Tuesday Briefing

Why Trump is musing about a third term

Barring constitutional changes, President Trump cannot run for a third term. But he has floated the idea, publicly and otherwise, and said recently that he was “not joking” about it, though there’s no real evidence that it’s possible. (Top Republicans yesterday rejected the idea of amending the Constitution to allow it.)

But such talk serves a purpose: it redirects attention from other controversies, and it prevents potential successors from emerging to steal his spotlight. Some observers suggest that his strategy may be to keep people guessing, and to antagonize the left. “Trump excels by keeping people off kilter and uncomfortable,” a former Republican strategist said.

Separately, world markets tumbled yesterday as investors braced for new Trump tariffs that would affect the U.S.’s biggest trading partners. Trump, who has promised to overhaul the global trading system, plans to unveil tomorrow what he is calling “reciprocal tariffs,” to match the import taxes and other measures that other countries apply to American exports. (He has taken to calling tomorrow “Liberation Day.”)

Mixed messages: A White House trade adviser said tariffs would raise about $6 trillion over the next decade. But experts say that using tariffs to increase revenue conflicts with the administration’s goal of bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. This is why.

France’s far-right leader was barred from running for office

Marine Le Pen, the French far-right leader, was found guilty of embezzlement yesterday and disqualified from running for public office for five years.

The verdict could lead to new political turmoil. It effectively knocked Le Pen — France’s most popular politician, according to the polls — out of the 2027 presidential election.

The decision infuriated Le Pen, an anti-immigrant, nationalist politician who has mounted three failed presidential bids. She called the ruling a “political” attempt to thwart her and vowed to fight back, though her chances of legal success are slim. “I’m not going to submit to a democratic denial so easily,” she said angrily.

Context: The court ruled that Le Pen had played a “central role” in an illegal scheme to use millions of euros in European Parliament funds for party expenses from 2004 to 2016. Le Pen was a member of the European Parliament from 2004 to 2017.

Analysis: Millions of Le Pen supporters are now adrift and angry, our Paris bureau chief, Roger Cohen, writes. France could see a gale of protests and attacks from the global far right.

Reactions: Across Europe, hard-right leaders sharply criticized the court’s decision. Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister, posted “Je suis Marine!” (“I am Marine!”) on social media.

Domestic conflict swirls around Netanyahu

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, is increasingly clashing with state institutions, including the police, the domestic spy agency, state prosecutors and even the Supreme Court.

Against that backdrop, he pressed ahead yesterday with efforts to replace a senior intelligence chief, Ronen Bar, who had helped to instigate an investigation of the prime minister’s aides. Netanyahu’s nomination of Eli Sharvit, a former Navy commander, to replace Bar as head of the Shin Bet, the domestic security agency, tests a Supreme Court order that suspended Bar’s dismissal until April 8.

All the while, Netanyahu continues to oversee Israel’s longest-ever war. The Israeli military issued a sweeping evacuation order for the southern Gaza Strip, signaling that it could resume intensive assaults there. Early this morning, the Israeli military said it had conducted a strike on the southern outskirts of Beirut, the second attack near Lebanon’s capital in less than a week.

Analysis: “It’s crazy and hard to believe what’s going on,” said Ami Ayalon, a former director of the Shin Bet.

• Myanmar: As the death toll from Friday’s earthquake rose to more than 2,000 people, help was just starting to trickle into the city of Sagaing, which residents say was mostly destroyed.

• Thailand: Rescue workers in Bangkok, where the quake brought a high-rise building down, searched for laborers trapped under a towering pile of rubble and steel.

• Pakistan: Thousands of Afghans faced a deadline yesterday to leave the country, raising fear among those vulnerable to Taliban persecution.

• Zimbabwe: President Emmerson Mnangagwa faces the biggest threat to his power since taking office, as members of his own party call for his resignation.

• Lithuania: Three U.S. Army soldiers were found dead, nearly a week after their armored vehicle became stuck in a bog during a training mission.

• Tech: Wen Han, the founder of Windrose Technology, said he was intent on taking the electric truck company public in New York and planned to raise at least $400 million.

• Royals: Prince Harry stepped down as a patron of Sentebale, a charity he co-founded in memory of his mother, after a dispute. Here’s what we know.

• U.S.: Hundreds of sea lions, dolphins and other animals have come ashore in Southern California dead or seriously ill, alarming rescuers and beachgoers alike.

• Space: Two NASA astronauts spoke at their first news conference since returning to Earth from an unexpectedly long stay aboard the International Space Station.

Analysis

• Russia: President Vladimir Putin is testing the patience of the friendliest White House he’s faced in decades.

• Diplomacy: Arranging a meeting between Trump and China’s leader, Xi Jinping, is proving slow and difficult.

• Geopolitics: The U.S. and its partners are caught in a spiral of distrust fueled by Trump’s threats.

• Italy: As tensions escalate between Trump and Europe, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni finds herself caught in the middle.

SPORTS NEWS

• Soccer: The Premier League is back. It’s all about the race for a top-five finish. (For more, go inside the league’s most boutique stadium experience.)

• Tennis: Novak Djokovic’s pursuit of a historic 100th ATP Tour title will continue after his loss to Jakub Mensik in the Miami Open final.

• Golf: Min Woo Lee held off a charging Scottie Scheffler to win his maiden PGA Tour title at the Houston Open.

MORNING READ

The French Navy’s Atlantique 2 plane was designed to hunt submarines and other enemy craft. One plane now has a different role: to observe the Baltic Sea, where Russian sabotage is suspected, and to be seen observing it. A reporter and a photographer spent 14 hours aboard. Read about it here.

Lives lived: Joe Harris, thought to be the oldest surviving World War II U.S. paratrooper, died at 108.

CONVERSATION STARTERS

• Call it a “nonpliment”: A reader asks, What do you say to a friend whose show was kind of terrible?

• Chip on their shoulder: Steak fries, wan and planklike, may be the least popular potato snack. Still, some chefs are devoted to them.

• Not getting over it: Joost Klein found success after getting thrown out of last year’s Eurovision, but he’s still upset about it.

ARTS AND IDEAS

A quest to find joy and bring it home

Finland has topped the World Happiness Report for the past eight years, owing in part to its welfare state, a closeness with nature and three million saunas. Britta Lokting, a writer and self-confessed anxious American, went to Helsinki to see if she could bring some of that joy home with her.

Lokting sampled local food, confessed her emotions to the trees and plunged into cold waters. On her return to America, she still found happiness to be a luxury. But maybe the answer wasn’t to recreate a dopamine rush, she writes, but something altogether more simple.

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