Markets don’t wait — and year-end waits even less.

In the final stretch, money rotates, funds window-dress, tax-loss selling meets bottom-fishing, and “Santa Rally” chatter turns into real tape. Most people notice after the move.

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What you need to know

NATO’s eastern flank becomes its center of gravity

The geography of NATO’s deterrence is shifting. On Tuesday in Helsinki, eight EU member states on NATO’s eastern and northern front line held the first “Eastern Flank Summit”, a format designed to treat the alliance’s border with Russia and Belarus as its strategic fulcrum rather than a periphery.

The participants, Finland, Sweden, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, and Bulgaria, issued a joint declaration describing Russia as the “most significant, direct and long-term threat” to Euro-Atlantic security. It argued that Moscow’s aims include carving out a “buffer zone” running from the Arctic through the Baltic and Black Seas to the Mediterranean.

The group’s message to Brussels was practical as well as rhetorical. The leaders urged the EU to prioritize the eastern flank in defense projects and funding, and rallied around a proposed flagship initiative, “Eastern Flank Watch”, intended to reinforce the border in a coherent north-to-south belt.

The summit also sought to bind EU and NATO efforts together, rather than allow them to drift into parallel bureaucracies.

The declaration frames NATO as the foundation of collective defense, with EU initiatives as complementary. It calls for tighter coordination to avoid duplication and to channel financing, including through the European Investment Bank, toward Europe’s defense-industrial base.

At the same time, the leaders pledged to increase support for Ukraine while sustaining pressure on Russia, presenting the defense of the eastern flank and the backing of Ukraine as parts of the same strategic problem.

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

Russia’s troop numbers in Belarus disputed

Reports about Russian troop numbers in Belarus have swung sharply over the past 24 hours because the same German politician, Roderich Kiesewetter, has been quoted in two different ways. In an interview carried by n-tv, he said Russia was maintaining “two army corps” in Belarus, which he equated to roughly 350,000 to 360,000 “combat-ready” soldiers.

That line was repeated widely, and some outlets treated it as a firm estimate.

Soon afterward, Kiesewetter’s office issued a written clarification pointing to a much smaller figure. It said Russia is “building two armies” in Belarus, roughly six corps, but that Russian “corps” are materially smaller than NATO’s counting conventions.

On that basis, it put the total at around 100,000 to 150,000 soldiers, citing background briefings, foreign intelligence, external military sources, and Bundeswehr information.

The episode is a reminder of how murky force estimates can be, and how quickly a dramatic number can harden into “fact” once it is detached from definitions.

A standing deployment of 350,000 to 360,000 troops in Belarus would be enormous in European terms and difficult to conceal for long.

A presence of 100,000 to 150,000, while still significant, is easier to reconcile with a mix of rotating units, training formations, logistics, and pre-positioning tied to Russia’s long-running military integration with Belarus.

Either way, Kiesewetter’s strategic point is unchanged: Belarus remains a potential staging ground on NATO’s northeastern frontier, and deployments there are read nervously in Poland and the Baltic states, particularly after Russia used Belarusian territory at the start of the 2022 invasion and as joint exercises, including Zapad, continue to be held.

The new Monroe Doctrine era & the Trump Corollary

Trump orders a “blockade” of sanctioned oil tankers to and from Venezuela

President Donald Trump said he has ordered “a total and complete blockade” of all “sanctioned oil tankers” traveling into and out of Venezuela. It is a sharp escalation of the administration’s pressure campaign against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and immediately raises questions about legal authority and enforcement, amid the risk of a wider confrontation.

The wording matters. The order is framed not as a blanket embargo on Venezuela, but as a maritime choke on tankers already targeted by U.S. sanctions. That category typically includes vessels linked to sanctioned entities, shipowners, or trading networks that Washington says help Caracas market crude despite restrictions.

What remains unclear is how, and how far, the U.S. intends to enforce the order. The enforcement details have not been specified, even as recent reporting has pointed to stepped-up U.S. maritime activity around Venezuela, including the seizure of at least one tanker. Venezuela’s government condemned the announcement as a violation of international law and said it would raise the matter at the United Nations.

The economic stakes are immediate because oil is Caracas’s lifeline. Venezuelan exports are at roughly 600,000 barrels a day, much of it flowing to China, and a sustained blockade could tighten supply and push prices higher. Supporters argue that cutting off oil revenue obviously increases leverage over Maduro.

The diplomatic fallout could be broad. Venezuela’s sanctions-evasion trade relies on intermediaries, shipping registries, and buyers willing to accept legal and reputational risk. A U.S. threat of interdiction will test how far China will go to protect energy flows. For now, the order is a signal of intent. The next steps will determine whether it becomes a genuine squeeze or a mainly political threat.

Chile’s president-elect supports intervention in Venezuela

Chile’s president-elect, José Antonio Kast, said he would support “any situation” that ends the rule of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, including the possibility of U.S. military intervention, calling it “a gigantic problem solved” for Chile and the wider region.

