Insights & Editorials

In July 2026 Washington moved the UAE into Country Group A:5, letting UAE government agencies, G42 and Core42 receive advanced AI chips licence-free, though the two companies’ approval expires in April 2027 unless they become US companies; Saudi Arabia’s Humain still needs licences. Chips buy a Gulf state’s position between the US and China, but power and security decide whether the compute gets built: run flat out, the UAE’s 5 GW campus would use about a quarter of national electricity, and since the Iran war it is reportedly being redesigned.

Since 2026, EU importers have owed CBAM certificates for the emissions embedded in steel, aluminium and other covered goods, with the first bill due by 30 September 2027. With proposals to extend it to about 180 downstream products and to use part of the revenue to support EU exporters, CBAM is turning from a climate tool into industrial policy. The EU imported about €3.4 billion of CBAM goods from Taiwan in 2025, over a third of them fasteners; on default values a tonne of Taiwanese bolts needs about 1.65 certificates against 5.68 for Chinese ones, and how much Taiwan's carbon fee can offset is still undecided.

In 2026 Tether froze more than $470 million of USDT at wallets tied to Iran's central bank. Washington's power to freeze comes from dollar clearing, and stablecoins extend it on-chain: the GENIUS Act requires issuers to be able to freeze, burn or block transfers on the order of a court or federal agency, and foreign issuers that cannot comply lose the American market. Immutable code and an adversary's own token lie beyond its reach, but CIPS, mBridge, the digital yuan and the digital euro reach nowhere near as far as the dollar. Taiwan's banks, exporters and life insurers sit inside the system.

On 25 October 2026 Serbia's Student List won a snap election and ended 14 years of Progressive Party rule. The movement grew out of protests over a station canopy, renovated by Chinese contractors, that collapsed and killed 16 people. The new majority promises to publish contracts, but it keeps the partnership with China, opposes sanctions on Russia and takes a harder line on Kosovo, an obstacle on the road to the EU.

In September 2026 a North Korean mine maimed a South Korean battalion commander inside the DMZ, and the UN Command ruled it a breach of the Armistice, though more cautiously than in 2015. That year a similar crisis climbed to an exchange of fire before loudspeakers were traded for a statement of regret. This time Seoul has dismantled its speakers, Pyongyang refuses to negotiate the border, and how far the crisis climbs depends on the means each side chooses.

Two Baltic cables damaged in 2024 were routed around and repaired within two weeks; when both Matsu cables failed in 2023, even emergency-expanded microwave links could back up only about 40% of traffic. Identifying the ship, proving intent and proving state involvement are separate bars, and recent cases stop at the first two. Repair and redundancy are among the few responses that need no culprit — yet repairs worldwide are slowing, mostly because of permits.

Washington tied tariffs on Chinese goods to its assessment of Beijing's counternarcotics cooperation, until the Supreme Court ruled in 2026 that the law they rested on did not authorise tariffs — yet Beijing's precursor export controls kept widening. Afghanistan's ban cut poppy cultivation by about 95% and farmers' income with it; methamphetamine seizures in East and Southeast Asia rose 48%. Each number captures one link in the chain, and none of them alone shows whether drug control works.

In September the Houthis took Mocha and reached Perim, the island in the middle of the Bab el-Mandeb. The strait is not closed, but with Hormuz traffic down to a handful of ships a day, the Red Sea was the outlet Saudi Arabia was counting on — and its pipeline to Yanbu has just been hit too. Iran has now tied reopening Hormuz to ending the fighting by all its allies, pulling both straits into a single negotiation.