2025-04-15
10 分钟Good morning from the Financial Times, today is Tuesday, April 15th, and this is your FT News Briefing.
The European Union wants to break off gas deals with Russia,
and China's President Xi Jinping is doing the rounds in Southeast Asia,
plus the IMF is giving Argentina even more money, but this time is different.
I'm Mark Filippino, and here's the news you need to start your day.
Brussels is looking into whether European companies can legally break long-term Russian gas contracts.
Sources tell the FT
that the European Commission is studying the contracts and seeing whether they can declare force-major,
the unforeseeable act of God thing.
That way they can get out of these deals without having to pay an additional fee.
The bloc is struggling to cut off Russian energy imports and deprive Moscow of revenues that it's using in its war against Ukraine,
but one official said that using the war for this force-major angle might not work.
The discussions are part of a roadmap meant to wean the EU off Russian fossil fuels by 2027.
The plan is supposed to be published in the next couple of weeks.
Vietnam, Malaysia, and Cambodia are incredibly dependent on exports to fuel their economies,
and in particular, they send a lot of goods to the United States.
But with tariffs from Washington, they may need to find new markets.
Enter China, whose President Xi Jinping is visiting the countries this week with a basic pitch.
Beijing is open for business.
The FT's Ed White has been following the situation.