Welcome to the weekend! 

If you’re in the US and need weekend plans, consider buying booze. Donald Trump is threatening 200% tariffs on wine, champagne and other alcohol out of the EU, and this week’s stock market suggests now’s no time to risk running out. 

What pairs well with a lightly hoarded cabernet? The Weekend Edition audio playlist in the Bloomberg app. We’ve got eight great stories, read by humans, to make you smarter in 90 minutes. 

Don’t miss Sunday’s Forecast email, in which we look at European defense spending. For unlimited access to Bloomberg.com, please subscribe.

Power Plays

Jean Monnet, a founding father of the EU, famously noted that “Europe will be forged in crisis.” Well a crisis is here: Trump trade wars, stalling economies, underserved defense sectors, high taxes, high energy prices and outsized debts. The good news, writes Simon Nixon, is that European leadership appears to have reached a real inflection point on the need for closer cooperation on defense and security.

The US isn’t only backing away from Europe: In Washington foreign policy circles, Trump’s throttling of foreign aid is widely perceived as a blow to American soft power. But those concerns — while directionally accurate — may be misplaced, writes Bobby Ghosh. Foreign aid is first and foremost an instrument of foreign policy. How a country treats its own people, culture and values is more important to its global clout. 

If ditching allies and aid are hallmarks of Trump’s foreign policy, “fixing” the government with private-sector thinking is his raison d’être at home. Back in 1960, JFK also tapped a businessman — Ford CEO Robert McNamara — to trim the budget and bureocracy. But readers of David Halberstam’s The Best and the Brightest will remember how poorly it ended, writes Richard Stengel. 

Dispatches

Miami 
To watch Sholto Gilbertson working a room is to see a man seducing the world’s wealthiest car collectors so completely that they will gladly raise a finger to bid another $100,000. Indeed, on Feb. 27 Gilberston seduced his way to $35 million in sales on just nine lots during RM Sotheby’s auction at ModaMiami, where buyers were unfazed by Trump-related uncertainty. 

Photographer: Source: ModaEvents

Warsaw
Outside an unassuming building on Wiejska Street, red paint streaks the sidewalk. It’s been a few days since protesters covered the windows with posters, and played the sound of babies crying over loudspeakers outside. The AboTak Abortion Clinic is the first to open in Poland in decades, and its location — directly opposite the entrance to parliament — is meant to keep the battle for reproductive rights front and center.

Photographer: SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images

What We’re Reading About

• Supply-side solutions. Why Nothing Works by Mark Dunkelman and Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson both assess America’s failure to build things, and both lay some blame at the feet of US liberals. 

• H Mart. No one in marketing flinched when Japanese Breakfast’s singer titled her memoir Crying in H Mart. What started as a Korean specialty market is now an empire with a huge following. 

• Silicon Valley. The economic machine that powers the region is generating more and more dissatisfaction among workers and consumers, a capitalistic dark side explored in Alexis Madrigal’s The Pacific Circuit and Malcolm Harris’s Palo Alto.

Illustration: Jing Wei for Bloomberg

The Best Defense

Weekend Plans

What we’re wondering: rent or buy? Homeownership used to be the default move for middle-aged Americans, but how much of that is timeless wisdom versus a nostalgic inheritance from another era?

What we’re buying: a Singapore condo. Rising prices in the private housing market have boosted “sub-sales,” where people offload units they bought in new developments before they were even built. 

What we’re wearing: a black leather jacket, like Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. No one has benefited more from the AI boom, but Huang is now looking past threats like DeepSeek and tariffs to AI’s next chapter. 

What we’re checking: the weather. As the US decimates staffing at science agencies, hedge funds are snapping up weather experts to help commodities traders. Top talent can earn up to $1 million a year. 

One Last Thing 

Enjoying Weekend Edition? Check out these newsletters:

• Breaking News Alerts for the biggest stories from around the world, delivered to your inbox as they happen
• The Pursuits Bundle for our weekly guide to luxury, plus the Watch Club and Top Shelf newsletters.
• Opinion Today for an afternoon roundup of our most vital opinions
• Screentime for a front-row seat to the collision of Hollywood and Silicon Valley
• Where To Invest for expert strategies on making smarter investing decisions

Explore all newsletters at Bloomberg.com.