The US economy expanded at its weakest pace in three years during the opening months of the year, underlining the daunting task facing Donald Trump’s administration as it seeks to attain ambitious growth targets. Gross domestic product grew at a 0.7 per cent annual rate in the first three months of 2017, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, a sharp drop from 2.1 per cent at […]
Good morning. Here’s our morning roundup of all the media news you need to know. Want to get this briefing in your inbox every morning? Subscribe here. When Barack Obama was vacationing recently with Bruce Springsteen, Tom Hanks and Oprah Winfrey aboard a $300 million yacht in Tahiti, one wonders if he ever hummed Springsteen’s “All Or Nothin’ At All.” At the moment, it seems like he […]
Emerging market equities have been the darling asset class de jour in 2017, mainly in Asia and Latin America, despite the March FOMC rate hike, a US Dollar Index at or above 100 and a mini-swoon in crude oil after a Saudi-Russian output cut spat. Earnings growth (India/Thailand) a stabilized currency (China), policy reforms (India, Brazil, Indonesia) local interest rate cuts (Brazil) and lower US protectionist policies […]
WASHINGTON U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday spurned the Taiwanese president’s suggestion that the two leaders hold another phone call, saying he did not want to create problems for Chinese President Xi Jinping when Beijing appears to be helping efforts to rein in North Korea. In a White House interview, Trump brushed aside the idea after Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen told Reuters on Thursday she would not […]
WASHINGTON President Donald Trump complained on Thursday that U.S. ally Saudi Arabia was not treating the United States fairly and Washington was losing a “tremendous amount of money” defending the kingdom. In an interview with Reuters, Trump confirmed his administration was in talks about possible visits to Saudi Arabia and Israel in the second half of May. He is due to make his first trip abroad as […]
Exactly one month after Trump was humiliated by his own party, when in the last moment the House failed to get the number of votes to pass a Republican healthcare bill due to holdouts from the conservative Freedom Caucus, the president’s second attempt to repeal Obamacare before his first 100 days in office run out, appears on the edge of failure. However, whereas the latest effort succeeded […]
Since at its core, yesterday’s 1-page “tax plan” was a Goldman creation, who better to explain what Trump offered than Goldman Sachs itself, which it did overnight in a far lengthier note from its chief Washington analyst Alec Phillips. Here is Goldman with an elaboration of the handful of bullet points contained on the much anticipated one page, extended to 6 pages. Q&A on the President’s Tax […]
The big announcement of the really, really big Trump Tax Plan with the “biggest tax cuts in history” came out bigly on Wednesday, as Trump promised. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn, Trump’s latest tax team, beamed proudly as they presented their baby. The stock market took a deep breath, then looked at their brainchild and completely petered out. First, let me say, I clearly have nothing to recant […]
Donald Trump has decided not to pull the US out of the North American Free Trade Agreement, agreeing instead with his Canadian and Mexican counterparts to “proceed swiftly” with negotiations to update the agreement, according to the White House. The move came in hastily arranged calls between the three leaders after news leaked that the White House was considering unveiling an executive order on Saturday that would have […]
The remarks, in an interview that was recorded Tuesday, came at the end of Ms. Trump’s rocky 24-hour trip this week to Germany, her first official foray since taking a West Wing office last month. Continue reading the main story A spokeswoman for Ms. Trump did not respond to questions about her position on immigration — or about whether her remarks were intended to pressure her father. […]
Breitbart News hit a wall Tuesday in its campaign to storm the ramparts of the media establishment when one of the most influential press associations in Washington, D.C. denied its application for credentials to cover Congress because of concerns over the site’s funding, staffing, workspace and independence. The decision by the Standing Committee of Correspondents of the House and Senate Press Gallery — a body chaired by […]
President Donald Trump’s top economic team unveiled what they called the biggest tax cut in US history, proposing a sharp reduction in corporate taxes and a simplification of individual rates they said would unleash economic growth. Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, said the proposal would slash corporate taxes from 35 per cent to 15 per cent and include a “one-time” cut-rate tax to induce companies to repatriate […]
