Iran's retaliation keeps widening, Washington opens fresh trade fronts against Canada and Brazil, and three unrelated signals suggest US allies are quietly hedging their bets.

Middle East escalation

  • Iran expanded its strikes to Kuwait on Thursday, the fifth US-aligned country hit since Tuesday's American bombardment of Iranian sites; Kuwait's military said it intercepted the missiles and drones, while Trump threatens further attacks and is reportedly weighing how to end the war (more).
  • US warplanes bombed Iranian rocket launchers on Larak island in the Strait of Hormuz after Washington concluded Iran had modified them to fire sea mines into the waterway instead of warheads, a shift that pushed oil prices higher (more).

Trade wars widen

  • Trump invoked a 1930s Depression-era trade law against Canada, a move backed by Republican lawmakers that rattled New York markets and alarmed US border states with deep Canadian ties (more).
  • The EU's suspension of Brazilian beef imports took effect after Brasília failed to give Brussels the guarantees needed for a food-safety audit, complicating the already contested EU-Mercosur trade deal (more).

NATO under pressure

  • Nunissum analysis links Estonia's defence minister resigning over an ammunition-procurement scandal, Danish warnings of Russian sabotage recruitment, and Germany's post-Leipzig split over Russia policy into one pattern pressing on NATO's arms pipelines, defence-industry security and political consensus (more).
  • Czech firm LPP Holding finished testing Narwhal, the country's first home-built cruise missile with a range beyond 600 km, and NATO named the company one of its top ten defence innovators (more).
  • The Dutch central bank moved part of its gold reserves out of North America citing "crisis preparedness," an unusual step for a NATO ally that raises questions about trust in the US as custodian (more).