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Singer-songwriter FKA twigs is suing her ex-boyfriend, actor Shia LaBeouf, claiming that he is trying to “silence” her from speaking out against sexual abuse through the use of an “unlawful” nondisclosure agreement.

The complaint, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday, seeks a court order to prohibit LeBeouf from enforcing sections of an NDA which Tahliah Barnett — the Grammy Award-winning singer’s legal name — says violates California law.

“Shia LaBeouf has tried to control Tahliah Barnett for the better part of a decade,” the filing states.

“This action was taken in response to Mr. LaBeouf’s attempt to bully and intimidate twigs through a frivolous and unlawful secret arbitration he filed against her in December in which he sought to extract money from her,” said the singer’s attorney Mathew Rosengart, national co-chair of media & entertainment litigation at Greenberg Traurig in Century City, in a statement.

Rosengart added that twigs “refuses to be bullied anymore. She is instead standing up for herself and other survivors of sexual abuse who have improperly been silenced. This is the unusual case that is not about money but about justice and upholding and enforcing California law and policy designed to protect survivors by nullifying illegal NDAs.”

LaBeouf’s attorney Shawn Holley of Kinsella Holley Iser Kump Steinsapir denied the claims.

“When Ms. Barnett and Mr. LaBeouf both decided to resolve their differences and move on with their lives, no one forced her or ‘bullied’ her to stay silent,” Holley said in a statement.
“As a woman with agency, she decided to settle the case and accepted money to dismiss her lawsuit.”

The suit arises out of litigation that Barnett brought against LaBeouf in 2020, when she accused the actor of “physical, sexual, and mental abuse” during their relationship,” as well as “knowingly infect[ing]” Barnett with a sexually transmitted disease.” That case was settled last year.

In a response to the suit, the actor told the New York Times that “many of these allegations are not true.”

But he added, “I am not in the position to defend any of my actions. I owe these women the opportunity to air their statements publicly and accept accountability for those things I have done.”

In the statement Thursday, Holley added that the claim of sexual battery “was disputed, as were the other claims made in Ms. Barnett’s lawsuit.”

Shia LaBeouf poses for photographers upon arrival at the premiere of the film “The Phoenician Scheme” at the 78th annual Cannes Film Festival May 18, 2025.

(Lewis Joly / Invision / AP)

According to the new lawsuit, LaBeouf filed a secret arbitration complaint and “improperly sought exorbitant monies” from Barnett last December, claiming she had breached their agreement by violating its nondisclosure provisions after she gave an interview to the Hollywood Reporter in October.

In the interview, Barnett was asked if she felt safe and answered that as a woman of color in the entertainment industry, she “wouldn’t feel safe” and discussed her involvement with organizations that support survivors, saying, “I think it’s less about me at this point and more about looking forward. Just, you know, moving on with my life.”

The agreement Barnett reached with LaBeouf “contained a deficient and unlawful NDA that is unenforceable,” under California’s Stand Together Against Non-Disclosure Act, according to the complaint. The law forbids NDAs from being used to silence victims of sexual misconduct.

“As the California Legislature has made clear, survivors should have the right to tell their stories without fear or coercion, and California law does not and must not allow abusers and bullies to silence them through secret agreements containing unconscionable, unlawful gag orders,” the complaint states.

The lawsuit further alleges that while LaBeouf has sought to prohibit Barnett from talking about her abuse, he has “repeatedly brought up his relationship with Ms. Barnett—on his own and without being directly asked about her—materially breaching the very confidentiality provisions that he had just contended were fully enforceable against Ms. Barnett.”

While the actor agreed to drop the arbitration in February, he has “refused to acknowledge, however, that the NDA provisions are illegal and unenforceable,” the filing states.

The latest round in LaBeouf’s legal battle with Barnett comes just weeks after a New Orleans judge ordered the actor to begin substance abuse treatment and undergo weekly drug testing after he was arrested on suspicion of assaulting two men in the city’s French Quarter. LaBeouf was also required to post $100,000 bond as part of the conditions of his release. He was charged with two counts of simple battery, the Associated Press reported.

North America’s small- and mid-cap industrial sector is entering a new phase of recalibration, as investors weigh resilient demand against uneven near-term upside, according to a March 26 report from J.P. Morgan.

In a sweeping review of 26 companies across

Yields on government debt across European countries and the United States have been rising since the start of the Iran war.

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Investors are demanding higher yields as confidence in the global economy has cratered due to the severe negative impact of the conflict on energy markets, supply chains and Middle Eastern infrastructure.

The 2-year notes, sensitive to near-term rate expectations, have risen faster than their 10-year counterparts in a classic bear-flattening move, while longer-dated yields reflect worries over the economic drag caused by more expensive energy.

Speaking to Euronews, BCA Research’s Chief Fixed Income Strategist, Robert Timper, explained that “the aggressive bear flattening of yield curves reflects a hawkish monetary policy repricing in response to inflation fears stemming from the Iran war”.

