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The Guardian
07-07-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Across Europe, the financial sector has pushed up house prices. It's a political timebomb
'The housing crisis is now as big a threat to the EU as Russia,' Jaume Collboni, the mayor of Barcelona, recently declared. 'We're running the risk of having the working and middle classes conclude that their democracies are incapable of solving their biggest problem.' It is not hard to see where Collboni is coming from. From Dublin to Milan, residents routinely find half of their incomes swallowed up by rent, and home ownership is unthinkable for most. Major cities are witnessing spiralling house prices and some have jaw-dropping year-on-year median rent increases of more than 10%. People are being pushed into ever more precarious and cramped conditions and homelessness is rapidly rising. As Collboni asserts, housing lies at the heart of surging political disfranchisement across mainland Europe. The crisis is fuelling the far right – linked, for example, to the support for Alternative für Deutschland in Germany and the recent victory of the Dutch anti-Islam Freedom party. Housing has become a primary engine of inequality, reinforcing divisions between the asset-haves and have-nots and disproportionately affecting minority groups. Far from offering security and safety, for many in Europe housing is now a primary cause of suffering and despair. But not everyone is suffering. At the same time it is robbing normal people of a comfortable and dignified life, the housing crisis is lining the pockets of a small number of individuals and institutions. Across Europe in recent decades the same story has unfolded, albeit in very different ways: power has shifted to those who profit from housing, and away from those who live in it. The most striking manifestation of this shift is the large-scale ownership and control of homes by financial institutions, particularly since the 2008 global financial crisis. In 2023, $1.7tn of global real estate was managed by institutional investors such as private equity firms, insurance companies, hedge funds, banks and pension funds, up from $385bn in 2008. Spurred by loose monetary policy, these actors consider Europe's housing a particularly lucrative and secure 'asset class'. Purchases of residential property in the euro area by institutional investors tripled over the past decade. As a London-based asset manager puts it: 'Real estate investors with exposure to European residential assets are the cats that got the cream,' with housing generating 'stronger risk-adjusted returns than any other sector'. The scale of institutional ownership in certain places is staggering. In Ireland, nearly half of all units delivered since 2017 were purchased by investment funds. Across Sweden, the share of private rental apartments with institutional investors as landlords has swelled to 24%. In Berlin, €40bn of housing assets are now in institutional portfolios, 10% of the total housing stock. In the four largest Dutch cities, a quarter of homes for sale in recent years were purchased by investors. Even in Vienna, a city widely heralded for its vast, subsidised housing stock, institutional players are now invested in every 10th housing unit and 42% of new private rental homes. Not all investors are the same. But when the aim is to make money from housing it can mean only one thing: prices go up. As Leilani Farha, a former UN special rapporteur, points out, investment funds have a 'fiduciary duty' to maximise returns to shareholders, which often include the pension funds on which ordinary people rely. They therefore do all they can to increase prices and reduce expenditure, including via 'renoviction' (using refurbishment as an excuse to hike rents), under-maintenance and the introduction of punitive fees. When the private equity giant Blackstone acquired and renovated homes across Stockholm, it increased rents on some of the homes by up to 50%, the economic geographer Brett Christophers found. 'Green' retrofits in the name of sustainability are also an increasingly common tactic. The corporate capture of our homes has not sprung out of thin air. Decades of housing market privatisation, liberalisation and speculation have enabled the financial sector to tighten its grip on European households. From the 1980s in places such as Italy, Sweden and Germany, government-owned apartments were transferred en masse to the private market. In Berlin, for example, vast bundles of public housing were sold overnight to large corporations. In one single transaction, Deutsche Wohnen purchased 60,000 flats from the city in 2006 for €450m; just €7,500 per apartment. With the role of welfare states in housing provision dismantled, many countries reached for demand-side interventions such as liberalising mortgage credit. This fuelled widespread speculation, pushed up house prices and encouraged extreme levels of household indebtedness. The resulting financial crisis of 2008 provided fresh opportunities for investors. Countries such as Spain, Greece, Portugal and Ireland became a treasure trove of 'distressed' assets and mortgage debt that could be scooped up at bargain prices. Despite the widespread devastation caused by the crisis, Europe's dependence on the financial sector for housing solutions only intensified in the years that followed. As power has shifted to investors and speculators, and governments have become ever more reliant on them, so it has been withdrawn from residents. In order to incentivise or 'de-risk' private investment, governments across Europe