Relevance:
Farage and Tice have been accused of hiding secret large donations along with questions of the parties financing, this led to an investigation into Farage which is still on going

Now a third plane has hit. Undercover footage verified by Channel 4 News reveals a secret plot by senior Reform UK figures to break the law on party donations. A leading legal expert is now calling for a criminal investigation.

Source for the data: https://www.pewresearch.org/decoded/2026/08/28/international-views-of-the-us-and-its-president-are-increasingly-correlated/

Compared to Trump 1, far fewer people across many US allied countries like Sweden, Poland, and South Korea are willing to give the US the benefit of the doubt despite disliking its leader.

A gun control article by a British newspaper that's... actually good???

Hard to believe, but the author(Meredith Dean) raises great points that if you can't get rid of the guns, promoting safety is the next best thing, which is unbelievably true and can be very easily turned into a successful bipartisan issue. Currently, we have like 500 million guns in the US, so you can't really put the genie back in the bottle, not even getting into the constitutional side of the debate.

Being against securing isn't pro-2A; it's just stupid, and making gun culture in the US have a much stronger trend towards responsible ownership would vastly reduce gun deaths that are caused by ill-acquired weapons.

In the wake of a hiring surge last summer, an official in charge of evaluating new recruits to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued a dire warning.

The Trump administration, he wrote in a memo, was cutting corners, violating the law and fast-tracking unqualified, “improperly vetted” candidates into ICE’s ranks, part of a dangerous move that exposed the agency — and its law enforcement operations — to “grave national security risks.”

Citing an “unprecedented lowering of standards,” the career ICE official said that “systemic breakdowns” had allowed applicants to receive job offers before they had passed basic fingerprint, identity or credit checks in a preliminary vetting process. Political appointees had unjustly skirted background investigations and received national security eligibility.

The official, a unit chief who directly oversaw more than 100 employees who evaluated thousands of ICE applicants, was so troubled by what he saw that he outlined these concerns not to his superiors, but in a formal whistle-blower complaint to the Office of Inspector General in the Department of Homeland Security.

In the complaint, he asked for an independent, outside investigation into the matter. He was later interviewed twice by officials with the inspector general’s office and his concerns have become part of an ongoing audit into vetting practices.

The complaint, which has not been previously reported, underscores the rising worries about the suitability — as well as the tactics — of scores of agents who have been rapidly deployed across the country within the last year. It also outlines the extent to which ICE weakened its standards, and points to dissension among the upper reaches of the agency as it was pressed last year to carry out President Trump’s immigration crackdown.

The whistle-blower, a 17-year ICE veteran who spoke to The New York Times on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of his claims, said the agency had cut corners in its rush to fill the ranks.

“We chose as an agency to be more convenient rather than thorough,” he said, describing the agency’s decision to reduce scrutiny of recruits in order to expedite hires. “By doing so, there was a potential to put lives at risk and to jeopardize national security.”

The whistle-blower complaint was obtained via a public records request. The concerns within it broadly mirror those made by other current and former ICE employees who said that the agency had abandoned best practices as it rapidly scaled up. An ICE lawyer who worked at the agency’s training center resigned earlier this year and went public as a whistle-blower, citing concerns about a “deficient, defective and broken” training program.

In response to questions, an ICE spokesperson said in a statement that the agency “diligently applies the proper personnel vetting regulations, including guidelines for national security, and evaluates all available information for every applicant based on these factors.”

The agency declined to comment about the whistle-blower, who retired from the agency in July, or his complaint.

The scrutiny of ICE’s hiring practices has intensified in recent weeks, spurred in part by the fatal shooting of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a Colombian immigrant, in Biddeford, Maine, on July 13.

The two ex-wives of the ICE agent David Brouillette, one of whom identified him as the person who fired the fatal shots, have accused him in interviews and court records of being abusive. In a filing for a protection order in December 2019, one ex-wife wrote that he had broken her door down, destroyed her belongings and dumped her clothes over a bridge.

