still focused on “working with the Americans and trying to convince them why the outcome of this war is also in their interest, that Russia doesn’t really get everything that it wants.” But again, Crimea should be the easiest issue.

Via Remix News,

After the Trump administration condemned Germany’s slide into tyranny and anti-democratic actions against the Alternative for Germany (AfD), the new German government under Friedrich Merz is now openly criticizing the U.S. for pointing out these tyrannical methods. 

Realizing that there is serious potential for conflict between Washington and Berlin, Merz says he will speak to the U.S. government.

Merz criticized the voices from parts of the U.S. government that supported the AfD during the federal election campaign and recently criticized the party’s classification as right-wing extremist by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

The current main point of contention is the powerful domestic spy agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) and its decision to classify the Alternative for Germany (AfD) as a “confirmed right-wing extremist” party. Merz said the U.S.’s comments were “absurd observations of the Federal Republic of Germany,” and that “I’ve actually always had the feeling that America is able to distinguish very clearly between extremist parties and parties of the political center.”

The BfV operates with modern Stasi-like powers but wields a far greater technological arsenal. Under the new designation, the BfV can now legally surveil all AfD members without a warrant, including reading their emails and chats. It can also flood the AfD party with informants and take action against civil servants who are members of the party.

The fact that the AfD is the largest opposition party in the country and that there are now efforts underway to ban the party is causing serious alarm in the United States, which is calling the German government’s path forward authoritarian and undemocratic. Most notably, Secretary of State Marco Rubio called it “tyranny in disguise.”

Germany just gave its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition. That’s not democracy—it’s tyranny in disguise.

What is truly extremist is not the popular AfD—which took second in the recent election—but rather the establishment’s deadly open border immigration policies…

— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) May 2, 2025

Perhaps the best analogy would be if the U.S. government suddenly declared the Democratic Party a “confirmed extremist” party because it promotes open borders, and under Biden, effectively brought millions of more illegal migrants into the country. Then, a Republican-appointed spy chief surveilled all members of the Democratic Party without a warrant, was able to send informants into the party, and could fire teachers, judges, and police officers who were members of the party.

If such a scenario occurred, the liberal EU and mainstream press would be the first ones to scream about “tyranny” and a new “authoritarian” reality in the United States, with Germany at the top of the list.

Merz, on the other hand, seems dismissive of the U.S. critiques. He said he will speak with Donald Trump and establish contacts with the White House, but Merz may be in store for a chilly reception.

In regard to Trump, Merz said: “We don’t know each other personally yet.”

However, he said at the end of June, he will meet with Trump at the NATO summit in The Hague and “perhaps even sooner.” He said they “talk openly with each other.”

“As Europeans, we have something to offer; together we are even bigger than the United States of America,” said Merz.

“We can do something, we are united, largely anyway. That will be my message to the American government.”

“I did not interfere in the American election campaign and did not take sides unilaterally for one party or the other,” said Merz.

However, democratic backsliding in Germany is a grave concern for the entire world, and there are fears that a ban of the AfD could come sooner than later. In such a scenario, millions of voters would be denied their democratic rights.

Not everyone in the CDU, or its sister party, the Christian Socialist (CSU), is on the same page though.

CSU leader Markus Söder is warning against an AfD ban, saying it should only serve as a “wake-up call” to change government policies. He said he is not sure the BfV report is sufficient for a ban.

Read more here…

Authored by James Durso via OilPrice.com,

• A war between India and Pakistan would significantly destabilize Central Asia, disrupting trade routes, delaying infrastructure projects, and increasing regional militancy.

• China, Russia, and the U.S. may intensify involvement in Central Asia, leveraging the conflict to protect or expand their influence.

• Potential nuclear fallout, refugee flows, and the breakdown of regional cooperation could severely impact Central Asia’s economic development, security, and food systems.

If India and Pakistan spiral into war, there will be consequences for Central Asia.

A war between Pakistan and India would likely have significant ripple effects on Central Asia, given the region’s proximity to Afghanistan and flourishing economic ties across the region. The conflict could disrupt trade and energy routes, increase militancy, and draw in major powers like China, Russia, and the U.S., potentially straining Central Asian stability.

Intervention by external powers: The Central Asian republics (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, the Kyrgyz Republic, and Tajikistan) are already arenas for competition among outside powers. A Pakistan-India conflict could draw these powers into the region more aggressively to secure their interests, though Russia is busy in Ukraine, Turkey is busy in Syria, and U.S. forces are fighting in the Middle East, and Washington is ready to confront China.

