Syria Gives Kurds Four Days To Accept Integration As US Signals End Of Support

Political

Summary:

Syria's government set a four-day deadline on Tuesday for Kurdish-led forces to agree on integrating their last enclave into the central state as their former main ally, the United States, urged them to do so.

Military members gather near Raqqa prison, where the Syrian army is besieging SDF members after the Syrian army took control of the city of Raqqa, Syria January 19, 2026.

● Syrian government says Kurdish-led forces must integrate.

● US says reason for partnership with Kurdish forces has expired.

● SDF says withdrawing to Kurdish-majority areas.

U.S. envoy Tom Barrack in a social media post described integration as the "greatest opportunity" the Kurds now have in Syria.

He added that the original purpose of the Syrian Democratic Forces as a counterweight to Islamic State militants had largely expired, and that the U.S. had no long-term interest in retaining its presence in Syria, signalling the apparent end of Washington's backing.

The SDF, which has lost swathes of territory during government advances in recent days, said it accepted a ceasefire agreement with the Damascus government and that it would not engage in any military action unless attacked.

A Syrian government statement said it had reached an understanding with the SDF, long backed by the United States in the battle against Islamic State, for it to devise an integration plan for Hasakah province or risk state forces entering two SDF-controlled cities.

The government announced a four-day ceasefire and said it had asked the SDF to submit the name of a candidate to take the role of assistant to the defence minister in Damascus as part of the integration.

The swift reversal for the SDF along one of Syria's main faultlines marks the biggest shift in territorial control in Syria since Sharaa toppled President Bashar al-Assad in 2024 and raises questions over the security of facilities holding Islamic State detainees.

Source: Reuters

Risk Warnings and Disclaimers

You understand and acknowledge that there is a high degree of risk involved in trading. Following any strategies or investment methods may lead to potential losses. The content on the site is provided by our contributors and analysts for information purposes only. You are solely responsible for determining whether any trading assets, securities, strategy, or any other product is suitable for investing based on your own investment objectives and financial situation.

Add to Favorites

Daniel Carter

Economic

Colombian inflation expectations rocketed as economists gauge the impact of this year's 23% minimum wage rise.

In the first central bank survey since the increase, economists raised their forecasts for inflation this year to 6.37%, a jump of nearly 1.8 percentage point.

Forecasts for 2027 inflation also jumped, to 4.82% from 3.8%, the survey found, in which case price rises would have overshot the central bank's target for a seventh straight year. Colombia aims for inflation of 3%, plus or minus one percentage point.

Economists surveyed now expect the central bank to raise its key interest rate by a half percentage point this month, to 9.75%, and to 11% by the end of the year.

Central bank co-director Mauricio Villamizar said this month that the minimum wage increase is a significant inflation shock that bolsters the case for higher interest rates.

Source: Bloomberg Europe

To stay updated on all economic events of today, please check out our Economic calendar

Risk Warnings and Disclaimers

Add to Favorites

Manuel

Commodity

Energy

US natural gas futures closed way up Tuesday as forecasts turned much colder over the long holiday weekend in the US, calling for a deep freeze to grip much of the country during the weeks ahead.

While stockpiles of the fuel were slightly above normal earlier this month, the latest weather outlook signals sustained heating demand and possible production losses that would erase that surplus. Hedge funds raised their bearish positions on gas last week, leaving the market primed for a short-covering rally.

“All signs point to major Arctic cold outbreaks over the eastern two-thirds of North America later this week and into much of next week,” forecasters with Atmospheric G2 wrote in a note to clients Monday. Earlier outlooks “clearly missed the intensity and the breadth of the cold,” the meteorologists said.

Futures for February delivery settled up 25.9%, or 80.4 cents, to $3.907 per million British thermal units. The February contract rose by as much as 29% to $3.990 per mmbtu intraday, the highest single-day price increase in nearly four years.

High gas prices represent a pain point for US consumers struggling with rising energy bills, which has become a political issue for US President Donald Trump. But they are beneficial to US gas producers, especially those that have not locked in prices for a large share of their planned production through financial hedges.

Top US gas producers Expand Energy and EQT Corp. were higher Tuesday morning, surging as much as 7% and 5.7%, respectively. Natural Gas Jumps Most in 4 Years as Arctic Blast Descends on US_1

Natural Gas Jumps Most in 4 Years as Arctic Blast Descends on US_1

Average temperatures will be at least 8F (4C) below normal across much of the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and parts of southern New England through Saturday, according to Commodity Weather Group.