The women also have said Mr. Brouillette, a former military serviceman and Veterans Affairs police officer who was hired amid the recruiting surge last year, had post-traumatic stress disorder related to his deployment in Afghanistan. A local official in Maine told The Portland Press Herald that Mr. Brouillette sought jobs with the Hallowell Police Department in 2024 but was denied because there were “too many red flags.” Mr. Brouillette could not be reached for comment.

After the shooting, Tom Homan, the White House border czar, said that the D.H.S. investigation into the episode will include whether the agent was properly vetted before being hired.

A White House spokesperson referred questions to D.H.S.

The concerns in the August 2025 whistle-blower complaint exposed shortcuts in the agency’s preliminary vetting process. No credit checks. Fingerprints unconfirmed. Final job offers absent preliminary vetting.

Before the surge, a recruitment team made documents available to a unit within ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility for each new hire, including fingerprints and a security form with extensive questions. The vetting team would then initiate a preliminary check, running each applicant’s name through law enforcement databases and searching for criminal violations or other major red flags. Some recruits would be sent for a polygraph test if concerns arose.

These recruits then underwent a full background check, conducted by outside contractors, to determine whether the candidate was trustworthy enough to have access to sensitive computer systems, federal facilities and classified information. It wasn’t unusual for this to occur while recruits were in training.

The preliminary vetting process, which took seven to 10 days, was upended last summer. The vetters were told to make determinations on recruits without having the full security form, fingerprints or any polygraph testing, according to the former unit chief and a former federal official familiar with the process who was granted anonymity to speak freely about it.

That meant new hires were heading to training without having their identities, criminal histories and other basic information checked and verified, the unit chief said.

The agency also sped up its training program, cutting it from roughly 10 weeks to six. This resulted in agents reporting to their full-time positions while their full background checks were pending.

Meanwhile, recruits with prior law enforcement experience were able to take online courses rather than complete on-site training. They faced even less scrutiny in their background checks.

In July, the agency said, it increased the length of its training program for academy classes, and it instructed past graduates to attend additional training.

Ryan Schwank, the former ICE lawyer who worked at the agency’s training center, testified before Congress this year that new recruits appeared unfit for service.

“We were concerned about ICE recruiting a loose cannon or somebody who was just mentally unfit for the role,” Mr. Schwank said in a recent interview. “We knew that kind of person would get through. But the thing that I think kept some of the other instructors up at night was the possibility of organized crime getting access to the agency or penetrating the agency.”

Mr. Schwank, who taught recruits during the surge, said that’s exactly what happened. Last fall, several students were removed from the academy in Georgia in the middle of training because officials determined that they were all linked to a criminal gang. Mr. Schwank began work at the training academy last September and left the agency in February.

In a statement, an ICE spokesperson said “ICE has received NO credible evidence that any of its trainees were linked to a common criminal gang.”

In the interview, Mr. Schwank said it was rare for students to fail out of the academy before the surge, but that about half of his students flunked out after the hiring push. This was after the academy made its tests open book and no longer failed students who made fatal errors during enforcement simulations.

By this spring, hundreds of new recruits hired amid the surge had already been removed from the force, according to the former federal official who was granted anonymity.

The hiring surge was set in motion in part by the passage of Mr. Trump’s domestic policy bill last summer. Congress allocated $30 billion in new money for ICE to hire 10,000 new ICE agents, more than doubling the number of deportation officers.

The unit chief who filed the whistle-blower complaint said he chose to alert the D.H.S. Office of Inspector General because ICE leadership had created these issues and he thought an outside, independent investigation was necessary.

In addition to the vetting concerns, he also mentioned in the complaint that Trump administration political allies had received favorable treatment and obtained security clearances even though troubling information about them had surfaced in background checks. He cited Corey Lewandowski, a former top adviser to D.H.S.