have weakened tenant protections, slashed planning regulations and building standards, and offered special subsidies, grants and tax breaks for entities such as real estate investment trusts. One group in particular has borne the brunt of this: renters. Renters have seen their rents skyrocket, living conditions deteriorate and their security undermined. In Europe, some investment funds have directly driven the displacement of lower-income tenants and overseen disruptive evictions. Powerful financial actors have done a great job at framing themselves as the solution to, rather than the cause of, the prevailing crisis. They have incessantly pushed the now-dominant narrative that more real estate investment is a good thing because it will increase the supply of much-needed homes. Blackstone, for example, claims to play a 'positive role in addressing the chronic undersupply of housing across the continent'. But the evidence suggests that greater involvement of financial markets has not increased aggregate home ownership or housing supply, but instead inflated house prices and rents. The thing is, institutional investors aren't really into producing housing. It is directly against their interests to significantly increase supply. As one asset manager concedes, housing undersupply is bad for residents but 'supportive for cashflows'. Blackstone's president famously admitted that 'the big warning signs in real estate are capital and cranes'. In other words, they need shortages to keep prices high. Where corporate capital does produce new homes, they will of course be maximally profitable. Cities such as Manchester, Brussels and Warsaw have experienced a proliferation of high-margins housing products such as micro-apartments, build-to-rent and co-living. Designed with the explicit intention of optimising cashflows, these are both unaffordable and unsuitable for most households. Common Wealth, a thinktank focusing on ownership, found that the private equity-backed build-to-rent sector, which accounts for 30% of new homes in London, caters predominantly to high-earning single people. Families represent just 5% of build-to-rent tenants compared with a quarter of the private rental sector more broadly. These overpriced corporate appendages are a stark reminder of the market's inability to deliver homes that fit the needs and incomes of most people. While housing lies at the heart of political disillusionment today, it is for the same reason becoming a primary trigger for mobilisation across Europe. In October 2024, 150,000 protesters marched through the streets of Madrid demanding action. Some governments, including Denmark and the Netherlands, are introducing policies to deter speculators. But real estate capital continues to hold the power, so it continues to get its way – including by exploiting loopholes, and lobbying against policies that put profits at risk. In 2021, Berliners voted in favour of expropriating and socialising apartments owned by stock-listed landlords. But under pressure from the real estate lobby, politicians have stalled this motion. That same year Blackstone – Spain's largest landlord with 40,000 housing units – opposed plans to impose a 30% target for social housing in institutional portfolios. Struggles against the immense structural power of real-estate interests will be hard fought. In recent decades we have been living through an ever-intensifying social experiment. Can housing, a fundamental need for all human beings, be successfully delivered under the machinations of finance capitalism? The evidence now seems overwhelming: no. As investors have come to dominate, so the power of residents has been systematically undermined. We are left with a crisis of inconceivable proportions. While we can, and should, point the finger at corporate greed, we must remember that this is the system working precisely as it is set up to do. When profit is the prevailing force, housing provision invariably fails to align with social need – to generate the types of homes within the price ranges most desperately required. In the coming years, housing will occupy centre stage in European politics. Now is the time for fundamental structural changes that reclaim homes from the jaws of finance, re-empower residents and reinstate housing as a core priority for public provision. Tim White is a research fellow at Queen Mary University of London and the London School of Economics studying housing, cities and inequality
The Guardian
07-07-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Across Europe, the financial sector has pushed up house prices. It's a political timebomb
'The housing crisis is now as big a threat to the EU as Russia,' Jaume Collboni, the mayor of Barcelona, recently declared. 'We're running the risk of having the working and middle classes conclude that their democracies are incapable of solving their biggest problem.' It is not hard to see where Collboni is coming from. From Dublin to Milan, residents routinely find half of their incomes swallowed up by rent, and home ownership is unthinkable for most. Major cities are witnessing spiralling house prices and some have jaw-dropping year-on-year median rent increases of more than 10%. People are being pushed into ever more precarious and cramped conditions and homelessness is rapidly rising. As Collboni asserts, housing lies at the heart of surging political disfranchisement across mainland Europe. The crisis is fuelling the far right – linked, for example, to the support for Alternative für Deutschland in Germany and the recent victory of the Dutch anti-Islam Freedom party. Housing has become a primary engine