BY THE NUMBERS $3.25 BILLION — THE VALUE OF DEFUNCT CREDIT SUISSE: After 166 years of successful competition against Wall Street, and after peaking at more than $1 trillion in assets, Credit Suisse — designated as one of the 30 globally systemically important banks — is now officially a part of UBS. The new combined financial giant is already suffering: UBS stocks were down 15 percent in Monday trading. If you want to buy a Credit Suisse asset that’s rising in value: try buying one of their retro ski beanies at auction. 63 PERCENT — EUROPEAN GAS STORAGE LEVELS: Central heating is being turned off in many parts of Europe this week, and the continent has made it through winter with plenty of gas to spare. In Germany, which was particularly vulnerable after Gazprom shut down Nord Stream gas supplies in 2022, gas storage systems were 63 percent full last Friday. 61 PERCENT — MEXICAN PRESIDENT’S APPROVAL RATINGS ARE TAKING A DIVE: Most presidents would love an approval rating of 73 percent and so did Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a.k.a AMLO, up until December 2022. Fast forward three months and he’s down to 61 percent approval, per Morning Consult tracker polling. The shift coincides with electoral reforms widely seen as undermining the strength of Mexico’s electoral institutions. Data from Oraculus, a poll of polls, shows that while AMLO is much more popular than his immediate predecessor Enrique Peña Nieto, he is now roughly level with all the other presidents since democracy was restored in 2000. 120 DAYS — GRAIN EXPORTS: Russia agreed Saturday that all Ukrainian grain exports can pass through the blockaded Black Sea for another 120 days, Ukraine’s Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said in a tweet. Moscow had wanted to authorize only a further 60 days. CHINA — NEW TIK TOK CCP LINKS REVEALED: Australia’s parliament published a report which Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr describes as "the most comprehensive exploration yet" of the Chinese Communist Party’s ties to TikTok — ties he says “contradict TikTok’s public statements." Carr has previously called TikTok “ “digital fentanyl” and urged U.S. authorities to ban the service. ELECTIONS FINLAND — SANNA MARIN COULD BE OUT OF A JOB NEXT MONTH: Prime Minister Sanna Marin may be a global star, but there’s no guarantee she’ll remain in her job after her country goes to polls April 2. Marin’s Social Democrats have been trailing a rival center-right group all year in POLITICO’s poll of polls, though they’ve now closed the gap to 1 percent. Petteri Orpo is the man most likely to replace Marin as prime minister. He’s a former finance minister and deputy prime minister who wants to increase immigration and send arms to Ukraine. “We want to reform the labor market, taxation and social security, and get tens of thousands of workers from other countries to Finland, as we have a lack of workers,” he told POLITICO’s Charlie Duxbury. US 2024 — WHERE REPUBLICAN CONTENDERS LINE UP ON FOREIGN POLICY: All contenders are hawkish on confronting China and increasing security at the U.S. southern border. Beyond that POLITICO’s National Security Daily team classifies the contenders into three foreign policy lanes: “rules-based internationalists,” “conservative internationalists” and “conservative nationalists.” Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, in an interview with POLITICO, suggested the U.S. should adopt a foreign policy akin to President George W. Bush’s before 9/11. “Isolationism is not the right path for freedom in today’s world,” he said. Conservative internationalists like Nikki Haley and Mike Pompeo argue the U.S. should lead the world order for its own aims and deemphasize democracy promotion while promoting sovereignty. Haley’s proposal to cancel foreign aid to countries that don’t support American goals is case in point. These contenders believe in an approach anchored in peace through military strength. Conservative nationalists — namely Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis — would be happy to end the war in Ukraine now, even at high cost to Ukraine. While my colleague Alex Ward thinks it’s too early to firmly classify DeSantis in this lane, the Florida governor’s answer to Fox’s Tucker Carlson last week gives a clear indication. DeSantis said that “becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia” is not a vital national interest, including because it is a distraction from constraining China. DeSantis separated “intervention in an escalating foreign war” from “the defense of our own homeland.” TECH CORNER WORLD’S BIGGEST CHIP CENTER: We’ve heard a lot from the Biden administration about its juicing of advanced chip manufacturing. In reply, South Korea says it will build a $230 billion center with Samsung Electronics in Seoul’s outskirts. The plan includes building five chip factories and gathering 150 parts and equipment makers on one campus. On Friday South Korea also signed seven industrial cooperation agreements with the Netherlands, where the key chip equipment supplier ASML is based. QUOTABLE — THE FALLOUT FROM SILICON VALLEY BANK “So what has been uncovered in the week since we learned that Silicon Valley Bank was no more trustworthy than a crypto spam text? A startup culture once considered the gem of the economy has been exposed as careless with its money, clueless in its judgment of character, hypocritical in its ideolog y, and ruthless in exercising its political clout as a powerful special interest” — Steven Levey, Wired editor-at-large CHINA CORNER RACCOON DOG DATA GIVE CLUES TO COVID ORIGIN: New Chinese data uploaded to the international virus database GISAID by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention late last week, The Atlantic reported, but was hastily removed following questions from international scientists. Researchers analyzed the data and found that samples containing coronavirus also contained genetic material from animals, including raccoon dogs. Over the weekend, the World Health Organization said we need more data to have any definitive answer on the pandemic’s origins. Per the WHO’s COVID technical lead, Maria Van Kerkhove: “Unfortunately this doesn’t give us the answer of how the pandemic began, but it does give us more clues,” she said. “These data could have — and should have — been shared three years ago,” said WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. HONDURAS DITCHING TAIWAN FOR CHINA: Honduras said Tuesday it will break diplomatic relations with Taiwan in favor of establishing ties with Beijing, leaving just 13 countries that diplomatically recognize Taipei. Outgoing Micronesia President David Panuelo is urging his country to switch in the other direction — from Beijing to Taipei — after using his final speech to describe what he says is systemic Chinese intimidation and bribery. CHINA GETS HAPPY: New polling from Ipsos shows three in four people surveyed globally described themselves as “happy” — up 10 points from August 2020. The happiest population is China: where 91 percent report being happy, compared to 76 percent of Americans. Respondents were most satisfied with relationships (with children, spouses, relatives, friends, co-workers and nature). People surveyed were least happy about their country’s political and economic situations. | 
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