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Robert Lighthizer, who was US trade representative when Donald Trump launched his trade war with China, has been asked to take the job again as the president-elect starts to build his cabinet team.

Several people familiar with the discussions inside Trump’s transition team said Lighthizer had been asked to return to the top trade role even though he had lobbied for a different position, including commerce secretary.

Lighthizer had also expressed interest in serving as Treasury secretary, but that position will most likely be offered to a financier, with contenders including the hedge fund managers Scott Bessent and John Paulson.

But the potential reappointment to the pivotal trade role of an arch protectionist will make US trading allies, as well as China nervous, given how closely Lighthizer and Trump are aligned on trade policy. Trump has vowed to impose high tariffs on all imports into the US and especially Chinese goods.

Trump had considered Lighthizer for commerce secretary but the people familiar with the personnel discussions said the president-elect was most likely to offer that job to Linda McMahon, the billionaire co-chair of Trump’s presidential transition team.

Brendan Boyle, the Philadelphia congressman who is the top Democrat on the influential House budget committee and a senior member of the ways and means committee that oversees trade, welcomed the news.

“When Bob Lighthizer was USTR I worked with him on the USMCA [US-Mexico-Canada Agreement]. He was bipartisan in his approach and is well respected on both sides of the [political] aisle,” said Boyle.

It remains unclear if Lighthizer will accept the position. Lighthizer did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for Trump also did not immediately respond.

Robert O’Brien, who served as national security adviser during the first Trump administration and was viewed as a strong contender for secretary of state or to serve again as national security adviser, this week told his private sector consultancy clients that he would not join the administration, according to one person familiar with the decision. 

Lighthizer was highly regarded by Trump and was one of the few top level officials who did not suffer his wrath during Trump’s first term as president.

As Trump’s trade tsar, he presided over a turbulent era for global trade as the administration repeatedly hit its largest trading partners — including its allies — with steep levies and tariffs on billions of dollars’ worth of imports.

A former lawyer for the US steel industry, he frequently clashed with the Geneva-based World Trade Organization, which oversees international trade disputes, calling it a “mess” that had “failed America”.

His appointment would also signal bad news for Nippon Steel, the Japanese company that has proposed a $15bn acquisition of US Steel. Trump has already signalled his opposition to the deal, but Lighthizer would almost certainly be a strong opponent.

Lighthizer spent three decades as an attorney at Wall Street law firm Skadden Arps, where he fought imports from China on behalf of the US steel industry, including US Steel. In the early 2000s, he helped persuade George W Bush’s administration to impose tariffs on steel imports to protect the US industry.

During his previous tenure as trade representative, Washington moved away from striking trade deals driven by business interests and instead focused on measures designed to reshore manufacturing and protect American workers. Despite this, Lighthizer agreed limited trade deals with China and Japan, and updated the US’s deal with Mexico and Canada.

Writing in the Financial Times just before the US election, Lighthizer blamed free trade for the loss of American manufacturing jobs and called the US trade deficit “alarming”. “Facing a system that is seriously failing our country, Trump has decided that action must be taken,” he wrote.

Gold-related securities are among our top holdings, which is surprising as we are bottom-up investors.

How do we think about an asset that produces no cash flows?

There are two ways we look at it: from a supply-demand standpoint and versus currencies. Both are informed by gold’s key characteristics: gold is trustless, rustless, shiny and tiny.

From a supply-demand standpoint, gold has two qualities that make it different from copper, iron ore or lithium.

The first is that it’s rustless. It doesn’t degrade over time, so all the world’s gold is still in existence and theoretically available for sale. This means supply and demand is not purely a matter of mines versus consumers.

Second, gold is shiny. Its primary function is not as an input to other products but as jewellery or a store of value. In this regard, gold has been viewed for millennia as the best store of value available to most people.

Being rustless and shiny makes gold nice to have around your finger or hidden away for a rainy day.

On the supply side, gold is tiny – that is, it is rare to find in the ground and getting rarer.

The supply of new gold has been slowly dropping over recent decades. Unlike something like lithium, humans have been scouring for gold for centuries and the most bountiful deposits have been exhausted.

Aggregate mine quality has been dropping for a very long time. This translates into higher and higher mining costs, especially with lower ore grade being met by higher labour and energy costs, plus increasing environmental expenses. Miners require a higher price to justify their higher costs.

On the demand side of the equation, while jewellery demand has been fairly constant, gold has long been the first stop in the wealth accumulation process for much of the world.

As the emerging world has been growing a middle class, demand for gold has accelerated in recent years. That has been boosted by gold’s fourth quality: it is trustless.

