Reuters World News - Venezuela 'blockade', Australia gun reform, jobs and Ford

Episode Date: December 17, 2025

U.S. President Donald Trump orders a 'blockade' of all sanctioned oil tankers going in and out of Venezuela. U.S. job growth rebounds even as the shutdown distorts the numbers. Australia prepares to tighten gun control as the funerals for the Bondi Beach victims begin. And Ford takes a hit as it kills multiple EV models. Plus, Susie Wiles gives Vanity Fair a bombshell interview.    Listen to Morning Bid podcast ⁠⁠here⁠⁠. Sign up for the Reuters Econ World newsletter ⁠⁠here⁠⁠. Listen to the Reuters Econ World podcast ⁠⁠here⁠⁠. Find the Recommended Read here. Visit the Thomson Reuters Privacy Statement for information on our privacy and data protection practices. You may also visit megaphone.fm/adchoices to opt out of targeted advertising. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, I'm Carmel Crimmons in Dublin. It's Wednesday, December 17th. Today, Trump orders a blockade of sanctioned oil tankers going in and out of Venezuela. Australia will push for gun reform as funerals for the Bondi victims begin. U.S. jobs growth snaps back in November, even as the shutdown distorts the numbers. And Ford is killing several electric vehicle models as Trump policies drive a hard bargain. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes, seven days a week. U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered a blockade of all sanctioned oil tankers going in and out of Venezuela. It's Washington's latest move against Nicolas Maduro's government, targeting Caracas's main income source.

So far, it's unclear how Trump will impose a blockade on the vessels. In a posting on Truth Social, he says that the Venezuelan government, has been designated a foreign terrorist organization. Caracas says it rejects Trump's threat. And Defense Secretary Pete Higsett says the Pentagon will not release video of controversial fatal strikes on boats in the Caribbean last September. Of course, we're not going to release a top secret,

full, unedited video of that to the general public. Human rights groups say those strikes violated international law. Over on markets, oil is in focus over that blockade order. Mike Dolan from our sister markets podcast, Morning bid has more. Morning, Mike. Hi, Carmel.

Yeah, oil markets very much in focus this week, even before the Venezuelan news. Overnight, we got about a 1% jump back in Brent crude prices and US benchmarks. Basic calculation is that a blockade, if it were to come to pass, could take about half a million barrels of Venezuelan crude out of world markets.

But the real source of, story of the week has been how far oil prices had been falling. There's a swelling glut going into next year and people have been focused mostly on the Ukraine peace talks that appear to have some movement. So we got to some of the lowest prices since 2021. And if you look at what that means at the pump in the US, gasoline prices are below $3 for the first time in four years as well. So good news, possibly, until. this latest development. Thanks, Mike.

Listen to MorningBid wherever you get your podcasts. You know why I really love Susie Wiles? Because Susie is who she is in the president's presence. She's the same exact person when the president isn't around. I've never seen

Susie Wiles say something to the president and then go and counteract him or subvert his will behind the scenes. Vice President J.D. Vance defending White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles after a bombshell interview with Vanity Fair.

In it, Wiles describes President Trump as having an alcoholic's personality and Vance as being a conspiracy theorist. Sometimes I am a conspiracy theorist, but I only believe in the conspiracy theories that are true. Trump, who doesn't drink alcohol, told the New York Post he has full confidence in Wiles. He says Wiles was right to describe him

as having an alcoholic's personality, explaining that he has a possessive and addictive personality. The story reveals internal tensions within the Trump administration over issues from immigration enforcement to government downsizing. Wiles has called it a hit piece.

The leader of the Australian state of New South Wales will recall Parliament next week to pass emergency gun laws. Anger is mounting over how the Bondi Beach gunman, one of whom was briefly investigated for links to extremists, were allowed access to powerful firearms. Funerals of the victims of Sunday's attack have begun in Sydney.

