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Hello, I'm Robin Inks.
And I'm Brian Cox. And we would like to tell you about the new series of The Infinite Monkey Cage.
We're going to have a planet of Jupiter versus Saturn.
It's very well done that because in the script it does say wrestling voice after all of that.
It's going to kind of chill out a bit and talk about ice.
And also in this series we're discussing history of music.
recording with Brian Eno and looking at nature's shapes.
So listen wherever you get your podcasts.
Hello and welcome to World Business Report on the BBC World Service.
I'm Will Bane, great as always to have your company.
On the programme today we'll be in Canada in just a moment to hear about a rocky run up to this weekend's change in Prime Minister and we'll look at how whoever replaces Justin Trudeau might try and navigate the trade tensions with the United States.
Also on the programme today, we're in Ghana to hear about the continued pressure on cocoa farmers.
Gradually and over years, economic and living experience on the farmer in Ghana has been driven down to the extent that it is not attractive to be in cocoa.
Yeah, we'll tell you a little bit more about why that might continue to affect the price of your favourite sweet treats for some time to come yet.
And we'll also be crossing live to the headquarters of the first commercial spacecraft after Land on the Moon, to hear from their Director of Investor Relations about what a successful moon landing does for that investment picture.
So plenty for us to get to here on the programme today.
We're going to kick off, though, in Canada, where it's been another bumpy week for the country's businesses, with delayed tariffs first imposed, then partially paused again by President Trump.
As we heard earlier in the week, President Trump's trade threats and the potential impact of the Canadian government's responses to those tariffs have had businesses in a wide range of sectors nervous about the potential impact.
The timing couldn't be much worse than you'd think for the long -planned exit from the political stage for the country's leader, Justin Trudeau, who resigned after political pressure from his ruling Liberal Party back in January.
Last night over dinner, I told my kids about the decision that I'm sharing with you today.
I intend to resign as party leader, as Prime Minister, after the party selects its next leader through a robust nationwide competitive process.
Well that process that outgoing Prime Minister Trudeau talks about comes to an end this weekend and from Toronto Sam Gruet has been taking a look at some of the economic forces behind the political drama.
For Canadians like Sean being able to buy a house tops the list of what he wants from Canada's next leader.
I'm 39 years old I never expect to own a house, ever.
I know that here in Canada, house prices are astronomical.
And I think that if we have a problem finding housing and jobs, I think it's a problem created by people running the country.
Frustrations like these led to Trudeau's popularity sinking after nine years in charge, and a calculation by some in his party that a fresh start was needed before the election.
For the leadership contenders, like former Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, the economy is front and center, as is the threat of tariffs imposed by the US.
We don't need their cars.
You know, they make 20 % of our cars.
We don't need that.
I'd rather make them in Detroit.
But Canada's economic issues have deeper roots, with a sluggish economy, squeezed incomes and falling productivity.
Dr. Stuart Prest is a political science lecturer at the University of British Columbia.
We don't have a sense that the economy is becoming more productive over time.
Canadian industry leaders and Canadian political leaders continue to grapple with this question about how to reignite the economy in ways that can compete on a global scale.
Public services are also under pressure with long waiting lists for healthcare and pressure on housing.
The population has been rising thanks to welcoming immigration policies, which are now resented by some like these people in Toronto.
We don't have enough housing for people as it is to begin with, and I don't think we need more people in this country.
I think we just have to be a bit more discreet about who we let in.
Anya, to reception, please, Anya.
At the Toronto office of Anya Ettinger, the Realtor describes how the two issues have become connected.
Everyone's wanted to move here.
So many people want to come here because it is the biggest city in Canada.
And with that demand, we only have so much land.
We only have so much space.
So there's so many people coming that our population will grow, but the amount of housing that we have does not.
Many new immigrants join the gig economy as delivery or taxi drivers, like Nazeem, who came to Canada from Azerbaijan a year ago.
The government wants to cut permanent residency numbers by 20 % this year.
Then there's the cost of living.
The headline inflation rate has been falling, but people are still feeling the squeeze.
Like with the rain thing, all prices are up.
Like if you see the like economical difference between the pandemic and after, there are a lot increasing the pricing.
Here's Dr. Stuart Prest again.
There is no question that whoever is prime minister next is going to have to find a way to deal with concerns with cost of living.
Everything continues to be more expensive.
The inflation continues to have had the effect that it did.
