been a forceful enough partner in calming tensions between russia and ukraine. the president and mr. scholz are also likely to discuss the contentious $11 billion nord stream pipeline being built between germany and russia. chief negotiators to the so-called normandy format talks, a group made up of france, jirm knee, ukraine and russia, plan to hold discussions in berlin this week as part of diplomatic efforts to defuse tensions with russia over its military buildup near ukraine. thursday's talks will be focused on scaling back violence in the eastern region between russian-backed separatists and ukrainian forces. in hong kong a number of coronavirus infections is now doubling every three days. the city reported a record of more than 600 cases. that puts pressure on the government to ramp up restrictions as it tries to eliminate the virus.

the world strength in glaciers contain less ice than previously thought, according to a study in a has significant implications for global water supplies. researchers used satellite data to more accurately measure the thickness of glaciers for the first time. the scientists say this data will be crucial for governments making decisions about when and where to build water infrastructure. global news 24 hours a day on air, powered by more than 2,700 journalists in over 120 countries. i am mark crumpton. this is bloomberg. >> good afternoon from new york. it is 6:00 p.m. in london. i am matt miller. welcome to "bloomberg markets."

leer the top stories we are following for you from around the world. it's the end of easy money. global bonds price in a future of tighter monetary policy while investors await inflation data. full coverage ahead as u.s. stocks trade in the red. plus, a market like he has never seen before. jeff curry tells bloomberg we are out of everything from oil to copper to gas as commodity market prices surge amid shortages. we will bring you the details ahead. shares of peloton jumping 20% amid reports that it's exploring takeover options. we will have the latest on what is shaping up to be a big monday. a fick check of what is going on in the markets today. we see equity indexes trading down, not huge moves. not compared to the moves we have seen in fixed income and rates lately. you can see the s&p 500 off .2. the 10 year yield up.

we have seen it cross over 1.93 today. massive moves. bloomberg dollar index unchanged right now, 1175. crude coming down but still holding well over $90 a barrel. this is west texas intermediate at $91.20. speaking of crude, we turn to something that caught my eye. the bloomberg commodity spot index which tracks 23 energy metals touched a record this year. that has been driven by surging oil prices, which hit their highest level since 2014. the overall move in commodities has even goldman sachs jeff currie saying these are unprecedented times. jeff: i have been doing this 30 years and i have never seen markets like this. this is a molecule crisis. we are out of everything. i don't care if it's oil, gas, coal, copper, you name it, we are out of it.

matt: for more insight on commodities, let's bring in cryptocurrency strategist, that was an awesome interview. jeff currie says we are out of everything. it was pretty dramatic, but it's not far from the truth, is it? >> i am a big fan of jeff, but i do remember people like him telling me oil supply had peaked 10 years ago. that turns out to be not true. the thing to remember is prices can typically peak when inventories are low and inventories and crude are low right now. one of the things he is missing is the world's largest crude oil exporters amassing troops on the border of one of the largest grain exporter. major disruptions in the supply mix. to me that's more what is driving commodities. that invasion is becoming more and more likely.

matt: in terms of the geopolitical issues, russia has denied strenuously that it has plans to go into ukraine. that doesn't hold back price gains. do we see any markets spared from this, mike? mike: look at copper. copper is barely unchanged and why is that? china is in decline. its g.d.p. is declining. they're dropping rates. the rest of the world is raising rates. that's not good. it's an indication of typically copper outperforms crude oil in the long term. number three thing to remember is if it's easy to store it, it outperforms. copper is part of the global demand for electrification. crude oil is on the other side. north america will run a surplus in liquid fuel production this year probably close to 13%. that's much higher than it was a fewiers ago so that supply is coming and reacting to that major plunge we had a few years

ago. matt: is north america the swing producer here or are there opec countries that have considerable spare capacity? mike: they do. it's funny how they completely disappeared. we had plenty of it before. the key thing to point out is if there is aggression in europe and i think the market expects it's going to be, putin doesn't have a way out. he has boxed himself into a corner. north america commodity producers are tops to do well in this. u.s. net agriculture exporter and one of the major energy exporter. the technology is picking up. there is so much supply. i will leave you with this. natural gas price now is about the same as it was in 2000. why is that? massive supply out of the u.s. matt: i want to ask you about bitcoin which you cover deeply. we are looking at 44,213. it's been a pretty bullish couple of sessions here. what is driving the bitcoin