of inequality, reinforcing divisions between the asset-haves and have-nots and disproportionately affecting minority groups. Far from offering security and safety, for many in Europe housing is now a primary cause of suffering and despair. But not everyone is suffering. At the same time it is robbing normal people of a comfortable and dignified life, the housing crisis is lining the pockets of a small number of individuals and institutions. Across Europe in recent decades the same story has unfolded, albeit in very different ways: power has shifted to those who profit from housing, and away from those who live in it. The most striking manifestation of this shift is the large-scale ownership and control of homes by financial institutions, particularly since the 2008 global financial crisis. In 2023, $1.7tn of global real estate was managed by institutional investors such as private equity firms, insurance companies, hedge funds, banks and pension funds, up from $385bn in 2008. Spurred by loose monetary policy, these actors consider Europe's housing a particularly lucrative and secure 'asset class'. Purchases of residential property in the euro area by institutional investors tripled over the past decade. As a London-based asset manager puts it: 'Real estate investors with exposure to European residential assets are the cats that got the cream,' with housing generating 'stronger risk-adjusted returns than any other sector'. The scale of institutional ownership in certain places is staggering. In Ireland, nearly half of all units delivered since 2017 were purchased by investment funds. Across Sweden, the share of private rental apartments with institutional investors as landlords has swelled to 24%. In Berlin, €40bn of housing assets are now in institutional portfolios, 10% of the total housing stock. In the four largest Dutch cities, a quarter of homes for sale in recent years were purchased by investors. Even in Vienna, a city widely heralded for its vast, subsidised housing stock, institutional players are now invested in every 10th housing unit and 42% of new private rental homes. Not all investors are the same. But when the aim is to make money from housing it can mean only one thing: prices go up. As Leilani Farha, a former UN special rapporteur, points out, investment funds have a 'fiduciary duty' to maximise returns to shareholders, which often include the pension funds on which ordinary people rely. They therefore do all they can to increase prices and reduce expenditure, including via 'renoviction' (using refurbishment as an excuse to hike rents), under-maintenance and the introduction of punitive fees. When the private equity giant Blackstone acquired and renovated homes across Stockholm, it increased rents on some of the homes by up to 50%, the economic geographer Brett Christophers found. 'Green' retrofits in the name of sustainability are also an increasingly common tactic. The corporate capture of our homes has not sprung out of thin air. Decades of housing market privatisation, liberalisation and speculation have enabled the financial sector to tighten its grip on European households. From the 1980s in places such as Italy, Sweden and Germany, government-owned apartments were transferred en masse to the private market. In Berlin, for example, vast bundles of public housing were sold overnight to large corporations. In one single transaction, Deutsche Wohnen purchased 60,000 flats from the city in 2006 for €450m; just €7,500 per apartment. With the role of welfare states in housing provision dismantled, many countries reached for demand-side interventions such as liberalising mortgage credit. This fuelled widespread speculation, pushed up house prices and encouraged extreme levels of household indebtedness. The resulting financial crisis of 2008 provided fresh opportunities for investors. Countries such as Spain, Greece, Portugal and Ireland became a treasure trove of 'distressed' assets and mortgage debt that could be scooped up at bargain prices. Despite the widespread devastation caused by the crisis, Europe's dependence on the financial sector for housing solutions only intensified in the years that followed. As power has shifted to investors and speculators, and governments have become ever more reliant on them, so it has been withdrawn from residents. In order to incentivise or 'de-risk' private investment, governments across Europe have weakened tenant protections, slashed planning regulations and building standards, and offered special subsidies, grants and tax breaks for entities such as real estate investment trusts. One group in particular has borne the brunt of this: renters. Renters have seen their rents skyrocket, living conditions deteriorate and their security undermined. In Europe, some investment funds have directly driven the displacement of lower-income tenants and overseen disruptive evictions. Powerful financial actors have done a great job at framing themselves as the solution to, rather than the cause of, the prevailing crisis. They have incessantly pushed the now-dominant narrative that more real estate investment is a good thing because it will increase the supply of much-needed homes. Blackstone, for example, claims to play a 'positive role in addressing the chronic undersupply of housing across the continent'. But the evidence suggests that greater involvement of financial markets has not increased aggregate home ownership or housing supply, but instead inflated house prices and rents. The thing is, institutional investors aren't really into producing housing. It is directly against their interests to significantly increase