| This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a partially distilled recrudescence of Bloomberg Opinion's post-election opinions. Sign up here. The second coming of Donald Trump is driving America's friends and enemies a little batty. As Marcus Ashworth puts it: "The rest of the world isn't waiting around to price in Trump's 'America First' agenda. Emerging market currencies are feeling the strain with virtually all this year's gains evaporating, with the Mexican peso weakening by more than 3% as it's directly under the Trump spotlight." (But see Juan Pablo Spinetto in Telltale Charts below.) The euro, meanwhile, suffered its biggest drop against the dollar since 2016 — the year Trump was first elected. That may all help Trump's drive for a strong dollar, but a more expensive US greenback isn't going to make "Made in America" a selling point for US exporters. "That's a big problem," say John Authers and Richard Abbey. In John's Thursday newsletter, they wrote: "The centrality of industrialization to Trump's reelection bid means he cannot afford a strong dollar. Is there an easy fix? Not quite." Trump's proclaimed agenda means more spending and borrowing by the US government. That, say economists "will crowd out borrowing by other governments. With rising US yields, other jurisdictions must offer creditors more, which can hurt." If the credit markets feel particular governments can't borrow as much as they'd like, the yields on their bonds — the effective interest rate governments must pay — will rise. That will affect how the rest of us earn, spend and borrow — even if we live beyond the US. There is some comfort in the fact that US Fed chair Jerome Powell continues to guide the US economy. His term is up in May 2026, and he declared he'd stay on till then even if Trump requests his resignation. Powell's Fed, as expected, continued its slow but steady interest rate cuts this week — an inflation-fighting strategy that may prove difficult to pursue if Trump pushes ahead with his price-raising policies. As John's latest headline notes: "Trump's Return Is an Abominable Ambush for the Fed." The incoming commander-in-chief will roil politics and security as well. From Paris, Lionel Laurent bewails what awaits "the Old Continent": "A MAGA-Republican White House and Congress would bring the risk of more "America First" spending, punitive tariffs on European imports and fights over taxes and red tape on US tech (including Elon Musk's.) Trump has also put collective defense under NATO's Article 5 on notice by making it conditional on spending." Of course, Trump may be distracted by his former pal, North Korea's Kim Jong Un, who not only continues to menace South Korea but has complicated things by sending troops to help Putin in Ukraine. As Karishma Vaswani says, "Trump has dealt with Kim before, but that relationship ended badly with the collapse of the Hanoi Summit in February 2019. Since then, North Korea has adopted a more aggressive nuclear doctrine, forged ahead with its missile and satellite technology ambitions, improved its cyber capabilities, and boosted political ties with Russia and China." Now Kim's saber-rattling is stressing out all of Eurasia, from the Sea of Japan to the Dnipro River. Trump bragged that when he was last president, "We didn't have countries fighting each other, they wouldn't have done it without my permission" — as Andreas Kluth reminds us. Trump, he adds, "has neither compass nor map." In short, Andreas sighs, "What a joke." In his latest column, Andy Mukherjee wonders why China and India have had a disparity in growth — in favor of the People's Republic — even though they both embarked on "modernization" at around the same time. In fact, says Andy, "Thanks to a 50-year head-start in exposure to Western learning, India had a student population that was eight times bigger than China's at the turn of the 20th century." So, how did China outperform India in the century or so since? Andy finds an interesting thesis put forward by scholars at the Paris School of Economics. Nitin Kumar Bharti and Li Yang say that China's decision to pursue a bottom-up education strategy created a large literate pool that then pursued engineering and science degrees in college. India has had a preponderance of social science graduates, despite the stereotype of the ubiquitous South Asian engineer. The authors say, "China's higher share of engineering and vocational graduates, combined with a higher share of primary and secondary graduates, lends itself more readily to a focus on manufacturing" — hence the country's GDP-lifting role as factory floor of the world.  