Economy
Trump bets on ‘affordability’ fixes – but can policy pivot deliver?
Tariffs may be his trademark, but U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest catchword is all about “affordability.”
Reviving a campaign pledge, Trump recently said he wants a one-year, 10% cap on credit card interest rates, a move that could save Americans tens of billions of dollars, but which drew immediate opposition from an industry that has been in his corner.
Trump was not clear in his social media post Friday night whether a cap might take effect through executive action or by legislation, though one Republican senator said he had spoken with the president and would work on a bill with the president’s “full support.” Trump said he hoped it would be in place Jan. 20, one year after he took office.
The remarks came just days after the U.S. president floated a ban on major investors from buying single-family homes. Both appear to be a part of his “affordability” push, which comes in a year of the midterm elections, where Republicans aim to preserve 2024 gains, which led them to secure control of the upper chamber – the Senate – and to have a majority in the House.
But critics question whether these initiatives, indeed, deliver as Trump risks alienating corporate America.
Banking industry fires back
The U.S. banking industry is warning that Trump’s plans to lower credit card costs would reduce credit availability and hurt consumers and businesses. Banks argue that such a plan would most hurt poor people at a time of economic concern by curtailing or eliminating credit lines, driving them to high-cost alternatives like payday loans or pawnshops.
“We will no longer let the American Public be ripped off by Credit Card Companies that are charging Interest Rates of 20 to 30%,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Five associations representing U.S. banks responded that they shared the president’s goal of helping Americans access “more affordable credit.”
“At the same time, evidence shows that a 10% interest rate cap would reduce credit availability and be devastating for millions of American families and small business owners who rely on and value their credit cards,” the associations said in a joint statement late Friday.
“If enacted, this cap would only drive consumers toward less regulated, more costly alternatives,” it said.
The statement was issued by the American Bankers Association, Bank Policy Institute, Consumer Bankers Association, Financial Services Forum and Independent Community Bankers of America.
Credit cards are the primary source of consumer credit in the U.S. Costs and outstanding balances have soared in recent years as people increasingly rely on them to maintain spending, even for basic necessities.
Researchers who studied Trump’s campaign pledge after it was first announced found that Americans would save roughly $100 billion in annual interest if credit card rates were capped at 10%. The same researchers found that while the credit card industry would take a major hit, it would still be profitable, although credit card rewards and other perks might be scaled back.
About 195 million people in the U.S. had credit cards in 2024 and assessed $160 billion in interest charges, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says. Americans are now carrying more credit card debt than ever, to the tune of about $1.23 trillion, according to figures from the New York Federal Reserve for the third quarter last year.
Further, Americans are paying, on average, between 19.65% and 21.5% in interest on credit cards according to the Federal Reserve (Fed) and other industry tracking sources. That has come down in the past year as the central bank lowered benchmark rates, but it is near its highs since federal regulators began tracking credit card rates in the mid-1990s, according to a report by The Associated Press (AP).
Bank lobbyists have long argued that lowering interest rates on their credit card products would require the banks to lend less to high-risk borrowers.
When Congress enacted a cap on the fees that stores pay large banks when customers use debit cards, banks responded by removing all rewards and perks from those cards. Debit card rewards have only recently trickled back into consumers’ hands. For example, United Airlines now has a debit card that gives miles with purchases.
“A 10% credit card interest cap would save Americans $100 billion a year without causing massive account closures, as banks claim. That’s because the few large banks that dominate the credit card market are making absolutely massive profits on customers at all income levels,” said Brian Shearer, director of competition and regulatory policy at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator, who wrote the research on the industry’s impact of Trump’s proposal last year.
The White House did not respond to AP questions about how the president seeks to cap the rate or whether he has spoken with credit card companies about the idea.
Housing measures
Meanwhile, Trump said on Thursday he is ordering his representatives to buy $200 billion in mortgage bonds to bring down housing costs and has called on barring large investors from buying more single-family homes.