And so trying to signal to Canadians and to actually make changes that will make life more affordable again for Canadians is going to be the preeminent domestic challenge for whoever leads the country at the end of 2025.
Sam Gruet there with some interesting insight from Toronto in Canada in the build -up to this weekend's changeover of leadership.
Let's dig into it a bit more with Carleen Varion who joins us now.
Carleen's the Associate Vice President at Sumer Strategies, one of Canada's largest public relations firms herself, a former stuffer in the offices of several Liberal government ministers.
Carleen, thanks for being with us on World Business Report.
Thank you for having me.
Really interesting in Sam Crewe's report, wasn't it, to hear all those facts, I'm sure lots of people all around the world, wherever they are, nodding along, going housing, perhaps questions about migration, jobs, cost of living.
Has all of that now been blown out of the water by what's gone on with relations south of the border?
That is, in fact, the question that will likely determine the outcome of the next election.
So it's interesting that you ask that.
I think that the threats made by Donald Trump and those threats to Canada's economic sovereignty and territorial sovereignty have certainly begun to take up a lot more space in the public conversation.
However, those cost of living concerns that you heard just a few moments ago around being able to afford a house, being able to pay your bills every month, put food on the table for your family, remain front and centre for a lot of Canadians.
And you can draw those battle lines almost in direct parallel with Canada's two major political parties.
I think that in the next election, which is widely expected to be called in a couple of weeks, If Trump remains the ballot box question for the largest number of Canadians, we'll probably see the Liberals have a bit of an advantage.
If affordability is what really is still driving people even more than these threats from south of the border, then I think the Conservative Party, which is currently in opposition, may continue to head into the election with an advantage.
Presumably those questions, those cost of living questions, They're only become more acute, right, if and when the vast bulk of these tariffs, in both directions, actually, the sort of retaliatory tariffs to start to have an impact, as they almost certainly will, right, on prices at home, jobs at home.
I think that's right.
But I also think that in that conversation, it's important to underscore how significant the Canadian unity is in this moment.
There's been a surge of patriotism among Canadians and a real sense of willingness to fight for our economic sovereignty and even our territorial sovereignty.
And what that means, I think, is that Canadians understand that they may have to endure some short term or even medium term pain in order to defend ourselves in this trade war with Donald Trump that none of us asked for.
So I wouldn't underestimate the will of Canadians to tough this out.
Yeah, it came in just very tight to us coming on the program there now.
But the outgoing Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, just been speaking, hasn't he?
Just been addressing the nation for the final time.
Extraordinarily emotional.
I mean, moved to tears in what he was saying and calling for that type of unity that you were talking to.
I mean, have you ever seen him like that before in the time that you've known him?
I have. I mean, certainly not every moment is quite as emotional as something like this, as your final act in your political life.
But in the time that I've known him and worked for him, which dates back to 2013, when he first became leader of the party, I have always known him to be somebody with a very deep personal investment in the work he was doing.
From the very start, politics has always been deeply personal for him and more than just a job or an aspiration to win the top job.
So I expected him to be emotional.
We will see one more speech from him at the Liberal Party convention on Sunday as he steps aside as leader.
And I expect we'll see a lot of reflecting and emotion from him on Sunday as well.
But but certainly this morning and yesterday as well, you could start to see that, you know, I think it's it's setting in for him, sinking in for him a bit more that that he is in his final days of doing this job that he has loved, even if, you know, he has had rough patches over the last 10 years.
And whoever takes over, and actually whichever party prevails in the upcoming election, as you said, extraordinary challenge, a challenge like never before ahead.
If you were back in some of your old government roles, what would you be advising in terms of the approach?
What would you be prioritising, do you think?
Well, I think that there is an opportunity for the incoming prime minister, which is very likely to be Mark Carney, who will win the liberal leadership race on Sunday.
He's the former head of the central bank here in the UK.
That's correct. Yep.
Former head of Canada, central bank as well prior to that.
But certainly a person with a very deep resume as a leader and as an economic administrator new to politics, though.
And I think that will be the real test for him is whether he can glide seamlessly into the political arena because it is very different.
And so he has this sort of high -stakes opportunity probably in his first week to make a first impression in his first call with Trump as Canada's new leader.
If Trump decides that he likes him, you know, when Trump likes you, it doesn't mean necessarily that he's going to call off his dogs, but it may mean the difference between him agreeing, yes, yes, okay, let's have another phone call again tomorrow or not.
And keeping that line of communication open with the president has been critical for Canada so far.
