Critical days ahead

Follow Us Get the newsletter Several key decisions over the next few days could determine just how bad things will get between the U.S. and China. A court in Canada will today decide whether Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei, should be released from house arrest or continue to face extradition to the U.S. Besides roiling China-Canada relations, the case risks further escalating tensions between Beijing and the U.S. — particularly if it proceeds to trial on American soil. Next, the U.S. and European Union will decide how to respond to China's moves to impose national security legislation on Hong Kong, an action critics say will wipe out dissent. The EU has vowed to deliver a "robust" message, while the U.S. is considering sanctions against Chinese officials and entities over Hong Kong and human-rights abuses in Xinjiang. Then China will decide how to retaliate. For months, it has threatened to unveil a blacklist against American companies, among other measures. While all this looks bad, it could be worse. President Donald Trump doesn't appear ready to pull Hong Kong's preferential trading status, which would hurt both the city's residents and Americans based there. And China hasn't yet sanctioned U.S. business, even though it happily kicked out American journalists last month in a tit-for-tat move. Even as a new Cold War gets ever closer, so far both the U.S. and China see some engagement as crucial to their interests. — Daniel Ten Kate Riot police raise a blue flag today warning demonstrators in Hong Kong's Causeway Bay district to disperse. Photographer: Lam Yik/Bloomberg Tell us how we're doing or what we're missing at balancepower@bloomberg.net. Global Headlines Mask spat | Face masks have become a new front in the U.S. presidential race. Trump and Joe Biden clashed over the issue yesterday after Trump mocked the presumptive Democratic nominee on Twitter for wearing a mask in public. The president has refused to wear a mask despite the official guidelines. "He's a fool," Biden said of the president in a CNN interview. "An absolute fool to talk that way." EU moment | Three weeks after it was initially scheduled, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will set out her plans for funding the pandemic recovery in what could mark an important step forward for the European project. Germany and France have proposed a jointly financed fund of 500 billion euros ($548 billion) that would issue grants to the hardest-hit countries, but that makes some richer nations uncomfortable. Ticking clock | State election officials in the U.S. have just weeks left to ensure that they can handle a surge of mail-in votes in November in the face of fierce opposition from Trump and Republicans in Congress. As Ryan Teague Beckwith reports, the problem is particularly acute in the battleground states of Wisconsin and North Carolina. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a much talked-about possible vice presidential pick, said yesterday her husband was joking about using her position to get preferential service at a marina. 'Crusader's nightmare' | Hobbled by corruption, low pay and plummeting morale, African armies are facing a new challenge to their ability to deal with a growing threat of Islamist militants: the coronavirus. As Katarina Hoije and Alonso Soto explain, while the jihadists too may be waylaid by the pandemic, they see it as a golden opportunity to spread their attacks against regional states and their western backers. Special forces from Burkina Faso during a U.S.-run training exercise in Senegal on Feb. 19. Photographer: Danielle Paquette/The Washington Post Brexit fatigue | Brexit is yesterday's focus, with the result that there's little appetite in EU capitals to unpack the trickier issues that need to be resolved for a deal to be struck on future relations with the U.K. As Ian Wishart reports, the bloc's political energy is focused firmly elsewhere as countries emerge from lockdowns and memories of the U.K. as an EU member fade. Britain has its own preoccupations (see below), meaning the risks of a rupture are growing. What to Watch British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will face more questions over his chief aide Dominic Cummings when he appears before a House of Commons committee today. The U.S. House plans to vote today on legislation to aid federal tracking of suspected terrorists and spies, even as Trump called for "all Republican House members" to oppose it. Rio de Janeiro's handling of the virus crisis is under investigation, with Brazilian police yesterday searching the official residence of Governor Wilson Witzel, a political rival of President Jair Bolsonaro, and seizing his mobile phones and computers. And finally ... Twitter has started fact-checking Trump. Following years of criticism that the social network let the president spread misinformation, a pair of Trump's tweets yesterday that made unsubstantiated claims about mail-in voting were appended with links reading "Get the facts about mail-in ballots." The president accused the company of interfering with the 2020 election and "completely stifling FREE SPEECH." An editor looks at Trump's official Twitter account yesterday. The new labels take readers to a page with a collection of stories and reporters' tweets about the president's claims, as well as an item apparently authored by Twitter staff titled "What you need to know" that rebuts Trump. Photographer: AFP via Getty Images   You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Balance of Power newsletter. Unsubscribe | Bloomberg.com | Contact Us Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington, New York, NY, 10022