Aurelia Butler

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The writer is chair of Rockefeller International. His latest book is ‘What Went Wrong With Capitalism’As the mania for “American exceptionalism” fades, Europe and even China have emerged as new destinations for capital. But the best-performing region in the world this year is Latin America, and it is missing from the global conversation. Its stocks are up 21 per cent in dollar terms, well ahead of Europe in second place and the average return of 6 per cent across emerging markets.After fuelling the US market’s meteoric rise in recent years, global investors are looking to reallocate capital to beaten-down markets — including Latin America. Most of the region is low on President Donald Trump’s tariff target list, making it a haven from trade wars. But perhaps the least appreciated reason that its markets are doing well is the shifting politics.Chile’s former president Sebastián Piñera once told me that Latin America turned “left in good times, right in bad times”. After the roaring 2000s, a “pink tide” brought to power many left-leaning populists, who have led the region backwards in the past decade. Productivity growth turned deeply negative — the worst of any region. On cue, the political tide is turning again.Powerful leaders on the left are curbing their leftist instincts, under market pressure. Last year, Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was promising a giveaway a day; now he’s showing some signs of fiscal discipline. Mexico’s progressive Claudia Sheinbaum is offering “republican austerity” along with a generally more pro-business posture than her predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.Other nations are turning decisively to the traditional right of limited government and free-market reform. Though often cast as a Latin copy of Trump, Argentina’s Javier Milei is pushing trade deals not tariff increases, downsizing government consistently rather than erratically. The result: a dramatic turnaround in the country’s economy and financial markets.The share of voters who say a “market economy” is the best path forward has risen to an unusual high — 66 per cent. This mood shift to the right comes at a critical moment. This year and next, an extremely busy election schedule is unfolding in Latin America, where nations representing 85 per cent of the region’s GDP are going to the polls.Last month in Ecuador, the rightwing incumbent Daniel Noboa scored an unexpectedly big win, over an opponent who may have been tarnished by close ties to former president Rafael Correa, a progressive legend now living in exile after being convicted of corruption. Next up, Argentina, where expectations are high for Milei to lead his party to victory in October legislative elections.Regionwide, social media is buzzing about the “Milei model”. In Chile, rightwing challengers dominate the pre-election polls. Frontrunner Evelyn Matthei is a fiscal conservative who eschews improvisation, and her closest rival, Johannes Kaiser, is even more hawkish: one of his advisers keeps a little statue of Milei wielding a chainsaw — a symbol of his deep spending cuts.  The front-runners for the elections are all on the right. Colombia has its first leftwing leader since independence in 1810, scandal-plagued Gustavo Petro, and his moves to increase state control over sectors from health to energy have blown out the fiscal deficit and helped turn the petro-rich nation into a gas importer. Petro’s chosen successor is polling behind two rightwing candidates, one a former Bogotá mayor widely praised for responsible public spending.    Peru is a similar scene: a deep field led by challengers on the right and the incumbent Dina Boluarte under even harsher attack. She is accused of corruption and indifference as many Peruvians struggle to buy food, with an approval rating at 3 per cent — possibly the world’s worst ever recorded. The top three contenders all are categorised as “centre right”.In Brazil, Lula’s approval rating recently hit its all-time low. The economy is growing but voters are angry over rising prices and crime. In local elections last October, voters turned against the left, and more sharply to the moderate right than the far right. Lula, 79, has had health problems and seems likely to be replaced by a leader well to his right in next year’s ballot. With the far right ascendant in much of the west, it is notable that Latin America is not turning the same way, to a Trumpian closed economy. It is favouring leaders with more traditional agendas, based on free markets and open economies. This increases the region’s chances of escaping its damaging growth slump and attracting capital in this post-American exceptionalism world. More

