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South America’s ‘made in China’ megaport prepares to transform trade

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South America’s ‘made in China’ megaport prepares to transform trade

Ahead of the ribbon-cutting at the Port of Chancay — a Chinese-built megaport on Peru’s Pacific coast that is set to transform regional trade — Chinese-made ZPMC unmanned cranes line the quay.

BYD pick-up trucks sit ready to shuttle engineers around, while Huawei 5G internet towers have been freshly constructed to handle the automated operation.

“Everything is made in China,” said a beaming Mario de las Casas, public affairs manager of the port for Cosco Shipping, the Chinese state-owned shipping giant that will operate Chancay once it opens on Thursday. “This is a huge opportunity not just for Peru but for the whole region,” he added, as Peruvian and Chinese flags flapped from street lights.

Peruvian officials argue the port, built by Cosco with local miner Volcan, will transform Peru — a big producer of copper and fruit — into the Singapore of South America, and will upend maritime trade along the continent’s Pacific coast as it can accommodate larger vessels in its deep waters.

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But analysts and officials raised concerns that the $3.6bn project, which follows a series of other Chinese infrastructure investments, in effect represents a ceding of Peruvian sovereignty over the port.

The US, for whom growing Chinese influence in Latin America presents a strategic problem, has warned the port could be used by Chinese warships. And the development may present an area of contention with US president-elect Donald Trump as he takes a tougher line against China.

“The risks to Peru are at multiple levels,” said Evan Ellis, professor of Latin American studies at the US Army War College. “Risk number one is the country not reaping the benefits of its abundant resources and geographic position, but rather the Chinese getting those benefits.”

Chinese President Xi Jinping, in Peru this week to attend the Apec summit ahead of a state visit, will appear with Peruvian President Dina Boluarte at Chancay’s inauguration on Thursday via video link from Lima, 80km away. US President Joe Biden will also be in town for the Apec summit on his first and last visit to South America as president — with little to offer.

In May, amid a dispute with Cosco, Peruvian lawmakers passed legislation granting it exclusive rights to operate Chancay, something Ellis said was “previously unthinkable and against the very essence of Peru’s assertion of sovereignty over its own ports, which are its window to the world”.

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Mario de las Casas, public affairs manager of the port for Cosco Shipping
Mario de las Casas, public affairs manager of the port for Cosco Shipping. He says the port will provide opportunity for the whole region © Mariana Bazo/FT
A Peruvian and Chinese flag at the port construction site in Chancay, Peru
A Peruvian and Chinese flag at the port construction site. Peru’s transport minister has shrugged off sovereignty concerns © Mariana Bazo/FT

Peru’s transport minister Raúl Pérez-Reyes shrugged off those concerns, arguing that Chancay will be overseen by Peru’s customs and port authorities.

“In this case it is an investment of Chinese capital, but it is exactly the same as if it were British or North American capital . . . in no case is our sovereignty lost,” Pérez-Reyes said.

He said the port would allow Peru’s booming agricultural sector to keep growing. “What Chancay will do is redirect a portion of cargo and send it directly to Asia.”

Of the $3.6bn cost of construction, $1.3bn had been invested in the initial phase, Cosco said. The deepwater port can berth some of the world’s largest shipping vessels, with a capacity of 22,000 twenty-foot equivalent units, or TEUs, an industry standard for containers. No other port on the Pacific coast of South America can take ships of this size.

Chancay will shave at least 10 days off what was previously a 35-day voyage to China from Peru, meaning vessels will no longer require a stopover at Mexico’s Manzanilla port or California’s Long Beach.

Brazilian cargoes, which sometimes travel eastbound to Asia or via the Panama Canal, will also save at least 10 days of travel time, Cosco said.

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A cabotage law passed in May will allow cargo to move between Peruvian ports before coming on land, saving time spent on roads. Cosco has said small vessels from Ecuador, Chile and Colombia would be able to ship goods to Peru’s other ports. These goods would then be moved to and exported from Chancay.

Brazil is also set to benefit, Pérez-Reyes said, by using the Southern Interoceanic Highway, which passes through Brazil’s agricultural hubs of Acre and Rondônia before reaching Peru’s Pacific coast.

Chancay, part of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, adds to a portfolio of Chinese investments that includes Peru’s largest copper mine, Las Bambas, owned by MMG, a Chinese miner. 

In April 2023, China Southern Power Grid acquired Enel’s Peruvian electricity business, which supplies power to the northern part of Lima, the country’s capital. The rest of Lima’s electricity supply was sold in 2020 to China’s Three Gorges Corporation, which also owns a Peruvian hydroelectric dam.

