Cold call: Putin thwarts Trump

0:10Hello and welcome to The Intelligence from The Economist. I'm your host, Rosie Bloor. Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

0:25With all the news flying around about Elon Musk's political and planetary ventures, you might have forgotten that he also makes electric cars. But sales of Teslas are now falling. Our correspondent kicks the tires to ask, is the business the problem or the politics? And now for something completely different. I've been asked to warn you that today's third item contains some very rude words, some banging euphemisms, and some actual banging. Keep listening, we'll take that as informed consent.

1:01But first...

1:10Yesterday, Donald Trump and Russia's President Vladimir Putin spoke on the phone for over two hours. Putin refused the unconditional ceasefire proposed by the US and Ukraine. He did agree to stop attacking Ukrainian energy infrastructure for 30 days, provided that Kiev did the same. But as winter is drawing to a close, that's little solace for Ukrainians.

1:37Shortly after the call ended, Russia launched aerial guide bombs and drones into Ukraine, an attack that lasted for hours. Even if Russia stops firing at energy sites, everything else remains a target. In principle, a limited ceasefire might start immediately. In practice, it hasn't happened at all. Chris Lockwood is The Economist's Europe editor. And whatever has been agreed is very far short of what Trump was after. He wanted a 30-day unconditional ceasefire across the board. And one thing we certainly haven't got is that. We know that Putin and Trump spoke for over two hours. What did they really talk about?

2:23Well, the first thing was, clearly, to try and get the full-scale ceasefire that Donald Trump is after. He is very keen on portraying himself as a peacemaker. Clearly, it's all broken down in the Middle East, but that's another question. He wanted a 30-day ceasefire across the board, and Ukraine was on site for that. That had previously been agreed between Ukraine and America. And he wanted Vladimir Putin to do the same thing. Putin did not do this. It's a quite humiliating rebuff for Donald Trump, even though he's trying to spin it as a step of progress. It really isn't very much progress at all.

2:57And what Vladimir Putin said to Donald Trump is, we will only agree to a very limited ceasefire, meaning that we won't hit each other's energy infrastructure. So Trump got very, very little out of it. You could argue just enough that he can claim a kind victory, as indeed he did. And Putin perhaps hasn't offended him so mortally that they're going to be reprisals. But to my mind, it was really quite a humiliation. And why did they agree to stop attacks on the energy infrastructure? Yeah. Well, I think Putin reckoned that was the minimum he could get away with. But the problem here is that's very one-sided.

3:34Winter has come to an end. The demands for energy in Ukraine are much less. Ukraine is anyway pretty much able to withstand these Russian hits, whereas the Ukrainian hits on Russian energy infrastructure, particularly its oil refineries, are doing real damage to Russia. So Putin really got the better end of the bargain here, and he had to give Trump something. And Trump very obligingly then tweeted out that this is a step of progress and they're going to go on talking and maybe they can get closer to it. And maybe they can, but they certainly didn't do that on this occasion, partly because Putin demanded so much more than was ever going to be granted.

4:13He had said there should be a cutting off of all military assistance to Ukraine, that Ukraine should stop recruiting new soldiers. I mean, plainly ridiculous because Putin is continuing to arm his army. And the only thing that I can pick out of this that is encouraging is that it seems that Donald Trump didn't agree to any of that and indeed didn't mention any of that when he sent out a truth social post late last night. And we've seen a huge exchange of missiles overnight. So what happens next? Well, right. Now, the argument here might be that the ceasefire isn't yet in effect because both sides haven't agreed.

4:49but certainly even this very limited ceasefire was not observed last night. There was a large barrage of Russian missiles on Ukraine. They hit a hospital. Now, that's infrastructure. Of course, Putin will say we only agreed to energy infrastructure. And on the other side, Ukraine seems to have sent missiles the other way and hit a Russian oil refiner. And now again, the Ukrainians would say, well, the ceasefire isn't in effect because it hasn't yet been agreed by both sides. So yes, no sign of a ceasefire at the moment. Trump has blown hot and cold with Putin in recent weeks. Where does this leave the relationship between Trump and Putin and between the US and Russia?

5:27It's a very good question. Of course, it's impossible to answer it because Donald Trump appears to change his stance almost on a daily basis. A few days ago, he was threatening Russia with enhanced sanctions if it didn't agree to the ceasefire. And of course, now what he wants to do is try and move on to the next stage on the optimistic interpretation. There are going to be further talks between Russia and America, apparently not involving Ukraine, weirdly enough, but further talks between Russia and America, which will take place in the Middle East. And they may move to a next stage. On an optimistic interpretation, you might see that ceasefire on hitting energy infrastructure move to all infrastructure and then gradually to all aerial bombardment and so on and so forth.

6:08That's one possible model. But the question is, what will Ukraine be pushed to give up in return for those next steps? Because most of the things that Putin wants are completely unacceptable to Ukraine. The main one being that it can't rebuild its military, whereas there's no such restriction on Russia. And what does all that mean for the rest of the world? Well, there are lots of areas where Donald Trump's America wants better relationship with Russia. They want to see Russia back in the G7. They would like to see gradual sanctions relaxation. Some of Donald Trump's business associates are known to be very keen to get back into Russia to invest in its energy infrastructure, to invest in other bits of the economy, because it's been cut off from the world for so long.