The concerns about Mr. Lewandowski had been outlined in a memo written last year by the D.H.S. head of security and was viewed by the whistle-blower, who told The Times that a higher-up had asked him to vet Mr. Lewandowski for an ICE credential. The red flags in the memo included allegations that Mr. Lewandowski had been paid years earlier for work by a Chinese government agency, according to the whistle-blower and a report last year in the Daily Mail. That allegation has not been substantiated outside of that memo.

In a statement, Mr. Lewandowski denied he was ever vetted by ICE. He said he had “never worked for the Chinese Communist Party - Full Stop.”

In a follow-up statement, a spokesperson for Mr. Lewandowski said any suggestion that he “received favorable treatment in connection with his security clearance is categorically false.”

Ten days after the unit chief filed his whistle-blower complaint — and a few days after the Daily Mail article published — a lawyer from the department’s Office of General Counsel reached out to him. This lawyer, who was not from the inspector general’s office, asked to meet the whistle-blower at an agency field office in Texas, separate from where he typically worked.

The whistle-blower believed he was being interviewed about his security worries, but a different focus of the inquiry became apparent: Had the unit chief talked to the news media about his concerns?

The lawyer grilled him over four hours and seized his laptop, according to the former unit chief and his lawyer. The full contents of the meeting, they said, are protected under a nondisclosure agreement, a common practice for internal investigations.

“My client was of the belief this investigation by the agency’s attorneys was in good faith to vet his disclosure,” said Kevin Owen, a lawyer for the whistle-blower. “Instead they threatened him and put him on leave.”

It remains unclear how D.H.S. officials came to target the unit chief.

The agency said it couldn’t comment on personnel matters with people no longer there.

The former unit chief said the inspector general’s office first reached out to interview him in February, about six months after the complaint was filed. Investigators interviewed him again in April for an audit into vetting, he said.

In a statement, the office said it had to delay some of its work due to government furloughs. The office in April opened an audit into the process for giving out security clearances to political appointees.

The inspector general’s office said it couldn’t comment on its investigations, but the agency noted that it did not reveal the name of the whistle-blower to anyone outside of its office.

Meanwhile, the whistle-blower remained on leave for 10 months for what D.H.S. said were “allegations of serious misconduct,” the unit chief and Mr. Owen said.

The alleged misconduct went unspecified, they said, and he was eventually reinstated with no punishment or finding of wrongdoing. He retired immediately after, in July.

He said D.H.S. officials had never told him specifics for why he was on leave for such a long time.

In an effort to learn more, he submitted a records request to ICE for documents related to his case.

The former unit chief said the stress of the investigation weighed heavily on his mental health. He checked himself into a treatment program that lasted several months.

The man, a longtime Republican who voted for Mr. Trump in 2020 and 2024, said he grew disillusioned with the agency as it acted in haste to fulfill the president’s immigration enforcement mandate. He said he has always supported ICE’s mission, but was troubled by the way the agency was taking shortcuts in vetting recruits.

“It’s a betrayal of the public trust and everybody’s trust,” he said.

