The Debate

Will global trade ever be the same? In the name of "unrelented economic warfare" allegedly waged by friend and foe alike against the United States, Donald Trump is unveiling a dizzying list: worldwide tariffs, targeted tariffs, retaliatory tariffs, carve-outs, exceptions, all leading to confusion. Trump also signed an executive order ending duty-free shipments of small-value packages from mainland China and Hong Kong; a major blow to e-commerce companies.

Will this mark the end of the consumer-driven model that’s gone into overdrive since Beijing joined the World Trade Organization in 2000? Wither the cheap goods that flood the four corners of the Earth?

The Chinese, like the Europeans, are mapping their response as rivals renew dialogue. In the case of China, it's also testing Washington’s resolve, as evidenced by bigger-than-ever military drills around Taiwan. Taiwan is also the target of hefty Trump tariffs.

Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip.

Donald Trump is billing April 2 as "Liberation Day", when the United States sheds the shackles of unfair competition thanks to worldwide tariffs. We test the veracity of the US president’s worldview and ask: how much is theatrics that will play well in constituencies where manufacturing jobs have disappeared? How much is a genuine sense of grievance? Or has the world’s top superpower simply grown tired of playing guarantor of global free trade? Otherwise, why test the rules of globalisation when you already dominate global tech and financial services? In the short term, the United States can inflict a lot of pain. After all, it controls the world’s most trusted currency, the almighty US dollar. Is that trust gone and gone for good? Even if it's all bargaining tactics and Trump ultimately rolls back these tariffs?

Read moreLive: Trump tariffs fuel global trade war as EU, China vow retaliation

Produced by Rebecca Gnignati, Elisa Amiri, Ilayda Habip.

There was a sea of humanity out in the streets last Saturday to protest the jailing of Turkey's popular presidential contender Ekrem Imamoglu, but now the country's on a week-long post-Ramadan break. Will it be long enough to dull the momentum of Turkey's biggest mass movement in more than a decade?

For now, the mayor of Istanbul's centre-left CHP party is calling for weekly Wednesday rallies and consumer boycotts to keep up the pressure, this despite a widening crackdown. What makes this movement different to all the others that have tried and failed to unseat a leader of 22 years, who despite inflation and incumbent fatigue retains a solid base?

Going forward, is time on Recep Tayyip Erdogan's side? The Turkish president needs early elections if he's to change the constitution and lift term limits before 2028. And in a nation where judges and civil servants seem to fall in line when needed, elections remain the one process that Erdogan can't seem to control. 

Produced by Rebecca Gnignati, Elisa Amiri, Ilayda Habip.

Can justice be truly blind? Truly impartial and impervious to biases, pressures and power plays? Can citizens in this day and age agree to accept it when a court bars a presidential frontrunner from contesting the next election? The party of the French far right's Marine Le Pen calls it "an execution of democracy," after a ruling found nine far-right lawmakers guilty of running a "system" that funnelled €2.9 million from the European Parliament to National Rally insiders.

Injustice is in the eye of the beholder: take Romania and Turkey, where frontrunners have also been recently barred under very different circumstances. Whenever a politician is convicted, it's a stress test for institutions and the rule of law. In the case of Le Pen, she's got the backing of a growing media echo chamber. How far will crying foul carry the far right in France?

Donald Trump never went to trial for allegedly trying to forcibly overturn his 2020 election defeat. With the US president now testing constitutional limits in his country, will the illiberal winds across the Atlantic further stoke sympathy for Le Pen, or spook citizens who may look at the turmoil in Washington and prefer France's imperfect republic as it is?

Produced by Rebecca Gnignati, Elisa Amiri, Ilayda Habip.

Read moreLe Pen's French presidential hopes in jeopardy as election ban upends 2027 race

If Europeans didn't get the memo in Munich, when JD Vance preferred a meeting with the pro-Putin far-right leader Alice Weidel to one with Germany’s chancellor Olaf Scholz, then they're cordially invited to read what he says in private about an Old Continent populated by "freeloaders". If Signalgate's still not enough, then how about a sitting US vice president announcing an uninvited visit to Greenland? A "very aggressive" posture, says Denmark's prime minister. But what can Mette Frederiksen do when her country buys most of its military hardware from the US and hosts a US Air Force base in Greenland?

