Somewhere else to go
Developments
- In Beijing, Canada’s prime minister announces a “new strategic partnership,” calling China more predictable than Washington. In Greenland, seven NATO allies arrive with fighter jets and naval vessels. In Tokyo, the defense minister insists the U.S. alliance remains “completely unshaken.” Three allies, three different bets.
- Seven NATO allies arrive in the Arctic to defend against the alliance’s largest member. The U.S. still isn’t talking to the man they’ve acknowledged as Venezuela’s legitimate president-elect. Iran announces an execution, then claims it was never going to happen.
Features
- How did U.S. immigration enforcement get so radical, so fast? Austin Kocher on Trump’s refitting of a system his predecessors built.
- Why does American civil society look so fragile? Dylan Riley on why so many nonprofits and universities have been folding under pressure from the U.S. administration.
Books
- How has China become so innovative while remaining so authoritarian? Jennifer Lind, Autocracy 2.0: How China’s Rise Reinvented Tyranny.
Music
- What on Earth is drone metal?
- & New tracks from Sunn O))), The Messthetics x James Brandon Lewis, Sault, & Twilight Sad.
+ Weather report
- Arctic air all the way to Florida …
Developments
Options
On Friday, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney stood in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People and announced a “new strategic partnership” with China. Canada would slash tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles from 100 percent to 6.1 percent; China would reciprocate on canola. Asked whether Beijing was now a more reliable partner than Washington, Carney didn’t hedge: China is “more predictable, and you see results coming from that.” He called it preparation for “the new world order.”
This is the first visit by a Canadian prime minister to China since 2017—a relationship that froze over Beijing’s detention of two Canadians and allegations of Chinese interference in Canadian elections. Now Ottawa is explicitly breaking with U.S. tariff policy and reopening the door, while President Donald Trump’s tariffs continue to punish Canadian exports, with no deal is in sight, and his off-and-on rhetoric about using “economic force” to absorb their country as a 51st state continues ringing in Canadians’ ears.
But Canada isn’t alone. European NATO members have now deployed military personnel to Greenland—Germany, France, the U.K., Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Netherlands, Estonia—as Trump insists “anything less” than U.S. control of the island is “unacceptable.” Germany has committed €500 billion to defense by 2029, hitting NATO’s 3.5 percent GDP target six years early. France watches nervously as the continent’s power balance shifts.
Japan is moving the other way. Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi met U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Wednesday and called the alliance between their countries “completely unshaken.” Tokyo faces direct pressure from Beijing—economic retaliation, rare-earth export bans, territorial claims on Okinawa—after Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said a Chinese blockade of Taiwan would constitute an “existential threat” to Japan. For Tokyo, the U.S. alliance isn’t optional.
The U.K., for its part, has quietly suspended intelligence sharing with the U.S. on Caribbean drug-trafficking operations. London doesn’t want its information used for strikes it considers illegal.
Canada hedging toward Beijing. Europe building collective defense. Japan doubling down on Washington. The U.K. drawing lines on intelligence cooperation. Is each ally simply doing its own math?
Or is there a pattern?
- Available alternatives. Canada and Europe have options. Ottawa’s second-largest trading partner is China; the EU has the scale to build an autonomous defense capacity, even if it takes years. Japan doesn’t have that luxury. Its threat environment is immediate—China, North Korea, a potential Taiwan contingency—and no alternative security arrangement exists. Allies with somewhere else to go are going there. Allies without are staying put.
- The nature of the breach. For Canada, the wound is economic—tariffs and sovereignty threats. For Europe, it’s the spectacle of the alliance’s most powerful member threatening to annex another member’s territory. For the UK, it’s complicity in operations that violate its own legal standards. Japan faces none of these directly; its friction with Trump has been over trade, not security, and that deal is done. The allies hedging most actively are the ones whose core interests feel most directly threatened.
- Time horizons. Germany’s €500 billion commitment runs to 2029. Canada’s China pivot aims to build long-term alternatives to U.S. dependence. Japan’s doubling down is about the next five years of Indo-Pacific competition. Allies are betting on different futures because they’re operating on different timescales—and because none of them knows how long American unpredictability will last.
If there’s a pattern, it may be structural: allies sorting themselves by how much they need the U.S., what lines the U.S. has crossed with them, and what alternatives exist.
The American administration’s bet is that allies will grumble and fall in line. The emerging evidence suggests a different effect. Canada signed a deal. Europe deployed troops. The U.K. has already suspended intelligence sharing. These aren’t rhetorical gestures; they’re institutional commitments—that create their own momentum. Once Canada builds supply chains through Beijing, once Germany’s defense industry scales to continental ambitions, once allies develop the habit of planning for a world without reliable American support, those habits don’t simply fall away when Washington’s tone changes.
The U.S. built the postwar order by making itself the partner everyone wanted. The key question now is how much more sustained unpredictability it’ll take before American allies’ contingency plans become their strategic foundations? … See “Going it alone.”
Meanwhile
- Arctic exercises. After Trump’s White House told Denmark that “utilizing the U.S. military is always an option” for acquiring Greenland, seven NATO allies sent personnel to the territory. France, Germany, the U.K., Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, and Estonia joined Denmark’s “Operation Arctic Endurance”—reconnaissance missions, naval operations, fighter deployments. Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen met Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday. “The president has this wish of conquering over Greenland,” he told reporters afterward. A working group was established. No resolution was reached. “Fundamental disagreement” remains. Denmark announced it would increase its military presence “in close cooperation with our allies”—seven of which were already there.
- An ambiguous stay in Iran. On Monday, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi declared “total control.” By Wednesday, the regime was backpedaling. After Trump warned of “very strong action” if Iran executed protesters, authorities announced Erfan Soltani’s execution had been postponed. Then, on Thursday, the judiciary claimed Soltani had never been sentenced to death at all—contradicting what his family says officials told them. Trump declared that “the killing has stopped,” and Araghchi said hanging protesters was “out of the question,” but Soltani remains in Karaj prison. The country’s internet blackout, now in its tenth day, makes verification difficult. Human rights groups estimate between 2,000 and 12,000 dead—the uncertainty itself a measure of the regime’s information control. While Trump is taking credit for a pause, to what extent there’s been one, and how long it lasts, remain unclear. … See “‘Total control.’”
- A president-elect still in exile. Two weeks after U.S. forces captured Nicolás Maduro, the Trump administration still hasn’t contacted Edmundo González—the man Washington recognized as the legitimate winner of Venezuela’s 2024 election. On Wednesday, Trump met at the White House with opposition leader María Corina Machado, where she presented him with her Nobel Prize medal. He told reporters his view hadn’t changed: Machado lacks the “respect” to govern. Machado, for her part, told her team afterward she’d insisted Venezuela “has a president-elect”—and she’s proud to work alongside him. González, meanwhile, spoke with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on January 9—calling for political prisoners to be released and emphasizing that “true normalization” requires respecting Venezuela’s election results. … See “72 hours later.”
Your reading list for a changing world
Browse The Signal’s bookshop—organized into collections that track key themes in our investigations of current affairs: what’s driving the information wars, why societies are fracturing, how power keeps reinventing itself. Contributors’ titles alongside books we've featured in our coverage.
Features
Shock and awe
How did U.S. immigration enforcement get so radical, so fast? Austin Kocher on Trump’s refitting of a system his predecessors built.