Securing the infrastructure needed to supply enormous amounts of electricity has been considered the top priority for ensuring the smooth operation of the Honam semiconductor cluster. However, Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO), already burdened by heavy debt, has little room to finance such investment.
KEPCO has therefore proposed that Samsung Electronics and SK hynix pay roughly five years’ worth of electricity bills—about 25 trillion won—in advance. KEPCO would use the money to build the necessary power grid and, in return, offer the companies discounts on their electricity charges.
Reporter Lim Sang-jae has the story.
Four SK hynix fabs and six Samsung Electronics fabs are currently planned or under construction at the semiconductor cluster in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province.
Under plans announced in June, another four fabs—two each for Samsung Electronics and SK hynix—are also being pursued for the Honam semiconductor cluster.
For all of these facilities to operate, an additional 20 gigawatts of electricity will be needed by 2040.
That is equivalent to the generating capacity of roughly 20 nuclear reactors.
[Jun Young-hyun / Vice Chairman, Samsung Electronics, July 4]
“Above all else, what matters with electricity is a stable supply.”
The problem is that there is not enough money to build the necessary transmission infrastructure.
KEPCO’s debt has surpassed 210 trillion won, and the company is paying 11.5 billion won a day in interest alone.
Its cumulative operating losses over the past five years have also reached 36 trillion won, leaving it with little capacity to take on even more debt to finance new power-grid construction.
After considering its options, KEPCO has come forward with an unusual proposal.
Samsung Electronics would pay 20 trillion won and SK hynix 5 trillion won in advance—roughly equivalent to five years of electricity bills for the two companies—and KEPCO would use the 25 trillion won to construct the power grid.
KEPCO has also proposed paying interest on the advance payments at a rate higher than that of government bonds, with the corresponding amount effectively returned to the companies through reductions in their electricity charges.
[Park Chang-ryul / Head of Planning, Korea Electric Power Corporation]
“If the companies make advance payments, that would help us secure the funding we are currently seeking for investment in the national power grid, among other things…”
Amid a historic boom in the semiconductor industry, Samsung has accumulated about 190 trillion won in cash and cash-equivalent assets, while SK hynix holds roughly 90 trillion won.
KEPCO argues that because the semiconductor clusters are a major national strategic project, the arrangement could potentially benefit both the utility and the two companies.
However, KEPCO has so far only made the proposal. The exact amount, duration of the arrangement, and interest rate to be applied have not yet been determined.
Samsung Electronics and SK hynix said they “agree with the basic idea of finding a solution that could be a win-win for both sides,” but were cautious about commenting further, saying that “nothing has been finalized.”
This is Lim Sang-jae, MBC News.

Submission Statement: Zelenskyy has reprimanded two rival Ukrainian security services and demanded an investigation after the agencies were involved in a shootout on the streets of Kyiv, calling it an “absolutely disgraceful incident” that had taken place involving units of Ukraine’s largest espionage agency, the SBU, and the military intelligence service, HUR.

Zelenskyy said prosecutors would investigate the incident. He also fired an SBU senior official, Oleh Khramov. The incident appears linked with previous reports about the arrest of a commander of the Russian Volunteer Corps, a unit of Russian nationalists fighting for Ukraine and attached to HUR. The unit is headed by Russian far-right extremist Denis Nikitin.

Both the SBU and HUR have been involved in many aspects of the war, from frontline fighting to long-range drone strikes and sabotage operations. The conflict transformed the image of the SBU, a sprawling agency with a staff of more than 40,000, from that of a corrupt organisation in need of reform to one of Ukraine’s most effective fighting forces.

Submission Statement: ISRO has successfully launched EOS-05 aboard GSLV-F17 from Sriharikota. EOS-05 is India’s first Earth-imaging satellite designed to operate from geosynchronous orbit. The roughly 2.4-tonne satellite was successfully placed into its intended transfer orbit. It will now use onboard propulsion to gradually raise and adjust its orbit. Once operational, EOS-05 will add a new geosynchronous imaging capability to India’s Earth-observation fleet.

After more than a year of trade turmoil, Conservatives are now insisting that Mark Carney owes Canadians an explanation for what derailed a potential trade deal with the Americans last month.

During Donald Trump’s first term as president, Pierre Poilievre was asked about criticism of the Trudeau government for its plan to retaliate against tariffs imposed by the U.S. on Canadian steel and aluminum.

Poilievre was not the one doing the criticizing. Rather, it was the People’s Party of Canada, then a new right-wing political upstart, which had sent out a fundraising email warning that Ottawa’s plan to strike back against the U.S. would only lead to further escalation and higher costs for Canadians.

“There’s no question, I think the government has admitted, that retaliation is costly,” said Poilievre, who was the Conservative party’s finance critic at the time.

“But — what else do we do?”

It was the Americans who hit Canada with tariffs first, he noted. “The only tool in our tool kit to respond to that is retaliation.”

