“Russian President Vladimir Putin is allowing the state to take over temporary control of critical facilities that are regarded as insufficiently protected from Ukrainian drone attacks,” Bloomberg reports.
“If certain facilities deemed critical don’t enact security measures in a timely manner or violate security requirements for preventing drone attacks, the state may place them under temporary management, according to a presidential order published Monday on a government website.”
Paul Krugman: “On the face of it, the opponents — I still have to rub my eyes at the idea of Canada as an enemy — appear extremely unevenly matched. The U.S. economy is a dozen times larger than Canada’s. We buy three-quarters of their exports, while they buy only about a sixth of ours. Surely they must have much more than we do to lose from trade conflict.”
“Yet one clear lesson from a year and a half of Trumpian trade war is that when trade conflicts become extreme, access to crucial imports is more important than the ability to export to another country’s markets. In the case of Trump’s tariffs on China, they have been little more than an inconvenience to the Chinese economy. But China’s threat to cut off exports of rare earths is an existential threat to Western technology industries.”
“And the U.S. economy is far more dependent on Canadian goods than most Americans realize.”
“Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is expected to announce a fresh set of economic measures against Iran, as Washington pivots from strike threats to tougher sanctions as a way to end the near six-month war,” Bloomberg reports.
“Bessent will unveil details of a plan to more effectively isolate the Islamic Republic later Monday, building on already extensive sanctions that have been in place for decades. It’s unclear what will be announced, but the move may impact some of Iran’s largest trading partners, including China, Turkey and India.”
CBS News: White House promises full-throttle economic warfare against Iran with new plan for sanctions.
“Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government sees little chance of resuming talks with President Donald Trump before the midterm elections after trade negotiations collapsed,” Bloomberg reports.
“The Canadian leader, who said he will prepare a domestic aid package to help businesses hurt by U.S. tariffs, is designing those measures to ride out the balance of Trump’s term if necessary.”
“The preparations from Carney signal the gravity of the breakdown in talks late Friday, which led Trump to impose new tariffs and Carney to announce retaliation, risking a spiraling trade fight between the two closely integrated economies.”
“The new head of Iran’s top security body warned Sunday that Tehran will see any country’s support for new U.S. economic measures against the Islamic Republic as an ‘act of war,’ while Iran’s president defended a memorandum of understanding with the United States as the best way out of the stalled conflict,” the Associated Press reports.
“Rep. Anna Paulina Luna wants to crack down on the murky world of foreign money flowing through America’s booming political influencer economy — an issue increasingly consuming the political brand it helped birth,” Politico reports.
Said Luna: “Being an influencer right now is kind of like the wild west. There’s a lot of things laws haven’t caught up to.”
“The Florida Republican is rolling out the Foreign Propaganda Registration Act, an amendment to the Foreign Agents Registration Act that would require influencers to disclose when they’re being paid by a foreign government to push political messaging.”
“The U.S will unveil ‘the single greatest financial offensive ever’ against Iran on Monday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said, while Tehran threatened to seize vessels that violate transit rules in the Strait of Hormuz,” CNBC reports.
“The looming escalation comes as both sides missed a 60-day ceasefire window to reach a deal, closing off the formal truce mechanism aimed at ending the Middle East war now in its sixth month.”
“Over the past 17 months, as President Trump has freighted Canada’s economy with several rounds of punishing tariffs, Prime Minister Mark Carney has often repeated the guiding maxim for his negotiations with the U.S.: No deal is better than a bad one,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Now he is putting that rule to the test.”
Associated Press: Carney warned about economic coercion. Now Trump is testing him.
