UK and France aim to salvage Ukraine peace plan

Good morning and welcome back to FirstFT Asia. In today’s newsletter:

• Europe’s bid to salvage Ukraine peace hopes

• Adani Group revives its US investment plans

• BYD’s ‘slavery’ scandal in Brazil

Britain and France are to lead a desperate European attempt to salvage peace hopes in Ukraine, after last week’s explosive meeting between US President Donald Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Sir Keir Starmer, UK prime minister, said after a summit in London that Europe would step in as intermediaries for Zelenskyy to try to “stop the fighting” and persuade Trump to provide US cover for European troops deployed to secure any ceasefire.

“The UK is prepared to back this with boots on the ground and planes in the air together with others,” he told a press conference yesterday after a summit in London of 19 international leaders.

Europe “must do the heavy lifting” but the “effort must have strong US backing”, he added.

However, many European countries — including Germany, Spain and Poland — are reluctant to commit to sending troops to Ukraine as part of a mission led by the UK and France. Read more about the London summit.

• Go deeper: Starmer and Macron made it clear at the London summit that Europe has to prove to Trump that it is part of the solution to the crisis on its own continent, not part of the problem.

• Nord Stream 2 pipeline: A former spy and close friend of Vladimir Putin has been engineering a restart of Russia’s gas pipeline to Europe with the backing of US investors, a once unthinkable move that shows the breadth of Trump’s rapprochement with Moscow.

• The art of the peace deal: Can talks between the US and Russia reach a lasting settlement over Ukraine? So far, argues historian Margaret MacMillan, the signs are not looking good.

Here’s what else I’m keeping tabs on today:

• Economic data: Indonesia reports CPI inflation figures for February. S&P Global Manufacturing PMI is due for countries across the region including China, India and Japan.

• Oscars: The Academy Awards are due to begin in just a couple of hours in Hollywood, where “apolitical is the new look” after the return of Trump, our Los Angeles correspondent Christopher Grimes writes.

Five more top stories

1. The Adani Group has revived plans for large investments in the US, according to people familiar with the matter, despite criminal charges there against the Indian conglomerate’s billionaire founder. US President Donald Trump’s move last month to halt enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has fuelled expectations within the group that the cases against Gautam Adani will collapse.

2. Trump will impose tariffs on Mexico and Canada on Tuesday but is still deciding on the levels, commerce secretary Howard Lutnick has said. The US president has also vowed to impose additional 10 per cent tariffs on China on the same day, which is “set”, Lutnick said. Here’s the latest on Trump’s tariff plans.

3. Prada has emerged as the frontrunner to buy Versace from Capri Holdings for about €1.5bn. A deal to combine two of Italy’s best known luxury fashion brands could be concluded “within weeks”, according to people briefed on the discussions. 

4. Iran’s hardline-dominated parliament has impeached and sacked economy and finance minister Abdolnaser Hemmati, delivering a significant setback to the reformist government of President Masoud Pezeshkian. The move highlights tensions over how to handle Iran’s economic crisis amid a renewed “maximum pressure” campaign by the Trump administration.

5. Leading artificial intelligence firms including OpenAI, Microsoft and Meta are turning to a process called “distillation” in the global race to create AI models that are cheaper for consumers and businesses to adopt. The technique caught widespread attention after China’s DeepSeek used it to build powerful and efficient AI models based on open-source systems released by competitors.

News in-depth

A $1bn Chinese investment to build an electric vehicle plant in Camaçari, Brazil was meant to breathe new hope into an industrial city rocked by US automaker Ford’s departure four years ago. But the development that carmaker BYD sold to locals as a “Brazilian Silicon Valley” has stalled following allegations of “degrading” conditions that authorities likened to slavery.

We’re also reading . . . 

• China ecommerce: Chinese suppliers are rethinking how they do business after Trump said he would soon close a tax exemption in a move that could threaten the business models of Shein and Temu.

• ‘What did you do last week?’: Elon Musk isn’t the first boss to ask staff to list their accomplishments. But Pilita Clark argues there’s a better way to boost productivity.

• Manchester United: A decade of accumulated sporting failure is now hitting the club’s bottom line, writes John Burn-Murdoch.

Chart of the day

Currency markets are increasingly dismissive of Trump’s tariff threats, raising the risk of big swings if the US president follows through on his promise to hit China, Canada and Mexico with levies this week.

Take a break from the news . . . 

Reed Hastings, the billionaire founder of Netflix, has created a members-only ski resort on Utah’s Powder Mountain. He is walking a gentrification tightrope — and a ski industry in flux is watching every step.