The Briefing with Albert Mohler - Monday, August 24, 2026

Episode Date: August 24, 2026

This is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.Part I (00:14 – 07:30)The U.S. and Canada in a Trade ‘War’: The Term ‘War’ is Misleading, But It is Not to the Advantage of Either Nation For This to Spread to Other Sectors of the EconomyPart II (07:30 – 19:18)Harry and Meghan are Moving Back: The British Royal Family is Following a Soap Opera Script, and Americans are Fascinated By ItPart III (19:18 – 23:13)The Modern Miracle of the Green Revolution: The Moral Good of the Decline of World Hunger, and the Problems That the World Now FacesWorld hunger decline is the fruit of growth by The Washington Post (The Editorial Board)Part IV (23:13 – 25:51)Kyle Kirkwood’s ‘Star Spangled Victory’: The Freedom 250 Grand Prix Race in Washington D.C.Sign up to receive The Briefing in your inbox every weekday morning.Follow Dr. Mohler:X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTubeFor more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu.For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.To write Dr. Mohler or submit a question for The Mailbox, go here.

It's Monday, August 24, 2006. I'm Albert Mueller, and this is the briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. Well, if you hear that coming out of the weekend, America is at war, you probably think first of Iran, the military conflict that continues. Not so much a heated exchange of weapons conflict at this point, but a protracted conflict that has to do with the fact that we have such an asymmetry between the United States. of America and Iran, and it is to Iran's advantage to stretch this out. It is the American ambition to bring it to an end. So those are incommensurate goals, and we'll be looking more at that in coming days. But as we're thinking about this past weekend, the war that made the headlines was a trade war with Canada. This came as something of a surprise, because about the middle of last week, both the Americans and the Canadians were indicating that the two sides

were very close to some kind of agreement that would eventually either put a pause or eliminate the threat of the sanctions and the tariffs that were threatened by President Trump. As much as 50% tariffs, and let's just say that's a radical tariff, that's a massive tariff. Something that would cost one American dollar will now be 150. And as you're looking at all of this, you realize this really is another form of warfare. Now, I'm glad to say that the Americans and the Canadians, given the fact that the PACs, was not reached. The Canadian said that they would not agree to some of the terms that President Trump or the Trump administration gave going into the weekend. They said that they were unacceptable.

But when you say that the United States and Canada are now involved in a trade war, let's just be very, very clear. This is a friendly war. In other words, when you have Americans and Canadians, yes, there is now a conflict, there is now a trade issue that is a major matter of political contingent between the political leadership in Canada and the political leadership in the United States, there will be real effects. But the use of the word war in all these different contexts is actually more confusing than clarifying. But this is a big deal. It is a very big deal. And the conflict is real. Now, as you're looking at the history of all of this, realize that when you look at the United States and Canada, you're looking at two of the closest

trading partners in all world history. And you're also looking at a political miracle. And that miracle is the world's longest non-conflicting border. And it's been that way for a very long time. The United States and Canada, in terms of landmass, are two very big transcontinental nations. And we have that very long border. And we have friendly relations. Americans and Canadians had better think very hard about how important that is and the fact that it is to the mutual advantage of both nations. Now, when you look at the United States and Canada, you're looking at one very large nation geographically, and by the way, Canada's massive, but you're looking at two transcontinental nations and you're looking at an imbalance in the economy. You're looking at an imbalance in the

population. The population of the United States, the economic power of the United States, the international and military ambitions of the United States, far larger than anything undertaken by Canada. But Canada is a major nation on the world scene. Canada is a major economic force. It is a major military force. And even as Canada has, has continued for all kinds of historic reasons. Just remember, it never had a revolution against Britain. It is still a Commonwealth nation. And so it often thinks both in terms of its culture and its politics in more European terms than does the United States. So then you ask the question, what about trade? Well, we are talking about a very friendly border, at least