China is an ally of Pakistan and sponsor of the $65 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). China might deepen its presence in Central Asia to secure trade routes and counterbalance India’s regional influence. This could accelerate Chinese investments in infrastructure and energy projects that will increase trade with the region that totaled $89 billion in 2023, up 27% from 2022, $60 billion of which was Chinese exports.

And China may make further inroads into the Central Asia arms market given Moscow’s need to dedicate all its resources to the Russia-NATO war in Ukraine. This will allow China to broaden its engagement beyond infrastructure projects into the security realm that, up to now, has been limited to anti-terrorism training and intelligence sharing in Tajikistan.

Russia is an ally of India, a buyer of Russian arms, having purchased $60 billion of Russian arms, 65 percent of its total weapons imports, over the past twenty years With its historical ties to Central Asia and shared membership in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Russia might leverage a conflict to reinforce the region’s border security, and increase intelligence sharing and security forces training.

And just in time, Russia has declared it will help the Taliban government fight the Afghan branch of the Islamic State, the Islamic State – Khorasan Province (IS-K).

The United States could focus on Central Asia to counter China and Russia, potentially increasing military or economic aid to Uzbekistan or Kazakhstan, the major economies in the region. Unlike the leaders of Russia or China, no American president has ever visited Central Asia but President Donald Trump could signal increased U.S. attention by visiting the region.  

Afghanistan as a flashpoint. Afghanistan, bordering both Pakistan and Central Asia, would likely become a hotspot. The Afghan Taliban’s support for the Pakistani Taliban, the Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan (TTP) could further destabilize Pakistan, presenting Islamabad with the prospect of a two-front war, though recent visits by Pakistan’s diplomats, and military and security officials seeking a “diplomat reboot” may be just in time to stanch action by the TTP.

Instability would come to Central Asia via Afghanistan in the form of refugees and energized militants, and economic stagnation in the delay of development projects like the Trans-Afghan railway, the Turkmenistan–Afghanistan–Pakistan–India (TAPI) natural gas pipeline, and the CASA-1000 renewable energy infrastructure construction project.

General disorder may spill insecurity into Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, where cross-border militancy (e.g., the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), which has pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda, and IS-K could surge.

And the instability will cause a slowdown in foreign direct investment that has steadily climbed as has foreign trade in goods and accession to bilateral investment treaties. The region’s economy suffered “lost decades” between the start of the Afghan civil war in 1992 and the end of the NATO occupation of Afghanistan in 2021 and has been making steady progress in connecting to the wider world economy; Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are completing the World Trade Organization (WTO) accession process, and Kazakhstan and Tajikistan are WTO members.

And just in time for a war, the World Bank is predicting economic slowdown for Central Asia:   Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan will suffer pronounced declines, Kazakhstan’s decline will be less pronounced, and Uzbekistan’s growth rate will remain steady at 5.9%.

The U.S. may try to leverage disorder on Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan to pressure the Kabul government, but that risks empowering Al-Qaeda, IS-K, the hardline Taliban faction in Kandahar, or some combination of the three. Disorder in Pakistan’s Balochistan province, the poorest place in Pakistan, may energize the local separatists and draw in bordering Iran which faces a Baloch insurgence on its side of the border.

India’s Central Asian Ambitions. India’s efforts to access Central Asian and Afghan resources, via Iran’s Chabahar port, could be disrupted, forcing India to seek alternative routes or deepen ties with Russia and Iran, affecting regional alignments, and angering the U.S. which is trying to isolate Moscow and Tehran.

India imports uranium for its nuclear power program from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and an uninterrupted supply by the republics will be a sign to India they value their relationship with Delhi.  

Trade Route Disruptions: Central Asia relies on connectivity projects like CPEC and the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC). A war could disrupt CPEC which links China’s Xinjiang province to Pakistan’s Gwadar port and passes through contested areas like Kashmir. India’s trade routes to Central Asia via Iran and Afghanistan could be jeopardized if conflict escalates or Afghanistan becomes unstable, though if Indian merchantmen are unmolested by Pakistan the impact may be minimized and they will be able to safely dock at Iranian ports.

Tightened border controls will hurt regional trade that was boosted by eased border controls that teased the possibility of a unified regional market, following the resolution of many territorial disputes, a process that began in earnest after the 2016 election of Uzbekistan’s president, Shavkat Mirziyoyev.