6:53So there are lots of improvements in the eyes of America that they'd like to bring about. Where that would leave Ukraine and indeed Europe, you know, not so good. The entire strategy of both Ukraine and the wider Europe has been to isolate and contain Russia. And so the worry is that Trump is going to start unpicking that. And that will be very problematic. It will also pose a very difficult problem for Europe. Europe is not at all happy to see Russia and America get closer at the expense of Ukraine and its own security. And Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the European Commission, had some pretty punchy things to say about that yesterday.

7:31And now Russia is on an irreversible path to creating a pure war economy. And this investment fuels its war of aggression in Ukraine while preparing it for future confrontation with European democracies. And just as these threats increase, we see our oldest partner, the United States, move their focus to the Indo-Pacific. So the fear is, among many Europeans, that Russia won't stop with having either occupied large parts of or completely destabilized Ukraine, that it will start taking nibbles out of NATO territory. The Baltics obviously feel particularly threatened. And indeed, we saw just on March the 18th that Poland and the three states of the Baltic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, said that they were going to withdraw from the convention banning landmines.

8:26So that's a pretty meaty step that suggests that they really are getting ready to face a possible invasion threat. At the same time, Germany's parliament, the Bundestag, the lower house, voted to end a debt break restriction that makes it very difficult to fund defence. There's now the possibility for Germany to spend unlimited amounts of money on defence, which previously constitutionally they couldn't do. That vote still has to pass in the upper house, but it probably will at the end of the week. And this is an enormous change in the stance of the largest, richest country in Europe, again, gearing up to the possibility of confrontation with Russia and the need for Europe to rearm accordingly.

9:06And more and more countries are going down this track. Britain's raising its defence spending. Many others are talking about doing it. We haven't seen the details yet, but there are endless meetings now going on in Brussels, Paris, London, elsewhere, trying to beef up European defences to rearm in the face of this growing danger. Sobering stuff. Chris, thank you for talking to me. Thank you.

9:56The World's Richest Man

10:10there's been a backlash.

10:15Protests have been staged outside Tesla showrooms about Musk's support for hard-right political parties and his attempts to cut civil servants. The company's share price has plummeted too, though Trump himself was keen to show his support for the brand recently, saying that he plans to buy a Tesla vehicle. Everything's computer. That's beautiful. Wow. But Musk's political role is only one part of Tesla's troubles. Tesla has two related issues, a long-term one and a more proximate one. Simon Wright is our industry editor. Last year, Tesla ditched its aim to be making 20 million cars a year by 2030.

10:56And also last year, it reported its first decline in annual sales for many years. But in recent months, sales have dipped quite severely. And part of that must be down to how customers feel about Elon Musk's antics. Tesla's obviously facing something of a backlash from people who don't like Elon Musk himself. How much of an effect has that actually had on that decline in sales? Well, that's actually very hard to say. There are other reasons why Tesla's sales might have dipped or might be dipping. For example, in the first quarter, Barclays Bank says European sales will be down by something like 30 % year on year.

11:38In February, in Germany, they were down by 76%, which seems like a lot. But if you look at America, Barclays think sales in the first quarter will be flat. And that's where you think antipathy to Mr. Musk would be the highest. And in China, sales fell by 14 % year on year in January and February. And the Chinese generally regard Mr. Musk as pro-China. Again, if you look at Britain, Tesla sales were up by 21 % in February, and Mr. Musk has been meddling in British politics. So it's sort of hard to say. There are other sort of wider reasons why the sales might be down in the short term. One reason is that the Model Y, which is one of Tesla's biggest sellers, an updated version has just been released.

12:19Tesla ran down inventory of sales so that there wasn't much supply of Model Ys. And customers may be holding out and delaying their decision to buy a car while waiting for a new model. So there are other reasons why this might be happening. But given the level of the dip, I think you have to say that part of the reason must be customers don't really like the way Elon Musk is behaving. And could Tesla's own sales strategy be a factor here? One of the analysts I talked to, Philippe Huchuav, he calls Tesla a reluctant carmaker. If you look at Tesla sales, it relies on two models for almost the bulk of them, the Model 3 and the Model Y, if you compare that to something like Toyota, its two biggest models probably account for something like 20 % of sales.

13:02To be a big global car maker, you need to have lots of different cars for lots of different people in lots of different markets. And Tesla has sort of slightly moved away from that. Last year, there was the expectation that Musk would announce the launch of a cheaper Model 2 costing something like$25 ,000, which would really open up sales. But in fact, what he's decided to go for is to focus on robo-taxis, that is self-driving taxis, and humanoid robots, rather than launching this new model, Model 2. The other thing as well is that competition from established car makers and Chinese newcomers is really hotting up.

13:42There are lots of different choices now for car makers, and Tesla, which had this sort of innovative edge for many years, that's been worn away. I mean, the Chinese newcomers in particular, really great at software and are really good at making cheap cars. So if Tesla's a reluctant carmaker, what's the company's future? Well, let's not write off Tesla completely. I think you have to accept that it's still pretty remarkable to have founded a company and had such an impact on the car industry in such a short space of time. That's very unusual. But if you look at Tesla's valuation as well, is still enormous.

