Trump's tariff twist

0:00Wake Up To Money from BBC 5 Live. Hello, morning. Welcome to Wake Up To Money. It was quite the day at Davos, Switzerland, yesterday, with President Trump saying this about threats to take over Greenland. People thought I would use force. I don't have to use force. I don't want to use force. I won't use force. Backing down on the use of force, backing down too on those trade tariffs he'd threatened on eight countries, including the UK, over their support for Denmark. We'll be picking through all of that with two guests live from Davos this morning. Also coming up in the programme, more electricity was generated by the likes of wind and solar farms last year than fossil fuels across Europe.

0:36We'll be speaking to one manufacturer about what it means for his business. And in the world of football finance, it's all about commercial revenue. The feeling of buying it from the official store means so much to us. Yeah, we'll have more from the latest Deloitte football finance report. Wake Up To Money with Will Bain. Morning, welcome to Wake Up To Money on Thursday 22nd January. Just gone five o 'clock in the morning. Will with you again this morning. Great to have your company. Yes, we'll be picking through what seems to be a climb down on tariffs by President Trump after his speech in Davos yesterday, where he did attack European and the UK economy once again, particularly around their energy mix.

1:16And interesting that he did that because it came at the same time that we had those numbers that we mentioned in the opener there about the shift across the continent towards green energy and how much of it is powering our homes and businesses. at the moment. We'll hear from one of Europe's biggest wind turbine firms in the second half of the programme about what's going on there. And we'll also be chatting about football finance. Yes, the Wealth Index from Deloitte. The annual rankings of the richest clubs in the world came out again. Real Madrid at the top but the Premier League certainly dominated the top 10, top 20 and now that shift well away from tickets and season tickets to very much our spending in club shops and in the bars and trying to keep us in the grounds, longer spending as well.

1:57So we're look at those trends and what it means for us if you're a big football fan and you like going to games in the future so plenty to get your teeth into this morning 85058 if you want to join the conversation 08085 909693 is the whatsapp number if you'd like to join the conversation that way as always a couple of guests going to steer us through the next hour as well namisha raja back with us founder of nims naturally manufacturer of drink garnishes healthy snacks teas all those kind of good things namisha morning great to have you back on the program good morning will thank Thank you for having me.

2:27How's business going at the moment? It's not too bad. I mean, January is never a great time for drinks garnishes. People are pulling back. But no, good on overall, thank you. But was Christmas or is Christmas? Christmas was, yeah. No, a run-up to Christmas always is. Even our D2C, so direct-to-consumer sales, were really, really good with garnishes, which we're not big on direct-to-consumers and more B2B. But yes, even online, it was pretty crazy every day. Really interesting. And that'll give us a good backdrop as well when we talk a bit more about the domestic economy too, because I mentioned a couple of quite big international things, haven't I?

3:03But obviously we had that inflation number out yesterday morning after we left you here on the programme. So we will pick through that too and see what Namisha and the team are seeing at NIMS in that regard as well. Alongside Namisha for the next hour, we've got Sophie Hewn with us as well. Sophie from BNP Paribas Asset Management. Morning again, Sophie. Great to have you back on the programme too. Yeah, hi, good morning. We will talk, obviously, domestic economy. But was the big thing moving markets again yesterday still what was going on in Davos and the speech from President Trump? Yeah, definitely.

3:34I mean, did we just see another taco? So that is Trump always chickens out. Exactly. So I think it was really interesting, more or less expected, but it was definitely a boost for markets overall. but I think the best way to summarise Davos was definitely given by Mark Carney. So yeah, he gave a pretty good summary of what's happening. Yeah, why don't you take people through what that was. We played a little clip of him yesterday but this is the Prime Minister of Canada, former Governor of the Bank of England. Why do you think he kind of gave a good summary? So I think he gave a good summary. Like he said something that no one really wants to say out loud.

4:13So he basically said that we're basically in an environment where the US-led global system is facing a rupture and that we're entering like a world that is much more about competition, rivalry, and that the rule-based order we've been living through over years is now fading, which is definitely true. Well, let's stick with this theme and stick with Davos because we're going to add to our panel in just a moment as well. But as Sophie mentioned, President Trump speaking yesterday at the World Economic Forum and he said he was exploring a potential deal for Greenland after talks with NATO. And he said he backed off those tariff threats as well after they'd opposed his plans to acquire the island.

