Good morning from the Financial Times.
Today is Monday, November 24th, and this is your FT News Briefing.
Confusion and uncertainty dominate crunch talks on a Ukraine peace deal.
Plus the US piles more pressure on Venezuela.
And problems with AI chatbots are leading major insurance companies to rethink their corporate coverage offerings.
Many of them are really squeamish about that possibility of covering widespread information incidents that could impact the whole market.
I'm Victoria Craig, and here's the news you need to start your day.
Ukraine's European allies have been scrambling to slow US efforts to force Kiev to agree a proposal for peace.
Hastily arranged weekend talks took place in National security advisors from a number of European countries met their Ukrainian and U.S. counterparts, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
A 28-point US peace plan floated last week rattled the transatlantic alliance and sparked criticism from American lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle.
It's also triggered confusion about whether Washington is embracing Russia's goals or aiming for a balanced negotiation.
That's because the US plan would cross several longstanding red lines for Ukraine, including handing over territory Russia has been unable to seize itself.
European diplomats expect further discussions this week between France, Germany, and the UK.
Be sure to stay tuned to FT.com for all the very latest details.
U.S.
President, Donald Trump's pressure campaign on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is ratcheting higher today.
Washington is now officially designating Venezuela's Cartel of the Sons as a foreign terrorist organization.
It says the group is responsible for quote violence throughout our hemisphere and for drug trafficking to the US and Europe.
It's become a particular target for the American president because Trump has alleged Maduro is the cartel's leader.
Since September, he's ordered drone strikes on boats the US says were smuggling cocaine and fentanyl.
So what does all of this mean?
And is a bigger conflict potentially brewing?
Michael Stott, the FT's Latin America editor, joins me to dig into those questions.
Hi, Michael.
Hi, Victoria.
So why has Cartel of the Suns become a focus for the U.S.?
Trump has been very clear all along that he wants Maduro to be seen as an illegitimate leader, that he's not a real president.
He's not the true leader of Venezuela.
He's a common criminal who's responsible for drug trafficking and, the American government says, terrorism.
So what this designation does is?
It allows them a possible legal basis and a justification for taking action against Maduro as a criminal, rather than as a head of state or a head of government.
I think that that's the real intention.
The practical effect is that it allows the government to seize assets belonging to this organisation, people associated with it, and it allows them to deny visas and it allows them to punish any company or individual who does business with them.
And if we take a bit of a step back for our listeners, who haven't been following the tick by tick of this over the last couple of months, why has the US pressure been mounting over that period?
So Venezuela is unfinished business for Donald Trump.
In his first term, he tried to oust Maduro through a campaign of maximum pressure sanctions.
And he led 60 countries, including most European countries, in derecognizing Maduro's government.
And in recognizing the opposition leader, Juan Guaido, Maduro stayed in power.
So this is something that dates right back for Trump.
And Trump has said he wants to sort Venezuela out, quote unquote.
So it remains to be seen exactly how he wants to sort it out.
But he's been very clear that Maduro is not a legitimate leader.
And what impact has all of this had on President Maduro and his government?
So President Maduro has denied repeatedly that his government is involved in drug trafficking.
He says he wants peace.
He says he's willing to talk to the US anytime.
And he's taken increasing precautions around his own security, as you might expect in a situation like this.
So he's only appearing at carefully choreographed events in front of invited groups of supporters with heavy security.
We're told that he's sleeping in different places every night.
He's changing his movements at the last minute.
But his public messaging has been very much, we want peace, we don't want war.
And if you can look into your crystal ball a little bit Michael, what can we expect over the next several days, maybe weeks?
Because this story is a fairly fast-moving one.
There have been lots of twists and turns over the last couple of days.
Yes.
So the latest thing we had was on Saturday.
Six European airlines cancelled their flights from Europe to Venezuela and from Latin America to Venezuela.
And this was after a warning from the US Federal Aviation Administration on Friday of heightened risks to civilian aviation in Venezuelan airspace from heightened military activity.
So it could be an indication of possible military action or conflict in the area.
And so President Trump has ordered the biggest naval task force to the Caribbean since the Cuban Missile Crisis in the 1960s.
He's ordered US bombers to fly close to the Venezuelan coast.
We've had US reconnaissance planes flying near Venezuela gathering information.
So the big question is whether there's some kind of military action.
Trump has also said in the last few days that he might talk to Maduro and that there might be negotiations.