The Danish leader is representing one of over 30 NATO countries present in Paris for a "coalition of the willing" summit on Ukraine. But those 32 nations do not include the United States.

Co-hosts France and the UK know they can't deploy peacekeepers over the heads of a reluctant Trump administration.

So what's the workaround? And with Washington now repeating what sounds like Kremlin talking points, how grave a danger is there not just for Ukraine, but for all of Europe? Is the EU overreacting when it advises its citizens to stockpile three days of food and essentials just in case?

Are we witnessing what's neither the first nor the last testing of the limits of US democracy? Or is Donald Trump taking the world's most powerful nation into unchartered territory? What to make of the attacks on judges and lawyers, as well as the attempt to gut vast swathes of the government and even shut down public broadcasting? Do Americans mind this new turn? After all, a majority voted for Trump despite the attempt to overturn by force his defeat four years ago.

Produced by Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont and Ilayda Habip.

Nearly two years on, it’s back to Khartoum for Sudan’s civil war. The forces of junta leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan are ousting those of ally-turned-foe Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo from key points. The leader of the RSF militia can instead point to gains in North Darfur province. We ask why we're seeing these shifting alliances that are redrawing the frontline, whether it’s a turning point and whether there's any light at the end of the tunnel for the 12 million people displaced by a fratricide conflict that follows the interruption by coups of a revolution that strived to bring democracy to Sudan after decades of strongman rule.

Beyond ethnic cleansing that harks back to the days of the Darfur genocide and the risk of famine in parts, there's also a brewing war of words with neighbours South Sudan and Chad, with the latter's leadership accused by Burhan of facilitating Emirati weapons supplies to the RSF. So which will it be for Sudan: containment or contagion?

Produced by Rebecca Gnignati, Ilayda Habib and Aurore Laborie. 

Despite bans, beatings and even the use of facial recognition technology to pursue protesters, Turkey's opposition is out in the streets in its greatest numbers in more than a decade. This comes after the jailing of centre-left opposition leader Ekrem Imamoglu, the popular mayor of Istanbul who's been charged with corruption and abetting terrorism just as he's been plebiscited by the CHP to carry the party's colours in the 2028 presidential election. Will the protesters prevail?

Turkey has seen many a rule-of-law showdown over the years. One-time Istanbul mayor Recep Tayyip Erdogan was himself jailed in 1999, essentially for being popular. He's since enjoyed 22 years of uninterrupted power, which a potential constitutional reform would extend. What to make of this crackdown and its pushback?

Produced by Rebecca Gnignati, Ilayda Habib and Aurore Laborie. 

As US-led talks with Russia and Ukraine progress without the Europeans at the table, the 27-nation bloc is pressing ahead with what Ursula von der Leyen has branded a steel "porcupine strategy". In her words: "We need to make Ukraine strong enough to be indigestible for potential invaders". Her plan aims to build the Ukrainian armed forces and the country’s defence industry into a formidable opponent for Russia to give Ukraine a hope of self-defence in the future. But can Europe find the money to help Ukraine?

Produced by Théophile Vareille, Rebecca Gnignati and Ilayda Habip.

Israel is bringing the war back to the people of the Gaza Strip, notably launching a ground operation to take back control of the Netzarim Corridor. This follows the extensive bombardment of March 18, in which more than 400 Palestinians lost their lives. Among them, Israel says five senior Hamas leaders were killed. Where does this leave the quest for peace in the Middle East?

In Jerusalem this Wednesday, demonstrations called for peace and the safe return of the remaining Israeli hostages held by Hamas since October 7, 2023.

With phase one of the peace deal expired and not renewed, with accusations of breaking the accord on both sides, and now with Israel's all-out assault taking the region back into a war scenario, there are many questions on where this might lead.

Produced by Rebecca Gnignati, Ilayda Habib and Aurore Laborie.