The man who allegedly opened fire on the beach honica celebration has been charged with 59 offences, including murder and terrorism. His father and fellow shooter died at the scene. The younger son of filmmaker Rob Reiner has been formally charged with first-degree murder. Here's Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman. He also faces a special allegation that he personally used a dangerous and deadly weapon that being a knife. These charges carry a maximum sentence

of life in prison without the possibility of parole or the death penalty. Prosecutors have yet to decide whether to seek the death penalty in the case. And the manhunt for the Brown University shooter has stretched past 72 hours. Authorities have once again asked members of the public

for help identifying the suspected gunman. The days-long search has prompted many residents in the neighborhood near campus to stay behind locked doors. New jobs data out this week shows a rebound in hiring in November. But in a bit of a contradiction, it also revealed a climb in unemployment to a four-year high. To make sense of the mixed signals, we called up our U.S. economics editor, Dan Burns. So you had a stronger than expected number of jobs created, all of them in the private sector.

That's certainly down from where we were a year, two years ago, but it doesn't look like it's on a glide path to zero. But then you had this elevated unemployment rate of 4.6%, the highest more than four years. Remember, we didn't get a number for October because of the government shutdown. And that 4.6% is probably a bit distorted as a result of some methodology changes the Bureau of Labor Statistics had to employ to come up with a number at all. And where those job gains are occurring also offers insight into the health of the U.S. economy. It continues to largely be concentrated in a handful of. of sectors, particularly on the services side, places where this administration is eager to see

improvement, places like manufacturing, seven straight month of contraction and manufacturing employment. In fact, overall manufacturing employment is now the lowest in at least three years. Some decent numbers in construction. Overall construction employment was up by the most in more than a year. Some indications of resuscitation in the trades in employment there. But the big sector, that saw declines was government, and that was clearly related first of the shutdown, but then at the end of September, around 150,000 people

left the federal workforce permanently as part of those end-of-fiscal year doge cuts. President Trump's approval rating has dropped to 39% near its lowest point this year, according to a new Reuters Ipsos poll. What makes this slide noticeable is that it's being driven by his own party.

Republicans' approval of his handling of the economy fell to 72% down from 78% earlier this month. Trump won the White House promising to fix the cost of living in the US, but just a third of Americans now approve of his handling of the economy. Ford is making a major U-turn in its EV ambitions, killing off several electric vehicle models and taking a $19.5 billion write-down on EV assets. It's the industry's biggest retreat

since Trump stripped away EV subsidies and eased pollution rules. CEO Jim Farley says Ford has lost $13 billion on EVs since 2023, and customers in the U.S. simply won't pay for unprofitable models. We asked reporter Brian Teveno why Ford took this extraordinary step. Ford went from being uncertain that it could make profits on electric cars to being absolutely certain it couldn't. And that was the thing that put Ford over the edge with a whole raft of new Trump administration policies that took away EV subsidies and basically incentivized

automakers to produce more gasoline vehicles, sapped consumer demand for EVs. They came to a point where they were certain that the EVs they had in the pipeline were not going to be profitable. They're now dealing with a market with extremely low EB demand, even while EV demand in Europe and China remains robust. The market share for EVs in the United States has fallen to 5% in the last couple of months, down from about 8. So automakers are really stretched at this point, and it's a very expensive endeavor to try to tailor a whole product lineup to different regions with different EB demands and different regulations.

For Farley, it's a stinging retreat. I think Farley has a lot of angst about it. He's been saying for years at the futures and EVs that it's an existential struggle for Ford to catch up. He saw Ford going in this direction, and now he's going to have to put the brakes on it. Warner Brothers Board is likely to advise shareholders. to vote to reject a $108 billion takeover bid from Paramount Skydance and double down on Netflix's competing offer.

The move comes after Paramount took its offer straight to shareholders last week, touting a more lucrative deal for investors that had an easier path to approval. And the CDC has ended its long-standing recommendation that all US newborns should get the hepatitis B vaccine. The major policy shift means the decision about whether babies born to hep B-negative mothers

should get the vaccine now sits with the parents and their healthcare providers. And for today's recommended read, FIFA's attempt to address criticism of the World Cup pricing with $60 tickets. The supporter entry tier tickets will make up 10% of participating member associations allocations. You can read more by following the link in the pod description. For more in any of the stories from today, check out roiders.com or the Reuters app. Don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast player. If you're listening on a smart speaker, just ask for the latest news from Reuters seven days a week. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show.