since, let's just say, the 1820s. We're talking about a very long time. It's a very important relationship, the friendship between the United States and Canada, just incredibly important, but the trade issues have been an irritation for a very long time. Now, part of this is simply because of the mammoth size of the American economy and the smaller size of the Canadian economy. But one of the things that has led to a great deal of cooperation, economic and political, between the U.S. and Canada, has been an integrated economy, particularly when it comes to many sectors in manufacturing. So, for instance, if you are driving a major American brand automobile, it is likely that some of those parts, and by the way, those parts can become pretty complex,

even in terms of component units, some of the parts of your car, even if it was assembled in the United States, were manufactured in Canada. And frankly, it could go the other way. So you could just look at the fact this integrated economic platform has been mutually beneficial, but there are complaints the Americans have made against the Canadian. in terms of protectionism on some things. And no doubt the Canadians have made some similar concerns very loud about the Americans.

But it was the American administration. It's President Donald J. Trump, who has really initiated this because he has had for a very long time and I don't mean just since his first term. I mean, going back in terms of his public comments long before he ever ran for the office of the President of the United States.

President Trump has felt that the United States was basically hurting itself, with a commitment to free trade. And so he really wants to go back to something like the earlier decades in the 20th century when you did have tariffs and trade wars

as we have, well, increasingly today. However, all of these tariffs are coming by executive order from the president, so there are limits to how much can be covered. And so even when we're talking about this so-called trade war with China, which is hot and is making headlines all over the world,

it may affect as little as 5% of the economy here in the United States. Now, the problem is that 5%, when you increase it by 50%, can actually become very expensive. It is, I think, could be very interesting to see how the American people respond to this. The reality is that the terrorists under the Trump administration have been largely on and then off, on and then off. And it's hard to know over time, especially with court decisions that have in some cases reverse the tariffs. It's hard to know the impact of all of this. And so this is something that

we just need to watch. It is not to the nation's advantage for this to be anecdotal. It is not to the advantage of either the United States or Canada for this to become personal between the American President and the Canadian Prime Minister. It is not good for anyone on either side of the border that this becomes a matter of acrimony and simply spreads to even larger sectors of the economy. Let me just state it bluntly. That would be an economic disaster on both sides of the border. Neither nation can afford that. One final thought on this. When you look at modern trade issues, patterns among nations, you have to wonder at times whether this kind of tariff policy is a tactic or a strategy. Is it a short-term issue to bring about some immediate kind of advantage or some kind of gain?

Or is it a long-term economic strategy? To make the matter clear, tariffs have not done, look so good as a long-term economic strategy. They may be effective as an economic tactic. We will see. In the meantime, let's hope that this trade war is a short war. So even as we're talking about the Commonwealth, the British Commonwealth, and we're talking about what remains of the British Empire, we're talking about the British monarchy, yes, we're going there. We are going there. We're going to the British royal family. We're going to Harry and Megan. And we're going there for the worldview issues that are connected to all of this. So let's just stay at the beginning. I don't believe this is earth-shaking news. I don't believe this deserves all the attention it gets in the

media. But it is interesting all this attention and all the conversation and all the headlines and all the rest. It does tell us something about human nature. It tells us something also historical about how monarchies work. And so one of the things we need to know is that in every modern society. And to some degree, even in ancient and medieval society, there's something like this. Pagintry, when it comes to royalty, when it comes to the elites. One of the things that money buys is page and attention and celebrity. Now, in the modern age, celebrities are a whole new thing. And so, of course, we have Hollywood celebrities.

We have campus celebrities. We've got musical celebrities. In some real sense, that's fairly new when you look at the modern age. But you just might say that the original. celebrities in terms of just the mainstream of human history have been monarchs and members of the royal family nobility, but the royal family is big. So when you start using titles like emperor and empress, czar and zarina, king and queen, prince and princess, man, you are talking large-scale celebrity. Now, that, of course, is an issue that the United States supposedly avoided. And so

we supposedly avoided the kind of celebrity culture that goes with a royal family. But, you know, we ended up with another kind of celebrity culture when it comes to the presidency in the White House and all the rest. And of course, it's distributed to all kinds of angles in our society. But it does tell us that society has a hunger for a celebrity culture. It really does. And if it doesn't have one already, it's going to make one up. And there's another pattern we need to watch, and that is that when you look at the role of royalty, the famous role of royalty is dignity, majesty, moral weight, seriousness, the throne, the crown, the scepter, the rule, the court etiquette, and all the rest, the protocol, all of it is intended to underline the majesty of the state.