An arctic blast will push into Texas over the weekend, dropping temperatures below freezing across much of the state, said Bob Oravec, a senior branch forecaster at the US Weather Prediction Center.

“By Sunday it is pretty much all of Texas except down by Brownsville,” Oravec said.

On top of the cold temperatures, large parts of north central Texas may also be hit with an ice storm, he said. Heavy snow will likely fall across Oklahoma. The band of freezing temperatures and ice will spread eastward across the South through Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, Oravec added.

Aside from boosting heating demand, frigid winter weather can also raise US gas prices as supply is lost to freeze-offs, which occur when liquids in the wellhead get too cold and block production. The sharp cold shift, traders closing short positions to limit losses and up to 10 billion cubic feet per day of freeze-offs later this week in the prolific gas fields of Appalachia are all contributing to the price surge, Darrell Fletcher, managing director of commodities at Bannockburn Capital Markets, told Bloomberg News.

Energy Aspects increased its forecast for gas supply lost to freeze-offs this winter to 80 billion cubic feet, “much of which may realize over the coming two weeks from the winter storm,” said Josh Garcia, senior gas analyst at the consultancy.

Traders are also eyeing possible production interruptions in the Permian Basin in West Texas and New Mexico and Haynesville shale of northwest Louisiana and East Texas, with below-freezing temperatures forecast to fall in both regions this weekend. Those basins represent the second- and third-largest sources of US gas behind the Marcellus shale region in Pennsylvania.

“Freezing temperatures are expected this Saturday and Sunday and as such the potential for supply shortfalls due to freeze‐offs exists,” said El Paso Natural Gas, a long-haul, Kinder Morgan-owned pipeline shipping Permian gas.

Gas flows were also diverted from several US liquefied natural gas facilities to meet soaring heating demand around the country rather than being exported to pricier European and Asian markets, according to BloombergNEF.

Source: Bloomberg

Risk Warnings and Disclaimers

Add to Favorites

Manuel

Commodity

Venezuela's interim president Delcy Rodriguez said on Tuesday that the country has received $300 million from oil sales, the first proceeds from U.S. President Donald Trump's announced 50-million-barrel oil supply deal with ‌Caracas, following the capture of President Nicolas Maduro earlier this month.

Trump said separately on Tuesday ‌his country had taken the 50 million barrels out of Venezuela, and was selling some of it in the open market, though shipping records show that volume has not yet been exported.

Reuters reported last week that four Venezuelan banks had been ⁠notified by the country's government ‌that they would split $300 million of oil revenues deposited in an account in Qatar, enabling them to sell dollars to ‍Venezuelan companies that need foreign exchange to pay for materials.

"We should inform you that we have gotten funds, from the sale of oil, and we have gotten, of the first $500 million, $300 million," Rodriguez said at an event in Caracas. "These first funds will ‌be used through the exchange market in Venezuela, by national banks and the central bank, to consolidate and stabilize the market and protect the incomes and purchasing power of our workers."

Elsewhere on Tuesday, Rodriguez's brother, lawmaker Jorge Rodriguez, said a reform of the country's main oil law expected to be debated for ⁠the first time this week will be based on a partnership structure first introduced during President Nicolas Maduro's administration, though he provided no details.

Interim president Rodriguez told lawmakers last week that the government supported changes to the ‍hydrocarbons law to ⁠boost foreign investment. The law has a single contract model of joint ventures controlled by state company PDVSA, but the country has been introducing ⁠so-called 'productive participation contracts' for new partnerships in recent years, whose terms have not been fully ‌disclosed.

Those contracts are "a fundamental element to be expressed in the law's ‌reform," Jorge Rodriguez told journalists.

Source: Reuters

Risk Warnings and Disclaimers

Add to Favorites

Manuel

Political

Commodity

Oil prices rose on Tuesday on the temporary suspension of output at Kazakhstan's oil fields and expectations of firmer global economic growth that could drive fuel demand.

Investors continued to monitor U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff threats against European states that oppose his push to acquire Greenland.

Brent futures settled 98 cents, or 1.53%, higher at $64.92 a barrel. The U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude contract for February , which expires on Tuesday, gained 90 cents, or 1.51%, at $60.34.

The more actively traded WTI March contract rose $1.02, or 1.72%, to $60.36.

Kazakh oil producer Tengizchevroil, led by Chevron (CVX.N), said on Monday it had temporarily halted production at the Tengiz and Korolev oilfields after an issue affected power distribution systems.

