Like Louvre jewellery or DB Cooper, the US president provokes headlines even in his absence. His recent nonappearance at three seminal events has drawn particular attention: the funeral of former vice-president Dick Cheney, the Cop30 climate talks in Belém and the G20 summit in Johannesburg. The first two of these were to be expected but the latter was more surprising. The reason for this decision was ostensibly over allegations that South Africa is mistreating its white population. It’s a choice that he might yet come to regret.

The G20 summit has convened annually since 2008, a year in which Washington hosted during one of then-president George W Bush’s last major appearances in office. That summit, which I covered as a young reporter in the US capital, was a coming-out party for the economic bloc. Remarkably, it was held just weeks after the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the meeting of nations to resolve a global emergency felt palpably optimistic. It marked the height of multilateralism and a turning point in the financial crisis, as investors became convinced that governments would serve as a backstop to prevent the worst economic calamity.

This is how multilateralism is supposed to work. It might not always function in the good times but nations should at least be able to come together in the bad. What’s also special about 2008 is that Bush was brave enough to call on world leaders for support – helping the US get out of a mess of its own making. A sort of mea culpa from the world’s superpower. Would Trump ever do the same?

Now the world is hurtling towards another possible bubble: an inflationary one brought on in part by US tariffs, a financial one brought on by AI and a governmental one caused by too much debt. Andrew Ross Sorkin, the acclaimed financial columnist, CNBC host and author of Too Big To Fail, tells Monocle that he’s convinced another bubble is building. “How could it not?”, given our history, he asks. And it’s the last of the three causes that is most concerning to him. Government debt levels are unsustainable, with investors operating under the assumption that the debt of major nations such as the US and France will continue to be bought, merely because they have been in the past. What if confidence simply evaporates? It can happen quickly, as it did in 2008 and 1929, arguably the first financial crisis of a globalised economy and the subject of Sorkin’s latest book.

This brings us back to the G20: this economic bloc of the world’s most powerful nations was elevated to its current status for precisely these moments. In 2008, they co-ordinated after the fact but the whole point of the G20 was to prevent the next crisis. If and when the next bubble bursts, president Trump might yet have to call on the world’s largest economies to come to his rescue. But if he can’t do them the service of attending, will the nation’s other leaders heed that call when it comes?

Chris Cermak is Monocle’s senior news editor. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.

In the basket: Eight to 12 Su-30MK1 multirole fighter jets 
Who’s buying: Armenia
Who’s selling: India
Price: €2.6bn
Delivery date: 2027-29

This deal highlights a convergence of two great regional rivalries: Armenia versus Azerbaijan and India versus Pakistan. The Su-30 is originally a Russian jet but the variant built under licence by India’s state aerospace and defence company Hindustan Aeronautics Limited is the backbone of the Indian Air Force. The Armenian Air Force barely has a backbone – its combat component consists of just four newish Russian-built Su-30s and 16 Su-25s, mostly Soviet-vintage purchased second-hand from Slovakia. Though Armenia is now theoretically at peace with its larger neighbour Azerbaijan, it is taking nothing for granted, especially not since Azerbaijan ordered 40 JF-17 multirole fighters from Pakistan. These purchases overlay the one geopolitical rivalry atop another: during the brief India-Pakistan skirmish of May 2025, Pakistan claimed to have shot down an Indian Su-30 and India said that it had destroyed at least two Pakistani JF-17s.

In the heart of Palma, the doors have just opened on a new multibrand shop for men and women – and it’s one of the braver retail ventures that the city has seen in a long time (writes Andrew Tuck). Challenged by the impact of tourism, many old-school bakeries and shops here have closed and trinket merchants have replaced them. But in the heart of the Mallorcan capital are a trio of neighbouring businesses that cater for locals and the sort of visitors who want to return home from a city saunter with something more substantial than a fridge magnet.

These are places that are helping to raise the bar when it comes to design, service and the commitment to doing retail well. Monge is a purveyor of Mallorca-made shoes; Relojería Alemana is a luxury watch and jewellery shop; they are now joined by the three-storey Colom, which takes its name from the street where they all sit, Carrer de Colom.
 
Colom was created by Suso Ramos – the co-founder of another fashion shop in the city, La Principal – his partner in life and work, Liticia Cerqueira, and Pablo Fuster, whose family owns the watch store. “We had been talking about opening a womenswear shop for many years – somewhere with the space to show brands,” says Cerqueira. “Suso and Pablo had lunch one day and Pablo mentioned this vacant property. Suso suggested a pop-up but Pablo said, ‘Let’s do a store.’”
 
In Monocle’s latest issue, we paid the store a visit. Want to read more? Click here.