French demands and a fear of the new company being seen as politically influenced reportedly caused the deal to crash.
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A last-minute request by the French government for a delay in negotiations prompted Fiat to walk away from efforts to create a new global auto giant.
Renault’s board met last night with the aim of holding a final vote on Fiat’s proposal. But the French government, Renault’s biggest shareholder, asked that such a vote be delayed up to a week.
French officials wanted more concessions, according to unnamed people involved in the talks, including commitments on jobs. But John Elkann, the chairman of Fiat, didn’t want the combined company to be seen as politically influenced — and that seemed increasingly difficult.
The French government “pulled the elastic until it broke,” an unnamed person close to Renault told the FT.
French officials said that they were mainly concerned about Nissan, Renault’s current business partner, and ensuring it came on board with the deal. Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire was scheduled to fly to Tokyo to address the Japanese carmaker’s qualms about the deal.
It’s unlikely that the talks will resume. While Fiat may have left the door open — its statement last night said that “the political conditions in France do not currently exist (emphasis added) for such a combination to proceed successfully” — the company is still worried about French government interference.
Shares in Fiat and Renault fell sharply on the news.
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Today’s DealBook Briefing was written by Andrew Ross Sorkin in New York, and Michael J. de la Merced and Jamie Condliffe in London.
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High-stakes talks at the White House this week have failed to resolve President Trump’s demand that Mexico halt illegal immigration across the southwestern border, making his threat of tariffs appear ever more likely, Michael D. Shear, Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Ana Swanson of the NYT write.
• Mr. Trump set Monday as a deadline to begin taxing all Mexican goods at 5 percent. That would increase to 25 percent by October if illegal crossings do not completely end.
• “Progress is being made” in talks between officials from Mexico and the White House, Mr. Trump tweeted, but he added that it was “not nearly enough.”
• “Illegal border crossings have risen to a seven-year high, underscoring the roots of the president’s rage,” Mr. Shear, Mr. Kanno-Youngs and Ms. Swanson write.
Political resistance “has also intensified, with skeptical Republican senators asking to hear directly from the president before he takes an action that could shake the economies of both countries.”
Talks resume today. But there is “no indication that Mr. Trump would be satisfied by anything short of direct evidence that Mexico had completely ended the flow of migration through its country.”
More: Here are the U. S. states that would be hit hardest by the Mexico tariffs. And as global trade wars escalate, you might need to get ready for a 1970s-style supply shock.
YouTube announced plans yesterday to remove thousands of videos and channels that advocate neo-Nazism, white supremacy and other bigoted ideologies, Kevin Roose and Kate Conger of the NYT report.
• “Videos alleging that a group is superior in order to justify discrimination, segregation or exclusion” will be banned. The policy also covers videos denying the occurrence of violent events, like the Sandy Hook shooting.
• There will be a three-strike rule for channels that post some hateful content among other acceptable content.
• Channels that “repeatedly brush up against” its hate speech policies, but don’t violate them, will be removed from YouTube’s advertising program.
But YouTube mishandled a content scandal this week, in which Steven Crowder, a conservative commentator with nearly four million YouTube subscribers, repeatedly insulted Carlos Maza, a journalist from Vox.