“For a very long time, buying and owning a home was considered the pinnacle of the American Dream,” he said in a post on Truth Social, while pinning blame on the Joe Biden administration and Democrats in Congress for high inflation, which made that American Dream “increasingly out of reach for far too many people, especially younger Americans.”
“It is for that reason, and much more, that I am immediately taking steps to ban large institutional investors from buying more single-family homes, and I will be calling on Congress to codify it. People live in homes, not corporations,” he added.
The president said that he will expand on the proposal and outline additional housing and affordability measures during a speech at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, scheduled for Jan. 19-23.
All recent pledges come as Trump has been facing growing voter frustration over the issue of affordability, despite efforts to dismiss it as a “hoax” by Democrats, while sparking Republican fears they could be punished in the 2026 midterm elections.
While there has not been a widespread surge in inflation since Trump rolled out sweeping new tariffs on various imports from U.S. trading partners, companies have reported higher business costs, and analysts note a divergence in the economy.
Higher-income households may be doing well, but those with lower incomes tend to be struggling with costs.
Within the housing sector, the median sales price of previously owned homes has been climbing in recent years, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR).
NAR data showed that the median cost for existing homes was $409,200 in November, up 1.2% from a year ago.
At the same time, Trump’s public approval has mostly deteriorated since his inauguration, as Americans worry about the economy.
In December, just one in three U.S. adults approved of Trump’s handling of the economy, his lowest rating on the matter last year, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll. Many are also unsatisfied with the polarizing issue of immigration and recent attacks on Venezuela.
Türkiye is on the verge of getting a new homegrown passenger car brand, as the industrial group HABAŞ edges closer to revealing its first models, with acclaimed designer Frank Stephenson at the helm of the design process.
HABAŞ, which acquired Japanese automaker Honda’s former manufacturing plant in the northwestern Gebze district, is expected to introduce its first passenger car by the end of the year, according to Turkish business daily Ekonomim on Tuesday.
The project would make HABAŞ Türkiye’s second passenger car brand backed by 100% domestic capital after electric vehicle maker Togg.
The group would initially develop two models, a sedan and a crossover, with plans to offer three powertrain options: gasoline, hybrid and plug-in hybrid.
The company has not yet confirmed later-stage plans for fully electric models.
Project led by Ferrari, McLaren designer
The project involves Stephenson, the U.S.-born designer known for his work with major automotive brands including BMW, Ferrari and McLaren.
Stephenson’s official website says he is working on the design of a new Turkish automotive brand, without naming the company, Ekonomim said.
His team’s work is reportedly expected to cover the entire design process, from establishing the brand’s design language and 3D modeling to surface development, clay modeling and engineering support.
The project description also points to plans spanning sedan, crossover, SUV and light commercial vehicle segments.
Stephenson’s ties to Türkiye
Stephenson also has a personal connection to Türkiye. Born in Morocco in 1959, he spent part of his childhood in Istanbul after his family moved to the city because of his father’s work.
He lived in Türkiye between the ages of 11 and 16, attended school and learned Turkish before moving to Madrid with his family.
He later built a career as one of the automotive industry’s best-known designers.
Over $1 billion investment planned
The project forms part of a broader investment plan estimated at around 1 billion euros ($1.16 billion) for commercial and passenger vehicle production, according to previous statements by HABAŞ officials.
The former Honda plant in Gebze is expected to serve as the production base for the passenger cars, with HABAŞ reportedly targeting annual production capacity of 75,000 vehicles.
Former Honda plant becomes foundation
HABAŞ’s ambitions are built around Honda’s former Turkish production facility.
The Japanese carmaker produced Civic Sedan models at the Gebze plant for 24 years before ending production in Türkiye in 2021. HABAŞ subsequently acquired the facility.
The company also purchased equipment from Honda’s former plant in the U.K. after its closure and brought some of that equipment to Türkiye.