5:00I won't do that. OK, now everyone's saying, oh, good. That's probably the biggest statement I made because people thought I would use force. I don't have to use force. I don't want to use force. I won't use force. Well, the president went on to say the US still needed full title of Greenland and that we want this land to build the greatest golden dome ever built. That's this security system, missile system that the US want to set up. And whilst he said a framework had been agreed, there were few further details about what that would look like. The speech at Davos, though, didn't just stick to the theme of Greenland, with the president railing against European economies and green energy in particular.

5:39Here, for example, is what he had to say about the UK's energy policies. The United Kingdom produces just one third of the total energy from all sources that it did in 1999. Think of that, one third. And they're sitting on top of the North Sea, one of the greatest reserves anywhere in the world. They only went on to criticise the taxes that the government put on North Sea oil and gas exploration. So as I say, alongside Sophie and Namisha, we're going to be joined live from the World Economic Forum in Daoos by Ishan Tharo. Sure. Ishan is a global affairs columnist for the Washington Post newspaper.

6:14And Pippa Begg is also with us, the chief executive of Board Intelligence, which advises the boards of some of the world's biggest companies on issues, including deploying AI in the boardroom. And we will come to AI because that was meant to be the big theme of this year's Davos before all the GI politics took over a little bit. Morning both. Ishan, first of all, that speech yesterday, did you manage to get in the room for it? Good morning. Good to be with you. Actually, no, I did not. I was not able to physically be in the main room that one usually is for these speeches in Davos. They had quite a few overflow rooms where you got to sit.

6:49And one of the joys of being in Davos is you hear the chatter and the groans and the chortles when Trump is speaking. Because, of course, Trump's speeches often elicit various reactions. And when you're in the room with a bunch of other global elites, it can become a quite interesting experience. Yeah, I kind of asked that because our economics editor, Faisal Islam, had written a piece on the BBC website this morning about the extraordinary scrum, as he put it, to try and get into the room there. What was your kind of takeaway from the speech then? Because it felt like in our kind of footballing parlance this year, and it was a kind of a speech of two halves.

7:27It started off like he was trying to be diplomatic, calm things down. We'd seen that market reaction in the United States as well. And then it was almost like he couldn't help himself. And as you say, he started sort of wheeling out some of the old favorites a little bit. I mean, look, it's interesting. I mean, I was astonished by the scale of the scrum and the intensity of interest in this. We, of course, were used to Trump's speeches every week, his ability to meander around and say lots of rambling things. his inability to stay on script. So we've come to anticipate it. I talked to one British executive who said, I'm here because I have a zoological interest in Trump.

8:13And I thought that's pretty well put. It is a spectacle. As for the speech, I think we were expecting him to say something on Greenland. We had been briefed by the White House staff early, before they arrived, that there was going to be a lot on the American economy. Trump may speak about affordability. And I thought, there's a lot in his speech about mortgage rates and the way American voters think. I don't think a lot of Europeans or anybody else cares. But I think the Trump folks really wanted people to understand that he was talking about pocketbook issues for Americans. But no one will remember any of that from this speech.

8:55They'll remember his references to Greenland, his kind of resumption of his kind of standard attacks on the things that he finds repellent him. Or, you know, I think it's very important to think about Trump's rhetoric, especially when it comes to things like climate change and so on and forth, as part of this extension of his culture war on the left at home. So, of course, he's going to go on about climate change. He's going to complain about migration. He's going to hit all the points and all the notes that he thinks he's hitting for his base. So he did all that. And then, of course, Greenland, which has been this big specter looming over Davos the entire week, he made news there for us.

9:36Yeah. Although we don't actually know what this framework looks like, do we? I mean, do you guys at the Post have any better details than we do? no we don't really at this point we have the kind of framework that emerged yesterday evening when a lot of us had already spent 16 hours running around Davos so forgive me for not having the most details on it but look I don't think many have been very sketched out that was the thing and it seems like the talk is that there will be further talks now so I just wonder whether the uncertainty has completely subsided, I suppose. Yeah, we'll see. I think, you know, it took markets going down a little bit over his threats for Trump to have to react like this.

