ofcom. good morning, everybody. happy friday. welcome. you're watching "street signs": i'm louisa bojesen. let's get you the headlines. president zuma sends south african assets into free fall after he sacks finance minister pravin gordan along with eight other ministers prompting an outcry from the business and political community. here in europe, stocks with south african exposure sell off, with old mutual and investec trading sharply lower in london, and steinhoff under pressure in frankfurt. eu negotiators say they're willing to discuss a free trade

deal with the uk but warn britain would have to continue to accept free immigration from the continent. and former national security adviser michael flynn agrees to testify in the russia investigation in exchange for immunity, as president vladimir putin tells cnbc that claims of election meddling are fictional. >> you and the russian government never tried to influence the outcome of the u.s. presidential election and there will be no evidence found. >> read my lips, no. hi, everybody. good morning. welcome to cnbc. very glad you're with us for the next hour. the finance minister of south africa, pravin gordhan has been sacked in the capital reshuffle.

mr. gordhan will be replaced by malusi gigaba, according to a statement issued late on thursday by the president's office. we are just glancing at some of these stocks exposed to south africa. you are seeing the trading down heavily here in the trade, off somewhere in the region of 4% to 8% when it comes to old mutual. investec off by 6%, and steinhoff off by 4%. you are also looking at the south african rand hitting a seven-week low as well on the back of this news that this cabinet reshuffle had taken place. quite unexpected by the vast, vast, vast majority of analysts out there. hence why we are seeing this big surprising move in some of these stocks and some of these assets exposed to south africa. just glancing, also, at what's been taking place in europe, broader european equity markets, trading lower across the board

except smaller markets like denmark and portugal. by in large led lower here in the morning trade. also coming to the end of not just the week but the end of the quarter. we'll talk to our strategist about that imminently. let's head out to bronwi bronwin nilson. bring us the latest on this cabinet reshuffle and on some of these moves we're seeing. >> thank you very much for that introduction. we are all over the place to be fair. i heard your commentary on some of our stocks including old mutual. banks are bouncing around. at open, they were down 7%. retraced some ground when we heard news reports of the secretary-general coming through strongly taking a stand saying

they had stood against the axing of former finance minister pravin gordhan. but we are seeing the markets under pressure again. we are watching the dollar/rand carefully. last week it was sitting around 1234, once the finance minister was recalled, we saw the deterioration some 10%. currently sitting at 1,346 on doll dollar/rand. right now people are absorbing the news that malusi gigaba is finance minister now, one of the hot topics. we might have seen a much bigger fall with somebody else elected as finance minister, but it's

all over the place right now. i think we're in for an interesting day. the market is waiting to see if we have any moves, any public moves from the top six in terms of taking a definite stand against south african president jacob zuma. >> thank you very much for that. the latest news on the cabinet reshuffle. also just to mention looking at live pictures coming through of donald tusk, the president of the european council, giving a joint press conference with the maltese prime minister, speaking on the draft guidelines for brexit. let's just listen in. >> second, we must prevent a legal vacuum for our companies that stems from the fact that after brexit that eu laws will no longer apply to the uk.

third, we will also need to make sure that the uk honors all financial commitments and liabilities it has taken as a member state. it is only fair that of those community of scientists, farmers, so on to who we, all the 28 promised and owed this money. i can guarantee that the eu on our part will honor all our commitments. fourth, we will seek flexible and creative solutions aiming at avoiding a hard border between northern ireland and ireland. it is of crucial importance to support the peace process in northern i'lreland.

these four issues are part of the first phase of our negotiations. whilst and only whilst we have achieved sufficient movement on those, can we start the talks of future relationships. starting all the talks at the same time as suggested by some in the uk will not happen. and when talking about our future relationship, we share the uk's desire to establish a close partnership between us. strong ties rich beyond the economy and including security cooperation remain in our common interest. let me conclude by saying the talks which we are about to start will be difficult, complex and sometimes even confrontational. there's no way around it.

