another site
Good news is bad news? North Korean denuclearization chatter and Kuroda clarifying endless QE sparked a pre-open ramp in US equities but once the cash market opened, sellers emerged…
FANG safe-haven buying is holdoing Nasdaq up while The Dow and S&P go red…
Maybe reality is setting in that Trump is not backing away from tariffs and that means bye-bye Gary…
via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2oLJvLe Tyler Durden
Washington has become the first state in the nation to pass a net neutrality bill.
On Monday, Gov. Jay Inslee signed HB 2282, which prohibits internet service providers from blocking lawful content, impairing internet traffic on the basis of content, or engaging in paid prioritization—that is, letting customers pay for faster network speeds.
“All Washingtonians should enjoy equal and unfettered access to the educational, social and economic power of the internet,” Inslee said in a statement posted on Medium. “I’m proud that Washington state is helping lead the way to preserve these net neutrality rules, which ensure a level playing field for consumers and innovators.”
The bill garnered bipartisan support in the state legislature, passing 95–5 in the House and 35–14 in the Senate.
But the law is on shaky legal footing. When the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) repealed Obama-era net neutrality rules in December, the order specifically preempted state or local efforts to reenact the rules.
The sponsor of Washington’s bill, Rep. Drew Hansen (D–Bainbridge Island), rejects this premise.
“The FCC is declaring that a certain set of federal statutory provisions do not give it the authority to regulate standards of conduct on the internet,” he told Reason in December. “Yet somehow, as if by magic, that same statute gives them the authority to preempt state attempts to regulate standards of conduct on the internet. I’m not sure how that can coexist.”
The FCC’s order contends—and a number of federal court cases confirm—that “an affirmative federal policy of deregulation is entitled to the same preemptive effect as a federal policy of regulation.”
Internet service providers are likely to challenge the law in court.
The New York Times reports that some two dozen other states have similar net neutrality provisions in the works. Taking a more solid legal approach are the governors of New York, New Jersey, Vermont, and Montana, who all have issued executive orders requiring internet service providers contracting with the state to follow the Obama-era net neutrality rules.
from Hit & Run http://ift.tt/2D4bf1K
via IFTTT
President Trump tweet-gloated this morning: “We are getting it done – jobs and security!” – in response to the headlines that USA is set to become the world’s largest oil producer.
While the ‘news’ about production is fact…
The bigger question is the narrative of US global dominance in the energy markets and the ugly narrative-bashing reality that USA is still a net-importing nation – somewhat battering the “security” meme Trump crowed about.
As OilPrice.com’s Kurt Cobb explains, much of the media coverage of the American energy industry implies that America has become a vast and growing exporter of energy to the rest of the world and that this has created a sort of “energy dominance” for the country on the world stage.
Whether such reports qualify as so-called “fake news” depends very much on three things: 1) How one defines “fake news,” 2) whether writers of such reports qualify the words “imports” and “exports” with the word “net” and 3) which energy sources they are discussing.
In this case let’s define “fake news” as claims that official, publicly available statistics show plainly to be false. By that criterion anyone who claims that the United States is a net energy exporter would certainly be guilty of propagating “fake news.”
Energy statistics from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) show that in November 2017 (the most recent month for which figures are available) the United States had net imports 329.5 trillion BTUs of energy in all its forms.* That’s down from a peak of 2.74 quadrillion BTUs in August 2006, something that is certainly a turnabout from the previous trend. But all claims that the United States is a net energy exporter must be labeled as unequivocally false.
It turns out, however, that most people making misleading claims about America’s energy situation don’t actually say or write things which are technically false. What they do is use language which intentionally or unintentionally misleads the reader or listener.
For example, the claim that the United States is an exporter of crude oil is true. But that claim is entirely misleading. While the United States exports about 1.5 million barrels a day (mbpd) of crude oil, it also imports 7.5 mbpd. That puts the net imports of crude oil at about 6 mbpd. (All numbers are four-week averages as of February 23.)
This reality is simply not conveyed by the unqualified statement that the United States is an oil exporter. Those making such a claim either haven’t done their research, are sloppy writers or intend to mislead.
