WORLD ROUNDUPChina Is Ditching the Dollar, Fast | Brazil Just Succeeded Where America Failed | Outlawry in the Caribbean, and more

China Is Ditching the Dollar, Fast  (Economist)
Officials believe that the yuan has finally come of age.
China’s leaders sense an epic opportunity. President Donald Trump’s erratic trade policy, gaping fiscal deficits and threats to the independence of America’s Federal Reserve risk badly hurting the dollar. It has slumped 7% on a trade-weighted basis since January, and had its worst start to a year since 1973. By contrast, China’s tightly controlled currency, the yuan, has reached its highest level since Mr. Trump was re-elected in November. Foreign investors are piling in. So are many governments looking for dollar alternatives.

How China’s Propaganda and Surveillance Systems Really Operate  (Zeyi Yang and Louise Matsakis, Wired)
A series of corporate leaks show that Chinese technology companies function far more like their Western peers than one might imagine.

Brazil’s Historic Conviction  (Oliver Stuenkel, Foreign Policy)
Can the country’s democracy heal from the Bolsonaro era while resisting U.S. intimidation?

Brazil Just Succeeded Where America Failed  (Filipe Campante and Steven Levitsky, New York Times)
On Thursday, the Brazilian Supreme Court did what the U.S. Senate and federal courts tragically failed to do: bring a former president who assaulted democracy to justice.
In a historic ruling, the Supreme Court voted 4 to 1 to convict ex-President Jair Bolsonaro of conspiring against democracy and attempting a coup in the wake of his 2022 election defeat. He was sentenced to 27 years in prison. Barring a successful appeal, which is unlikely, Mr. Bolsonaro will become the first coup leader in Brazilian history to serve time in prison.
These developments draw a sharp contrast with the United States, where President Trump, who also attempted to overturn an election, was sent not to prison but back to the White House. Mr. Trump, perhaps recognizing the power of that contrast, called Mr. Bolsonaro’s prosecution a “witch hunt” and described his conviction as “a terrible thing. Very terrible.”

Brazil Keeps Telling Trump to Get Lost  (Jack Nicas, New York Times)
Latin America’s largest nation is shaping up as a test case on how to defy President Trump.

Outlawry in the Caribbean  (Benjamin R. Farley, Foreign Policy)
Trump’s execution of drug smugglers by drone is barbaric even by 19th-century legal standards.

As Sabotage in Europe Mounts, So Do Calls to Retaliate Against Russia  (Lara Jakes, New York Times)
Drones in Poland and GPS jamming attributed to Russia have intensified a debate over whether the West should impose stiffer penalties for such “hybrid warfare.”

Nuclear Energy Now – Russia to Help China Overtake the United States in Nuclear  (Emily Day, National Interest)
According to the Chief of Russia’s Rosatom state nuclear corporation, Russia will help China meet its goal of reaching 100 gigawatts (GW) of nuclear power and overtake the United States as the world’s largest producer of nuclear energy.