price higher even as we see stocks lagging? mike: i think that's what is finally happening, matt. i have been looking for bitcoin to gain that global collateral store value status every day and the stock market is losing to the fed. it's starting to transmogrify. the nasdaq is down 10%. there will be more pressure on risk assets. bitcoin is transitioning. still very small portions of most portfolios. people think i need this for the risk. matt: the inelasticity is fascinating. thank you for being with us. coming up, shares of peloton soar amid reports it's exploring takeover options. the stock at one point was up more than 20%, still gaining just about that much. we will have all the details next.

this is bloomberg. ♪

matt: this is "bloomberg markets." i am matt miller. at one point today shares of peloton saw their biggest move on record. this comes amid reports it is considering takeover options after real shrinkage.

bloomberg's ed ludlow joins us from san francisco. this was a $50 billion company. it's really no surprise in my mind when it drops down to an $8 billion valuation that some suitors may start to circle. >> you think about that list of suitors and who they are and the cash file that big tech is sitting on. "wall street journal" reporting that amazon is a suitor. they're discussing an option with their advisors but they haven't spoken to peloton. niek is speaking with their advisors according to financial time sources but they haven't spoken to peloton. peloton is considering its options including strategic sales but is not in contact, no firm decision. but at $8 billion you certainly think from a car pesh spert -- perspective it could happen. from an antitrust much harder hurdle. matt: why is that? is the f.c.c. worried about a

monopoly in exercise bicycles? >> we see an environment in 2022 where we are bracing for mega deals. if you think about amazon in particular but also apple which some street analysts as well as blackwell, pushing peloton for change, they're is suggesting apple could be a player. they have existing health services. on the platform they say toanl and they have some of their own existing limited health tracking options. so i guess it's another case of a big tech giant looking at this and saying yes, i want to add to my existing offering and bloomberg intelligence say if they're going to do that they have be sure they're ready for scrutiny. matt: what does the business look like? during the pandemic a ton of people subscribe to peloton, got the bikes, hopefully used them on a regular basis. since we have been allowed outside again, the concern is

those things start to hold coats and collect dust. >> two things. there is a demand picture. is the demand out there? pelt -- peloton grew very fast, they grew very big and part of the restructuring that they're going through right now is cutting that production footprint. but it also asks the question, this is where amazon is relevant in this discussion. what is peloton? is peloton a luxury item? a luxury product or is it a mass market product because amazon doesn't do luxury. it does mass market. peloton needs to decide what it is. then there is the con tent side of it. if sales of the bike respect going to grow, how do they adjust to the higher margin revenue for services? some of the hypothesis out there from the street is if you look at an existing leisure brand like nike that that might be a better marriage there because

they pay their existing base of talent, combines it with the peloton platform and is able to expand beyond the hardware. matt: do you even have to wear shoes when you are riding one of these things? what are you going to be watching for tomorrow? earnings come out after the belt. what are you looking for in the earnings? >> looking for a sign, some hint, something on m&a. do you recognize they're going to say something, matt? i think it's the guidance, not just four year guidance. it is where do we go from here? foley was frank in his restructuring assessment that they had to cut down the manufacturing footprint. they had to become a different kind of company. he is under pressure from activists. there is skepticism because of the dual class structure. foley, it's his company from the ground up but we need some sense of what does drive growth? if you are not going to go through with a deal, what is going to happen to turn around

the fortunes of this company that are suffering in a postpandemic world? matt: we will talk to you about this tomorrow, ed, thank you very much. let's stick with the m&a theme in our stock of the hour. frontier agreed to buy spirit airlines for $2.9 billion in cash and stock. we have some details on this low cost airline merger. >> a 19% premium. it's an acquisition. matt: don't know why i said that. >> all forgiven. frontier acquiring spirit airlines, a deal valued at $2.9 billion. a 19% premium for where shares closed for spirit on friday. you have m&a all the time but this is an ultralow cost carrier. in this environment in this country there are two players, frontier and spirit. one of the big concerns is, is this something that invites antitrust scrutiny? will this deal invite perhaps regulatory action from the