Peru in March awarded a concession to build and operate a port in the south to a subsidiary of Chinese company Jinzhao, which runs an iron ore mine near Ica.

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By contrast, Peruvian trade minister Úrsula León said the US was missing an opportunity to invest. Beijing and Washington both have free trade agreements with Lima, with the former expected to strengthen its FTA during Xi’s visit.

China is Peru’s largest trade partner, with copper, iron and fishmeal making up the bulk of exports worth a total of $23.1bn in 2023. US-bound exports amounted to $9.1bn.

“There are some opportunities that [the US] is missing, so it’s important that they know a little more about our market,” León said.

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León said the US “also has opportunities” to invest in megaprojects, including the planned southern port of Corío. “So we can’t generalise and say that Peru is practically becoming dependent on China,” she said.

The US had discussed Chancay with Peru, the US state department said, and raised “the importance of adequate oversight, security, regulation and fair competition for all key infrastructure projects”.

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“We are not asking partners to choose between the United States and [China], but we are demonstrating the benefits of partnership” with the US, the official said.

China is now the biggest trading partner for South America and a major investor in critical minerals, transport and energy projects. Beijing insists its overseas projects aim for mutual benefit, an approach it contrasts with what it calls Washington’s pursuit of hegemony and geopolitical advantage.

Initially Chancay will be able to handle between 1mn and 1.5mn TEUs a year, as well as 6mn tonnes of loose cargo, before increasing that to 3.5mn TEUs a year. The Port of Callao, Peru’s main port, was expanded this year and has annual capacity of 3.7mn TEUs, said the transport ministry.

But Latin America’s port capacity lags well behind Asia, North America and Europe, which have multiple ports with a throughput of more than 10mn TEUs each.

People walk in a street in Chancay town near  the port construction site in Chancay, Peru
A tunnel for trucks has been built so that it does not lead to freight congestion in the town of Chancay © Mariana Bazo/FT

To avoid congestion in the town of Chancay — until recently a sleepy fishing community visited by weekend tourists — Cosco built a 1,830 metre tunnel, Peru’s longest, for trucks to bypass the town. Residents have complained about noise from the port and what they say are threats to fish stocks and wetlands.

Cosco plans a business park beside the port, where China’s biggest electric vehicle maker BYD has expressed interest in opening an assembly plant.

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Lawmakers are considering granting the premises exclusive tax breaks, though that has faced pushback over the advantage it would give Chancay over Callao, the state-owned but privately operated port 73km away.

“Investing in Chancay is already attractive enough without having to offer tax breaks,” said Adriana Tudela, an opposition congresswoman. “We are, in essence, creating a huge disadvantage for other ports.”

Before leaving her post as chief of US Southern Command, which covers Latin America and the Caribbean, General Laura Richardson warned Chancay could be used by the Chinese navy. “This is a playbook that we’ve seen play out in other places,” Richardson said.

Alfredo Thorne, a former finance minister who runs an economic consultancy, said while the Chinese investments benefit Peruvian exports, “they carry major political risks, including access to the US market”.

US president-elect Trump, Thorne said, might drag Peru into any spat with Beijing, as he is expected to pursue protectionist policies and take a hard line against China. Trump has proposed a 60 per cent tariff on Chinese goods.

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Thorne said: “I don’t see what China’s interest would be in continuing to bet on Peru when it has to face down Trump.”

Additional reporting by Michael Stott in London

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US inflation rises to 2.6%

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US inflation rises to 2.6%

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US inflation rose to 2.6 per cent in October, as the Federal Reserve debates whether to cut interest rates at its last meeting before US president-elect Donald Trump takes office.

Wednesday’s figure from the Bureau of Labor Statistics was in line with economists’ expectations of a 2.6 per cent rate of growth and above September’s 2.4 per cent.

Once volatile food and energy prices were stripped out, “core” CPI held steady at 3.3 per cent on an annual basis. However, monthly core prices rose 0.3 per cent for a third month in a row, indicating that underlying inflation had yet to be fully tamed.

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Alberto Musalem, president of the St Louis Fed, warned in a speech on Wednesday that the risk that inflation stalled out above 2 per cent or moved higher had risen, while the risk that the labour market deteriorates quickly had “possibly fallen”.

He reiterated his call for “gradual” reductions in interest rates.

Sarah House, senior economist at Wells Fargo, said Wednesday’s figures showed that “it’s difficult to wring out this last bit of inflation”, pointing to the “long tail” of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and the persistence of price pressures in services.

The inflation data will be closely watched by the US central bank, which has already lowered its benchmark rate by 0.75 percentage points over two successive meetings to a new target range of 4.5-4.75 per cent.

