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Europe’s Ukraine loan and the limits of asset politics

Europe’s leaders have reached for a large, blunt instrument to keep Ukraine funded: an interest-free loan of €90bn ($105.5bn) intended to cover both military and economic needs over the next two years.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has framed the package as proof that his approach is taking hold, a signal to Russian President Vladimir Putin that the war will not pay, paired with a pledge to keep Russian assets frozen until Ukraine is compensated.

In practice, the summit’s compromise points elsewhere.

Leaders did not agree to mobilize Russia’s frozen reserves to finance the effort, leaving the European Union to borrow against its own shared budget instead of turning Moscow’s money into immediate leverage.

The result is an awkward outcome for both Merz and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who have argued for a tougher line on using Russian assets, and it shows how quickly European grand strategy can run into member-state vetoes.

Meanwhile, the same constraint is visible on trade: France’s decision to block the Mercosur trade pact with South America (which we reported yesterday) is another reminder that the Commission can champion an agreement, but it cannot force capitals to absorb the domestic politics that come with it.

The ultimate complex system

Japan’s central bank tightens again

The Bank of Japan has nudged the country further away from its ultra-loose era, raising the short-term policy rate by 25 basis points to 0.75%, the highest level since 1995, as officials argue that inflation remains stubborn and that wage and price-setting behavior are strong enough to justify further normalization.

The move comes with core consumer inflation running at 3.0% year on year in November, keeping price growth above the bank’s 2% target for years and strengthening the view that inflation is no longer merely an import-driven blip.

Markets had largely anticipated the decision, but still pushed Japanese government-bond yields higher, a reminder that even modest rate rises carry weight in an economy with heavy public debt and a financial system long accustomed to cheap money.

Cheap Japanese bonds matter to the global economy because they help set the world’s low-risk reference price for money, and Japan is big enough that even small shifts ripple outward. For years, ultra-low yields on Japanese government bonds have encouraged Japanese insurers, pension funds, and banks to look overseas for better returns, sending capital into U.S. Treasuries, European sovereign debt, credit markets, and emerging-market assets. That outward flow helps compress borrowing costs elsewhere and supports risk-taking when global growth is fragile. It also underpins “carry trades”, in which investors borrow in yen at low interest rates and invest in higher-yielding assets abroad, a strategy that can amplify booms but also unwind suddenly if Japanese yields rise, the yen strengthens, or policy expectations change.

Because Japan is a major creditor nation with deep, liquid markets, its bond yields influence currency hedging costs, cross-border funding conditions, and the relative attractiveness of holding dollar or euro debt on a currency-protected basis.

In short, cheap Japanese bonds are not just a local curiosity; they are part of the plumbing of global finance, quietly shaping everything from mortgage rates to corporate refinancing conditions, and occasionally turning into a source of volatility when that plumbing is adjusted.

Move fast and break things

America’s inflation surprise

U.S. inflation delivered a sharp downside surprise in the Consumer Price Index for November 2025, released on 18 December. Headline CPI rose 2.7% year on year, and core CPI (excluding food and energy) slowed to 2.6%, well below forecasts of roughly 3.1% and 3.0%, respectively.

That gap of about 0.4 percentage points on the core measure leaves it at its lowest annual pace since March 2021 and, on this metric, the closest reading to the Federal Reserve’s 2% objective since the pandemic.

The catch is that this was not a normal month. A federal government shutdown disrupted data collection and forced the cancellation of the October CPI, so the Bureau of Labor Statistics leaned on two-month changes from September to November (with core prices up 0.2% over that span).

That is why economists urged caution in treating the result as a clean monthly signal, even as markets read it as a sign that disinflation is regaining momentum.

Washington lets a health-care deadline bite

House Speaker Mike Johnson has effectively run out the clock on the Affordable Care Act’s enhanced premium tax credits, sending Congress home until 5 January without voting on an extension.

Unless lawmakers change course, the expanded subsidies expire on 31 December, and many Marketplace enrollees will face markedly higher net premiums for January coverage as the subsidy formula reverts to its older, less generous version, particularly middle-income households that benefited from the removal of the “subsidy cliff”.

The result is straightforward: no vote, no solution, and a deadline that arrives while Washington is on holiday, leaving millions bracing for a sudden jump in what they pay for health insurance.

A federal reset on cannabis

President Donald Trump’s Executive Order, signed on 18 December 2025, directs the administration to start shifting marijuana from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, where it is grouped with drugs deemed to have no accepted medical use, to Schedule III, a category that includes many tightly regulated prescription medicines.

The order does not legalize cannabis nationwide, and it does not change federal law overnight. Instead, it instructs the Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Administration to carry out the formal rescheduling process required under federal rules. If that process is completed, the change would matter. It would lower barriers to federally sanctioned research, reinforce Washington’s tacit recognition of medical use, and could ease a major commercial distortion: a tax regime that has penalized firms dealing in cannabis.

Even so, the central features of America’s cannabis patchwork would largely remain unless Congress intervenes. Recreational marijuana would not become federally legal by default, banking and interstate-commerce constraints would still limit the industry’s development, and federal regulators would continue to police medical claims, product standards, and enforcement priorities.

The Executive Order, then, is a consequential step toward alignment with state law and the reality of nation-wide usage patterns, and a platform for broader decriminalization or legalization debates, rather than their conclusion.

America First

Rubio sanctions ICC judges over Israel warrants

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said President Donald Trump’s administration is sanctioning two International Criminal Court judges, Gocha Lordkipanidze of Georgia and Erdenebalsuren Damdin of Mongolia, arguing that they have been directly involved in what Washington calls “politicized and illegitimate” legal action against Israel.

The move follows a decision earlier this week rejecting parts of Israel’s attempt to challenge the court’s Gaza-related proceedings, including elements linked to the arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s former defense minister, Yoav Gallant.

Rubio presented the sanctions as a warning that the U.S. will impose “significant and tangible consequences” to counter what it describes as ICC “lawfare,” abuse of authority, and disregard for U.S. and Israeli sovereignty, intensifying a long-running clash over jurisdiction and the court’s pursuit of cases involving non-member states.

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