◼ Given the unusually fluid decision-making in this White House, President Donald Trump’s new National Security Strategy (NSS) should be seen as a snapshot of current thinking rather than holy writ. Nevertheless, its contents merit serious consideration for their strengths, weaknesses, and consequences. (The NSS is read abroad.) The emphasis on the continued value of deterrence is welcome, as is the greater focus on the Western Hemisphere. No harm can come from the recognition that success internationally is ultimately conditional on success at home. When it comes to the economy, however, this should not be used as an excuse for industrial policy that extends beyond defense or defense-related sectors. The document’s principal flaws are a lack of precision on the nature of the U.S. support for its allies and partners, a (perhaps feigned) naïveté about our ability to work productively with Russia and China, and the invective directed at Europe that may often be deserved but—at a delicate time—is unhelpful. There is also no recognition of the geopolitical damage inflicted by our trade wars. America First should not become America Alone.

◼ Trump announced a deal with chipmaker Nvidia to allow the company to sell advanced AI semiconductors to Chinese firms, bypassing U.S. export controls on sensitive technologies. In exchange, the federal government will receive 25 percent of the revenue from the sales. This agreement builds upon an earlier deal, inked over the summer, that permitted the export of less-powerful chips to China on the condition that the government receive a 15 percent cut. But Nvidia wasn’t satisfied. It lobbied the Trump administration to approve exports of its second-most-advanced model, the H200, built to enable frontier-scale AI such as large language models. Keen to extract wealth from a private company in search of a favor, the president acquiesced once he secured a piece of the action. The U.S. government will now profit from supporting a Chinese AI industry that is racing to defeat our own. There are only two possible explanations for what happened here: If the export of advanced chips to China never actually threatened the United States, Trump has extorted Nvidia, using the power of the state to constrain the company’s business until it handed over a few billion dollars. If the export controls did serve vital U.S. interests, however, the president has sold out national security for a quick payoff.

◼ Trump announced a $12 billion aid package for farmers injured by his global trade war. Farmers have indeed had a terrible year. But Trump’s tariffs have made their plight much worse by simultaneously driving crop prices down and input prices up. Before this year, approximately one-quarter of U.S. soybean production went to China. That number went to zero as China retaliated against Trump’s tariffs. In the fall, Trump claimed to have struck a trade deal with China. Just as in Trump’s first term, however, China has utterly failed to uphold its side of the bargain, and so soybean prices have fallen again since the deal was announced. As crimped export markets have caused a glut of corn and soybeans, tariffs have also raised the prices of fertilizer and machinery. The average tariff rate on such agricultural inputs has risen from less than 1 percent at the beginning of the year to 9.4 percent. The proper solution to farmers’ financial woes in 2025 is the same as it was in 2018: ending the tariffs, not bailing out some of their victims.

◼ There is nothing in principle wrong with electric vehicles (EVs). There is, however, everything wrong with forcing manufacturers to make, and consumers to buy, such cars. Yet the Biden administration was moving in this direction. That EVs and the infrastructure to support them were and are not yet ready for mass adoption added insult to injury. The Trump administration has rightly reversed its predecessor’s abuse of fuel economy standards to impose EVs on America. The ending of tax credits to buy EVs is also welcome. If EVs can succeed in the free market, whether as a niche or mass-market product, that is fine. If not, that is fine too. It is also encouraging that the EU, alarmed at the economic impact of its plan to ban the sale of conventional cars (and, insanely, of hybrids) by 2035, is now mulling a grudging and possibly limited reprieve—until 2040. If Brussels still insists on a ban, how about 3040 as a compromise?

◼ In the months since the assassination of Charlie Kirk, Candace Owens has dedicated her podcast to promoting conspiracy theories about his murder on almost a daily basis without offering any credible evidence to back up her wild claims. It’s hard to think of a more straightforward murder case than the one against accused assassin Tyler Robinson, which is supported by forensic evidence, text messages, and video surveillance. But no amount of evidence has stopped Owens from “just asking questions” about the shooting and making a bizarre set of claims implicating Israel, Jewish donors, and the staff of the Turning Point USA organization that Kirk founded. Erika Kirk and the organization (which she now leads) tried ignoring it, but because Owens is one of the leading podcasters in America, her claims were gaining constant attention. So this week, Erika Kirk broke her silence with an emotional plea to Owens to stop smearing the staff. Her anger is justified. But even though Owens had said on multiple occasions that she would stop talking about the assassination if Mrs. Kirk asked her to, she shows no signs of letting up. That said, the recent statements from TPUSA and Mrs. Kirk have emboldened many right-wing influencers and podcasters to speak out against Owens and the damaging consequences of conspiratorial thinking taking over the conservative movement. It’s never too late to stand up for rationality and truth.