Fed officials are trying to reach a “neutral” rate setting that keeps inflation in check without squashing demand, in a bid to pull off a so-called soft landing that would avoid a recession.

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In the wake of Trump’s election, markets have been worried about a resurgence of inflation, driving up Treasury yields. They fell back slightly following Wednesday’s data release, as investors bet that the Fed was now more likely to cut interest rates next month.

Futures markets imply a roughly 80 per cent probability of a quarter-point cut in December, up from 60 per cent before the inflation figures.

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Two-year Treasury yields, which track interest rate expectations, fell 0.07 percentage points to 4.27 per cent.

“I think we’re seeing some relief that [the inflation data] wasn’t an upside surprise and relief that it was just in line with expectations,” said House.

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US stocks rose slightly, with the S&P 500 up 0.3 per cent in afternoon trading.

Most metrics suggest the US economy is in good health, with recent retail sales figures suggesting consumers are still spending. The labour market is also robust despite last month’s poor jobs report, which was dragged down by hurricanes and a strike at Boeing.

Inflation has fallen significantly from its peak of more than 9 per cent in 2022, but progress has slowed in recent months.

On a monthly basis, prices rose 0.3 per cent — in line with the past three reports. Half of that increase stemmed from a 0.4 per cent increase in the index tracking housing-related costs, the BLS said on Wednesday.

Energy prices were flat for the month, following a 1.9 per cent decline in September. Further increases in airline fares were offset by declines in prices for clothes and furniture.

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At a press conference last week, following the Fed’s latest quarter-point rate cut, chair Jay Powell said he expected inflation to “come down on a bumpy path over the next couple of years” before settling near the central bank’s 2 per cent target.

Neel Kashkari, Minneapolis Fed president, told Bloomberg on Wednesday that he was confident “inflation is headed [in] the right direction”.

But the path could become more volatile following Trump’s victory. The president-elect has pledged to enact sweeping tariffs, deport immigrants en masse and lower taxes. Economists warn that these policies could stoke price pressures while breeding uncertainty that could hamper growth.

Mark McCormick, head of forex and emerging markets strategy at TD Securities, said a second Trump presidency, combined with relatively strong recent economic data, made one “cautious to think that inflation can get back to 2 per cent at a comfortable rate any time soon”.

Powell last week said the Fed did not “speculate” about the timing or substance of any future policy changes. As such, he said, “in the near term, the election will have no effects on our policy decisions”.

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Watch Live: Experts testify at UFO hearing in Congress

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Watch Live: Experts testify at UFO hearing in Congress

Journalist Michael Shellenberger, founder of the Public news outlet, displays redacted reports during a hearing on Capitol Hill Wednesday as he stresses the need for more transparency over UAP investigations.

House Oversight Committee/Screenshot by NPR


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House Oversight Committee/Screenshot by NPR

Is intelligent alien life darting around in space — and even in the skies above us here on Earth? Has the U.S. government been covering up unexplained phenomena, and using secret extraterrestrial discoveries to boost its own technology?

Those are among the questions members of Congress are discussing on Wednesday in a joint hearing by subcommittees of the House Oversight Committee. Its title: “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Exposing the Truth.”

Four experts are slated to testify in the public hearing, which began at 11:30 a.m. ET. You can watch the proceeding live.

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The Pentagon issued a report in March saying that it has found no evidence of extraterrestrial spacecraft.

Extraordinary moments unfolded in a similar hearing last year, most notably when retired Maj. David Grusch, formerly part of the Pentagon’s UAP Task Force, alleged that the U.S. government has recovered nonhuman “biologics” from crash sites and has long operated a secret reverse-engineering program to glean advances from recovered vessels.

Grusch isn’t among the witnesses for the 2024 hearing. Instead, those testifying include:

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Tim Gallaudet, retired rear admiral, U.S. Navy; CEO of Ocean STL Consulting, LLC

“Confirmation that UAPs are interacting with humanity came for me in January 2015,” Gallaudet said in his written testimony.

He describes being part of a pre-deployment naval exercise off the U.S. East Coast that culminated in the famous “Go Fast” video, in which a Navy F/A-18 jet’s sensors recorded “an unidentified object exhibiting flight and structural characteristics unlike anything in our arsenal.”

He was among a group of commanders involved in the exercise who received an email containing the video, which was sent by the operations officer of Fleet Forces Command, Gallaudet said.

“The very next day, the email disappeared from my account and those of the other recipients without explanation,” he said.

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Luis Elizondo, author and former Department of Defense official

Elizondo’s testimony is brief and sure to raise scrutiny, alleging that a secretive arms race is playing out on the global stage.