Speaking during a visit to Buenos Aires two days after winning Chile’s presidential runoff, Kast said Chile had no plans to intervene, but argued that outside action to remove Maduro would ease pressures felt across Latin America, and even in Europe.

The remarks land awkwardly in regional diplomacy. Kast has styled himself as a hard-line, security-first leader and has made irregular migration a domestic political theme, an issue tightly bound up with Venezuela’s long exodus. His stop in Argentina, where President Javier Milei has become a rallying point for parts of the Latin American right, also points to a growing ideological alignment among conservative leaders who see Maduro’s government as both a humanitarian calamity and a source of cross-border instability.

The comments also fit with the hardening U.S. posture. President Donald Trump has intensified pressure on Caracas and has declined to rule out deploying U.S. troops to Venezuela, even as officials continue to frame the campaign in terms of security and counternarcotics. That context helps explain Kast’s careful phrasing: he welcomed the outcome of intervention while stressing that Chile would not be an actor.

Move fast and break things

President Trump expands America’s travel-ban list

President Donald Trump has issued a new presidential proclamation, titled “Restricting and Limiting the Entry of Foreign Nationals to Protect the Security of the United States”, expanding the administration’s travel-ban regime and setting it to take effect at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time on 1 January 2026.

The proclamation keeps in place full entry suspensions for nationals of 12 countries (Afghanistan, Burma [Myanmar], Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen) and adds seven more to the full-ban list: Burkina Faso, Laos, Mali, Niger, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, and Syria. It also bars entry for foreign nationals traveling on documents issued or endorsed by the Palestinian Authority, a category treated in the text alongside country designations.

Syria’s inclusion is politically striking, given the Trump administration’s recent honeymoon engagement with the country’s new leadership. The move comes after a suspected Islamic State attack in Syria that killed three Americans, an episode that has sharpened the administration’s emphasis on screening and security. The White House text argues that Syria is emerging from internal conflict but still lacks reliable central capacity for passports, civil documents, and vetting, and cites overstay data as part of its justification.

The practical effects are broad but not absolute. The proclamation applies to both immigrants and nonimmigrants, but it is written to focus on would-be entrants who are outside the U.S. on the effective date and lack a valid visa on that date. It also sets out categorical exceptions, including lawful permanent residents, certain dual nationals traveling on a non-designated passport, specified diplomatic visa classes, and limited carve-outs such as some special immigrant visas, plus case-by-case waivers for travel deemed in the national interest.

Alongside the full bans, the administration also broadened partial restrictions. It continues partial limits for Burundi, Cuba, Togo, and Venezuela, modifies the earlier treatment of Turkmenistan (lifting certain nonimmigrant suspensions while keeping immigrant limits), and adds partial restrictions for 15 more countries: Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Dominica, Gabon, The Gambia, Malawi, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania, Tonga, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

U.S. backs a $7.4bn critical-minerals plant in Tennessee

The U.S. government is backing a $7.4 billion critical-minerals smelter and processing complex in Tennessee, a project led by Korea Zinc that officials and executives are presenting as a step toward reducing America’s dependence on China for strategically important industrial inputs.

The facility, planned for Clarksville and Gordonsville, is expected to produce up to 540,000 metric tons a year (about 595,000 short tons) of processed materials, according to U.S. government and company statements.

The economics are familiar. Washington wants more processing capacity at home, allied firms want long-term demand and public support, and both sides want alternatives to Chinese-dominated refining and metallurgy. The plant is meant to process a range of metals and minerals used across the modern economy, including inputs that feed into semiconductors, aerospace, and munitions supply chains.

Even so, claims that it ends U.S. reliance on China for semiconductors go too far. This is an upstream materials project, not a chip-fabrication plan, and it is better understood as an attempt to reduce exposure to choke points than to eliminate dependence quickly.

Big-company bankruptcies climb to a 15-year high

Large U.S. corporate bankruptcies are rising at a pace more commonly seen in downturns, as higher borrowing costs and tighter credit expose fragile balance sheets.

S&P Global Market Intelligence’s tally of “large” filings, which covers public companies and certain private firms above minimum size thresholds, reached 655 through October, putting 2025 on track for the highest annual total since 2010.

Market chatter circulating in early December, citing the same dataset, puts the count at 717 through November, which would surpass every full-year total since 2010. If that is borne out, it would mark a sharp climb from the post-pandemic low point and help explain why credit investors have turned more cautious even as the macroeconomic picture remains mixed.

The strain is uneven. Industrial firms made up the largest share of filings this year, followed by consumer-discretionary companies, which fits a cycle in which higher rates and softer demand hit manufacturers and non-essential spending first.

Bankruptcy, however, is not always a synonym for failure. S&P data indicates that a majority of filings in the first half of 2025 sought reorganization rather than liquidation, suggesting many firms are using Chapter 11 to renegotiate debts and keep operating.