No president likes being judged on his first hundred days in office, not least Donald Trump. It is, he tweeted last week, a “ridiculous standard” by which to be measured, even though he also claimed to have accomplished “a lot”. With his 100th day in the White House falling on Saturday, investors have more nuanced ideas. For much of 2017 financial markets have doubted the global “Trump […]
With little macro data overnight (aside from a modestly disappointing Australian CPI print), offset by an ongoing of corporate profits (this is the single busiest week for corporate earnings in more than 10 years), today everyone’s attention will be focused on three things to come out of Washington: taxes, healthcare, spending. And while we did our best to summarize what is known and unknown last night, this […]
A federal court has blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order on sanctuary cities on the grounds that it is unconstitutional, in another legal setback for the administration. The nationwide injunction granted on Tuesday by a federal judge in San Francisco will prevent the executive order, signed just days after Mr Trump’s inauguration, from being enforced while its legal merits are debated. “This is a very aggressive use […]
Authored by Zainab Calcuttawala via OilPrice.com, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley warned U.S. President Donald Trump that he would face the wrath of the northern nation’s many allies if the freshman president begins employing energy trade restrictions with Canada. Notley is currently in China, negotiating her country’s trade policies with the Asian giant. She told reporters that she did not know what was meant by Trump’s comments about […]
Just when US trade partners thought it was safe to come out from their hiding places, along comes President Donald Trump to slap a punitive duty on Canada, America’s long-time ally and neighbour — imposing tariffs of up to 24 per cent on imports on its softwood lumber. The new president seemed to have gone quiet on his protectionist instincts, pulling back from a trade confrontation with […]
After yesterday’s violent gap up in stocks across the globe in response to the “expected” outcome from the French election, today the risk on sentiment has continued if to a lesser extent, with stocks in Europe, Asia all rising while S&P futures point to a higher open. Yen, gold decline, while the euro traded as high as 1.09 this morning before fading some gains; oil is up […]
Authored by Ron Paul via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity, Candidate Trump: “I Love Wikileaks.” President Trump: “Arrest Assange!” “I love Wikileaks,” candidate Donald Trump said on October 10th on the campaign trail. He praised the organization for reporting on the darker side of the Hillary Clinton campaign. It was information likely leaked by a whistleblower from within the Clinton campaign to Wikileaks. […]
The US Treasury has responded to this month’s gas attack in Syria by launching one of its biggest one-off rounds of sanctions, targeting employees of a Syrian agency it accuses of developing non-conventional weapons. The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control announced that 271 employees of Syria’s Scientific Studies and Research Center were being sanctioned, more than doubling the number of individuals and entities targeted by previous […]
The euro surged in early Asian trading after Emmanuel Macron, investors’ preferred candidate, appeared on track to make it through to the final round of the French presidential election, which opinion polls suggest he will win. Mr Macron, who supports open markets and France staying in the EU, won 23.7 per cent of the vote in the first round vote on Sunday, according to three estimates for […]
Photo Members of the United Nations Security Council during a meeting about Syria on April 7. President Trump will host a lunch on Monday with 14 diplomats who are members of the Security Council. Credit Drew Angerer/Getty Images UNITED NATIONS — President Trump, who recently had Ted Nugent, Sarah Palin and Kid Rock over for a White House dinner, is planning to host 14 diplomats from around […]
With president Trump optimistic, but already laying plans for a possible government shutdown – which incidentally would take place on the symbolic 100th day of Trump’s administration, incentivizing Democrats to be especially confrontational – White House budget director Mick Mulvaney tried to talk down concerns of an imminent government closure, and said talks between Republicans and Democrats in Congress could reach an agreement to avoid a government […]
When North Korean traders give Li Jian long lists of the goods they want to buy, he checks the items against a 236-page Chinese translation of the UN sanctions imposed after Kim Jong Un’s regime conducted a sixth nuclear weapons test in September. “If it’s on the sanctions list, we can’t provide it,” Mr Li said from his office in downtown Dandong, the Chinese border city through which […]