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◼ Democrats groaned with despair and Republicans breathed a sigh of relief at the news that Texas Representative Jasmine Crockett (D.) would be making a bid for the Senate seat currently held by GOP stalwart John Cornyn. Republicans have long had their reasons to worry about retaining this seat: Cornyn is trailing MAGA-branded (and spectacularly scandal-ridden) state Attorney General Ken Paxton in the primary race, and Paxton is exactly the sort of controversial candidate who could jeopardize an open seat in the otherwise red state during a backlash midterm election. The Democrats simply needed to nominate a reasonable-seeming cipher to turn the general election into a titanic rumble, but now they almost certainly will not. Crockett has already chased Colin Allred, Texas Democrats’ most credible candidate, away from the race. Since entering Congress, she has cultivated the persona of a headline-grabbing, trash-talking, slur-hurling, gutter queen. She once labeled paraplegic Greg Abbott “Governor Hot Wheels.” Last fall, she claimed that Texas Latinos who supported Trump had a “slave mentality.” By next fall, she might be singing a very different tune.

◼ When Democrat Eileen Higgins defeated Trump-endorsed Republican candidate Emilio González in Miami’s mayoral election this week, her victory was met with triumphalist talk about how Democrats had finally retaken an office that had eluded them for nearly 30 years. That’s not quite right. While Higgins ran openly as a Democrat for Miami’s nominally nonpartisan mayoralty, previous “independent” occupants of that office in this century could hardly be considered Republicans. Still, the results are in keeping with Democratic overperformance throughout 2025, and González’s poor showing in the city’s most Hispanic neighborhoods should send shivers down GOP spines. Higgins’s nearly 20-point victory represents a dramatic shift from the 2024 presidential election, when Kamala Harris defeated Trump within city limits by just one percentage point. The results in Miami, as well as the defeat of another Republican candidate in a simultaneous special election in Georgia—for a state house seat in a district that Trump had won in 2024—are indicative of a political landscape that Republicans will struggle to navigate next year. To paraphrase Yogi Berra, it gets late early in politics.

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◼ The bedrock of the Constitution’s remarkable longevity is the separation of powers. Recently, the Supreme Court has struck major blows for the Constitution’s original design. Next on the chopping block is the concept of “independent” agencies that exercise executive power outside of executive control and accountability. How can the president exercise “the executive power of the United States,” vested in him by Article II, if he cannot fire people who exercise executive power in ways opposed to his policies? How can he carry out his duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” if others are free to disregard those laws he aims to enforce? To whom can the people complain if the executive job is not done, or done badly, if not the executive? These were the questions before the Court as it heard arguments in Trump v. Slaughter. The case comes to the Court from Trump’s effort to fire a member of the Federal Trade Commission. The removal protections were upheld by the Court in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States (1935), which has been under fire for decades. Now, Trump is rightly asking the Court to overrule Humphrey’s Executor outright. The justices appear ready to do so. Overruling Humphrey’s Executor would strike an important blow for having one president at a time, while encouraging Congress and the courts not to let their own powers fall into his hands. To borrow Harry Truman’s phrase, as Chief Justice John Roberts has been fond of doing in prior cases, the buck has to stop somewhere—and the people should know where.

◼ The EU Commission has imposed a fine of $140 million on X for breaches of its Digital Services Act. Though X can appeal the decision, the fine is wildly disproportionate and represents the next stage in an EU campaign to bully X into more strictly censoring content. If X does not apply Brussels rules to intra-American online chat, it will probably have to offer a more heavily censored version of the site in the EU. That would be sad, but it would at least serve as another reminder that free speech is not a “European value.”

◼ Frank Gehry possessed one of the most ruthlessly independent minds in American architecture. Born in Canada in 1929, he acquired a passion for design from his family. His parents encouraged him to take an interest in art, while visiting his grandfather’s hardware store helped him realize that basic materials could form incredible structures. After graduating from the University of Southern California’s School of Architecture in 1954, he worked in America and Paris before establishing his own firm in the 1960s. In the years and decades that followed, the true scope of his creativity revealed itself in the buildings he designed across the world. The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, perhaps his most recognizable work, opened in Spain in 1997. A towering, angular creature of titanium, it helped transform the struggling industrial city into one of Spain’s most lucrative tourist destinations. Other acclaimed works followed, including the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, a similarly gleaming structure defined by its playful steel curves. In 2017, he commenced work on renovating a vacant art museum in Paris for Bernard Arnault. His Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, meanwhile, is expected to open next year. Times may change, but Gehry’s buildings will remain monuments to the power of imagination. Dead at 96. R.I.P.

◼ In the landscape of American popular music, there was no band quite like the Mavericks, and no front man quite like Raul Malo. Born to Cuban immigrant parents in Miami, Malo might have seemed an unlikely country music star. But from their 1989 founding to their mid-1990s peak to their final shows in 2025, the Mavericks crisscrossed musical genres, blending country, rock, Tejano music, Cuban music, swing, and a potpourri of other sounds. Malo’s golden voice and crowd-pleasing showmanship, which earned him the sobriquet “El Maestro,” was always the centerpiece. The Mavericks’ sound was eclectic. They paid tribute to Roy Orbison, performed honky-tonk music, covered Rodgers and Hart, reimagined a Bruce Springsteen song, and recorded an album entirely in Spanish. Their influence extended from their bases in Nashville, Miami, and Austin to Canada and the U.K. Malo and his bandmates could make any venue feel like a hopping bar. An unpretentious man, survived by his wife of 34 years and three children, Malo battled publicly with cancer during his final year and a half of life. Dead at 60. R.I.P.