 | BY ADAM BEHSUDI | | 
Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen shakes hands with Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt of the United Kingdom as Treasurer Jim Chalmers of Australia (left) and Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland of Canada (right) look on today in Washington. | Alex Wong/Getty Images | ROUGH RIDE — The yearly spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank taking place this week could be one of Washington’s most misunderstood events. What some might view as a shadowy cabal of finance ministers, central bank governors and economists plotting out the path of the world economy, is actually just a bunch of officials coming to grips with what they don’t know and their limited power to change the future. Even on the heels of a global health crisis and war returning to Europe, the list of unknowns worrying officials here this week remain daunting: new armed conflicts and intensification of ongoing wars, growing economic fragmentation caused by U.S.-China rivalry and questions regarding who will hold power in some of the world’s most influential capitals as nearly half of the global population heads to the polls in 2024. Almost everyone agrees that the year ahead will be a bumpy ride. “The world is going to be subject to a lot more shocks and shocks that are going to be more frequent, deeper and affect many countries at the same time,” said Masood Ahmed, president of the Center for Global Development and a former senior IMF official. Those shocks could have dramatic negative consequences. While the U.S. economy has returned even stronger from where it was before the pandemic, global economic growth has stalled. Much of the developing world continues to struggle to pay the bills still owed from the pandemic. A dramatic turn in the war in Ukraine could once again send food supplies into disarray. Instability in the Middle East could send energy prices shooting up. Those developments would only add to the economic pressure the poorest countries are under. Instead of dwelling on flexible exchange rates or any other range of pure economic topics, the ask now at meetings among finance officials is more existential in nature: “Help us think about a very dangerous world. How dangerous is it, and how do we prepare for it?” said Tim Adams, a former senior Treasury official who now serves as Institute of International Finance president and CEO. A more dangerous, rivalrous world has made national security a key motivation for new economic policies. Washington has pumped money into critical sectors to ensure that America — and not China — still holds the crown when it comes to dominating industries of the future. Sensing a change, companies are shortening their supply chains and trade flows are being altered. “The pandemic, wars, and geopolitical tensions have changed the playbook for global economic relations,” IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said in a speech last week. “Policymakers are looking to strike a balance between efficiency and security, between cost considerations and resilience in supply chains. There are already signs that trade relations are being reshaped.” “Fragmentation” of the global economy into competing blocs is the risk du jour among officials gathered here this week and no one quite knows how it’s going to play out. What is clearer: protecting domestic interests and addressing global challenges may be increasingly mutually exclusive. “The United States and European Union are now saying that EVs coming from China are too inexpensive. We’ve got to tariff them. That’s a good decision for an Ohio laborer but it’s a bad decision if you want to bring carbon emissions down to hit your 2030 or 2050 targets. We have to talk about both of those things,” Eurasia Group President Ian Bremmer said at an event here today. There’s also a feeling permeating the yearly meetings that not much can be done on any of these fronts, at least until the global political picture is clearer after this year’s unprecedented number of elections around the world. “We’ll all reconvene next spring. At that point there will be new political mandates, new political will, new political priorities and we’ll have more clarity about delivering on the promises being made,” said Matt Swinehart, a former Treasury official now at Rock Creek Global Advisors. Political decisions hang in the balance, whether it flows from Donald Trump reclaiming the White House or if Europe lurches to the right after the votes are counted. “A common theme is a reminder of how very big political choices can affect economic outcomes and performance,” Paschal Donohoe, a senior Irish government minister who leads the Eurogroup, a grouping of European finance ministers, told POLITICO. “A great reminder that the most serious political choices of a decision to go to war and decision to be involved in conflict can have the most important economic repercussions.” Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s author at abehsudi@politico.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @ABehsudi .
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Former President Donald Trump visits a Harlem bodega in New York City on Wednesday. | Jamie Kelter Davis for POLITICO | WE’VE GOT A JURY — A full panel of 12 jurors has been chosen for Donald Trump’s hush money trial . Seven jurors were quickly sworn in this afternoon, filling the panel that will decide whether Trump is guilty of falsifying business documents to conceal a sex scandal with a porn star. Here’s what we know about the seven jurors selected today :
- A man who lives in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood and works in investment banking.
- A man who lives in the West Village, works as a security engineer and has three children.