These “large-company” figures should not be confused with the broader bankruptcy backdrop. Overall U.S. filings, including households and small businesses, have also risen over the past year, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, but those totals capture a different universe from S&P’s corporate tracker.

Obamacare subsidies face a year-end cliff

By declining to schedule a House vote before the year ends, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has all but ensured that the Affordable Care Act’s enhanced premium subsidies will lapse on 31 December 2025, unless Congress produces a last-minute fix.

The practical effect is a built-in premium shock for 2026: millions of marketplace customers who have relied on larger tax credits since 2021 would face steep increases at renewal, with one widely cited estimate putting the average jump at about 114% for subsidized enrollees.

The politics are as hardline as the arithmetic. Many Republicans see little reason to extend support for a law they have long opposed, but vulnerable House moderates worry that allowing the subsidies to expire hands Democrats a winning campaign issue.

Europe's center of gravity shifts east, politics moves right, hostility to migrants from the south rises, as ties with the U.S. fray, and fear of Russia increases

Europe’s rearmament moves into the budget

With Wednesday’s vote on the ReArm Europe Plan, the European Parliament backed a push to direct more money, and more flexibility, into Europe’s security and defense. The emphasis is on strengthening the continent’s industrial base and accelerating investment where bottlenecks have dragged on for years.

The broader point is as political as it is financial: by treating defense as part of economic strategy, lawmakers are linking deterrence to competitiveness, innovation, and supply-chain resilience.

Supporters present it as another step toward strategic autonomy, a Europe that can equip itself, move faster, and depend less on outsiders as the security climate hardens.

Greece pays down its crisis debt early

Greece has accelerated its advance away from the euro zone’s debt crisis by paying off €5.3 billion [$6.23 billion] of public debt that was not due until after 2031.

Monday’s repayment will save about €1.6 billion [$1.88 billion] in interest through 2041 and help push the debt ratio below 120% of GDP by 2029, government spokesperson Pavlos Marinakis said.

The arithmetic matters, but so does the message: with firmer public finances and a larger cash buffer, Athens can retire long-dated liabilities and smooth its repayment schedule.

The aim is to reassure investors and ratings agencies that Greece is no longer living hand-to-mouth, and that crisis-era improvisation is giving way to something closer to normal fiscal management.

Volkswagen’s Dresden closure tests Germany’s industrial self-image

Volkswagen’s decision to end vehicle production at Dresden’s “Transparent Factory” in mid-December is less about volume than symbolism.

A glass-walled showpiece of German engineering is coming off the production map just as the country’s industrial model is under strain.

The timing is telling: Germany’s economy has been weak, energy and input costs remain a burden, and export-oriented manufacturers are facing sharper competition.

For carmakers, the pressure is strategic as well as cyclical. European incumbents, Volkswagen included, misjudged both the pace and the economics of the shift to electric vehicles.

They now face cheaper Chinese EV rivals while being forced to finance two technology tracks at once, scaling new EV platforms and batteries while refreshing combustion and hybrid lineups to match consumers and regulators. In that context, cutting capacity and repurposing plants starts to look like the new baseline, with Dresden an early marker of how far the adjustment may run.

Thailand tightens the screws on Cambodia’s sea lanes

Thailand’s military has reportedly decided to put in place a naval blockade of Cambodia, amid the rapidly escalating Thai-Cambodian conflict.

This is best read as a pressure tool aimed at Cambodia’s logistics, not an attempt to halt all shipping in the Gulf of Thailand. Fighting along the 817-kilometer (508-mile) border has intensified, with significant casualties and mass displacement on both sides, and a ceasefire effort associated with President Donald Trump has not held. Against that backdrop, Thai commanders are looking for ways to constrain Cambodia’s ability to sustain operations, particularly fuel flows and the movement of “strategic” goods.

What has been described publicly is a bundle of measures. Thai media report that a decision by the Committee of the Chiefs of Staff on 14 December directed the armed forces to treat waters around Cambodian ports as a “high-risk zone,” and to take action against Thai-flag vessels, or foreign-flag vessels operated by Thai interests, suspected of carrying fuel or military supplies to Cambodia.

That distinction matters. A naval blockade, in the classic sense, is an act associated with armed conflict at sea and, under widely cited guidance such as the San Remo Manual, is intended to prevent vessels of all states, including neutrals, from reaching specified enemy coasts, subject to strict conditions.

The economic logic is clear. Cambodia depends heavily on seaborne imports of refined fuel. Singapore is its largest supplier, so even limited disruption around key ports could raise costs quickly. Bangkok is also moving on land routes. Thailand has halted fuel shipments through a border crossing with Laos on suspicion that supplies were being diverted to Cambodia. Together, these steps aim to narrow Cambodia’s resupply options while signaling that commercial channels are part of the contest.

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