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Here’s how to retire long before your 60s | CNN

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Here’s how to retire long before your 60s | CNN

There isn’t a shortcut for saving cash for retirement. However some folks have discovered methods to do the exhausting work quicker.

Reasonably than planning to retire of their 60’s, they turbo-charge financial savings, pare down spending and optimize investments to grow to be financially unbiased and retire early – a course of referred to as FIRE.

For Justin McCurry retirement got here greater than 30 years early. McCurry saved $1.3 million and retired 9 years in the past when he was 33 so he may spend extra time touring along with his spouse and three youngsters. Nevertheless it took him years of cautious planning and saving to get there.

McCurry, who writes about FIRE technique and affords early retirement consulting on his web site Root of Good, centered on lowering his money owed and began saving cash in school. By attending an reasonably priced state faculty and graduating early whereas working on the identical time, he was in a position to go away school with a wholesome chunk of financial savings. He additionally purchased a apartment that he rented out and finally bought for a revenue.

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“It’s a long-term mindset,” McCurry mentioned. “It will take a decade or two to achieve FIRE.”

Whereas some folks use excessive salaries in expertise, finance or medication to launch them towards monetary independence, McCurry, a former civil engineer, mentioned his revenue topped out at round $70,000 earlier than he retired.

“Monetary independence is nicely inside attain of a median school graduate,” he mentioned. “Should you’re solely making double the minimal wage, it’s a lot tougher. However for the overwhelming majority of school grads it’s in inside attain, even for individuals who earn lower than $100,000.”

Being financially unbiased signifies that revenue out of your investments alone is sufficient to cowl all of your bills. Whereas there are elementary ideas for getting there, everybody can have their very own variables relying on their revenue, way of life and danger tolerance.

“One of many largest ideas is simply to start out saving. The sooner, the higher,” mentioned McCurry. “Even for those who don’t have the all math labored out. Begin saving now as an alternative of subsequent month or subsequent 12 months.”

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Right here’s the way to begin working towards your monetary independence.

Discover your ‘FIRE quantity’

The street to early retirement begins along with your “FIRE quantity”– the sum of money it’s essential to have saved as much as reside the life-style you need after you cease working.

To search out it, first decide the annual funds you intend to reside on in retirement, McCurry mentioned.

“Perhaps you need to reside on the identical quantity you reside on now,” he mentioned. “Perhaps it’s extra since you’re going to be touring. Perhaps it’s much less since you plan to maneuver out of an costly metropolis and even overseas to a less expensive place.”

Subsequent it’s essential to decide your withdrawal charge, or how a lot you’ll pull out annually out of your portfolio to reside on in retirement.

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“The 4% rule is nice for those who’re retiring at age 65,” mentioned McCurry. “However for those who’re retiring early it is best to take into consideration 3.5% and for those who’re retiring in your 30s or 40s you could take an much more conservative quantity.”

Subsequent, he mentioned, take the retirement funds and divide that by your 3% or 4% retirement charge to get your magic quantity.

“That may inform you what your saving purpose needs to be,” he mentioned.

For instance, for those who plan to reside on $40,000 a 12 months in retirement with a 3.5% withdrawal charge, you’d want to save lots of $1.142 million – that’s your FIRE quantity. You possibly can discover and tweak all of the variables with an internet calculator like this one at Networthify.

For these trying to have extra revenue in retirement, the quantity shall be increased. Rita-Soledad Fernandez Paulino, the 35 year-old founder of monetary teaching agency Wealth Para Todos, has a magic variety of $4 million. That’s sufficient for her, her husband and youngsters to reside on about $120,000 a 12 months once they retire early.

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“My quantity is increased as a result of my husband has this concept that people who find themselves on FIRE, like they solely eat frijoles they usually don’t eat out,” Paulino mentioned in an interview with Delyanne Barros on CNN’s Diversifying private finance podcast. “And my husband’s like, we’re not going to retire early if we’re going to need to sacrifice, like not consuming at eating places and being foodies.”

Supercharge financial savings

The highly effective accelerant getting you to your magic quantity is your financial savings charge, with most individuals pursuing FIRE residing nicely beneath their means and saving greater than half their revenue.