This curious state of affairs in American crude oil imports and exports results from not having enough refining capacity for the kind of oil coming out of the country’s shale oil deposits, more properly called tight oil. That oil is too “light” for many American refineries. Therefore, much of it is shipped abroad to refineries with the capability to refine it. The United States tends to import heavier crudes that match its overall refinery capabilities.
The United States has more refinery capacity than it needs for its own consumption of petroleum products such as gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and heating oil. Some of that capacity has long been used to produce these products for export—for over 30 years, in fact.
The EIA reports 4.5 mbpd of these products shipped abroad as the four-week average as of February 23. But that overstates the case since the number includes an enigmatic category called “Other Oil” which consists primarily of natural gas plant liquids (products such as ethane, propane and butane) that are simply not part of the petroleum production stream. Subtracting those gives us about 3 mbpd which are curiously offset by imports of those same products of about 1 mbpd. That puts the net exports of petroleum products strictly speaking at about 2 mbpd—significant, but not enough to make the United States a net exporter of crude oil and petroleum products combined. The country remains a net importer of about 4 mbpd of those combined products.
When it comes to natural gas, it turns out the United States is just barely a net exporter. In 2017 the country exported 3.17 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gas and imported 3.04 tcf. America is hardly a major force in the natural gas export market today. There are those who claim, however, that it will become one because of future growth in U.S. natural gas production. This includes the EIA.
The EIA’s record for long-term forecasts, however, is abysmal. (To see how abysmal, read here and here.) With regard to U.S. natural gas production, a private study based on actual natural gas well histories (rather than optimistic claims from the industry) suggests that production in 2050 will be only a fraction of what it is today. As the study points out, natural gas plays in shale basins are the only ones with growing production, and four of the six major shale gas plays are already in steep decline. It is difficult to see how such trends can lead to a major increase in U.S. natural gas production through 2050. (It is well to remember that oil and gas executives are on a constant hunt for capital with which to fund new drilling. Not surprisingly, it pays them to be optimistic when courting investors either in person or through the media.)
As for coal, the United States has long been self-sufficient in coal and currently exports about 3 percent of its production on a net basis according to EIA statistics.
There are connections between the U.S. and Canadian electricity grids. The Canadians send more electricity to the United States than the United States sends to Canada which, of course, makes the United States a net importer of Canadian electricity.
The United States does mine and process uranium for nuclear power stations. But almost 90 percent of the uranium purchased for American reactors must be imported.
The current picture of American energy production is decidedly not one of “dominance.” Instead, though rising production of oil and natural gas has reduced dependence on foreign energy supplies, the country remains dependent on imported oil, a situation that even the ever optimistic EIA does not expect to change through 2050.
For those who say they know the future of energy production in the United States, I recommend reading the linked critiques above of previous major long-term energy forecasts. Making energy policy based on long-term forecasts that have proven again and again to be wildly mistaken is not just unwise, but dangerous. An infrastructure built for overly optimistic projections of supply for a particular fuel—natural gas fired electricity generating plants come to mind—could end up worthless or at the very least create tense and destabilizing competition for fuel supplies that don’t grow as expected.
*It’s worth noting that nobody was touting American “energy dominance” when the net energy import number last hovered around this value in the early 1980s.
via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2oNOHhH Tyler Durden
While correlation does not equal causation, first thing yesterday morning, just as the Dow Jones was reversing all of its overnight losses, and was set to surge by over 500 points at one point, we previewed one notably “correlating” catalyst: Dennis Gartman announced “we are net short via derivatives.”
Gartman: “we are net “short” of the market via derivatives in sufficient size to have taken us to a net short position”
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) March 5, 2018
So after yesterday’s furious ramp, has Gartman covered his short? With condolences to the bears, the answer is no, and in fact it’s worse: Gartman is no longer short simply via derivatives (which we assume means pair trade puts), but is now outright short the S&P again.
