NATO’s birthday wish

NATO is grappling with more complex challenges than ever as it turns 75 [View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( Welcome to Balance of Power, bringing you the latest in global politics. If you haven’t yet, sign up [here](. In some ways, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization — celebrating its 75th anniversary today — is stronger than ever. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has injected the military alliance with a renewed sense of purpose. European allies are finally spending more on defense. And with Finland and Sweden’s recent accession, it has grown to 32 members from the original 12 in 1949. In other ways, NATO is grappling with more complex challenges than ever as it prepares for a leaders’ summit in Washington in July. Even as the alliance tries to prevent a broader NATO-Russia clash, it’s being drawn into more direct involvement in Europe’s biggest land conflict since World War II. In an effort to shield Ukraine aid from vagaries in US policy, NATO is proposing to assume the coordination of weapons deliveries to Kyiv alongside [a $100 billion fund]( for five years. That’s a shift from its previous attempts to avoid fueling Russian President Vladimir Putin’s narrative that NATO is party to the conflict. While French President Emmanuel Macron’s comments about the possibility of Western ground troops in Ukraine [drew pushback from counterparts](, many officials quietly acknowledge it’s not wise to rule anything out in light of Russia’s aggression. Inside the alliance, doubts are growing about US commitment to European security with the possible return to the White House of Donald Trump, who’s [threatened to withdraw](. Trump aside, the US for a while now has been shifting focus to Asia and China’s rising military might. That has the transatlantic alliance looking increasingly to the Pacific, even if it wouldn’t welcome Asian states as members. NATO so far has succeeded in preventing major conflicts on its territories for 75 years. The question is if it can repeat that success in the decades ahead. —[Natalia Drozdiak]( WATCH: NATO foreign ministers are meeting in Brussels to mark the alliance’s 75th anniversary. Global Must Reads The limits of US influence over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government became apparent this week after Israeli forces in Gaza [killed seven aid workers]( — bringing the total number to 196, according to the United Nations — and [carried out a deadly airstrike]( on Iran’s embassy compound in Damascus. Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s war cabinet, [ramped up pressure]( on Netanyahu by calling for early elections. Relatives and friends carry the body of Saif Abu Taha, a staff member of aid group World Central Kitchen, at his funeral in Rafah on Tuesday. Photographer: Said Khatib/AFP/Getty Images Mexico’s once-frugal president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, is stoking the largest budget deficit since the 1980s as he expands welfare programs to help his party win the June election. The strategy has boosted his candidate, Claudia Sheinbaum, who’s leading the presidential race to succeed him by 23 points, according to Bloomberg’s [polling tracker](. Argentine President Javier Milei has managed to maintain public support even while slashing federal aid for local governments, devaluing the peso, announcing 70,000 state job cuts, and doing away with price controls. But as [Manuela Tobias]( and [Kevin Simauchi]( report, annual inflation has still soared to 276%, [piling pressure on Milei]( to show some success in easing that pain before voters rebel at his shock therapy. The need for action to slow climate change is something on which South Korea’s deeply divided political parties [have shown rare alignment]( leading up to next week’s parliamentary election. In a first for the country, the main conservatives and progressives have ranked the climate crisis among their top 10 policy pledges. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is preparing to punish ruling party lawmakers [caught concealing political funds](, as he seeks to move on from a scandal that sent his voter support to record lows. Two senior politicians will be told to resign from the Liberal Democratic Party, while dozens of others will face lesser penalties, public broadcaster NHK reported. South Africa’s former speaker of parliament, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, handed herself over to the authorities [after facing the threat of arrest]( over graft charges. Kuwaitis go to the polls today for the fourth time in as many years [to choose a new parliament]( after ruler Emir Sheikh Mishaal Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah dissolved the previous one less than two months ago when lawmakers used language deemed unconstitutional. Separatist militants from Jaish al-Adl, a Sunni group that operates around the Iran-Pakistan border, killed at least five members of Iran’s security forces in multiple attacks in the country’s southeast, [state media reported](. Washington Dispatch Trump’s trial on charges of falsifying business records to disguise a hush money payment will likely begin in less than two weeks. Acting State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan in New York yesterday [denied the former president’s request](to delay the proceedings until the US Supreme Court rules on his immunity defense in an unrelated federal case. Of the four criminal cases brought against him, the charges by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg have been regarded as less dramatic in news reports than, say, the federal indictments over classified documents or his efforts to overturn the 2020 election result. Yet the allegations over a payment to an adult film star will almost certainly be the first to go before a jury. Merchan said Trump had “ample notice” to make his immunity request yet waited until March 7, just weeks before the trial was originally scheduled to begin. Merchan has already imposed a gag order on the defendant, barring him from publicly discussing jurors or prosecutors during the trial in order to protect their safety. Jury selection is scheduled to begin April 15. But in another instance of how the unprecedented has become unremarkable since Trump entered public life, his presidential campaign marches on, with [a high-profile fundraiser]( scheduled for this weekend at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida hosted by billionaire John Paulson. One person to watch today: President Joe Biden plans to speak with Netanyahu. [Sign up for the Washington Edition newsletter]( for more from the US capital and watch Balance of Power at 1 and 5 p.m. ET weekdays on Bloomberg Television. Chart of the Day More than half of the world’s low-income countries are at high risk of debt distress or are already in it, and several have defaulted. While the world’s 20 largest economies agreed in 2020 to a plan called the Common Framework to smooth the process of restructuring loans that governments could no longer afford to service or repay, [progress toward providing relief]( has been slow. And Finally Shifting away from fossil fuels may help slow climate change, but mining operations for metals critical to the clean-energy transition are [threatening the survival]( of a third of Africa’s gorillas, bonobos and chimpanzees. That’s because their habitat overlaps with areas where the production of copper, lithium, nickel and cobalt drives deforestation, according to a study published in Science Advances. The greatest danger is in the West African countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone, Mali and Guinea. Gorillas in Bukima, Democratic Republic of Congo, in 2013. 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