The sooner you begin the higher, as a result of the sunshine that makes your financial savings develop is compounding curiosity.

“Contribute to your 401(ok) and push your withholding as much as 8% or 10% from 6% or 7%,” mentioned McCurry. “Your paycheck doesn’t go down loads once you do, however it is going to add up loads down the street due to compound curiosity.”

The primary 12 months out of school may be necessary for organising your financial savings habits, McCurry mentioned. Regardless that you could be on the decrease finish of your earnings, you’ll have probably the most disposable revenue at the moment, earlier than obligations like increased training, automotive funds, a house or a household take up a bigger share of your pay.

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“Should you focus closely on saving targets early, you possibly can entrance load your retirement financial savings and planning.”

There are selections to make alongside the best way about what you need to prioritize and in addition maybe sacrifice so as to make your financial savings targets. For instance, Paulino and her husband have determined to not put cash right into a 529 plan to save lots of for his or her youngsters’s school bills. As a substitute, they’re investing in actual property that the kids will inherit.

“That’s a choice we’ve made that some folks can be like, ‘Oh my goodness, you’re not paying on your child’s school? As a substitute, you’re specializing in retiring early!?” she instructed Barros. “In the end, youngsters study most from our actions. So in the event that they see you being intentional along with your dinero, they’re going to study to be intentional with their dinero, too.”

Eradicate bills and elevate earnings

Aiming to stash half or extra of your wage will typically require sacrifices.

“The best factor can be for a university graduate to proceed to reside like a university scholar for 3 or 4 years after graduating,” McCurry mentioned.

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Nevertheless it needn’t be a lifetime of austerity, he mentioned, only one the place you make intentional selections about the place your cash goes. Dwell at house or with roommates longer than you’d like, to save lots of on housing prices. Prepare dinner as an alternative of order out. Price range your main purchases and holidays. The primary factor is to remove wasteful bills and save the remaining.

Irrespective of your revenue, having a excessive financial savings charge goes to be attainable just for these folks with nearly no money owed. That’s why many individuals working towards FIRE begin by paying off their money owed first, or reside a car-free life.

A part of having extra money to save lots of is to proceed to get pay raises. McCurry mentioned you could even have to earn one other diploma, certificates, or talent to get to the following pay stage.

“The folks I’ve seen succeed and hit FIRE at a younger age, they’re getting raises or they’re repeatedly switching jobs,” mentioned McCurry. “A $50,000 a 12 months job is sweet to start out, however two years in for those who’re not getting a pay increase or promotion, search for a brand new job”

Optimize investments

Skipping just a few dinners out and notching promotions aren’t going to get you to FIRE alone. The cash you save additionally must develop. By the point you’ve important financial savings, the tweaks you make to your investments can have extra impression than any modifications to your spending or saving habits.

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Investments working towards FIRE needs to be, frankly, boring, mentioned McCurry. Keep away from particular person shares or risky investments and focus as an alternative on index funds – diversified inventory funds that observe the key indexes.

“You shouldn’t see your portfolio going wildly up and down. You’re aiming for regular 8% or 10% returns per 12 months, not a dangerous 50% or 100% returns per 12 months that will disappear the following 12 months.”

The temptation to wager massive on potential windfalls – like crypto or actual property investments – could also be nice. However McCurry mentioned, if one thing guarantees to double your cash, it has loads of danger baked into it. Maybe greater than you’d be keen to face up to whereas working towards your purpose.

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The relentless advance of American asset managers in Europe

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The relentless advance of American asset managers in Europe

Britain’s national airline might have been expected to choose a UK-based fund manager to look after £21.5bn of pension assets. But in 2021, British Airways turned to New-York based BlackRock to run the money.

It was not the only one. BAE Systems, a defence contractor, followed suit by giving Goldman Sachs its £23bn mandate. This year, Shell asked BlackRock to manage €26bn of its pension assets.

The recent US domination of so-called outsourced chief investment officer (OCIO) services is a particularly visible sign of a much broader shift in global money management. Very large US groups are building ever larger beachheads in the UK and Europe — gathering assets, squeezing fees and shaking up the market.