10:24We do know, and of course, a lot of people are asking me, you know, why does Trump even want Greenland? And that's a very difficult question for us to answer because the logic behind it is a bit baffling. And polling shows that most Americans do not want Trump to do what he's doing right now. But it's very clear that in the White House and in Trump in particular, this is a personal desire that he has. And the events of the recent weeks, the move into Venezuela, appears to have confirmed to Trump that the US has this capacity to act and assert its will the way it wants, and it should be able to do it, even if, you know, logic militates against it.

11:06Sophie, coming on the market reaction that Isham mentioned then, what do we see? perhaps in Europe first and then in the US? So we saw a total V-shaped recovery as in equity markets were down when we heard about Davos. As soon as we heard he would, you know, like not pursue Greenland in like a bad way, the equity market, especially in the US, rebounded. So the S &P was up more than 1 % yesterday, but it was much more Nasdaq up 1.3%. So definitely we're back on track on pricing this potential fiscal impulse overall in the US with tax rebates. So I think we're back into the context where the macroeconomic outlook is going to matter much more.

11:56I think what was interesting as well as Davos is the CEO of NVIDIA giving a speech and basically enhancing the point that the global AI will build out will require trillions of dollars of investment, which was a boost for semiconductor stocks as an aftermath. Interesting. And we'll come a little bit more to AI specifically in just a moment as well. But Pippa, beg first of all, give us your sense of the, I guess, the mood there in Davos with all of this? We were trying to get to the bottom of this the last couple of days. Has all of this kind of completely overshadowed those discussions around the big issues like AI and things that perhaps people thought might lead Davos this year?

12:43I think undoubtedly, yes, yes. There's definitely, on the positive, there's definitely been a sense of more European camaraderie, I think, than we've had previously. In fact, last week, we did a poll with our chair community in the UK, asking them where they expected to focus and prioritise their time going into this year, European relations or US relations for growth. And 65 % said European relations. And I think you could definitely tell that and see that in the mood and especially pre-Trump's arrival yesterday. But I think overall, the best word to kind of sum up the theme outside of AI was delivered in a talk by Richard Edelman, where he talked about us entering a period of insularity going forward, you know, where we have our major, you know, our major world powers are all seeking to expand their territories.

13:42Are we entering a new area of imperialism? And he spoke not just about that and, you know, the uncertainty and the fear in communities, not just from geopolitics, but from the advancements in AI and what it would do to jobs. But on a positive note, there was a great conversation amongst a number of chief execs on like, so what? What do we as business do about this? And there were some brilliant ideas around the rise. You know, if globalization as we know it is kind of breaking down and international relations in many parts breaking down, we're entering a new age of poly nationals. So where international businesses need to build local strength in leadership and community and workforce and supply chain.

14:32And so there's been some really interesting conversations about that. And then also on AI, as you mentioned, very much, you know, a conversation around the fear of AI taking out jobs and the requirement for the requirement for chief execs to set a future vision, to set a future vision for the workforce and to paint the picture for their employees as to how their jobs will change and how they'll be re-skilled in the future. Because without that, we're in a void of fear at the moment. Well, let's hear a bit more about that because the JP Morgan boss, Jamie Dimon, was talking about exactly that in Davos yesterday.

15:12Will it eliminate jobs? Yes. Will it change jobs? Yes. We'll add some jobs probably. It is what it is and you can hope for the world you want, but you're going to get the world you got and your competitors are going to use it, countries are going to use it. However, I do think it may go too fast for society. And if it goes too fast for society, that's where government and business and the collaborative ways to step in together and come up with a way to retrain people or move it over time. Pippa, what did you make of what Jamie Dimon had to say? Yeah, I mean, I think what he says is exactly right.

15:50And I think added to that, the big discussion this year has been much more that quantum has been part of the conversation quantum in combination with AI and lots of people discussing their predictions around when, you know, when quantum is going to break encryption and when we're going to need a new security paradigm as we know it, as well as the impact of AI. So I think there's lots of different forces here. But I think the rally cry definitely for business leaders was, as Jamie said, you know, this is happening, right? This is a reality. And we need to better paint that vision and take our workforces kind of through it and show them how their roles will change and help that behavioural change.

