Finance

It is a tenet of Donald Trump’s economic philosophy that trade deficits are bad for growth. It can also seem like a cornerstone of GDP releases. On April 30th the Bureau of Economic Analysis said that America’s economy shrank at an annual pace of 0.3% in the first quarter of 2025, the first such decline in three years. This, the bureau said, “primarily reflected an increase in imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP”. Mr Trump, apparently embarrassed by the contraction, blamed a “Biden overhang”. But though it was a bad day for him, it was a good one for Trumponomics, as headlines spread the message that imports are an economic drag. More

Sobriety is taking over the world. The amount of alcohol consumed globally is probably in decline for the first time in history. Across rich countries many members of Gen Z—born after the late 1990s—are shunning alcohol entirely: 30% of Americans in their 20s did not drink in the previous year. Even in France young professionals no longer have a pichet of wine with lunch. More

This was supposed to be the year when initial public offerings (IPOs) came roaring back. Late in 2024 stockmarkets were hitting all-time highs and a cluster of privately owned superstars, with valuations in the tens or hundreds of billions of dollars, were preparing to go public. But now the market is frozen. As the world’s trading system disintegrates before bosses’ eyes, deals of all sorts, whether IPOs or mergers, have ground to a halt. More

THE PAPAL conclave is not the only powwow in Italy scheduled for May 7th. As the cardinal-electors process into the Sistine Chapel, the directors of Assicurazioni Generali, the country’s biggest insurer, will gather in Milan. On their minds (but not the agenda) is a €6.3bn ($7.2bn) offer for Banca Generali, a wealth manager of which the group owns half. The bid, made on April 28th by Mediobanca, Italy’s pivotal investment bank, is the latest effort to consolidate a crowded financial sector. More

“HAVE YOU heard of the eye of the storm?” asks a video posted on April 29th by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The centre of a tornado or cyclone can be deceptively calm. But it is actually a “deadly trap”. The world is caught in a similar spot, the ministry argues, thanks to the “tariff storm” America has conjured up. More

As financial decisions go, borrowing several times your annual earnings to buy a risky asset is a pretty big one. Yet for many people, taking out a mortgage to buy a house is something of a no-brainer. It generally involves less agonising than, say, how much to save for retirement, or how to split your pot between cash, stocks and bonds. More

Attendees arrive at the auditorium of the CHI Health Center during the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, US, on Saturday, May 6, 2023. 
David Williams | Bloomberg | Getty Images

For decades, Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting — Warren Buffett’s “Woodstock for Capitalists” — has attracted foreign investors traveling to Omaha, Nebraska, sometimes from thousands of miles away. This year, their international trip has a new wrinkle to it.
Xin Jin, a Chinese investor in Guangzhou, wanted to pay his second visit to Omaha this May but international travel in the current political climate worried him. In 2012, he poured half his assets into Berkshire’s stock, which became one of the most profitable names in his portfolio.

“I really want to go to Omaha this year,” Jin said. “I admire Buffett and I’m very touched by him.”
A consumer-focused Chinese investor in Shanghai who didn’t want to be named but who has attended the annual meeting three times, also said the hostile political environment kept him from traveling this year. Another Chinese shareholder noted there are fewer third-party agencies organizing trips to Omaha this time. One shareholder in Jakarta, Indonesia, who attended last year decided to stay home, saying he’s concerned about “unnecessary and unfounded issues with customs.”
This year’s meeting comes after President Donald Trump launched a global trade war in the early days of his second term, intensifying political tensions between the U.S. and other nations. China, in particular, has issued a risk alert for Chinese tourists traveling to the U.S., citing recent “deterioration of China-U.S. economic and trade relations and the domestic security situation in the U.S.”
“What I noticed the last couple of years, the demographics of the shareholders tilted a lot more towards international — shareholders being there for the first time, largely international and very young,” said David Kass, a finance professor at the University of Maryland, who once held private lunches for his students and Buffett.
Berkshire’s annual gathering can attract as many as 40,000 people to the Cornhusker State for a unique opportunity to hear from Buffett, his designated successor Greg Abel and Berkshire’s insurance chief, Ajit Jain. The Q&A session will be broadcast on CNBC and webcast in English and Mandarin.