“Let me be clear: UAP are real,” he writes. “Advanced technologies not made by our Government — or any other government — are monitoring sensitive military installations around the globe. Furthermore, the U.S. is in possession of UAP technologies, as are some of our adversaries.”

Elizondo is a former intelligence officer who later “managed a highly sensitive Special Access Program on behalf of the White House and the National Security Council,” according to his official bio.

“By 2012, [Elizondo] was the senior ranking person of the DOD’s Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, a secretive Pentagon unit that studied unidentified anomalous phenomena,” his bio states, adding that he resigned in 2017.

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Michael Gold, former NASA associate administrator of space policy and partnerships; member of NASA UAP Independent Study Team

Gold’s testimony stresses the need for government agencies and academics to “overcome the pernicious stigma that continues to impede scientific dialogue and open discussions” about unexplained phenomena.

“As the saying goes, the truth is out there,” Gold said, “we just need to be bold enough and brave enough to face it.”

Michael Shellenberger, founder of Public, a news outlet on the Substack platform

Shellenberger’s testimony runs to some 214 pages, including a lengthy timeline of UAP reports from 1947 to 2023.

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Shellenberger presses the White House and Congress to act, calling for the adoption of UAP transparency legislation and cutting funds for any related programs that aren’t disclosed to lawmakers.

“UAP transparency is bi-partisan and critical to our national security,” his written testimony states.

Reports of UFOs and UAPs are now more centralized

In 1977, President Carter asked NASA to look into resuming UFO investigations, but the agency and the Air Force believed “nothing would be gained by further investigation.”

But in recent years, there have been increased efforts to compile and centralize the reporting of unexplained phenomena.

In July 2022, the U.S. government established the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO, to standardize reporting methods and data collection. It collects UAP reports from the military and from the Federal Aviation Administration including sightings reported by civilian pilots to air traffic control. The agency doesn’t offer a way for the general public to file a UAP report. It does accept “reports from current or former U.S. Government employees, service members, or contractor personnel with direct knowledge of U.S. Government programs or activities related to UAP dating back to 1945.”

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The agency adds that potential filers should not submit “any information that is potentially CLASSIFIED, or unclassified information that is not publicly releasable (e.g. subject to export control regulations).”

Many historical records are also available

Because of intense public interest, a number of records related to UFO studies are available online, including a “case files” folder related to UAPs on the U.S. Navy’s website. The FBI also has an online “vault” of records, covering the period from 1947 to 1954.

As for the famous Project Blue Book run by the U.S. Air Force from 1947 through 1969, documents related to the project are now kept by the National Archives, which holds 37 cubic feet of case files, along with at least 5 other cubic feet of records.

The bulk of the Blue Book investigations into 12,618 reported sightings were resolved, or explained, — but 701 remained “Unidentified,” the Air Force has said. The service said that none of the incidents constituted a security threat or indicated abilities beyond modern science. It added, “There was no evidence indicating that sightings categorized as ‘unidentified’ were extraterrestrial vehicles.”

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Trump’s Musk and Ramaswamy appointments spark conflict of interest fears – US politics live

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Trump’s Musk and Ramaswamy appointments spark conflict of interest fears – US politics live

Ramaswamy and Musk to lead ‘government efficiency’ department sparking conflict of interest concerns

The announcement that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy would lead a new non-governmental “Department of Government Efficiency” has immediately raised questions about conflicts of interest.

Both men, CNN notes, “lead companies with existing, lucrative government contracts”. Musk runs companies including Tesla, SpaceX, X and Neuralink while Ramaswamy is a wealthy biotech entrepreneur.

In his statement announcing the new roles, president-elect Donald Trump said of Musk and Ramaswamy:

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Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal agencies.

Reacting to his appointment, and giving his view of what he sees as government bureaucracy, Ramaswamy posted to X to say “Shut it down”.

Ramaswamy also announced he was ending his bid to be appointed Ohio senator in stead of JD Vance, who is set to become vice president.

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Key events

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Joe Biden will host Donald Trump later today at the White House as part of transition efforts between the current administration and the incoming one.

Yesterday White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters “[Biden] believes in the norms, he believes in our institution, he believes in the peaceful transfer of power. That is what is the norm. That is what is supposed to happen.”

Reuters reports that Brian Vance, a spokesperson for the Trump transition, said “The Trump-Vance transition lawyers continue to constructively engage with the Biden-Harris administration lawyers regarding all agreements contemplated by the Presidential Transition Act.”

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In an analysis piece for CNN, Stephen Collinson has described Donald Trump’s flurry of announcements as “a night of Maga shock and awe.”

