EUROPE FIRST — BRUSSELS GETS READY TO DUMP ITS FREE TRADE IDEALS The EU's founding principle is that more trade will beget less war. And for decades, supporting more globalization was the logical extension of that principle at home. Now Brussels appears ready to join China and the U.S. "in a game of economic self-interest and protectionism," write Barbara Moens and Hans von der Burchard . Reality check: If the world's largest trading bloc gives up on the concept of free trade, the entire global economy is likely to feel the pain. But the days when economic national averages — like GDP increases — dictate economic policy in the West appear to be over for now. The name of the game for Western policymakers is now finding ways to invest in specific strategic capacities (think chips, think critical minerals, think solar), or to protect specific classes of workers (think victims of free trade deals). ARMING UKRAINE It's well past time for the United States or a European country to give Ukraine long-range missiles, Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė told POLITICO in a Tuesday interview . "The Ukrainians need this sort of weapon," Šimonytė said, adding that either U.S.-made ATACMS or a European equivalent would do. "I think we should trust their capacities" to learn and implement the tech, she said. The request comes as The Wall Street Journal reported the U.S. has been tweaking the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, known as HIMARS, to limit their range — by preventing them being used to launch other long-range missiles — as Ukraine continues to strike deep into Russian territory. The latest report suggested Ukraine this week hit military bases , this time deep inside Russia, with drones. JOIN GLOBAL INSIDER: Ryan will interview U.S. Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith at 2.30 p.m. ET today, at a gala dinner in Brussels to unveil the European POLITICO 28 power list. You can watch online by registering here . FAR-RIGHT RAIDS IN GERMANY POLITICO's sister publication Die Welt reports that 25 people have been arrested for plotting to overthrow the German government and parliament. More than 130 properties in 11 of Germany's 16 states were raided, along with properties in Austria and Italy. Germany's federal public prosecutor suspects that a terrorist organization has been set up, including members of the armed forces, aristocrats and a former far-right lawmaker . Together they're accused of adhering to conspiracies including QAnon and supporting the "Reichsbürger" (Reich Citizen) narrative , which denies the existence of the post-Nazi German republic. DOWN UNDER DOES D.C. Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong — on her first visit to D.C. in that post — is giving what Carnegie Endowment is billing as a "major speech" today at 2 p.m. ET on Australia and its role in the world. American and Australian officials met Tuesday, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin hosting Wong and Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles (who is also defense minister). The discussion focused on Indo-Pacific cooperation , i.e. managing competition with China. Why should D.C. care? Australia's now set to receive American nuclear technology under the AUKUS agreement. And in the meantime (those nuclear submarines are a decade away), Wong's plans to counter China's increasing influence in the South Pacific will be of interest. Live streamed here . You can register here . New report on expanding U.S.-Australia cooperation: CSIS' Australia chair, Charles Edel, has collected 18 essays and 70 recommendations on how to broaden and deepen alliance engagement, ranging from offsetting economic coercion by China to clean energy cooperation. HAITI — INSIDE HELL: Competing gangs are carving up the Haitian capital, kidnapping, raping and killing at will. They demarcate their territory in blood. Cross from one gang's turf to another, and you may not make it back, reports BBC's Orla Guerin . SUDAN — MOVING PAST HELL, MAYBE: Sudan's ruling generals and the country's main pro-democracy group have signed a deal that would set the country on a path to elections, perhaps ending a year of protests and violence since an October 2021 coup, and opening up the possibility of development assistance flowing again into the country. Sudan has lacked a prime minister since the coup. TECH CORNER AI REVOLUTION — SAY GOODBYE TO SCHOOL HOMEWORK The release of OpenAI's ChatGPT (try it here) could be an AI game changer. The claim is that this is a conversational chatbot of a higher quality than you usually get from online retail and banking sites, one that actually feels like a human conversation — and which could even generate poems, if you wanted it to. Reality check 1: While having a human-like chat certainly seems really useful for a lonely person, it's not yet demonstrated that the chat bot can interface with systems that would solve a specific problem for you. Reality check 2: School students with phones are going to figure out really quickly that the chatbot can do their homework for them. Are the days of homework now over — at least the type that doesn't monitor keystrokes or require remote supervision? Atlantic CEO Nick Thompson tried the system and thinks we're headed toward an era of "oral exams, proctored exams, and new kinds of verification and encryption." PRESIDENTIAL PASTIMES Four times is a trend. President Joe Biden on Tuesday visited the second Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. plant being built in Arizona to tout the administration's investments in infrastructure and manufacturing jobs since signing the CHIPS Act over the summer. That comes on top of Biden's October visits to IBM and Micron in the upstate New York cities of Syracuse and Poughkeepsie, and to Intel in Ohio . The Taiwanese company plans $40 billion in investment, with the second factory commencing production in 2026.
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