Gold is not anyone else’s liability, and that becomes more valuable as trust becomes more scarce.

Coincident with the acceleration of populism and a re-bifurcation of the world into East versus West, both nations and individuals feel less trusting. On top of that, the US has weaponised the dollar system against its adversaries, cutting them off from Swift payments and freezing their central bank reserves.

Unsurprisingly, central banks for adversaries and non-adversaries alike are buying gold, and we expect that to continue. Gold’s trustless quality is becoming more valuable as trust in the US dollar system wanes.

So, from a strictly supply-demand standpoint, the minimum price hurdle has been steadily increasing with lower mine quality and rising costs, and new demand is outstripping new supply and the urge to sell by current holders. So long as mining costs don’t fall and the drivers of mass demand remain, the price of gold should stay well underpinned.

The other standpoint is to view gold versus currencies. Many scoff at this perspective, but being trustless, rustless, shiny and tiny makes gold very currency-like.

Its validity as such has been proven over a long time, with its first official use by the Egyptians in 1500 BC. Further, it’s the only currency-like asset that has not been devalued through governmental mismanagement.

It is important to remember the number of dollars, pounds or euros you see in an account is only worth what others are willing to give you in exchange. Unlike gold, where the supply is essentially fixed, all paper currencies suffer the same frailty – politicians or their appointees control the printing press and their desire is generally to get re-elected and their time horizon only extends through their tenure.

This makes them inclined to print, spend and give away as much as they can get away with. Recently, that has been a lot!

On the US government’s own forecasts (using assumptions we consider rosy), Federal debt to gross domestic product is set to rise from today’s 100% to 120% and beyond.

Essentially, all the increase is in mandatory programmes like pensions and healthcare. With more debt and ongoing deficits, interest expense creeps up. This year, the US will spend more on interest servicing its debt than it spends on its entire military.

Higher interest expense makes deficits worse, necessitating further debt issuance to plug the hole. With more debt comes higher interest expenses, worse deficits and yet more debt – it can become a spiral.

While every day, the camel appears to be fine under the weight of the straw on its back, the risk that the camel’s back breaks certainly exists, with very significant implications for markets and accumulated wealth. In this light, we currently view holding a decent amount of gold exposure as prudent.

The remaining question is what would make us sellers and, here, gold is not so different from the other holdings in our multi-asset portfolios. Every security is in a continuous competition for capital.

The most likely cause for us to sell gold will be to free up capital for better opportunities – if equities decline and gold holds up better, for instance, fulfilling its traditional diversifying role.

A swing in the pendulum towards increased fiscal responsibility or reduced geopolitical conflict would also swing our views, and could make big swathes of the equity and fixed-income universe more compelling on a fundamental view.

While we hope for that improvement, it looks unlikely to us today. Gold may just prove to shine brightest when the outlook appears to be dimmest elsewhere.

Alec Cutler is manager of the Orbis Global Balanced fund

Dead leaves are underfoot, on urban pavements, in rural fields and wherever we do not want them in gardens. In London we kick away leaves fallen from plane trees, and everywhere we rake leaves briskly off our lawns. We do not go slowly and look at them closely.

Slow walking and close looking helped the greatest botanical artist in my lifetime to turn flowers and dead leaves into masterpieces. Rory McEwen died in 1982, aged 50, but his reputation and influence as a botanical artist have grown with each retrospective exhibition. An excellent show of his work is currently touring the US, from Charleston to Florida and then Chicago from May 17 to August 17 next year.

Until December 15 it is in the Davis Museum at Wellesley College, Massachusetts, where it is admirably presented against high white walls. For its opening, undergraduates of this women-only college wore flower-themed dresses and decorations, a new twist to McEwen’s impact. Next year a smaller exhibition will begin at London’s Garden Museum. Meanwhile a fine exhibition catalogue is on sale, Rory McEwen: A New Perspective on Nature, beautifully illustrated with support from the Mellon family’s Oak Spring Garden Foundation. It is graced with a foreword by Ruth Stiff, curator of international exhibitions at Kew, and an exceptional essay by Martyn Rix, botanist and expert in botanical art, who was a friend and guide to McEwen for many years.

McEwen was born into the British upper class, spending a wartime childhood in the grounds of Marchmont House, a mansion on the Scottish borders. He was the fourth of seven children, a spur to his own achievements. He became a fine musician, singing and playing the guitar, a talent that predominated in his undergraduate years at Cambridge. He profoundly admired Lead Belly, the legendary 12-string guitarist and singer from the American South, then little known in Britain. His musical interrelationships are a subject in themselves, from his meeting with Lead Belly’s widow in New York, to his appearances on an admired BBC TV show in the early 1960s, and the company he kept at his house in Chelsea. There, the Beatle George Harrison first met and learned from Ravi Shankar, the Indian sitar-player, a visitor housed by McEwen and his family.