TENGIZ FIELD COULD BE HALTED 7-10 DAYS

Tengiz could be halted for another seven to 10 days, cutting crude exports via the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, sources told Reuters on Tuesday.

"Tengiz is amongst the largest fields in the world and so the outage is certainly disruptive for crude flows," said Ajay Parmar, director of energy and refining at ICIS. "But this disruption does look to be temporary, and so if the tariffs rhetoric continues, we expect prices to fall back," he said.

The oil market also drew support from better-than-expected fourth-quarter Chinese gross domestic product data released on Monday, said IG market analyst Tony Sycamore.

"This resilience in the world's top oil importer provided a lift to demand sentiment," he said.

China's economy grew by 5% last year and the country's refinery throughput in 2025 climbed 4.1% on a year-over-year basis, data showed on Monday. China's crude oil output also grew 1.5%.

Prices also gained on an upward revision of this year's global economic growth estimate by the International Monetary Fund as well as stronger diesel prices, said PVM analyst Tamas Varga.

A sliding dollar has also supported prices, as a weaker U.S. currency could boost oil demand by making dollar-denominated purchases cheaper.

TRUMP TARIFF THREATS IN FOCUS

Fears of a renewed trade war escalated over the weekend after Trump said he would impose additional 10% levies from February 1 on goods imported from EU members Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands, as well as Britain and Norway, rising to 25% on June 1 if no deal on Greenland was reached.

Trump's tariff threats have a negative bearing on crude prices as the levies could lead to lower global economic growth and therefore reduce oil demand growth, said Parmar of ICIS.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Tuesday that the bloc's executive arm is working on a package to support Arctic security and that the tariffs are a mistake.

Source: Reuters

Risk Warnings and Disclaimers

Add to Favorites

Manuel

China–U.S. Trade War

Commodity

China has fulfilled its initial commitment to buy 12 million metric tons of soybeans from the U.S., but it's not clear if the trade agreement announced in October can withstand President Donald Trump's ever-shifting trade policy as American farmers are still dealing with high production costs.

Earlier this month, Trump said he would impose 25% tariffs on any country that buys from Iran, which would include China. Then last weekend he threatened to impose 10% tariffs on eight of America's closest allies in Europe if they continue to oppose his efforts to acquire Greenland.

So the administration's trade policy continues to change quickly, and Iowa State University agricultural economist Chad Hart said that could undermine the trade agreement with China and jeopardize the commitment by the world's largest soybean buyer to purchase 25 million metric tons of American soybeans in each of the next three years.

“Those new tariffs — what does that mean for this agreement? Does it throw it out? Is it still binding? That’s sort of the game here now," Hart said.

Beijing paused any purchase of U.S. soybeans last summer during its trade war with Washington but agreed to resume buying from American soybean farmers after Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping met in South Korea and agreed to a truce.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the purchasing milestone China has met in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday from the sidelines of a major economic forum in Davos, Switzerland, where Bessent met with his Chinese counterpart, Vice President He Lifeng. Bessent said China remains committed.

“He told me that just this week they completed their soybean purchases, and we’re looking forward to next year’s 25 million tons,” Bessent said. “They did everything they said they were going to do.”

Last fall, preliminary data from the Department of Agriculture cast doubts on whether China would live up to the agreement because it was slow to begin purchasing American soybeans and there is a lag before the purchases show up in the official numbers.

On Tuesday, the USDA data showed that China had bought more than 8 million tons of U.S. soybeans by Jan. 8, and its daily reports indicated that China placed several more orders since then, ranging from 132,000 tons to more than 300,000 tons.

China has shifted much of its soybean purchases over to Brazil and Argentina in recent years to diversify its sources and find the cheapest deals. Last year, Brazilian beans accounted for more than 70% of China’s imports, while the U.S. share was down to 21%, World Bank data shows.

Trump is planning to send roughly $12 billion in aid to U.S. farmers to help them withstand the trade war, but farmers say the aid won’t solve all their problems as they continue to deal with the soaring costs of fertilizer, seeds and labor that make it hard to turn a profit right now. Soybean farmers will get $30.88 per acre while corn farmers will receive $44.36 per acre. Another crop hit hard when China stopped buying was sorghum, and those farmers will get $48.11 per acre. The amounts are based on a USDA formula on the cost of production.