And Carney needs to sustain that.
It's going to be a fascinating relationship and a fascinating few weeks ahead.
Thanks so much, as always, Carleen, for your time there.
Carleen Varayan, Associate Vice President at Sumer Strategy.
She'll have Carleen on again to talk about that.
Once we have that decision and stay with the World Service Sunday night, GMT, into Monday morning for who the next leader of Canada in the interim will be.
Hello, I'm Robert Ince.
And I'm Brian Cox. And we would like to tell you about the new series of The Infinite Monkey Cage.
We're going to have a plan it off.
Jupiter versus Saturn.
It's very well done, that, because in the script it does say wrestling voice.
After all of that, it's going to kind of chill out a bit and talk about ice.
And also in this series we're discussing history of music, recording with Brian Eno and looking at nature's shapes.
So, listen wherever you get your podcasts.
b you're with world business report on the bbc world service well let's take a look more broadly at the impact of those tariff tensions because all through the week haven't they've been moving financial markets pretty significantly and shanti kellerman as always on a friday is back with us shanti the chief investment officer at mng wealth shanti great to have you back on the program as always um where do we end the week then uh looks like perhaps a calmer day in the us even if things are still down a little bit?
I think the tariffs are sort of off, but at this point, it's getting a little hard to follow.
But yeah, we had today, we had data out on jobs in the US.
So came in a little bit below expectations, but still 151 ,000 new jobs created.
And then we've had a lot of whipsawing up and down this week, just with worries about, you know, Ukraine funding being pulled, with tariffs being on or off and the impact on business costs.
And we've also had a big impact on currencies.
So the bonds in the US have moved a bit lower in expectation that there might be more reductions in interest rates there.
And that's led to a bit of strength in the pound, in the euro and, you know, yen and some of those other currencies globally relative to the US dollar.
President Trump in his first time was a pretty keen watcher of the stock market, wasn't he?
He put a lot of stock in how he was doing and how he was managing the economy in what was going on with say the sp500 whether it was up or down and by how much as well so i thought we thought this was interesting this week shanti from um his treasury secretary scott bessett a former wall street trader himself now in that role speaking to fox news a little bit earlier this week the medium term which is what we're focused on it's a focus on main street wall street's done great wall street can continue to do fine but we have a focus on small business and the consumers so we are going to rebalance
the economy we're going to bring manufacturing jobs home continue the surge in small business competence that was at a record level when president trump came in we're cutting red tape we're cutting regulations and we're going to get bank lending going again does that seem like reasons for an ease perhaps to you shanti for some of those companies that saw their shares move the most the big automakers for example people who've got bits of that production or all of that production outside of the borders of the US at the moment?
Yeah, I think this week people are realising that, and Trump even said himself in the speech to Congress that there will be some disruption.
So I think there's people realising it might not keep the stock market up every single day.
So we might not have that as much.
And then there is that long term focus on rebalancing.
The comments we had that were helpful was there was something out today about pulling back a little bit and cutting some of the federal jobs which a lot of people took really positively but there's also just an element of when it's this unpredictable it it can be a strategy but that uncertainty can unnerve companies and make companies and consumers delay their decisions.
And as you say here in Europe the big two stories really have been this enormous pivot in Germany about tax and spend and also the talk about spending on defence across European countries.
Absolutely. And that was in part triggered by the US saying they're going to stop funding Ukraine.
Germany's chancellor in waiting, they're still trying to form a coalition government, has said that they want to remove some of the limits on debt for defence spending, and they also want to invest about 500 billion in infrastructure.
And so those two things would be, you know, a lot of money into the economy, into those big industrial companies that would be tasked with doing those things.
So we've seen a good boost to those markets this week.
Shantie, great as always for your insight.
Thanks so much, Shantie Kellerman there, Chief Investment Officer at M &G Wealth.
Well, as we've mentioned a few times on the programme, the price of cocoa, the key ingredient in chocolate, of course, has been spiking over the past year or so.
And although some of that pressure has eased a little in recent weeks, the reasons behind that spike seem to remain pretty persistent.
Extreme weather, climate change, plant disease have been significant factors.
But so too has increasing pressure on the farmers who farm the cocoa in countries like Ghana and Ivory Coast.
That financial pressure, sometimes seen those farmers have to give up their land or be under pressure to do so, often in Ghana, to illegal gold miners, also known as gallamse miners in Ghanaian.