McEwen began to paint flowers at the age of eight thanks to his French governess: the exhibition includes a leaf he painted then, already notably

Guitar playing requires precision and persistence. They are qualities that botanical art needs too. McEwen recalled that he began to paint flowers at the age of eight thanks to his French governess: the exhibition includes a leaf he painted then, already notably. At Eton College, he was lucky to be guided by the art master Wilfrid Blunt, a skilled botanical artist and historian of the subject. Crucially he made McEwen aware of the long history of the genre, from early herbals and religious books to the great master Pierre-Joseph Redouté and others. McEwen looked at hundreds of prints and originals of their work and studied their techniques. His close analysis of these forerunners distinguishes his art from simple illustration. So do the depth of his eye and the material on which he painted.

“I have never really been interested in botanical illustration per se,” he wrote in older age to Blunt, “but rather in that moment when painting starts to breathe poetry.” Viewers of his work need to look at it with this moment in mind. Botanical art aims at exact representation and is distinct from flower painting, whether Monet’s water lilies or Cedric Morris’s irises. McEwen saw exactness as a gate to meaning.

Most of his painting is in watercolour on vellum, the least forgiving of white surfaces, one rarely used in the 1960s. With its help he contrived a luminous effect, especially in the leaves of plants he painted. For hours on end, he worked with extreme discipline in an attic or studio, listening to music through headphones, his guitar propped against the wall, taking second place from 1965 onwards. He would emerge with his charm and energy unimpaired and engage smoothly with his family and many guests.

In due course he travelled east, not only to Japan which fascinated him and where exhibitions of his work were greatly admired. He loved spending time in Afghanistan, India and Bhutan, where he soon needed a butterfly net: the queen of Bhutan ordered one to be made for him from a piece of her mosquito netting. In the 1970s he kept small images of Buddha on his desk, befitting his contemplative eye while painting so meticulously. He looked and thought deeply.

In 1958, he married Romana von Hofmannsthal, an Astor on her mother’s side. The spectre of an office job receded and he could play, sing and paint as he wished. Like the folk songs he performed, some of the flowers that he presented had roots in popular culture. To find living old-fashioned tulips he joined the Wakefield and North of England Tulip Society. In 1962, with his wife Romana’s help, he had his first exhibition in New York which was admiringly reviewed for its “grace and exactitude” in The New York Times.

It drew two remarkable visitors, Bunny Mellon, hyper-rich collector of botanical books and art, and through her, Jackie Kennedy, with whom McEwen, aged 30, discussed his tulips. Mellon then bought his masterly painting of four carnations, rendered from plants from Allwoods nursery in Sussex, and one of tulips from the Wakefield Society. She sent them to the Kennedys at the White House where they hung in private rooms. Ever a thoughtful correspondent, McEwen wrote to the Wakefield Society, telling them of his delight that “so long as the White House stands the Wakefield Society’s tulips will be hanging on the wall”. Actually they were loans from Mellon, not gifts, so they are in the exhibition with other treasures from her Garden Foundation.

In Massachusetts, I admired a follower’s picture of Tulipa “Rory McEwen”, violet on white and difficult to grow well. I then returned to the entrance. The security guard remarked that I was not the first visitor from England: a lady had just come specially from Wakefield in the north. How apt, as the two of us relate to two of the artist’s supreme subjects. In 1977, McEwen went with Rix to see a wild meadow of purple and white fritillaries in Hampshire and soon after, we met socially. He noted in his diary that I had once told him that it “is the one flower it is impossible to paint”. Before long, with habitual kindness, he sent me his reply, a perfectly painted Fritillaria meleagris. Others, taller and bigger, are in the current show.

“A lot goes on in a dying leaf”, he wrote to his niece, “you’d be surprised”. A superb series of paintings, “True Facts From Nature”, included one such leaf in 1973. From late 1977 he excelled with them, placing them carefully off centre on white vellum, his considered response to the surrounding minimalism of modern art. He saw them not as dying, but as “showing the marks of life and experience,” like “tiny condensations of the places from which they came”. He noted exactly where he found these late models, leaves with addresses in New York, Chelsea or the playing fields of Eton. Diagnosed with cancer, then a brain tumour, he wrote that he was making a connection between the “experienced” object and human thoughts and feelings and in that sense his work was indeed “abstract”. I have just examined a sycamore leaf on my path. Through his final masterpieces I see so much more of what is going on there.

