BlackRock to buy Panama Canal ports from Hong Kong owner

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

• BlackRock to buy Panama Canal ports

• Zelenskyy says Ukraine ‘ready’ to talk peace

• Taiwan’s push to stay in Trump’s good graces

BlackRock has agreed to buy two major ports on the Panama Canal from their Hong Kong-based owner as part of a $22.8bn deal, following pressure from Donald Trump over alleged Chinese influence at the vital waterway.

Under the agreement, the ports’ Hong Kong-based owner CK Hutchison would sell the business to a consortium including BlackRock, Global Infrastructure Partners and Terminal Investment Limited, according to a company statement yesterday. The group would acquire a 90 per cent stake in the company that owns and operates the two ports in Panama.

Trump has frequently alleged that “China is running the Panama Canal”, and rattled Panama when he threatened earlier this year to “take it back” under American control.

One person familiar with the deal said: “When President Trump won and he started making noise about annexing Canada and Greenland and Panama, the pressure was put on the Panamanians.” The person added that CK Hutchison “realised that it was a political headache and they wanted to do something”. Here’s what else we know about the agreement.

Here’s what else we’re keeping tabs on today:

• Economic data: South Korea and Australia report GDP figures.

• Chinese politics: The annual session of the National People’s Congress, China’s rubber stamp legislature, begins. Xi Jinping’s corruption purges have cast a shadow over this year’s gathering.

• US politics: Donald Trump will address a joint session of Congress on Tuesday evening (local time) for the first time since returning to power in January.

On Thursday, join consumer editor Claer Barrett for a webinar on tackling debt to mark International Women’s Day. Register for free.

Five more top stories

1. Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine was “ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible” and called last week’s dramatic clash with Trump in the Oval Office “regrettable”. The conciliatory statement came after the US president on Monday suspended military aid to Kyiv.

2. China’s leading electric-vehicle maker BYD has pledged to work with rival Tesla to combat petrol cars, while insisting that Beijing was “more open” to foreign business than the west. Speaking to the FT, BYD executive vice-president Stella Li said: “Our common enemy is the internal combustion engine car.”

3. Eutelsat said it was in talks with European governments about providing additional satellite connectivity in Ukraine amid fears that access to Elon Musk’s Starlink in the country could be cut. Shares in the French satellite operator soared as investors bet that European leaders’ efforts to support Ukraine would boost demand for the group’s services.

4. Apple is stepping up its fight with the British government over a demand to create a “back door” in its most secure cloud storage systems, by filing a legal complaint that it hopes will overturn the order. The request for a back door would enable law enforcement — after obtaining a warrant that was approved by a judge — to tap iPhone back-ups and other cloud data that is otherwise inaccessible, even to Apple itself. Read more about the case.

5. Australia’s opposition party has pledged to crack down on “unsustainable” remote working arrangements in the civil service if it is elected later this year. The move drew condemnation and comparisons to Trump’s push to force government employees back into the office full time.

News in-depth

Hours after Taiwan’s crown jewel company promised that it would invest an extra $100bn in the US, President Donald Trump gave a chilling reminder of why so many in the Asian country are keen to seek his favour. Trump’s apparent readiness to abandon Kyiv, suspending military aid to Ukraine, has left many Taiwanese worried that Trump could abandon their country, leaving it to the mercy of China.

We’re also reading . . . 

• Trump’s ‘kicking ass’: The suburban voters who propelled the president to a second term are keeping the faith as he tears up the rule book.

• South Korea: The country’s biggest conglomerates are slimming down as US-China competition intensifies and tariff threats loom.

• A world beyond the dollar: Investors are starting to imagine a financial system without the US at its centre, writes Katie Martin.

Chart of the day

The number of Americans applying for UK citizenship rose to the highest on record last year, driven by a late surge in the final months of 2024. Immigration lawyers said the record numbers of applicants were driven by UK tax changes and Trump’s return to power.

Take a break from the news . . . 

Liu Jiakun has won this year’s Pritzker Prize, architecture’s most prestigious award. The Chinese architect’s best known project is West Village in his home city of Chengdu, where it became so popular that the authorities closed off public access.