HABAŞ has traditionally operated in industrial and metals-related businesses. The group is involved in sectors including industrial and medical gases, iron and steel, energy production, heavy machinery, automotive, banking and seaport operations. In automotive, it is producing buses, midibuses, tow trucks and heavy cargo trucks.
The group appears to be relying on the involvement of Stephenson, whose portfolio includes high-profile sports and premium cars, which will add international design credentials to the project in Türkiye’s competitive passenger car market.
The bigger challenge will come after the unveiling: moving from design and prototypes to mass production and establishing a sustainable presence in the domestic market.
Türkiye’s home prices continued to rise in nominal terms in July but fell further behind inflation, marking an eighth consecutive month of declines in real terms, official data showed Tuesday.
The residential property price index rose 1.5% month-over-month in July and increased 25% from a year earlier in nominal terms, the Central Bank of the Republic of Türkiye (CBRT) said.
Adjusted for inflation, however, home prices fell 5.1% year-over-year. Annual consumer price index (CPI) stood at 31.75% in July.
Among Türkiye’s top three cities, price growth accelerated more strongly in Istanbul than in capital Ankara and western Izmir during the month.
Home prices rose 2.7% month-over-month in Istanbul, compared with 2.2% in Ankara and 0.5% in Izmir.
On a regional basis, the largest annual increase in the residential property price index was recorded in the Bingöl, Elazığ, Malatya, Tunceli, Van, Bitlis, Hakkari and Muş region, at 35.5%.
The smallest annual increase was seen in Balıkesir and Çanakkale, at 16.4%.
Rents also drop in real terms
The CBRT’s new tenant rent index, which tracks newly signed lease contracts, also showed a decline in real terms.
The index rose 1.9% month-over-month in July and 28.4% year-over-year in nominal terms, but declined 2.6% in real terms.
Regional rental trends diverged from the housing market. The Eastern Black Sea region recorded the strongest annual increase, with rents rising 35%, ahead of Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir.
In Istanbul, annual rent growth reached 32.4%, exceeding July’s 31.75% inflation rate and resulting in a real increase.
Annual rent increases were 28.6% in Ankara and 26.3% in Izmir.
The strongest regional increase was recorded in Artvin, Giresun, Gümüşhane, Ordu, Rize and Trabzon, where the new tenant rent index rose 35% year-over-year.
The lowest increase was again recorded in Balıkesir and Çanakkale, at 18.8%.
The price of an average 100-square-meter (about 1,076-square-foot) home in Istanbul approached a record high in dollar terms in the third quarter, while its value measured in grams of gold fell significantly from its 2023 peak.
That’s according to data released Tuesday by the Central Bank of the Republic of Türkiye (CBRT), which highlighted a widening gap between the two benchmarks.
The preliminary third-quarter data showed a 100-square-meter home in Istanbul was worth around $189,800, close to its historical peak.
The same property, however, was equivalent to 2,034 grams of gold, down substantially from 2,911 grams in 2023.
The average price of a 100-square-meter home in Istanbul stood at around $100,000 in 2010, before falling to $88,900 by the end of 2021.
Prices subsequently climbed rapidly, reaching $188,200 in 2023.
The figures show that Istanbul housing has regained and slightly surpassed its previous dollar-denominated peak.
The picture is markedly different when housing prices are measured against gold.
A 100-square-meter Istanbul home was equivalent to 2,911 grams of gold in 2023.
Compared to this year’s third quarter, it represents a decline of roughly 30% in the property’s gold-denominated value.
That suggests that while Istanbul housing has become more expensive in dollar terms since 2022, it has failed to keep pace with gold.
For investors holding gold, this means residential property in Istanbul has become relatively more affordable, despite the rise in its dollar price.
The cost of the damage caused by Europe’s increasingly volatile weather will have to be borne by someone, and with the majority of those economic losses uninsured, the burden is likely to fall on the public purse unless immediate measures are taken.