16:40I think much more this year the tone and theme has been around the behavioural change organisations are going to need rather than just the power of the technology. And Ishan, the fact that that is going to need, as Sophie says, such vast amounts of money. And that's before you come to sort of the vast amounts of kind of cooperation on regulation perhaps as well, where it's going to be an area where it's going to be very difficult to kind of do it on your own, go alone. Yeah, it was quite interesting. I think Sophie also mentioned Mark Carney's speech. And while I think Trump sucked up a lot of the oxygen around this week in Davos, not least with his demagoguery around Greenland, it has been really quite striking the extent to which Mark Carney was the star, at least the geopolitical star of this week.

17:27His speech, the kind of clear-eyed assessment of what the international order means or doesn't mean at this moment, his kind of rallying call to middle powers, to find avenues of cooperation that are pragmatic and effective to build together, is the takeaway that, you know, you saw people from the global north and the global south in Davos really rally behind. And I was at a panel when I was moderating with the president of Singapore, and he was echoing a lot of what Mark Carney said. And they're in very obviously very different contexts. Yeah. And it's striking because in Davos, often you have these two different tracks of conversation.

18:04One is on tech, on public health, on science and innovation, where it's often very forward-looking, very interesting, very optimistic. And then you have this other track, which is about the collapsing of its older order, about the message of geopolitics, anxieties people feel in that context. And it's very backward-looking, very negative, very gloomy. and now we're starting to see these tracks reach into each other and this week especially. Namitra, what's your sense about what any of that might mean? If old relationships, in trade terms this is, forget the kind of defence alliances for a moment here, if old relationships start to strain, perhaps can't be relied on in the same way countries full stop kind of sort of turning in, looking to bring their supply chains and all that kind of stuff closer to home, can that have a direct impact, do you think, on the domestic economy?

18:54here at home? It could be a positive and a negative, though, surely. I think when we split from the EU after Brexit, there was an uplift in manufacturing in the UK. So that helped us a lot, although we lost a lot of business exporting to the EU over the years. But no, it just makes you feel really, really uncertain. And we're not directly affected by this, obviously, at the moment. It's on a much wider arena. But yes, you do feel the vulnerability. You don't know from day to day what's going to happen. And Trump just seems to rule the world at the moment. And we jump every time he says something.

19:37And it does worry us. We need stability. And this is not helping us to have that, is it, at this end? And to Sophia Nishan's point then as well, from things that the UK government could do, Namisha. Would you like to see them talk again to the European Union? The Prime Minister's kind of made that a key policy, really, a rebooting of relations in a trade sense with the European Union. Does that make sense to you? Yes, it does. I mean, you know, it's never going to go back, I imagine, to what it used to be. They're still a bit annoyed. And I've only recently started ordering fresh fruit from Europe again.

20:16In fact, right now we're waiting. and it's been delayed. So I've ordered three and a half tons of grapefruits to come from Spain. And because we have to pay in euros and the way the whole system works, it's taking longer and longer and taking a week for it to be delivered, where before it would be the same as ordering from Birmingham. You know, they'd dispatch it, no paperwork required. Yeah, so it would be lovely. I mean, it's never going to go back, as I said, to what it was. But yes, having just a smoother, some way of transitioning through that, the documentation would be great. And Sophie, do you see that perhaps at scale then in a business sense coming through from, you know, you talked about countries and their governments perhaps turning towards each other.

21:03Do you think companies will be doing that as well, looking for kind of new good neighbours in the kind of region, I guess? Yeah, so I think we're heading towards a world where regions are going to matter much more. And I think the geographical closeness is going to prevail much more than in the past. So that would make sense if you have much more trade flows from UK to Europe, but like intra-Asia. So it's going to be a much more like divided world where regional trade flows are going to be much more important, I think. And so Ishan and Pippa, round us out then. Pippa, perhaps first, do you think when we look back on this Davos, perhaps in a year's time or whatever, will the biggest theme still be the will they, won't they, around the tariffs and about Greenland, do you think, and all the geopolitics?

22:02Or do you think actually tangible work about closer working on AI or things like that will be the thing that actually maybe will shine through from this, will come through from this? look i think um yeah i mean i think both the both are huge themes and i think um i think one of the big things that business leaders have been talking about is ai ai adoption rather than the technology and i think that is going to be huge this year so those that win are going to be those that manage to take the technology that is available and large scale adopt that ai across their business to create genuine growth impact and productivity improvements.