The Americans are profiting as European investors shift money into low-cost tracking funds and exchange traded funds and unlisted alternatives, including private equity, private credit and infrastructure.

Buoyed by rising fee income from vibrant US securities markets, the very largest US asset managers and the asset management arms of Wall Street banks such as JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs outcompete their European and British rivals in part because they can spread technology and compliance costs across a larger asset base.

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“Competition for the largest mandates in the UK, Europe and the Middle East is increasingly between American firms,” says Fadi Abuali, co-chief executive of Goldman Sachs Asset Management International (GSAM). “We have scale, capacity to grow and we’re resilient.”

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As the world’s largest pension funds and endowments have started consolidating their business with fewer managers, the US groups’ size and diverse product offerings have given them an edge.

“Running an asset manager is becoming more and more expensive, so you need a big-scale platform that is managed very efficiently,” says Rachel Lord, head of BlackRock’s international business. “If you have a platform that can offer a lot of different things across active, index, technology and private markets, you can win.”

Over the past decade, assets under management by US groups in the UK and Europe more than doubled from $2.1tn in 2014 to $4.5tn as of the end of September, according to ISS Market Intelligence. In addition to substantially outpacing European rivals, the Americans are making further inroads in areas where they are globally dominant. These include UK tracker funds, where they now manage 59 per cent of all assets, and in the fast-growing active ETF sector where they control three-quarters of the market. 

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Many UK asset managers are also on the wrong side of long-term structural trends, says Jon Godsall, co-lead of McKinsey’s global wealth and asset management practice. Actively-managed funds investing in domestic equities — historically their bread and butter — are in decline, and mid-sized money management firms around the world are struggling.

Godsall adds that what appears to be “a reticence to adapt in the face of overwhelming evidence of the need to adapt” has been a far bigger factor in their decline than fears about the City of London’s standing in international capital markets, or the UK’s decision to leave the EU.

“When I talk to American managers, they have no problem with the City of London or Brexit — it’s going very well for them in the UK.”

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The pending return of Donald Trump to the White House, along with Republican control of Congress and a conservative-leaning Supreme Court, is propelling US momentum further.

Shares in US banks, alternative investment groups and some listed asset managers like BlackRock have soared on the prospect of deregulation, tax cuts and a boom in dealmaking. The industry harbours hopes that the Trump administration will make it easier to sell alternative investments including private equity, credit and cryptocurrencies to individual investors — all of which will increase the size, power and confidence of US asset managers.

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“I’ll whisper it because it’s embarrassing, but Trump’s return is actually really good for business,” says a top asset management executive at a US firm. “We’re energised, we’re winning business, we feel good. Clients feel that.” 

By contrast, the UK’s listed asset managers look beleaguered. Schroders and Abrdn have both appointed new bosses to try to boost flagging share prices and cut costs. In continental Europe, asset managers are increasingly trying to pull off big mergers to gain scale in the face of the Americans.

“[Clients] don’t want to talk to losers”, says the US executive “and they certainly don’t want to give their money to someone who may not be here in 10 years.”


The march of US asset managers into the UK and Europe echoes a similar phenomenon that played out decades earlier in stock trading and investment banking.

Margaret Thatcher’s “Big Bang” deregulation of the UK’s financial markets in 1986 stripped away the demarcation between banking, advising corporate clients and share trading. Over the following two decades, venerable City institutions such as Smith New Court, Barclays de Zoete Wedd and Cazenove were swallowed up by bigger US rivals and their European imitators such as Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank and UBS.

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That paved the way for the American full-service investment banking model — where everything from sales and trading to research and mergers and acquisitions advice are brought under one roof — to conquer Europe. US institutions now dominate investment banking and have been stealing market share from European rivals for over a decade.

Money management is much less concentrated than investment banking, and some mid-sized US groups are facing similar structural headwinds to their peers across the Atlantic. But the best positioned US asset managers are now powering past European rivals, fuelled by robust growth at home and a strong dollar, which has supported international expansion.

Total assets under management in North America grew 16 per cent year on year in 2023, versus 8 per cent in Europe and 2 per cent in the UK, according to consultants BCG. 