The Economist: “Mark Carney is governing through paradox. Canada’s largest trading partner, the United States, is led by an unreliable man who uses trade barriers as a weapon. For Canada, diversification of trade partners is wise, but takes time. Building infrastructure needed to serve new markets requires significant investment. And yet little would do more to get that investment flowing than a trade deal with the United States…”
“The plan seems to be to buy time, and to keep negotiating. Canada will match the new American tariffs ‘dollar-for-dollar,’ but delay that retaliation until September 8th. David Colletto, the boss of Abacus Data, a polling firm, believes support for Mr Carney will soar as a result of this escalation. The political risk that comes with signing a trade deal that Canadians cannot stomach is far higher than that from Mr Trump’s tariffs.”
“But however bad Mr Trump’s deal might have been for Canada in the long run, declining it and letting new tariffs come into force will hurt in the short term.”
David Frum: “The Trump administration has one big idea about Canada: The U.S. is larger, stronger, and richer than Canada, so Canada must sooner or later surrender to Trump’s demands. That one big idea is wrong.”
“Yes, Trump can hurt Canada more than Canada can hurt Trump. That part of Trump’s thinking is true. But wars are not decided only by the question Who can inflict more pain? Wars are also decided by the question Who can endure more pain? Trump’s failure to accept this truth is why he lost the Iran war—and why he is losing his trade wars.”
“Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has much more political permission to accept pain from a U.S.-Canadian trade war than Trump does.”
“Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will hold a press conference Monday to announce sanctions against Iran that he has described as the greatest campaign of ‘coordinated economic isolation in the history of the world,'” CNBC reports.
Said Bessent: “We are going to have the toughest sanctions in history, and I will tell you, this will work. It worked in Venezuela once we put up the blockade. It is working in Cuba right now, and it is going to work in Iran, and we are going to collapse this regime.”
Bloomberg: Squeezing Iran means confronting China.
“China said it continues to support a diplomatic end to the U.S.-Iran war, in a delayed statement released shortly before the U.S. is set to unveil measures to punish Tehran’s economic partners,” Bloomberg reports.
“The timing is notable because it comes a day before U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is set to unveil a plan designed to shift the conflict from tit-for-tat strikes across the Middle East to full-blown economic isolation.”
CNBC: Ahead of tough new U.S. sanctions, Iran criticizes “extraterritorial sovereignty.”
“For decades, Canada built much of its prosperity on privileged access to the United States. Now, after the collapse of trade talks, one of the world’s closest and most durable alliances has been fundamentally altered, with both countries facing the risk of a full-scale trade war,” the Associated Press reports.
“President Donald Trump said Canada wants ‘the benefits of being a state, without being one’ after trade talks between the two countries collapsed late on Friday,” the BBC reports.
“Iran shut down a British power plant for four days in an unprecedented cyber attack,” The Telegraph reports.
“It is thought to be the first time that hackers affiliated to the Iranian regime have succeeded in closing down such a facility in the UK, and is believed to be the most successful cyber attack of its kind.”
“Since President Trump has returned to office, the United States and Canada have repeatedly come close to an all-out trade war — only for Mr. Trump to dial back some of his harshest attacks against one of America’s closest allies,” the New York Times reports.
“But that period of relative calm came to an end on Saturday, as new 50 percent tariffs from Washington took effect, drawing a pointed threat from Canada to respond in kind. The resulting clash left the two North American neighbors barreling toward a dangerous tit-for-tat escalation, one that may yet inflict real harm on the U.S. economy.”
Prime Minister Mark Carney said Canada was “at war” over trade with the U.S. after President Trump “miscalculated” by escalating his tariff attack,” the Financial Times reports.
Said Carney: “You’re at war when you’re attacked, and we got attacked.”
“The morning after he pulled negotiators from trade talks in Washington and set off a new round of American tariffs, Prime Minister Mark Carney on Saturday explained to Canadians why he walked away, calling the U.S. proposal ‘a bad deal,'” the New York Times reports.
Said Carney: “We’ve recognized from the start that America has changed. We recognize that sometimes, its signature is written in pencil.”
He added: “We cannot accept what they offered and we will not give what they asked. We were not prepared to compromise Canada’s sovereignty or undermine our key industries.”
Bloomberg: Trade breakdown deepens U.S. Canada rift.
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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