“The front-end [2-year yields] is more sensitive to changes in monetary policy and has therefore risen more than the long-end [10-year yields] in response to investors’ anticipation of more hawkish central bank policy,” Timper added.

Historically, this specific curve behaviour often precedes an inverted yield curve, which is a well-recognised indicator of a potential economic recession.

European bonds bear the brunt of the sell-off

The repricing has been most pronounced in Europe, with the UK bond market feeling the biggest pressure.

Since the start of the conflict, the 10-year UK gilt yield has risen from 4.2% to a high of over 5% while the 2-year note yield jumped from 3.5% to a peak of 4.6%.

Timper explained to Euronews that past inflation experience has proved decisive, stating that “rate hikes in the UK are more likely than elsewhere because inflation has been more elevated than elsewhere, and the risk of inflation expectations unanchoring is therefore higher.”

On Wednesday, AJ Bell’s investment director Russ Mould highlighted the UK-specific implications in a detailed press release, noting that the 10-year gilt yield is hovering near 5% for only the third time since 2008 while the 2-year gilt yield comfortably exceeds the Bank of England base rate.

Mould also explained that the gap between the 10-year gilt yield and the FTSE 100 dividend yield has widened to more than one-and-a-half percentage points, making UK equities relatively less attractive.

Elsewhere in Europe, bond yields experienced similar surges.

Germany’s 10-year bund yield increased from 2.65% to around 3%, nearing 15-year highs, while the 2-year note yield climbed from roughly 2% to 2.65%.

In France, the 10-year OAT yield jumped from 3.2% to above 3.7%, approaching 17-year peaks, while the 2-year note yield has risen from 2.1% to over 2.8%.

As for Italy, the 10-year BTP yield was at around 3.3% before the Iran war and has now surpassed 3.9%, approaching two-year highs, while the 2-year note yield has increased from roughly 2.15% to 3%.

In every single one of these bond markets, the yield on the 2-year notes has risen faster than their 10-year counterparts.

The 30 and 20-year bond yields are also all trading higher which denotes deteriorating confidence in the long-term growth prospect of the respective European economies.

US Treasuries face comparable headwinds

Across the Atlantic, US Treasuries have followed a similar trajectory, though the sell-off has been less severe than in the UK for example.

The 10-year note yield has risen from around 3.9% to a peak of 4.4%, reached on Monday, and is currently trading at 4.37%.

Meanwhile, the 2-year note yield increased from 3.35% to a high of over 4%, and it is hovering 3.9% at the time of writing.

The yields on both notes have hit an 8-month high.

Timper’s analysis places US bond performance close to that of the euro area, reflecting broadly comparable inflation histories and policy outlooks. There is scant evidence of investors fleeing European bonds for US Treasuries as a safe-haven trade.

Speaking to Euronews, Timper explained that such shifting flows would be more visible in currency markets as the US dollar benefits from being the predominant denominator for energy exports.

For now the message from bond markets on either side of the Atlantic is consistent, the Middle East conflict has rewritten the near-term outlook for inflation, monetary policy and borrowing costs.

EU lawmakers on Thursday approved the EU-US trade deal struck in Turnberry, Scotland, in 2025, while attaching a set of conditions to the agreement.

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A broad majority of political groups backed the deal, which cuts EU tariffs on most US industrial goods to zero, with 417 votes in favour, 154 against, and 71 abstentions.

The European Commission and Washington had pushed for the deal’s implementation, but MEPs delayed backing it until last week amid tensions over Greenland and fresh US trade investigations that raised fears Washington could undermine the deal with new tariffs.

Initially criticized by MEPs as unbalanced and defended by the Commission as the best possible outcome, the deal sets US tariffs on EU goods at 15%, while the EU eliminates duties on most US industrial products.

MEPs introduced safeguards to rebalance the pact in the event of future threats from US President Donald Trump or violations by the United States.

“Of course, that’s imbalanced, but if we could improve it, maybe we can live with it,” Socialist German MEP Bernd Lange said ahead of the vote.

The European Parliament will now work with EU member states to find a common position and enable the tariff cuts, with the attached safeguards expected to be the main point of contention.

These include a “sunset clause” under which the deal expires in March 2028 unless both sides agree to extend it. It also includes a “sunrise clause” which would make tariff preferences conditional to the US respecting its Turnberry commitments.

Lawmakers moved to shield the deal from fresh US tariffs after the Supreme Court struck down 2025 US tariffs in February, prompting the White House to impose new duties on EU goods and launch an investigation into alleged unfair trade practices that could lead to further tariffs.

MEPs also linked the tariff cuts on steel and aluminium to equivalent actions by the US.

Published on
25/03/2026 – 15:39 GMT+1

Lille will host the European Custom Authority, a new decentralised agency tasked with supporting and coordinating national customs administrations across the bloc.

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The decision was made on Wednesday in Brussels, after EU lawmakers from the European Parliament and the Council of the EU voted on the matter in three rounds.

