The Economic Weapons Briefing — August 24, 2026

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Roger Vance (anchor): Hockey sticks, wine and furniture. That's what a fifty percent tariff looks like. The duties hit Saturday, twenty billion dollars of Canadian exports, after Washington walked away from the talks. One premier's response was four words. We were attacked. Ottawa is retaliating. And this morning, the President went after Canada again. Today is Monday, August twenty-fourth. This is your global briefing.

Roger Vance (anchor): The tariffs are only one front. The Treasury Secretary has a name for what starts this week against Iran. Economic D-Day. Tehran calls it economic war, and it is warning its neighbors not to join in. A U.S. carrier has been on station since January, supporting the blockade, and the Strait of Hormuz is still the pressure point nobody can un-pull.

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Alice Merrick (correspondent): And in Gaza, the grinding continues. Israeli strikes today again killed and wounded children. In one recent twenty-four hour stretch, seventeen dead, thirty-eight injured. A strike on a seaside cafe killed seven. The President's fifteen-point plan from late July is still on the table — halt the attacks, disarm Hamas, then withdrawal. But allies are peeling away. Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Canada jointly called an Israeli settlement decision unacceptable and asked for it to be withdrawn.

Alice Merrick (correspondent): And a number that lands close to home in Israel. Nearly ninety percent of Israeli parents say the war with Iran damaged their children's education. Protests are planned after weekend arrests.

Roger Vance (anchor): Ukraine. Moscow says it's open to new ideas on ending the war — provided the new ideas match Putin's old goals. In the latest barrage, at least forty-four missiles. Ukraine says it downed thirty-nine. At least eighteen people were killed. Ukrainian drones, meanwhile, hit an industrial site in Russia's Perm region — that's the Urals. A long way from the front.

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Bella Reyes (markets desk): Markets are strangely calm about all of it. The S and P and the Nasdaq inched higher last week. Fed minutes still read hawkish. Treasury is doubling its long-dated buybacks from September, which pulled the thirty-year back from its highest level since two thousand seven. The ten-year sits at four point six five. But analysts say global prospects have weakened materially now that the trade war has spread well beyond China. Geopolitics is the dominant variable.

Bella Reyes (markets desk): One outlier worth remembering: June was the biggest month in the history of the U.S. IPO market, powered by SpaceX going public.

Roger Vance (anchor): China's slowdown is deepening. Industrial output up just four and a half percent in July — an AI boom that isn't lifting anything else. And Evergrande's founder, Hui Ka Yan, has been sentenced to life in prison. The company collapsed owing more than three hundred billion dollars.

Roger Vance (anchor): Finally, the planet. July and early August set records on land and at sea. More than a hundred and thirty-five million Europeans faced thirty-five degree heat; wildfires burned in England's New Forest. And today, scientists warned that a catastrophic extreme of extremes is becoming more likely — a scenario that used to be fiction, now discussed as a possibility. Maybe an inevitability.

Roger Vance (anchor): Also today: a federal court struck down the administration's seventy-five nation visa ban. That's your briefing. More in an hour.

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