And of course, this can be taken to ludicrous extremes, as you saw with the French monarchy just before the French Revolution, things like this. You know, but the claim that I am the state. Okay. You have extremes like that. You also have extremes when it comes to the celebrity culture of kings and queens and princes and princesses and all the rest. You also have a predictable pattern. And this has been predictable now for a long time. In the British monarchy, this is a pattern that is at least as old as the modern media age. It's probably older than that going all the way back to the House of Hanover in particular. But when you look at the modern royal family and it's, In particular, you look at Victoria and onwards. You're looking at soap opera. And, you know, one of the most interesting things about the royal soap opera is that you have good princes and bad princes, good princesses and salacious princesses. You've got, well, if it were in the language of the Wild Wild West, you'd have some who are wearing white hats and some who are wearing black hats. And you know what?

The rake or the misbehaving prince has been a rather constant issue of fascination in terms of royal. culture. And right now, Prince Harry is playing that role. And he has been now for quite a long time. And when you look at Prince Harry and Prince William, of course, one of them is the Prince of Wales. He is right behind his father in terms of line to become king. And he is married to Catherine. And they really present a very solid picture of royal respectability. So when you look at Prince William and you look at Princess Catherine, And you just consider, they're also, by the way, a duke and a duchess, but you look at that and you recognize, you know, this is weight. And they're shown with their children and they're just shown constantly in ways that are to add and not subtract respect and dignity. When it comes to Harry, it's been quite different.

Now, here's another pattern. Of course, the heir to the throne is going to be the serious one. You would think, you would think, that's not always the case, as we're about to remember. but you would think that in most cases the heir to the throne, if you have two boys, the heir to the throne is going to be the serious one, the second in line is going to be the less serious one. Well, that has happened. That has happened. And this is a familiar course. By the way, as I said, it's not always that way because when you look at Edward VIII, a disaster. It was his younger brother after the abdication, George the 6th, that really went back and restored

credibility, respect, and dignity to the British monarchy. But you know what? A celebrity culture loves a bad boy. A celebrity culture loves a bad boy who marries a girl or a woman who is going to color outside the lines with him. And you know what? In the House of Windsor, there's been a lot of tragedy just in that family. But you're also looking at the fact that it is following a movie script right now. The family follows a movie script. Now you have kings, Charles III and Queen Camilla. And by the way, lots of soap opera there.

We won't go into it, but let's just say an inordinate amount of soap opera there. But then you also have what people will say, the watchers of the British Crown will say, well, you know, there's been a transformation in Charles. He was he was rather, let's just say, willing to color outside some of the lines

when he was the Prince of Wales, but now that he's king, he's taken on all this dignity. And then you have Queen Camilla. And remember at one point, she was the mistress here, and now she's the queen. Let's just say that that's interesting. But it is fascinating that when you look at Prince William, who by the way, I fear maybe very secular in terms of his worldview, but at least in terms of the role he's playing,

he has played a more traditional role by far than either his father or his brother. And now you have the announcement that Harry and Megan are moving back to London, or at least moving back to Britain. And this is making headlines on both sides of the Atlantic, and on both sides, people are saying, what's going on here? How could this have happened? You had Harry and Megan come over, and of course, with their family, and they established a home. And it was basically a big media platform, the $15 billion home in Mendocito. But we're talking about very, very expensive life, lots of security needed, and all the rest. And they had these massive deals, first with Netflix,

then was Spotify. And by the way, they didn't produce what was expected. Now, with Netflix, the very first thing they did was very, very popular, but the popularity really plunged. And that's because here's another thing about being the rake or being the misbehaving, rebellious, you know, colorful, more outlaw of the princes. One of the problems is the script grows old. It grows old pretty fast. And there was all of a sudden this announcement that Harry and Megan and their children, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex are going back to Britain. Now, it is interesting that you can just look at press reports and you can see where Harry said that he could envision no situation in which he and his family would go back to London. And let's just say that the news