Buffett, 94, has long acknowledged the growing international representation at his annual gathering. In fact, he and his late partner, Charlie Munger, used to hold special receptions for those traveling from outside North America. He eventually ended the event as the number of foreign attendees grew.
“Our count grew to about 800 last year, and my simply signing one item per person took about 2 1⁄2 hours,” Buffett said in annual letter in 2009. “Since we expect even more international visitors this year, Charlie and I decided we must drop this function. But be assured, we welcome every international visitor who comes.”
— Additional reporting by CNBC’s Evelyn Cheng.

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“The modern financial system is broken, it’s slow, it’s expensive,” Eric Trump told CNBC in the UAE.
The executive vice president of the Trump Organization has made frequent visits to the desert sheikhdom in recent years as it rapidly becomes a global hub for cryptocurrency.
A vocal advocate of digital currencies, the younger Trump lauded decentralized finance as a way to bypass the costs and lack of privacy of traditional banks.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Eric Trump has a warning for banks: change the way you operate, or go extinct.
“The modern financial system is broken, it’s slow, it’s expensive,” the executive vice president of the Trump Organization told CNBC’s Dan Murphy in Dubai while discussing the United Arab Emirates’ development as a cryptocurrency hub.

“There’s nothing that can be done on blockchain that can’t be done better than the way that the current financial institutions are working. SWIFT is an absolute disaster,” Eric Trump said on Tuesday, referring to the global international messaging network for financial transactions.
He lambasted what he described as the slowness and inefficiency of the traditional banking system, calling it “antiquated” — a criticism held by many, especially crypto enthusiasts.
The second son of U.S. President Donald Trump has made frequent visits to the UAE in recent years amid expanding Trump-branded real estate projects in the country and wider Gulf region — and as the desert sheikhdom rapidly becomes a global hub for cryptocurrency.
A vocal advocate of digital currencies, Eric Trump in December predicted that bitcoin would reach $1 million while attending the Bitcoin MENA 2024 conference in Abu Dhabi. 

Crypto markets have proven to be highly volatile amid a sell-off of risk assets, stoked by President Trump’s trade tariffs imposed on countries worldwide. Bitcoin was trading around $95,357 late Tuesday.

“Our banking system favors the ultra-wealthy,” Eric Trump said. “And what actually got me into [cryptocurrency] is the fact I realized our banking system was weaponized against the vast majority of people in our country, either the people that don’t have the zeros on their balance sheet, or people who might have worn that red hat that said ‘Make America Great Again.’ And it forced me into the crypto world. And I’m telling you, if the banks don’t watch what’s coming, they’re going to be extinct in 10 years.”

A new era for crypto?

His criticism of banks comes as the sector attempts to navigate the rapidly growing cryptocurrency industry, which is decentralizing finance and eliminating the need for traditional intermediaries like banks.
Decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms enable peer-to-peer transactions with competitive or zero transaction processing and account fees, which have typically been a source of revenue for traditional banks.
“You can open up a DeFi app right now, you can open up any cryptocurrency app, and you can send money, wallet to wallet, instantaneously, without the expense, without the variability” of banks, Eric Trump said.
Some financial giants, including JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs, have launched blockchain networks and crypto trading desks in response to the growing popularity of digital currencies.

Still, critics of the relatively new asset class warn that its lack of regulation, security vulnerabilities, volatility and limited consumer protections pose serious risks for users.

The Trump administration has vowed to ring in a booming era for the crypto industry, and both President Trump and his wife Melania have launched their own meme coins, leading to concerns from ethics experts about potential conflicts of interest. The Trump family is also at the helm of crypto platform World Liberty Financial, which was co-founded with real estate billionaire and current White House Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.
Eric Trump and his older brother Donald Trump Jr. recently announced plans to launch a U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin through World Liberty Financial, and in March launched a new bitcoin mining company called American Bitcoin, co-founded with Hut 8 CEO Asher Genoot.
The UAE, meanwhile, continues to attract international crypto investors, startups, exchanges, and highly-attended events in the sector, thanks in large part to supportive government regulations for the crypto industry. Eric Trump and others in both the Trump Organization and the White House administration have lauded their relationships with Arab Gulf leaders, praising what they see as key growth markets with pro-business policies.

Eric Trump’s comments come ahead of his father’s planned visit to the Gulf region from May 13 to 16, during which he is expected to stop in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Trump will be the first U.S. president to visit the Emirati sheikhdom since George W. Bush in 2008. 
The trip is emblematic of the Trump administration’s warm ties with Gulf governments; during his first presidential term, President Trump’s first overseas visit was to Saudi Arabia. More