Stop the Press!

There’s an old saying that you should never argue with someone who buys ink by the barrel. In the streaming era, the barrel is infinite.

I spent years covering the White House, where the relationship between presidents and the press has always been adversarial. That's by design. But what's unfolding right now is something different and instructive for anyone who deals with the media.

President Trump's ban on CNN, MSNBC and Politico was the latest in a years-long effort to pressure, marginalize and delegitimize media he disagreed with. He kicked the Associated Press out of the media pool that most closely follows him and frequently belittled and retaliated against various reporters. For a while, the strategy worked – individual organizations grappled with the hits on their own, competitors kept their access, and the press corps stayed fractured.

This time, Trump went farther with a complete ban on the three outlets from the White House complex, uniting a highly competitive press corps. TV networks suspended pool coverage in solidarity. The banned outlets filed suit in federal court. More than 50 media organizations – running the ideological gamut from Vox Media to Fox News – joined an amicus brief calling the ban "illegal and unconstitutional."

There is a lesson here for any leader navigating a hostile media environment. Overreach, especially when it looks punitive, tends to produce exactly the coalition you were trying to prevent. Reporters who compete fiercely against each other will close ranks. The story stops being about your organization and becomes about press freedom. That is rarely a fight anyone wins: indeed, a Trump-appointed federal judge restored access within days, agreeing the ban is likely unconstitutional.

The smarter play, almost always, is to control what you own: your message, your spokespeople, and your relationships with the journalists who cover you most closely.

The gap between aspiration and accountability is widening, and the organizations navigating it best are those that communicate with precision, not just purpose.

This tension surfaced consistently in the roundtable discussions FGS Global convened as part of its inaugural Vantage Point luncheon on the sidelines of UNGA81. The event gathered corporate, diplomatic, civil society, and cultural leaders for candid dialogue on communicating effectively to accelerate progress in a fractured world.

What We Heard

• From words to action. On development finance and global health, speakers called for a shift from broad declarations to specific commitments.

• Private capital is no longer optional. Government resources alone cannot meet today’s challenges. Partnerships built around derisking mechanisms like loans, insurance, and equity can mobilize private investment where it is needed most.

• Digital inclusion demands equitable governance. Actress and humanitarian Nomzamo Mbatha called for Africa to have a seat at the table for global AI standard-setting, noting its absence across conversations throughout UNGA week.

• Geopolitical risk is as much a communications challenge as a strategic one. The best-positioned organizations are not necessarily those with the sharpest intelligence, but those with credible relationships across regulators, investors, and supply chain partners.

• Sport and culture remain among the few forces that generate trust. Both the opportunity and challenge is converting attention into something lasting.

To learn more about our UNGA offering, contact our team at UNGA@fgsglobal.com or visit our UNGA dashboard. For tailored insights on sectoral, geographic, or scenario-specific risks, please reach out directly to geopolitics@fgsglobal.com.

A trade truce buys time, but not certainty. Last week's summit between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping produced a two-month extension of existing trade arrangements and reciprocal $30 billion tariff reductions. While impactful, companies will continue to look for longer-term predictability.

A few things worth noting:

• The tariff relief list was written with November in mind. The categories chosen (housewares, textiles, Christmas goods) map directly to household affordability concerns ahead of the U.S. midterm elections.

• On AI, both sides agreed to keep talking, but don't expect action soon. Companies using Chinese open-weight models – publicly released AI whose underlying code can be modified – should watch Congress closely. Concern is bipartisan and legislation could move independently of any diplomatic progress.

• The new Board of Investment the leaders announced is a long-term signal, not a near-term tool. Operationalizing it will be difficult on both sides, but it lays a structural foundation for future engagement. 

• The window to act may already be open. For businesses waiting for conditions to improve before committing to the China strategy, the question is whether current conditions are already good enough – particularly in non-sensitive sectors where both sides have signaled openness.

Based on FGS Global's "After the U.S.-China Summit" webinar, featuring perspectives from our Berlin, Hong Kong, and Washington offices and Sean Stein, President of the U.S.-China Business Council.