Aurelia Butler

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for freeYour guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the worldUS President Donald Trump has revoked security clearances for Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton, his former rivals for the White House, as he expands his campaign of retribution against political opponents. Trump announced on Friday night that the former vice-president, and former First Lady and secretary of state, would be included in a list of individuals he wants stripped of access to sensitive government information. He defeated Clinton in the 2016 presidential election and Harris in 2024.Trump’s list also included Fiona Hill, the Russia expert who has been critical of his stance towards the war in Ukraine both during his first term in office and recently, as he has sought to broker a settlement of the conflict. “I have determined that it is no longer in the national interest for the following individuals to have access to classified information,” Trump wrote in a memo to the heads of government agencies. Trump had already included Joe Biden in the roster of people who should be deprived of security clearances, along with some of the former president’s top aides including Jake Sullivan, the former national security adviser, and Antony Blinken, the former secretary of state. Trump’s move highlights the extent to which he is using the first months of his second presidency to target political foes. This includes Democrats and also Republicans who have opposed his return to office, such as Liz Cheney, the former Wyoming congresswoman who was also stripped of her security clearances. Trump has also targeted Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, and Letitia James, the New York State attorney-general, after they brought legal cases against him, including one that led to his conviction for falsifying business records last year. The rescission of security clearances for former officials and political foes is the latest instance of Trump gnawing away at the norms of US democracy, including the notion that even political critics of the president might need to access sensitive information. The move comes amid broader concerns that Trump is testing the limits of his constitutional powers in his efforts to deport and detain certain immigrants, as well as his sweeping drive to gut the federal government with mass firings and spending freezes. More

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Global investors are pulling their money out of south-east Asia as concerns mount over the region’s largest economies and many traders rotate back into Chinese equities.Indonesia and Thailand, the region’s two biggest economies, have seen foreign equity outflows in the year to date, while their stock markets have been some of the worst performing this year.Indonesian stocks fell to their lowest in four years this week — though they have since recovered some of the losses — while the rupiah is trading near five-year lows. The Jakarta Composite stock benchmark extended losses on Friday, dropping 1.2 per cent.The MSCI Indonesia index is down about 16 per cent from the start of the year in US dollar terms. The MSCI Thailand is down just over 12 per cent in the same timeframe.The sell-off, driven by economic concerns in both countries, has been exacerbated by a global trade war sparked by US President Donald Trump as well as regional fund managers rotating their money away from the region and towards China.Foreign investors have pulled a net $1.3bn from Indonesian markets and $500mn from Thai equities this year, while putting $13bn into Chinese equities, according to figures from the Institute of International Finance. Chinese equities have been some of the best-performing assets globally this year, as investors pile into tech stocks in the wake of Chinese start-up DeepSeek’s advances in artificial intelligence. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index is up more than 20 per cent since the beginning of the year.“It’s hard to take a strong call on south-east Asian markets when China is back in the equation,” said Daniel Ng, Asian equities investment manager at Aberdeen.South-east Asia could also be hit by Trump’s tariffs, warned analysts, not least because of a flood of rerouted exports from China.“With trade war risks pushing down commodity prices and China exporting more to the rest of the world, countries that are more vulnerable to these factors will be more exposed,” said Trinh Nguyen, senior economist for emerging Asian markets at Natixis.Some content could not load. Check your internet connection or browser settings.Indonesian assets have been hit by concerns over slowing economic growth and President Prabowo Subianto’s expansionary fiscal policies.Since he took office in October, the rupiah has fallen about 6 per cent against the dollar. It is one of the world’s worst-performing currencies this year alongside the Turkish lira and Argentine peso.Weakening purchasing power and falling consumer confidence have raised concerns about growth in south-east Asia’s largest economy at a time when investors are also worried about fiscal discipline. Prabowo has planned a nationwide free meals programme for schoolchildren and pregnant mothers at an expected cost of $28bn a year.Other policies, such as the launch of a new sovereign wealth fund, Danantara, have also rattled investors. The new fund, which will report directly to the president and manage some of the country’s largest companies, has raised fears of political interference and lax governance.