supply. As one asset manager concedes, housing undersupply is bad for residents but 'supportive for cashflows'. Blackstone's president famously admitted that 'the big warning signs in real estate are capital and cranes'. In other words, they need shortages to keep prices high. Where corporate capital does produce new homes, they will of course be maximally profitable. Cities such as Manchester, Brussels and Warsaw have experienced a proliferation of high-margins housing products such as micro-apartments, build-to-rent and co-living. Designed with the explicit intention of optimising cashflows, these are both unaffordable and unsuitable for most households. Common Wealth, a thinktank focusing on ownership, found that the private equity-backed build-to-rent sector, which accounts for 30% of new homes in London, caters predominantly to high-earning single people. Families represent just 5% of build-to-rent tenants compared with a quarter of the private rental sector more broadly. These overpriced corporate appendages are a stark reminder of the market's inability to deliver homes that fit the needs and incomes of most people. While housing lies at the heart of political disillusionment today, it is for the same reason becoming a primary trigger for mobilisation across Europe. In October 2024, 150,000 protesters marched through the streets of Madrid demanding action. Some governments, including Denmark and the Netherlands, are introducing policies to deter speculators. But real estate capital continues to hold the power, so it continues to get its way – including by exploiting loopholes, and lobbying against policies that put profits at risk. In 2021, Berliners voted in favour of expropriating and socialising apartments owned by stock-listed landlords. But under pressure from the real estate lobby, politicians have stalled this motion. That same year Blackstone – Spain's largest landlord with 40,000 housing units – opposed plans to impose a 30% target for social housing in institutional portfolios. Struggles against the immense structural power of real-estate interests will be hard fought. In recent decades we have been living through an ever-intensifying social experiment. Can housing, a fundamental need for all human beings, be successfully delivered under the machinations of finance capitalism? The evidence now seems overwhelming: no. As investors have come to dominate, so the power of residents has been systematically undermined. We are left with a crisis of inconceivable proportions. While we can, and should, point the finger at corporate greed, we must remember that this is the system working precisely as it is set up to do. When profit is the prevailing force, housing provision invariably fails to align with social need – to generate the types of homes within the price ranges most desperately required. In the coming years, housing will occupy centre stage in European politics. Now is the time for fundamental structural changes that reclaim homes from the jaws of finance, re-empower residents and reinstate housing as a core priority for public provision. Tim White is a research fellow at Queen Mary University of London and the London School of Economics studying housing, cities and inequality
Spectator
02-07-2025
- Politics
- Spectator
Can freedom of movement survive Europe's migrant crisis?
Freedom of movement in the EU received another nail in its coffin yesterday after Poland became the latest European country to introduce checks along its shared borders with fellow member states. As of next Monday, Warsaw will start enforcing border controls at crossings shared with Germany and Lithuania. The Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that he felt compelled to introduce border checks in particular to 'reduce the uncontrolled flows of migrants across the Polish-German border to a minimum'. The source of Tusk's angst is the tougher border regime introduced by new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz less than two months ago. Under the new measures, German border guards have been given the power to stop and turn back anyone trying to enter the country without the correct paperwork. The federal police have also been granted the power to reject asylum seekers at the border if they have grounds to. Contrary to Tusk's accusation, the flow of migrants has been far from 'uncontrolled': according to the German authorities, just 3,488 migrants have been turned away at the country's shared border with Poland. But Tusk's barb speaks to the tension between Germany and Poland that has been growing for some time. Merz entered Berlin's chancellery in May off the back of a violence-soaked election campaign in which the debate over migration raged thanks to the inflammatory, yet effective, rhetoric of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party. More than 3 million asylum seekers have entered Germany in the past decade, placing a strain on crucial elements of the country's social infrastructure, piling fuel on the fire of the AfD's anti-migrant messaging and increasing the pressure on politicians in Berlin to be seen to tackle the issue. Indeed, Merz's predecessor Olaf Scholz was the first to deal a blow to the Schengen Area system when his government introduced 'temporary' border checks in the autumn of 2023. These measures were extended most recently in February this year. They seem to be working: the number of illegal migrants entering Germany dropped from a post-pandemic peak of 127,549 in 2023 to 83,572 last year, with German authorities hopeful that that number will drop again to just over 30,000 by the end of this year. Nevertheless, Merz