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Fed hints at a pause as bill buying revives fears of QE

At its meeting on 10 December 2025, the Federal Reserve delivered a third consecutive rate cut of the year, trimming the federal-funds target range by another 25 basis points.

The accompanying statement introduced a new phrase, promising to adjust policy in line with the “extent and timing” of incoming data, language that suggests officials are no longer on a pre-set easing path.

The more striking shift lies on the balance-sheet side. Beginning on 12 December, the Federal Reserve will start purchasing U.S. Treasury bills, committing to buy about $40 billion of short-dated paper every 30 days.

In the press conference, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell signaled that the bar for further rate cuts has risen. Inflation has moderated from its peak, growth has slowed but not collapsed, and financial conditions have already eased as markets priced in a long easing cycle.

Against that backdrop, Powell’s remarks were interpreted as a tentative declaration that “rate cuts as insurance” may be over for now. The bill-purchase program, however, complicates that message, since investors tend to view any expansion of the central bank’s balance sheet as a form of additional support.

Politics intruded in an unusually direct way. In a pointed moment that will be read in Washington as a rebuke to President Donald Trump, the outgoing Chair, Powell, stated that tariff policy has added to price pressures. Higher import duties on a widening range of goods, especially intermediate inputs, are feeding through to producer costs and ultimately to consumers.

For a central banker who has spent years arguing that most of the inflation surge reflected pandemic distortions and energy shocks, conceding that trade barriers are now part of the inflation story is significant. It signals that, whatever the White House says about “bringing jobs home,” the Federal Reserve sees a world in which politically popular protectionism complicates the task of price stability.

Looming over all of this is the U.S. Treasury’s refinancing calendar. Trillions of dollars of U.S. debt are due to mature in 2026. Much of this debt was issued during the long post-crisis era when interest rates hovered near zero. As those bonds expire, they must be rolled into a world where nominal yields are structurally higher, real rates are no longer negative, and investors are more sensitive to inflation risk.

That shift has brutal arithmetic. As low-coupon bonds are replaced with higher-coupon ones, interest costs rise faster than the stock of debt itself, even if deficits are not widening dramatically. The Congressional Budget Office has already projected net interest outlays climbing toward, and potentially beyond, defense spending. A refinancing wall in 2026 accelerates that process.

The Federal Reserve’s latest moves sit uneasily in this context. If the bill-purchase program is perceived as the first step back toward quantitative easing, investors may come to believe that the central bank is preparing to absorb a larger share of Treasury issuance just as the refinancing wall approaches. That belief could keep yields lower in the short term, support equity prices, and inflate valuations across risk assets, including housing and crypto. It could also raise questions about fiscal dominance, the fear that monetary policy is being bent to accommodate government borrowing needs.

For now, the central bank is trying to deliver a delicate message.

Behind the careful wording, however, sits an uncomfortable truth. When a sovereign as large as the U.S. hits a debt wall of this scale, the eventual adjustment rarely stays confined to a single market. Equities, bonds, real estate, and digital assets will all feel the shock once investors decide that the old regime of free money is gone and the bill for past borrowing is finally coming due.

The new Monroe Doctrine era & the Trump Corollary 

María Corina Machado’s secret journey to Oslo

María Corina Machado has appeared in public for the first time in 11 months, emerging at the Grand Hotel Oslo after what Venezuelan and U.S. officials describe as a clandestine escape worthy of a political thriller. Machado secretly left the country by boat on Tuesday, slipping out along the Caribbean coast before crossing to Curaçao, the Dutch island territory in the southern Caribbean. From there, according to U.S. officials quoted by the Wall Street Journal, she began a carefully choreographed journey to Norway to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, aided at different stages by both the administration of President Donald Trump and discreet intermediaries inside the regime of Nicolás Maduro.

The account, if confirmed, suggests an extraordinary alignment of interests. For Washington, helping Machado reach Oslo allows the U.S. to present itself as patron of a democratic standard-bearer long hounded by Maduro’s security services. For elements within the Venezuelan government, quietly easing her departure may have been a way to reduce internal tension, remove a charismatic rival from the domestic stage, or curry favor with foreign interlocutors without making explicit concessions at home. The use of Curaçao as a staging post again highlights how the patchwork of Caribbean islands, each with its own legal and political status, can be a transit corridor for opposition figures, smugglers, and diplomats alike.

