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Good morning from the newsroom of the Financial Times. Today is

Thursday November the 22nd and this is your FT news briefing. Today we'll

be looking at the latest on Brexit as Theresa May and Jean-Claude Juncker finalised

Britain's exit package. We'll also run the rule over US retailers hopes for the Thanksgiving

weekend and examine signs of a potential

weakening of the G7 line on protectionism. I'm Barney Thompson and I'm Katie

Martin and here's the news you need to start your day.

Theresa May and Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission President, last night put the final touches to a political declaration on a future partnership,

which will accompany Britain's binding withdrawal agreement.

The Declaration on Future EU-UK ties is due, together with Britain's withdrawal treaty,

to be formally approved by an EU summit on Sunday.

Mrs. May hopes that the the declaration which is non-binding

will help produce Eurosceptic opposition to her deal in Westminster

by making clear that the UK will not be yoked to Brussels over the longer term. The House of Commons will

vote on the overall deal next month. For more on the deal go to FT.com.

It's Thanksgiving in the US and retailers are hoping shoppers will go crazy over the holiday.

Eric Kropka spoke to Fast FT reporter Mam to Badcar about the outlook for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

So the good news for retailers going into the holiday season is that for most of them

sales are growing up. The bad news however is that the rise in sales is coming at the cost of earnings and the cost of their gross margins.

Consumers are buying yes, but they're buying at a discount and has that going to impact earnings.

...