That and uncertainty about trade markets and how much farmers will receive for their crops has even some of the most optimistic farmers worried, said Cory Walters, who is an associate professor in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Department of Agricultural Economics. Soybean prices jumped up above $11.50 per bushel after the agreement was announced, but the price has since fallen to about $10.56 per bushel on Tuesday. So prices are close to where they were a year ago and aren’t high enough to cover most farmers’ costs.

“Everything is changing -- the land rental market, the fertilizer market, the seed market and it’s all pinching the farmer when they go to do their cash flows. The ability to make a decision is tougher now because of all the uncertainty in the market,” Walters said.

Source: Reuters

Risk Warnings and Disclaimers

Add to Favorites

Manuel

Political

European leaders, rattled by Donald Trump's latest global gambit, are looking to present a united front in Davos, as CEOs warned against an emotional response to the U.S. president's ambition to take over Greenland.

French President Emmanuel Macron said the European Union should not bend to "the law of the strongest", adding that it was "crazy" that the bloc was having to contemplate using its "anti-coercion instrument" against the United States.

"We do believe that we need more growth, we ‌need more stability in this world, but we do prefer respect to bullies," Macron told the World Economic Forum's annual meeting, the day before Trump's arrival in Switzerland.

Without referring directly to Trump, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen highlighted a need ‌to respond to seismic shifts in the world and said the speed and scale of change had driven a consensus in Europe on independence.

"It is time to seize this opportunity and build a new independent Europe," she said in a speech.

Belgium's Prime Minister Bart De Wever said the 27-member bloc was "at a crossroads" where it must decide on how to get out of a "very bad position" after trying to appease Trump to get his support for the Ukraine war.

"So we should unite and we should say to Donald Trump ... 'You're crossing red lines here.' We either stand together or we will stand divided," De Wever said on a ⁠panel discussion.

Swedish Deputy Prime Minister Ebba Busch told Reuters that attempts to ‌win over Trump with flattery, as some European leaders have tried in the past, would not work.

"Stroking the cat along the line of its fur is not going to do the trick this time. The EU needs to toughen up and hold the line," she said, adding that the bloc needed to ‍keep options for trade retaliation "locked and loaded".

EUROPEANS AT ODDS OVER HOW TO RESPOND TO TRUMP

Trump announced tariffs on Saturday on imports from European allies that oppose the U.S. acquiring Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark.

European governments, which are facing growing challenges from populist, nationalist parties, have been at odds over how to respond to the tariff threat while maintaining U.S. support for Ukraine.

Macron said Europe should not accept a world where might makes right and called for bold moves to defend European industries.

"Let's not be shy. Let's not be divided. Let's not accept a global order, which will be divided by those who claim to have the bigger ‌voice," Macron said.

Macron also appeared to see an opportunity for Europe in Trump's chaotic policies.

"We have a place where the rule of law and predictability is still the rule of the game, and my guess is that it is under-priced by the market," he said in his speech.

However, some senior bankers and executives in Davos, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they saw the response from European leaders to Trump's moves as emotional rather than pragmatic. Two suggested the continent needed to look beyond the way the U.S. president delivers his message and have a negotiation.

"But they won't even want to have that conversation, because they're so offended by the style. And so what you have in Europe is a very, very, delicate balance of a continent that cannot move together," one senior banker told ⁠Reuters.

European countries say Trump's threat of new tariffs would violate a trade deal reached with the U.S. last year, and EU leaders are set to discuss possible retaliation at an emergency summit in Brussels on Thursday.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, however, voiced confidence that the United States and European countries would find a solution and avoid what some have warned could become a prolonged trade war.

"Why are we jumping there? Why are you taking it to the worst case? ... Calm down the hysteria. Take a deep breath," he said.

UKRAINE PUSHES FOR SECURITY GUARANTEES, ‍RECONSTRUCTION PLAN

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday ⁠that he was ready to join other global leaders in Davos, but only if the U.S. was ready to sign documents on security guarantees for Ukraine and a post-war prosperity plan.

"Ukraine is ready for meetings ... if those meetings are actually effective," he wrote on X.

His comments came as CEOs, including finance industry executives, are expected to meet on Wednesday to discuss post-war ⁠reconstruction, a source familiar with the matter said.

But any decisions were unlikely, the source told Reuters, adding: "You need peace in order to reconstruct the place."

Zelenskiy urged the U.S. to pile more pressure on Russia after its latest massive air attack ‌on Ukraine cut heating to half of the capital and affected substations the United Nations' atomic watchdog said are vital for nuclear safety.