“France is one of Europe’s leading customs nations, [considering] one in three parcels entering the EU passes through French territory,” Dutch MEP Dirk Gotink, rapporteur on the customs reform, said in a press statement.

“Lille’s strategic location at the crossroads of Europe makes it the natural hub for this authority,” the EU lawmaker continued.

Italy, with Rome as its candidate, was the runner-up in the voting rounds.

Other contenders included Belgium with Liège, Croatia with Zagreb, the Netherlands with The Hague, Poland with Warsaw, Portugal with Porto, Romania with Bucharest, and Spain with Málaga.

Customs management and trade have taken on renewed urgency after former US President Donald Trump imposed sweeping tariffs shortly after taking office.

Amid growing global trade uncertainty, the EU has stepped up engagement with international partners. This week, it signed a new agreement with Australia, while the EU–Mercosur deal is set to apply provisionally from 1 April.

The establishment of the new authority is part of the overall reform of the EU customs framework, with key negotiations expected to take place on Thursday.

The reform also aims to tackle the rising pressure from increased trade flows, fragmented national systems and the rapid rise of e-commerce.

The agency is expected to be set up in 2026 and could become operational in 2028 according to a draft schedule which is still be subject to significant changes.

The Major League Baseball Players Assn. is arguably the strongest union in the United States whose members include some of the most conservative athletes in professional sports. The owners of Major League Baseball’s 30 teams, who made their wealth through the workings of free enterprise capitalism, want to limit what players can be paid. This apparent political and philosophical irony will most likely lead to a shutdown of baseball at the end of this season.

Wednesday is opening day for the 162-game major league season. The 2025 season ended Nov. 1 with an 11-inning Dodgers victory over the Toronto Blue Jays in what was one of the most mesmerizing World Series ever. Last season, the Dodgers attracted more than 4 million fans for the first time. The Dodgers weren’t alone. More than 71 million fans attended major league games — the third straight season of growth. Over the last decade, league revenue has increased 33%.

And yet, despite all this good news about the health of baseball’s finances, team owners have threatened to lock the players out — essentially an ownership strike — at the end of this season over terms of a new collective bargaining agreement soon to be negotiated with the players union.

Major League Baseball, unlike the NFL, the NBA and the NHL, does not have a hard salary cap that limits what teams can spend on players. This is the key issue for the 30 team owners and Commissioner Rob Manfred, who argues that the system is “broken.” Small-market teams can’t effectively compete, Manfred insists, with economic behemoths like the Dodgers and Yankees. But over the past 10 seasons, 14 teams have made it to the World Series, so the league is not dominated by only a few big spenders.

Major leaguers and fans have weathered five player strikes and four owner lockouts since 1972. The 1994-95 strike lasted 232 days, canceling more than 900 games, including the World Series. Unlike in the NFL, where top players like San Francisco 49ers quarterback Joe Montana crossed a picket line during the 1987 NFL Players Assn. strike, unionized baseball players have remained united. So far, no star players have been strikebreakers in baseball. Both Paul Skenes of the Pittsburgh Pirates and Tarik Skubal of the Detroit Tigers — the 2025 Cy Young Award winners for their respective leagues — also serve in players union leadership roles.

A recent report analyzing major league ballplayers’ political affiliation found that among those who live in states that allow public access to voter registration records, nearly 54% of the players were Republicans compared with 8% Democrats. Why does a rightward-leaning membership retain such strong union loyalties?

For Miami Marlins pitcher Pete Fairbanks, who is also a member of the players union leadership, it comes down to recognizing that they stand on the shoulders of players who challenged the baseball establishment.

“If you look at the history of the union, we’ve had a foundation set for us,” Fairbanks said. “They fought for players’ rights and for the general betterment of the whole and it’s the job of the veteran players to pass that history on to the younger players.”

Marvin Miller, a former Steelworkers Union leader, revolutionized the players’ union and baseball when he led the association from 1966 to 1982. He told the New York Times in 1999 that he was “irked” that many players did not know that it was the union that made their enormous salaries and benefits, arbitration and free agency possible. “When you don’t know your history, you tend to relive it,” Miller said.

Miller, who died in 2012, was a labor history buff who realized that highly skilled workers often developed elaborate ethical codes that promoted solidarity with other employees.

Bruce Meyer, the current executive director of the players association, puts the union’s fractious history with the owners at the center of his communications with players. He spent weeks talking with union members during spring training in Florida and Arizona, emphasizing the importance of unity in the ranks. “The bottom line is that our players have always been of the view that they are fighting not just for themselves but for their teammates and for the players that come after them,” Meyer said.

Manfred’s strategy as commissioner of Major League Baseball has been to talk directly with the players himself, especially the lower-earning younger players who he claims are being shortchanged. He argues that “10% of our players make 72% of the money,” numbers that Meyer disputes.

The commissioner is essentially telling players that their union has engaged in malpractice, losing touch with its own members while the economics of baseball changed around them. Meyer regards Manfred’s attempt to divide players as “standard management-labor tactics.”