the eu 27 does not and will not assume a punitive approach. brexit in itself is already punitive enough. after more than 40 years of being united. we owe it to each other to make this divorce as smooth as possible. this is why prime minister may and i agreed to stay in close and regular contact throughout this process. i intend to visit prime minister may in april. >> all right. so donald tusk there kicking off the press conference taking live live out of malt tachlt tmalta. the maltese president there also speaking. let's continue the discussion and see what it means in terms of trade.

karen joins us this morning. >> good morning. >> what are your initial thoughts with regard to what's been taking place this week with the unwinding from the ei. >> it's complex, and does anybody really know what's going to happen. there's been a misunderstanding that we've been living in the sweet spot. we have not triggered brexit yet. none of the companies have really suffered, and i think we've seen inward investment slow a bit. but once we get into the brexit negotiations, we are leaving the eu. i think the inward investment will slow a bit. that's a worry if you get investment slowing. so we watch investment intentions. the second worry is a lot of people have not realized the pain of the falling currency. we're nervous about the uk consumer. starting to see them slow down a bit. now i think the uk will go through its own mini crisis.

is it does concern us, we are underweight uk equities relative to the euro area. >> underweight, like substantially underweight or like a delicate underweight? how should i as an investor think about investing? >> it's not huge. we have countries and preferences. in the uk, we're underweight. not massive or minor, but we think having had seven or eight years of great growth, a strong consumer, good inward investment, i think you can start going the other way. if we can get through the french election, you've actually got some real signs of things starting to pick up, output gaps closing in the euro area. germany's inflation came off a bit today, but still you have wage growth there and it will spread. you have had no capex in the last decade so we think there's a bit more pick up to go. >> so money that you think could have gone into the uk will still remain in europe or will people think the u.s. is so far ahead of europe in terms of recovery and growth that it is safer for the time being to put money into

the u.s. >> there's two types of money. one, over the last decade, a quarter of all eu investment, foreign investment has gone by the uk that will dry up. a little more will go to the eu. if you look at investor, investment flows, what's interesting there, you have had a massive gap, a quarter trillion gap in only a year between etf flows in the u.s. over europe as a whole. it's hard to get good data in the uk, but we're saying we don't like the political uncertainty in europe, so a quarter trillion funds have gone to the u.s. that's a big gap. before you had pockets going up and down. but for a year, especially after trump took over, you have 2 0 bi -- 280 billion etf flows into the u.s. a massive gap. >> we're looking at closing out

the quarter. we've seen quite a bit of optimism remaining in various parts of the markets here, heading further into 2017. is there reason to think this will reverse at any point in the near future? what would the catalyst be for people to properly say i will take profits? we hear a lot about political uncertainty, topping out on the u.s. markets, but the money is still heading into some of these old value trades. >> we know we had some extreme gaps in europe, cyclicals versus defense. so the second half of last year closed out those extreme valuation gaps. now you're at a level playing field where companies, sectors, regions have to prove themselves. cyclicals are going to go further, bank earnings have to turn up. i don't think in europe you'll have a big selloff, you only got going. you closed the extreme gaps, now you're not expensive. if a bit of profit growth comes through, that can carry on. i think profit taking after that extreme cyclical boom makes

sense. >> you point out some of the key profit valuation gaps as well. you also talk about how banks reversed the '01 to '08 leverage boom as well. >> critical point. >> how will that continue to play out? this is new and it's fantastic. stage one of getting out of a crisis is to start repairing banks. we know governments have a lot of debt, but stage one is the banks. if you look at the leverage created by banks between '01 and '08 we have more than reversed that between '08 to date. so we've more than unwound the leverage from the great brit boom. that's stage one to open the door to a bit of capex, company borrowing. that's very good news. i was shocked to find we have done the same as the u.s., we have fully reversed that leverage. that's a good sign. >> karen, thank you for your

time. >> thank you. again, we will keep you up to date with any comments coming out of this live press conference taking place still in malta where donald tusk is speaking on stage live about these draft guidelines for the brexit talks. we've also had the maltese prime minister speaking as well. coming up on the show. by all means get involved. i have to say that. find us on twitter, @louisabojesen, and on e-mail, streetsignseurope@cnbc.com. loads more to come. vladimir putin telling cnbc that claims of u.s. election meddling are fictional. more on that after the break. wa.

