Ukraine and US agree minerals deal

Good morning and welcome again to FirstFT Asia. In at this time’s e-newsletter:

• Ukraine agrees minerals cope with US

• How the state is propping up China’s housing market

• Singapore’s finest — and worst — buildings

Kyiv has agreed phrases with Washington on a minerals deal that Ukrainian officers hope will enhance relations with the Trump administration and pave the way in which for a long-term US safety dedication.

Ukrainian officers say Kyiv is now able to signal the settlement on collectively creating its mineral sources, together with oil and fuel, after the US dropped calls for for a proper to $500bn in potential income from exploiting the sources.

The unique draft’s extremely onerous phrases — which President Donald Trump introduced as a way of Ukraine repaying the US for army and monetary help since Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion — provoked outrage in Kyiv and different European capitals. 

Though the textual content lacks express safety ensures, the officers argued that they’d negotiated much more beneficial phrases and depicted the deal as a approach of broadening the connection with the US to shore up Ukraine’s prospects after three years of battle.

“The minerals settlement is just a part of the image. Now we have heard a number of occasions from the US administration that it’s a part of a much bigger image,” Olha Stefanishyna, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister and justice minister who has led the negotiations, instructed the FT yesterday.

A Ukrainian official with data of the matter mentioned that Zelenskyy was planning to journey to Washington on Friday to see Trump and formalise the deal. Here are more details on the agreement.

• Extra US information: Trump has ordered a probe into copper dumping within the US, laying the groundwork for imports of the metallic to be hit with tariffs.

Right here’s what else we’re retaining tabs on at this time:

• Financial information: Hong Kong reviews fourth-quarter GDP and Australia publishes CPI inflation figures for January.

• Hong Kong: Monetary secretary Paul Chan unveils the town’s 2025 price range.

• Thailand price resolution: The Financial institution of Thailand is predicted to carry rates of interest steady at its financial coverage assembly. (Reuters)

• Nvidia outcomes: The US chipmaking big reviews fourth-quarter earnings.

5 extra prime tales

1. Unique: A prime White Home official has proposed expelling Canada from the 5 Eyes intelligence-sharing community as Donald Trump will increase stress on the nation he has threatened to annex. Peter Navarro is pushing for the US to remove Canada from the 5 Eyes — which additionally consists of the UK, Australia and New Zealand — in accordance with individuals conversant in his efforts contained in the administration.

2. Taiwan’s coastguard mentioned it caught a Chinese language-owned freighter within the act of reducing a subsea communications cable off its western coast yesterday. The coastguard said that it had detained the ship, including that whereas it was unclear whether or not the cable had been severed deliberately, “it can’t be excluded that this was an act of Chinese language greyzone harassment”.

3. Huawei has considerably improved the quantity of superior synthetic intelligence chips it may well produce, regardless of US efforts to hamper the nation’s skill to develop delicate applied sciences. Here’s what the breakthrough means for China’s burgeoning AI industry.

• Chinese language manufacturing: China has struggled to develop the most advanced machine tools important to manufacturing, regardless of its big strides in AI, renewable vitality, semiconductors and electrical autos.

4. Shares in Japan’s 5 largest buying and selling homes surged as a lot as 9 per cent yesterday after Warren Buffett signalled Berkshire Hathaway was more likely to improve its already substantial stakes within the corporations on the coronary heart of Japanese business. Berkshire on the weekend revealed its intention to increase ownership and hold the stakes for “many decades”.

5. A fall in US bond yields is piling stress on the greenback, as buyers wager that slowing financial progress will push the Federal Reserve to maintain reducing rates of interest regardless of persistent inflation. The decline has been prompted by a worsened outlook for US progress, after a string of data showed weak consumer and business sentiment.

Visible investigation

As China’s authorities struggles to ease a property disaster, state-owned builders have been shopping for up land. In the meantime, policymakers have unveiled a number of measures to prop up the housing market, together with purchases of full however unsold residences that may finally be used as social housing. However this FT visible investigation reveals such authorities initiatives are leaving uncertain consequences for the economy.

We’re additionally studying . . . 

Chart of the day

Chinese language corporations are fuelling virtually one in three new investments in Vietnam, in an indication of how they’ve relocated operations overseas to keep away from Donald Trump’s commerce battle with Beijing. However this shift is more likely to increase Vietnam’s vulnerability to tariffs as Trump targets nations which have racked up large commerce surpluses with the US.

Take a break from the information . . . 

Singapore has turn into a form of laboratory for excessive structure, the success (or in any other case) of which filters out to the remainder of the world. Here are city-state’s best — and worst — buildings, in accordance with FT structure critic Edwin Heathcote.