“Investors are jittery [about Indonesia] arguably more so than they were during the early stages of the pandemic,” said Darren Tay, head of Asia-Pacific country risk at BMI, a unit of Fitch Solutions.Outflows from Indonesia are expected to continue. “In an environment of high macro policy and political uncertainty, the risk of outflows from the equity market remains visible, not only from foreign but also resident investors,” said Helmi Arman, Citi’s chief economist for Indonesia.Thailand, south-east Asia’s second-largest economy, has also been grappling with slower consumption and private investment. At about 90 per cent of GDP, its household debt is one of the highest in Asia and severely limiting consumer spending.The country is also heavily exposed to Trump’s tariffs given its large trade surplus with the US. Analysts at Bank of America estimated that a 10 per cent US tariff on Thai exports could shave 0.2-0.3 per cent off its GDP.“Thailand’s economic outlook remains challenging, with manufacturing stagnation, slowing tourism, and muted domestic demand,” analysts wrote. “While monetary easing may help, structural reforms are urgently needed to boost productivity and attract investment. Without proactive investment and ambitious reforms, Thailand risks falling into a low-growth trap.”Data by Haohsiang Ko More

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Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for freeYour guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the worldThe Federal Communications Commission is investigating several Chinese telecom companies, including Huawei and China Telecom, over concerns that some of them are ignoring restrictions on their operations in the US.The regulator said it had opened a “sweeping investigation” into Chinese groups that also include ZTE, a big telecoms equipment provider, and Hikvision, the world’s largest maker of surveillance cameras. It is also targeting China Mobile International USA, and the US subsidiaries of China Telecom, and China Unicom.FCC chair Brendan Carr said the agency believed some groups were ignoring previous US efforts to address security threats from China. The FCC has previously revoked some authorisations to operate in the US, and placed some companies on the “covered list” of groups from which the government cannot buy products because they are thought to pose a security threat.“We have reason to believe that, despite those actions, some or all of these covered list entities are trying to make an end run around those FCC prohibitions by continuing to do business in America on a private or ‘unregulated’ basis,” Carr said. “We are not going to just look the other way.” The probe comes as US-China tensions remain high over a range of security and foreign policy issues. The two countries are also engaged in a new trade war after President Donald Trump imposed two rounds of 10 per cent tariffs on imports from China, sparking retaliatory action from Beijing against US agriculture produce and other goods.In recent years, US concerns about the potential for Chinese telecom groups, such as Huawei, to help Beijing engage in espionage have soared. China insists that Huawei and other companies are not engaging in spying.Carr, who was recently appointed chair by Trump, said the FCC would determine the scope of the targeted companies’ ongoing activities in the US and would “move quickly to close any loopholes that have permitted untrustworthy, foreign adversary state-backed actors to skirt our rules”. The FCC has sent letters to the companies seeking information about their operations, and has sent a subpoena to one of the firms.Carr said the move was the first big action being taken by a new council on national security that he recently set up to increase the agency’s focus on telecom and cyber-related threats from adversaries, but particularly China.The FCC said it was seeking detailed information about ongoing operations in the US by the companies it was targeting and was trying to determine if the targets of the probe were receiving help from any other companies.“I’m pleased to see Chairman Carr and the Trump administration taking the fight to Chinese Communist controlled telecoms companies,” Tom Cotton, the Republican head of the Senate intelligence committee, wrote on X. “These firms are little more than fronts for the repressive and corrupt Chinese intelligence apparatus.”The other targets are two-way radio maker Hytera Communications, Dahua Technology, which makes surveillance cameras, and Pacifica Networks Corp, a telecoms provider and its subsidiary ComNet.The Chinese embassy in Washington said Beijing “opposes overstretching the concept of national security, using national apparatus to bring down Chinese companies”. Spokesperson Liu Pengyu added: “We oppose turning trade and technological issues into political weapons.”  More

Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for freeYour guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the worldFor a country that has been the target of US President Donald Trump’s ire over trade, drugs and migrants, Mexico is proving surprisingly resilient. The country’s benchmark IPC stock index is up 7 per cent this year, compared with the S&P 500’s 4 per cent drop and Canada’s TSX index’s 1.8 per cent gain. The peso has also held up well, rallying 2.5 per cent against the dollar since January. This is a testament to Mexico’s newly elected President Claudia Sheinbaum’s ability to navigate tensions and negotiate a delay on tariffs for the country’s exports. If this continues, Mexico’s assets could end up being among 2025’s unexpected winners. Betting on Mexico’s equity market is not as counterintuitive as it sounds. True, the two countries’ economic ties run deep: 82 per cent of Mexico’s exports went to the US last year. However, its publicly listed companies are largely domestically focused, leaving them relatively sheltered from direct tariff risk. Mexican stocks have also become cheap. The country’s stock market fell 13 per cent last year. Sheinbaum’s landslide victory last summer had spooked investors, who worried that her promise to expand the welfare policies would widen the country’s budget deficit and weigh down on economic growth. Trump’s return to the White House added to concerns. The IPC index is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of just 11 times, below its historical average of about 14-15 times.This leaves room for upside — provided Sheinbaum can continue to carve out reprieves from US tariffs. Unlike Canada’s Justin Trudeau, who stepped down as prime minister this month, Sheinbaum has been deft at reading and handling her US counterpart. Rather than trading barbs and retaliatory threats, she has emphasised co-operation and Mexico’s efforts to secure the border and fight fentanyl trafficking. That was enough to earn Trump’s respect: he has called her “tough.” Longer term, the risk for Mexican equities is that the effects of the trade war could start trickling through the real economy into domestic consumption. Analysts at Capital Economics reckon a 25 per cent tariff on all US imports from Mexico could result in a 1 per cent contraction of the economy. But for now at least, investors seem to trust that Sheinbaum’s approach to Trump is the right [email protected] More

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Howay the mangoes. After years, possibly decades, of injustice, the most popular fruit among Britons that is not already in the Office for National Statistics’ inflation basket finally will be. And it’s not a victory for the mango alone. As a result of this tweak by Newport’s stat-wranglers, the overall “representation of stone fruit” has been positively addressed, bringing peace to millions.Cooing over updates to the ONS’s inflation basket — the items whose prices it observes to track inflation — has become something of an annual tradition in the UK. This year, virtual reality headsets and exercise mats got the nod, while DVD rentals and local newspaper adverts found themselves chopped.Such shifts are inevitably characterised as capturing the consumer zeitgeist, reflecting the latest trends in fashion, food and other frivolities. Which, really, they don’t. The ONS’s technical manual on the compilation of the consumer prices index warns that items in the basket (which, with more than 750 items, is really more of a trolley) “should not be afforded significance beyond their purpose as representative items”.“Indeed, within each product grouping there is usually a point at which the number, choice of items and the precise weights attached to them become a matter of judgement,” it continues.Whose judgment? It’s never been entirely clear what heuristic the ONS deploys when reviewing the basket’s contents, turning the whole exercise into something of a casual vibe check (and a nice opportunity for some easy publicity).Justifying the inclusion of VR headsets, the stats body claimed such products had “seen rapidly increasing expenditure in recent years”, pointing to “around £347mn” of sales. I asked the ONS where it got that very high number from and it turned out to be an estimate from a free market research report by Statista.It’s not the only area of inflation collection where questionable judgment exercises are taking place. Obviously, corralling the hundreds who observe prices each month is an enormously complicated task. To address this, the ONS produces often highly detailed guidance on what exactly the price-hunters should be looking for.I recently acquired this guidance using freedom of information laws. It makes for interesting reading, driving home just how strange an exercise price-gathering is.Take for example a “child’s soft toy/teddy bear”. Agents are told these can be of any type or size, and are asked to record whether the toy is