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What you need to know

America shifts additional carrier from the Caribbean to the Middle East

U.S. officials told The New York Times that the USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group, which has been operating in the Caribbean, has been ordered to redeploy to the Middle East.

The Ford is the lead ship of the U.S. Navy’s newest aircraft-carrier class. Commissioned in 2017, it introduced a new design intended to replace the older Nimitz class, with follow-on Ford-class carriers scheduled to join the fleet in coming years.

The Ford’s recent Caribbean posture has been tracked in open reporting. USNI News fleet tracker reported on 26 January that the carrier had been in port in St. Thomas the previous week, after operating in the Caribbean earlier in the month. Some commercial ship-tracking sites that compile AIS receptions have also intermittently shown the carrier in the Caribbean around that period, though AIS data for military vessels can be patchy and may not reflect continuous transmissions.

If the strike group departed the Caribbean soon after late January and transited east via the Atlantic and Gibraltar, a reasonable planning range is about 8–12 days underway to operate off Israel’s coast. That would mean arrival off the port of Haifa around 20-24 February. However, if the carrier is intended to be deployed to the Arabian Sea or Persian Gulf, then another ten days transit should be added to that timeframe. Even if the carrier does not broadcast its location via AIS, it will likely be seen when it transits the Straits of Gibraltar and enters the Mediterranean.

Move fast and break things

Markets digest softer U.S. housing and steadier hiring

Signs of a gentle cooling in the U.S. economy mixed with fresh market jitters about global growth. In the latest weekly snapshot, initial jobless claims slipped to 227,000, while continuing claims rose to 1.862m, a combination that points to a labor market that is easing rather than cracking. Housing looked weaker: existing-home sales fell 8.4% in January to an annualized 3.91m, the sharpest drop in nearly four years. High borrowing costs and strained affordability continued to weigh on demand, with winter weather also dampening activity.

Across markets, investors grew more cautious. Asian equities retreated from recent highs as renewed volatility in U.S. tech stocks spread through risk sentiment, while bonds found support as traders positioned for the next U.S. inflation reading. In Europe, expectations remained set on an extended pause at the European Central Bank, consistent with modest growth and cooling inflation pressures. In Japan, the yen strengthened sharply, helped by domestic political headlines and revived speculation that the Bank of Japan could tighten further during 2026.

Commodities reflected the softer-demand tone. Oil prices drifted lower and were headed for a second weekly decline as the immediate Iran-risk premium faded and oversupply concerns reasserted themselves. That could ease headline inflation at the margin, while also pointing to a more subdued outlook for global activity.

Debt, deficits, and the arithmetic of drift

The Congressional Budget Office’s latest baseline, released on Wednesday, 11 February 2026, sketches a federal balance sheet that keeps worsening even without a recession or a new emergency. On the CBO’s numbers, federal debt held by the public rises from about 101% of GDP in 2026 to roughly 120% by 2036, while annual deficits hover around $2 trillion and edge higher over time. In dollar terms, that trajectory implies debt rising into the mid-$50 trillions by 2036, and some headlines frame the next-decade increase as taking the national debt toward roughly $64 trillion.

The forces at work are cumulative rather than dramatic. Spending rises as the population ages, lifting Social Security and Medicare outlays, while interest costs compound as the government refinances a larger stock of debt at prevailing rates. The CBO also attributes part of the wider deficit path to policy choices, including tax reductions extended or expanded under President Donald Trump; these reduce revenues relative to what the baseline would otherwise collect. Tariff receipts help at the margin, but they do not close the gap once higher interest costs and entitlement spending are added to the ledger.

The risk is less an imminent “default moment” than a slow squeeze: a larger share of federal resources diverted to debt service, less fiscal room to respond to crises, and a budget outlook that becomes more sensitive to inflation surprises and interest-rate moves. That is why the CBO again describes the long-run trajectory as unsustainable, even as it projects only modest trend growth.

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

U.S.-Taiwan trade deal deepens ties as tariffs fall

Washington and Taipei have signed and published a “reciprocal trade” agreement that sets the U.S. tariff on most Taiwanese imports at 15%, down from 20%. In return, Taiwan will eliminate or reduce tariffs on almost all U.S. goods. Officials say the deal covers 99% of tariff lines.

The pact rests on three main trades: market access, big-ticket purchases, and investment. On purchases, Taiwan agreed to increase buying of U.S. products over the next several years, including about $44.4bn in energy (liquefied natural gas and crude oil), $15.2bn in civil aircraft and engines, and $25.2bn in power-grid and industrial equipment. On investment, the agreement is paired with pledges of at least $250bn in new Taiwanese investment in the U.S., focused on semiconductors, artificial intelligence, and advanced electronics, building on earlier commitments by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company.

Taiwan also secured carve-outs and product-specific terms. There are exemptions for more than 2,000 items, alongside the removal of Taiwanese barriers affecting some U.S. automobiles, medical devices, and pharmaceuticals. Politics could still complicate implementation.

The timing reflects both economics and strategy. The U.S. runs a sizable goods deficit with Taiwan, driven largely by semiconductor imports. The agreement also brings Taiwan’s tariff treatment closer to what has been reported for other Asia-Pacific partners.

The result is a deeper commercial link with a critical technology supplier, as Beijing weighs its response.

The planet will be fine, it’s the humans that should be concerned

Heat without relief

Global temperatures remained historically high in January.

Copernicus, the EU’s climate-monitoring service, said January 2026 was the fifth-warmest January globally, about 1.47°C above the estimated pre-industrial average (1850–1900). The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s independent global assessment broadly agrees with the ranking, describing January 2026 as the fifth-warmest January in its record. NOAA also noted unusually widespread warmth and near-record-low Arctic sea-ice extent for the month. NOAA reports anomalies against a 20th-century baseline, rather than a pre-industrial one, so its figures are not directly comparable with Copernicus’s.

In Europe, carbon pricing has become a more explicit political target, as major European economies, especially German, face increasing headwinds. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen defended the EU Emissions Trading System after several leaders raised concerns about costs and competitiveness, cautioning against weakening a policy central to funding and encouraging industrial decarbonization; a formal ETS review is expected in July.

Australia, meanwhile, approved an expansion of Queensland’s Middlemount coal mine, reviving arguments over whether a country can claim climate credibility while enlarging export coal. The government says the project will be subject to conditions and to Australia’s domestic emissions safeguards.

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