- An Upper East Side man originally from Lebanon who is retired and enjoys fly fishing.
- An Upper East Side woman who works as a speech therapist.
- A Murray Hill man who works at an eyewear company and enjoys the outdoors.
- A woman originally from California who lives in Upper Manhattan and works in product development.
- An Upper East Side woman who works as a physical therapist and enjoys tennis and paddle boarding.
YOU’RE EXCUSED — At the beginning of today’s proceedings, Justice Juan Merchan announced that one of the jurors who had been selected on Tuesday — an oncology nurse from the Upper East Side — called the court yesterday to say that “after sleeping on it overnight, she had concerns about her ability to be fair and impartial in this case.” He asked her to come to court today for further questioning. Merchan then quickly excused the juror . She said that “yesterday, alone, I had friends, colleagues and family push things to my phone regarding questioning my identity as a juror.” She added: “I don’t believe, at this point, that I can be fair and unbiased and let the outside influences not affect my thinking in the courtroom.” Then, in the afternoon, another juror was excused. Prosecutors raised concerns this morning about the juror, known as Juror No. 4, because they discovered that a man with the same name had been arrested in the 1990s for tearing down political posters. That information called into question whether the juror had been fully truthful in answering questions during jury selection. Justice Juan Merchan dismissed the man after a lengthy discussion with lawyers for both sides that was held at the judge’s bench, out of earshot of reporters in the room. Merchan then said in open court that, during the private discussion, the juror expressed “annoyance” at the amount of information published about him this week. JUROR OPINIONS ON TRUMP — Trump lawyer Susan Necheles spent much of her allotted time for questioning prospective jurors pressing them on their opinions of Donald Trump. Here’s a sampling of what they said , though not all of these jurors made the final jury: “I don’t have strong opinions, but I don’t like his persona,” said one prospective juror. “How he presents himself in public.” “I don’t like some of my coworkers, but I don’t try to sabotage their work,” she added, drawing laughter from the jury box. “He seems very selfish and self-serving.” Another prospective juror who works in law enforcement praised Trump for one particular achievement: “As a wannabe hockey player, I still thank him for fixing that Wollman Rink that nobody couldn’t fix.” Another, the owner of a construction-related firm, said he saw parallels between himself and Trump. “He was our president. Pretty amazing. He was a businessman in New York. He forged his way. He kind of made history… I’m impressed with that.”
| | — U.S. and Israel meet on Rafah days after Iran attack: The U.S. and Israel are holding another tense meeting on a future Rafah operation today , a sign that Iran’s attack isn’t halting negotiations over Israel’s conduct in the war against Hamas. Both sides are attending a virtual session, a senior Biden administration official and Israeli official told POLITICO, where senior leaders discuss how to target Hamas’ roughly 3,000 fighters in Rafah while protecting the city’s 1.4 million Palestinians. National security adviser Jake Sullivan is expected to lead the conversation for the Biden administration. Sullivan’s Israeli counterpart, Tzachi Hanegbi, is heading his nation’s delegation. — Senate advances spy powers bill amid huge surveillance fight: The Senate advanced a controversial surveillance bill this afternoon by a 67-32 vote , as leaders race to fight off attempts to change it that could result in a lapse over the weekend. The vote to break a filibuster on a law extending and reforming the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act’s section 702 authority sets up a crucial showdown before the Saturday expiration of the program. Critics of the authority, which allows warrantless surveillance of foreign targets, want major changes designed at making it much tougher to access American information that is swept up in the program. They also want to strike House language updating which data providers’ information could be used in the program. — Jan. 6 lawsuits against Trump may advance despite criminal case, judge rules: Lawsuits by members of Congress and police officers against Donald Trump for his actions on Jan. 6 may advance despite the related criminal case against him in Washington , a federal judge ruled today. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta rejected Trump’s effort to pause the lawsuits until the criminal charges over his attempt to subvert the 2020 election — brought by special counsel Jack Smith — are resolved. Instead, Mehta ordered Trump to begin describing the basis for his claim that he is immune from the lawsuits because his actions on Jan. 6 were part of his official duties as president. — College campus strife persists, as NYPD descend on Columbia: New York Police Department officers swarmed Columbia University’s campus today and arrested dozens of pro-Palestinian student protesters as thousands of others shouted for them to stop — a scene of a campus in unmitigated chaos that drew in Cornel West and the daughter of Rep. Ilhan Omar. The arrests, authorized by Columbia President Minouche Shafik, come a day after she testified before the House Education subcommittee for a hearing called “Columbia in Crisis: Columbia University’s Response to Antisemitism.”