sitting or standing. But importantly — in a piece of writing that evokes some unforgivable past error — the guidance states: “No hand puppets”.An “individual meat pie” must be sold cold, but can be eaten heated. Slices and pasties are acceptable for this category, but a pork pie is not. Quiches, by contrast, are positively laissez faire — any mix of ingredients is allowed, as long as the quiche itself stays in the 340g-450g weight category.Other items are less clear. A “wall hanging mirror” may be any shape as long as it doesn’t exceed 1.5 square metres in size. Last March, agents observed one mirror in this category that cost £1.99, and another that cost £3,695. Both prices were deemed acceptable — thankfully, they use a median average rather than a mean.The ONS is trying to improve how it gathers prices. A potentially significant change — recently postponed — is to use scanner data from supermarkets to capture prices on a previously impossible scale.Zoom in and the basket approach will probably always appear absurd. The hope is that by stepping back, the bigger picture will make more [email protected] More

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Flick through sell-side research notes from the end of last year and you’ll find plenty of analysts crowing about “US exceptionalism”, China’s “uninvestability” and Europe’s dull stock markets. In the two months since President Donald Trump’s inauguration, that’s all changed. A Bank of America survey of fund managers this week revealed that equity allocations to the US had fallen by the most on record in March. Money has been flowing rapidly west to east. The valuations of European and Chinese companies finally have uplift.The White House’s tariff-raising agenda, America-first foreign policy and all-round unpredictability has dramatically altered the economic assumptions underpinning long-held market narratives. At home, Trump’s determination to raise import duties, despite concerns over higher prices and supply chain disruption, is sapping business confidence. That’s despite multibillion-dollar commitments by Nvidia and TSMC to invest in chip manufacturing in the US. Indeed, consumers — the basis of America’s recent economic outperformance — are now making cutbacks.Understandably, then, investors are looking for somewhere else to put their cash. In Europe, the president’s threats to Nato have jolted Germany and the EU more broadly to promise more defence spending. This has sparked demand for Europe’s industrial stocks. Some analysts now even speak of “europhoria.”Not all market shifts emanate from Trump. Expensive US stocks were long due a correction. In China, technological advances have rebuilt faith in its private sector. DeepSeek has surprised tech analysts with its advanced artificial intelligence model using cheap chips. On Monday, electric vehicle maker BYD unveiled a battery that can charge in five minutes. Beijing has played a role too. It has stepped up stimulus support for the deflating economy. It has announced a plan to “vigorously boost” weak consumption, but investors want more details.Policymakers are also trying to keep up with the shifting economic and geopolitical sands. Central bankers are flustered. The Bank of Japan, US Federal Reserve and Bank of England all met this week, held interest rates and raised concerns over the uncertain outlook. On Wednesday, reflecting the stagflationary effects of Trump’s on-and-off tariffs, the Fed slashed its growth forecasts and raised its inflation projections. The foggy trade-off between weaker economic activity and higher inflation expectations complicates its decision on interest rates, and raises the risk of a policy error. In Europe, governments are also fretting over how to finance higher defence spending. With Covid-19 debt piles still a drag, further borrowing risks pushing up the cost of credit even further. Though Germany has fiscal room, its spending plans have already pushed up European bond yields. In China, the need to bolster consumer demand may be affected by a desire to hold back fiscal firepower to support exporters, depending on how the trade war with America advances. The prospect of retaliatory tariff measures also somewhat damps the growth outlook in the EU and China.In uncertain times, it may be tempting to lean on the optimistic market themes that have developed in Europe and China. But it will still be some time before either can exert the level of influence America has across the global economy and financial markets. A weaker economic outlook in America tends to dent global prospects at large. Investors burnt by the recent plunge in the peerless S&P 500 face an uphill battle to recoup losses by investing abroad. Many will hope the US regains its poise. Even then, the danger is that the recent loss of confidence in America’s exceptionalism leaves a lasting mark. 