This year’s wildfires in Southwestern Europe and the severe flooding that hit Spain in 2024 and Germany and its neighbors in 2021 show how climate damage is adding to a list of strains on Europe’s finances that already includes higher defense spending and rising costs associated with an aging population.
“The problem is that they’re becoming more recurrent,” Federico Barriga-Salazar, head of Western Europe sovereign ratings at Fitch, said of catastrophes until now largely viewed as costly budget one-offs rather than as a regular expense.
“If a government is already fiscally tight, it means that it does create some policy trade-offs,” he said of the pressure that such economic losses put on other spending items. If the current scale of the fiscal hit is arguably quite small, there is a growing acceptance that it will only get bigger in a region which is the world’s fastest-warming continent.
Weather- and climate-related extremes caused economic losses of an estimated 822 billion euros ($953 billion) in the European Union between 1980 and 2024, according to the European Environment Agency – with a quarter of that damage inflicted in just the last four years.
Public deficits across the eurozone already average around 3% of GDP. Barriga-Salazar cited estimates that the Spanish 2024 floods – Europe’s worst flooding event in five decades – imply reconstruction costs of 0.7 percentage points of output from 2024 to 2026.
Moreover, only a quarter of climate-linked catastrophe losses are insured in the EU, with coverage in some countries below 5%, the EU estimates. Some fear that level of insurance coverage will only get smaller as a proportion of overall costs as extreme weather events occur more regularly.
“I do think this just means the more you have these risks, the less they will be insured,” said David Zahn, head of European fixed income at Franklin Templeton. “This is a big issue, and it will impact some of the countries by 1% to 2% of GDP.”
Economic think tank Bruegel calculated that, while most of the 2021 flood damage was covered by insurance in Belgium, the low level of insurance coverage in Germany meant it had to draw on public funds of 30 billion euros for the bulk of damages.
Adapting, sharing risks
With the European Union due to release proposals for climate resilience and risk management this autumn, attention is focused on possible solutions.
Greece, whose tourism-dependent economy is notably exposed to the risk of heatwaves and wildfires, is looking at ways to boost insurance coverage while making water and energy infrastructure more robust in tourist hotspots.
Following huge floods in early 2026, Portugal has announced plans to introduce mandatory home insurance backed by a natural disaster and earthquake disaster fund and a solidarity mechanism to guarantee universal access.
A possible stopgap measure for some could be recourse to so-called catastrophe bonds under which investors can receive handsome returns but also lose part or all of their principal if a predefined event, such as a hurricane or earthquake, occurs.
Franklin Templeton’s Zahn noted that for the sovereign, this could amount to an expensive gamble: “If the event happens, it pays off immediately. But you could also have five years with nothing, and you just paid out 8% per year.”
Heather Grabbe, senior fellow at Bruegel, said governments needed to put in place arrangements more systematic than one-off emergency spending, which risks creating the perverse incentive for households and businesses not to take out insurance.
“All governments across Europe need to assess their exposure and make comprehensive plans to reduce future damage through adaptation investments, as well as pooling risks across borders,” Grabbe said.
Numerous studies highlight how early investments in making economies more resilient to climate change can over time save money – and avoid what a 2025 Oxford University study called an “adaptation investment trap,” where repeated climate disasters raise debt and so leave less money for protection measures.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has argued that green investments worth 0.1% of GDP could prevent economic losses totaling eight times that, and avoid tax revenue losses amounting to three times the original investment.
The European Central Bank (ECB) has proposed a joint EU public-private reinsurance scheme pooling private risks from natural catastrophes, backed up by an EU fund for public disaster financing.
But the question is whether this summer’s heatwaves will generate the political will to take on some of the upfront costs of such action – both at government and EU level.
A European Commission spokesperson said the EU executive was looking into ways to address the climate insurance protection gap as part of a package of measures due to be adopted by the end of the year.
Surging copper prices have helped Australian mining titan BHP post a solid rise in annual profits, according to financial results shared by the company on Tuesday.
