The Economist

Hello and welcome to the Intelligence from the Economist.

I'm your host, Jason Palmer.

Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

There are thousands, millions of them in many of America's cities. They're putting stress on local businesses, changing local economies.

They are empty office chairs.

We look at the new risks arising from the new-ish era of working from home.

And for many people, there are four words that bring deep disappointment.

We only have Pepsi.

But in one region of the world, that is the standard answer.

We ask why.

First up, though.

I want to read you a little passage from America's latest national security strategy,

released weirdly in the dead of night almost a week ago.

The United States must be preeminent in the Western Hemisphere as a condition of our security and prosperity,

a condition that allows us to assert ourselves confidently

where and when we need to in the region.

That is one lens through which you might see last night's seizure of a Venezuelan oil tanker,

confident assertion of hemispheric preeminence.

Venezuela called it piracy.

Whatever the plans the Trump administration has for the country, the strategy document makes

for unsettling reading throughout the West.

...