14:20In the right after the election, there was a big bump in Tesla's share price. That has been sort of dwindling. There was the expectation that by being appointed to lead the Department of Government Efficiency and to take a sort of chainsaw to America's public servants, that Musk would have influence with the administration and with Mr. Trump. But that doesn't seem to be the case. There was no policies that would really favour Tesla particularly. And by having this role, Musk is spreading himself ever thinner. He told Fox News of the great difficulty he had doing both the government role and running Tesla and all the other firms such as SpaceX that he's in charge of.

15:00The one favour Donald Trump did do was he offered to buy a Tesla. Donald Trump blamed protesters for harming a great American company. But if you look all in all, I think much of the blame for harming Tesla lies with Musk. I think in the future, whatever happens to Tesla, we're going to have to give Elon Musk an awful lot of credit for kicking off an EV boom that is transforming the car industry. Simon, thank you. Great to talk to you. Thank you, Rosie.

15:39The following segment features some very smutty language. You have been warned. Begin with the nipples. The Lover certainly does in Mistress and Mother, a steamy novel from the 1990s. Catherine Nixie is a culture correspondent But because it was written three decades ago they aren't always referred to as nipples Instead, the author discreetly also describes them as little buds Elsewhere you get rosebuds, petals and of course seed The aim is oblique eroticism The overall effect is like reading an unexpectedly energetic gardening catalogue But eroticism is changing Open Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yaros, and things are much clearer.

16:29Hardy perennials are out. Words like hard are in. So too are words like cock, fuck, and alas, straddle. Sales of erotica are swelling. Onyx Storm was the fastest-selling adult novel in the last 20 years, shifting almost 3 million copies in a single week. But other erotica are also available. There is cozy erotica, Austin-inspired erotica, and fairy erotica. There is even physicist erotica, which features lines such as Your dissertation on liquid crystal static distortions in biaxial pneumatics was brilliant, Elsie.

17:11Sexy language is getting more prevalent everywhere. The word nipples has doubled in frequency since the year 2000, while orgasm has increased fivefold and the word clit, 14fold. The slightly surprising thing is how female-led all of this is. The vast majority of these books are being written, edited, published and at times self-published by women. They are then bought in vast numbers by other women. And what's also perhaps a bit surprising about this is some of the sex is quite violent. In Miss Yarris's books, the hero pins the heroine to the floor in wrestling matches. In some ways, the sex in this book is more realistic.

17:50Gardening metaphors are out. Frank biological terms are in. In other ways, it's not realistic at all. Men are called things like Zayden and Itos, not Clive or Nigel. Everyone is gorgeous and everyone seems to keep their relationships at a rolling broil of passion, however long they've been together.

18:11Writing about sex is tricky. As the Bad Sex Awards show. This now-defunct prize, it expired during COVID, was set up by The Literary Review, a snooty literary magazine, to highlight and gently discourage redundant, poorly written, or unnecessarily pornographic descriptions of sex in fiction. To look at its lists of nominees and winners, it seems that it didn't really work, given that in its final years the nominees included such phrases as She offered her moist parts to my triumphant phallus, and her vagina was slowly chugging my organ as a boa constrictor swallows its prey. Everything about writing about sex is hard.

18:54Part of the difficulty in writing about sex is what Julian Barnes, an English novelist, called the naming of parts. At the very basic level, the lover puts his what into her, or indeed his what. It's hard to know. Boa constrictor is probably best avoided. But as Mr. Barnes also wrote, almost all terms are awkward. Where, between the Latinate and the Anglo-Saxon, do you pitch this stuff? Look at other nominees and it's clear that being too biological can be just as bad as being too oblique. As one 2019 nominee clearly showed, I have 8 ,000 nerves in my clitoris, explained one character. Your penis gets by on 4 ,000.

19:36It's the kind of pronouncement that would leave most lovers unsure whether to take notes or to take flight. At other times, the characters seem to be enjoying it as little as the reader. Most listeners will find it quite unsurprising that most of the winners and nominees of this award were men. The male gaze does not always improve male prose. But the internet is now changing the balance of power in fictional sex just as it has in actual sex. Male misbehaviour on the page is called out by such things as the Men Writing Women Reddit thread. John Updike, who is described as a penis with a thesaurus, features heavily on that one.

20:10It's also called out by the now famous parody of a man writing a woman's mourning that went viral a few years ago, and that runs, Cassandra breasted boobily to the stairs and titted downwards.

20:29It's really not that surprising that eroticism is changing. It always reflects what is going on in society at the time. In the liberal 70s, literary Lotharios were in fashion, while the arrival of AIDS in the 80s meant that heroes had to be much more sexually fastidious. They had one true love, and they always had a condom. This new change in erotica is reflecting changes in society once again. But it is also reflecting a society in which women are able to get precisely what they want. And that should give any feminist a bit of a thrill.

21:17That's it for this episode of The Intelligence. We'll see you back here tomorrow.

21:36Thank you.