made it a day one election promise to clamp down on illegal border crossings even further – not least to demonstrate to the nearly one in four Germans who voted for the AfD in February's election that their concerns over migration were being heard. Merz's legislation has not been without its controversy – his critics claim it breaches the EU constitution, while supporters say it is merely enforcing the terms of the EU's Dublin Agreement under which asylum seekers are obliged to seek refuge in whichever European country they first enter. Germany, of course, has no external EU borders. In remarks certain to inflame tensions with Poland further, Merz hit back at Tusk yesterday: 'We currently have to implement border controls because the protection of Europe's external borders is not sufficiently guaranteed.' But just as in Germany, the issue of migration goes back further than just the last few months in Poland, and the country now finds itself squeezed on both sides. Since late 2023, the country has also been experiencing pressure along its eastern border, specifically the 250-mile stretch it shares with Belarus. The Belarusian and Russian authorities have for several years now been waging a campaign of 'weaponised migration' against the EU, encouraging migrants mainly from the Middle East, Asia and Africa to travel through their countries and attempt to cross into the bloc along their shared borders with EU member states, including Poland. According to the Polish authorities, over 30,000 migrants crossed into the country this way last year, a rise of 16 per cent on 2023. Migration featured heavily in Poland's presidential election last month, in which the conservative candidate Karol Nawrocki, backed by the Law and Justice (PiS) party, won. 'Order must be established on the western border,' Nawrocki said. As such, the domestic pressure is continuing to pile up on Tusk to combat the flow of migrants into Poland. This latest blow to the sacrosanctity of the Schengen Area by Poland shows the extent to which the EU and its leadership are beginning to strain under the pressure, both literal and political, of Europe's ongoing migrant crisis. It also suggests separately that Belarus – and its overlords in the Kremlin – are succeeding with their policy of attempting to sow chaos and instability throughout the continent by weaponising migration. Poland almost certainly won't be the last to buckle under the pressure to curb freedom of movement around the bloc. The former German chancellor Angela Merkel made it known this week that she disapproved of Merz's new border regime. 'If someone says 'asylum' at the German border,' she said pointedly while meeting with a group of refugees at the start of the week, 'then they must first be subjected to a procedure – right at the border, if you like, but a procedure.' But, as the tenth anniversary of her now-infamous open-doors asylum policy and rallying cry 'Wir schaffen das' approaches next month, the irony is not lost that, through her policies, this most Europhilic of politicians could be responsible for the bloc's weakening – if not total collapse. Merz and Tusk's war of words gets to the nub of the problem the EU faces when it comes to dealing with the migration crisis it has now been experiencing for close to ten years. It is becoming increasingly clear that to have freedom of movement inside the bloc, the EU must protect its outer borders with a ferocity it can't – or won't – deliver. Until that moment comes, Merz has made the first move and made Germany's position clear: it is every man for himself.
Euronews
06-06-2025
- Business
- Euronews
Europe's right caught in wake of broken Trump-Musk bromance
The very public fallout between Donald Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk, once among the US president's closest advisors, has rippled across the Atlantic, drawing fascination as well as anxiety from Europe's right-wing and far-right political circles. The collapse of the Trump-Musk alliance, marked by bitter exchanges over government contracts and personal insults, has left many on Europe's right politically adrift. Online, the moment has already spawned memes comparing European parties to children caught in a bitter divorce. Yet beyond the humour, the European right woke up in shock. For many of its leaders, Trump had served as proof that a nationalist 'wave' was not only possible but already underway. Musk, meanwhile, became an unlikely champion of their causes, lending legitimacy, visibility, and even a platform to far-right movements like Germany's AfD and Italy's Lega, with particularly close ties to Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. So far, there has been no official comment from Europe's right-wing leaders on the Trump-Musk rift. That silence is striking as these politicians are usually quick to react to global events, especially those involving figures they admire. Their hesitation suggests a deeper unease: being forced to choose sides could present a strategic dilemma that reshapes the future of Europe's right-wing landscape. Germany's far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) faces a delicate balancing act. While the party has long admired Trump's nationalist politics – often calling for a 'Germany First' approach – it has also benefited significantly from Musk's support. Musk has repeatedly praised the AfD, once stating, 'Only the AfD can save Germany.' Ahead of Germany's federal elections, he even participated in livestreamed discussions with AfD co-leader Alice Weidel and used his platform X (formerly Twitter) to amplify the party's