Flagship

France, Vietnam sign $10 billion in deals

French President Emmanuel Macron signed $10 billion-worth of deals with Vietnam on Monday, amid growing concern in the European Union that Hanoi could strike a trade deal with the US at the bloc’s expense. Macron’s visit to France’s former colony — the first by a French president in almost a decade — comes as Hanoi and Paris rush to avert cripplingly high US tariffs set to take effect in July. As Vietnam signals willingness to reduce its trade surplus with Washington, Macron is positioning France as a reliable trade partner for Southeast Asian countries. His pitch was momentarily overshadowed, however, by a viral video showing his wife pushing him in the face; Paris downplayed the incident as “a moment of closeness.”

Euro primed for ‘global moment’

US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable policies offer an opportunity for the euro to challenge the dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency, the head of the European Central Bank said. The euro hit a one-month high against the dollar Monday, after Trump delayed tariffs on the European Union and pushed for lawmakers to pass his sweeping budget bill that would raise the country’s debt. “The ‘Sell America’ theme … is back on show,” an analyst told Reuters. The turmoil creates “the opening for a ‘global euro moment,’” ECB chief Christine Lagarde said Monday, urging EU states to cooperate in strengthening the currency’s resilience: “This is a prime opportunity for Europe to take greater control of its own destiny.”

Beijing mulls new ‘Made in China’ plan

Beijing is weighing a new version of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s “Made in China 2025” campaign, a decade-long push for technological self-sufficiency, Bloomberg reported. It comes as US President Donald Trump pushes businesses to shift production away from China in a “strategic decoupling” aimed at encouraging US manufacturing and supply chain resilience. The new plan would likely focus on boosting chip-making equipment and other technologies amid Beijing’s escalating war with Washington over access to semiconductors capable of powering advanced artificial intelligence. China believes it can undercut America’s monopoly over advanced AI by practically applying it to solve problems of economic growth, The Economist wrote.

Analysts see ‘imperfect’ Ukraine deal

Moscow on Monday called US President Donald Trump “emotional,” after Trump branded Vladimir Putin “crazy” following Russia’s massive aerial assault on Ukraine. Even as Washington’s efforts to broker a ceasefire falter, Russia and Ukraine could reach an “imperfect deal” this year that will halt the fighting, but stop short of a lasting peace, JP Morgan’s Center for Geopolitics predicted in a report. The bank’s newly formed unit reflects how the “niche and secretive business” of geopolitical advice has become mainstream, The Economist reported, driven by the Ukraine war, US tariffs, and China’s military assertiveness: Citigroup hired Trump’s former trade czar, while demand for Lazard’s geopolitical advisory team is “off the charts,” its CEO told The Ezra Klein Show.

Syria to help find missing Americans

Damascus said it would help the US locate and return Americans who went missing during Syria’s 13-year civil war, the latest sign of warming relations between the two countries. The announcement came after Washington lifted major sanctions on Damascus Friday, fulfilling a pledge US President Donald Trump made after meeting Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa earlier this month. Trump’s embrace of al-Sharaa — once considered a terrorist by the US — is complicating Israel’s military efforts in Syria, The New York Times wrote. Israel ceased airstrikes on Syria after Trump and al-Sharaa’s meeting, but Israeli officials remain skeptical of the Syrian leader’s “true intention,” a researcher said, as they seek to prevent the rise of what they perceive as an anti-Israel government.

SpaceX preps ninth Starship test

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is preparing for a ninth launch attempt of its Starship megarocket Tuesday, as the company sets its sights on missions to Mars. Musk, who recently announced he is stepping back from his White House role to devote more time to his companies, is rushing to ready Starship for an uncrewed mission to Mars next year. Still major obstacles remain: The last two test launches ended in explosions, with debris raining down over the Caribbean, and the spacecraft is currently behind schedule for its planned use in a 2027 NASA Moon mission. SpaceX aims to conduct three in-space refuels of Starship on its journey to Mars, The Wall Street Journal reported, a feat that has never been attempted before.