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welcome back. i'm louisa bojesen, this is "street signs." michael flynn has said he is willing to testify to the fbi and congress about possible russian links if he's guaranteed immunity. according to a report by the "wall street journal," none of the investigations have taken him up on the offer. read my lips, no. the words from the russian president, vladimir putin, when geoff cutmore asked whether russia was involved in u.s. election interference. speaking at the arctic forum, president putin described the allegations as lies. >> translator: -- >> if i could pick up where your speech -- that's the first step

we should go forward. >> we also thought there was always enough fish in the sea -- >> well, mike harris is with us, professor from syracuse university, i was looking at peoples questions coming in. let's start with russia. and just what you make of these general news pegs that have come out over the past week with regard to meddling in the elections. >> if i'm an investor in russia, i don't really care at all. there's no sense this will impact russian politics. the investment case for being in russia, it's unchanged. in extreme scenario what happened could unsettle the u.s. markets, but i would view this

with total blinders on as an investor in russia. >> when looking at recent anti-corruption protests in russia, not covered by russian media but by international media, is this something we think will continue? there will be more of it. >> i look at protests in the sense of you worry if there's something about them not stopping. if there's an issue which they won't bend until either the government bends or the protesters are forced to leave, you know you have a confrontation. in no country is a leader 100% guaranteed of support. this at the margin, if we compare this to turkey, where a leader is fighting for his political future, in south africa, where a leader is trying to fight as well for his political future, putin at this stage is not fighting for his political future, he needs to tactically figure out how to deal with this f he makes mistakes, things go wrong, yes, it could longer-term be an issue, but, y this is a nonevent. terrorism, it's awful when it

happens, people get excited about it, but if it's one off, the market moves on. if it's a pattern and persistent f protests are persistent, we have an issue. one thing to add, the russian story is effectively about they adjusted -- they did a fantastic job getting through the crisis of low oil and u.s. sanctions by freeing up the ruble, and that didn't create a run on the banks, which is effectively what the u.s. wanted. so russia probably had one of the biggest structural reforms, it wasn't a formal policy, they had to do it but succeeded. one of the consequences was extremely high rates because the central bank had to anchor the ruble in this turbulent back dr backdrop. the only question you would ask because of these protests, does it change the math associated with the 2018 election for putin? does he need to be a bit more populist? usually the problem is people

are dissatisfied. if i were an investor, the only thing i would think about is does this mean the budget or we need to rereinflation that will constrain the russian story. for the time being it has plenty of legs in terms of interest rate cuts. >> it is ironic mr. flynn saying he will testify to the fbi and congress if he is granted immunity, but in 2012 he said "if you are given immunity that means you have committed a crime." people are looking to ex-administration staffers about comments coming out now. >> turkey was also an important issue for him. he was lobbying on behalf of the turkish government as well and that created a lot of his problems. >> speaking of turkey, several people were injured outside the turkish embassy in brussels as supporters and opponents of president erdogan's government clashed over the upcoming referendum. the belgium prime minister condemned the incident saying

his government had "zero tolerance for spillovers from the referendum." the scuffle comes as turk iish ex-pats in belgium started voting on a new constitution strengthening the president's powers. and south africa, the finance minister of south africa, pravin gordhan has been sacked in the cabinet reshuffle. this comes after days of speculation that upset the country's stock market and currency. mr. gordhan will be replaced by the home affairs head, malusi gigaba, according to a statement issued late on thursday by the president's office. mike, south africa. the finance minister sacked in this cabinet reshuffle, the south african rand hitting seven-week lows. do you think we'll see stabilization at any point? >> no. i think because next week moody's was due to report on south africa. they're one notch wide of their peers. they're two notches ahead of investment grade.

