Ukraine and US move closer to signing minerals deal

Good morning and welcome back to the final FirstFT of the week. Here’s what we are covering today:

• The US and Ukraine move closer to signing a mineral deal

• Trump steps up his attacks on Powell

• Yuval Noah Harari on Trump’s vision of the world

• And life after a career in investment banking

Marco Rubio, US secretary of state, said today that Washington was ready to abandon the Ukraine-Russia peace talks within “a matter of days” unless there were clear signs of progress over a deal. Speaking in Paris after a day of talks with President Emmanuel Macron as well as officials from the UK, Germany and Ukraine, Rubio said the US would focus on “other priorities” unless there was a breakthrough soon.

Rubio’s comments come a day after presidents Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy indicated they were close to signing a resources deal. They said Kyiv and Washington had signed a memorandum of intent pledging to advance an agreement on an investment fund for Ukraine’s natural resources and energy assets. The legal details were still being finalised, officials said, ahead of next week’s signing. It was not immediately obvious what Rubio’s comments meant for the US-Ukraine resource deal or the broader Ukraine-Russia war but here’s what we know about the accord so far.

What is covered in the accord? Treasury secretary Scott Bessent said yesterday that the deal was substantially the same as the one previously negotiated but not signed after Trump’s dressing down of Zelenskyy in the White House in February. Ukrainian officials, however, said they had managed to bring the agreement more into line with their preferences. Since the disastrous Trump-Zelenskyy meeting in the Oval Office, Kyiv has hired US law firm Hogan Lovells to work with Ukraine’s deputy prime minister and justice minister Olha Stefanishyna to negotiate a better deal.

What do we know about the earlier agreement? Trump has always framed the deal as the US gaining preferential access to Ukraine’s critical minerals and rare earths as compensation for the billions of dollars of military aid spent by the US to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia’s invasion. Some Ukrainian officials warned that the earlier deal could threaten national sovereignty, divert profits abroad and increase dependence on the US. The FT reported in March that the deal included critical minerals, rare earths and energy assets across the entire Ukrainian territory, going well beyond the initial joint agreement from February. But the March agreement did not cover US security guarantees, despite Kyiv’s attempts to have these included. Washington also demanded that Ukraine and the US create a supervisory board to oversee the joint investment fund to split the income from Ukraine’s oil, gas and mineral projects between the two countries. The US would appoint three of the five board members, giving Washington full veto power over the fund. You can follow developments in this story throughout the day here.

• More on the Russia-Ukraine war and business: Raiffeisen Bank International, the largest western bank still doing business in Russia, has halted attempts to sell its unit in the country amid a rapprochement between Washington and Moscow, according to people familiar with the situation.

Join Unhedged’s Robert Armstrong and other FT experts on April 23 for a subscriber-only webinar, as they break down how Trump’s policies are reshaping markets. Register for free.

Here’s what else we’re keeping tabs on today and over the weekend:

• US monetary policy: Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco president Mary Daly participates in a moderated conversation at the University of California, Berkeley. It comes a day after Trump stepped up his attacks on Fed chair Jay Powell.

• Italy: US vice-president JD Vance travels to Rome a day after Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni met Trump at the White House. After the meeting Trump said there would be a trade deal with the EU “100 per cent”.

• US-Iran nuclear talks: US special envoy Steve Witkoff is due to hold a second round of talks tomorrow with Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi, days after calling for Tehran to “eliminate” its nuclear enrichment programme.

• Easter: This weekend is among the holiest days in the Christian calendar. Pope Francis has delegated Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti to preside over the “Passion of the Lord” service to mark Good Friday. On Sunday, Easter Mass will be celebrated before the annual Urbi et Orbi benediction.

How well did you keep up with the news this week? Take our quiz.

Five more top stories

1. China’s imports of US liquefied natural gas have completely stopped for more than 10 weeks, according to shipping data showing how the Sino-American trade war has spread to the energy market. The Corpus Christi, a 69,000-tonne LNG tanker, was the final shipment to arrive in China from the US. It set sail from Texas and arrived in the southern province of Fujian on February 6.

2. Harvard yesterday said it would “not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights” as it pushed back against the administration of Trump, who has accused the Ivy League university of being antisemitic. The White House this week halted grants to the university totalling $2.7mn and began stripping its tax-exempt status. It has also asked the university for detailed records of foreign student visas.

3. Trump’s global tariff regime is endangering domestic chip production and hampering US dominance in artificial intelligence, industry insiders have told the Financial Times. They said the president’s escalating trade war is likely to hinder the expansion of US computing power. Read more on the tech sector’s concerns and the unintended consequences of Trump’s onshoring drive.

• More tech news: Google “wilfully” monopolised two parts of the digital advertising market, a federal judge ruled yesterday, in the latest antitrust defeat for the internet search giant.

• Netflix: The video streaming company’s stock jumped more than 2 per cent in after-hours trading in New York yesterday after its latest results announcement.

4. Only a handful of US CEOs made well-timed stock buys during the tariff-induced market panic this month, as trading restrictions forced them on to the sidelines. Only two chief executives at companies worth more than $5bn “bought the dip” when the market fell, according to data provider VerityData. Find out who they were.

5. Blackstone president Jonathan Gray has warned that the US economy faces the risk of a recession unless Trump can rapidly strike trade deals. Gray, who oversees the day-to-day operations of the investment group, is the latest Wall Street boss to ratchet up pressure on the administration.

Today’s big read

Supporters of the liberal order see the world as a potentially win-win network of co-operation. The Trumpian vision, by contrast, sees the world as a zero-sum game in which every transaction involves winners and losers, and the movement of ideas, goods and people is inherently suspect. So what is the Trumpian vision for the world? Historian, philosopher and author Yuval Noah Harari explores the question in this column.

We’re also reading . . . 

• Nvidia: The chip company’s woes are just one tiny, if highly visible, sign of a far wider wave of impending tech disruption from Trump’s trade wars, writes Gillian Tett.

• OpenAI: As it races towards 1bn users the artificial intelligence company needs to explain what, exactly, ChatGPT is for, says Richard Waters.

• Wealth taxes: The cash-strapped UK government might find taxing the rich appealing — but imposing a levy that is both fair and effective is fraught with difficulty, writes Philip Coggan.

• Institutional memory: Tim Harford looks at why some organisations are condemned to repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

Chart of the day

Hertz, the troubled car rental business controlled by the private equity firm Knighthead Capital, has attracted the attention Bill Ackman. Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management, whose holdings largely consist of blue-chip companies such as Alphabet and Hilton, increased its stake in the company from 4 per cent to 20 per cent, it was revealed this week. Lex explains the thinking that may lie behind this bet.

Take a break from the news

Craig Coben spent decades planning for his retirement from a career spent in investment banking. When the moment arrived at the age of 55 it wasn’t quite what he was expecting. In this piece he asks is there life after banking?