d.o.j. especially when they have a history of opposing deals, especially american and jetblue historically. that being said, what this would mean is in theory the reason eapt trust is becoming an issue is because they could raise prices higher even though they are ultralow-cost carriers because there is no competition. matt: or make flight conditions worse. as someone who is 6'4", i can tell you it is not pleasant to fly on a low cost carrier or any carrier if you are flying in cattle class. >> you can't recline. 6'5", 6'4"? they're promising $1 billion in savings for the customer. that will be a key part of the equation. spirit and frontier are not making it as big of a market as american, delta, united. they only make 5% of the airline market but still they're really each other's only competitors. that's why this is so

significant at a time when these two companies are actually the ones who had the highest fuel costs relative to the industry. i think i have numbers here, two highest domestic fuel costs, about 28% of their sales in 2021 went just to jet fuel. that's something you didn't see in any of its -- >> i wonder if these companies -- a lot of airlines, all of them got hurt during the pandemic, during lockdowns but especially those who are still waiting for business travelers to come back are feeling the financial pain, whereas it's unlikely that unless you have a really mean boss you are booking business travel on frontier or spirit. >> another piece of the equation is they're also dealing with other issues like a labor shortage. the flight attendants union, virus restrictions have been a big part of that but compare that to other transportation that you've seen, trucking for example or rail travel. airlines have been underperforming on that front. to your point about the fact

that they do have expenses, they've been under a lot of pressure and a lot of that has been dependence on federal aid. there are a lot of factors driving the airline trade. matt: thank you for joining us, our stock of the hour. still ahead a vaccine receives approval in south africa. we will dig into that development and talk about how the country is coming back from the damaging omicron wave. this is bloomberg.

matt: this is "bloomberg markets." south africa was hit hard by the pandemic and the country's health regulator said china's covid vaccine has been approved. for more let's bring in dr. chris beyrer, professor of public health and human rights. doctor, thanks so much for your

time. left me ask first about sinofarm. it seems to have lower efficacy and may not be as helpful as other options. why is it important that it's approved in south africa? dr. beyrer: i think it is true that it has seen lower efficacy particularly with some of the newer vairpts like delta and omicron but this is a country that still has quite low vaccine coverage. it's only about 35%, some of the better provinces higher than that but others lower. think need more -- they need more options. they are using also the pfizer mrna vaccine and also using the j&j vak vaccine. what has made the difference here appears to be something else which is they had a very serious delta wave, a surge in july through september of 202 is and then they had this ole cron surge so right now the --

omicron surge so right now the great majority of the population has either had covid with omicron or delta or with vaccines. we are seeing the omicron spike has come down dramatically quickly. matt: omicron has been reported is left deadly and less difficult to suffer through than the delta variant of the virus. what does that natural immunity do? they didn't have the vaccine coverage but they've all gotten it. is that good for them in the mid to long term? dr. beyrer: well, it certainly is in the short term because i think what you have is not a lot of vulnerable people for the virus to spread amongst. it's dangerous if there is another variant that has immune escape. but there are countries in the region that only have 5% immunization coverage. the data suggests that more nan 80% of people there have had a covid infection and we are not

seeing much in the way of hospitalization or death there either. so that is encouraging. matt: what kind of safety precautions do they take in south africa? it's been difficult for them to get the vaccine. it's expensive. it's likely difficult to distribute, etc. do they then take more safety precautions, distance themselves, wear masks more religiously or are they lax on that front? dr. beyrer: there's been an indoor mask mandate that's still in effect across the country and masking in public places and public transportation and i think it's quite well followed. there was a very successful effort to immunize the health care workers in this country. and now the boosting of those health care workers is underway, half a million people. so that really meant a lot and was very important. that was work done collaboratively with the u.s. they have an extremely good

