Trump would gut Biden’s climate law if elected, say advisers

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Good morning and happy Thanksgiving!

Donald Trump is planning to gut President Joe Biden’s landmark climate law, increase investment in fossil fuels and roll back regulations aimed at accelerating the transition to electric vehicles if he is elected next year.

Senior campaign officials and advisers to the former president told the Financial Times that he would seek to radically overhaul US climate and energy policy to “maximise fossil fuel production” during a second term.

They added that the Inflation Reduction Act — the centrepiece of Biden’s economic strategy, with $369bn in tax breaks and subsidies for clean energy — would be in Trump’s crosshairs. 

“Some of the price tags involved with some of these credits seem to be wildly understated,” a senior Trump campaign official told the FT. “We’d be looking to cut a lot of that spending.”

Trump has made no secret of his opposition to the IRA, which he has described as the “biggest tax hike in history”.

He has railed against his successor’s climate policies, which he has blamed for raising the price of gasoline and compromising what he claimed was his achievement of securing US “energy independence”. Read more on the former president’s plans to scrap Biden’s clean energy programme.

Here’s what else I’m watching today:

• EU-Canada summit: A two-day meeting between the EU and Canada begins in St John’s today. On the agenda are the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, economic co-operation and the environment ahead of the start of the COP 28 summit in the UAE next week.

• Thanksgiving: Financial markets will be closed in the US today for the public holiday.

Five more top stories

1. The release of at least 50 civilian hostages held in Gaza is not expected to start before tomorrow, after Israel and Hamas agreed a deal for their release in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and a four-day halt to fighting. Israel’s national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said last night that the release of hostages would start “not before Friday”.

2. Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders and his Freedom party have won the most votes in parliamentary elections dominated by debate around rising immigration in the Netherlands. The victory will send shockwaves through the EU, which has been struggling to absorb migrants from Africa and Asia. Here’s the latest on the shock election result.

3. Zhongzhi, one of the biggest groups in China’s vast shadow financing market, faces a shortfall of as much as $36.4bn and has warned that it is “severely insolvent” in a letter to investors. The company blamed the shortfall on the departure of “multiple senior executives and key personnel” and the 2021 death of founder Xie Zhikun. Here’s the full story.

4. North Korea has announced that it is scrapping a package of military confidence-building measures signed with South Korea in 2018. Tensions have increased on the Korean peninsula this week after Pyongyang’s successful launch of its first military spy satellite. Here’s the full story.

5. Union leaders in Argentina’s aviation industry have said they will fiercely resist incoming President Javier Milei’s plans to privatise state airline Aerolíneas Argentinas. The hard-left Unidad Piquetera social movement has announced plans to lead a march through downtown Buenos Aires later today to oppose Milei’s austerity plans. Read more on the growing backlash to Milei’s victory.

News in-depth

Under the leadership of its talismanic founder Changpeng Zhao, Binance grew from nothing in 2017 to control almost 60 per cent of the global cryptocurrency market. On Tuesday, US authorities laid out how it got there: putting profit ahead of compliance. But missing from the settlements with the US Treasury, the Department of Justice and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, was an outstanding case from the Securities and Exchange Commission. Observers say the SEC charges are pivotal to the future of Binance.

What we’re also reading . . . 

• How Silicon Valley reunited Sam Altman and OpenAI: With the AI start-up’s future in peril, venture capitalists mounted an extraordinary campaign to reinstate the charismatic chief executive.

• Ukraine: For all their stoical resistance, Ukrainians are increasingly riven between those who stayed and those who left, those who fought and those who didn’t.

• Failing to compete: As liberal democracies lose their appetite for hosting world sporting events, governing bodies are soliciting autocratic regimes instead, writes Josh Noble.

Chart of the day

Bargain-hunting Americans are expected to turn out in record numbers for the start of the US holiday season, but their fatigue at higher prices is making retailers cautious and putting strain on the nation’s economic engine. Black Friday — the day after Thanksgiving — traditionally kicks off America’s biggest annual shopping spree with retailers touting alluring discounts. But this year “cost fatigue” is complicating the retail bonanza.

Take a break from the news

By the end of this year, tequila is forecast to overtake vodka and whiskey as the most valuable spirits category in the US. Can it conquer the world?

Additional contributions from Gary Jones and Benjamin Wilhelm