Marc Ross Daily | March 27

Marc Ross Daily | March 27

Marc Ross Daily is geopolitical business news + intelligence for senior executives + comms pros.

Geopolitics is disrupting every business and industry. I am here to help.

Always Be Communicating. 

Happy Thursday.

Here’s today’s Marc Ross Daily: 

*** Globalization + Geopolitics ***

Chinese hacking is becoming bigger, better and stealthier: Experts say it is the main shift in the cyber-threat landscape in a decade. Economist

Reuters:  Vietnam to allow SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet service 

Estonia’s fears after UK cuts British troop numbers: The Times reports country’s former defence commander questions whether the UK is taking its NATO role ‘seriously.’

EU calls for households to stockpile 72 hours of food amid war risks: FT reports Commission issues 30-step plan for dealing with increased threats including Russian aggression.

Macron, Zelensky accuse Russia of wanting war to drag on, ahead of Ukraine security summit in Paris: Le Monde reports speaking alongside Volodymyr Zelensky in Paris on Wednesday, the French president said Russia must accept the 30-day ceasefire without 'preconditions,' ahead of the summit of the 'coalition of the willing' countries on Thursday.

Oleg Gordievsky worked for both sides in the cold war: The KGB intelligence officer and double agent died on March 4th, aged 86. Economist

Europe will have to zip its lip over China’s abuses: In a fracturing world, trade and co-operation will come first. Economist

Bloomberg: Bolsonaro to stand trial on coup charges, Brazil’s top court panel rules

Brazil puts former President Bolsonaro on trial for allegedly plotting coup: WSJ reports the ruling by the country’s supreme court deals a blow to one of President Trump’s closest allies in Latin America.

Brazil's Bolsonaro ordered to stand trial for attempted coup: Le Monde reports the counts against the former president and 33 others include planning to poison his successor, current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and kill a Supreme Court judge.

23%: The share of the world’s copper mined in Chile.

Bloomberg: Canada and India look to reset ties in counter to Trump’s duties

A new ‘China Shock’ is destroying jobs around the world: From Indonesia to Mexico, job losses could mount as Trump’s tariffs divert even more Chinese exports from the US. Bloomberg

Donald Trump to impose 25% tariff on US auto imports: FT reports new levy marks significant escalation in president’s trade war.

Trump plans 25% tariff on imported vehicles: WSJ reports the president left little room for exemptions in remarks made at the White House.

CNBC: Trump announces 25% tariffs on all cars ‘not made in the United States’

+ Last year, the United States imported nearly 8 million cars and light trucks worth $244 billion. Mexico, Japan, and South Korea were the top sources of foreign vehicles.

Trump barrels forward with plans for reciprocal tariffs on major trading partners: Imposing new taxes on imports from countries that sell more goods to the United States than they buy may not undo trade imbalances, analysts say. WP

The 41-page blueprint that may help explain Trump’s painful trade wars: An economic treatise by a top Trump adviser is being read as a roadmap of his tariff policy. But even he says it’s not what Trump is implementing. WP

Tariffs won’t bring a boom in American manufacturing: But tax credits, subsidized loans, and grants could boost US production of energy and some products. Jared Bernstein + Dean Baker

Trump’s tariff pain: the growing evidence: As “liberation day” nears, American businesses suffer. Economist

Bloomberg: Trump insists US must own Greenland as Vance heads there



***  US Politics + Elections ***

A rare moment of bipartisan disbelief: Washington gets a good old-fashioned scandal. Mark Leibovich

Bloomberg: Release of Signal texts strains Trump’s bid to quash furor

The Atlantic releases screenshots of timing, weapons used in Yemen war plans Signal chat: Politico reports the magazine said that it decided that “there is a clear public interest in disclosing” the information.

‘Own it, fire Waltz, move on’: White House allies fume as group chat scandal grows: Politico reports Trump and officials in his administration have appeared to downplay the seriousness of the leaked Signal group chat over the past 24 hours.