He's also said he's made his mind up without saying what he's made his mind up to do.
So there have been really quite mixed signals.
But I think the military task force at its current level of strength and readiness can't stay in that location off Venezuela indefinitely.
It either has to be used or it has to be rotated and replaced, and troops need leave and they need resupply.
So if something is going to happen militarily, it probably has to happen in the next days or weeks.
Plenty to keep our eyes on this week.
Michael Stott, the FT's Latin America editor.
Thanks so much for your time.
Thank you. foreign direct investment from China to Europe jumped 80 percent last year.
Now Brussels wants Chinese companies operating in Europe to hire local workers and share technology, not just use the block as an easy entry point into the market.
Knock-on effects of U.S.
President, Donald Trump's tariffs have increased the flood of cheap Chinese goods into Europe, and that has put pressure on European industries like steel and chemicals, already struggling with high costs and environmental regulations.
Brussels hopes tighter rules will protect local jobs and reduce Europe's dependence on Chinese tech and manufacturing.
The plans will be proposed next month.
You know those AI chatbots that so many companies have deployed to deal with customer service issues?
Well, they can be annoying for users like you and me, but they've also led to billions of dollars in lawsuits.
And that's forcing a bit of a rethink for insurance companies, many of which are now opening the door to excluding AI risks from corporate policies.
The FT's Lee Harris covers the insurance industry, and she joins me now.
Hi, Lee.
Hi.
So just explain for us what's going on.
Why are these insurers making this kind of move?
Well, they're concerned that they could be exposed to big damages in this sector.
We've seen a number of lawsuits.
One example is there was a chatbot for Air Canada that promised a discount to a customer that didn't actually exist.
And a tribunal ordered that company to honor the discount anyway and pay it out.
Hallucination is a really tough one because a lot of current commercial companies insurance policies covering cyber.
They're really set to be triggered by a security breach or a privacy breach.
They're not used to dealing with a machine just baking something up.
The Air Canada example was relatively small, but there are some bigger ticket lawsuits that we've seen too.
Wolf River Electric, which is a solar company, sued Google for at least 110 million in damages, claiming that Google's AI overview feature falsely stated.
The company was being sued by the Minnesota Attorney General.
So I think we'll see how some of these cases play out, but it's definitely something that's got insurers on edge.
So this move to make changes to corporate policies, how seriously is it really being taken within the industry?
In other words, which insurers are thinking about taking this step?
Well, a number of them have, but Some of the names we have are AIG, Great American, and WR Berkeley.
Those are big commercial insurers, so they offer property and liability coverage to businesses.
And they have asked US state regulators to strip out this cover from their business insurance policies.
Berkeley actually proposed one exclusion that would bar claims involving any actual or alleged use of AI, including any product or service sold by a company incorporating AI technology.
And how are those insurance companies navigating this rapidly changing landscape?
Are there some risks that they're more comfortable taking on?
I guess what we know from brokers who buy insurance on behalf of their clients is that...
What they're most concerned about is systemic risk.
So one broker that I talked to at Aon said insurers feel like look, we can cover even hundreds of millions of dollars in losses if a single company that's our client faces that.
I mean, these insurers are big companies.
What they're really concerned about is a situation where an AI chatbot, for example, has an issue that kind of ripples through many companies at once.
We've actually already seen that with cyber insurance, even before you get to AI insurance, where one simple IT outage can be a global event that costs billions of dollars to many companies at once.
And that's what insurers are kind of trying to think ahead about.
I think we're in the early days.
Insurers definitely want to provide more cover to their clients, but Many of them are really squeamish about that possibility of covering widespread incidents that could impact the whole market.
The FT's Lee Harris in London for us.
Thanks so much for your time, Lee.
Thanks for having me on.
Before we go, vaccine maker Moderna has gone from a pandemic era high flyer on Wall Street to now the most shorted company in the benchmark SP 500.
The company's share price has hit its lowest level since before the coronavirus crisis began, and investors are betting it has more room to fall.
It comes as fewer people in the U.S. have opted to get their COVID jabs this year.
The vaccination rate is down about 24 percent from a year ago and Moderna's revenues have slumped more than 80 percent since 2021.
But the company is promising a turnaround in 2026.
Execs say they're growing sales in non-US markets and looking to apply their mRNA technology in cancer research.
You can read more on that and all of the stories in today's show for free when you click the links in our show notes.
This has been your daily FT News briefing.
Check back tomorrow for the latest business news.
