While Trump threatened thousands of people across Africa, Haiti, Brazil, and India with a death sentence by ordering the temporary halt of the President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief, and his pick for the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., sat through more than three hours of questions that highlighted his lack of fitness for the role during his confirmation hearings, China was announcing the arrival of its breakthrough technology DeepSeek. Corbin Trent observes that every time China laps us as an economic and technological power, “America’s leaders—both in government and industry—react with the same bewildered surprise, as if China’s achievements were some cosmic accident.” We can almost guarantee that Trump will proffer an ill-fated solution for the US to remain the world’s dominant power, Trent writes: “Double down on the same free-market ideology that got us here.” Here’s to hoping that those in charge start doing what they were hired to do.

-Alana Pockros

Engagement Editor, The Nation

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