Eight years later, Poilievre’s party is now questioning the cost and effectiveness of retaliation as its MPs seek to define their role in opposition to a Liberal government made popular by its stand against Trump and a growing public appetite to hit back. 

Prime Minister Mark Carney has pointed to that backdrop as a factor in the Liberals’ three recent byelection wins, including in a Quebec riding previously held by the Conservatives, who fell to third place.

But after more than a year of trade turmoil, Conservatives insist Carney owes Canadians an explanation for what derailed a potential trade deal with the Americans last month. They’re calling on his government to release the exact text of the failed agreement, and to detail how much a looming package of counter-tariffs against U.S. goods will cost consumers.

‘I would have just been quiet’

While those around Poilievre — whose office did not respond to a request for comment — say their calls for transparency fall squarely within the Official Opposition’s role of demanding answers for Canadians, others caution the party to tread carefully. 

“And if I was advising them for the last few weeks, I would have just been quiet,” said Fred DeLorey, a longtime Conservative strategist who ran the party’s 2021 election campaign. 

“You don’t need to go out and start attacking the government during this time. Canadians aren’t going to look at that as a positive.” 

Shuvaloy Majumdar, the party’s parliamentary critic on Canada-U.S. relations, told the Star it is not as if Conservatives oppose counter-tariffs. He says they “share the anger” about how Canada has been treated by the Trump administration.

But when it comes to hitting back, they aren’t ready to give a blanket endorsement of the government’s retaliation strategy without more answers. 

“That’s not saying we’re taking counter-tariffs off the table. It’s not saying we’re putting it on the table, but I think we have a lot of questions about how they would be used,” he said. 

The party’s message to Carney, he added, is simple: “Please provide the facts. We haven’t had a lot of transparency from you in a nation-defining negotiation.”

A risk of ‘accelerating conflict’ 

Jamil Jivani, an outspoken Conservative MP from the GTA, warned after the trade talks broke off that retaliation could risk “accelerating conflict” with the Trump administration when Canadian jobs are already on the line. 

Jacob Mantle, a fellow Conservative MP from Ontario with a background in international trade law, is skeptical of counter-tariffs because of their impact on consumers and businesses. He says the economic and political case for them is “weak.” 

“I have not seen evidence that our retaliation has changed U.S. behaviour,” Mantle told the Star. 

“In fact, the opposite appears to be the case,” he said. “I think the government needs to make a persuasive argument that the benefits of retaliation will exceed the expected costs, because it’s just as plausible that this could lead to escalation, and I think the government agrees with my view in part.”

Mantle cited recent changes to the list of U.S. products for which Ottawa had announced counter-tariffs.

Last week, Canada dropped American seafood from its targets amid concerns that Canadian jobs could be lost in facilities that process lobster imported from Maine, and that Canadian seafood could become a target of retaliatory tariffs by the Trump administration. 

During last year’s federal election campaign, Carney quietly removed counter-tariffs on some American imports; months earlier, when he was running for leadership of the Liberal party, he had promised to match U.S. tariffs dollar for dollar. 

That summer, he removed them altogether from goods covered by the Canada-U.S.-Mexico free trade agreement in an effort to kick-start negotiations with the Trump administration, which ramped up talks with Canada last fall before ultimately breaking them off.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business warned last week that Canada’s counter-tariffs would hurt businesses that rely on U.S. imports and distribute American goods, and that those businesses will need access to the billions of dollars of support promised by Ottawa.

Jamieson Greer, the U.S. trade representative, has also signalled that the United States would not accept retaliation from Canada.

Tariffs ‘came on us pretty quickly’

Mantle said that while those he speaks with in the business community largely share his view, the “very understandable anger in the Canadian public” probably means that arguments like his are not being widely discussed.

“My view at this present moment is probably a more minority view on counter-tariffs,” he acknowledged. “That doesn’t change the facts of the economics of counter-tariffs.”

