EU leaders in show of solidarity with Ukraine’s Zelenskyy

Today’s agenda: White House backtracks on tariffs; Trump memecoin windfall; baby food ‘premiumisation’; Dubai’s hot property market; and Lloyds shifts IT roles to India

Good morning. We start in Brussels where EU leaders yesterday put on a show of solidarity with Volodymyr Zelenskyy at a summit designed as a riposte to the hostile treatment of the Ukrainian president by the Trump administration in the US.

Pledges of support: Five days after Zelenskyy was ejected from the White House following a clash that led to the US suspending military aid and intelligence support to Kyiv, he was promised “enduring” support by all but one of the bloc’s leaders.

The joint EU statement nods to increased military support for Ukraine and the readiness of states to “contribute to security guarantees based on their respective competences and capabilities” to a post-conflict state. Hungary’s pro-Russia Prime Minister Viktor Orbán refused to support the statement, forcing the other 26 leaders to issue a text without him.

Defence capabilities: All 27 EU leaders, however, pledged to increase their own defence capabilities in the face of an uncertain transatlantic bond. They endorsed new defence funding initiatives proposed by the European Commission. These include changes to the bloc’s debt and deficit rules to exempt an increase in defence spending, and an instrument that would provide €150bn in loans to capitals to spend on military capabilities. Read more on the emergency summit.

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

• Central banks: Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell speaks at a monetary policy conference in New York. European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde gives the keynote speech at the ECB’s International Women’s Day conference in Frankfurt.

• Economic data: Brazil and the EU issue fourth-quarter GDP estimates while the US publishes employment data for February.

• Canada: On Sunday, the Liberal party chooses its next leader, who also becomes the country’s prime minister.

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

Five more top stories

1. Donald Trump’s administration has backtracked further from its threat to impose sweeping 25 per cent tariffs on Mexico and Canada, in a major climbdown from its aggressive trade agenda, capping a tumultuous week that has roiled markets and frayed diplomatic relations between Washington and its largest trading partners. More on the US president’s executive order.

• Market reaction: US stocks fell sharply yesterday as a renewed sell-off in the tech sector rattled a market already weighed down by concerns about the impact of Trump’s tariffs.

• Tariff U-turns: Dizzying policy changes have sparked an equity market sell-off, concern from businesses and panic in foreign capitals.

• Doge restrained: The president ordered his cabinet to ensure the “most productive” civil servants are exempted from sweeping lay-offs.

2. Trump’s crypto project made at least $350mn from the launch of his memecoin, a windfall that is likely to fuel concerns over conflicts of interest arising from the token. Digital wallets owned by the entities running the scheme earned the money from sales of $TRUMP in the three weeks after its January launch, according to an FT analysis of blockchain data.

3. Parents having fewer children are buying more expensive baby food, according to the head of Nestlé’s nutrition business, as the world’s largest food company shifts its strategy to offset the impact of falling birth rates. The Swiss group said that smaller families had driven “premiumisation”.

4. Dubai’s property market is racing towards a record bull run, with the Middle Eastern commercial hub’s buoyant economy and swelling population fuelling the longest price rally since the eve of the 2008 financial crash. But some question how long the meteoric price rises can continue.

5. Exclusive: Lloyds Banking Group is hiring hundreds of IT engineers in India while planning to cut hundreds of similar jobs in the UK, in a move that will result in almost half of its engineers being based outside its home market by the end of the year. Read more on the British lender’s hiring spree for its tech centre in Hyderabad.

The Big Read

Private wealth management companies for the super-rich now manage trillions of dollars globally and are one of the fastest growing areas of finance. They are also one of the least under­stood — or reg­u­lated. Read more on the hidden dangers of family offices.

We’re also reading . . . 

• Syria’s new leader: Is Ahmed al-Sharaa a conquering hero with intentions of moderating or a brutal strongman with a flair for PR?

• A Mar-a-Lago accord?: Trump’s team considers financial policy interventions to be crucial in a grand reordering of global finance and trade, writes Gillian Tett.

• Romanian election: Călin Georgescu, the far-right outsider backed by Washington and Moscow, is riding high in the country’s presidential contest.

Chart of the day

In his analysis of a global survey on values, John Burn-Murdoch has found that on everything from attitudes towards international co-operation, to appetite for an autocratic leadership style, the Maga mindset is much closer to that of Vladimir Putin’s Russia or Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Turkey.

Take a break from the news . . . 

Donald Shoup revolutionised the way urban planners thought about parking. How he did it should be an example to economists everywhere, writes Tim Harford. His genius was to take a problem that seemed boring and trivial and show that it was neither.