Copper is a key metal for the global energy transition and artificial data centers.
Net profit climbed 9% from a year earlier to $9.8 billion in the financial year to June 30, said the resources group, the world’s biggest miner by market value.
Revenue rose 14.6% to $58.8 billion.
BHP is the world’s biggest copper producer and plans to expand output of the red metal by about 40% by 2035, the group said in a statement.
The miner also reported record iron ore production and a strong result in coal, but copper was the star commodity and expected to remain so.
“Copper is the engine that is driving BHP’s growth,” chief executive Brandon Craig said.
Copper prices were 26% higher on average in the 2026 financial year, the company said.
The metal has eclipsed iron ore as the biggest earner for BHP, generating more than half of the group’s operating profit for the first time.
Global copper demand is expected to grow to more than 50 million tons by 2050, it said.
As economies expand, copper will be required to build electricity networks for the transition away from fossil fuels, and to create data centers for artificial intelligence, BHP said.
“We also see a looming global copper supply challenge, as existing copper mines age, and with the pipeline of potential projects less healthy than in previous cycles.”
The group said it would pay shareholders a four-year record high dividend of of $1.72 a share, equal to $8.7 billion.
BHP shares climbed 3.3% to AU$64.24 ($45.63) in morning trade.
What began on a July weekend has grown into a month-long wave of attacks stretching from Moscow and St. Petersburg to cities in the south and all the way to the Ural Mountains. But the targets were not refineries, ports or arms factories, but warehouses that keep online shopping running across Russia.
Ukraine’s drones have pummeled the giant depots belonging to Wildberries, Russia’s biggest online retailer, burning billions of dollars’ worth of merchandise and bringing the war home to the broad public.
The attacks on about 20 Wildberries facilities have underlined Kyiv’s ability to strike far and wide inside Russia and posed a new challenge to President Vladimir Putin nearly four-and-a-half years into his full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
They have badly shaken the empire built by Tatyana Kim, the country’s richest female entrepreneur, whose fortune has been estimated at $8.1 billion.
Hundreds of thousands of individual sellers have lost their merchandise, sending shock waves across Russia’s economy. Wildberries has drawn massive loans from VTB and other banks as it expanded and likely will have trouble repaying them, putting more pressure on the financial system.
Online giant began in Moscow apartment
Kim, 50, was born in Grozny, the capital of the province of Chechnya, to an ethnic Korean family of an engineer and a teacher. She launched Wildberries in 2004 from her Moscow apartment soon after giving birth to her first child while working as an English teacher.
“The idea was born from my own needs, and turned out to be needed by hundreds of thousands,” said Kim, now a mother of seven. “If a product or service makes your own life easier, you’re on the right track.”
Wildberries initially sold clothing before expanding to appliances, household items, cosmetics, books and more. The platform with its distinct purple logo has become an undisputed leader in e-commerce, accounting for about half of all online orders in Russia. Businesses big and small use it to store, ship and deliver merchandise across the country’s 11 time zones.
An estimated 500,000 to 800,000 sellers use Wildberries, often described as Russia’s Amazon. After Western brands fled following the war in Ukraine, online retailers filled the void with merchandise from China, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and elsewhere.
The company also acquired a bank, expanded to tourism and even considered buying an airline.
In 2024, Kim divorced her husband, Vladislav Bakalchuk, triggering a fight for control of the company. Bakalchuk sought the support of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and his feared paramilitary forces but eventually lost the battle, which peaked in a shootout at a business center near the Kremlin that left two people dead and several wounded.
Wildberries depots easy targets
The company has prided itself on relying on about two dozen mammoth warehouses as the core of its vast logistical network, stockpiling the goods before shipping to about 100,000 storefront distribution points nationwide.
Rival online retailers Ozon and Yandex Market use smaller depots spread over a wider network.
