Crossing all the borders

"Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists." - Roosevelt

Author

Micael Balioni
August 06, 2026

Hi Tanamesars,

This edition will be a little different.

As I'm sure most of you are aware, the world has been facing a significant humanitarian crisis — the situation unfolding between Spain, Morocco, and the thousands of people caught in between. It left me deeply unsettled. Not just the crisis itself, but the responses I witnessed from people close to me. "Close the borders." "They want to destroy our country." Things that were genuinely difficult to read, and that I believe come less from cruelty and more from a lack of context, and a certain unawareness of what privilege actually looks like from the outside.

So I decided to use my “What About Me” session as a space for something a little different this week. Not my usual personal reflections, but something I hope is just as valuable: an honest, clear look at what is actually happening — the kind of picture I don't think the mainstream media is doing a particularly good job of painting.

I'm not here to tell you what to think. I'm just here to make sure you have the information to think with.

Let’s go.

THE MUSTS

 

Economy & Business

min’na saiko arigato, k-k-kawaii

Asia has become the new world map

Perhaps you've been browsing social media recently and noticed a new trend in travel itineraries: unique foods, exotic landscapes, and a trip to the other side of the world.

  • Asian tourism has been gaining more and more traction in vacation plans around the world, with countries in the East standing out compared to more traditional destinations like New York, Orlando, and European capitals.

The global tourism landscape is indeed undergoing its biggest geopolitical transformation in decades. According to this study, the Asia-Pacific region is already the main driver of international tourism—and the region is projected to surpass Europe in both the number of travelers and total spending.

For that to happen, someone has to lose ground. The five traditional giants of the industry— France, Spain, the U.S., Italy, and Turkey — are expected to see their market share shrink from 26% to 18% in the coming years.

Okay Micael… But what’s the real reason behind this trend?

There’s a name for this, and it has nothing to do with tourist attractions: soft power. The mass consumption of Asian content has given rise to the phenomenon of “set-jetting”—entire trips planned based on what people watch on screen.

  • Searches for travel experiences related to anime and manga rose 195% last year, and 70% of travelers in Asia today admit to choosing destinations based on what they watch on streaming services.

Every country plays that card in a different way:

  • China: The country remains the most-visited in Asia in absolute terms, with more than 60 million international tourists per year. China’s secret is offering two extremes in a single trip: historic sites like the Great Wall on one hand, and high-tech cities on the other. With the tourism economy growing by nearly 10% and foreign spending rising at a double-digit rate, China is poised to lead global tourism by the end of the decade.

  • South Korea: South Korea is experiencing a veritable tourism boom driven by the Hallyu Wave—the massive export of its pop culture. People travel to the capital, Seoul, to visit filming locations for K-dramas, explore K-pop-themed cafes, and discover products from the Korean beauty and cosmetics industry—K-Beauty.

  • Japan: The country surpassed its 2025 target of 40 million. The goal is now 60 million by 2030. Part of this growth comes from seichi junrei, or “anime pilgrimages”: the proportion of foreign tourists traveling to Japan to visit locations associated with anime has nearly doubled since before the pandemic.

The Price of Being the “Cool” Place of the Moment


All this activity led to the inevitable: excessive tourism, known as overtourism. Traditional cities and popular spots for Instagram Stories began to suffer from overcrowding, forcing local governments to adopt measures to protect their infrastructure and appease residents.

  • In Japan, for example, the market began adopting dual-pricing systems, where foreign tourists pay higher rates at restaurants, museums, and temples than local residents.

  • In addition, oversaturated sites, such as the trails on Mount Fuji, now have strict daily visitor limits and admission fees to curb the environmental impact.

Even so, this trend proves that tourism is changing course. Asia is set to establish itself as the most dynamic tourism region on the planet, with the sector’s direct contribution to Asia’s GDP exceeding 7% within nine years.

To get an idea of the size of this ecosystem, India and China alone are expected to account for more than 25% of all outbound international travel by 2030. And you? Have your trip planned already?

 

Technology & Science

where to go now?

Employees are asking to slow down. Bosses are stepping on the gas.

A week after Jensen Huang released his letter in support of open-weight models —signed by virtually every AI company — another letter hit the market, but this time signed by over 1,000 employees from those same companies, calling for the opposite:

The letter, titled “Pacing the Frontier,” calls on the U.S. government to intervene and help build tools to slow the advancement of AI. It does not call for a pause or censorship, but rather for the option to hit the brakes if the risk outweighs the benefit.