In a phone call with Nobel Committee Chair Jørgen Watne Frydnes, published on the Nobel Peace Prize website, Machado spoke with a mixture of relief and sorrow. She said that “so many people” had risked their lives to make her journey possible and that their efforts showed what the award meant for Venezuelans who have endured repression, economic collapse, and mass emigration. She explained that she was about to board a plane, adding: “We feel very emotional and very honored, and that is why I am very sad and very sorry to tell you that I won’t be able to arrive in time for the ceremony, but I will be in Oslo, and I’m on my way to Oslo right now.”

Her delayed arrival in Oslo, rather than diminishing the symbolism of the prize, may heighten it. For supporters inside Venezuela, the image of Machado slipping past border controls to collect a global honor is likely to become part of the opposition’s mythology, a story of ingenuity and resilience against a sclerotic regime.

Norway, which has hosted previous rounds of talks between the regime and the opposition, now finds itself at the center of a very different drama. Machado’s presence in Oslo, and the formal recognition of her struggle implied by the Nobel Peace Prize, will complicate any future mediation efforts that cast the government and opposition as moral equivalents. The Trump administration, meanwhile, will use her escape and appearance in Norway as fresh justification for a hard line against Caracas, arguing that only pressure can create space for democratic forces to survive, let alone win.

For Machado herself, the days ahead will involve a delicate balance between international acclaim and domestic relevance. A Nobel laureate who cannot safely set foot in her own country runs the risk of becoming a symbol more than a political actor. Whether this journey from a clandestine boat in the Caribbean to the marble lobby of the Grand Hotel Oslo strengthens her hand in Venezuelan politics, or simply freezes her in exile as an icon of a thwarted transition, will depend on what follows the ceremony: negotiations, further crackdowns, internal fragmentation of the Maduro regime, or military action inspired by her brief reappearance on the world stage.

U.S. tanker seizure escalates confrontation with Venezuela and Iran

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has announced the seizure of a sanctioned oil tanker in the southern Caribbean off the coast of Venezuela, releasing filmed footage of the operation as a display of resolve. According to Bondi, the interdiction was carried out earlier in the day by a joint team from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations, and the U.S. Coast Guard, with support from the Department of Defense.

The tanker has been subject to U.S. sanctions for several years, Bondi said, for its “involvement in an illicit oil shipping network supporting foreign terrorist organizations,” while it transported crude between Iran and Venezuela in defiance of U.S. measures.

Bondi described the vessel as a repeat offender that had allegedly used shell companies, falsified manifests, and ship-to-ship transfers to evade detection. Officials in Washington say the crew has been detained for questioning and that the ship will be sailed to a U.S.-controlled port in the region, where its cargo and documentation will be inspected and, if courts agree, confiscated.

The operation was conducted under Title 14 authority, the body of U.S. law that grants the Coast Guard broad powers to stop, board, and seize vessels for law-enforcement and maritime-security purposes. By placing the action within this legal framework, the administration presents the seizure as a law-enforcement and maritime-security measure rather than a purely military act, even though the Pentagon provided intelligence and logistical backing. Legal disputes are likely to follow over the reach of U.S. jurisdiction, the status of unilateral sanctions in international law, and the rights of the ship’s owners and crew.

Trump threat puts Colombia on edge

President Donald Trump’s latest remarks on Colombia have injected fresh volatility into one of Washington’s closest partnerships in Latin America. Speaking in the context of his campaign against Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, Trump said that Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who was elected in 2022 for a single four-year term ending in 2026, would “be next,” a phrase widely read in Bogotá as a threat of intensified pressure or punishment.

Formally, the warning is wrapped in the language of the war on drugs: Trump has accused Colombia of being a major source of cocaine and has branded Petro an “illegal drug dealer,” linking his comments to expanded U.S. military operations against suspected trafficking vessels and tougher measures aimed at Caracas.

In Colombia, the implications run well beyond narcotics policy. Petro, the country’s first left-wing president elected through the ballot box, is already governing in a polarized environment; being publicly singled out by the U.S. President at once makes him a target for conservative critics and a symbol of defiance for his supporters.

Petro has responded with unusual bluntness, calling Trump misinformed, insisting that Colombia is doing as much as any state to combat trafficking, and arguing that blowing up small boats crewed by poor couriers is no substitute for confronting major criminal networks.

Across the region, the “be next” line fuels fears that U.S. counter-narcotics operations are bleeding into open-ended coercion against elected governments that diverge from Washington’s preferences on Venezuela or security policy. For now, the most probable consequence is not a formal regime-change doctrine but a harsher mix of aid cuts, decertification risks, visa sanctions, and public shaming that narrows Petro’s room for maneuver while leaving Colombian voters to decide his fate in 2026.