“This scale advantage allows US firms to invest more substantially in absolute terms in technology and operations, enhancing their competitiveness and allowing them to outcompete local European players,” says Dean Frankle, managing director and partner at BCG in London.

“Slower growth and market fragmentation have presented challenges for European players, who face increased pressure to consolidate and compete.”

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A signature deal of the post-Big Bang era was Schroders’ sale of its investment banking division to Citigroup for £1.35bn in 2000. One of the last great dynastic British finance houses, Schroders was also one of a few homegrown investment banks that could compete for big-ticket M&A deals. But its board opted to double down on asset management, which uses less capital and generates reliable fee income.

That decision coincided with the high-water mark of its clients’ allocations to equities. In 1999, UK pension funds invested three-quarters of their assets in equities, with around half going into UK shares and a quarter into non-UK, according to data compiled by New Financial. 

A series of changes to tax and accounting rules led pension schemes to shift assets out of equities and into government bonds. By 2021, the average UK pension fund had cut its equity allocation to 27 per cent — with just 6 per cent in UK shares, sucking capital out of the domestic markets and depriving asset managers of their core client base.

That long-term trend was followed by the UK’s departure from the EU. “Brexit made the UK asset managers not European,” says a second top US executive. “Therefore they didn’t have a backyard of significance and had no real competitive advantage against the American firms.”

These UK-specific challenges were compounded by global trends, such as the shift from active to passive investing and the associated downward pressure on fees. As the number of quoted companies steadily fell, clients wanted more access to private markets, while large institutional investors tended to want closer relationships with fewer asset managers. 

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“Most UK players were left with neither global scale, captive distribution nor fast-growing product mixes,” says Huw van Steenis, partner and vice-chair at management consultancy Oliver Wyman, adding that merging with each other is unlikely to rescue them.

The second US executive describes the independent UK asset management industry as “largely irrelevant” and “something circling the drain”.

“London will remain the asset management centre for Europe, but the winners will increasingly be global firms, mostly the Americans.” 


Ironically, the current US success was part-made in Britain. In June 2009, Barclays sold its California-based index fund business to BlackRock. The UK bank netted $13.5bn from the disposal — but BlackRock got the ETF and tracker fund platform that would power its global success.

At around the same time, Vanguard arrived in the UK and began shaking up the retail investment market with the lowest-cost tracking funds that Europe had ever seen.

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The march of US managers was also aided by regulatory changes, such as the 2013 UK ban on commissions to advisers for the sales of financial products.

“It set the stage for us to have a low-cost offer in the market,” says Jon Cleborne, Vanguard’s head of Europe, of what was termed the retail distribution review. “Advisers really transitioned from having a commission-based product model to a fee-based planning model,” benefiting low-cost providers such as Vanguard. 

The biggest US managers also benefited from simply being large. “Scale is increasingly important [for] supporting the technology spend, the brand spend, and supporting the regulatory, legal and compliance framework that you need,” says David Hunt, chief executive of New Jersey-based PGIM, which manages $1.3tn. “If you don’t have a lot of assets it gets hard to stay in the competitive war.”

“You need to be able to invest through the cycle, through periods when profits are down and markets are tough,” says Patrick Thomson, chief executive of JPMorgan Asset Management in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. “To be able to do that you need to have a very diversified business.”

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The largest players can also provide more services, from high-fee private markets products to risk management and technology services. BlackRock’s institutional money management software Aladdin, for instance, raked in just shy of $1.5bn in revenues last year.

“The things that make BlackRock and [Goldman Sachs] formidable competitors are the things they offer that are not just asset management,” says Stefan Hoops, chief executive of Germany’s DWS, referring to Aladdin and OCIO.

The big US players also have local sales forces who work with European and UK financial advisers to explain the plethora of new investment products. 

“Go back 10 or 20 years ago, the complexity of the product and the amount of choice was significantly less,” says Caroline Randall, a UK-based member of the management committee at Los Angeles-based Capital Group. “You have to deliver value beyond investment, and we can offer to help our clients with that.”

Brexit also allowed some US groups, most notably BlackRock, to steal a march because they had already started building up domestic sales forces in major continental markets as well as the UK, while their rivals relied on EU passporting rules. 


