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“If China is not going to solve North Korea, we will.” Donald Trump pulled no punches in his interview with the FT, warning ahead of a summit with the Chinese president this week that the US would take unilateral action to eliminate the nuclear threat from Pyongyang. Mr Trump also discussed why Brexit is good for the UK, how he’ll deal with the Democrats on healthcare reform and why his growing number of Twitter followers (over 100m) means he doesn’t need to use fake news. Here is Mr Trump in his own words.

China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has his own strategy ahead of his meeting with the US president. His government is going out of its way to court the Trump family, particularly daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner. (FT, NYT)

In the news

Rattled on the Rock The EU has warned that Spain must agree to Gibraltar being included in any Brexit trade deal. The Spanish have long sought co-sovereignty over Gibraltar and hackles were raised when a former conservative leader claimed the UK government would go to war with Spain to defend the future of Britain’s overseas territory. For more on the complicated background to the flare-up, read the FT’s Jim Brunsden and Ian Mount. (FT)

Moreno claims victory in Ecuador Lenín Boltaire Moreno has claimed victory in presidential elections in Ecuador with 97 per cent of the ballots counted — but his conservative contender, Guillermo Lasso, is challenging the result. A Moreno win will leave WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange heaving a sigh of relief — Mr Lasso has vowed to eject him from the Ecuadorean embassy in London. (Guardian)

Japan’s labour crisis The Bank of Japan’s tankan survey of corporate sentiment has revealed that businesses are running out of people to hire in Japan. This is partly because the working-age population has shrunk from a peak of 87m in 1997 to 76m in February. (NAR)

Polish your sterling A survey of reserve managers at 80 central banks shows they are dumping euros and favouring the pound as a more long-term, stable alternative. Some respondents have even cut their entire exposure to the euro. (FT)

The Met looks at Yemen war crimes London’s Scotland Yard is examining allegations that Saudi Arabia has committed war crimes in Yemen, where 3m people have been displaced and more than 10,000 civilians have been killed. (Guardian)

It’s a big day for

EU-Mexico relations Trade negotiators from the EU and Mexico gather in Brussels all week to step up talks on an upgrade of the trade pact they struck in 2000. The talks come as Mexico prepares for Nafta talks with the US. (NYT)

Abdel Fatah al-Sisi The Egyptian strongman will meet Donald Trump as part of a five-day visit to the US. The former general was not invited to Washington during Barack Obama’s administration because of his regime’s widespread human rights abuse. (al-Ahram, WaPo)

Keep up with the important business, economic and political stories in the coming days with the FT’s Week Ahead.

Food for thought

When chat goes slack Lucy Kellaway on the culture of silence that has overtaken the workplace. “What stops us from chatting is not that we are busier — it is that we want to appear so.” Instead, chat has gone virtual. (FT)

What’s in a name? Quite a lot if it includes the world “jihadi”, say Muslims in the UK city of Birmingham. The former industrial hub has been dubbed “the jihadi capital” of the UK by some British media after the terrorist attack in Westminster last month. Muslim residents say the label is unfair and misleading. (Jazeera)

The novelist who inspires Silicon Valley If you want to understand where society is heading, read Iain M Banks, tech’s favourite author. (1843)

Mapping dark matter The appearance and behaviour of dark matter have been a mystery in astrophysics for almost a century but now the search has taken a step forward with the most detailed map of dark matter in the Universe ever created. (Wired)

Books for turbulent times Which business books should we turn to for solace and advice? To launch the 2017 Financial Times & McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award, we asked Financial Times writers from Martin Wolf to Lucy Kellaway for their ideas. (FT)

Video of the day

The week ahead Seb Morton-Clark looks at some of the big stories in the coming week, including Chinese President Xi Jinping’s first meeting with US President Donald Trump, the CRU copper conference in Chile and the US jobs report. (FT)

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