Trump’s divisive 'Board of Peace’

0:28Good morning from the Financial Times. Shares in the American chipmaker Intel slid as much as 12 % in after-hours trading yesterday. The company said in its earnings report that revenue fell 4 % last quarter compared to the same period the previous year. Intel's chief financial officer said the company was dealing with, quote, industry-wide supply shortages, and CEO Lip Bhutan said Intel was, quote, working aggressively to grow supply to meet strong customer demand. The company's share price had skyrocketed 150 % over the past year after the Trump administration took a 10 % stake in the company.

1:07Intel also got a boost earlier this month with the launch of the new Panther Lake PC chips.

1:19U.S. President Donald Trump spent his first day at Davos walking back his threats to invade Greenland. He spent his second day signing the charter of his Board of Peace, which some are seeing as a rival to the UN. He was joined by a motley crew of other nations. This project is yet another controversial flashpoint in the president's fraying relationship with his allies in Europe. Most weren't even at the signing yesterday. The FT's Mehul Srivastava is here to tell us all about it. Hey, Mehul. Hey, guys. All right, so give me the backstory on this Board of Peace. Why did Trump create it in the first place?

1:52So initially, this Board of Peace had a very small mandate. It was designed to kind of oversee the ceasefire that Trump himself had broken between Israel and Hamas and Gaza, and then to kind of manage the reconstruction of Gaza. But it seems about three weeks ago, Trump was so enamored with this idea that he's now expanded it to all kinds of conflicts around the world. A charter was quickly drawn up and invitations went out last week to 30, 40 countries. And then all of a sudden yesterday in Davos, we saw a signing ceremony where none of the major European nations were there to support what's supposed to be a major international alliance that's supposed to help bring in to war around the world.

2:38Tell me a little bit more about the stark divide between the countries who have signed on to this charter and maybe more importantly, those who haven't. So we've been keeping track. Those who have openly signed up include six monarchs, three ex-Soviet apparatchiks, two military-backed regimes, and even Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who himself is sought by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes. We see Viktor Orban in Hungary, who himself is suspicious of international norms that seek to constrain his behavior, and Bulgaria joining in. But you haven't seen the United Kingdom, France or Germany, countries that help form the foundation of the international rules-based order, embrace this in any way at all.

3:26And perhaps more controversially is the fact that you have to pay a billion dollars to join this Board of Peace for its perpetual membership. You can join in and be a member for three years, but perpetual membership with its perpetual lifetime leader, Donald Trump, will cost the country a billion dollars. So, Mihul, some European allies have raised concerns that this Board of Peace could have actually been designed to replace the United Nations. Is that a meaningful threat? Well, it's certainly something that President Trump himself has mentioned. He was complaining on the flight over to Davos.

3:59The United Nations hasn't helped him in ending any wars. He's called this the Board of Peace. The charter talks about, you know, finding solutions to conflicts around the world, which is something that we tend to assume that the United Nations, the Security Council, peacekeeping missions, etc., will be involved in helping to bring an end to conflicts. And we have seen them succeed in the past. And we've also seen them fail in the past. But in general, this is seen by the Europeans and by other countries as a way to create an alternate system in the world, an alternate world order within which Donald Trump has a lot more sway than he can have over the United Nations, which tends to be quite more democratic.

4:41Do we have any idea what the board is going to do from here now that its charter has been signed? I mean, the charter has been signed. And we imagine more and more countries would probably sign up because U.S. pressure is quite significant on this. This is Donald Trump's signature foreign policy initiative for at least this week. But there is an immediate test in front of it, and a test that is perhaps the toughest that can be out there, which is the original goal for the Board of Peace, which is the administration and the reconstruction, the management of Gaza from a war-ravaged ruin. and within three to six months it will become clear whether the Board of Peace is able to tackle the problems in front of itself in this one specific and perhaps most difficult, most intractable conflict in the world.

5:23Whether it will expand on to the other wars around the world that Donald Trump wants to bring an end to and then ensure that he wins the Nobel Peace Prize remains to be seen. That's the FT's Mehul Srivastava. Thanks, Mehul. And thanks for having me.

5:42The world's attention has moved on from the Iranian protests the government suppressed. But the country is still in shock and facing an intense crackdown. Officials have seized property, closed businesses, and arrested people who are connected to prominent figures the government says stoked the unrest. The FT's Najmeh Buzorgmir has been following the latest developments, and she joins me now. Hi, Najmeh. Hello. So who is the government cracking down on? The crackdown is mainly targeting leading figures. The names are not out, but this may be an act of intimidation aimed at punishing those who encourage people to join the recent protests and at raising the cost of mobilisation in any future unrest.