22:43And that's been a huge part of the conversation. And the Middle East actually is leading on that. So in our space, we are seeing AI board directors in the room. And the Middle East is adopting, adopting, adopting. So within a six-week period, they go from, there's a new piece of technology, we're rolling it out everywhere. And I think the big challenge to Europe is going to be the pace of AI adoption and impact going forward in the year ahead. That seems a really interesting point, Ishan. You know, while Europe and North America are kind of arguing with each other a bit here, Asia continues to sort of march forward at pace.

23:19Yes, absolutely. And I think, you know, obviously it's hard to think, coming from Washington where everything changes every day and we're sort of headless chickens with our news cycle and often Trump-generated news cycle, it's hard to say, you know, what we're going to remember a year from now, what I do think is very clear is, you know, what was stunning to hear is a couple years ago in Davos, you'd hear lots of talk about how to, the possibility of decoupling from China, possibility of sort of, at least from the European perspective, de-risking against China. And now that's language that you're hearing about the United States.

23:56And as an American, it was really stunning to be in this new world. But absolutely, there's so much talk in Davos about the obligation Asian countries have to diversify their pursuits and their economic agendas. They have to de-risk against the United States. I think the speech and the rhetoric that will matter years from now will be the Carney speech, not whatever Trump was doing. Sophie? Yeah, it's definitely going to be much more. I think Davos was really like, it was about science, innovation and so on. But I think mostly it was really trying to assess the world we're heading in. We're going into two more years with President Trump.

24:44And I think it's an environment where we might have reached a peak in U.S. supremacy. Yeah, really interesting. Ishan, thanks so much for your time this morning. Really appreciate it. Ishan Therro, Global Affairs columnist at The Washington Post. And Pippa, thanks too for being with us. Thank you. Pippa Begg, the chief executive of board intelligence, also joining us from Davos there and hopefully shedding some light that it wasn't just all politics talked about in Davos as well. We're coming up towards the news, guys. But Sophie, just wanted to get your kind of takeaway of what had gone on with the inflation numbers here in the UK, because future tariffs were not something that had been factored into that.

25:24So what were the kind of takeaways? Yeah, so the inflation figure surprised to the upside. So if you look at CPI, it was up 3.4 % December 2025. I think what was really interesting is that headline surprises to the upside. But if you look at core inflation, the surprise was actually to the downside. So it was mostly driven by a couple of components such as airfares, food, beverage and tobacco. So I wouldn't put too much emphasis on this inflation print into driving what could potentially be the outcloth for the bank of, if anything, it's more on the dovish side rather than on the hawkish side.

26:13Yeah, I was speaking to Michael Saunders, former Bank of England rates setter elsewhere on the BBC after we left everybody yesterday. And he was sort of stuck in the mud was his takeaway. Would you share that? Yeah, because so I think the inflation outlook is definitely one of the sticking point in driving how much the Bank of England could cut in the coming month or quarters. but I would definitely focus much more on the core side which is suggesting surprise downside but also the fact that the broad economic outlook for the UK I think is not that bright either so our take at least for the Bank of England rates outlook is much more skewed to the downside at this point.

27:00And Namisha, I'm always interested with you guys, our kind of business panellists on the programme, about what you're seeing. You know, in reality, you know, we talk about the inflation numbers and the percentage rises and all that kind of stuff. But are there still things, ingredients, for example, that you guys are using where you've just eyebrows hit the ceiling about the price of them? Well, fresh produce is what we buy. And yes, all the time. Like what? It just doesn't. Well, we need to process some peppers to make some crisps out of red and green peppers. And at the moment, you're talking about two pounds a kilo.

27:37And this is buying, and we're not buying one pack of peppers, you know, where normally we would pay 60, 70p or used to pay 60, 70p a kilo. It is now two pound a kilo. And when you're buying a ton of peppers, that's a lot of money. I presume that obviously has an impact on the price or certainly the metric of the price that you then charge companies that work with you and stuff. Yes, exactly. We bear most of the costs that increase as much as we can, you know, because we know our customers are in the same boat. We work with a lot of small pubs and bars as well, independents, which so many have just given up just over the last two, three months.