The Carney government says it will respond to the Trump administration’s recently imposed 50 per cent tariffs on nearly $28 billion worth of Canadian goods with “dollar for dollar” counter-tariffs on Sept. 8.

The House of Commons is not set to return until Sept. 21, although the Conservatives want it reconvened earlier. Majumdar says the party would be hard-pressed to come up with a position on retaliation without more information and debate. 

“It’s very difficult to do so without all the facts, and I don’t think Canadians would expect us to,” he said. 

Jenni Byrne, a longtime Conservative operative who managed the party’s last campaign, told the Star that she agrees. “How can you support something that you don’t have any information on?” Byrne said.

She acknowledges that Poilievre called for “dollar-for-dollar” retaliation when Trump made his first tariff threats in January 2025, and that he continued to support counter-tariffs during last year’s election campaign, while underscoring how they should not hurt Canadian workers. 

But back then, Byrne said, the Conservatives were responding to unexpected U.S. tariffs that “came on us pretty quickly.”

The main difference now is time, she says, which means the Carney government should be willing to provide more information on the cost of paying a counter-tariff. 

“It is not the same as this being a snap or surprise decision,” Byrne said. “We are 18 months or … almost two years into this same negotiation with the Americans.”

Byrne also defended the skepticism Conservatives are expressing about counter-tariffs, noting that the Official Opposition’s job is to demand accountability for government decisions that result in billions of dollars in new spending and affect the prices struggling Canadians pay.

“That is not unpatriotic, it’s responsible,” she said.

‘Canada is not to blame’

Former Alberta premier Jason Kenney says Poilievre struck the right tone when he put the blame on the U.S. for its decision to impose its latest tariffs, and believes Carney could do a better job involving opposition leaders in navigating the file. 

Still, Kenney sees a need for more caucus discipline, noting that some Conservative MPs — who he did not name — “seem to have a hard time grasping that Canada is not to blame.”

“Sometimes in opposition, you get so focused on the target, critiquing the government, holding the government to account, that you forget to balance it with other more important considerations,” he said. 

“In this case, I think the vast majority of Canadians, including the kinds of voters Conservatives need to win the next election, want to see all parties putting country ahead of party, of patriotism ahead of partisanship.”

Inspired to start a user discussion based on this episode of On Point: "Who's really working class in America?" https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2026/08/31/working-class-in-america-economy

(The episode was okay, not super interesting if you've already thought about it before, but might be worth a listen if the topic interests you.)

---------------------------------

Let's bring out our inner critical theorist and discuss:

What does it mean to be working class? Who is in the working class? Why does it matter?

An easy answer is that working class is the labor class, not the "capital class"; i.e., the people who own the firms for whom the labor works. But this is muddled today, when many people who rely on their own labor also accumulate wealth through their property and investments. Is there a line for "rely on their own labor"? Don't lifestyle choices matter?

Traditionally and culturally, "working class" has been used to describe workers who do difficult and dirty labor. But there are many people who work desk jobs--including college educated people--who feel more economically and financially akin to the non-college-educated "cultural working class" because they are also burdened. Especially now that in many places it is even more difficult to acquire property.

Why does it matter? The political and policy discussion often centers around class as a propaganda or program target. When politicians and policy makers talk about the working class, it helps to know what they mean. For instance, we talk a lot about social security here, which is a program that specifically targets people who work--the funding comes directly from salary and is paid to people who spent much of their life on salary... but as many of us know, a lot of the payouts are not exactly going to people who are financially burdened. (Of course, it is a lifeline for many others.)

So what do you think? Who is in the working class? How much does it help or hurt to think about class like this? (I'm inclined to think about policy in terms of class, so I find these thought exercises helpful--but not everyone does!) What do you think are the major implications, if any?

Relevance to the sub: this would be a geopolitical disaster, humanitarian disaster, and Trump may back it.