for the Duke and the Duchess for Harry and Megan has not been very good. Just in recent days, a massive court judgment in the multimillion dollars against them. Very little chance most observers think that that will be reversed on appeal. And the government made an announcement just coming out of the weekend that security, it means personal security, you know, all the security that they would need is a private matter for the Sussexes. And again, the prime minister's office released that explicitly. So I don't know how all this is going to turn out. But I do think it's interesting that royalty is such an issue of celebrity fascination. And I think it's also just extremely interesting how interested Americans are in British royalty. And

And it is pretty much British royalty. You know, every once in a while, you'll have a Princess Grace of Monaco or someone like that who gets considerable attention. But that's because she was famous as a Hollywood actress before she married into that royal family. That just added to the mystery. But when it comes to Britain, you know, the United States declared a revolution, declared independence on the British throne. And for about 100 years, wasn't all that interested, at least officially. It was really Queen Victoria and Prince Albert who helped to turn the tide there. and a part of it was because of Albert's Protestant understanding coming from his German Protestant background

of the importance of hearth and home and family and the domestic life of the royal family. And so I've mentioned this before and it comes to Christmas. You had a famous drawing engraving of Victoria and Albert and their children with a Christmas tree. And that just broke all kinds of royal protocols, but it really changed the culture. And on both sides of the Atlantic, people began to feel closer to the world. royal family. And then you had, of course, all kinds of tumult in the 20th century. We had an abdication and all the rest. But the point is that it really was two world wars that helped to bring about a much closer relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom in one sense,

but especially with the British royal family. And it was a royal visit during that troubled era that brought King George the 6th and then his consort, Queen Elizabeth, to the United States, and it was a vast success. And then since then, you've had royal visits and, of course, Queen Elizabeth, and then King Charles III. You've had royal visits to the United States. It's just a lot of fascination. There's also a sense of humor.

There has to be. Because when you talk about the United States of America and you talk about the United Kingdom and you talk about a war of independence and all the rest, you better have a sense of humor or this is going to be heavy all the time. The fact is, as Winston Churchill said, in the early decades of the 20th century, reaffirmed in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, it was Prime Minister Winston Churchill who pointed out the unity of the Americans and the Britons in the history of the English-speaking peoples. He celebrated that union, that commonality.

And of course, he had an American mother and a British aristocratic British father. But he also went on to say, that that relationship will be the most important relationship for both nations. And in some very real sense, it was and it is. And so all this to say, that when you look at the morality of this unfolding, you know, royal story, when you look at how much in common it has with some previous rakes and misbehavours in royal history, when you look at the fact that on both sides of the Atlantic, the Britons who have the royal family and the Americans who absolutely do,

do not have a royal family, are still fascinated with the same royal family. Walter Badgett, the great scholar of the unwritten British constitution, said that of the British government, there are two essential parts, the dignified and the efficient. And the royal house, the monarchy only works if it is the monarchy that provides the dignified part of government. Something the royal family had better always keep in mind. All right, as is always the case on Monday, there's some very big issues, and the trade war is big, coming out with other political issues, just some really big things going on. But I want to give you a piece of good news that might not get a lot of attention. And it's good news in more ways than one. It appears as an editorial statement in the Washington Post.

And you have the editorial board itself make the statement, world hunger decline is a powerful story for economic freedom. Yeah, it is. When you consider how we began looking at trade war and all the rest. one of the most amazing stories of the last 50 or 60 years, even going back a little bit further, you could go back to 1940. So let's just say generously, the last century. One of the most amazing things is that we have gone from a situation in which the world was not producing enough food to feed its population to one in which it frankly does produce enough food to feed a very large population, much, much larger than was the case in the 1920s. And there were all these dire warnings, the population growth warnings all over the world going back into the 1960s in particular. You had people saying this is going to be a crisis and there's going to be mass starvation.

