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It may be August 15th, but the Trump Show is not on vacation: on the day of the holiday that has been associated with the peak of the summer rush, the American president will be in Anchorage, Alaskafor the meeting (which he seems to have so fervently desired) with Vladimir Putin. In today's newsletter, we explain, why the summit is fraught with dangers for Ukraine and Europe and constitutes a victory for the Russian dictator, regardless of the outcome.

The news that preoccupies Pax T is also running on many other fronts: in starving Gaza, which Israel is preparing to re-occupy, with Trump blowing the whistle indifferently; in Washington, which the White House occupant himself has decided to place under temporary federal guardianship, in yet another authoritarian escalation; in Texas, where Republicans are preparing to change the electoral map to win five additional seats in the House of Representatives in the 2026 elections; and in relations with China, where it seems that the Trump administration has made the controversial decision to finally grant access to cutting-edge microchips for artificial intelligence, securing a share of the revenue from sales. Finally, we will meet Trump's nominee for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, who has an innovative solution to the problem of data that bothers Trump. 

– To continue the conversation, you can find me at yanpal@kathimerini.gr or at Bluesky (@yanpal.bsky.social).

ALASKA WORDS TO LOVE. Donald Trump's anti-Russian phase, like a not-so-serious-virus, seems to have passed. Starting in mid-July, he flashed and thundered, sent ultimatums to Putin, threatened sanctions, demanded a ceasefire, accelerated deadlines and so on. Ultimately, he ended up sending the dizzyingly ignorant Steve Witkoff back to the Kremlin and agreeing to a summit with Putin in Alaska (which he insists on placing in Russia), without the presence of Zelensky and on the basis of a Russian proposal very different from the one that Witkoff initially conveyed to him. Trump, in fact, in a surreal press conference last Monday, revived the Russian propaganda about Ukrainian responsibility for the Russian invasion, bathing in cold sweat the initiators of the American president's European appeasement strategy, which touched the limits of self-humiliation, both at the NATO Summit in The Hague and with the recent US-EU trade agreement.

The announcement of the Russian-American summit had already raised alarm bells in European capitals, who reiterated for the umpteenth time that decisions on Ukraine cannot be made without Ukraine and presented Trump with an alternative to the Russian proposal that emerged from Witkov's visit to Moscow. The European proposal calls for a (complete) ceasefire as a condition for any territorial negotiations and insists (at a later stage) on a mutual exchange of territory, with the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukrainian territories they have occupied in Zaporizhia and Kherson. (Trump, always speaking as a geopolitical real estate agent, said on Tuesday that we will try to take back part of the slice-areas that the Russians have conquered.)

Yesterday, Zelensky was in Berlin as a guest of the chancellor to participate in a conference call, along with other European leaders, with Trump, in a last-ditch attempt to remind him of the stakes and dangers of Russian positions. In the wake of the conference call, Friedrich Merz expressed the bold assessment that Trump largely shares the positions of the Europeans. It remains to be seen.

This comes as, in the last 24 hours, the Russian army has made a rapid 10-kilometer advance in the area of the city of Dobropilia in Donetsk, showing the pressure under which Ukrainian forces are being put.

IT'S AN ISRAEL MATTER. On the other burning front, Benjamin Netanyahu's declaration of intent to reoccupy the Gaza Strip has drawn a torrent of criticism against Tel Aviv, even from close allies of the Jewish state (even Germany announced that it was suspending arms sales to the country). The glaring exception was the United States. Trump spoke to Netanyahu about the issue on Sunday. His comment was that it was basically up to Israel whether to reoccupy the razed Palestinian enclave.

On Sunday, meanwhile, in yet another unthinkable war crime, Israel deliberately murdered four Al Jazeera journalists in Gaza, including 28-year-old Anas al-Sharif. The Israeli military has accused al-Sharif of leading a Hamas terror cell, without evidence. (According to the BBC, the young correspondent had worked for the group's media team before October 7.)

Al-Sharif was married with two young children. He had been broadcasting from Gaza continuously since the beginning of the Israeli operations that followed on October 7. In the context of these operations, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), 192 journalists have been killed – 184 of whom were Palestinians, killed by Israel, according to the organization.