Top agent Scott Boras said that, unlike in the NFL, baseball’s open salary system works for players because “your talent allows you to earn what you can earn without taking money from anybody else’s pocket.”

Paradoxically, the union has embraced the principles of Adam Smith: Let the free market work. No one forced the Dodgers to pay Shohei Ohtani $700 million. Good for Ohtani, great for Dodger fans. And this year, the Japanese clothing retailer Uniqlo will be a field sponsor at Dodger Stadium. The owners, who embrace team revenue sharing and luxury taxes and demand restrictions on salary competition, sound like socialists.

When labor-management disputes interrupt baseball, many fans undoubtedly feel like they are victims of a squabble between “millionaires and billionaires.” Ryan Long, a 26-year-old minor league pitcher in the Baltimore Orioles system and a union leader, thinks the players association should try to understand how regular working people feel about a potential lockout. “Whether it’s people selling hot dogs at stadiums or cleaning rooms at local hotels, the union should help in whatever way it can for other workers who may be hurt if baseball shuts down,” he said.

In late February at the Yankees spring training field in Tampa, I spoke with season ticket holder Richard Barnitt, who wore a shirt designed like a baseball, looking like he could be scuffed up and pitched. “There has to be some kind of cap because the Dodgers and the New York Mets had unlimited money,” he said. Another fan, Carlos Rodriquez, an airplane mechanic living in Tampa, disagreed. “I don’t think a salary cap would be fair to the players,” he said. “The players association does magical work for those guys.”

If locked out, the players are going to want support from fans, to whom a salary cap might sound reasonable. Owners will do what owners do: maximize profits and franchise values. The players union should find ways to show the fans they are not forgotten.

During a previous owners lockout, the association created a million-dollar fund to help pay the bills of stadium concession workers who were thrown out of work. They can do the same again, letting fans know that they understand that most Americans struggle paycheck to paycheck. And maybe Ohtani can chip in a couple hundred bucks — like former Dodger Mike Piazza did decades ago — for each home run.

Kelly Candaele produced the documentary “A League of Their Own,” about his mother’s years playing in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.

Published on
24/03/2026 – 1:25 GMT+1

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Tuesday sealed a free-trade agreement with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, slashing tariffs on most EU goods and farm exports.

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The deal marks another win for Brussels as it races to diversify trade ties and lock in strategic partners amid rising global tensions.

The pact will save the EU €1 billion a year in duties, the Commission said, with exports projected to climb as much as 33% over the next decade.

Agriculture proved a flashpoint, with EU farmers already pushing back against the Mercosur trade agreement and a legal challenge from MEPs threatening ratification.

Tariffs will eventually fall to zero on products including cheese (over three years), wine, some fruit and vegetables, chocolate and processed foods.

On the toughest issues — beef and sheep, which sank talks in 2023 — Australia agreed to quotas of 30,600 and 25,000 tonnes a year, respectively.

A safeguard mechanism will allow the EU to shield sensitive sectors if a surge in Australian imports harms the bloc’s market.

Beyond agriculture, the agreement opens access to Australia’s critical raw materials, including aluminium, lithium and manganese.

Brussels also failed to scrap Australia’s luxury car tax. Instead, 75% of EU electric vehicles will be exempt.

The deal is a geostrategic push

The Commission expects strong export gains in key sectors, including dairy (up to 48%), motor vehicles (52%) and chemicals (20%).

Brussels has prioritized the deal as it builds partnerships in the Indo-Pacific, where China’s influence has become central. A security and defence partnership with Canberra was also announced Tuesday.

“The EU and Australia may be geographically far apart but we couldn’t be closer in terms of how we see the world,” von der Leyen said, adding: “With these dynamic new partnerships on security and defence, as well as trade, we are moving even closer together.”

Since Donald Trump returned to power in 2025, trade agreements have taken on sharper geostrategic weight for the EU as it seeks new markets.

In 2025, Brussels struck deals with Mexico, Switzerland and Indonesia. The Mercosur pact was also signed earlier this year and will be provisionally applied from 1 May despite a European Parliament legal challenge.

More could follow. Talks are ongoing with the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, and countries in Eastern and Southern Africa, von der Leyen told EU ambassadors on 9 March.

The “so hot right now” meme from Zoolander has found an unlikely avatar in Cashea. As Venezuela’s preeminent Buy-Now-Pay-Later (BNPL) solution, Cashea isn’t just a startup. It is a macroeconomic bellwether. By some estimates, its transaction volume accounts for roughly 4% of Venezuela’s GDP, a staggering concentration of financial flow for a single private entity.

But being “hot” attracts different kinds of heat.

Recently, a “robotic-like” user, @VecertRadar, reported a massive data breach at Cashea. The leak was forensic in its damage, exposing 29 million store records, 15,227 partner business details, and a complete history of 79 million transactions. Shortly after, the “catch-up arc” of Venezuelan tech hit another snag: Yummy, the nation’s super-app pioneer, suffered a targeted strike on its Yummy Rides vertical, compromising rider data. When tourism wholesalers like BT Travel Solutions are also hit, a pattern emerges.

