Good morning and welcome back to FirstFT Asia. In today’s newsletter:
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Trump asks to push back US-China summit
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Australia’s ‘millionaires’ factory’ Macquarie takes on retail banking
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Hong Kong’s last bamboo artisans
We begin with US-China relations, after Donald Trump cast doubt on his long-awaited visit to Beijing.
What to know: Two weeks before a critical summit with Xi Jinping in Beijing, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office yesterday that he wanted to delay the summit by a month as he grapples with the war in Iran. The US president said the White House had requested Beijing “delay” the visit by “a month or so”. He added: “It’s very simple. I have got a war going on.”
Hormuz concerns: Trump’s push to delay the summit comes as the White House remains concerned about the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which is having a dramatic impact on the price of crude oil. China, which imports large amounts of oil from Iran, had been expecting the visit to go ahead until Trump on Sunday told the FT that he was considering delaying his trip to Beijing.
He suggested in the interview that he wanted China to decide whether it would send warships to the Strait ahead of the start of his visit to the Chinese capital, planned for March 31. But US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent said yesterday that any decision to postpone the meeting was unrelated to requests for ships and would be because the president needed to remain in Washington as the US continues to attack Iran.
Read more coverage of the Middle East conflict:
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Biggest Nato allies rebuff Trump: The UK, France and Germany have rejected the US president’s demand for them to participate in a naval mission to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
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US minesweepers: The US Navy has confirmed that two of its three Gulf-based warships with mine-clearing capabilities have travelled 4,000 miles to Malaysia for a “logistical stop”.
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Iran’s oil windfall: Iran is likely to be earning more than $140mn a day from selling oil as prices surge and the US turns a blind eye to its shipments to avoid further destabilising crude markets.
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Air travel disruption: British Airways has cancelled all flights into Dubai until at least June.
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Opinion: Iran has shown that control of the Strait of Hormuz gives it a stranglehold over the world economy, writes Gideon Rachman.
Here’s what else we’re keeping tabs on today:
Five more top stories
1. Singapore’s markets regulator has warned fund managers that popular investment structures introduced by the city-state six years ago to lure investors from offshore tax havens could be used for money laundering. Read more about the “variable capital company structure” that the city-state is concerned about.
2. China’s largest ecommerce company is launching a European version of the retail business that drove its growth as it seeks to take on Amazon and reduce reliance on an increasingly tough domestic market. JD.com’s new European service, which operates under the Joybuy brand, promises to deliver products in a matter of hours.
3. The private capital industry’s problems are far worse than Wall Street has acknowledged, as traditional metrics obscure weaknesses in the leveraged buyout market, according to a top credit hedge fund. A “substantial portion” of the private equity industry was already “stressed or distressed”, said Tony Yoseloff of Davidson Kempner Capital Management.
4. Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang said he expects at least $1tn in AI hardware revenue over roughly the next two years, driven by rapid adoption of AI agents such as Anthropic’s Claude Code. “Right now where I stand . . . I see through 2027 at least $1tn” in revenue, Huang said yesterday, adding he was “certain” demand would prove to be higher.
5. Lord Peter Mandelson made more than £1.5mn selling his shares in Global Counsel before the advisory firm collapsed over his links with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Mandelson was paid £250,000 for his remaining stake in Global Counsel just days before it went bust last month while his former colleagues’ shares ended up worthless.
News in-depth
Macquarie earned its nickname “the millionaires’ factory” for its lucrative asset management and commodities trading arms, but recently it has found a potential cash cow closer to home. The group’s digital lender has emerged as a serious competitor — and irritant — to the “Big Four” retail banks that dominate Australia’s sleepy banking sector and has built share in the mortgage market.
We’re also reading . . .
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Hong Kong’s last bamboo artisans: The city is one of the last places in the world where bamboo scaffolding is still used in construction — but its future is increasingly precarious.
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White-glove America: Pay enough, and you can jump to the front of the queue for almost anything, argues Rana Foroohar.
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Mexico: Beaches are tainted with an unprecedented influx of seaweed, threatening the tourist sector.
Chart of the day
The popularity of online sports betting in the US has exploded since a Supreme Court judgment eight years ago allowed states to legalise it. But academic research now offers a clear picture of the steep financial and social costs.
Take a break from the news . . .
Is this London’s poshest dustman? Harrow-educated Will Ferguson is one of a number of independent waste-disposal outfits serving the city’s wealthiest residents.
