Round-up: Ukraine intel. DOGE has its wings clipped. Trump and Canadian booze. The economy.

Your guide to this week's events

Thanks for reading America Explained. If you haven’t already, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription. This will enable you to read all of this post and access the full archive. It will also enable me to put more time and energy into this newsletter, and slip into Substack’s “hundreds of paid subscribers” category - to which we’re getting close! If you’re already a paid subscriber, thanks for supporting independent media and making it possible to do what I do.

Intel for Ukraine

After the Zelensky-Trump blow up a week ago (has it really been that long?), the Trump administration has taken two drastic steps to harm Ukraine. The first is to cut off the immediate flow of military assistance. The second is to cut off the flow of intelligence. And the second matters much more than the first, at least for now.

Although we don’t know everything about the intelligence support that the United States has provided Ukraine, what is clear is that it has been extensive and vital. The U.S. has been using its vast network of intelligence assets and agents - from satellites in the sky to spies in the Kremlin - to gather useful information for the Ukrainian war effort. It has provided Kyiv with real-time information on targets and eavesdropped on Russian troop movements.

In fact, U.S. intelligence support to Ukraine goes back a decade, way before the renewed Russian invasion of 2022. The CIA has spent almost a decade working to build up Ukraine’s own intelligence services, providing training and equipment and even stationing personnel in the country. The Agency built up a network of stations in Ukraine, including 12 near the Russian border, and taught Ukrainians their tradecraft. For their part, the Americans came to see the Ukrainians as their most able intelligence allies against the Kremlin.

Of course, that was back when the United States saw Russia as an enemy. This administration sees things differently. Before it ended intelligence support to Ukraine, it had already stopped offensive cyber-operations against Russia. It probably ended other secret programs that we don’t know about as well. It’s all part of Trump’s long list of unilateral concessions to the Kremlin.

The end of U.S. intelligence support for Ukraine is already likely costing lives on the front line. At least that’s what Ukrainian officials are saying. In particular, they’re calling attention to the role that U.S. intel plays in helping save Ukrainian civilian lives:

As Washington turns off the tap on its $65 billion of military aid, Ukraine will also now have to do without American intelligence that has helped it to anticipate Russian attacks and troop movements, and avoid nightly barrages from Russian drones on its cities and infrastructure.

Viewed from the homes and apartments of Kyiv, it seems like “a very petty decision by our alleged ally,” said Myroslava Yeremkiv, 33, who manages donations at a nongovernmental organization in the capital. “The United States has the power at least to protect and save the lives of civilians from Russia’s brutal and terrorizing attacks … and you just choose not to.”

“This looks like a thug tactic — blackmailing and trying to break Ukrainian society into submission before negotiations,” Yeremkiv said, calling it a “very weak and pathetic decision.”

“I really, really hope that in the near future we can restore sharing of this information,” said Oleksandr Musiienko, head of the Kyiv-based Center for Military and Legal Studies. “We will lose some types of information about flying warplanes from Russian airfields, about launching their terrorist attacks,” added Musiienko, who also serves in the country’s Territorial Defense Forces. “This means that we do not have enough security and defense for our civilians.”

Next time you hear about a Russian terror attack claiming Ukrainian lives, just remember that the Trump administration could have saved at least some of them - but chose not to.

DOGE has its wings clipped

In last week’s edition of this round-up, I predicted that DOGE would soon find its power waning. Now that Cabinet secretaries have been installed at most agencies, we reasoned, they - and the senators who confirmed them - are going to want to see duly-appointed agency heads making decisions about hiring, firing and spending.

Yesterday, it looked like this prediction was coming true. Trump convened his Cabinet to make it clear that DOGE guidance is purely advisory and that Cabinet secretaries do in fact rule within their own departments. The development comes as a number of federal judges have been questioning whether DOGE’s unusual role in making government decisions is legal, and Republican House members have been seeing horrible polling and contentious town halls back in their districts.

To drive the message home, Trump later posted on Truth Social that further government cuts would be done with a “scalpel”, not a “hatchet”.

As always with Trump, this isn’t the end of the story. There’s a chance the announcement is in part an elaborate headfake designed to convince skeptical judges that Musk is not exercising illegal power. But such an announcement could hardly hold off the legal scrutiny for long. At least one of the court cases against Musk is soon reaching the discovery phase, meaning litigants will be able to delve deeper into the details of his role.

One way or another, this was a significant milestone in the DOGE Wars - and a sign that Musk is losing.

How Canada is fighting back

Even before Trump started threatening its population with annexation, the Canadian province of Ontario was the largest purchaser of alcohol in the world. That’s because according to local law, the vast majority of the alcoholic drinks sold in Canada’s most populous province have to be purchased through a governmental body through state-run stores. That body, in turn, holds enormous power in the alcohol marketplace. If Ontario decides to put your brewer’s IPA on its shelves, which serve over 15 million consumers, then you just landed the contract of a lifetime.

Now, in response to Trump’s trade war and annexation threats, Canada’s purveyors of sin are fighting back.

Ontario’s premier, Doug Ford, has announced that thousands of American-made products will be pulled from Ontario’s shelves. (His brother, former Toronto mayor Rob Ford, was fond of a drink himself - as well as crack cocaine, which he was caught smoking on video twice, in 2013 and 2014). Ford is also plowing ahead with levies on Ontario’s electricity exports, which help to power parts of the northern U.S. Every other Canadian province has also followed suit, with the premier of one posting a Trump parody video of himself signing the order.

Joking aside, big things are happening to the international politics of North America here.