The momentum of the big US groups is one of the factors forcing European banks, insurers and independent rivals to evaluate their commitment to asset management.

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Like Schroders did in 2000, they are weighing up whether to double down, partner with others in pursuit of scale, focus on a specialism where barriers to entry are higher, or exit the sector.

“You need scale, you can’t get to $1tn [of assets under management] and feel that things are good now,” says a banker who works on deals in the sector.

“The squeeze is no longer just felt by the mid-sized European players,” says Vincent Bounie, senior managing director at Fenchurch Advisory Partners. “Firms need capital . . . to support product development, gain efficiencies and reposition strategically towards areas of growth.” 

Thomas Buberl, chief executive of French insurance group Axa, told the Financial Times after agreeing a deal to combine its asset management business with that of BNP Paribas, that “it is the only way to compete in a heavily consolidated fund management sector that is increasingly dominated by big global firms.”

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Several other insurers are in talks to combine their asset management units with those of others, though such deals are difficult to execute. The FT revealed recently that Germany’s Allianz and French asset manager Amundi had paused long-running talks over a potential transaction because of disagreements over how best to structure it.

In the UK, Legal & General’s new chief executive António Simões has combined its substantial index tracking funds business with its private markets offering to create a single asset management division with £1.2tn in assets. “The barbell is where the asset management industry has gone: passive and private markets,” says Simões, adding that he is “considering bolt-on acquisitions, particularly in private markets and the US”.

The strength of the US groups makes them players in European consolidation as well. Goldman Sachs significantly expanded its European presence with its €1.6bn purchase in 2021 of Dutch insurer NN Group’s investment management arm — and beating Germany’s DWS in the process. 

Even as the European firms bulk up, their US rivals continue to steam ahead. Seven of the 10 fastest-growing fund groups in Europe this year are American, according to Morningstar. In the third quarter alone, BlackRock recorded $221bn of global net inflows — more than the entire European investment funds industry put together.

The US executive warns that scale alone is not a panacea. “The problem with most mergers in our industry is a failure to see that the compelling rationale must be centred around the client,” he says, adding that merging on the grounds that “we need to be big and pan-European to compete with the Americans” is not enough.

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New York judge says Trump is not immune from hush money conviction

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New York judge says Trump is not immune from hush money conviction

Former U.S. President Donald Trump departs the courtroom after being found guilty on all 34 counts in his hush money trial at Manhattan Criminal Court on May 30, 2024 in New York City.

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A New York judge ruled that former President Donald Trump cannot claim presidential immunity to overturn his felony conviction.

The decision from Judge Juan Merchan marks a temporary setback for the president-elect, who is set to return to the White House in January, and has recently secured a few wins including the indefinite delay of his sentencing in the case.

A New York jury earlier this year found Trump guilty of 34 counts of falsifyi business records to conceal a $130,000 hush money payment to adult-film star Stormy Daniels, in order to influence the 2016 presidential contest.

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Merchan, who presided over the trial earlier this year, still has to decide whether the trial should be dismissed due to Trump’s upcoming inauguration, as Trump’s lawyers have requested.

A Trump spokesperson criticized Merchan’s ruling, saying it violated the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity.

Following his conviction in May, the Supreme Court ruled in a separate case that presidents have immunity for official acts they take in office.

“This lawless case should have never been brought, and the Constitution demands that it be immediately dismissed, as President Trump must be allowed to continue the Presidential Transition process, and execute the vital duties of the presidency, unobstructed by the remains of this, or any other, Witch Hunt,” said spokesman Steven Cheung in a statement.

Trump’s legal team had argued that various testimony in the hush-money case – such as that of former White House employees – and evidence – like statements made while Trump was president – violate the Supreme Court ruling that excludes official acts from prosecution.

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But Merchan said the criminal charges stemmed from Trump’s “private acts” prior to him becoming president. And he argued Trump’s communications about the payments while he was in the White House did not touch on any official acts.

The decision that Trump does not have immunity in this New York state case comes after the U.S. Department of Justice signaled it would take steps to wind down two federal prosecutions against Donald Trump, focused on his alleged efforts to cling to power after the 2020 election and accusations he hoarded classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort. The DOJ has a longstanding policy against prosecuting a sitting president.

