FirstFT: US revokes Huawei licences

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Good morning. We start with the latest trade spat between the US and China.

The Biden administration has revoked export licences that allow Intel and Qualcomm to supply Huawei with semiconductors as Washington increases the pressure on the Chinese telecoms equipment company.

The move by the US Department of Commerce affects the supply of chips for Huawei’s laptop computers and mobile phones, according to people familiar with the situation.

The move comes amid US alarm at Huawei’s ability to develop advanced chips despite sweeping export controls introduced in 2022. Huawei’s MateBook X Pro laptop, which was released last month, uses Intel’s Core Ultra 9 chip.

The Chinese embassy in Washington slammed the move as “out-and-out economic bullying”. Read more on the commerce department’s move.

• More on US-China trade tensions: TikTok and its Chinese parent ByteDance yesterday said they had filed a legal challenge to a proposed US law that would force a sale or ban of the app.

• Xi in Europe: China’s president has praised Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government for pursuing an “independent” foreign policy as he prepares to travel to the country later today.

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

• Archegos trial: Three years after the collapse of Bill Hwang’s fund shook Wall Street, the trial will begin to decide whether the investor’s actions were criminal. Here’s what to expect.

• Companies: Uber, Shopify, Fox, Affirm, Arm, Duolingo, Bumble, Beyond Meat and Robinhood, Manulife Financial and AMC Entertainment will report results. 

• Economic statistics: Brazilian statistics agency IBGE publishes retail sales data for March and Chile’s statistics agency INE publishes inflation data for April while Argentina’s government is due to release March industrial production data.

• Monetary policy: Federal vice-chair Phillip Jefferson will participate in a moderated discussion at an event titled “Exploring Careers in Economics”. Fed governor Lisa Cook will discuss financial stability at the Brookings Institution in Washington. Boston Fed president Susan Collins will participate in a fireside chat hosted by Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management.

• Congress: House Republicans are expected to unveil a bill that would require voters to provide proof of American citizenship to vote, an idea unveiled last month by Donald Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson.

Five more top stories

1. Silver Lake, the technology-focused private equity group behind Dell and Endeavor, has raised its largest fund to date as it shifts its focus back to big takeovers and halts the smaller-sized bets it believes have backfired in recent years. Co-chief executives Egon Durban and Greg Mondre told the Financial Times they were repositioning Silver Lake’s portfolio. “We are at our best when we are investing at scale,” said Mondre. Read the full interview.

2. Apple has unveiled new iPads featuring what it called “an outrageously powerful chip for AI”. The launch signals the Silicon Valley giant’s growing focus on artificial intelligence services as it comes under pressure from investors to compete with Microsoft-backed OpenAI and Google. Here’s more on the new “M4” chip.

3. The US last week paused a shipment of bombs to Israel over concerns about its looming ground operation in Rafah, a senior administration official said yesterday. The US made the decision to withhold the shipment last week after discussions with Israel over how it would meet the humanitarian needs of civilians in Rafah did not fully satisfy Washington’s concerns. Read more on what is thought to be the first time the US has held up a potential weapons delivery to Israel since the October 7 attacks.

• Benjamin Netanyahu’s dilemma: In one of the biggest gambles of his career, Israel’s premier sent troops into Rafah to raise pressure on Hamas — and buy time.

4. Argentina’s central bank has put the country’s first 10,000-peso notes into circulation. The new notes, worth $11 at the country’s official exchange rate, are five times more valuable than the previous largest note, of 2,000 pesos, and 10 times more valuable than the more common 1,000-peso note. Read more on the new notes which were printed in China.

5. Stormy Daniels, the porn actor, yesterday gave a graphic account of Donald Trump’s alleged sexual advances towards her in a hotel room in 2006. Daniels offered details that were so salacious Trump’s lawyer called for the judge to order a mistrial — a request the judge denied. Trump has always denied he had an affair with the actor. Here’s more on the highly anticipated testimony in the former president’s “hush money” trial.

Today’s big read

According to Cushman & Wakefield, prime office rents across Hong Kong have dropped by nearly 40 per cent from their peak in 2019, and government figures show vacancy rates at a record high of 16 per cent. With higher interest rates and China’s slowdown pushing down prices and rents, today’s Big Read explores whether Hong Kong’s real estate market can recover.

We’re also reading . . . 

• Economists exchange: Arthur Laffer has been named by the Trump campaign as the potential next chair of the Federal Reserve. He discusses the US deficit, tax policy and protectionism with economics commentator Chris Giles.

• Mexico: Democracy hangs in the balance in Mexico, according to historian and essayist Enrique Krauze. López Obrador’s legacy must not be an authoritarian one, he says.

• Volcanic soup: Magmatic brine, a mysterious substance found underneath volcanoes, could be the next source of critical minerals such as lithium and copper, writes Anjana Ahuja.

Chart of the day

Fifty corporate winners from the coronavirus pandemic have lost roughly $1.5tn in market value since the end of 2020, according to an analysis of Bloomberg data by the Financial Times, as investors turn their backs on many of the stocks that rocketed during early lockdowns. Technology companies such as Zoom and RingCentral dominate the list of companies that have fallen most from their 2020 peak valuations.

Take a break from the news

Before a single person had set foot on the red carpet, this year’s Met Gala already felt surreal. This was in part owing to the dress code, based on “The Garden of Time”, a 1962 JG Ballard short story about an aristocratic couple, living on borrowed time in a luxury residence, who must protect themselves from an advancing angry mob by plucking a dwindling supply of crystal flowers that allow them to briefly pause time. Here’s how attendees interpreted the brief.

Additional contributions from Tee Zhuo and Benjamin Wilhelm