Dear Colleagues,

Let’s start for once with a tweet, rather than end with one. More in particular, a Bluesky tweet   by Scott L Greer, who probably was thinking of Mark Rutte and likeminded ‘Trump whisperers’:   “A big part of the problem is that all sorts of people “figured out” Trump I and thought they could use the same strategies. Trump II is not like Trump I. Low profile, quiet lobbying, ego-stroking and symbolic concessions worked pretty well from 2017 to 2021 but how are they working out now?”  

And mind you, Greer wrote this well before “Liberation Day” 😊.

While arguably Global Health power hasn’t been much in the ‘Trump whisperer business’ (it really takes “special skills”😊), it’s fair to say few people in global health – with or without power – had anticipated the carnage and level of callousness of Trump 2.0.  Personally, like many others, I expected something worse than Trump 1.0, but no, not this unbelievable sh***show. Maybe it’s different for the people who...