| Bloomberg Evening Briefing Americas |
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| Thanks, but maybe no thanks? Donald Trump this week quickly pushed aside alleged drug trafficking in favor of oil revenue as his main reason for launching a surprise attack on Venezuela and renditioning President Nicolas Maduro. The US president has repeatedly pledged that oil majors would be stepping over each other for a piece of the action. But they aren’t that excited. Trump convened almost 20 industry representatives at the White House Friday, predicting they could come to an agreement “today or very shortly thereafter” to restart operations in the oil-rich country. But the executives expressed caution about reentering the impoverished South American nation, let alone spending the $100 billion it might take to revive its oil production. Exxon Mobil Chief Executive Officer Darren Woods, for example, said Venezuela is currently “uninvestible.” —David E. Rovella | |
What You Need to Know Today | |
| US employers added fewer jobs than expected in December, with nonfarm payrolls increasing 50,000 after downward revisions to the prior two months, according to the Trump Administration. The unemployment rate edged down to 4.4%, settling back after the record-long government shutdown, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, an arm of the Labor Department. But all in all, 2025 was the worst year for American workers since the year Covid-19 arrived. US inflation expectations rose in December while perceptions of job availability were the worst in at least 12.5 years, according to a monthly survey from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The December data also suggest the labor market remained fragile at the end of the year, and the outlook for hiring is guarded. Economists see another year of limited job opportunities and cooling pay gains, likely exacerbating voters’ affordability concerns going into this year’s midterm elections. The jobs report is telling the “same kind of story we’ve been seeing from all the other data, which is it’s a labor market that’s weakening,” said Betsey Stevenson, a professor of public policy and economics at the University of Michigan. | |
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| After a year of Trump, who won 2025? Wall Street of course. The six giants of US banking are expected to post their second-highest annual profit ever—a $157 billion haul—when they report next week. Corporate dealmaking surged to a near-record, bolstered by the administration’s deregulatory bent. Trading clients repeatedly repositioned portfolios in response to abrupt proclamations while advances in artificial intelligence helped many lenders keep a lid on costs. As bank earnings kick off next week, analysts estimate the industry’s six leaders—JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley—probably boosted their combined annual profit 9% from a year earlier, according to analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. That would touch the highest level since a wave of dealmaking and pandemic-era fiscal stimulus helped drive a record in 2021. | |
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| Nationwide protests against Trump’s immigration dragnet continued in the aftermath of the killing of a 37-year-old Minnesota woman by an immigration agent, and the administration’s refusal to include state or local officials in the investigation. Two more people were shot by immigration agents in Portland, Oregon, last night. Officials there urged residents to be calm and called for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to cease operations. The victims were hospitalized. A US government spokeswoman alleged the couple had “weaponized” their car before being shot, but provided no evidence to support the claim. Similar assertions by the Trump administration regarding the Minneapolis killing of Renee Good by an ICE agent identified as Jonathan Ross were contradicted by video footage. “Portland is not a training ground for militarized agents,” Portland Mayor Keith Wilson said at a press conference on Thursday night. “Our community deserves answers, our community deserves accountability and most of all our community deserves peace.” | |
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| With his directive ordering Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy $200 billion of mortgage bonds, Trump is placing the White House in a role traditionally reserved for the Federal Reserve and intensifying debate over how far presidents can go in steering financial markets. If the firms carry out the purchases as instructed, it would be the first time in living memory a US president has directly intervened in housing finance through large-scale asset buying, according to market participants. Trump’s directive “blurs the line between market-driven utility and political manipulations,” said Kirill Krylov, a strategist Baird & Co., in a Friday note to clients. “Buying assets explicitly to manipulate mortgage rates reintroduces political risk into a market that has spent more than a decade trying to distance itself from such practices.” | |
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| Turkey is said to be seeking to join the defense alliance between Saudi Arabia and nuclear-armed Pakistan, paving the way for a new security alignment that could shift the balance of power in the Middle East and beyond while illustrating growing doubt in America. The deal, initially signed by Saudi Arabia and Pakistan in September, states that “any aggression” against one country is considered an attack on all. That mirrors Article 5 in the NATO treaty, of which Turkey is the second largest military. As Turkey’s interests increasingly overlap with those of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan in South Asia, the Middle East and even Africa, Ankara also sees the pact as a way of strengthening security and deterrents. This is particularly important given the increasing lack of credibility associated with American defense promises. “As the US prioritizes its own interests and that of Israel in the region, changing dynamics and fallout from regional conflicts are prompting countries to develop new mechanisms to identify friends and foes,” said Nihat Ali Ozcan, a strategist with Ankara-based think tank TEPAV. | |
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What You’ll Need to Know Tomorrow | |
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