they feel like an outlyer. i think the downgrade were coming. if i were zuma, i think he made a huge mistake. he put gordhan on with the mandate not to get downgraded. moody's downgrade would have been tangental, they would have still be an investment downgrade, but still a do downgrade, he could have blamed gordhan for doing that and then fire him, but he lost that opportunity. i think they were going to go to stag stable, would be my guess, now they may go negative. s&p has an itchy finger focussed on politics, now the likelihood that they're downgraded is more so. it was very unlikely that we were going to see forced selling of south africa because of a move to junk this year. now it's highly probable. fitch focused on politics a lot. they had more patience and would

have seen this through. if it's based on what zuma has done, the move to junk, you have to treat it as a likelihood at this stage. about. >> 20 seconds left. turkey. do we think that the referendum that erdogan is pushing, is he going to get his way? will he get more constitutional power? if he doesn't, the country will lack the political equilibrium it's lacked for a long time. this is all about erdogan moving to a position where he doesn't have power and has to legitimize himself. he's not going to win this thing. if he doesn't, he worry about where turkey heads. he has been nationalistic even with the national party supporting him, imagine if he has to relegitimize himself and he's having to fight the nationalists. we could see some scary policies as a result of that. mike harris, thank you. coming up after the break, the latest out of nato. also gold, a lot of you gold bugs wondering what will push

gold prices higher, and the chairman of open britain on the latest brexit triggering of article 50. take a look at world markets live, it's our blog. you can find me at @louisabojesen. we'll see you soon.

hello, everybody. good morning.

welcome back. you're still watching "street signs" on cnbc. we have the headlines for you coming right up. starting with south africa. president zuma sends south african assets into free fall after he sacks finance minister pravin gordan along with eight other ministers prompting an outcry from the business and political community. here in europe, stocks with south african exposure sell off, with old mutual and investec trading sharply lower in london, and steinhoff under pressure in frankfurt. eu negotiators say they're willing to discuss a free trade deal with the uk but warn britain would have to continue to accept free immigration from the continent. and former national security adviser michael flynn offers to testify in the russia investigation in exchange for immunity, as president vladimir putin tells cnbc that claims of election meddling are fictional. >> you and the russian government never tried to influence the outcome of the u.s. presidential election and

there will be no evidence found. >> read my lips, no. hi, everybody. welcome back. good morning. glad you're with us. closing out the quarter, we need to look at the financial gdp data for the fourth quarter just coming through for the uk. unrevised at plus 0.7% quarter on quarter. savings ratio dropping to a record low, this coming via reuters. unchanged quarter on quarter, final quarter reading, fourth quarter gdp reading of 0.7%, inge changed from the previous estimate. 1.9% year on year, so we're revised down just a smidge. a previous read of 2%. but it's bang in line -- a bit lower than what the poll roeadig

had been. unchanged reading. services output confirmed at 0.8% quarter on quarter. industrial output revised to 0.4%, which is higher than the previous reading of 0.3%. construction revised to 1% versus 0.2%. revised quite a bit higher. just glancing through some of these other lines that they're selling us this morning. household savings ratio, 3.3%, the lowest savings ratio since records began in 1963. oh. so, any way, put that in your hat. chew it along with what we're seeing on our european equity markets. slightly lower across the board, closing out the quarter as well. so here on the session, this is what we're looking at. markets trading in negative territory, except denmark trading a tad higher. u.s. futures, we're still five hours away from the u.s. market open. but on the back of a slight

cooling on wall street yesterday. all indices on wall street closing higher in yesterday's trade with the fourth quarter gdp revised higher. this morning the implied open is a couple points lower as soon on the right-hand side of your screen. speaking to geoff cutmore at the arctic forum, the russian president, vladimir putin, defended russian military p exercises and pointed the finger at nato. >> translator: their activity is much higher than ours, several times higher. if you look at the number of the russian and nato jets flying over the baltic sea, several times more activity on their part. after that, someone tries to accuse us of aggressive behavior. it's id'dle talk, just for the sake of media. >> and rex tillerson is set to attend his first nato meeting in brussels today. he suspected to press allies to step up defense spending reiterating calls made by president trump.