Venezuela is returning to the world stage, but it is entering through a side door left unlocked. These incidents are the canaries in the coal mine for an ecosystem that has focused heavily on consumer-facing solutions, like FinTech, Crypto and Ride-Hailing, while neglecting the unglamorous, high-margin infrastructure required to protect it.

In the big leagues of global business, cybersecurity is often viewed as a vitamin (a nice-to-have) until a breach turns it into a painkiller (a necessity). For Venezuela, the transition (not THAT one) from vitamin to painkiller is happening overnight.

While the regional Latin American cybersecurity market is projected to reach between $14 billion and $23 billion, these figures often omit the Venezuela factor: a market ripe for the taking because it is basically uncontested. This is a classic innovation’s Blue Ocean business opportunity. While some local entrepreneurial efforts remains obsessively focused on crypto-wallets and payment gateways, a massive structural deficit in data protection has created an opening for sustainable, high-margin business models.

Consider the EBITDA margins (a proxy for operational cash generation). In the software-as-a-service (SaaS) cybersecurity sector, operational health is robust, with margins often hovering around 40% (good). In a country where traditional industries grapple with heavy physical overhead and regulatory friction, these light-CAPEX models offer a much cleaner path to profitability.

Venezuela’s primary competitive advantage isn’t just its lack of competition, it’s the cost of its potential defensive talent.

Historically, the country was not considered a deep pool of digital labor by companies abroad. As regional talent-pool peers like Argentina outprice themselves and Colombian talent reaches its cost-advantage ceiling, Venezuelan developers and security analysts bring a potential high-value, cost-efficient resource. This creates a price-competitive entry point for local startups to build software that can eventually scale.

Furthermore, Venezuelans have spent a decade experimenting and building solutions to protect wealth in one of the most volatile financial environments on earth. This has fostered a unique brand of technical sophistication. Our talent isn’t just coding, they are battle-testing systems against systemic instability. If this talent can be harnessed to move from protecting personal crypto-wallets to protecting corporate data infrastructure, the exit opportunity for these ventures becomes very attractive for local and international investors alike.

Venezuela does not need to reinvent the wheel. It only needs to be efficient in catching-up. Our regional peers have already proven that Latin American cybersecurity can bring international venture capital to the table:

• Lumu Technologies (Colombia): Recently closed a $30M Series B by focusing on Continuous Compromise Assessment.
• Strike (Uruguay): Uses AI to automate simulated attacks to find holes, proving that small markets can produce global speedboats.
• Metabase Q (Mexico): Their strategic alliance with Google/Mandiant shows that local players can become essential partners for global behemoths.

The message is clear: the market is wide open for “champions” who can protect the data of both governments and the private sector.

The Cashea leak is a flagship reminder: size attracts.

For founders looking to enter this light-CAPEX space, always use the Speedboat approach. Rather than spending two years building a complex digital product in a sandbox, entrepreneurs can start as high-level consultancies. By offering assessments, due diligence, and compliance audits to major corporations or big family businesses first, a team can establish a brand of trust while identifying the exact pain points of the market. Build a custom solution, learn, MVP (minimum viable product) and pivot to a robust software solution. For my mapping of opportunities, I already stumbled with players like Niblion to begin to test these waters, but the ocean remains largely empty.

Regulation also plays a big role in this market. I’m not an expert, nor I want to focus on regulation for I see the business perspective, but doing a quick search, Venezuela does have a law centered in cybersecurity. However it does lack a unified data protection law for consumers and businesses. The current law focuses on defense and cyber-sovereignty. Maybe looking at Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, who have already done the legwork on legislative frameworks, may make our job easier.

The Cashea leak is a flagship reminder: size attracts. As big companies like Zinli (Mercantil’s own digital wallet play) and small players Coco Wallet (facilitating crypto-to-fiat transitions) continue to expand, to name a few, the surface area for attacks grows exponentially.

The typical Venezuelan focus on protecting wealth via crypto and FinTech has been successful, but with its own set of risks. Without a robust cybersecurity layer, these ventures become sitting ducks for maligned players.

For investors, the opportunity lies in light-CAPEX models with high margins and a desperate client base. For founders, the opportunity is to build the champions that will protect the next decade of Venezuelan growth. Sometimes building a startup isn’t about changing the world, but making a good and profitable solution, while making a buck down the road.The catch-up arc will be hard, but for those providing the shields, it will be incredibly profitable.e

Published on
23/03/2026 – 15:14 GMT+1

The European Commission on Monday took final steps to provisionally apply the Mercosur trade deal from 1 May, covering Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.

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The move uses a special procedure to ensure the deal takes effect despite a judicial review launched by the European Parliament after a pivotal 21 January vote suspended ratification.