The tumultuous Cultural Revolution may have, ironically, given Beijing a boost. When it was finally over, says Andy, China "had 160 million people who had missed out on regular schooling in adult education programs, compared with just 1 million in India. The progeny of those 159 million extra minds to whom China gave literacy and numeracy may have played more than a small role in beating India at growth." "Just as Starbucks Corp.'s new Chief Executive Officer Brian Niccol begins to revamp the ailing coffee chain, its Chinese nemesis plans to offer low-priced drinks in the US as early as next year. This will be an amazing homecoming of sorts for Luckin Coffee Inc… In 2020, the company admitted to fabricating 2.2 billion yuan ($307 million) in sales, got delisted from Nasdaq, and agreed to pay $180 million in fines to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Four years on, Luckin is roaring back. It has emerged as China's biggest coffee chain, overtaking Starbucks in sales and number of stores." — Shuli Ren in "China's Luckin Shows Starbucks How to Sell Coffee."  "With smart diplomacy, prudent politics and a fresh approach, [Mexican President Claudia] Sheinbaum can navigate the strong winds of change coming from Washington, and even make them play in her favor. … Mexico's exports to the US grew about 4% under Trump 1.0 even with the pandemic and his anti-Mexico rhetoric. After long negotiations, Trump ended up hailing USMCA (NAFTA's successor) as 'the best agreement we've ever made.' It won't be easy but I don't see why Mexico couldn't achieve the same again because the US has nothing to gain from a destabilized Mexico." — Juan Pablo Spinetto in "Sheinbaum Needs to Prepare Mexico for Trump 2.0." Donald Trump's president. Let's deal with it. — Michael Bloomberg Liquid natural gas can transform Asia too. — David Fickling The lessons of Spain's tragic floods. — Lara Williams Burberry coat or Moncler puff jacket … or both? — Andrea Felsted Does Nvidia's CEO dream of electric androids? — Parmy Olson Rebuilding Britain is more than a sugar rush. — Matthew Brooker Midway through my walk to work the other day, I realized I'd forgotten to pin on my Remembrance Poppy. When November comes in the UK, people wear the blood-red paper or plastic brooches to honor the memory of soldiers and sailors and military servicefolk. It goes back to the First World War and a poem by the Canadian John McCrae, who served as a battlefield surgeon and died just before that conflict ended. "In Flanders field the poppies blow/ Between the crosses, row on row,/ That mark our place; and in the sky/ The Larks, still bravely singing, fly/ Scarce heard amid the guns below." The poppy tradition isn't without its controversies, as Matthew Brooker wrote last year. But I'm a sentimental sort — the kind who gets weepy, as I did just the other day, when I heard someone on the street playing the 1912 music hall song "It's a Long, Long Way to Tipperary" on a flute. It, too, was popular during that long ago war. I guess I was meant to become a British citizen. Anyway, as I said, I was poppy-less. But not entirely. The book in my hands had two bright red poppies on its cover. It's the latest by Amitav Ghosh, whose epic Ibis Trilogy I greatly admire. The new volume is non-fiction, but it's based on the huge amount of research he undertook for Ibis, which is set in China, India and Mauritius as the British empire expanded there in the 19th century. Ghosh reminds me that there is a greater emotional depth and even more history to poppies. His book's title is Smoke and Ashes: Opium's Hidden Histories; the red blooms on its cover are opium poppies.  The poppies I bore. Photograph by Howard Chua-Eoan/Bloomberg It's a history that the British downplay because the empire used opium to "correct" its trade imbalance with China. The drug was manufactured in India — under condition approaching indentured servitude — and then forced on the Qing dynasty by war for the sake of "free trade," contributing to the collapse of imperial China. In this century, the Chinese once asked a visiting UK Prime Minister David Cameron to remove the red poppy he had on because they thought it was a remembrance of the opium. He refused, and the British explained its younger history. But I choose to remember the older history — and how it binds me and my Chinese ancestry, to India and to Britain. It is almost miraculous — a kind of transfiguration — that a paper flower can have the power to embody so much pain, sacrifice, pride, greed, humiliation, guilt and, in the end, a feeling of inchoate reconciliation. It gives my poppies the weight of nations. Do interest rate spreads make you hungry?  "You're a creditor? What a coincidence! I'm a predator." Illustration by Howard Chua-Eoan/Bloomberg Notes: Please send bond coupons and feedback to Howard Chua-Eoan at hchuaeoan@bloomberg.net. Sign up here and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and Facebook. | 
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