messaging. Meanwhile, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who was present at the White House during part of the unfolding dispute between the pair, hasn't commented, though his CDU party competes directly with the AfD and is likely watching developments closely. Italy's Lega and its leader Matteo Salvini face a similar dilemma but from a slightly different angle. Salvini has long styled himself as Italy's most pro-Trump figure, even more so than his rival Giorgia Meloni. Yet Musk has also courted Lega. In April, he addressed the party's national congress in Florence via video link as a star guest, echoing his involvement with the AfD. For Meloni, the situation is even more complex as she has cultivated relationships with both men. As the first Western European leader to meet Trump following the announcement of US tariffs on EU goods, she positioned herself as a diplomatic bridge between Washington and Brussels. At the same time, she has maintained a pragmatic, deal-oriented relationship with Musk, particularly regarding potential SpaceX contracts for Italian defence communications. Despite their ties to Musk and shared ideological overlaps, both Meloni and Salvini are likely to side with Trump in the event of a political schism since Trump remains a key political ally and, unlike Musk, is an elected leader. In other parts of Europe, the choice appears clearer. Parties such as Hungary's Fidesz under Viktor Orbán and France's National Rally, now led by Jordan Bardella, have consistently aligned themselves with Trump's nationalist agenda. Orbán, one of Trump's closest allies in Europe, frequently echoes his anti-immigration rhetoric and strongman leadership style. Bardella has praised Trump's patriotism and nationalist policies, while showing little public admiration for Musk. Elsewhere, parties like Poland's Law and Justice (PiS), Austria's Freedom Party (FPÖ), and Spain's Vox have seen Musk act more as a sympathetic amplifier of their messages rather than as a political partner. While Musk has given visibility to far-right narratives on his social media platform, he lacks the political authority or ideological consistency that many of these parties find in Trump. As the Trump-Musk feud continues to unfold, Europe's right-wing movements may be forced into a reckoning. Do they align with a political icon who has shaped modern populism or with a tech mogul whose influence lies in platforms, not policies? For now, many are watching and waiting. But if tensions escalate further, silence may no longer be an option. A new YouGov study shows that the favourability towards Israel in Britain, France, Germany, Denmark, Spain and Italy is at or near its lowest level in Western Europe since 2016. The research interviewed 8,625 people from these six key Western European countries between November 2016 and May 2025. Net favourability towards Israel in Germany (-44), France (-48), and Denmark (-54) has reached its lowest level since YouGov started tracking in 2016, while public sentiment in Italy (-52) and Spain (-55) are likewise at their lowest or joint lowest levels, despite a shorter timespan from 2021 onwards. A number of Europeans across these six countries think Israel was right to send troops into Gaza, but believe they have since gone too far and caused too many civilian casualties. This opinion won the most support in Germany at 40%, followed by Denmark at 39% and Britain at 38%. Israel's military campaign has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. Food supplies have also been blocked, with the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC)'s latest report stating half a million people face starvation. Between 7% and 18% of European respondents say they sympathise most with the Israeli side, the lowest figure in most countries since the Hamas attacks. By contrast, between 18% and 33% say they sympathise more with the Palestinian side. Only in Germany are the figures for each side similar, with 17% for Israel and 18% for Palestine. Despite permanent peace in the Middle East seeming distant to Europeans, French people are the most optimistic that both sides will set aside their differences within the next 10 years. Meanwhile, Danes are the least optimistic at 15%. Across all countries, the opinion that peace is realistic has fallen in popularity by between four and ten percentage points.
The Hill
05-06-2025
- Business
- The Hill
Live updates: Trump meets with Germany's leader after issuing 12-nation travel ban
President Trump is slated to meet with new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Thursday at the White House. With trade and the Ukraine-Russia war on the agenda, it was already expected to be a meeting with no lack of contentious issues to discuss. American conservatives' entry into German politics is also likely to come up, with its support for the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party. The meeting comes less than a day after Trump instituted a 12-nation U.S. travel ban, one of a series of actions the president took on Wednesday night. On Capitol Hill, Speaker Mike Johnson continues to defend the House's 'big, beautiful bill' against flak from tech king Elon Musk, who on Wednesday called for the legislation to be killed. Johnson told Bloomberg TV that he and Musk had texted Wednesday night and planned to talk on Thursday. But the bill is also in trouble in the Senate, with outspoken opposition from enough senators to potentially hurt its chances for passage before July 4. The Supreme Court will issue opinions at 10 a.m., as it barrels toward the end of its current term. Follow along all day for updates on these stories and more.