CLEANING UP WASHINGTON Meanwhile, the campaign against the enemy within got a new boost this week when the US president announced that the federal government would take over – supposedly for 30 days – police control in DC (District of Columbia). At a press conference on Monday, Trump spoke of the Democratic-controlled US capital as a place that could belong in the ninth circle of Dante's Inferno.

A master at invoking artificial crises, he avoided mentioning the fact that violent crime in Washington has been steadily declining for the past 15 years, that, after a 2023 spike, it fell by 35% last year (to the second lowest level recorded since 1966) and continues to fall this year. He also, paradoxically, avoided mentioning the most severe recent incident of mass violence in the capital – the riot of ^{January 6, 2021, which he himself instigated, calling those convicted of participating in it hostages and granting clemency to all at the beginning of his second term.}

Following the example of Los Angeles, Trump sent 800 National Guard members to DC to assist local police. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was standing by, left open the possibility of sending more troops to the capital. In addition, hundreds of officers from federal agencies such as the FBI, DEA (the Drug Enforcement Administration) and Park Police will participate in patrols on the streets of Washington.

Ignoring the fact that the cities with the most serious violent crime problems are in deep red (i.e. Republican) states, Trump warned that he would similarly move to impose law and order in the iconic megacities of New York and Chicago, as well as Oakland, California, and Baltimore. Guess which party happens to be running those cities and the states they belong to.

FOR A HANDFUL OF ELECTORAL DISTRICTS. The issue of changing borders is not only preoccupying the American president abroad: in Texas, the war is raging after the extraordinary initiative of the Republicans – following Trump’s urging – to redraw the boundaries of the state’s districts in order to increase the number of seats under their control. Bear with me, it’s a somewhat technical topic, but a fascinating (and ominous) one.

The House of Representatives, whose members are elected every two years, consists of 435 members, with each state represented according to its population. Texas, the second most populous state (after California), has 38 seats. Every ten years, with the new census of the country's population, the seats are redistributed among the states and the boundaries of each state's districts are redrawn to ensure an equal distribution of population among them.

Texas is one of the states where the redistricting is done by a decision of the state legislature, with the approval of the governor. Elsewhere, to ensure the objectivity of the process, special committees undertake the task.

The practice of gerrymandering (the word comes from the 1812 Massachusetts governor, Elbridge Gerry, and a salamander-shaped district he crafted to favor his party) is well-established and practiced by both parties. The extreme case here is that Republicans in Texas are attempting to change district boundaries in the middle of the decade. Extreme – but not unconstitutional, as the Supreme Court has given states a lot of flexibility in such matters. Other states where Republicans control the majority, such as Ohio, Missouri and Indiana, may follow in the Texans’ footsteps.

In this case, the initiative of Governor Abbott and the Texas House has led to a mass exodus of Democratic members of the House from the state, so that a quorum cannot be formed and the new map cannot be put to a vote (Texan Republicans have even enlisted the FBI to bring them back). At the same time, Democrats – most prominently California Governor Gavin Newsom – are threatening to retaliate in kind, despite their recent efforts at the national level to abolish the practice of changing the electoral map along party lines.

With the huge stakes of control of the House after 2026, but also with the presidential ambitions of various governors (Abbott, Newsom, Jay Pritzker of Illinois) creating incentives for a head-on clash, the battle for electoral district boundaries is expected to exceed all limits.

15% COMMISSION TO UNCLE SAM. This quiet week of August 15th held more surprises for Trump-watchers. On Monday, we learned that, as part of the agreement that allows them to re-export previous microchips for AI uses to China, Nvidia and AMD will pay the US government 15% of the revenue from those sales. The announcement came after the Nvidia CEO met with Trump last Wednesday, following which the US Department of Commerce issued the licenses for the exports of the microchips.

The unprecedented –and unconstitutional, if anyone still cares– deal is expected to bring in more than $2 billion to federal coffers by 2025. However, national security experts are strongly opposed to it, given the vital importance of these products to the race for AI supremacy.

As Lisa Tobin, the head of China affairs on the National Security Council under Trump and Biden , told the New York Times: This is an own goal and will give the Chinese an incentive to move more aggressively and pressure the [US] government for more concessions. Tobin accused Trump of selling out our national security for corporate profits. (It should be noted, in passing, that on Monday Trump quietly extended the truce with China in the trade war he himself launched for another 90 days.)