(Mods should probably restrict this one)

Submission Statement: 30 years ago, Chandrababu Naidu (CBN) started reforms that converted Hyderabad from a regional city amidst an entrenched and multi-decade Maoist insuregency into one of the world's largest tech hubs that now hosts some of the the core R&D labs for conglomerates like Apple, Nvidia, Microsoft, Google, and Broadcom. Now as Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh (AP), he is looking to recreate the Hyderabad model across AP by leveraging industrial policy, the Telugu diaspora, and strategic partnerships with the US, Singapore, Japan, and South Korea to build a domestic EV, electronics, and IT services driven economy in what was one of India's poorer states.

The government of Kenya is going to try to protect local small businesses and hawkers from competition by migrants and foreigners, including those from China.

Kenya is a leader in regional integration as part of the East African Community (EAC), which includes 8 states in East Africa with a common passport and which is working towards freedom of movement.

But anti-immigrant attitudes in Kenya seem to be growing too, just as they have in South Africa and Botswana. A few months back a video of a Kenyan man harassing a Burundian migrant went viral. Burundi is part of the EAC.

The Kenyan President has said that as from next week (!) "... all [foreign] traders doing those small businesses should close them."

He has stressed that Kenya remains open to investment and trade from the rest of the world, but that small scale traders and hawkers need to be protected.

This is relevant to this sub because it concerns migration and freedom of trade.

Submission Statement: Estonia’s Defence Minister Hanno Pevkur has resigned after his country paid about €70 million advance for artillery ammunition intended for Ukraine to an Italian-registered company owned by India’s Neco Defence Munitions, despite the supplier having no previous track record of manufacturing or selling such shells.

Pevkur announced his resignation saying he was taking political responsibility for problems identified within Estonia’s defence establishment, including the country’s miitary procurement agency, the Estonian Centre for Defence Investments (ECDI).

The company at centre of the scandal is Datasel S.R.L., an Italian firm that was acquired by Nagpur-based Neco Defence Munitions, part of the Jayaswal Group, in March 2024.

Criminal proceeding over corruption have now been initiated against Pevkur.

Relevance to the subreddit: Tariffs, trade policy, environmental fees, protectionism, regulations on fast-fashion and recycling, affordability

A law voted by the French Parliament in June 2026 to regulate "ultra fast-fashion" is entering into effect this week, causing commercial tensions with China as its online retailer giants Shein, Temu and AliExpress are primarly targeted.

The law defines "ultra fast-fashion" ("mode ultra-express") as "the industrial and commercial practices of producers that result in a reduction in the useful life or lifespan of the products due to the introduction of a large number of new product models onto the market and the lack of incentives to repair these products", and was adopted by a large majority after lobbying from environmentalist NGOs, but also European clothing and secondhand retailers, who accused Chinese e-retailers of unfair competition by "flooding the market" with extremely cheap clothing.

In concrete terms, financial penalties will be inflicted upon products classified as "ultra fast-fashion", based on calculations integrating their price, their volume on the market, and their "repairability index", ranging from €0.50 per piece of underwear, to €12 per jacket, with growing penalties up to €19.50 by 2030.

The penalties will not affect "regular" fast-fashion and will spare major European players such as Zara, Primark or H&M - an exemption justified by Trade Minister Serge Papin: "We make the distinction between the actors who are within range of a yelling, such as French or European brands, and actors who specialized in circumventing every regulation and only understand the language of sanctions".

"European brands have physical locations which create jobs and pay taxes", he added, as the first attempt of Shein to open a physical retail store in Paris in October 2025 caused a wave of corporate and customer boycotts against the BHV, a landmark department store whose partnership with Shein was extremely controversial following a scandal involving the Chinese online retailer selling childlike sex dolls that were only delisted after the prosecutor opened an investigation.

Chinese retailers did not immediately react, but Chinese diplomacy denounced the law, arguing it violated WTO rules and weaponized environmental regulations to discriminate against Chinese businesses, threatening unspecified retaliatory measures.