Colombian Caution

Too much is being made of Colombia’s capitulation as a sign of either Donald Trump’s threat of tariffs working or how Trump can now speed things up on Greenland and the Panama Canal. True, President Gustavo Petro’s defiance lasted barely a few hours. The threat of 25 per cent tariffs on Colombian exports and a doubling thereafter made him allow inbound US military flights with deported illegal immigrants, with a face-saver asking they be treated with dignity; which wasn’t very dignified nor much of a face-saver.

What has been largely overlooked in Trump’s first ‘victim’ being a US ally are two facts: One, Petro is a socialist and not a fan of the 47th president while many of his powerful enemies in the Colombian opposition are. Few of his compatriots would have thanked Petro, a social media loudmouth in his own right, if the Colombian economy—producing coffee, coal, oil, etc—crashed. Two, China stepped in immediately, promising to increase its import of Colombian products should Trump act on his threat. Gaining the Panama Canal—where too Beijing is a factor—but losing more influence in Latin America to the one country Washington knows is its new cold war adversary? Trump has won only the first round. Denmark is watching.

State of the Louvre

French President Emmanuel Macron has a plan to fund a “renaissance” of the Louvre, the world’s most visited museum. There’s money to be made in charging non-EU visitors more. It’s perhaps too broad a category featuring widely varying income levels. But it is assumed tourists will happily pay more, especially when the Mona Lisa queues might become a thing of the past. Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece, which everybody rushes in to see caring little for what else the Louvre holds, will get a new room of its own and a separate entrance. It all began with a letter to the culture minister from Laurence des Cars, the museum’s first woman director, complaining about the unsustainability of keeping artwork in rooms no longer fully waterproof, of wide temperature variations, and even the greenhouse effect under the glass pyramid added in 1989. The Louvre, in her estimate, needs an expensive and technically sophisticated overhaul. Even for a cash-strapped government and a country facing administrative uncertainty, its most prized public asset must get what it needs. The Centre Pompidou is already closed for renovation and when Macron visited the Louvre on January 28, he hit upon the way to make some people pay.

Slow & Safe

Vietnam wants to become van minh or civilised. Like Japan, South Korea or Singapore. And the first casualty is rash driving. Vietnam’s motorists, especially bikers, don’t stop at red lights and climb footpaths, leaving the free-enterprise communist state with one of the highest road fatality rates. Not anymore. Steep new fines as high as monthly salaries, more cameras, stricter policing, and people reporting violations are changing behaviour. The poor complain the fines disproportionately affect them. If the hustle slows, so will income flows. But if Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City are slower, they are safer. South Asia, reportedly, is watching.

Donald TrumpEmmanuel MacronFrench PresidentgeopoliticsGlobtrotterGustavo PetroVietnamXi Jinping