6:2615 sports figures and actors now face the threat of confiscation of their properties and legal cases have opened against them. If they are convicted, their assets will be used to compensate for damage to private and public property. Has Iran done this kind of thing before? Confiscating private properties is not unprecedented in Iran. It happened after the 1979 Islamic Revolution when revolutionaries confiscated the properties of many people affiliated with the regime. But this is quite unusual to do it at this level and announcing it publicly without any judicial procedures. I saw some lawyers are now complaining that this is not legal and the judiciary has no right to confiscate properties without holding the court.

7:29And there is concern that this basically scares the private sector. Now Najme, has the regime made any concessions to the protesters? So far, we do not see any political concessions. We see some promises of economic incentives. Teachers will be given some bonuses, food vouchers are working. And the Ministry of Housing has also promised to deliver the new houses that they had promised to low-income people soon. And in a kind of concession to the families who lost their dear ones, the Islamic Republic has announced that about two-thirds of people who got killed will be classified as martyrs. And this would make them subject to financial benefits and educational advantages.

8:22Najme, just to zoom out a little bit, with so much happening globally, there's less focus on what's going on in Iran. What does that mean for the country? That shift in attention is not ideal for sure. But for now, Iranians are mourning their death, trying to help the injured or searching for those who are missing or detained. I can say it's a deeply wounded nation trying to figure out what to do next. Najmeh Buzorgmir is the FT's Tehran correspondent. Thanks so much, Najmeh. Thank you.

9:02There has been an overwhelming amount of geopolitical news this year, especially after this week's World Economic Forum in Davos. So it might be welcome news that we're going to focus on central banks next week. Here to talk about that is Victoria Craig, host of the Monday edition of The Briefing. Hi, Victoria. Hey, Mark. So what's on tap? The Fed. It's back in focus. Hooray! Yeah, and it's a bit of a steady-as-she-go situation on interest rates. So what's interesting is a new Reuters poll out at the end of this week showed 100 % of economists responding expect the central bank to keep rates on hold at its meeting on Wednesday.

9:42And about half expect no change for the entire first quarter. And that's a bit of a change from a December poll that showed that forecasts were calling for at least one reduction by March. And to sort of wrap all of this up, some of the data out this week sort of helped bolster this case for the Fed. We got an upward revision to GDP, which showed the economy grew at 4.4 percent annualized rate in the third quarter. And that is alongside the Fed's preferred inflation gauge, which is still well above target. OK, so that's the monetary policy side of the Fed. But we should also talk about Chair Jay Powell.

10:17Do we finally have an idea of who's going to replace him this year? Well, we have a bit of an idea. So Treasury Secretary Scott Besant at Davos this week said that we could get the official long-awaited announcement next week. President Donald Trump at Davos also told CNBC that it's down to three candidates, and then he said really it's just down to one in his mind. But he didn't tell us who he's thinking. So if we sort of parse that out a little bit, the president in that interview called Rick Ryder. He's right now the head of fixed income at BlackRock. The president called him, quote, impressive.

10:49And so he's emerged as a possible leading contender alongside former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh. So if you're still with me on this name game, this is all after President Trump last week worried that longtime frontrunner Kevin Hassett. He worried about him sort of trading his post as chief of the White House's National Economic Council for head of the Fed. He didn't really want to rock the boat too much that way. A lot of Kevins to keep track of. Lots of Kevins. Well, I'm sure you're on top of it. That's the FT News Briefing Monday host, Victoria Craig. Thanks so much, Victoria. Thanks, Mark. You can read more on all these stories for free when you click the links in our show notes.

11:28This has been your daily FT News Briefing. Check back next week for the latest business news. The FT News Briefing was produced this week by Henry Larson, Claire Williamson, Josh Geberdion, Julia Webster, Sonia Hudson, Fiona Simon, and Victoria Craig. I'm your host and editor, Mark Filippino. Our show is mixed by Alex Higgins, Kent Militzer, and Kelly Gary. We had help this week from Peter Barber, Michael Lello, David DaSilva, and Gavin Coleman. Our executive producer is Topher Forges. Our global head of audio is Cheryl Brumley. And our theme song is by Metaphor Music.