There's a real chance that a progressive governing coalition is coming, and there will be appetite for a new foreign policy. That's huge But as I put it in Jacobin, it means progressives need to have answers to the kinds of questions that come up when you're actually governing

I understand why people focused on militarism gravitate towards reducing US international engagement. But when it comes to the economy and broader international interaction, the US *is* going to be involved. It will inevitably be a question of *how* the US engages, not *whether* it does

Here's my take on why Americans found US support for the genocide in Gaza so objectionable, and what kind of a foreign policy it points towards

In 1993, Spain was no richer than Malaysia is today. In 2004, Poland was no richer than Guatemala is today. In 2015, Bulgaria was no richer than Jamaica is today. European development has been extraordinary. A big reason why: the EU provided hundreds of billions of euros in support

New question for happy hours: do you identify as a leftist NGO, a smug globalist, or a hostile Third World government?

I also think this links to a broader point: the Trump administration doesn't believe in sovereignty, they believe in domination. Many of the examples Rubio cites as infringement of US sovereignty are in fact about US violations of other countries' sovereignty: Afghanistan, boat strikes, Iran war

The US has 340 million people. Africa is on course for two *billion*, with sky-high youth unemployment. You’re telling me there won’t be enough willing immigrants to compensate for low US birthrates? This is Stone pretending increased immigration isn’t *feasible* bc he doesn’t find it *desirable*

I was surprised this chart came out so dramatically: In recent decades, every poorer EU country except one has grown faster than richer EU countries. Admirably, the EU invested a lot in reducing inequalities between members, and it worked (Full blog here www.bu.edu/gdp/2026/07/...)

So many people think of international aid as an Africa story. But actually a lot of the biggest recipients of aid are European. 1/3 of the EU budget goes to supporting development in poorer parts of the EU—€600 billion since 1994. And those countries have developed very fast!

One year ago today, a 1-year-old named Nyagoa died of cholera in South Sudan. She fell ill on a day health workers normally would have come to her village to provide care. They didn't bc Elon Musk's DOGE suspended their operations. She died on the 4th of July. This is her mom and grandmother

It’s just as awesome as you’d think

After much reluctance, Sando did eventually taste a cashew for the first time. Check out what she thought (5/6)

In our current economy, development is about climbing up the ladder. For cashews and much more (4/6)

Farmers like Sando are at the bottom of the value chain. The container I bought in the US cost $14, but for farming the amount of cashews needed to fill it, Sando would get just $1. Very little of the profit goes to the countries that actually have the natural resources (3/6)

Most people have no idea that cashew nuts involve fruit + trees. Sando certainly did. And she thought cashews would taste like rotting fruit—because that's the only part of the process she had seen (2/6)

A couple months ago, I brought cashews to Sando, a Beninese woman who had farmed cashews for 30 years without ever tasting one. But when I actually gave her the cashews to try, it didn't go exactly as planned... (1/6, or watch the full video here timhirschelburns.substack.com/p/sando-tast...)

And because it's my birthday, I can say my Substacks are good (definitely better than my Bluesky posts!), and get at big ideas others aren't covering. And does so in a readable way! Here are some of my most read posts:

Had never looked at a chart of Iraq’s GDP before but man it’s wild (The cliff is 1990-1991)

The three players in this photo: 1. Nigerian heritage, grew up in England, and is only a citizen thanks to birthright citizenship. 2. Born + raised in Holland, has a dad who immigrated to the US from Suriname. 3. Said he wanted to “make people who look like me proud” while playing on Juneteenth

Hey JD, a good rule of thumb for vice presidents of the United States is that if you notice yourself prefacing your comment with "to put my conspiracy tinfoil hat on," you should stop yourself right there www.nytimes.com/2026/06/18/o...

I am shocked—shocked!—that the Ecuador match is scoreless

Quite the side-by-sideon the extraordinary growth of Chinese industrial market share from 2005 to 2023. Like them or not, China's strategies really worked www.ft.com/content/42fc...

Also, for the uninitiated, Zohran is referring to this chant here: "What do we think of Tottenham? (Shit!) What do we think of shit? (Tottenham!)"

I do love that Zohran is genuinely Arsenal obsessed. Any political consultant would tell him to fill potholes and post about the Knicks but he just can't help himself from penning an Arsenal essay signaling that he deeply knows ball

It can be easy to forget how significant Jubilee 2000-inspired debt relief was. Bono, Muhammad Ali, and Pope John Paul teaming up! Over $100 billion in debt forgiven for 39 countries to enable anti-poverty spending! My new blog is on HIPC/MDRI and what we can learn from them

Kenya's brutal bind: 40% of revenue just repays loans. Raise taxes further? That led to protests that set Parliament on fire 2 years ago. Oh, and Kenya also had deadly protests over fuel price rises last week, even though they halved the VAT on fuel. And the fiscal deficit is already 5.3% of GDP!

Another jaw dropping stat: basically no one wants US military bases in their country

Incredible stat in the latest Democracy Perceptions Index: the United States' global net favorability has fallen to -16. That's 38 points lower than it was under Biden. It's 23 points worse than China. 52 below Canada. The US is now less popular around the world than *Russia*

Truly eradicating the conditions for public health threats would require broad based development and adequate health systems, everywhere. When countries like the DRC have GDPs per capita that are 1% of the United States’, it’s just going to be very hard to prevent health threats

This wasn’t just immoral, it encouraged variants. Omicron emerged in Nov 2021, *after* vaccines were widely available in the Global North—but not in Southern Africa, where it was first detected. Hundreds of thousands of Americans died *after* Omicron became the dominant strain