“The priority now is turning this EU-Mercosur agreement into concrete outcomes, giving EU exporters the platform they need to seize new opportunities for trade, growth and jobs,” EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič said, adding: “Provisional application will allow us to begin delivering on that promise.”

The agreement liberalises trade flows between the EU and Mercosur countries, creating a free-trade area of more than 700 million people.

The Commission signed off on the deal and secured backing from EU member states despite strong opposition from EU farmers, who fear unfair competition from Mercosur imports.

But at the European Parliament, opponents secured a majority to refer the agreement to the Court of Justice of the European Union to assess its legality.

Pressed by supporters including Germany and Spain, which are seeking faster access to new markets amid rising geoeconomic tensions, the Commission opted for provisional application.

To proceed, it had to wait for at least one Mercosur country to ratify and notify the agreement before launching provisional implementation with that country. Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay have done so, while Paraguay ratified the deal last Tuesday and “is expected to send its notification soon,” the Commission said.

On Monday, the Commission sent a “verbal note” to Paraguay, the legal guardian of Mercosur treaties, completing the final procedural step.

“Provisional application ensures the removal of tariffs on certain products as of day one, creating predictable rules for trade and investment,” the Commission said.

“It will create more resilient and reliable supply chains, crucial in particular for the predictable flow of Critical Raw Materials.”

Gold’s reputation over the past year as the go-to refuge in a crisis is taking a battering as war rages and threatens to expand in the Middle East and financial markets buckle.

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Spot gold plunged to a 2026 low near $4,100 in early trading on Monday before recovering sharply to above $4,400 after US President Donald Trump announced he was postponing military strikes against Iranian power plants for five days following “very good and productive conversations” with Tehran — a swing of around $300 in the space of hours.

The metal has still shed more than 20% since hitting a record high of $5,594.82 an ounce on 29 January.

Silver has lost nearly half its value since hitting an all-time high of $121.67 in January, in one of the more violent collapses in the precious metal’s modern history.

Spot silver was down 8.9% at $61.76 — a year-to-date low and almost half of its $117 level on 28 February, when the Iran war began.

The counterintuitive sell-off has rattled investors who piled into precious metals expecting them to hold firm.

The dollar dropped against the euro after Trump’s comments and traded around $1.1572 to the euro on Monday afternoon, while the pound was up at a rate of $1.3341. The yen traded at around ¥159.47 per dollar.

Oil shocks continue to reverberate

The main culprit is the oil shock. As crude surges past $100 a barrel, bond yields are climbing and the US dollar is strengthening, making precious metals far less attractive to investors bracing for higher interest rates.

The dollar has emerged as one of the clearest safe-haven winners, strengthening over 2% so far this month.

For a non-yielding asset like gold, that is a double blow.

The prospect of higher interest rates as a result of the war is also boosting government bonds among investors, at the expense of precious metals.

Yet seasoned observers urge caution before declaring the gold story over.

Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, points out that gold is in the middle of only its third major bull run since 1971 and that the previous two also caused stomach-churning fluctuations.

“Neither interest rates staying higher for longer nor a stronger dollar may help the investment case for precious metals, but both the 1971-1980 and 2001-2010 bull runs saw several retreats which did not ultimately nullify or prevent major gains,” Mould said.

“So it may be too early to give up on gold just yet,” he continued.

During the first bull run, triggered by Richard Nixon’s decision to decouple the dollar from the gold standard in 1971, gold surged from $35 to a peak of $835 an ounce by January 1980, but not before enduring three mini bear markets and five corrections of 10% or more along the way.

The second run, which began in 2001 amid the wreckage of the dotcom bust and gathered pace through the 2008 financial crisis, was equally volatile, featuring two bear markets and another five double-digit corrections before gold peaked near $1,900 in 2011.

This third advance has been no smoother.

“A swoon of more than 20% caught some bulls off guard in 2022, as the world emerged from lockdowns, and 10%-plus corrections in each of 2016, 2018, 2020, 2021 and 2023 [gold peaks] warned that volatility was never far away,” Mould noted.

The question of dividends

The paradox at the heart of the current sell-off is that the very crisis that might once have sent investors flooding into gold is now working against it.

Rising oil prices fuel inflation fears, inflation fears fuel expectations of higher interest rates and higher rates make gold — which pays no dividend and costs money to hold — less appealing.

“Gold’s status as a haven may now be tarnished in the eyes of some,” Mould said, “as the precious metal is falling in price even as war roils the Middle East and financial markets alike.”

But not everyone is convinced the metal’s moment has passed.

The inflation and stagflation of the 1970s, partly triggered by the oil shocks of 1973 and 1979, ultimately made gold the standout portfolio pick of that decade.

A prolonged conflict that stretches government finances — pushing welfare costs up and tax revenues down, on top of surging defence spending — could yet revive that dynamic.

If central banks respond to recession with fresh rate cuts and quantitative easing, the case for gold as a store of value comes roaring back.