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THE Winter Fuel Payment is paid at two rates with older people receiving £100 more than those closer to the state pension age.

The benefit is paid to help those over the state pension age of 66 with their energy bills over the winter months.

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It is worth up to £300 and was previously paid universally to all pensioners.

But from this year it will be means tested and only those on certain benefits will be eligible to receive funds.

Those on Pension Credit, Income Support, Tax Credits and Universal Credit remain eligible for the payment, but 10million are set to miss out.

The amount people receive through the payment depends on when they were born.

It is worth £200 for eligible households where all residents were born  between 23 September 1944 and 22 September 1958, or £300 for eligible households where someone is aged over 80.

To qualify for this year’s benefit, you must be 66 or over and have had an active claim for one of the qualifying benefits during what’s known as the “qualifying week” – this year, from September 16 to 22.

However, Pension Credit claims can be backdated by three months, so those who think they may be eligible for the benefit still have time to make a claim.

As long as claims are made by December 21, they will be able to access this year’s winter fuel allowance.

The changes to the winter fuel allowance have prompted faced a backlash from charities and campaigners since it was first announced.

Its impact was revealed when thousands of Sun readers flooded The Sun’s Winter Fuel SOS helpline earlier this month, looking for help to hang on to the payment.

The Sun has since launched a free tool to help you check whether you will get the winter fuel payment this year.

Even if you’re not eligible for the Winter Fuel Payment you may still be able to get £150 off your energy costs through the Warm Home Discount scheme.

There are two Warm Home Discount schemes – one for England and Wales, and one for Scotland.

Those living in England and Wales do not need to apply for the scheme, but those living in Scotland do.

Between now and December, the government will issue letters to households that qualify for the scheme.

However, to be eligible for the discount households must have had an active claim for any of the following benefits on Sunday, August 11:

There may also be help available through the Household Support Fund, which is administered through local authorities.

The fund is worth £421million and aims to help with gas, electricity, and food during the winter months.

To find out what support you could access contact your local council.

What is the Winter Fuel Payment?

Consumer reporter Sam Walker explains all you need to know about the payment.

The Winter Fuel Payment is an annual tax-free benefit designed to help cover the cost of heating through the colder months.

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Most who are eligible receive the payment automatically.

Those who qualify are usually told via a letter sent in October or November each year.

If you do meet the criteria but don’t automatically get the Winter Fuel Payment, you will have to apply on the government’s website.

You’ll qualify for a Winter Fuel Payment this winter if:

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• you were born on or before September 23, 1958
• you lived in the UK for at least one day during the week of September 16 to 22, 2024, known as the “qualifying week”
• you receive Pension Credit, Universal Credit, ESA, JSA, Income Support, Child Tax Credit or Working Tax Credit

If you did not live in the UK during the qualifying week, you might still get the payment if both the following apply:

• you live in Switzerland or a EEA country
• you have a “genuine and sufficient” link with the UK social security system, such as having lived or worked in the UK and having a family in the UK

But there are exclusions – you can’t get the payment if you live in Cyprus, France, Gibraltar, Greece, Malta, Portugal or Spain.

This is because the average winter temperature is higher than the warmest region of the UK.

You will also not qualify if you:

• are in hospital getting free treatment for more than a year
• need permission to enter the UK and your granted leave states that you can not claim public funds
• were in prison for the whole “qualifying week”
• lived in a care home for the whole time between 26 June to 24 September 2023, and got Pension Credit, Income Support, income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance or income-related Employment and Support Allowance

Payments are usually made between November and December, with some made up until the end of January the following year.

CHECK IF YOU QUALIFY FOR PENSION CREDIT

Pension credit tops up your weekly income to £218.15 if you are single or to £332.95 if you have a partner and can give you access to the winter fuel allowance.

This is known as “guarantee credit”.

If your income is lower than this, you’re very likely to be eligible for the benefit.

However, if your income is slightly higher, you might still be eligible for pension credit if you have a disability, you care for someone, you have savings or you have housing costs.

You could get an extra £81.50 a week if you have a disability or claim any of the following:

• Attendance allowance
• The middle or highest rate from the care component of disability living allowance (DLA)
• The daily living component of personal independence payment (PIP)
• Armed forces independence payment
• The daily living component of adult disability payment (ADP) at the standard or enhanced rate.

You could get the “savings credit” part of pension credit if both of the following apply:

• You reached State Pension age before April 6, 2016
• You saved some money for retirement, for example, a personal or workplace pension

This part of pension credit is worth £17.01 for single people or £19.04 for couples.

Pension credit opens the door to other support, including housing benefits, cost of living payments, council tax reductions and the winter fuel payment.