surveillance system so that is how they picked up omicron. we know south africa is where it was sequenced. and they're now the restrictions on gatherings are basically you can't have more than 1,000 people indoors or 2,000 outdoors. that's pretty much back to normal life. schools are open. with masking and social distancing and i think in general it's fair to say it is the height of summer here. it's very warm weather. people are doing a lot outside. that really matters, but we have to remember that this is a country with very, very dense urban townships as they're called, where it's almost impossible for people to socially distance. people have shared water supplies, shared toilets. it is really challenging. the other reality is is that this is the country with the biggest aids epidemic in the world. one in five adults here is living with h.i.v. but there is

a lot of immune compromise. immune compromise is very towf for -- tough for covid. matt: in terms of rich versus poor, it's been a concern from the get-go that rich countries would get all the vaccines and the poor countries would take much longer to get that. the worry i think was similar to what you outlined with the mid to long-term concerns about south africa, even if they're immune naturally now, there could be other variants that hit them harder in the end. what can we learn from the rich countries versus poor countries problem from what you see on the ground in south africa? dr. beyrer: i think one thing we are learning very clearly is that there is a decline in omicron transmission in cases that was just as fast as the spike. so it was a very high rapid epidemic with this variant and

it has come down very quickly. we are seeing that trajectory in a number of other places. but there are also places like hong kong that are going through their spike now. omicron itself already has several subvariants. what is spreading in hong kong and in denmark is called ba-2, a subvariant of omicron. we really need to watch that because the virus is not done with its evolutionary engagement with the species. it's not done. matt: the mutations are still a concern. doctor, thank you so much for your time. dr. chris beyrer from johns hopkins, bloomberg school of public health which is supported by michael r. bloomberg, founder of bloomberg. more bloomberg coming up.

mark: i am mark crumpton with first word news. president biden's top advisors are repackaging his economic message to the american public.

this comes at a time when his approval ratings are sinking and the president's legislative agenda stalls in congress. in the has week -- last week mrs on growth in wages, union jobs and domestic manufacturing. he is giving less weight to areas that are sore points with voters, such as inflation and the partisan bickering over covid. former new york governor andrew cuomo isn't ruling out another run for public office. but he says it's too soon to talk about it. cuomo spoke to bloomberg five months after he resigned over a swirl of sexual harassment allegations. he says there were serious mistakes made by new york attorney general james and the lawyers who investigated claims against him. james' office says no one can dispute the fact that the investigations found allegations of sexual harassment against cuomo to be credible. confidence building gestures by the united states and iran are generating new optimism that the

sides are inching towards revival of the landmark nuclear deal. talks will resume on tuesday in vienna. since diplomats last met in january, the u.s. has restored sanctions waivers that will allow countries to cooperate with iran on civilian nuclear projects. the islamic republic has closed down a controversial facility. the united states and japan have reached a deal to end tariffs imposed on japanese steel under former president trump. bloomberg has learned washington will suspend the 25% levy on incoming steel imports from japan, up to a certain threshold. the solution mirrors the accord that the u.s. reached with the european union in october, that ended punitive measures on as much as $10 billion for each other's goods. aluminum imports are still subject to a 10% tariff. global news 24 hours a day on air and on bloomberg quicktake powered by more than 2,700

journalists in over 120 countries. i am mark krurp -- crumpton. this is bloomberg. jon: i am jon erlichman. welcome to "bloomberg markets." matt: i am matt miller. here are the top stories we are following for you. u.s. stocks are down. investors are assessing the outlook for monetary policy ahead of key inflation data this week. and they're preparing for the possibility of the steepest monetary tightening cycle since the 1990's. investors are keeping a close eye on the ongoing tensions with ukraine as russian president vladimir putin and french president macron hold talks. russia sees no breakthrough over security in europe. tensions persist across the