willem joins us from the nato meeting. how will the allies respond to this? >> we were speaking a few moment guys from the lithuanian foreign minister you heard mr. putin saying nato is the aggressor flying over the baltic, but lets when to what he said about defense spending. that's another top priority here today. lithuania promised to increase defense spending to 2% of gdp by 2018. >> we have to play our part, it's not normal when united states, our key strategic ally is playing 70% plus nato bills. we have to share. my country's decision, same as some others, is all because somebody asked, we have to deliver. we have to make sure our alliance is strong, as it was always strongest alliance in the world. there are a lot of challenges ahead. >> 27 foreign ministers had to

move their schedules around to fit in with mr. tillerson, they're keen to meet with him. his presence here, according to the nato secretary-general is proof that this alliance stays with unified strong ties and that the trump administration takes nato's existence seriously. that's something that will reassure some of those baltic states whose foreign ministers will be here as well. >> willem, good to see you. willem marx joining us from brussels. we will be talking gold in a few minutes. send your questions in. the address is streetsignseurope@cnbc.com or on twitter, @louisabojesen. president trump's former national security adviser, michael flynn, has said he's willing to testify to the fbi and congress about possible russian links if he's guaranteed immunity. according to a report by the "wall street journal," none of the organization's investigating

possible russian connections have taken him up on the offer. this comes amid a new report that only adds to controversy surrounding the interactions between the white house and the republican head of the house intelligence committee. nbc's peter alexander has more from capitol hill. >> reporter: tonight that "new york times" report says a pair of white house officials played a role in this stunning allegation eight days ago. the republican chair of the house intelligence committee devin nunes charging u.s. spies surveilled president elect trump. >> the president elect and his team were, i guess, at least monitored. >> reporter: now the times identifying those officials as 32-year-old michael ellis a white house lawyer who formerly worked on the house intelligence committee staff. and 30-year-old ezra watnick. the senior director at the national security council. sources tell nbc news that president trump recently disregarded a recommendation to fire ezra watnick.

a protege of michael flynn. nunes repeatedly refused to reveal his source but said even though he reviewed the information on white house grounds, white house officials were not involved. >> no. and in fact, i'm quite sure people in the west wing had no idea i was there. >> reporter: if the source was a white house official, it would be an explosive twist in what critics say started an effort to back up the claim he was wiretapped by president obama. last wednesday nunes comes under fire when he shares the new information not with committee colleagues but with the press and president who said he felt vindicated. >> i somewhat do. i must tell you, i somewhat do. >> reporter: then thursday sean spicer dismissed suggestions nunes got the information from the white house. >> i don't know why he would come up to brief the president on something we gave him. i'm not aware but it doesn't really pass the smell test. >> reporter: today spicer deflecting questions about the report. >> i'm not going to get into further details on this. >> reporter: instead, announcing this letter to review new

evidence that may show information collected about americans was mishandled and leaked. >> we are willing to provide them with the information we have, the materials that we have come across and i think that's an important step. >> reporter: the top democrat on the house committee tonight accepting that offer but pouncing on the "times" report, and questioning the white house's transparency. >> is this instead a case where they wish to effectively launder information through the committee to avoid the true source of the information? that question the white house really needs to answer. >> reporter: with the house committee paralyzed by politics, the senate panel today hosting its first russia hearing and taking a shot at its house colleagues. >> the vice chairman and i realize if we politicize this process, the efforts will likely fail. >> yeah. so, quite a bit going on with regards to what's taking place out of the u.s. we need to talk about some other asset classes out there that have been quite active.

you see what i'm seeing? basically my prompter is going backwards. it's a bit hard to read forwards then. let's me introduce my guest sitting to my right. ers equities closed the quarter on a higher note but crude lost almost 7% due to concerns over the opec deal. jackie deangelis has more on the story. crude oil pricing crossing $50 a barrel once again. session high $50.46. the last day of the quarter, take a look at how crude prices fared. quaufr quarter to date roughly losing 50%, part of the concern is that the opec cut is not enough to support the market. this quarter's losses have been tempered by inventories pairing in the u.s. this as the market prepares for the summer driving season. we see this phenomenal every year. worth a mention, the s&p 500

will see about a 9% earnings growth increase in the first quarter. the sector contributing the most, energy. that's because we're seeing higher oil prices. mid-february last year prices were roughly $26 a barrel. that hurt the energy stocks. >> oil on track for the 7%, % drop over the course of the quarter. gold is up by more than 8% during q1, this year up by just shy of 8 % and is on pace to break a two quarter losing streak. frank holmes, who you saw a second ago, is a ceo at u.s. global investors, having just flown in from texas. >> yes. great to be here. >> fantastic to have you with us. you're a gold bull. why? >> i've always advocated that you should have a 10% weighting in a portfolio and rebalance one a quarter, it would be massive imbalances between government's fiscal monetary policies. and we're witnessing these big