Claims for pension credit also open doors to a number of freebies and discounts.

For example, pension credit claimants over 75 qualify for a free TV licence worth up to £169.50 a year.

Do you have a money problem that needs sorting? Get in touch by emailing money-sm@news.co.uk.

Plus, you can join our Sun Money Chats and Tips Facebook group to share your tips and stories

SWEDEN’S northernmost city has been named Europe’s most underrated destination for a white Christmas.

Located in Swedish Lapland, Kiruna is a mining town that’s home to just under 20,000 people – and it’s said to be the best place for Brits to experience a white Christmas.

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Ferry operator DFDS analysed 23 years of snowfall data across a whopping 164 destinations in Europe.

The operator cross-analysed snowfall data with the least-searched destinations on Google to find the best place to see snow on Christmas Day.

Kiruna, Sweden‘s northernmost city, was crowned the winner with a 70 per cent chance of snow on December 25.

The Swedish city only had 100 Google searches per month, with only 12 per cent of Brits surveyed aware of the Swedish city.

Located in northern Sweden, Kiruna is an outdoor enthusiast’s dream destination from its deep forests, lakes, rivers and mountains.

The nearby Abisko National Park is ideal for hiking and experiencing the Midnight Sun in summer.

It is also a good destination to see the Northern Lights, which are often visible on winter nights – although its appearance is never guaranteed.

Other attractions include an Ice Hotel and the Esrange Space Centre, which offers insights into space research.

Additionally, Kiruna Church, one of Sweden’s largest wooden buildings, is worth a visit for its beautiful architecture.

Although the location of Kiruna Church is set to change next year when the entire city is relocated two miles south.

Kiruna sits above the largest known deposit of the rare elements, which are used to make electric car batteries and wind turbines – this is roughly 80 per cent of the European Union‘s supply.

However, after years of mining, the land has been deformed and cracks have even started to appearing in the town.

This is why the entire town is set to be shifted two miles away, with each building set to be relocated.

It is hoped that the ambitious project will be finished by 2026, with Kiruna Church set to be moved at some point next year.

Kiruna is also the traditional home of the indigenous Sámi people.

The land of the Sámi people stretches across the very north of Sweden, Norway, Finland and Russia.

Visitors to Kiruna can learn more about the Sámi people through a range of activities like reindeer herding.

Kiruna has its own airport – Kiruna Airport.

Flights from Kiruna Airport only operate to Stockholm, which means Brits will need to change in the country’s capital to reach the arctic city.

Sun Online Travel have found return fares in January from London to Kiruna for £180.

Meanwhile, these are the six best European cities to visit in 2024.

And this “timeless” European city serves as a great double for Rome.

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Prudential Financial has recruited a top Morgan Stanley executive to take over its $1.4tn asset management arm as it seeks to expand the division’s international reach and offerings in alternative assets.

Jacques Chappuis will join as PGIM’s chief executive in May, replacing David Hunt, who is retiring after a 13-year stint that saw assets under management double and the firm become a top-five player in US active fixed income and real estate investing.

Chappuis, who also previously worked at Citigroup and Carlyle, has been the co-head of Morgan Stanley Investment Management since January.

Prudential wants to double PGIM’s contribution to the group’s earnings from 12 to 24 per cent over the next seven years, said Andy Sullivan, Prudential’s head of international and investment management, who led the search for Hunt’s replacement.

PGIM, currently ranked 15th in the world by AUM, hopes to capitalise on the growing trend for large clients to do more business with fewer providers. It is also seeking to bulk up further in private assets, which carry higher fees, and win mandates for multi-asset solutions from other insurers as well as pension funds and endowments.

“We are at an inflection point both as an industry and for us as a business,” Sullivan said. “This was a very difficult search. We needed someone who had deep experience across asset classes.”

Chappuis “is a humble, decisive and determined leader,” Sullivan said

PGIM’s alternatives business rose by more than 50 per cent to $336bn under Hunt’s leadership. The group made several small acquisitions and was looking for others that would expand its global reach and give it more heft in areas such as infrastructure equity, Sullivan said.

After Chappuis’s arrival, Hunt will stay on as PGIM chair until July to ensure a smooth transition.

Morgan Stanley told staff late last month that Chappuis was stepping down, leaving Ben Huneke as the sole head of investment management. They had been running the division together since January, when the elevation of Ted Pick to chief executive was accompanied by a broader reorganisation.

“I’m proud to become PGIM’s next president and CEO, leading an incredible team through its next chapter of growth,” Chappuis said in a statement. “I look forward to building upon the firm’s successes.”