border here in north america as canada's capital city declares a state of emergency. the demonstrations against covid restrictions endure with no signs of any protesters leaving any time soon. all that and more coming up. jon? jon: thanks, matt. matt kicked off this hour of coverage by highlighting that uncertainty on the road ahead for interest rates and how people should be positioning. you are seeing that play out in these mixed markets in north america as we start a new trading week coming off pretty reasonable week when all was said and done last week but it has been a volatile stretch and certainly today that cautiousness that you continue to see in some of the technology stocks, remember that rough ride we saw last week for facebook's parent meta, you are continuing to see cautious trading as well today. so an unwillingness to make big commitments to growth as we continue to watch this story of interest rates and to matt's point inflation data we will watch later this week. strategists have to put their

calls out there and that does get us to today's for what it's worth because after the challenge was seen in certain stock performance, there are strategists that feel that some of the uncertainty is now very much priced in. the team writing that neither the fed nor the e.c.b. will move further into hawkish territory, at least relative to what it's priced in currently right now. as we try to take a look at the situation that's playing out in markets right now, matt, we are deep in earnings season. meta an example of a company that's disappointed but there are companies that have had decent surprises. there is a look at trying to evaluate those equity risk premiums in the market and matt, if i think about some the other things j.p. morgan is talking about, the labor picture has improved. cash flows look good. a market like china which is so important could bounce back. these are some of the considerations that go into their longer term call about

buying into certain stocks. matt: i have to say it alliance with what paul sweeney and i heard earlier from phil orlando, the chief equity strategist for federated hermes. he told us the first half of the year will be difficult and people are looking to preserve capital right now, though doing it in interesting ways, buying for example small cap value stocks, which is one place he sees to hide or european stocks, which haven't yet run up in value and then at the end of the year he expects another rally bringing the s&p 500 to 5300. he thinks oil could be even with that oil could be up at 120 which you think would scare the market but not the case in phil's scenario. you could see rates at 2.5%. so some great calls from him that i think in some ways align with j.p. morgan's call as well.

jon: yeah and this is that time. we are getting lots of different views. morgan stanley finds itself in a different camp. let's get more perspective on all of this. kristen bitterly michell is the head of global wealth managements and joins us now. always nice to see you. so obviously a lot of opportunity to think about where we are going to be over the next six months. let's starts with that concept of whether or not the situation of higher interest rates has now been fully absorbed by the market. what do -- what are you thinking about? kristen: i think one of the things we need to delineate is there is a difference between higher rates and fid policy -- fed policy so i think that the market is is -- we were expecting rate hikes this year. we were expecting that we would have a couple. maybe there's more than what was expected but what i think the market is grappling with and this is why there is discussion about expected volatility is fed policy not just in terms of rate hikes but also in terms of this pivot from quantitative easing

to quantitative tightening and the impact that that's going to have in broader markets particularly within credit markets. and so that is what most investors are looking at right now in terms of what could actually interject volatility into the broader market. all of that being said, companies with strong balance sheets, with pricing power, that have the ability to navigate this still have the potential to do well, even with some of those considerations. matt: jon mentioned morgan stanley, which reminded me of a call that we got over the weekend from andrew sheets. if you look at the big balance sheet and you reminded me of it as well by saying we have to separate fed policy from the level of rates, if you look at the big balance sheets that the major four central banks have amassed, it's ballooned to $25 trillion. andrew sheets was warning that these g-4 central banks would

try and shrink those balance sheets by about $2 trillion through the -- through may of 2023. which doesn't seem like a huge debt but that's four times what we saw the fed do after the great financial crisis. is q-t a much bigger threat than raising interest rates to 2.5%? kristen: we haven't had -- there is no precedents for this. this idea you are going to have interest rate hikes and simultaneous quantitative tightening. so i think that is one of the considerations. the other consideration which i think is plaguing a lot of investors' minds is do these tools actually help to address inflation? which sounds a little provocative but it can definitely address the demand side of the equation in terms of cooling off some of the demand, but a lot of what's driving inflation right now has to do with some aspects that are honestly out of the fed's

control. so things like the pandemic and the shift from whether or not consumers are going to consume goods versus services. that pivot to services once things finally open up, a lot of the supply chain disruptions, so a lot of them stemming from the fact if china continues to have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to covid, that's going to continue some disruptions that honestly would take years to fix in terms of the infrastructure that's needed to really work around that. so i think that is the question that if we continue to get these high inflationary prints does the fed push ahead with rate hikes and quantitative tightening which may not be the right medicine for what the problem is. matt: before we wrap things up, i hear what you are saying and i wonder what that means for some of the growth stocks. there is the short term reality that we have seen but then there is the investment case made for a lot of those names over the last couple of years because there are massive changes taking place.