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Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for freeYour guide to what Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the worldDonald Trump has said he will slap a 100 per cent tariff on all films produced abroad, expanding his trade war to the cinema industry in order to thwart what he described as the “very fast death” of Hollywood. The US president made the announcement on his Truth Social platform on Sunday night as he returned to Washington from a weekend at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, though he did not offer further details. “The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death. Other Countries are offering all sorts of incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States. Hollywood, and many other areas within the U.S.A., are being devastated,” he wrote. Los Angeles has watched other US states, as well as countries such as Canada and the UK, peel away movie production from California in recent years. Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California, has proposed a tax incentive scheme to support film production in the state, but Trump is looking at tariffs instead to stymie international competition. Trump added that he would be authorising the commerce department and US trade representative “to immediately begin the process of instituting a 100% Tariff on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands”. He concluded: “WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!”While Trump has paused sweeping tariffs that he had proposed last month on a wide range of imports until July — giving his officials time to try to negotiate trade deals with countries around the world — he has maintained levies affecting specific industries such as cars and pharmaceuticals. It was unclear how levies would be applied to films. The Motion Picture Association declined to comment. Trump’s plan to apply tariffs to foreign films came amid a burst of social media posts in which the US president also called for a reopening of the notorious Alcatraz prison, which has been closed for more than 60 years.The US president said Alcatraz, which is on an island off the coast of San Francisco, needed to be “substantially enlarged and rebuilt” to house “America’s most ruthless and violent Offenders”. “The reopening of ALCATRAZ will serve as a symbol of Law, Order, and JUSTICE,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.The statement drew a fast rebuke from Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker of the House and Democratic representative from California. In a post on X, Pelosi said that the president’s proposal was “not a serious one”. “Alcatraz closed as a federal penitentiary more than sixty years ago. It is now a very popular national park and major tourist attraction,” she added. More

This article is an on-site version of our FirstFT newsletter. Subscribers can sign up to our Asia, Europe/Africa or Americas edition to get the newsletter delivered every weekday morning. Explore all of our newsletters hereGood morning and welcome back to FirstFT Asia. In today’s newsletter: Australia’s Albanese wins a sweeping mandateThe tricky task for Warren Buffett’s successorCash-strapped Maldives to build $9bn blockchain hubChinese exporters are stepping up efforts to avoid tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump by shipping their goods via third countries to conceal their true origin. Here’s what to know about the tariff workaround.Origin-washing: Chinese social media platforms are flooded with adverts offering “place-of-origin washing”, while an inflow of goods from China has raised alarm in nearby countries wary of becoming staging posts for trade actually destined for the US. South Korea’s customs agency said last month it had found foreign products worth Won29.5bn ($21mn) with falsified countries of origin in the first quarter of this year, most of them coming from China and almost all destined for the US.How exporters ‘wash’ products: The growing use of the tactic underlines exporters’ fears that new tariffs of up to 145 per cent imposed by Trump on Chinese goods will deprive them of access to one of their most important markets. “The tariff is too high,” said Sarah Ou, a salesperson at Baitai Lighting, an exporter based in the southern Chinese city of Zhongshan. “[But] we can sell the goods to neighbouring countries, and then the neighbouring countries sell them on to the United States, and it will reduce.” Ou said that, like many Chinese manufacturers, Baitai shipped goods as “free on board”, under which buyers took liability for products once they left their departure port, reducing the legal risk for the exporter. “Customers only need to find ports in Guangzhou or Shenzhen, and as long as [the goods] go there, we have completed our mission . . . [after that] It’s none of our business,” she said. Read the full story.Huawei’s semiconductor ambitions: Satellite imagery obtained by the FT shows how the Chinese tech giant is building a production line for advanced chips in Shenzhen, as part of what analysts said was an “unprecedented effort to develop every part of the AI supply chain domestically”.Here’s what else I’m keeping tabs on today:Five more top stories1. Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is expected to take a bolder approach to foreign affairs and economic reform after scoring an unexpected landslide victory over the rightwing opposition party in the weekend’s election. It follows a similar result last week in Canada, where voters widely rejected that country’s rightwing party in a rebuke to Trump.2. A Dubai-based family office has announced plans to invest $8.8bn to build a “blockchain and digital assets” financial hub in the Maldives, a scheme the cash-strapped Indian Ocean archipelago hopes will help it through a looming debt crunch. Moosa Zameer, the Maldives’ finance minister, said the country needed to “take the leap” to diversify away from tourism and fisheries.3. Trump said he did not know if people in the US deserved due legal process, which is guaranteed by the American constitution, as he blasted the judiciary for thwarting his plans to deport undocumented immigrants. The comments came in a wide-ranging interview with NBC, in which Trump renewed his push to make Canada the 51st US state and insisted that he would not fire Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell. Read the full story.4. Hard-right leader George Simion has won the first round of Romania’s presidential election, according to exit polls, and will face one of two pro-EU centrists in the run-off on May 18. The vote was rerun after the success of ultranationalist politician Călin Georgescu in the first-round ballot in November was annulled by the constitutional court over allegations of Russian interference. 5. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday that Israel would hit back against the Houthis and Iran after a missile fired by the Tehran-backed militants landed near Israel’s main international airport. The attack, which injured four people, came as Israel issued call-ups to thousands of reservists in preparation for ratcheting up its offensive in Gaza.News in-depthGreg Abel. left, and Warren Buffett More

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This article is an on-site version of our The Week Ahead newsletter. Subscribers can sign up here to get the newsletter delivered every Sunday. Explore all of our newsletters hereHello and welcome to the working week.It’s anointment time. Barring last-minute blow-ups, Friedrich Merz will be confirmed as chancellor by the German parliament on Tuesday, following a press conference a day earlier to rubber stamp the coalition deal the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party leader has concluded with the Social Democratic party (SPD). Merz’s cabinet nominations, including Katherina Reiche, a senior executive at German energy group Eon, to run the economy ministry, show an impatience to get on and fix the economic and political problems facing the country. The FT’s Person in the News slot, written before Merz’s election victory, provides a handy profile of the country’s new leader.Next up, conclave. The secretive meeting of 135 Catholic cardinals starts on Wednesday in the Sistine Chapel — a rather more inspiring venue to cast votes than the school halls and community centres that many of us are used to. Kevin Farrell, the man leading the conclave, has been lauded for being “very practical”, which in current times feels like high praise indeed. The next pope will take over at an interesting time for the Catholic Church and, aside from the politics and the theology, there will be some tricky financial challenges ahead, as my colleagues explain here.It’s the 80th anniversary of VE Day on Thursday, which would be a unanimous celebration of liberty if it weren’t for the small matter of Russia’s incursions in Ukraine. President Vladimir Putin has called a 72-hour ceasefire, which would just happen to make things all nice and peachy for his Victory Day commemorations in Moscow, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is having none of it. The cloud of conflict in Europe will hang heavy over the other end of war celebrations.Enjoy your last call on Skype, the pioneering Nordic video-calling service, bought by Microsoft 14 years ago, which will be turned off on Monday. The US Big Tech group, which has done well during Trump’s first term, wants us all to instead make Teams calls. Cue soul searching about the failure of European tech start-ups. Time to read that Lunch with the FT at the table with Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström.Corporate news will flow freely this week as we canter further through the first-quarter earnings season. Trump tariffs will be a talking point as some big car manufacturers (Toyota, Ford and BMW) report numbers. Travel trends will be another strong theme, with IAG, Trainline, Marriott and IHG all reporting over the coming days. More details below.The run of economic data reports this week will be punctuated with interest rate decisions by the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England. Want to get a better understanding of monetary policy in the Trump era? Join FT economics newsletter writer Chris Giles and his Monetary Policy Radar colleagues on Wednesday for a Q&A on how central banks should navigate the new world order. You can leave your questions in the comments section here.One more thing . . . If you are in Washington this Saturday, do not miss the American edition of the FT Weekend Festival, celebrating my favourite FT days of the week. Speakers include Pink’un wine doyen Jancis Robinson, SkyBridge founder Anthony Scaramucci, author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and a clutch of FT political, business and economics columnists. Full details here.And if you want to know what else to do in the US capital next weekend, read the FT Globetrotter guide.What are your plans for the next seven days? Am I missing anything? Email me at [email protected] or, if you are reading this from your inbox, hit reply.Key economic and company reportsHere is a more complete list of what to expect in terms of company reports and economic data this week.MondayMicrosoft closes Skype, the pioneering video-calling service it acquired for $8.5bn 14 years agoMilken Global Conference continues in Los Angeles. US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent is among the listed speakers over the four-day eventCanada, US: S&P Global services purchasing managers’ index (PMI) dataChina: Labor Day holiday continues. Financial markets closedJapan: Children’s Day. Financial markets closedTurkey: April consumer price index (CPI) and producer price index (PPI) inflation rate dataSouth Korea: Birth of the Buddha. Financial markets closedUK: Early May bank holiday. Financial markets closedUS: Conference Board monthly employment indexResults: Clorox Q3, CRH Q1, Cummins Q1, Ford Motor Company Q1, IAC Q1, Loews Q1, Mattel Q1, ON Semiconductor Q1, Tyson Foods Q2, Westpac HYTuesdayChina, Eurozone, France, Germany, India, Italy, UK: S&P Global services PMI dataFrance: INSEE March industrial production indexJapan: Greenery Day public holiday. Financial markets closedSouth Korea: Children’s Day. Financial markets closedUK: April international reserves dataUS: March goods and services trade figuresResults: Archer Daniels Midland Q1, Arista Networks Q1, AXA Q1, Continental Q1, Diamondback Energy Q1, Duke Energy Q1, Electronic Arts Q4/FY, Embraer Q1, Fortune Brands Innovations Q1, Gartner Q1, Geberit Q1, Hugo Boss Q1, IWG Q1, IQVIA Q1, Leidos Q1, Marriott Q1, Philips Q1, Telenor Q1, Williams Q1WednesdayEurozone, France, Germany, Italy, UK: S&P Global/HCOB construction PMI dataEU: March retail trade figuresGermany: March industrial orders dataJapan: au Jibun Bank services PMI dataUS: Federal Open Market Committee interest rate announcementResults: Ahold Delhaize Q1, Arm Holdings Q4/FY, Axon Enterprise Q1, BMW Q1, Bunge Q1, Card Factory FY, Carr’s Group HY, CDW Q1, Disney Q2, DoorDash Q1, Fortis Q1, Flutter Entertainment Q1, Johnson Controls Q2, Legrand Q1, National Australia Bank HY, Pandora Q1, Pitney Bowes Q1, RHI Magnesita Q1 trading update, Skanska Q1, Smiths News HY, Trainline FY, Tripadvisor Q1, Uber Q1, Vistra Q1, Vonovia Q1, JD Wetherspoon Q3 trading statement, Wolters Kluwer Q1ThursdayMaria Ramos becomes Standard Chartered chair, succeeding José Viñals who retires at the conclusion of the company’s annual meetingGermany: March foreign trade figuresJapan: minutes of the March rate-setting meeting publishedUK: Bank of England interest rate announcement and meeting minutes published. Also, Halifax House Price IndexResults: Adecco Q1, Akamai Q1, Anheuser-Busch InBev Q1, ANZ HY, Balfour Beatty AGM and trading statement, Brookfield Q1, ConocoPhillips Q1, Enel Q1, Expedia Q1, Federal Realty Investment Trust Q1, Grafton AGM and trading update, Heidelberg Materials Q1, Helios Towers Q1, Henkel Q1, HgCapital Trust Q1, IMI Q1 trading update, Infineon Q2, InterContinental Hotels Group Q1, Lyft Q1, Match Group Q1, Mondi Q1 trading update, News Corp Q3, Next Q1 trading statement, Nikon FY, Nintendo FY, Paramount Q1, Pinterest Q1, Puma Q1, Rathbones AGM and trading update, Renishaw trading statement, Swisscom Q1, TBC Bank Q1, Toyota FY, Viatris Q1, Warner Bros Discovery Q1, Zurich Insurance Q1FridayBank of England governor Andrew Bailey gives the keynote address at the Reykjavik economic conference 2025, hosted by Northwestern University and the Central Bank of IcelandCanada: April labour market figuresChina: April trade figuresResults: Commerzbank Q1, IAG Q1, Macquarie FY, Nippon Steel Q4, Nippon Telegraph & Telephone FY, Panasonic FY, Rightmove AGM and trading updateWorld eventsFinally, here is a rundown of other events and milestones this week.MondayFrance: rail passengers are set to be hit by industrial action over the early May public holiday. The CGT-Cheminots, SNCF’s largest union, has called for an indefinite strike starting today, pushing for better pay for driversItaly: 58th annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank’s board of governors continues in Milan, the first time Italy is hosting the eventUK: Members of the armed forces will march from Parliament Square, kicking off a week of 80th VE Day anniversary events, including a recitation of Winston Churchill’s victory speech as Big Ben strikes midday, and a military fly-past over central LondonUS: The Costume Institute Benefit, aka the Met Ball, where celebrities parade in front of the cameras, takes place at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Separately, the 109th annual Pulitzer Prize winners and nominated finalists are announced online for prizes in journalism, drama, letters and musicTuesdayGermany: Friedrich Merz set to be voted as the country’s new chancellor by members of the BundestagHong Kong: Bun Scrambling Final, part of the annual Cheung Chau Bun Festival, in which contestants attempt to scale a 14-metre tower of buns with luck being promised to the person who successfully retrieves the highest bunWednesdayDenmark: Copenhagen Climate Ministerial, co-hosted by Danish climate, energy and utilities minister Lars Aagaard, COP30 president-designate ambassador André Corrêa do Lago and outgoing COP29 president Mukhtar Babayev. Discussions at the two-day meeting will revolve around implementation of last year’s COP29 plans and the key expectations for this year’s COP30Russia: 25th anniversary of Vladimir Putin first being made presidentVatican City: conclave to elect the next pope beginsThursdayVE Day celebrated in various western capitals, 80 years on from the German surrenderUkraine: Putin due to begin a 72-hour ceasefire by the Russian army in its war with the neighbouring stateFridayEU: Europe Day, marking the 1950 declaration by the Luxembourg-born French statesman Robert Schuman proposing a continent united in