Well, for more on the pressure and perhaps how to ease some of it, we got together a panel to pick through it.
Nana Aduna is the CEO of Ahenne Coco in Ghana and a spokesperson for the Ghanaian National Cocoa Farmers Association.
And Anthony Fountain is chief executive of Voice Network, a non -profit organization that focuses on cocoa sustainability.
So over the last two years, we've seen the prices at the global level skyrocket because there have been several consecutive very bad harvests.
And those bad harvests have been a combination of a lot of factors.
And Nana's point around cocoa farming simply not being rewarding for farmers has really been a key driver in that, but it's been terribly exacerbated by climate change and by a specific weather phenomenon called El Nino, which comes in every so often, every six, seven years, and creates massive rainfall pattern changes in West Africa.
And then also there's two other real elements that have led to these bad harvests in Ghana and in Cote d 'Ivoire.
One of those is a massive crop disease around the swollen shoot virus and black pod disease.
And the second has been, especially in Ghana, the encroachment on cocoa plantations by gold mining or galamse.
And so all these things together have created a real perfect storm of very bad harvests that have caused the prices go up by a factor of sometimes 400 or 500 % over the past two years.
And Nana, I presume what Anthony's saying there about the attractiveness of things like gold mining as a result are a direct result of some of the pressure that you're saying those farmers are under.
If they're under financial pressure already, selling your land for other uses or letting someone else come and dig for gold illegally on it or whatever, become much more attractive when you're in financial pressure.
I think you've hit the nail on the head.
I think I must add another factor in Ghana's scenario, which is this reliance on a so -called syndicated loan, where we basically go and borrow from largely Western banks and pre -finance or buy the cocoa forward, which basically is also, which has also been almost like an artificial suppression of the price for a number of years.
I think the factors that Anthony highlighted rightly has made the ability for Ghana Cocoa Board to raise a syndicated loan almost impossible.
And so that also has been a contributory factor to the scenario that we have right now.
Anthony, in terms of those pressures as well, it's not just for cocoa farmers, is it?
There's an unwillingness from governments right across Africa, and actually we see it in Latin America a lot as well, with illegal mining for all sorts of minerals.
there's a real unwillingness to try and tackle it because often these are big constituencies of people that, for example, they want them to vote for them and that kind of thing as well.
There's a sort of difficult line for the government there often or a line that they've created that's difficult for themselves.
Well, that's part of it, and I think there's also financial incentives for people that are either in government or that have people close to them that are in government that are part of this as well.
But I think the question you just asked Nana, right, like so if farmers are so poor because the price they get for their commodities are so low, they're driven into these kind of illegal issues, whether that's mining or, for example, growing crops that are illegal like coca all over Latin America.
And so that's why there's also a real long -term business case for making sure that commodities, and whether that's cocoa or coffee or bananas or soy or cashew, that really doesn't matter, to make sure that there's actually a business case and an incentive for farmers to do a good job at the work they're doing rather than to do these other things because it's also driving deforestation and that is a massive challenge to the climate change problem that we have.
We need these rainforests desperately to keep global warming under 1 .5.
Well, you've taken us there, Anthony.
Why don't you start then with some of the potential solutions as you see it?
Well, I think the first thing we need to do is we need to recognise that it's very, very dangerous to keep this in the realm of voluntary commitments from industry.
What we really need is a level playing field.
This needs to be regulated at as large a global space as possible.
So EU, the UK, the US, etc. Putting in place very simple and clear regulations for everyone involved in these supply chains to say, look, it's no longer permissible to destroy the planet and to exploit the people on it.
You're going to have to do a better job at making sure that the planet and the people are protected.
That's step one. I think step two is also really kind of, can we improve the governance in origin countries?
Can you make sure that there's proper rural development plans, that there's transparency and accountability, that there's rule of law and that that rule of law is being enforced?
So much money is being spent, for example, in certification and whatever, rather than actually addressing the issues of one, protecting the environment to making sure that the farmers, that's the first line of production, etc., are properly compensated.
For example, in Ghana, we again are looking at the funding model in terms of syndicated loan and looking at who actually is buying our cocoa.
If at the end of the day we all sit down and say, hey, we'll make sure that the farmers or whoever is producing, etc., are paid properly and they actually get the money.
And Anthony, it's about us too, isn't it?
Consumers. So to some extent, yes.
And I think the main thing that we need to be willing to do is to actually pay for what we're buying.
On the other hand, consumers can't be expected to be an expert on every product that they buy.
