The infoshot to help kick-start your week
Trump threatens tariffs on NATO allies over Greenland
As President Trump steps up his campaign to take “ownership” of Greenland, he took to Truth Social on Saturday to outline new tariffs that he is planning to impose on eight NATO allies, including the UK. Starting from 1 February 2026, Trump said he will put a 10% tariff on “any goods sent to the United States of America” by the eight countries. He threatened to increase the tariff rate to 25% if the US is not allowed to “purchase” Greenland by 1 June 2026.
In response, Denmark’s Foreign Minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen said, “Every insult, threat, tariff and lie that we receive strengthens our resolve.” He was backed up by the likes of Emmanuel Macron and Kier Starmer, and the EU Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen who said, “Tariffs would undermine the transatlantic relationship and risk a dangerous downward spiral.” EU diplomats held a crisis meeting on Sunday to discuss their response. Reviving their pre-summer trade deal plan to levy tariffs on €93bn of US goods is one option. Utilising the Anti-Coercion Instrument (ACI), also known as the “trade bazooka”, is another. The ACI was originally developed in 2021 as a possible deterrence tool against China. It consists of punitive measures likes boycotts and trade restrictions and contains a framework for seeking reparation from the coercing country.
US starts selling Venezuelan oil
The US made its first sale of Venezuelan oil last week. Energy and commodities trading companies, Vitol and Trafigura paid a reported $250mn each to secure the oil. No details have been released about the volume. Vitol was the only energy company with two officials at the oil executives’ roundtable in the White House ten days ago. One of their attendees and senior traders, John Addison, donated $6mn to political action committees (PACs) supporting Trump during his latest election campaign.
The funds from the deals have been sent to banks in Qatar instead of being held in US banks or going directly back to Venezuela. Senator Elizabeth Warren criticised the move saying, “There is no basis in law for a president to set up an offshore account that he controls so he can sell assets seized by the American military”. Earlier in the week, Trump shared an image of himself with the title “Acting President of Venezuela”, and lashed out at ExxonMobil Chief Executive, Darren Woods, for labelling Venezuela “uninvestable” by threatening to keep the company out of the country. After an initial dip, Trump’s threat had little impact on ExxonMobil’s share price as they finished the week at an all-time high of $129 a share.
Takaichi calls snap election and Nikkei hits 54,000 for the first time
Japan’s Prime Minister, Sanae Takaichi, set up a snap election for 8 February 2026. Takaichi’s stance on Taiwan and refusal to back down to Chinese pressure (she has suggested Japan could become militarily involved in any conflict between China and Taiwan if Japan’s security was at risk) has reportedly boosted her support among voters. Takaichi will be hoping the tactic can reverse the Liberal Democratic Party’s (LDP) run of bad election results and increase their thin majority in the Japanese lower house. In response, the Nikkei 225 continued its recent surge and reached 54,000 points for the first time on Wednesday.
UK GDP data and bonds
The latest release from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed UK GDP grew more than expected by 0.3% in November. The return to growth after two months of contracting was helped by Jaguar Land Rover facilities starting production again. Production was bought to a halt in September following a cyber-attack that hit the carmaker at the end of August.
On Wednesday, the yield on UK 10-year bonds (also known as Gilts) fell to 4.34%, its lowest level since December 2024, as investors responded to the GDP data and the increased prospect of interest rate cuts.
OpenAI to start putting ads in ChatGPT and Alphabet reaches $4tn
As they seek reliable revenue, OpenAI announced that they will start trialling adverts on ChatGPT in the coming weeks. Initially the ads will appear for US users of the free service and a new lower subscription tier called ChatGPT Go. They’ll likely be taking lessons from the masters of turning questions into revenue, Google. Coincidentally, Google’s parent company, Alphabet, reached the $4tn valuation mark for the first time on Monday. They surpassed Apple to become the second most valuable company in the world, after Apple announced they had decided to use Google’s Gemini AI as part of their upcoming overhaul of the iPhone’s digital assistant, Siri.
Coming Up:
- Supreme Court Decision on Tariffs, Tuesday 20 January 2026
- US GDP Q3, Thursday 22 January 2026
- BoJ Interest Rate Decision, Friday 23 January 2026
Notice:
For regulated financial advisers and investment professionals only, Copia does not provide financial advice, and the contents of this document should not be taken as such. The performance of each asset class is represented by certain Exchange Traded Funds available to UK investors and expressed in GBP terms selected by Copia Capital Management to represent that asset class, as reported at previous Thursday 4:30pm UK close. Reference to a particular asset class does not represent a recommendation to seek exposure to that asset class. This information is included for comparison purposes for the period stated but is not an indicator of potential maximum loss for other periods or in the future.