The Central Asia republics trade with India and Pakistan and will be reluctant to be drawn into one side’s economic warfare on the other. Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, the three largest economies in the region, all import packaged medicaments and vaccines from India and mostly food products from Pakistan, and may find it easier to replace the lower-valued agriculture products than disrupting their medical supply chain.

Pakistan and Kazakhstan recently inked a transit trade agreement that would see goods shipped from Central Asia through the Pakistani ports of Karachi, Bin Qasim, and Gwadar, and the start of direct flights between the countries. An India-Pakistan war will bring in the insurance companies who may cancel coverage to aircraft, trucks, and their cargoes, delaying the benefits of the deal.

Spillover of Militancy: A Pakistan-India war, especially if centered on Kashmir, could embolden extremist groups like Jaish-e-Mohammed or Lashkar-e-Taiba, which have historical ties to Afghan and Pakistani militants. 

This could inspire increased terrorist activity in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, where groups like the IMU and IS-K could exploit regional conflict for recruitment and radicalization.

Nuclear Risks: Both nations possess nuclear arsenals, less than 200 weapons each. Even a limited nuclear exchange could cause dire environmental and climatic effects, disrupting Central Asian agriculture and food security, and pretty much eliminating agriculture exports as customers fret about “contamination,” despite the prevailing westerly winds. In Uzbekistan, agriculture contributes about 25% to the Gross Domestic Product and employs about a quarter of the workforce, so the economic (and political) impact would be profound.

Conflict in Pakistan or Afghanistan could drive refugees into Central Asia, particularly Tajikistan, straining resources and sparking ethnic tensions, and destabilizing resource-strapped governments.

India and Pakistan are members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), as are several Central Asian states, and China and Russia. A war could paralyze SCO initiatives, hindering regional security and economic cooperation. Tensions might also exacerbate India-China rivalries within the SCO, affecting Central Asia’s balancing act.

Specific Impacts on Central Asian States

Tajikistan shares a porous border with Afghanistan, making it vulnerable to militancy and refugee inflows. India’s military training programs with Tajikistan could be disrupted, and its newly-refurbished (by India) Ayni Airbase base may worry Pakistan.) As a regional leader, Uzbekistan might seek to strengthen ties with Russia and China to counter instability, however, its trade with South Asia could suffer. Neutral but energy-dependent, Turkmenistan could benefit from Chinese energy demand. As the major Central Asia economy, Kazakhstan might leverage its SCO and Eurasian Economic Union ties to mitigate disruptions but could face energy market volatility. Kyrgyzstan is economically fragile and be hit hard by trade disruptions increasing reliance on China or Russia.

Long-Term Implications

Regional Polarization: Central Asia could become more divided, with some states aligning with China (e.g., Turkmenistan) and others with Russia or the West (e.g., Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan), hindering regional unity, which may be in the interests of Washington, Beijing, Brussels, or Moscow.

Securitization: Fear of spillover could lead Central Asian states to increase security spending, diverting resources from economic development. More than half of Central Asia’s population is under 30 years of age and they have high expectations that governments are trying to satisfy by increasing educational and economic opportunity, and diversifying the economies away from agriculture and natural resource extraction, and towards technology, services, and tourism. And more security may come at the expense of civil rights.

Environmental Fallout: A nuclear conflict, even limited, could cause global climate disruptions, devastating Central Asia’s agriculture-dependent economies.

Conclusion

India has been active in Central Asia with its Connect Central Asia Policy, which aims to enhance trade, connectivity, and diplomatic engagement, and hinges on India’s development of Chabahar port in Iran, though the Trump administration rescinded the sanctions waiver on Chabahar. Washington’s fixation on Iran, specifically ruining its economy to press it for a favorable nuclear deal, may see India and Central Asia as collateral damage.

The republics import higher value goods from India (Packaged Medicaments) than they do from Pakistan (food products), and sell uranium – a strategic good – to India. India has a larger market than Pakistan and is a provider of technology products that Pakistan cannot match, and the republics’ future is with India, though they have no reason to antagonize Islamabad.

A Pakistan-India war would destabilize Central Asia by disrupting trade, fueling militancy, and intensifying great power rivalries. The region’s proximity to Afghanistan and reliance on connectivity projects make it particularly vulnerable. Central Asian states would face economic strain, security threats, and pressure to align with external powers, potentially fracturing regional cooperation. The nuclear risk underscores the catastrophic potential, with global climatic effects threatening Central Asia’s food security and economic stability. To mitigate these risks, Central Asian states might pursue neutrality, strengthen SCO ties, or seek mediation roles, but their limited clout may constrain effective responses.