The difference between this letter and the previous one lies not only in the request. While Jensen’s letter was signed by corporate entities, this letter is signed by individuals who work inside them. Neither represents the companies’ official position, and it’s not the companies asking for the brakes—it’s the employees on the ground floor bypassing upper management and going straight to the White House.

On the same day, at the same company:

The sense of urgency stems from (i) the pace: AI is accelerating beyond any speed limit. While in 2023 labs were releasing one new model every 10 days, by 2026 they’ll be releasing one every 4 days. And there’s (ii) the timing: the letter was released two days before the deadline for Executive Order 14409, which sets out the U.S. government’s new rules for cutting-edge AI — a coincidence with an expiring deadline.

What else is on:

  • Apple: The company became the second in history to surpass a $5 trillion market cap, and it did it by doing the opposite of every other big tech: while Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft are set to spend $725B in capex this year alone on AI infrastructure, Apple spent just $13B, buying AI from competitors instead of building it.

    • Google pays Apple $20B/year to be the default iPhone search engine; Apple pays Google $1B/year to run Gemini on Siri. The market approved — Apple briefly overtook Nvidia as the world's most valuable company. (Read)

  • Deezer: 44% of all music uploaded to the platform is now AI-generated. (Read)

EDITOR’S RECOMMENDATIONS

Music

not everything worth continuing gets a second chapter. These two did.

 

CONFESSIONS II by Madonna: Truth be told, I wasn't a Madonna fan until recently. The first full album I ever listened to was Madame X — drawn in by her move to Lisbon and everything that represented. It had interesting moments, but it didn't explain the obsession.

❝

It took a few years of music history, queer history, and honestly just growing up a little before I started to understand the magnitude of what she built. Still not a hardcore fan. But profound respect for the ultimate queen of pop.

 Confessions II is Madonna's 15th album and a direct sequel to her hugely influential 2005 record, reuniting with producer Stuart Price — the architect of the original Confessions on a Dance Floor. It's the most galvanizing statement she's made in over two decades — and possibly her most self-reflective album yet. Nine of its 16 tracks are co-written solely by Madonna and Price, and it shows: this is a focused, cohesive record that earns its nostalgia instead of coasting on it.

  • The standout is "Danceteria" — a frenzied, excitable rush through her early New York years, namechecking DJs, club faces, Basquiat, the B-52s, and more. It's close to "Vogue" in paying homage to the early '80s downtown NYC scene that made her — and it works better in context than it has any right to. Then there's "Fragile," a pained lament for her late brother Christopher, and "The Test," a duet with her daughter Lourdes that somehow manages to be moving without being sentimental. A 64-minute nonstop groove that flows like a DJ set, each song fading into the next.

This is not an album for everyone. But it is an album that made me understand, finally, why Madonna is Madonna. (Rating: 8/10)

 

EQUILIBRIVM II by Anitta: I've talked about the first one here — so this is just a small ode to the sequel. If EQUILIBRIVM was the moment the artist and the person finally met in the same room, EQUILIBRIVM II is what happened when they decided to go deeper.

The album was recorded in a studio inside her own house, with guests in the room — and you feel exactly that. It sounds lived-in, warm, close. If the first EQUILIBRIVM introduced the world to Candomblé and Brazilian spirituality, this one goes further — deeper into indigenous sounds, into ancestry, into the kind of brasilidade that we love.

The album plays like a set of objects you keep by the door — practical, symbolic, and weirdly specific. Salt, candles, prayers, lineage. The essence of it, as she has said herself, is the hardware that keeps you safe — and every song carries the name of whoever delivered it.

The visuals that accompany this one are also worth your time — for anyone curious about Brazilian art and culture, it's a beautiful entry point. I'm still deciding which part will end up being my favorite in the long run. For now, I'm just enjoying my European summer with a little brasilidade keeping me company. (Rating: 9.0/10)

WHAT ABOUT US?

Micael

blame the people crossing. Never the people who opened the door.

Migrants don't make geopolitical crises. They reveal them.