solidarity, considered the first step towards the EU being formedItaly: 108th annual Giro d’Italia men’s cycling race starts, the first Grand Tour of the season ahead of the Tour de France and Vuelta a EspañaRussia: Victory Day, marking the date when German forces surrendered to the Soviet army in 1945, commemorated with a military parade in Moscow’s Red Square and wreath-laying at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Attendees this year are set to include Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic. SaturdayUK: Republic, the group campaigning to abolish the British monarchy, will stage a rally in London’s Trafalgar Square with artists, activist speakers and a 15ft fully mobile Tyrannosaurus rex called Chuck the RexUS: FT Weekend Festival in WashingtonSundayAlbania: general electionAustralia, Canada, US: Mother’s DaySouth Korea: registration deadline for presidential candidates hoping to run in the June 3 electionUK: 2025 Bafta Television Awards ceremony in central LondonUS: SelectUSA Investment Summit begins, hosted by the commerce department at National Harbor, Maryland, aimed at attracting foreign direct investmentRecommended newsletters for youWhite House Watch — What Trump’s second term means for Washington, business and the world. Sign up hereFT Opinion — Insights and judgments from top commentators. Sign up here More

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.A Dubai-based family office has announced plans to invest $8.8bn to build a “blockchain and digital assets” financial hub in the Maldives, a scheme the cash-strapped Indian Ocean archipelago hopes will help it through a looming debt crunch.The planned investment led by family office MBS Global Investments over five years would exceed the Maldives’ annual GDP of around $7bn, but Moosa Zameer, finance minister, said the country needed to “take the leap” to diversify away from tourism and fisheries. Debt coming due in the next two years was “the biggest challenge that we have”, Zameer told the Financial Times in a video interview, adding that the deal was “something we see as a potential contributor to bring us out of certain difficulties that we are in”. MBS, which says it manages assets worth approximately $14bn, is the family office of a wealthy Qatari, Sheikh Nayef bin Eid Al Thani. It plans to finance the Maldives investment by tapping its network of family offices and high net worth individuals to form a consortium.MBS’s chief executive Nadeem Hussain said the phased project could be funded through equity and debt and that firm commitments “north of” $4bn-$5bn had already been secured. “We appreciated right from the offset what was involved in terms of funding and we’ve made the necessary alliances and brought in the necessary partners to ensure we have that,” said Hussain. “It is a large sum of money.”MBS and the Maldives government signed a joint venture agreement on the project on Sunday.According to the project master plan, the Maldives International Financial Centre will be a 830,000 sq m hub able to host 6,500 people and provide employment for 16,000 in the capital Malé.A “financial freezone for blockchain and digital assets globally”, it would aim to triple the Maldives’ GDP within four years and generate revenue of “well over $1bn by the fifth year”, the master plan said.The announced investment comes only months after India unveiled a $760mn bailout for the Maldives to stave off a possible sovereign default.In December, rating agency Moody’s noted Maldives’ “external liquidity pressures remain heightened given substantial external debt obligations”, including $600mn-$700mn due this year and around $1bn in 2026, including a $500mn sukuk, a form of debt that follows Islamic strictures against interest.Zameer acknowledged the role India and China had played as “development partners” to his country, but said the financial centre deal offered a new model. “With MBS we are getting into business, it’s going to be a business which is totally different from the traditional models of borrowings that we do,” the finance minister said.The archipelago’s advantages include political stability, good connectivity and proximity to big markets such as India and the Gulf countries. But one senior Indian businessperson said it “won’t be easy” for Malé to become a regional financial centre, particularly given the competition from established hubs such as Dubai and Mauritius. More

When Donald Trump announced this week that American children will have to make do with fewer toys at Christmas, unflattering comparisons were drawn to noted figures from history.“It sounded like Marie Antoinette saying ‘let them eat cake’,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster.Economists and businessmen have been warning for weeks that the president’s 145 per cent tariff on China will raise prices for ordinary Americans. The White House has consistently pushed back on that narrative.But on Wednesday the mask slipped. Trump said China had made a “trillion dollars . . . selling us stuff, [and] much of it we don’t need”.He said people had been warning of empty shelves and “maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls . . . and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally”. But “we have to make a fair deal”, he added.A toy company’s production line in Lianyungang, China. Trump’s comments are part of a flurry of statements from the White House belittling the trade with China More