He writes:

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The selection of people such as Elon Musk, Kristi Noem and Pete Hegseth are partly designed to honor the aspirations of Trump’s voters and epitomize the president-elect’s own outsider brand — as well as his deeply developed craving for loyalty.

His choice of ultra-loyalists is borne out of Trump’s frustration that establishment military officers, officials and conventional Washington operators reined in his own most extreme impulses in his first term.

But Trump is also taking a risk. While it makes sense to pick outside revolutionaries to tear down governance, many of his picks lack the kind of in-depth experience and knowledge of the departments they will run.

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In its coverage of the controversial appointment of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead a non-governmental commission to cut government spending, the Washington Post reminds readers of something the latter said earlier in the year.

It quotes Ramaswamy saying “We have a fourth branch of government – the administrative state – that our Founding Fathers didn’t envision. Removing the excess bureaucracy is going to be good for our economy and for our national spirit.”

The Washington Post goes on to say:

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A person familiar with the effort, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive negotiations, said that details of the organization’s funding would emerge soon. The [Republicans] had talked about reducing waste for many years, but had not been effective, the person added, leading the campaign to the conclusion ‘outsiders with a much more entrepreneurial approach’ were better suited to the task.

Some Trump advisers see Musk’s commission as an opportunity to implement long-sought goals to reduce federal spending and regulation. They have pointed to the Grace Commission, a Reagan-era panel that recommended billions of dollars in spending cuts. Under that model, which some Trump advisers hope the Musk plan will emulate, the commission identified hundreds or thousands of examples of wasteful government programs and regulations, and called on Congress to approve the recommendations, backed by the president.

The constitution gives Congress authority over taxation and spending, meaning any federal budget changes recommended by Musk’s commission would have to be approved by the House and Senate.

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Philip Wen

As my colleague Philip Wen noted in his report on the appointment of Elon Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to the newly created “Department of Government Efficiency”, a lot of details remain unclear:

It is not clear how the organization will operate. It could come under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which dictates how external groups that advise the government must operate and be accountable to the public.

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Federal employees are generally required to disclose their assets and entanglements to ward off any potential conflicts of interest, and to divest significant holdings relating to their work. Because Musk and Ramaswamy would not be formal federal workers, they would not face those requirements or ethical limitations.

Trump said the agency will be conducting a “complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government, and making recommendations for drastic reforms”.

Trump said their work would conclude by 4 July 2026, adding that a smaller and more efficient government would be a “gift” to the country on the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Read more here: Trump selects Elon Musk to lead government efficiency department

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Ramaswamy and Musk to lead ‘government efficiency’ department sparking conflict of interest concerns

The announcement that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy would lead a new non-governmental “Department of Government Efficiency” has immediately raised questions about conflicts of interest.

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Both men, CNN notes, “lead companies with existing, lucrative government contracts”. Musk runs companies including Tesla, SpaceX, X and Neuralink while Ramaswamy is a wealthy biotech entrepreneur.

In his statement announcing the new roles, president-elect Donald Trump said of Musk and Ramaswamy:

Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal agencies.

Reacting to his appointment, and giving his view of what he sees as government bureaucracy, Ramaswamy posted to X to say “Shut it down”.

Ramaswamy also announced he was ending his bid to be appointed Ohio senator in stead of JD Vance, who is set to become vice president.

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Welcome and opening summary …

Welcome to the Guardian’s ongoing coverage of US politics. Here are the headlines …

  • President-elect Donald Trump has continued to make appointments as he prepares to return to the White House. Former governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee, who once said he dreamed of building a holiday home in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, will be the US ambassador to Israel

  • South Dakota governor Kristi Noem will lead the Department of Homeland Security. Fox News host Pete Hegseth will serve as secretary of defense, while John Ratcliffe will lead the CIA and William Joseph McGinley will serve as White House counsel

  • Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will lead a new “Department of Government Efficiency”, which Trump says will not actually be a government agency. They will, according to Trump, work from outside the government to “drive large scale structural reform, and create an entrepreneurial approach to government never seen before”. Both men already have lucrative government contracts, leading to questions about an immediate conflict of interest

  • Republican Rep David Valadao sealed California’s 22nd Congressional district, beating Democrat Rudy Salas, and edging the Republicans closer to the 218 mark which will give them control of the House

  • The judge in Trump’s Manhattan criminal hush-money case has postponed deciding on whether to throw out the conviction on presidential immunity grounds

  • Joe Biden’s administration has said it will not halt arms transfers to Israel, despite eight international aid groups saying Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has failed to meet US demands to increase humanitarian aid to the besieged Gaza Strip

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