This peculiar partnership with semiconductor exporters, however, is part of a series of moves by Trump that strengthen the role of the state in the American economy, from the widespread use of tariffs as a method of imposing his will on the private sector to the golden share he obtained in the acquisition of US Steel by the Japanese, etc. And the Republicans, the once free market party, are swallowing all of this wholeheartedly.

TRUMP STATISTICS. During the few days of the column's break, you may have noticed that Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Erika McEntendorfer. The BLS, on the first Friday of each month, publishes its always highly anticipated Jobs Report, which provides vital data on the state of the labor market and the health of the economy.

The report in early August showed that July job growth was significantly lower than expected, while also revising the figures for May and June downwards. Trump decided that the report’s findings were fabricated to hurt him and Republicans – and shot the messenger of bad news. Veterans of the disgraceful prosecution of Andreas Georgiou would find all of this painfully familiar.

On Tuesday, Trump announced his nominee to succeed McEntharfer, Heritage Foundation economist (infamous for writing Project 2025) and longtime BLS critic I.J. Anthony, who he told us would ensure the bureau's reports are now honest and accurate. Anthony was quick to propose a radical solution to the problem of statistical findings that the president doesn't like: halt the publication of the reports!

It is remarkable, in these difficult times, the degree of consensus among conservative economists about Anthony's complete lack of qualifications for his new position. The assessment of Dave Hebert of the American Enterprise Institute was typical: I have been on many programs with him so far and I have been impressed by two things: his inability to understand basic economics and the speed with which he has transformed into MAGA, Hebert said.

Europe is paying the price for its insignificance by being excluded from the Alaska Summit. By refusing to prepare for a world without US hegemony, they have placed themselves on the sidelines of developments. If Trump and Putin agree to hand over Ukrainian territory to Russia, as the perverse fruits of the Russians’ conquest ambitions, the European world we have known since 1945 could come to an end – unless European states wake up now.

Harvard and the Trump administration are moving toward a settlement in their legal battle, the New York Times reported Tuesday. Under the terms, which have yet to be finalized, the university will pay a whopping $500 million to fund mostly technical and vocational education programs (not to the federal government, as in the case of Columbia). The administration, for its part, will restore the university's multibillion-dollar federal funding and end its investigations into the institution. Another difference with the Columbia case is that no independent supervisor will be appointed to monitor Harvard's compliance with its commitments to the government (including merit-based hiring without positive discrimination and defending students' civil rights).

If hostilities cease on these terms, both sides can claim to have won. The problem (as with any agreement with Trump) is that there is no guarantee, no matter what the texts that lawyers painstakingly shape, that the American president will not come back with a harsher response.

This is the percentage of Ukrainian territory that the Russians have captured since January 1, 2024, through the beginning of this summer, ^{according to an analysis by the Center for Strategic & International Studies.} The CSIS analysis, published in early June, also predicted that by the summer, Russian casualties from the war would exceed 1 million (more than the sum of all Russian wars since 1945). The number of dead Russian soldiers, according to CSIS, may already exceed 250 thousand.

explains why the Alaska Summit is unlikely to bring Ukraine to a fait accompli

❗ Ed Luce, with a titillating reference to Teddy Roosevelt's historic saying, explains why Putin has every reason to be optimistic about the Alaska meeting

❗ Gideon Rahman (also at the FT), writes about how Ukraine could be spared the worst in the upcoming negotiations

❗The US Trade Representative is attempting to lend strategic logic and moral basis to the orgy of economic and institutional vandalism that is Trump's trade policy

❗Jonathan Cohn writes about RFK Jr.'s most damaging decision.

❗Bloomberg's technology columnist agrees with critics of the White House's unusual deal with Nvidia, noting that it strengthens China's position in the race for AI supremacy

❗It is worth watching (as long as you can)  the 80-minute press conference of Trump and his officials on Monday, to perceive without filter the combination of cheerfulness, unbridled flattery, lies and unadulterated authoritarianism that characterize the new era

❗It's also worth (for completely different reasons) hearing James Tallarico, a devout Christian and rising Democratic star in Texas, speak to Joe Rogan