sort of things, and one is the fear trade. that's real interest rates. in all our research we found that whenever negative real interest rates are occurring like here in the uk, and in the u.s., gold rises in that country's currency. the greater the negative interest rate, the greater the price of gold rises what does that mean? every month it gets recalibrated. what is the cpi number? what will the government pay you? the government will pay you 50 basis points for five years, take away 2% inflation, you're losing 150 basis points. so what we saw last year and for the second half of the quarter is that real interest rates went positive, gold sold off in the u.s., went negative again, gold had a rally. inflation hedge notion and gold, haven't we? people are not thinking about gold as the usual inflation hedge as we once used to. >> no. there's quite a few, i would

call them the quaunt funds in the world. they move on a dime. there's an article called the trump bot, that looks at the narrative within his tweets, and immediately within one second, with word choice, short boeing, go longb boeing. we saw this in gold, when theresa may was reported to speak dovish, and gold prices jumps $20. >> how about this weakness that we're now seeing in the rand, the seven-week lows that the rand is at on the back of this cabinet reshuffle. >> that's fantastic for south african gold stocks. in you look at the last couple of years, they're stellar performers because the gna is in rand terms but they get u.s. price for gold, they are in market expansion. when the rand was rallying, sfrij gold stocsouth african go

fell. >> do you think quantitative easing in europe will come off the table this year as some are speculating it might? will that somehow push that gap, u.s./europe closer together and change the gold relationship? >> i think if trump can get through the fiscal policy changes -- the world has been run by monitors. the central banks meek, the g20 meet, it's political leaders and finance ministers. they've been driving the equation. now we're trying to swing back to fiscal policy, which is streamline regulations, lower tax rates, and then i think rates will rise. if you keep rates where they are today and keep regulations, that's the balancing factor. >> let me ask you, while i have you, about jets. about your involvement there. you're involved in the airline sector via an etf. >> yes. because i travel so often and i

noticed that my options had dropped by 25%, and the price of my tickets tripled. so i tried to find out is there a way to buy them? i did work on quantitative math looking at which are drivers, most are going through bru bankruptcies, coming out of it making buckets of money. it is my first etf, and we called it jets. boeing, airbus, as long as they have high cash flows and investor capital, so buffett has also come in, it was always a headwe d headwind until he started buying in the four big horsemen in the u.s., southwest, united, delta, american, he made a serious commitment to it. you can see the etf itself is doing well. it's the only proxy to play the global airline industry.

>> so, it's called jets. >> just jets. it's smart beta, recalibrates every quarter based on the five factors most important cash flow and investor capital. >> people writing in. the impact of the south africa events on overall gold supply? >> i think the whole world is witnessing a shrinking supply of gold. it's extremely expensive to explore now. it's difficult to get new palestimines into production but paper money continues to grow faster than you can get new supply coming in. the grades are very low. so i think that the balance for the supply/demand factor is more bullish for gold in the next ten years. you'll see a gradual increase. >> excellent. frank, thank you for coming in with us. coming straight from the airport. you look very el ganegant for

airport travel. >> thank you. >> what shoes are you wearing? nike? trainers? >> no, nike bought cole han, and the bottom is for running, the top is that does go back to last for business. i like it. i like it. smart man. tusk is kaying that negotiations with the uk could be difficult and confrontational. how likely is a deal between britain and the european union? more in a couple minutes. keep your questions and comments coming through.

