2020
February
05
Wednesday

Monitor Daily Podcast

February 05, 2020
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Welcome to your Monitor Daily. Today’s stories look at the road ahead for President Trump, what’s at stake if Israel annexes West Bank territory, election security, laws to protect privacy, and actors who blissfully confound our expectations.

What happens when the global ties that bind economies are suddenly cut? The world is getting a hint of the answer, in an unexpected way.

A public health crisis, over the coronavirus, has landed right in the nation at the fulcrum of global commerce. What you get is a kind of instant deglobalization. 

Automaker Hyundai is halting production in its South Korean factories due to disruption in parts supply. Apple has closed its electronics stores in China and faces supply chain slowdowns for components used in iPhones. Scores of other global companies – and their workers and customers – confront similar effects.

The damage is limited for now. And it’s unclear whether the drag on trade will last. But the disruption is a reminder. Economists widely view trade and rising global integration as a source of economic gains for billions of people. The benefits often extend into arenas such as cultural cross-pollination or cooperation on global problems like climate change.

Those benefits shouldn’t be taken for granted. Even without the coronavirus, the world has hit a “pause button” on globalization. That’s partly because gains for global GDP don’t guarantee gains for every individual. The result is political tension that needs to be managed – and isn’t always managed well. For its part, the coronavirus is “a very good lesson,” says Singapore’s Trade Minister Chan Chun Sing, on the importance of managing supply chains for resilience and diversity.


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Today’s stories

And why we wrote them

Patrick Semansky/AP
President Donald Trump greets people after delivering his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Feb. 4, 2020.

A deeper look

Alfredo Sosa/Staff
From left: Aivar Sarapik, Andrus Padar, and Jaan Priisalu are members of Estonia’s Cyber Defense League, a group of mainly volunteers who help protect the country’s digital networks from outside intruders.

The Explainer

On Film

Andrew Cooper/Sony-Columbia Pictures/AP
Brad Pitt is nominated for a best supporting actor Oscar for his role in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood.”

The Monitor's View

Reuters
Opposition supporters celebrate in Lilongwe, Malawi, after a court annulled the May 2019 presidential vote that declared Peter Mutharika a winner.

A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

A message of love

Charlie Riedel/AP
A fan sits in a tree to watch a rally in front of Union Station after a parade through downtown Kansas City, Missouri, Feb. 5, 2020, to celebrate the Kansas City Chiefs victory in the NFL’s Super Bowl 54.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Karen Norris and Jacob Turcotte. )

A look ahead

Thanks for joining us today. See you again tomorrow when the Daily will take you to a “preschool on wheels” in Appalachia.

More issues

2020
February
05
Wednesday
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