White House denials over the Signal snafu ring hollow: The breach raises questions of security and legality. Economist

+ @jcroe: Epic levels of gaslighting this week

+ @SenMarkKelly: The Signal incident is what happens when you have the most unqualified Secretary of Defense we've ever seen. We're lucky it didn't cost any servicemembers their lives, but for the safety of our military and our country, Secretary Hegseth needs to resign.

Appeals court upholds temporary block on Alien Enemies Act deportations: WP reports the Trump administration asked an appeals court to overturn Judge James E. Boasberg’s temporary restraining order blocking the deportations.

Supreme Court upholds Biden administration’s limits on ‘ghost guns’: NYT reports he administration had tightened regulations on kits that can be easily assembled into nearly untraceable firearms.

Top Republicans rebuff Trump’s demand to impeach judges: WSJ reports GOP lawmakers pursue other ways to rein in the judiciary.

Reuters:  DOGE staffer 'Big Balls' provided tech support to cybercrime ring, records show 

Reuters: Anduril says AI start-up sees good 'vibes' from new Trump Pentagon 

Rivals pounce on Paul Weiss, a top law firm, after Trump’s order: WSJ reports fears that competitors could take its top rainmaking talent added to the law firm’s worries about a Trump executive order that targeted it.

Wyoming plans launch its own cryptocurrency as soon as July, making it the first fiat-backed and fully-reserved stable token issued by a US entity.

The Trump White House shut out the AP. They keep showing up anyway. WP reports the Associated Press has been barred from events for not using “Gulf of A

*** Distribution + Innovation ***

Our love-hate relationship with digital technology: National public opinion poll findings. RebootDemocracydotAI

CNBC: Bill Gates: Within 10 years, AI will replace many doctors and teachers—humans won’t be needed ‘for most things’

CNBC: Amazon is testing shopping, health assistants as it pushes deeper into generative AI

The Verge: Microsoft adds ‘deep reasoning’ Copilot AI for research and data analysis

I quit Google search for AI—and I’m not going back: Ads and search-optimized junk made a mess of the go-to engine. Now ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude—and even Google’s own AI—do it better. WSJ

Databricks has a trick that lets AI models improve themselves: Wired reports rsing several recent innovations, the company Databricks will let customers boost the IQ of their AI models even if they don’t have squeaky clean data.

What happened when a newspaper let AI take over: Italy’s Il Foglio newspaper calls Foglio AI an experiment into the future of journalism. So far, it’s plagiarized and drafted fake news that humans had to fix. WP

Reuters:  Anthropic wins early round in music publishers' AI copyright case 

JPMorgan Chase & Co. has generated and certified so-called truly random numbers using a quantum computer, in a world-first that the bank hopes will have applications for security and trading.

Reuters:  Exxon investing $100 million in facility to produce cleaning alcohol for chip industry 

*** Culture ***

New AI project explores mysteries of Delacroix, master of romanticism: Eric and Wendy Schmidt and the Sorbonne will fund a new program to digitize Delacroix’s papers and identify other artists who may have contributed to his murals and paintings. NYT

American women are giving up on marriage: Major demographic shifts have put men and women on divergent paths. That’s left more women resigned to being single. ‘The numbers aren’t netting out.’ WSJ

The morning routine to end all morning routines NY Mag

*** Sport ***

BBC: Ruthless Red Bull drop Lawson after two races

+ Red Bull have delivered one of the most ruthless driver moves in F1 history after deciding to drop Liam Lawson after just two races.

+ The 23-year-old New Zealander will swap places with Japanese driver Yuki Tsunoda and return to Red Bull's second team, Racing Bulls, from the next race in Japan in a week's time.

The National Basketball Association is in talks with owners of some of Europe’s largest football clubs about backing teams in a new basketball league on the continent, as part of what could be the biggest-ever international expansion push by a US sports league. The NBA has held early-stage discussions with owners of clubs including Paris Saint Germain and Manchester City, as well as prospective backers of a London-based team.

Jim Nantz says he will retire from calling the Masters in 2036.


Enjoy the ride + plan accordingly. 

-Marc 

Marc A. Ross | Chief Communications Strategist @ Caracal