so how do you navigate that when it comes to some of these big areas of technological change that could be opportunities for investors? kristen: absolutely. the way we are approaching it is really two key parts. one, leaning into quality. the quality is not about a particular sector or particular value versus growth or particular covid cyclical. we are looking at quality names. the question of where do you hide is quality names, strong management teams, the ability to grow earnings, the ability to grow dividends over time. that's how you counteract some of these forces. in terms of the other investment opportunities, it really plays the long game. the long term unstoppable trends that are going to endure no matter what. so areas where we have been buying and investing but holding for three, five, seven years, that's our time frame for it are areas like cybersecurity, off 15% from its highs last year,

payments off about 35% from its 52-week high. so using some of these market dislocation to find those subsectors of technology that are here to stay but again we are investing for the long term. jon: great to get some time with you. great to get your insight. kristen bitterly head of north america investments for city global wealth management. russia and ukraine front and sinter -- center on the global stage with two rounds of high level talks on the agenda. we are getting headlines that president biden will discuss russia and ukraine with the new german chancellor as well as covid and china. more on that next. this is bloomberg.

>> this is "bloomberg markets." i am matt miller with jon erlichman. german chancellor scholz is meeting with president biden right now. we are getting headlines that they will discuss exactly what you would expect. russia and ukraine are front and center but they will also discuss covid and china. for more let's bring in oksana antonenko, director for global risk analysis at control risk group. she formerly worked at the european bank for reconstruction and development. my main question over the last few weeks has been is there any way for germany to stop buying gas from russia even in the event of an invasion which we know the russians have denied they have planned, but if that were to come to fruition, would the germans still continue to buy their gas?

oksana: germany is currently not in a position to stop buying russian gas because there is still substantial dependence on the import of russian gas. european union imports 40% of its gas from russia and there is simply no gas anywhere else in the world, including from united states, which can replace large volumes of russian gas. we know that in europe the gas storage at the moment is at record low, below 40% capacity and therefore europe is in a very precarious situation should russia decide to interrupt its gas supply to europe. >> beyond the energy ties which are extremely significant, if we take the example of germany and just talk more specifically about some of the other business ties to a country like russia, thinking for example car manufacturers, you have done a lot of analysis on those ties, and should we be considering that when you hear the belief

that there are certain in business who are concerned about the idea of more sanctions? oksana: absolutely. it comes from a social democratic party of germany which traditionally advocated close relationship with russia, even before that, the soviet union. we know that the former chancellor representing party of germany is now currently on the board of directors of a russian company. but also scholz is heading the coalition government which doesn't include the social democratic party but also the green and free democrats and as a result of course, he has to listen to the german business voices as well as the german national interest. at the moment, those potentially can be in conflict with each other. germany was one of the largest foreign investors with russia and not only like german

companies but medium sized companies, very extensively engaged in russia to this day. when we hear that the president biden is talking about enforcing very substantial sanctions on russia that will involve export controls and stopping transfer of technology to russia, that will have a very direct implication for german investors that have been for many years since the end the soviet union major providers of technology and industrial goods, car manufacturing into russia. so it is going to be a very large cost potentially for german economy. matt: we have often seen former social democratic chancellor schroeder sitting in the front row at vladimir putin's speeches, energetically applauding -- at least he did, advise russian oil interests. so the relationship is incredibly close. what could germany do other than

stopping their purchases of energy to really sanction putin in a way that would make a clear point, that would be a strong message? or is there anything? oksana: germany, as well as the european union as a whole, still very much prefer diplomatic outcomes although they of course bailed out the threat of sanctions, but we have not really heard any specific details from the european union or from germany specifically on what those sanctions could look like. i think for the time being both germany and france are very much playing for diplomatic outcome. they're hoping that some compromise can be found, which can dissuade president putin from military action and potentially his compromise can involve some progress on ukraine and germany and france are co-chairing the so-called normandy process together with russia and ukraine, which oversees that political process.

