FirstFT: Iowa caucuses in the cold

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Donald Trump is aiming to translate an overwhelming poll lead among Iowa Republicans into a commanding victory tonight that would ease his path to the party’s nomination to challenge Joe Biden in the November general election.

Nikki Haley, the former US ambassador to the UN, has moved into second place in Iowa polling and hopes that a strong performance tonight can serve as a springboard to a potential victory in New Hampshire later this month, where she is also in second place but has a smaller gap to close.

Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, has slid into third in Iowa and is hoping to breathe new life into his campaign, but if he fares poorly in the Midwestern state he will face pressure to drop out.

The last weekend of campaigning in Iowa was disrupted by a blizzard that prompted all of the candidates to cancel or delay planned campaign stops. Temperatures below minus 20C threaten voter turnout in this contest which launches the 2024 Republican race for the White House. Read more on the final hours of campaigning.

And here’s what else I’m keeping tabs on today:

• World Economic Forum: The annual gathering of political and business leaders in the Swiss ski resort of Davos gets under way today. Senior FT journalists will be there providing on-the-ground news and analysis. Register for updates here.

• Martin Luther King Jr Day: US markets are closed to mark the birthday of the civil rights leader.

Five more top stories

1. Former US officials have emphasised continuity during an unofficial visit to Taiwan right after polls that elected the Democratic Progressive party’s Lai Ching-te as president. China yesterday lashed out at the US, UK and Japan for congratulating Lai on his victory. China in the past has denounced Lai as a dangerous separatist. Read more on the delegation and the outcome of Saturday’s election.

The FT View: The relatively conciliatory tone from Lai and Beijing after the election is a welcome sign given the incendiary and fragile geopolitical balance around Taiwan, writes the FT’s editorial board.

2. German output contracted 0.3 per cent last year as high inflation, rising interest rates and elevated energy costs made Europe’s largest economy one of the weakest performers in the world. The decline compounds what has been a gloomy start to the year for the country, which has been hit by nationwide train strikes and disruptive protests by farmers. Here’s why Germany, once Europe’s strongest economy, is now one of the weakest.

3. Security officials from 83 countries gathered yesterday in Davos to discuss Kyiv’s demands for ending the war. The active participation of national security representatives from India, Brazil and Saudi Arabia, countries from the so-called Global South who maintain diplomatic relations with Russia, was hailed as a positive signal by western officials. Here’s more on the talks’ outcome as the second anniversary of the full-blown Russian invasion of Ukraine nears.

4. Private equity can no longer rely on borrowing cheap money to fuel returns, and will have to go back to its roots of sourcing good deals and making operational improvements, according to the head of Goldman Sachs’s investment business. “Private equity will look different over the next 10 years than it looked over the past 10 years.” Read the full interview with Marc Nachmann.

5. Bill Ackman has threatened legal action against German media group Axel Springer and its US-based Business Insider financial news site in an escalation of a bitter fight over plagiarism claims against the hedge fund boss’s wife. The FT reported on Sunday that an internal review by Axel Springer had found Business Insider’s reporting of plagiarism allegations against academic Neri Oxman accurate and “well documented”. Here’s the latest on the increasingly bitter dispute.

The Big Read

In October last year, Boeing chief executive Dave Calhoun said the US plane maker was focusing on improving the quality of its aircraft. The company, he told analysts, had in recent years “added rigour” to its “quality processes”. Calhoun now knows that his reputation and that of his executive team are on the line as the Federal Aviation Administration begins an investigation into a dangerous blowout of a section of the fuselage of an Alaska Airlines flight just over a week ago.

We’re also reading . . . 

Chart of the day

Results from four of the US’s largest banks on Friday — JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo — showed their lending businesses benefited significantly from higher interest rates but that they were having to set aside more money to cover for potential loan losses.

Take a break from the news

Fifteen years after he quit drinking, Nick Johnstone found himself a surprising new hobby: picking the perfect wines to serve. In this thoughtful essay, Johnstone tells how wine — once a poison — became his sober passion.

Additional contributions from Tee Zhuo and Benjamin Wilhelm