FirstFT: Poll blow for Joe Biden’s Ukraine spending plans

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Good morning.

We start today with the results of an exclusive Financial Times poll that will make difficult reading in the White House and Kyiv.

The latest FT-Michigan Ross survey found that nearly half of American voters think the US is spending too much on aid for Ukraine, just as Volodymyr Zelenskyy prepares to visit Washington to lobby for more funding.

Forty eight per cent of those questioned believed the US was spending “too much” in military and financial aid to bolster Kyiv’s war effort against Russia, compared with 27 per cent who said Washington was spending the “right amount” and 11 per cent who said the US was not spending enough.

Opposition was particularly pronounced among Republicans, with 65 per cent saying the US was spending too much in Ukraine, compared with roughly half — 52 per cent — of independents and just a third — 32 per cent — of Democrats.

The poll was published as Zelenskyy prepares for a meeting with Joe Biden tomorrow in Washington to “underscore the United States’ unshakeable commitment” to the country’s war effort, according to the White House.

One Republican strategist said future US aid for Ukraine was “in doubt”. Read the survey’s other findings.

Here’s what I’m keeping tabs on today:

• UK Covid inquiry: Prime Minister Rishi Sunak appears before the official inquiry into the government response to the pandemic, during which he served as chancellor under Boris Johnson.

• Poland: Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki is expected to fail to obtain a vote of confidence for his government’s programme, after which parliament may ask Civic Coalition leader Donald Tusk to form a government.

• Egypt: A second day of voting will take place in the country’s presidential election.

Five more top stories

1. Javier Milei has promised deep cuts in spending after being sworn-in as president of Argentina. “Today we are ending a long and sad history of decadence and decline and we are beginning the journey to rebuilding our country,” the maverick libertarian economist said to cheering crowds outside congress. Here’s more on the speech which broke with tradition.

2. Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell faces a tough balancing act this week to maintain flexibility in the US central bank’s policy plans in the face of intense pressure to reveal when and by how much it intends to cut interest rates next year. As the Federal Open Market Committee prepares for its final two-day gathering of 2023 tomorrow, Powell confronts an increasingly mixed economic picture.

3. Saudi Arabia is obstructing the UN’s flagship climate negotiations and pressuring their presidency, the United Arab Emirates, in a bid to shift the focus away from oil and gas producing nations, according to several people involved in the talks. A Gulf official said the Saudis were not happy with the way the UAE was handling the discussions in Dubai. Here’s the latest on the talks as they near their conclusion.

4. US health insurer Cigna has abandoned plans to merge with Humana, a blockbuster transaction that would have created a $140bn insurance giant, according to people familiar with the matter. Mounting pressure to cut costs has driven consolidation in the healthcare industry in recent years. Read more about the collapsed deal which would have been the largest merger of the year.

5. Hong Kong’s voters largely steered clear of a Beijing-imposed “patriots-only” election yesterday, in a blow to official efforts to legitimise China’s vision for governing the territory. A record low 27.5 per cent of the city’s 4.3mn-strong electorate cast their ballots, despite officials extending voting by 1.5 hours, citing electronic system failure. Many pro-democracy supporters snubbed the polls.

The Big Read

When Elise Stefanik, the New York Republican, wrote over the weekend on X: “One down. Two to go” following the resignation of Elizabeth Magill, president of the University of Pennsylvania, it piled pressure on two other university presidents: Harvard’s Claudine Gay and Sally Kornbluth of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. All three academics appeared at last week’s congressional hearings on campus antisemitism and failed to answer a seemingly simple question: yes or no, would calls for genocide of Jews on campus violate their codes of conduct or harassment policies? For many, the encounter laid bare the moral confusion at America’s elite universities.

We’re also reading . . . 

• International tax laws: The ability of rich companies and individuals to use complex legal structures to outmanoeuvre national regulators cries out for simple, blunt rules, writes Rana Foroohar.

• Israel-Hamas war: Conditions in Rafah are dire as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fleeing Israel’s Gaza offensive are being pushed to the town bordering Egypt.

• Lessons from a journalist: Jonathan Guthrie, the head of FT’s Lex, is retiring after 37 years in financial journalism. Here are six things he has learnt.

Chart of the day

Despite the major shift in British opinion over the wisdom of Brexit, the UK is unlikely to rejoin Europe for many decades, if ever, writes Martin Wolf. Here’s why.

Take a break from the news

From an Egyptian oasis to a yurt in Tromsø: travel writers’ share their 2023 discoveries and disappointments.

Additional contributions from Tee Zhuo and Benjamin Wilhelm