Pandora Jewelry CEO Alexander Lacik spoke with Bloomberg TV’s Anna Edwards on Wednesday about the potential for re-shoring production from Asia to the U.S. in response to President Trump’s trade war. But the head of the world’s largest jewelry company offered a blunt assessment: Pandora has no plans to overhaul its supply chain. 

Edwards asked Lacik: “So, a third of Pandora’s business comes from the U.S., which means you’re quite exposed to tariffs since you produce 95% of your jewelry in Thailand. You have plans to open a site in Vietnam, but there’s a 46% tariff on products coming from Vietnam into the U.S. So, Alexander, does this have you looking at other production locations?”

Lacik responded, “If I wanted to build another plant somewhere, it would take roughly three years to get something up and running. You would actually need to go to places where there is a tradition of crafting. I have almost 15,000 craftspeople working for Pandora in Thailand at the moment. Those craftspeople have many years of tradition in doing crafted jewelry.”

Here’s one of Pandora’s Thailand factories…

“So it’s not so easy, just – it’s not like moving a machine from one place to another. So, first of all, finding the skilled people who can do the jewelry for us would be the first protocol,” Lacik said, 

He was very blunt: “So if you look at labor costs, if I were to consider going to the US, in terms of economics, that equation wouldn’t work for us.” 

The takeaway from the world’s largest jewelry company—which designs, manufactures, and markets hand-finished pieces from Southeast Asia—is that it has no plans to abandon its ultra-low-cost manufacturing hubs. That means Pandora will either absorb the tariffs or pass the added costs on to consumers.

“It’s not like moving a machine from one place to another”

Pandora CEO Alexander Lacik tells @annaedwardsnews the jewelry company is not looking to build production facilities in the US to mitigate its exposure to Trump’s tariffs https://t.co/avWsTlJs4V pic.twitter.com/K1PtRDqsdA

— Bloomberg (@business) May 7, 2025

For what it’s worth, one could argue that Americans can live without Pandora jewelry. Instead, consider buying gold and silver coins or bars—real stores of value.

Authored by Jackson Richman via The Epoch Times,

A House Intelligence Committee report released on May 6 says that the FBI mishandled its investigation of the 2017 shooting at a GOP practice one day before the annual Congressional Baseball Game—including not calling the incident domestic terrorism and not interviewing key figures.

The committee’s chairman, Rick Crawford (R-Ark.), accused the FBI of holding up the report.

“There’s no reasonable or acceptable explanation for why the FBI stonewalled the committee for so long,” he said during a press conference.

“In fact, it’s taken so long to get this case file, many of those members at the field on that fateful day are no longer in Congress.”

The report found that the FBI did not thoroughly interview victims and eyewitnesses to the shooting, where House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) and four others were shot.

Scalise was shot in the hip and seriously wounded, requiring several surgeries and a lengthy recovery.

Former Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) was not interviewed despite being at the scene during the shooting.

The shooter, James Hodgkinson, was shot and killed by Capitol Police, who were already on the scene due to Scalise’s presence as he was a member of House GOP leadership and therefore afforded a security detail.

The report also found that the bureau did not come up with a timeline of events surrounding the shooting.

The report attempted to dispute the FBI’s claim that the shooting was not connected to domestic terrorism.

In a press release following the shooting, the FBI said it “does not believe there is a nexus to terrorism.”

The Intelligence Committee report criticized the press release, saying it failed to include information that would have contradicted what the report called the FBI’s “suicide by cop” narrative.

“To commit suicide by cop, the perpetrator needs to demonstrate hostile intent in the presence of police. In this case, there were no observable police officers present,” the report said, noting that the officers were dressed in plain clothes.

The report said that the FBI’s “conclusions failed to follow the facts, as it reached an unsupported conclusion without completing even the most basic of investigative activities.”

The report said that while the FBI cited that Hodgkinson’s brother believed that the aim of the shooting was for Hodgkinson to die by suicide by cop, this was merely the brother’s opinion and not based on any communications.

Scalise was made aware of the report by the committee, according to Crawford, who declined to elaborate as he did not want to speak on Scalise’s behalf.

In a statement to The Epoch Times, the FBI said it “is committed to working quickly and transparently with Capitol Hill to ensure the American people receive the full truth they deserve.”

“We have diligently delivered all requested documents and will continue to cooperate fully with Congress to uphold transparency and accountability,” the bureau said.