NEW RECOMMENDATION: We have waited for strength into which to sell equities short and we got that strength yesterday when the President ‘Hinted” that he might actually move to exempt Canada and Mexico from steel and aluminium tariffs if they acquiesce on some demands to renegotiate the NAFTA. But again, the rally was on reduced volume compared to the volumes that came into the markets last week on weakness. This is how a bear market acts; now how bull markets act. We shall sell the S&P short this morning upon receipt of this commentary and the nearby S&P future is trading 2724.50 as we write. A 2% risk is more than sufficient at this point.
As a reminder, the last time Gartman went short – just a few weeks ago – he was promptly stopped out just days later. At this point, bears may be wise to wait the S&P to rise 2% before shorting.
via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2D3x4yM Tyler Durden
Moments ago, president Trump tweeted “Federal Judge in Maryland has just ruled that “President Trump has the right to end DACA.” President Obama had 8 years to fix this problem, and didn’t. I am waiting for the Dems, they are running for the hills!”
What he was referring to is that on Monday, a Maryland federal judge gave the Trump administration a win over a lawsuit challenging the DOJ’s ability to rescind the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
Judge Roger W. Titus ruled that Trump had the legal authority to rescind the executive order former President Obama announced in 2012. The order – designed to protect illegal immigrants who were brought to the United States as minors – was rescinded by Trump for a period of six months until Congress could find a more permanent solution.
“This decision took control of a pell-mell situation and provided Congress — the branch of government charged with determining immigration policy — an opportunity to remedy it. Given the reasonable belief that DACA was unlawful, the decision to wind down DACA in an orderly manner was rational,” wrote Judge Titus, adding “As disheartening or inappropriate as the president’s occasionally disparaging remarks may be, they are not relevant to the larger issues governing the DACA rescission. The DACA Rescission Memo is clear as to its purpose and reasoning, and its decision is rationally supported by the administrative record.”
President Trump knocked Democrats over DACA on Monday – tweeting “It’s March 5th and the Democrats are nowhere to be found on DACA. Gave them 6 months, they just don’t care. Where are they? We are ready to make a deal!”
It’s March 5th and the Democrats are nowhere to be found on DACA. Gave them 6 months, they just don’t care. Where are they? We are ready to make a deal!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 5, 2018
The administration had originally set a March 5 deadline for the end of DACA.
Despite the decision being a major win for the Trump campaign, it doesn’t change the current status of DACA – which is still in place due to several injunctions which require the program to remain intact while legal efforts to challenge Trump’s decision to end the program are ongoing.
Current DACA recipients are allowed to apply for renewal while the cases are pending, however no new illegal immigrants who qualify for coverage may apply.
The DOJ approves:
“The Department of Justice has long maintained that DHS acted within its lawful authority in making the discretionary decision to wind down DACA in an orderly manner, and we welcome the good news today that the district court in Maryland strongly agrees,” said DOJ spokesman Devin O’Malley.
The Maryland lawsuit is one of several that pro-DACA advocates have filed following the announcement by Attorney General Jeff Sessions that the program would end in six months.
Two cases — one in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in California and another in the Eastern District of New York — have both received preliminary injunctions, which mandated the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency continue to accept renewal applications from 689,000 DACA recipients while the issue is decided by the courts. –Washington Examiner
Judge Titus slammed the judges who have issued injunctions in the other DACA challenges, saying they had chosen to push their own political beliefs as opposed to accepting the administration’s decision.
The DOJ’s O’Malley praised Titus for pointing this out:
“Today’s decision also highlights a serious problem with the disturbing growth in the use of nationwide injunctions, which causes the Maryland court’s correct judgment in favor of the government to be undermined by the over-broad injunctions that have been entered by courts in other states. –Devin O’Malley
Titus also approved of the Trump administration’s strategy to wait six months instead of winding down DACA sooner.
via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2D3ZHvP Tyler Durden
President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met at the White House yesterday.Follow us on Facebook and Twitter, and don’t forget to sign up for Reason’s daily updates for more content.
from Hit & Run http://ift.tt/2FrT5wf
via IFTTT
One conventional wisdom about Trump’s thinking about the trade tariffs which he may (or may) not announce this week, is that Trump’s conviction with the action is directly proportional to the level of the Dow Jones.