Our thanks to Nana Aduna there, the CEO of Ahene Coco in Ghana, spokesperson too for the Ghanaian National Cocoa Farmers Association, and to Anthony Fountain, the chief executive of The Voice Network.
You're with World Business Report, and it's just under a week since a space startup celebrated this moment.
IMU reports lunar gravity and it is stable.
Al Khan, Chief Engineer on Ops.
Y 'all suck the landing.
We're on the moon. That was the moment.
Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost became the first commercial spacecraft to successfully land on the moon.
And Michael Sheets is the company's Director of Investor Relations, joins us live from their HQ in Austin, Texas.
Michael, thanks for being with us on World Business Report.
Well, it's a pleasure being on here and thanks for celebrating with us.
And it's a huge moment, not just for our company, but America, as well as the whole world, is taking a new step into the commercial industry and taking us now on the moon's surface.
Well, I was going to say, how does a week go that starts like that when you go back into the office on Monday morning?
Oh, my gosh. It's just grinning ear to ear.
We traveled 2 .8 million miles to get to this ultimate ending.
And then it's not just the landing itself, but then with the 10 payloads we're now operating on the moon's surface that NASA, under a $100 million contract, paid for us to do it.
I think I want to just highlight that financial note real quick because this is done at a scale that we've never seen before.
Past missions cost billions of dollars.
We did this under a fraction of that.
And we're operating instruments like a drill that's going into the surface and a vacuum that's sucking up lunar regolith off the surface to study it.
So it's a huge moment, not just for commercial industry, but also for the science that NASA wants to get done on the moon.
Right. So the nature of that partnership with NASA, the government's base agency.
That's correct. So we've got more, too.
We're under contract to now start doing this on an annual basis.
we'll be flying future blue ghost missions to the moon and what's the kind of long -term goal what's this hopefully the first step of you know what is what is the rover doing right now as you say it's collecting information to bring back to do what to inform what to inform us about a lot of different aspects of the makeup of the moon how much infrastructure we can develop there what's in the the regolith itself and how much more information we can gather this is more macro It's a real precursor mission to the future of the Artemis mission program that NASA is working on, which is actually to send
people to the moon.
These precursor missions, you can think of them as cargo and research.
It's that first groundwork where we get an understanding of what it would actually look like to not just build a moon base, but also operate it continuously, which is really the long term goal of NASA here.
And from a financial perspective, from your job perspective, I guess, as well, what does that do?
Why is that important then in terms of bringing those investors in?
What are you able to tell them as a result?
Certainly. I think it's a huge piece of the company's future as far as demonstrating the technical capability and how we can operate these missions at a financially affordable cost to perform science at a level that was never done before.
More importantly, in the long -term future of the moon, the moon provides an incredible jumping off pad for the rest of planetary exploration and infrastructure development.
So there's huge capabilities here that we're demonstrating for everything from national security to science that whether it's NASA, the Space Force or other agencies all have an interest in.
And I also want to point out the UK did have a piece of this Blue Ghost mission.
There was a company out of Buckinghamshire, NAMO UK, who provided part of our propulsion system that slowed us down to stick the landing.
In personal terms, and good to hear that the UK is involved in some of these things, in personal terms, you gave up being a reporter, having a nice cushy job in New York with CNBC, one of the big networks covering all of this to do this.
I guess that shows that you really believe that this is where this is going as a sector.
That's exactly it. The sector change is already well underway.
And Firefly is one of the leading American companies that now is the only one that successfully landed on the moon.
So it was a move that I made before we stuck the landing, but it was one I had the full confidence in.
This team, it's an incredible group of more than 700 employees out here in Austin that just do truly groundbreaking work every single day.
The energy here is incredible.
Well, come on and talk to us about that future work as well.
Michael, thanks so much for your time.
Michael Sheets there, Director of Investor Relations at Firefly Aerospace.
And you can see that video on the BBC website.
Go to bbc .com forward slash business.
Hello, I'm Robyn Ince.
And I'm Brian Cox, and we would like to tell you about the new series of The Infinite Monkey Cage.
We're going to have a planet off.
Jupiter versus Saturn!
It's very well done that, because in the script, it does say, wrestling voice.
After all of that, it's going to kind of chill out a bit and talk about ice.
And also in this series, we're discussing history of music, recording with Brian Eno, and looking at nature's shapes.
So, listen wherever you get your podcasts.
Thank you.