Trump became the first former or sitting U.S. president to be tried on criminal charges and convicted. Trump’s legal team received several wins this summer and fall when Merchan postponed Trump’s sentencing twice — the second time purposefully until after Election Day to avoid appearing politically motivated. Trump may be the first president to enter the White House as a convicted felon should his efforts to dismiss the case fail.

But prosecutors in the case argued that since Trump’s lawyers are seeking dismissal only due to the election results, invalidating the jury’s verdict could harm public confidence in the justice system. Still, they proposed staying proceedings until after Trump finishes his presidential term.

Merchan has yet to rule on the motion to dismiss.

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Trump’s lawyers are likely to appeal Merchan’s Monday ruling, and have also sought to dismiss the case on other grounds.

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Donald Trump says Turkey was behind Islamist groups that toppled Assad in Syria

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Donald Trump says Turkey was behind Islamist groups that toppled Assad in Syria

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Donald Trump said on Monday that he believed Turkey was behind the rebel group that toppled Syria’s dictator Bashar al-Assad, claiming Ankara had mounted an “unfriendly takeover” of its neighbour.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was “a smart guy and he’s very tough”, the US president-elect said at a news conference in Florida, and had made Ankara the most important foreign actor in Syria since Assad’s fall.

“They wanted it for thousands of years, and he got it. Those people who went in are controlled by Turkey,” Trump said. “Turkey did an unfriendly takeover without a lot of lives being lost.”

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The president-elect’s comments came as the US carried out air strikes against Isis fighters in Syria, and just days after secretary of state Antony Blinken said Washington was in contact with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the Islamist group that led a lightning blitz on Damascus earlier this month, forcing Assad to flee the country.

Foreign policy analysts said Trump — who will replace Joe Biden as US president next month — was sending a message to Erdoğan, with whom he has enjoyed a turbulent relationship.

“Trump has issued a warning of sorts to the new rulers of Syria and their patrons, which is ‘rule carefully, because we are watching’,” said Jonathan Schanzer, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think-tank.

Turkey’s relations with HTS have been complex. It has not directly backed the group but has supported others that co-ordinated with HTS in its lightning offensive.

“I think Turkey is going to hold the key to Syria,” Trump said.

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Trump’s comments about Erdoğan reflected the US president-elect’s tendency to keep world leaders on their toes, a foreign policy expert said.

Erdoğan might have thought Trump would be an “ace in the hole”, said Jon Alterman, at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think-tank. But the Turkish leader would be “not sure exactly where he sits” following Trump’s comments, giving the US’s incoming leader leverage.

Trump and Erdoğan fused personal camaraderie and geopolitical friction during the US leader’s first term as president. Tensions escalated over Turkey’s purchase from Russia of the S-400 missile defence system, which ended in Turkey’s ejection from the US’s F-35 fighter jet programme. Ankara’s detention of American pastor Andrew Brunson in 2016 prompted Trump to blacklist Erdoğan advisers and threaten punitive economic sanctions.

Brunson’s release thawed relations between the leaders. Turkey later capitalised on Trump’s 2019 decision to withdraw US forces from northern Syria, leaving Kurdish forces exposed to Turkish military action.

Ties between Washington and Ankara have improved more recently, according to Turkish officials and western diplomats, despite some tension triggered by Erdoğan’s criticism of Israel over its Gaza offensive.

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Turkey also eventually backed Sweden’s accession to Nato earlier this year, after which Washington approved Ankara’s purchase off American F-16 fighter jets. American officials have also hailed Turkey’s role in a prisoner exchange between the US and Russia this year and Ankara’s fight against terrorist groups, including Isis.

Turkey has, however, pushed back strongly against Washington’s support for the Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-led group that Ankara considers indistinguishable from separatists that have battled the Turkish state.

Washington sees the SDF as a crucial partner in keeping Isis from significantly reconstituting in Syria in the political vacuum following Assad’s fall.

The US has been carrying out air strikes in Syria against Isis, including on Monday when US Central Command said strikes killed 12 fighters operating in former regime- and Russian-controlled areas.

Additional reporting by Andrew England in London and Adam Samson in New York

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