It didn't happen. It didn't happen. It didn't happen. Because there were people like Noren Borlaug who came along and who said, you know, we can actually feed a lot more people if we're much better at farming. And so he talked about a strategy that would involve crop varieties, crop varieties, crop rotation, pesticides, and mechanical irrigation. Between the 1940s and the 1970s, this led to a transformation. It was called at the time the green revolution. That's not politics. This is green as in stuff to eat. And it really has been a modern miracle. Now, here's the sad thing. Here's the

sad thing. There still are people who are dying of starvation. There still are people who are malnourished. But now we need to recognize morally it is a political problem more than anything else. because just in terms of the mass of what's produced, this green revolution produces enough food to feed everyone on planet Earth. Now, in a fallen world, that doesn't mean everyone gets the food. And so that's the big problem. But isn't it interesting? The problem now is not the fact that in the world context, at least,

there's not enough food. The issue is that we have a political breakdown, an efficiency breakdown, and from that matter, a moral breakdown in many places and in many cases in which people, people do not have what they should have, just as a baseline to eat. When you think about this green revolution, let me just say, look at 50 years, 1940 to 1990 in India. So just take India as one country, massive population.

You really had massive malnutrition and starvation in 1940. By 1990, India was not only feeding itself with an even much larger population, it was not only feeding itself. It was a net exporter of food. and that's just an amazing thing. So that doesn't reduce the danger that comes from bad decisions, bad policies, and for that matter, even evil rulers. But when you look at the biblical mandate of dominion,

the right exercise of that dominion is one that says, you know, we can do better at farming than we've been doing. We can produce more. We can feed people. That's a good thing. And the relative success of that good thing is something to be celebrated. but as the editorial board of the Washington Post laments, there are still hunger crises that have to be addressed.

It is just that reality underlines the fact that most of these are episodic or political. That's still real for the people who are suffering. The editorial board ended with this statement, despite the significant inroads against world hunger, remains too commonplace. The best way to meet that need in the long run is to create conditions for economic freedom and to the growth it brings.

End quote. a good sentence of moral clarity coming from a major American newspaper on this issue. I'm going to celebrate that as a good thing. All right, I'm going to end today on another issue, and that has to do with the epic development of the Freedom Grand Prix. This was a one-time race, almost assuredly, only going to happen one time, and it is this Grand Prix race that took place on the streets of Washington, D.C. It's the final event in the cycle of events, basically at the hand of the White House,

and especially personal interest of President Trump when it comes to America's 250th anniversary. So it was very, very interesting. Kyle Kirkwood won what was declared to be, of course. It had to be written this way. The headline has to be this. He won a star-spangled victory in the Grand Prix, the Freedom Grand Prix yesterday.

No, no, for folks in Washington, this was a real hassle because this kind of Grand Prix is on the streets of a major American city. In this case, the United States of America, our capital, Washington, Congress was not authorizing this, so it had to be on a property basically that the White House could control. It still was a major event. It took 147 laps. I just have to wonder how in the world you do that. But I have to tell you, I've been fascinated with this kind of car racing or even earlier there.

It's going all the way back to when I was a little boy. The first movie I ever got to go to with a friend without a parent. The parents had to take us and pick us up. But we thought we were big stuff. We got to go see Steve McQueen. the movie Le Mans when it came out to 1971. I have to admit, I love this kind of race. I just wish I could have seen it in Washington, D.C. Now, I know, I know it was a real hassle for the people who were living in Washington, D.C.,

and I know there are people who just say it's gauche, and, you know, America should have done something more dignified. I just want to tell you that if you're looking at American culture and you're looking at something, people are going to remember as a final event, the Freedom Grand Prix, so far as I'm concerned, was a good idea. And I'm just going to end on the fact that it was a good idea if for nothing else, then at least for a few hours, something in Washington moved faster than expected, not more slowly. They're waving the flag for me to end this edition of the briefing. So thanks for listening. For more information, go to my website at Albertmohler.com. You can follow me on X or Twitter by going to X.com forward slash Albert Moller. For information on the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to

sbts.edu for information on voice college just go to voicecollege.com. I'll meet you again tomorrow for the briefing.