“The war in Iran and its effect on oil and gas prices is stoking fears of inflation and how that could force central banks to raise interest rates,” he concluded.

Asian stock markets saw major declines on Monday as gold futures dropped 8% and crude oil prices continued to climb amid heightened uncertainty in the Middle East.

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As the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz continues to choke global supply, benchmark US crude rose above $100 a barrel on Monday morning in Europe.

Brent crude, the international standard, went up to more than $113 a barrel. The price of Brent crude has zigzagged lately from about $70 per barrel before the war began to as high as $119.50.

European stock indexes opened with losses, with the FTSE in London losing 1.5%, the CAC-40 in Paris being down by 1.6%, and the DAX in Frankfurt dropping by 2% at the opening.

Earlier on Monday, the International Energy Agency warned that the global economy faces a “major, major threat” because of the Iran war and that at least 40 energy assets across nine countries were damaged.

Meanwhile, the de-escalation of the conflict is nowhere near in sight.

Trump warned over the weekend that the US would “obliterate” Iran’s power plants if it does not fully open the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours, prompting Tehran to say it would respond to any such strike with attacks on US and Israeli energy and infrastructure assets in the region.

“Trump’s ultimatum and Iran’s retaliatory warnings point to a widening conflict that keeps energy disruption and market volatility elevated, with no clear off-ramp in sight,” said Ng Jing Wen, analyst at Mizuho Bank in Singapore.

In Europe, the benchmark natural gas futures were trading above €60 per MWh at the market open.

This follows last week’s gains as escalating threats to Middle Eastern energy facilities heightened fears of deeper supply disruptions.

In Asia, stock markets were also significantly impacted by the uncertainty around the Middle East crisis, with Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 dropping 3.5%. In Taiwan, the Taiex shed 2.5%, South Korea’s Kospi dropped 6.5%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng slipped 3.8% and the Shanghai Composite declined 3.6%.

Higher oil prices, which also shook stock markets on Friday, dashed hopes for a possible upcoming cut in interest rates by the Federal Reserve, analysts said. Before the war, traders were betting that the Fed would cut rates at least twice this year. Central banks in Europe, Japan and the United Kingdom also recently held their interest rates steady.

The S&P 500 fell 1.5% Friday to close its fourth straight losing week, its longest such streak in a year.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 443 points, or 1%, and the Nasdaq Composite tumbled 2%.

On Wall Street, roughly three out of every four stocks in the S&P 500 fell on Friday.

Stocks of smaller companies, which can feel the pinch of higher interest rates more than their bigger rivals, led the way lower. The Russell 2000 index of smaller stocks fell a market-leading 2.3%.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury finished last week with a jump to 4.38% Friday from 4.25% late Thursday and from just 3.97% before the war started.

The two-year Treasury yield, which more closely tracks expectations for what the Fed might do, rose to 3.88% from 3.79%.

In currency trading, the US dollar rose to 159.53 Japanese yen from 159.22 yen. The euro cost $1.1526, down from $1.1571.

When the United States and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran on February 28, the Strait of Hormuz—the narrow waterway through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil passes each day—effectively ceased to function as a shipping corridor. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps responded by warning off tanker traffic, and within days maritime transit had fallen to nearly zero. The consequences were immediate and severe: Brent crude has not dropped below the $100 threshold since March 13 and touched $119 on March 19 following Israeli strikes on Iran’s South Pars gasfield and retaliatory Iranian attacks on energy infrastructure in Qatar and the UAE. For Venezuela, a country sitting atop the world’s largest proven reserves but producing around 900,000 to one million barrels per day (a fraction of its historical capacity of over 3 million in the late 1990s) the disruption arrived at a peculiar moment. It was not a crisis of Venezuela’s making. But how Caracas responds to it may define the country’s energy trajectory for years to come.

On paper, the arithmetic is striking. Alejandro Grisanti, director of Ecoanalítica, estimates that Venezuela receives approximately $400 million in additional revenue for every extra dollar in the average crude price. This figure, at current price levels, represents a fiscal windfall without precedent in the post-Maduro transition. Venezuelan crude exports had already rebounded sharply in February to around 788,000 barrels per day (up from a depressed 383,000 bpd in January, when the post-Maduro-arrest disruption had frozen trade flows), with US refineries absorbing the majority of shipments directly through Chevron or energy intermediaries. Of course, production and exports are different things: Venezuela produces roughly one million bpd but consumes some 230,000 bpd domestically, meaning effective export capacity sits considerably below gross output.

The Hormuz disruption accelerated the export recovery dynamic: with Gulf supply stranded and Asian buyers scrambling for alternatives, Venezuelan crude became a more attractive proposition. Washington has responded in kind. On March 18, the US Treasury issued a broad license authorizing established American entities to conduct transactions with PDVSA directly, a landmark shift after years of near-total sanctions isolation, explicitly framed as a supply-side response to the Iran war. There are structural constraints baked into the relief: payments cannot flow directly to sanctioned Venezuelan entities but must pass through US-controlled accounts, and transactions involving Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, or designated Chinese entities remain prohibited. The US will allow the oil trade, but it will control the cash flow.