As Ukraine embarked on a strategy of using long-range drones to attack deep inside Russia, it has expanded from striking military bases, oil refineries and other infrastructure to Wildberries warehouses, which provided particularly soft targets.
Since the first attack July 18 in Elektrostal, just east of Moscow, and in the southwestern Tambov region, Wildberries depots burned one after another in massive fires that flooded social media.
The depots, some as big as 300,000 square meters (about 3.2 million square feet), were unprotected and easy to set ablaze. It took three days to extinguish the fire in the Elektrostal depot, the Moscow region’s main hub.
“These are not military and high-value political targets; therefore, they’re not especially secured, they’re not really built to be able to shrug off drone strikes,” said podcaster Mark Galeotti, a Russia expert who heads the Mayak Intelligence consultancy.
The strikes have stretched from the European part of Russia to Yekaterinburg, over 2,000 kilometers (about 1,250 miles) from Ukraine’s border.
There’s scarce public data, but some estimates indicate that up to 20% of the company’s total warehouse space has been destroyed, with assessments of losses running as high as $6 billion.
Kim said Wildberries’ sites have been “reinforced and strengthened” defensively, but the attacks continued. Some warehouses suffered only minor damage, and Ukraine tried to hit them again.
Wildberries said it’s rearranging supply chains to create “partner hubs” for storing merchandise – a long and challenging process, given its dependence on big depots.
Attacks’ ripple effect
Ukrainian officials have said Wildberries sells gear and technical components, including drones, to the military. Moscow denied it, but such dual-use items as drone components, flak jackets or thermal weapon sights remain available on the platform.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said the attacks were designed to disrupt military supplies, breed popular discontent and cause a domino effect in the Russian economy by putting stress on major banks, including VTB and Sberbank, that made massive loans to Wildberries.
Wildberries’ debts were estimated at the equivalent of about $15 billion at the end of 2025.
Russia’s small and medium businesses have already been hit hard by tax increases, regulatory hurdles and, most recently, a fuel crisis from attacks on oil refineries.
The strikes on Wildberries have further exacerbated the business environment, said Chris Weafer, CEO of Macro-Advisory Ltd. Consultancy.
“I wouldn’t say it’s a nail in the coffin because we’re not there yet, but it’s certainly another enormous difficulty on top of what has already been a very difficult situation for small enterprises,” Weafer said.
Wildberries had recently changed its seller policy, exempting it from liability for stock damaged by a “force majeure” that includes drone attacks.
Kim pledged to support sellers with discounts on storage, free transfer of goods to other sites, discounted loans and other measures. Wildberries also issued some reimbursements, but they covered only a fraction of the losses.
Russia’s Central Bank has asked lenders to restructure loans to small and medium businesses that lost merchandise.
Meanwhile, many owners of Wildberries pickup points face lost revenue amid the plunging deliveries. Some vented frustrations on social media about going out of business.
The lost goods mean tens of thousands of small businesses can’t continue to operate, service their loans or pay taxes. Many are pleading for government support.
Galeotti said the strikes reflected Kyiv’s effort to bring the war home to Russia.
“It’s not just about seeing great clouds of black smoke over your cities because of some oil refinery on the outskirts being hit,” he said. “You might be a small business whose inventory has just gone up in smoke in one of the Wildberries’ warehouses. Or else you just simply might be an ordinary consumer who just suddenly is no longer going to get the goods that you plan to buy.”
Some analysts warn that instead of provoking discontent, the attacks could fuel stronger anti-Ukrainian and anti-Western fervor.
The Wildberries attacks have played into the hands of Russian hawks who urge escalating the war, said pro-Kremlin political expert Sergei Markov.
“It strengthens the view that it’s necessary to hit Europe,” he said. “And better sooner than later.”
Former President Dmitry Medvedev sought to stir up anger at Ukraine for trying to destroy an essential part of the daily routine for millions.
“Our enemy is fighting not the Russian leadership or the army, but ordinary citizens,” he said.
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