Recall that over the weekend, DB’s Alan Ruskin said that “With widespread reports that the President has ignored the advice of leading advisors like Gary Cohn, it has become rational for those who believe in free trade to wish for a sharp decline in the stock market, as something the President may listen to on this issue.”
Further, as we noted yesterday quoting DataTrek’s Nick Colas, “The Achilles Heel for the Dow is clear enough: hurt Boeing by pulling orders (for example), and the Average will suffer disproportionately. And, presumably, President Trump’s affinity for that measure will force him to take notice.”
Then, overnight Bloomberg noted the same:
Donald Trump’s yardstick for his own success is going rogue. That’s the Dow Jones Industrial Average, a regular feature in the U.S. president’s commentary over the past year as the equity bull market raged on. Take early January, when the index sailed past 25,000 for the first time: “This is all about the Make America Great Again agenda! Jobs, Jobs, Jobs. Six trillion dollars in value created!”
Contrast that with now, when the Dow’s being whipsawed by Trump’s own plan to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, and the tweets have dried up. “Dow vigilantes” are signaling their disapproval, according to Ed Yardeni, who coined the term bond vigilantes in 1983 to describe investors who protest monetary or fiscal policies by dumping debt. He says that in relation to Trump and equities, the strategy may have merit.
“The bears could make a comeback if President Donald Trump turns into an outright protectionist,” the founder of his namesake research firm wrote in a note. “More likely is that he will back off if the market continues to react badly to his protectionist pronouncements.”
There’s just one problem with the “Dow Vigilantes” theory: stocks are now well above the level where they were when Trump unveiled the steel and aluminum tariffs. In other words, as Trump has constantly doubled down on his threats that he would impose tariffs, the market’s interpretation of his motives notwithstanding, what he has seen is one day of losses, and both a Friday and Monday where the S&P closed green.
If anything, Trump will see the market – which has already priced in a capitulation by the president – as giving his tariff plan a thumbs up.
Which brings us to another issue noted by Strategas, which notes that President Trump’s Davos and State of the Union speeches both declared that the US was going to fine China for stealing US intellectual property. Those “fines” could be in the hundreds of billions of dollars range and are a much more significant trade event than steel and aluminum tariffs.
Trump himself has also said that the trade wars have one major target: Beijing, with the rest of the world negotiable collateral damage. Just yesterday, the US trade rep made it clear that both Mexico and Canada would get an exemption from the tariffs once they agreed to a “fair” renegotiation of Nafta.
Still, a trade war involving just China and the US is enough to grind global growth to a halt.
And beyond the already announced aluminum and steel tariffs, there is another far more troubling aspect, or rather number, to Trump’s protectionist push noted by Strategas. The number is $1 trillion. Here is strategas:
President Trump is considering imposing tariffs on Chinese goods in response to China stealing US intellectual property. This is often referred to as Section 301 and President Trump specifically mentioned this action in both his Davos and State of the Union speeches. The rumor around DC is that the US will impose $1 trillion of tariffs, which would shock financial markets. We believe the $1 trillion number is too high. Since the US imports $450bn from China, across the board tariffs would need to be 200 percent. Even for Trump that is too much. But given the magnitude of what is being discussed, China would need to respond.
If Strategas is correct, and if Trump’s ultimate intention is to hit China with tariffs in the “hundreds of billions” (or more), it’s on, and the resulting trade wars will promptly cripple all China-facing US corporations first, followed by the rest of the S&P. Here is strategas again on what happens then:
We are often asked which industries and companies would be impacted. There are some obvious sectors such as industrials (cars, planes), agriculture, and technology. Below is a list of US companies which derive the largest percentage of their total revenue from China. We are not saying to short these companies, but believe investors should start thinking about potential risks to the companies they own if they have sufficient business in China.
via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2I3lzuV Tyler Durden
It has been an abysmal week for President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior policy adviser, Jared Kushner. On Tuesday of last week, it was reported that the White House security-clearance changes imposed by Chief of Staff John Kelly meant that Kushner, who had been operating on a high-level interim clearance, would be downgraded from “top secret” to “secret,” meaning he could no longer legally receive highly classified government information such as the president’s daily brief. Such a reading-material demotion, many analysts have reasonably contended, would make it damnably hard for Kushner to manage his foreign policy portfolio of negotiating Mideast peace, and serving as presidential intermediary to the two main targets of Trump’s campaign rhetoric: China and Mexico.