 

Between 50,000 and 60,000 migrants crossed into Ceuta in the last days of July. At least 67 people died — some drowned, others killed in a stampede at the breakwater barrier. You already know that. So I'm not here to talk about what you know.

The official story from Madrid: human trafficking networks spread misinformation about a Supreme Court ruling, triggering a mass rush. The ruling simply said migrants who arrive by swimming can't be summarily returned — they go through a standard process that can still end in deportation within days. A technical legal distinction made over a month before the crisis. Not, by itself, a reason for 60,000 people to suddenly show up at the same beach — and certainly not a reason to explain why they waited five weeks to do it.

I'm tired of immigration stories being told badly — so I'm abdicating this week's What About Me session to look a bit deeper into this issue and maybe open the mind of some readers. Hopefully.

So what actually happened?

 

First, some geography that never makes the news: Ceuta and Melilla are two small Spanish cities sitting on the northern coast of Africa, surrounded by Morocco on all sides. Spain has controlled them since the 15th and 16th centuries — making them, today, the EU's only land borders with Africa. Morocco has never stopped claiming them as its own. Important piece of information, folks. Hold my beer.

Now, the chess game. To understand why 60,000 people crossed in days, you need to follow a thread that goes back years — and involves at least four countries and one US president (always present).

  • It starts with Western Sahara: a vast desert territory Spain abandoned in 1975 after decades of colonial rule. Morocco moved in immediately. The Polisario Front — a Sahrawi independence movement backed by Algeria — has been fighting that annexation ever since. The UN never recognized Moroccan sovereignty. The dispute was never resolved.

 

Morocco has always used migration as a pressure valve. The 2021 Ceuta surge — 8,000 people in two days — was widely seen as retaliation after Spain allowed the Polisario Front's leader to receive medical treatment on Spanish soil. Morocco denied involvement. But Moroccan border guards, who normally prevent crossings, simply stepped aside. Coincidence? Let's continue.

  • On July 20 — just ten days before the crisis exploded — Pedro Sánchez (Spanish Prime Minister) visited Algeria for the first time in four years. A reconciliation between two countries frozen since 2022, when Spain switched sides and endorsed Morocco's autonomy plan for Western Sahara. Algeria, the main backer of the Polisario Front and therego Morocco's rival, got a Spain trying to be friends with everyone at once. Morocco noticed. Investigators later found a social media campaign with over 11 million impressions — from accounts in Algeria, Tunisia, and France — fueling the crossings since early July, spreading false claims that the border was effectively open. Migration experts won't assign blame directly. But they're clear: organized movements of this scale don't happen without, at minimum, passive collaboration from Moroccan authorities.

Ok, now that we know Moroccan authorities were involved — what does Trump have to do with any of this?

 

Trump recognized Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara as part of the Abraham Accords deal that also normalized Morocco-Israel relations. Morocco said thank you by naming a 655-mile coastal highway the "Donald J. Trump Highway." This week, Trump reaffirmed that recognition, calling any other path "unacceptable." Meanwhile, the US House Appropriations Committee described Ceuta and Melilla as being "located in Moroccan territory" — while approving $40 million in military financing for Morocco.

In other words: Morocco has the US, Israel, and a newly reconciled Spain all trying to keep it happy. It has more leverage than it's had in decades. And it knows exactly how to use Ceuta.

It was never about the border being open or closed. Never about immigration policy. It was about using desperate people as political weapons to get what you want, when you want it. Is Morocco wrong for doing that? Well — is Spain wrong for holding that territory? Is Israel? I don't have the answers. But I hope you leave this article understanding one thing: it's never really about the immigrants. It's about the political game that comes with them — and the people who never have to play it.

Final Conclusion: The migrants crossing that beach are real people fleeing real desperation — from poverty, from wars in which European countries are not innocent bystanders. They deserve to be treated as such, not as geopolitical pawns. But the idea that 60,000 people spontaneously decided to swim into Spain because of a narrow legal ruling no one had heard of is not a serious explanation. This was a message, delivered in human beings. The question is whether Europe is willing to read it.

With love,

Micael.

Subscribe to Tanamesa for your regular fix of content, entertainment, and my life. Our mission is bring everything you need to know about the most important things happening worldwide, with exclusive recommendations curated by the editor-in-chief.

Take it easy: It lands in your inbox only every second Thursday. And just like me, it is not only free but also kind of addictive.