SpaceX leaves its mark on the Moon, Trump’s odyssey, and scepticism of Fed head
Welcome to our press review of events in the United States. Every Wednesday we look at how the Swiss media have reported and reacted to three major stories in the US – in politics, finance and science.
Select your language
Generated with artificial intelligence.
Listening:
SpaceX leaves its mark on the Moon, Trump’s odyssey, and scepticism of Fed head
If there are indeed little green men and women on the Moon, they would have got a shock last week when part of a SpaceX rocket crashed into it at about 8,700km/h. Discover why scientists are getting excited about the resulting crater.
Help us improve the press review
As a reader of our weekly press review, your feedback is important to us. Please take two minutes to answer a short survey and help us improve our journalism. This survey is anonymous and all data is confidential.
👉 [Take the surveyExternal link]
“Trump stands amid the ruins of his policies,” declared the Tages-Anzeiger on Tuesday, judging that the US president had fallen victim to his own hubris – with geostrategic implications.
“Just as Odysseus is currently enjoying a comeback on the big screen, hubris is also a siren,” the Zurich newspaper wrote. “Dictators are particularly prone to falling for it, as democratic safeguards are absent. Which brings us to Donald Trump, a would-be autocrat who also wishes to cast off democratic constraints and is susceptible to the siren song of hubris.”
The problem, it said, is that Trump believes that there are no limits to America’s power “and, above all, to his own”. “This was exemplified in his speech on the day of the attack on Iran, when he announced the end of the mullahs’ nuclear programme and their overthrow. A good five months later, the reality check is sobering: both war aims have been missed. What’s more, Trump has permanently damaged the geopolitical credibility of the American superpower.”
Military power is often more effective when threatened credibly than when actually deployed, the Tages-Anzeiger wrote. “Trump has failed to grasp this, as his conclusions following the coup in Venezuela demonstrate. He assumed that he could bring about regime change in Iran by dropping bombs from an altitude of ten kilometres and launching decapitation strikes. Yet the Islamist regime in Tehran has survived and, as things stand, appears to have been strengthened.”
The US president is left with nothing but bad options, the paper concluded, with three standing out. “First, he could escalate the war once again, but key munitions now appear to be in short supply. Second, he could impose new sanctions and, in turn, block the Strait of Hormuz once again. The global economy, including the American one, would pay the price. US troops would also have to remain in the region for a long time, which would also be costly. That leaves the third scenario: declare victory and go home. Yet Trump’s problems would remain: the enriched uranium, although buried under rubble, and the Strait of Hormuz are currently under Iranian control, and both are extremely effective weapons,” it wrote.
“Odysseus’s return home after victory in the Trojan War turned into an odyssey. Donald Trump faces a similar fate.”
Swiss public broadcaster SRF needed to talk about Kevin on Monday. Investors, it said, were sceptical about the interest rate path taken by Kevin Warsh, the new chair of the Federal Reserve.
“Investors fear that, as head of the Fed, Warsh is not quite as serious about fighting inflation as he claims,” SRF said, noting that long-term government bonds had risen to their highest level since 2007.
“With regard to the trend in inflation and interest rates, the market currently has a problem with Kevin Warsh. Warsh refuses to say what monetary policy course he intends to pursue in future.” According to SRF, critics suspect that Warsh, who has been in the job since May, is doing this to please US President Donald Trump, as Trump is happy when the Fed continues to supply the economy generously with cheap money rather than tackle inflation.
The problem, SRF points out, is that you can’t have both at the same time. “Either the Fed stimulates the economy with low interest rates, or it slows the economy down with interest rate rises. The fact remains that the Fed hasn’t changed key interest rates since the start of the year.”
Meanwhile, inflation has climbed from 2.4% to 3.5%, partly as a result of Trump’s war with Iran and the resulting rise in energy prices. “Seen in this light, Warsh’s commitment to price stability and his actions at the helm of the Fed have so far been only partially consistent with one another,” SRF said.
A SpaceX rocket slammed into the Moon last week, creating a new crater. This accidental impact is already fascinating scientists, says Swiss public broadcaster RTS, as it has implications not only for space exploration but also for our understanding of the Moon’s origins.
The new crater – five metres deep and 27 metres in diameter – was created on Wednesday by a SpaceX rocket launched in January 2025 to place two lunar probes into orbit, “which then hurtled towards the Moon at 8,700km/h before exploding, releasing the equivalent of 15,000 sticks of dynamite”, RTS explained.
RTS noted that the amount of space debris was constantly growing, while the perception of the Moon as an “inert celestial body” was beginning to change.
“Recently, this stance has been revised because there are areas of interest, particularly those containing ice,” Christophe Bonnal, a space debris expert, told RTS. “There are lava tubes that could serve as future habitats” for potential lunar bases. The protection of the Moon has therefore been stepped up, and it’s now forbidden to crash-land in certain areas.
This type of impact also has another scientific benefit, RTS said, particularly in the analysis of regolith – the fine dust whose detailed composition and stratigraphy still intrigue researchers.
“This will help us understand the natural craters found on the Moon’s surface,” says Paolo Sossi, a professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at federal technology institute ETH Zurich. “The SpaceX impact would allow us to calibrate the mass, angle and velocity of the impactor, and thus tell us something about the history of the asteroids that struck the Moon long ago. And so, to understand exactly how the Moon has evolved geologically.”
The next edition of ‘Swiss views of US news’ will be published on Wednesday, August 19. See you then!
If you have any comments or feedback, email english@swissinfo.ch
More
Subscribe to the newsletter “Swiss views of US news”
Stay informed with our weekly newsletter!
Are you looking for a simple way to stay updated on US-related news from a Swiss perspective?
Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter and receive concise summaries of the most important political, financial, and scientific stories in the United States, as reported by Switzerland’s leading media outlets – delivered straight to your inbox.
👉Sign up by entering your email address in the form below!
External Content
Your subscription could not be saved. Please try again.
Almost finished… We need to confirm your email address. To complete the subscription process, please click the link in the email we just sent you.
In compliance with the JTI standards
More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.