| | FAMILY FEUD — President Joe Biden accepted endorsements from at least 15 members of the Kennedy political family during a campaign stop today as he aims to undermine Donald Trump and marginalize the candidacy of independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Associated Press reports. Kerry Kennedy, a daughter of former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, niece of former President John F. Kennedy and sister of the current presidential candidate, delivered the endorsements in Philadelphia by calling Biden “my hero.” She never directly mentioned her brother, but insisted “there are only two candidates with any chance of winning the presidency” this year, framing the campaign as a choice between Biden and Trump, with no room for a third party contender. RFK JR. MAKES MICHIGAN BALLOT — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced today that he had secured a spot on the ballot in Michigan , one of the swing states likely to decide the election, reports the New York Times. The Natural Law Party, which has ballot access in Michigan, nominated Mr. Kennedy and his running mate, Nicole Shanahan, for president and vice president. A spokeswoman for the Michigan secretary of state’s office confirmed that this meant Mr. Kennedy would be on the ballot in November. LITTLE DITTY ABOUT JOE BIDEN — The song opened on cue with a “little ditty about Jack and Diane,” but then the music abruptly stopped. John Mellencamp had barely finished the second verse of his smash hit when an exchange with a heckler had clearly gotten on his nerves. “You know what?” he told concertgoers last month in Toledo, Ohio. “Show’s over.” Videos capturing the moment when the singer walked off the stage have ricocheted for weeks online, reports the New York Times. A cascade of right-wing chatter on social media has fueled the perception that Mr. Mellencamp brought it on himself by promoting President Biden during the show . But that was not the case.
| | ENERGY NEEDED — In recent weeks, Russia has started inflicting far more permanent damage on Ukraine’s energy system , not only taking out generating stations but even going after the vast underground gas storage facilities the EU leaned on last winter to avoid its own energy shortages. It’s a change from the past two years, when Moscow and its invading army mostly targeted Ukraine’s energy transformers, the components that move power from one circuit to another. Such attacks were damaging, but the parts could be quickly repaired or substituted. Now that entire power plants are in their crosshairs, the repairs are going to take years. And the storage strikes may deprive Europe of a critical backup plan. “Our thermal power plants have been attacked 48 times over the past six months, but without a doubt, Russia’s attacks in the past few weeks have been the worst since [the] full-scale invasion in 2022,” Maxim Timchenko, CEO of Ukraine’s largest private energy firm, DTEK, told POLITICO. The results are distressing — and not just for Ukraine. Officials there are worried about how they’ll get through the winter with the lights and heating on. Ukraine’s air defenses are running low, they say, making it increasingly difficult to parry the missiles raining down on energy infrastructure. Nor are there many easy-to-access repair parts for those degraded power plants. Then there’s the spillover to Europe. Last winter Ukraine offered its gas storage network to European traders as they frantically built up reserves in case Russia axed supplies when the temperature dropped. Now Russia is targeting that network, raising questions about whether the EU is prepared with alternatives.
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7.1 percent The average long-term U.S. mortgage rate to finance a house, the highest rate since November 2023. The U.S. housing market remains constrained by relatively few homes for sale and quickly rising home prices. |
| | | SUBURBAN WAR — There’s a picture of suburbs in the United States that many people have in their head — mostly white, middle to upper middle class, access to good public schools and parents heading off to work in the city while their children are safe at home, living in well furnished houses. Maybe there’s a basketball hoop tacked up to the top of the garage door. That vision, though, is slowly collapsing, if it ever completely existed at all . In a discussion of Benjamin Herold’s book Disillusioned: Five Families and the Unraveling of America’s Suburbs , Caitlin Zaloom writes in The New Republic about just how the quintessential idea of the American suburb disappeared and how the suburbs became a trap.
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On this date in 1906: A 7.9 magnitude earthquake hits San Francisco, killing 3,000 and devastating the city's infrastructure. Pictured is a refugee camp near Rock Hill on upper Market Street in the city. | AP | Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here . | |
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