hi, everybody. welcome back. you're still watching "street signs." i'm @louisabojesen. the french for-right candidate, marine le pen is neck and neck with manuel macron to win the first round of presidential elections in france. macron leads the race with 26%

of the votes, he will pen has 25.5% of the race. claire is in paris. claire, we're moving ever closer. we continue to see these polls just indicating that what a tight race it is. >> it is a tight race. it is impossible, three weeks ahead of the election, to even guess who is going to win. emanuel macron is pretty criticized these days for his supposedly lack of experience, and also for an economic program that seems costly to his opponents, while marine le pen still has to prove she can get past the glass ceiling which always prevented the national front to get national positions in france so far. so far better understanding the national front and who its voters are, i will be going around some of its strongholds in france next week, starting on monday, with the north of

france, near lille, ner the city where she tryiey eied to conque power. as many cities are plagued with high jobless rates of 17%, when the national average is 10%. it's an old mining city. it's very interesting because there traditionally they used to vote for the left, or the socialists or communists, moving further east on tuesday to hayange it's the same thing. a symbol of the failings. when they closed their plant in 2012, it left many men and women unemployed. so we'll be studying this, and going to the south of france, more traditionally right-leaning voting population where jean

marine le pen, her father, has had strongholds for the last 20 years or so. we'll see you on monday. >> claire, sounds good. thank you very much. claire fournier joining us out of paris. >> the eu says it is open to discussing a free trade deal with britain before final terms on a brexit deal are agreed. the eu added that this would only happen if there was "sufficient progress on a divorce settlement during the first phase of negotiations, and if britain continued to adhere to eu rules." roland rudd is the chairman of open britain and he's with us this morning. good morning. >> good morning. >> also important for uk viewers, the founder and chairman of the pr agency fi finsbury. what do you think now in terms of the triggering of article 50 in terms of some of the back and forth that we've heard so far in the last couple of days between eu messagers and uk negotiators?

>> so, it's going to be clear, we'll have to deal with the bill first, and the sensible way to deal with this is to say we have our international obligations. we have to fulfill those. we can have a discussion about what the exact amount is, but that has to be fulfilled. it's silly to play politics with that. there will be some of the right-wing media who will have headlines saying not a penny more. why should we pay anything. these are obligations. the prize is to get a trade deal similar to that of the single market. so the next key point is that we have to hold the government to account on the basis of what they've said. open britain has launched a ten-point sort of -- ten key points that we're saying this is what the government has said like the trade agreement will be as good as our membership of the single market. great, we'll hold them to

account on this. or we'll get the 350 million a week back for the nhs, which was made clear by government ministers who are on leave campaign. all right. okay. hold them to account. if they meet these ten points, which they promised, great. if they don't, people want to know why. >> how are they able to do this in the course of two years? will we see a transitional deal in the meantime? >> it's clearly a tall order. i think it's unlikely but worth obviously negotiating for and trying to get it. the letter that the prime minister sent to the president of the eu was much better. it took a lot of the emotion out of it. all the nonsense we've heard from boris johnson saying we're fine with no deal. it's great to crash out, you know, into the wto. it doesn't matter about a cliff edge. all of that is for the birds.

number 10, we're dismissive of that with a letter that didn't make reference to it at all. having said that, there's still a long way to go. open britain wants to ensure that the big, bold claims that this government have made in terms of what we can get in the negotiation is actually delivered. that's what the parliamentarians will be doing. >> there was a lot of talk about security following the triggering of article 50. amber rudd staying that the uk is likely to stop sharing intelligence with the eu. do you think that could come to real terms? is that a real possibility? >> i think the -- that whole issue was slightly spun in a particular way that people wrote back from. i don't think that's the key.

the fact that we'll share security with our eu colleagues is going to be absolutely paramount. the real key thing about this letter, some gold claims have been made. it can't be a medieval ministerial court that decides whether these things are met. it has to be parliamentary scrutiny, and that's what a lot of the mps who signed up to it in britain will be doing over the next days, weeks, and months. >> roland, we're out of time. thank you very much for coming in to visit with us. roland rudd, chairman for open britain and the founder and mareman of fmar chairman of finsbury. thanks for being us with on "street signs." i'm louisa bojesen. stick around for "worldwide exchange."

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good morning. closing out the first quarter. the dow on track for its first six-quarter win streak since 2006. breaking overnight, the president's former national security adviser, mike flynn, offering to testify on russia allegations in exchange for immunity. a live report on what it means for washington. and spacex nails is. elon musk's firm makes history with the launch of the first recycled rocket. it's friday, march 31, 2017, "worldwide exchange" begins right now. ♪