TODAY’S WEATHER

☀️ Another lovely day for Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and London: dry, sunny and warm all round, much like yesterday. (Here’s the UK forecast).

THE BIG STORIES
Doctors and lawyers warn on assisted death | Putin’s a no show | Scottish Water warns on water

📣 Doctors and lawyers are issuing warnings about Scotland’s assisted dying plans, which passed their first legislative hurdle in Holyrood on Tuesday evening.

• The Scotsman says Scotland’s GPs see the proposals as “not fit for purpose”. They want to be allowed to opt in to the controversial system, rather than have to opt out. (The Scotsman)

• The Mail quotes a legal expert saying “almost every aspect of the Holyrood bill is ‘deeply flawed and ill-conceived’” with “huge potential” for multiple legal challenges. Dr Mary Neal, reader in law at the University of Strathclyde, tells the title: “There is so much for MSPs […] to address to try to mitigate some of the serious risks that the bill poses. Some of those risks, as I see it, are just unfixable.” (Mail)

📣 Putin’s a no-show: overnight, the Kremlin said Vladimir Putin would not be travelling to Istanbul for talks with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, his bluff called by his Ukrainian counterpart. Zelenskyy, who is in Turkey, had said he wanted a face-to-face meeting after Putin called for direct talks between Russia and Ukraine. In the end, Russia decided not even to send its most senior diplomats. (Guardian)

📣 Scottish Water is warning customers to use supplies sparingly after the driest start to the year since 1964 left Scotland’s major bodies of water at low levels. The company is calling on us to take shorter showers and avoid using hoses - although it has not yet called for a full hosepipe ban. (BBC)

IDEAS
Trump, tariffs and China: how the US President took on Kirkcaldy’s favourite son (and lost)

🗣️ It would be wrong to let the week pass without paying closer attention to the surprise rollback Trump’s tariffs on China. The development, earlier this week, will likely have a (positive) impact on us all.

It wasn’t total, of course: the 10% global tariff remains for China, as it does for the UK, which signed a trade deal with the US last week. But it does scrap most of the 145% tariffs imposed on Chinese goods coming into the US, at least for 90 days. It’s a big concession - so what happened, and what does it mean?

It’s being seen as a huge defeat for Trump. The Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Board, usually staunchly republican in its views, has not been a fan of Trump’s tariffs (🎁 that’s a gift link). “This is a win for economic reality and for American prosperity,” it says. “As with last week’s modest British agreement, the China deal is more surrender than Trump victory,” it adds.

US consumers had been facing the prospect of empty shelves, and supply chain problems that - even if agreement was reached - would have harmed them through to Christmas. China faced higher unemployment and economic damage. We’d all have felt the chill.

The Economist (£) says that America, “faced with tanking markets and upset consumers, blinked”. The truce is seen as a “national triumph”, and proof that America has no stomach for a fight.

That perception of defeat, of “America making threats it is not prepared to carry out”, may have implications down the line, “with China’s leaders concluding that America’s appetite to sanction China, let alone attack it militarily over Taiwan, is lower than previously thought.”

The US will be seen as weak and untrustworthy, thinks the newspaper. A sign: the surge in the shipping market. Manufacturers are racing to get goods to the US within the 90-day window, presumably because they are worried about what might happen beyond it. “In Mr Trump’s new world it is easy to call America’s bluff and hard to cut a deal that lasts.”

But there’s also anecdotal evidence that more canny Chinese manufacturers saw all this coming a long way off. One example, from a fascinating piece by Cindy Yu in The Times today (£): a big baseball cap manufacturer moved his US production to Haiti in 2014, “after an American client tipped him off about coming protectionism. The client wanted to keep Mao’s costs low, for their own sake too.”

“The biggest loser of all,” writes Yu, “seems to be America’s reputation. It has lost credibility — in the eyes of a competitor such as China, which now has a measure of Trump’s fickleness and concludes that he is vulnerable to market pressure; and in the eyes of the world where, to many, China now seems the more stable power.”

That’s echoed by the Journal, too, which manages to find an upside. “If there’s a silver lining to this turmoil, it is that markets have forced Mr. Trump to back down from his fever dream that high tariff walls will usher in a new ‘golden age’,” it writes. “Mr. Trump will not want to admit it, but he started a trade war with Adam Smith and lost.”

AROUND SCOTLAND

📣 Scottish Universities are facing a £85 million bill after Prime Minister Keir Starmer proposed a new levy on international students as part of his efforts to reduce immigration. (The Herald has the exclusive)

📣 The Scottish child payment, which costs £42 million a month, is keeping less than half the number of children out of poverty than was originally intended. New estimates show it is shielding 40,000 children from poverty every year, not the 100,000 claimed by the SNP. (The Times £)

📣 At least five adult social care homes have closed in the last month because of the UK Government’s National Insurance increases, Scotland’s social care minister has claimed. (STV)

AROUND THE UK

📣 Prisoners in England and Wales who are freed, but break their license terms, will only be returned to prison for 28 days under emergency powers designed to free up 1,400 prison places and avert a capacity crisis. (Independent)

📣 British investigators say the Bayesian super yacht, which sank last August killing British billionaire Mike Lynch, his daughter and six others, had “unknown” design flaws which made the craft vulnerable to extreme winds. (Mail)

📣 Half of Britons fear swimming in UK waters will make them ill. (Independent)

AROUND THE WORLD

🌎 Donald Trump’s visit to Riyadh was widely noted for lifting sanctions on Syria, sealing a big arms deal with Saudi Arabia, and the US President’s shameless flattery of his hosts (and a lot of handshakes). But he also delivered a speech that was significant in policy terms: indeed, seen as crucial by at least one (right-wing) outlet as one made by Barack Obama in 2009, which signalled a new approach to the US after the Iraq war.

A key quote from Trump: “A new generation of leaders is transcending the ancient conflicts and tired divisions of the past, and forging a future where the Middle East is defined by commerce, not chaos; where it exports technology, not terrorism; and where people of different nations, religions, and creeds are building cities together — not bombing each other out of existence.” (White House)

By the analysis of The Tahrir Institute, a US group campaigning for democracy and human rights in the Middle East, Trump is signalling that deals matter more than principles: “Whether intentional or not, his message appears to support long-standing regional arguments that human rights are not universal, but rather, context-specific,” they say. (Tahrir Institute)

SPORT

⚽️ It was a busy night in the Scottish Premiership. Champions Celtic ran riot against Aberdeen, a much-changed side romping to a 5-1 win after the hosts had equalised. Johnny Kenny scored on his full debut. (Herald)

• Hibs secured third place thanks to that Aberdeen loss and their own 2-2 draw away at St Mirren. Coach David Gray hailed his players’ “unbelievable achievement.” (Scotsman)

• St Johnstone were relegated after 16 years in the top flight. (Sun)

• Rangers signed off at Ibrox with a 3-1 win over Dundee United, with Barry Ferguson paying tribute to much-maligned striker Cyriel Dessers. (Record)

⚽️ Another Scot doing (very) well in Italy: Lewis Ferguson captained his Bologna side to the Coppa Italia, with a 1-0 win over AC Milan in the final last night. (Herald)