so germany can potentially together with france and president macron at the moment is in russia -- provide certain outcome or at least new momentum behind the diplomatic initiative that can at least delay or certainly postpone any military action and that's what they're hoping. they're hoping that there will be diplomatic solutions. matt: very helpful context, oksana. thank you very much for your time today, oksana antonenko at control risk groups joining us. we will continue to watch those headlines. come up a state of emergency in the canadian city of ottawa as protests against covid restrictions endure with no sign of letting up. we had get the latest details when we come back next. this is bloomberg.

matt: this is "bloomberg markets."

i am jon erlichman along with matt miller. canada's capital city remains under a state of emergency as police try to rein in protests against vaccine mandates and covid restrictions. joining us now from in front of the west block of parliament in ottawa is anie bergeron. thanks very much for your time. what can you tell us about what has been happening on the ground? >> hi, jon. we are now at 11 days since protesters first arrived. there were 3,000 trucks and an estimated 16,000 protesters. those numbers have gone down significantly. this weekend police said there were 5,000 protesters and 1,000 trucks. behind me there is gridlock. this city is normally bustling. now there are trucks parked along the side. police have begun increasing enforcement, issuing more tickets. at the beginning of this they were saying they were avoiding towing and ticketing. they didn't want to raise the level of violence.

that has changed. they said they are going to be ensuring that there is zero tolerance policy for illegal activity and one of the things they've been doing is cracking down on fuel. over the last few days, pickup trucks are going through the streets with their backs filled with cans of fuel. we have seen an oil tanker with fuel. this is like pennsylvania avenue right outside the white house. this is literally a stone's throw from parliament where elected officials are. this has been going on for 11 days. the city is in a state of emergency. jon: annie, thanks for joining us on the ground in front of the parliament. for more on this story joining us also now from ottawa is bloomberg's brian platt. brian, what are the demands of these protesters or what are the concerns? is it strictly around vaccine mandates and mask wearing or is it more like the yellow vest protests we saw in france where

they have a broader range of ideas? brian: i think it's more like the yellow vest movement. it depends on who you are talking to because i don't think everybody here is reporting just one core organizing group. there is an -- there is one group of people who claims to be the organizers and they say they want an end to all mandates, all health restrictions. that's not just talking about vaccine mandates, not just talking about the border measure on truckers, talking about all covid mandates. jon: another group that helped organize a convoy here, wrote a memorandum saying they want a government led by the governor general who is the queen's representative in canada. a totally unworkable demand. so one reason among many why publicses here say they can't just sit down and negotiate their way out of this is because the demands are not reasonable

in part because if you just end all restrictions, a lot of those restrictions are imposed by provincial governments. so it's not that they can get all that done by federal politicians here even if they were incliepped to. -- inclined to. a lot to continuing watching. brian, thanks for your reporting, brian platt on the situation in ottawa. feels like one of these case studies for how democracies are dealing with protests tied to covid-19 policies. a lot to continue watching for. for matt miller and myself, jon erlichman, this is bloomberg. ♪

mark: u.s. secretary of state antony blinken is defending the

increasingly dire western warnings that a russian invasion of ukraine the imminent. secretary blinken spoke at a news conference today alongside eu foreign policy chief. they say the u.s. and its allies have tried to find common ground with russia. >> we have listened to russia's concerns and shared concerns of our own. the united states, european union and nato allies and overseas partners throughout europe have put forward ideas about how we in russia can find common agreements that can strengthen collective security for everyone. mark: the secretary adding, "this is not alarm is, this is simply fact." president biden will meet olaf scholz at the white house. the leaders are meeting amid u.s. concerns that germany has not been a forceful enough partner in calming tensions. mr. biden and mr. schulz are