The production ceiling, however, remains a formidable obstacle, and not merely a financial one. Venezuela’s Orinoco Belt produces extra-heavy crude with an API gravity typically in the 8–16° range and high sulfur content, which cannot simply be blended into a market substitute for the medium-sour grades displacing from the Persian Gulf. To reach export markets, Orinoco crude must either pass through an upgrader—facilities like Petropiar, which converts it to a synthetic crude of around 26° API—or be diluted with imported naphtha or lighter crude to create exportable blends like Merey. This means Venezuelan barrels serve a specific refinery profile: predominantly the cooking-capable refineries along the US Gulf Coast, which are well-suited to process heavy, sulfurous feedstocks. They are not a drop-in replacement for Middle Eastern crude, but a complementary supply for a defined segment of global refining capacity.

The US military backstop, the reformed hydrocarbon law, and now the broad PDVSA sanctions relief have together reduced the perception of expropriation risk and policy reversal that kept capital at bay for two decades.

ExxonMobil, whose assets were expropriated twice under chavismo, announced it would send an evaluation team to Venezuela within weeks, with Senior Vice President Jack Williams acknowledging the company’s heavy oil expertise from Canadian operations in Kearl and Cold Lake. The caveat was pointed: “Today it’s uninvestable,” CEO Darren Woods had said in January, and Williams’ more cautious optimism reflects the institutional memory of a company burned twice.

Chevron and PDVSA have meanwhile agreed on preliminary terms to expand Petropiar into the adjacent Ayacucho 8 block of the Orinoco Belt, while Shell is in advanced talks to develop the Carito and Pirital fields in eastern Monagas. These are among the few areas that produce the light and medium crude needed as diluent and blendstock for Venezuela’s heavy exports. Delcy Rodríguez has projected fresh oil investments of $1.4 billion for the year under the amended hydrocarbons law. These are meaningful steps. But a preliminary deal and a production ramp are different things. Rystad Energy estimates that simply holding production flat at around 1.1 million bpd requires $53 billion in upstream investment over 15 years, and getting to 2 million bpd by 2032 would demand $8–9 billion per year in sustained capital.

What has shifted—materially and quickly—is market sentiment about Venezuela as an investable destination, and the trajectory is meaningfully positive. Dozens of US hedge funds, asset managers, and energy investors are organizing trips to Caracas in the coming weeks: Signum Global Advisors is running a two-day conference in Venezuela from March 22–24 with 55 participants, roughly half of whom are bondholders who own or have recently purchased Venezuelan government and PDVSA debt (both in default since 2017).

Separate delegations invited by Trans-National Research and other groups are arriving, with agendas featuring meetings with Rodríguez and PDVSA CEO Héctor Obregón. The interest marks a sharp break from the isolation of the Maduro years. Country risk, while still elevated in absolute terms, has been repriced substantially since January: the US military backstop, the reformed hydrocarbon law, and now the broad PDVSA sanctions relief have together reduced the perception of expropriation risk and policy reversal that kept capital at bay for two decades.

Venezuela’s challenge is to use this window of geopolitical necessity to lock in investment commitments, debt restructuring negotiations, and production agreements that survive the normalization of oil markets.

What investors are now stress-testing is no longer whether Venezuela is open for business, but whether the legal and institutional architecture is durable enough to support long-horizon commitments. As analysts at Debatesiesa have noted in examining Venezuelan financial markets, sentiment can shift on headlines, but binding investment decisions require structural reforms and credible enforcement mechanisms. The framework is improving; the question is whether it improves fast enough, and on a stable enough trajectory, to convert this geopolitical moment into a genuine investment cycle.

The deeper question the Hormuz crisis forces is one of timing and durability. Oil prices are now trading above $110 per barrel and analysts at Wood Mackenzie and Rystad are no longer dismissing scenarios above $150 while the conflict shows no sign of imminent resolution, with Pete Hegseth signaling the “largest strike package yet” against Iran on March 19. The EIA, in its latest forecast issued prior to these newest escalations, projected Brent to remain above $95 through the next two months before falling below $80 in the third quarter of 2026 if supply flows gradually normalize. Whether that normalization materializes is the variable on which everything else depends. Venezuela’s challenge is not simply to capture today’s price premium, but to use this window of geopolitical necessity to lock in investment commitments, debt restructuring negotiations, and production agreements that survive the normalization of oil markets.

The country has rarely faced a more favorable confluence of factors: surging global demand for its barrels, a reformed legal framework for private investment, an unprecedented degree of US political and financial backing, and prices that make otherwise marginal projects viable. Whether Caracas—and the Rodríguez administration in particular—has the institutional bandwidth to convert a crisis into structural recovery, rather than another cycle of windfall and waste, is the defining question of Venezuela’s energy sector in 2026.