2025-03-22
45 分钟There's a grove of fruit trees on a hillside overlooking the Pacific,
a few hours north of San Francisco.
It grows peaches, apples and pears.
Some of the trees are old.
They were planted in 1814 by colonists from Russia.
Russian traders coming south from Alaska had established Fort Ross in 1812.
North of where Spanish colonizers had reached,
a native tribe met the Russians with a grudging realpolitik.
The outpost was intended for fur trading, but the population of sea otters quickly fell off.
Instead, the Russians turned to agriculture.
And one enterprising agronomist, trained in Moscow, Yegor Chernik,
ended up planting the first vineyard in what would become Sonoma County.
Russia eventually pulled out of the area in 1842,
and California became a state just eight years later.
The relationship between the two countries has transformed time and again
since those first vines in wine country,
and now Russia and America's relationship is once again entering a new era.
I'm John Priddow, and this is Checks and Balance from The Economist.
Each week, we take one big theme shaping American politics and explore it in depth.
This week, we're talking about Donald Trump,