View this email in your browser Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good   May 7, 2019 The Never-Ending Trade War After President Trump upended Chinese trade talks with a Twitter threat over the weekend, he gets some advice from Robert Boxwell in a South China Morning Post op-ed: Stand firm on intellectual property and technology transfers, or the trade war will be lost forever; tech will drive the economy of the future, and the US can't cede that longer-term edge. With talks set to resume in Washington this week, there are reasons to wonder if the trade war will drag on in perpetuity: At CSIS, Scott Kennedy writes that Trump's "crazy uncle strategy" of periodic outbursts only tells China that deals with the US will be "temporary" and subject to later demands. At The New Republic, Sam Bresnick and Lucas Tcheyan argue China and the US are in for a much longer-term economic competition, and however the current talks end, they'll only open up the "next can of worms in an increasingly competitive and contentious relationship." Climate Denialism Goes to Germany Germany's far-right party, the Alternative für Deutschland, has taken to mocking the idea of human-caused climate change, Der Spiegel reports. Among 21 far-right European parties, AfD denies human-caused climate change more ferociously than any but Britain's UKIP, one expert tells the paper. And the strategy seems to be working: AfD is posing itself as a savior of diesel, and its message is catching on among rural voters who rely on their cars, the paper writes. Clowning Putin When Ukraine elected a comedian, Volodymyr Zelensky, as its president, some worried Vladimir Putin would eat his lunch. Not so, evidently: After Putin offered Russian passports to Ukrainians (a provocative move, amid the countries' war), Zelensky responded "masterful[ly]," offering Ukrainian passports to Russians in a Facebook post detailing the freedoms Ukrainians enjoy, Thomas de Waal writes at Carnegie Europe. Zelensky, a Russian speaker from Ukraine's east, has managed to defuse cultural tensions on which Putin has sought to capitalize, de Waal writes. His TV show helped: It dealt with Russian pop-cultural archetypes, Peter Pomerantzev writes in The American Interest, broadening Zelensky's cultural appeal to those who feel close to Russia. The closeness some Ukrainians feel to Russian language and culture has provided a fault line in Ukrainian politics—and was part of Putin's justification for seizing Ukrainian territory. Zelensky's language and image have helped him break down that divide. Bolton's 'Last Stand?' As Fareed has noted, President Trump's foreign policy is effectively John Bolton's: The president's inconsistency has allowed the dark, conservative worldview of his national security advisor to carry the day. The Washington Post's Jason Rezaian wonders how long this dynamic will hold, as Bolton's threats on Iran and Venezuela sound like a run-up to war. Trump has signaled willingness to talk to Iran's leadership, and if the president lacks an appetite for actual conflict—and would rather make nice with adversaries, as he's done elsewhere—Bolton's star could very well fall, Rezaian writes. How Populism Helps Capitalism For all its anti-capitalist energy, socialist populism can actually help keep markets healthy, Raghuram Rajan argues in Project Syndicate. As superstar firms like big tech companies gain more market share (Apple, for instance, says it bought 20-25 companies in the last six months), they can be tempted into anticompetitive practices and exert more influence over regulation; left-leaning populism can help keep that in check, encouraging market reforms to maintain competition and prevent monopolies, Rajan writes, depicting the populist-capitalist relationship as a symbiotic one. Share Tweet Fwd unsubscribe from this list update subscription preferences  Copyright © 2019 Cable News Network, Inc. A WarnerMedia Company., All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you subscribed to CNN newsletters. Our mailing address is: Cable News Network, Inc. A WarnerMedia Company. One CNN Center Atlanta, GA 30303 Add us to your address book What did you like about today's Global Briefing? What did we miss? Let us know what you think: GlobalBriefing@cnn.com Sign up to get updates on your favorite CNN Original Series, special CNN news coverage and other newsletters.​   Sign Up for Fareed's Global Briefing