Japan doubles bomb shelter capacity

Japan will double the capacity of its bomb shelters, in a bid to better protect 10 million people from possible missile strikes. There are 58,000 shelters in Japan, above and below ground, capable of holding the entire population for up to two hours. But only 3,900 of them — enough to hold one in every 20 citizens — are underground, which offer stronger protection. The government views bunkers as a form of deterrence by denial against hostile states, Nikkei reported. Japan is also building larger, two-week shelters stocked with food on the Sakishima islands near Taiwan, anticipating a possible crisis involving China in that area.

HK unis woo Harvard students

Three universities in Hong Kong have invited Harvard’s international students to join them instead, as the Ivy League school comes under escalating attacks from US President Donald Trump. A US judge last week blocked the administration’s shock move to bar foreign students from enrolling at the university, but Trump issued a fresh threat Monday, saying he would redirect $3 billion in Harvard grants to trade schools. The University of Hong Kong said it would welcome “affected” Harvard students, offering them scholarships and accommodation. The invites come as several countries, including China, are rushing to woo students and researchers amid Trump’s crackdown on US academia: “This is a once-in-a-century brain gain opportunity,” an Australian think tank said.

UK should envy free speech in US

The UK can learn from the US on free speech, a British peer argued. As hate speech becomes an “increasingly amorphous and muddled concept,” cases and arrests are rising, Baroness Camilla Cavendish wrote in the Financial Times: More “Orwellian” are investigations into “non-crime hate incidents,” including a 9-year-old calling a classmate a pejorative term for stupid. Police may be spending as many as 60,000 hours annually on such incidents, “yet the very concept of a ‘non-crime’ is doublethink,” Cavendish said. Social media is also carefully policed: One woman was jailed for 31 months for a “vile,” but deleted, post. “Irrespective of everything else going on in America,” Cavendish wrote, “we should look with envy at their First Amendment.”

Pioneering Indian scientist dies

A pioneering Indian astrophysicist who famously challenged the Big Bang Theory of how the universe began has died at 86. Working alongside British physicist Sir Fred Hoyle in the 1960s, Jayant Narlikar proposed that the universe had always existed, and was forever expanding into infinity. He once explained the theory as being similar to capital invested in a bank with a fixed rate of compound interest, where both the capital and the compound interest grow together. The hypothesis draws on the “steady state” model, which contends that the universe always looks the same to an observer. The theory didn’t quite catch on, but Narlikar remained committed to it, the BBC wrote: A sign outside his office read “the Big Bang is an exploding myth.”

May 27:

• King Charles III addresses the state opening of parliament in Ottawa, the first UK monarch to do so in 50 years.
• The third China-Pacific Island Countries Foreign Ministers’ Meeting begins in Xiamen.
• New York City’s Chrysler Building marks its 95th anniversary.

A new exhibition at Paris’ Musée de l’Orangerie explores the use of blurriness as an artistic technique from the 19th century to the present. Featuring 83 works by 61 artists, Out of Focus demonstrates how blurring, intentional or not, can both conceal a subject or draw the viewer’s attention: The smeared palette of Hans Hartung’s T1982-H31, for example, so “dominates the space” it occupies that, “for a moment, it is all one sees.” Some artists blur their subjects because they are never to be seen clearly, as in the case of “nightly dreams and visions, both mystical and those aided by psychotropics.” The result is a profound “disruption,” Le Monde wrote, compared with the “ideal of complete visibility.”

An identity crisis is tearing through the “anti-woke” media, Semafor’s Ben Smith and Max Tani reported.

The Free Press, in many ways the movement’s flagship publication, is emblematic of the schism, as it attempts to walk the thin line between criticizing US President Donald Trump’s excesses and doubling down on its trademark anti-wokism. “It’s perfectly possible to be very anti-woke and very anti-Trump. In fact it’s the only coherent liberal and old-school conservative position,” veteran online journalist Andrew Sullivan told Semafor. “But it’s hard in our tribal age to find an audience that wants to read — let alone support — both.”