It’s the U.S. vs China, everyone else needs to choose a side

U.S. bombers and Japanese jets signal alliance resolve over Sea of Japan

U.S. nuclear-capable B-52 bombers flew over the Sea of Japan on Wednesday, escorted by Japanese fighter jets, in a carefully staged show of force that Tokyo announced on 11 December.

The joint drill followed shortly after Chinese and Russian military exercises in the skies and seas around Japan and South Korea, activity that had already prompted both Tokyo and Seoul to scramble fighters.

Japan’s Ministry of Defense said two U.S. B-52 strategic bombers flew with a mix of Japan Air Self-Defense Force F-35 stealth fighters and F-15 air-superiority jets over the Sea of Japan. Officials described the mission as a demonstration of the “readiness and deterrent power” of the U.S.–Japan alliance against attempts to change the regional status quo by force. The flight offered a visible reminder that the U.S. nuclear umbrella still extends over Japan, at a time when Chinese and Russian long-range aviation is increasingly active around the archipelago.

The move followed a joint patrol by Chinese H-6 and Russian Tu-95 bombers over the East China Sea and western Pacific, which triggered air-defense scrambles in both Japan and South Korea. That patrol formed part of longer-running Sino-Russian exercises that have seen warships and aircraft operate near Japanese territory and key sea lanes, reinforcing the sense of a tightening military partnership aimed at eroding U.S. influence in the Indo-Pacific.

Tokyo has become more outspoken about such activity, particularly as tensions with Beijing grow over Taiwan and over near-daily Chinese military flights around the self-ruled island. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s recent comments suggesting that Japan would respond if China attacked Taiwan have drawn sharp protests from Beijing, which has replied with military drills and economic threats.

Japan’s political leadership has been critical of the U.S. administration in recent weeks, suggesting that the U.S. has not provided enough diplomatic support to Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi after she said Japan would defend Taiwan from a Chinese attack. 

Against that backdrop, the decision to pair nuclear-capable U.S. bombers with Japanese fighters serves as a pointed reminder that, despite political frictions, the security alliance with the U.S. remains the bedrock of Japan’s defense posture.

For Seoul and Taipei the U.S.–Japan flight will be seen as reassurance of American commitment to its alliance relationships in Asia.

Rapid Thai advance toward Boeung Trakoun reshapes war with Cambodia

Thai forces are pressing their advantage along the western sector of the frontier, with forward elements pushing south of the main defensive line into Boeung Trakoun, a key road hub north-west of Poipet in Banteay Meanchey Province.

Control of the town would give Bangkok effective fire control over the main approaches to Poipet and the broader casino and logistics belt that links north-western Cambodia to Thailand’s Sa Kaeo and Buriram provinces.

Bangkok’s decision to impose a nighttime curfew across all four provinces bordering Cambodia, including Surin, Buriram, Sa Kaeo, and Chanthaburi, signals how seriously the government views the risk of escalation and infiltration. Officially, the curfew is presented as a measure to prevent looting, maintain “border discipline,” and keep civilians away from active artillery corridors. In practice, it also allows the security forces to suppress protests, restrict media access, and monitor the movements of Cambodian nationals inside Thailand. Reports of a wider call-up of reservists and paramilitary volunteers (including from the separatist Karen Army in Myanmar), particularly in the Northeast, point to preparations for a prolonged campaign and a possible occupation of Cambodian territory adjacent to the border.

On the Cambodian side, the loss of two military installations outside Boeung Trakoun in July has left local forces with few hardened positions from which to contest the Thai advance.

The information environment is very much in Thailand’s favor. Much of the video content circulating on Cambodian social-media channels that purports to show counteroffensives or successful ambushes has been swiftly debunked by open-source analysts as either AI-generated or recycled footage from earlier conflicts.

Humanitarian conditions along the frontier are deteriorating rapidly. With more than 500,000 civilians reportedly displaced on both sides of the border, makeshift camps are forming around existing checkpoints, temples, and schools, many of them in areas still within range of artillery.

Cross-border trade through Poipet and smaller crossings has collapsed, disrupting supply chains into both north-west Cambodia and north-eastern Thailand.

Diplomatically, ASEAN capitals are scrambling to respond. There is growing talk of an emergency summit to press for a ceasefire and the deployment of neutral observers to key crossing points. Regional powers fear that if Thailand moves to occupy a chain of Cambodian border districts, the conflict could harden into a long-term territorial dispute that destabilizes mainland South-East Asia. For now, the momentum on the ground lies with Bangkok, and there are few signs that it is ready to halt operations while commanders believe more can still be gained on the battlefield.

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