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. A fire near Heathrow in west London has shut the airport, causing travel chaos around the world. We will bring you the latest and this is what else we are covering: Plans to transfer defence powers from USDisney’s controversial Snow White remakeTrump’s assault on the US’s liberal eliteAnd can Ozempic become a weapon of war?Hundreds of thousands of airline passengers face delays and cancellations today after a fire near London’s Heathrow forced the airport to close.More than 1,300 flights have been cancelled following the fire at an electrical substation near the airport which blazed throughout the night. The West London fire brigade said it brought the fire “under control” early this morning but that the cause of the blaze was not yet known.A total of 679 flights were scheduled to land and 678 flights were scheduled to take off from Heathrow today, according to data from Flightradar24, an aviation tracking service. Planes arriving from North America and Asia earlier this morning were redirected to other airports in the UK and across Europe, including Shannon in Ireland, Frankfurt in Germany and Paris Charles de Gaulle after the unprecedented outage.Heathrow, which last year handled nearly 84mn passengers, is now facing questions over how a fire at one electrical substation could knock out its entire operations for 24 hours. An executive said that while the airport did have backup power options for its key systems, these did not all necessarily kick in immediately. Our live blog is following developments and will be updated throughout the day.And here’s what else we’re keeping tabs on today and over the weekend:Germany: The country’s upper house of parliament is expected to pass a historic constitutional reform to borrowing rules, including a €500bn fund for infrastructure and de facto unlimited spending for defence and security.Monetary policy: Federal Reserve Bank of New York president John Williams gives a speech in Nassau, Bahamas. Chile‘s central bank is expected to hold its benchmark interest rate at 5 per cent.China Development Forum: Global business leaders gather in Beijing for the annual conference, which begins on Sunday.How well did you keep up with the news this week? Take our quiz.Five more top stories1. Europe’s biggest military powers are drawing up plans to take on greater responsibilities for the continent’s defence from the US, including a pitch to the Trump administration for a managed transfer over the next five to 10 years. The discussions are an attempt to avoid the chaos of a unilateral US withdrawal from Nato.2. Israel’s cabinet has voted unanimously to sack the head of the Shin Bet internal security agency, Ronen Bar, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had lost confidence in his domestic spy chief. Tensions between Netanyahu and Bar have simmered since Hamas’s devastating October 7 2023 attack on Israel.3. Global companies have started to drop climate goals from executive pay plans as the corporate world retreats from ESG initiatives in the face of fierce US opposition and mounting costs. Here are the groups that have changed sustainability targets.4. The live-action remake of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs has dragged Disney back into the culture wars despite chief executive Bob Iger’s attempts to lower the political temperature. The controversies appear to have dented box office prospects for the film, which opens in cinemas today.5. Deloitte, PwC and KPMG have launched a scathing attack on the Internal Revenue Service, which they accused of “a pattern of arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable conduct” towards multinational companies that risks eroding confidence in the US tax system. The claims about the US tax authority appeared in a court filing this week involving Coca-Cola. Today’s Big Read© Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesColumbia University, USAID, the Department of Education and Voice of America have all been targeted in recent weeks by President Donald Trump and his supporters. It is part of a multipronged assault on America’s elite that includes Ivy League universities, judges and Trump’s favourite punchbag — the liberal media. We’re also reading . . . Chart of the daySome content could not load. Check your internet connection or browser settings.Mark Carney, Canada’s new prime minister, is on Sunday expected to fire the starting gun in his country’s general election. Carney will announce the poll less than a fortnight after replacing Justin Trudeau as head of Canada’s Liberal party, which has seen its popularity soar in response to threats of annexation and punitive tariffs from US President Donald Trump. The election campaign will pit Carney against Conservative party leader Pierre Poilievre. Here’s how they stand in the polls.Take a break from the news . . . The FT’s food and drink experts — Jay Rayner, Marina O’Loughlin, Jancis Robinson and Tim Hayward — have a combined century-plus of experience as professional diners and have strong opinions on how to make the most of eating out in 2025. But when those views were sent to a panel of the world’s most esteemed food connoisseurs they were ripped to shreds.© Tim BouckleyRecommended newsletters for youOne Must-Read — Remarkable journalism you won’t want to miss. Sign up hereNewswrap — Our business and economics round-up. Sign up here More