The Economist Latin America July 13, 2019

Politics Britain’s ambassador to America, Sir Kim Darroch, resigned after President Donald Trump said he would “no longer deal with him”. The spat came after Sir Kim’s confidential cables to London were leaked to a newspaper. They described the White House as “dysfunctional”, “clumsy” and “inept”, and its occupant as “radiat[ing] insecurity”. The British government backed its man, but Boris Johnson, the probable next prime minister, conspicuously did not. Sir Kim took the hint. Mr Trump violated the American constitution by blocking those whose views he disliked from his Twitter account, a federal appeals court ruled. It said the First Amendment forbids a public official to operate in such a way on a platform used to conduct government business. The case was brought by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University…

AROUND THE world investors, businesses and central bankers are grappling with a startling fact: at the end of July America’s economy will have been growing for 121 months, the longest run since records began in 1854, according to the NBER, a research body. History suggests there will be a recession soon. And plenty of people are gloomy. Bond markets have been sounding the alarm, as long-term interest rates sink below short-term ones, often a harbinger of a downturn. Manufacturing firms are wary; indices of business confidence are tumbling. Yet equity investors are still buoyant. The stockmarket is going gangbusters, rising by 19% so far this year. And in June America’s economy created a whopping 224,000 new jobs, more than twice as many as needed to keep up with the growth…

AMIT SHAH, India’s home minister, calls them “termites” and “infiltrators”. The government will hunt them down and throw them into the sea, he thunders. Unfortunately, it is not just the standard bluster from a nativist politician railing against illegal immigration. Last year bureaucrats in the Indian state of Assam, which has a population of about 33m people, produced a list of more than 4m of its residents whom they consider foreigners, without any right to live there. A further 100,000 people were deemed non-citizens in June (see Asia section). Mr Shah insists that all these people will be deported. In practice, neighbouring Bangladesh, from which they are said to have migrated, will not accept them, since in most cases there is no evidence that they are anything other than Indians too…

Politics Britain’s ambassador to America, Sir Kim Darroch, resigned after President Donald Trump said he would “no longer deal with him”. The spat came after Sir Kim’s confidential cables to London were leaked to a newspaper. They described the White House as “dysfunctional”, “clumsy” and “inept”, and its occupant as “radiat[ing] insecurity”. The British government backed its man, but Boris Johnson, the probable next prime minister, conspicuously did not. Sir Kim took the hint. Mr Trump violated the American constitution by blocking those whose views he disliked from his Twitter account, a federal appeals court ruled. It said the First Amendment forbids a public official to operate in such a way on a platform used to conduct government business. The case was brought by the Knight First Amendment Institute at…

ON JULY 8TH euro-zone watchers breathed a sigh of relief. The zone’s 19 finance ministers backed the European Commission’s decision that Italy should not be penalised for allowing its public-debt burden to rise in 2018 in violation of the EU’s fiscal rules. Thanks to savings of 0.4% of GDP for the current year, cobbled together by Italy’s governing coalition, a damaging confrontation seems to have been resolved. In truth, however, it has merely been postponed. The grim reality of Italy’s public finances remains unchanged. Its deficit is on course to exceed the EU’s threshold of 3% of GDP in 2020, its debt is sky high and, worst of all, it is plagued by a persistent absence of growth. If Italy is to dispel the ever-present air of crisis, a much more…

IN THE 1980S the first of what was to become a procession of European banks began an assault on Wall Street. Credit Suisse bought First Boston in 1988. Deutsche Bank swallowed Bankers Trust a decade later. After the turn of the century, UBS, RBS, Barclays and others also waved their chequebooks. The motive was partly to follow customers as business globalised, but also defensive: a response to American rivals’ charge into Europe. This week Europe’s dream of going toe to toe with homegrown investment banks in the world’s deepest capital market came to a shuddering end with the capitulation of Deutsche Bank. Its overdue restructuring will involve 18,000 job losses, mostly in London and New York. The retreat is a humiliation for a bank that once signalled a desire to knock…