That same day the Washington Post also published an embarrassing if vague article asserting that “officials in at least four countries have privately discussed ways they can manipulate Jared Kushner.” The not-insignificant states in question: Israel, China, Mexico, and the United Arab Emirates. While the piece contained no evidence of subsequent manipulation, nor any historical comparison to similar conversations about previous White House policymakers, it did include the damning nugget that Kushner had conducted several meetings with foreign officials without ever consulting or reporting back to the National Security Council. Also, anonymous quotes like these didn’t help:
Within the White House, Kushner’s lack of government experience and his business debt were seen from the beginning of his tenure as potential points of leverage that foreign governments could use to influence him, the current and former officials said. […]
Officials in the White House were concerned that Kushner was “naive and being tricked” in conversations with foreign officials, some of whom said they wanted to deal only with Kushner directly and not more experienced personnel, said one former White House official. […]
White House officials said National Security Advisor H.R.] McMaster was taken aback by some of Kushner’s foreign contacts.
“When he learned about it, it surprised him,” one official said. “He thought that was weird….It was an unusual thing. I don’t know that any White House has done it this way before.”
Of course, McMaster now has his own problems….
Thursday brought a third body blow to Kushner’s tender ribs. The New York Times reported that the embattled adviser held previously undisclosed meetings last year with representatives of both Citigroup and Apollo Global Management, financial institutions that subsequent to those conversations gave to Kushner Companies an eye-opening $509 million in financing. Both Kushner (who has divested incompletely from the business, though his family still owns and runs it) and the bankers say that their meetings contained zero discussion of the deals, though as the Times dryly noted, “There is little precedent for a top White House official meeting with executives of companies as they contemplate sizable loans to his business, say government ethics experts.” Ya think?
Then on Friday came this news:
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team has asked witnesses about Kushner’s efforts to secure financing for his family’s real estate properties, focusing specifically on his discussions during the transition with individuals from Qatar and Turkey, as well as Russia, China and the United Arab Emirates, according to witnesses who have been interviewed as part of the investigation into possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign to sway the 2016 election.
As Andrew Prokop muses over at Vox, “The big mystery…is whether Mueller is focusing on all these other topics mainly out of a desire to strengthen a Russia-related case—or whether potential corruption related to Gulf countries and other foreign players is now a new focus in his investigation in and of itself.”
One hopes it is the latter, not the former, since the Mueller inquiry is supposed to be about Russia and various possible hijinks related to the 2016 election, not how an underqualified and inexperienced nepotee has blundered through international dealings with unrelated countries in 2017. The investigation should not be used as an expanded security clearance of sorts, or fodder for the seemingly nonstop bureaucratic backstabbing and palace intrigue in Trump’s White House. I hope there’s a Russian tie-in.
That said, it’s worth stepping out of the scrum for a moment and reiterating a central underlying truth that was reinforced over the past week: Jared Kushner has no goddamn business being anywhere near the levers of American foreign policy.
For starters, Kushner has considerably less foreign policy experience than I do, and you certainly would not want me in the middle of, say, a $110 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia. Here’s a guy who couldn’t legally drink until after 9/11, whose biggest business experiences are managing an inherited real estate company (one that made the single most expensive office-building development in American history, which has since degenerated into a failed project requiring a $1.2 billion debt payment by February 2019), and steering a perennially money-losing boutique newspaper into irrelevance and physical extinction. Even if he had zero conflicts of interest—and he has many more than that—such a person is facially, ridiculously even, lacking the minimum experience necessary to hold his own in face-to-faces with, say, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Ah, comes the cynical rejoinder, so you’re saying that we need someone experienced, like Henry Kissinger or Dick Cheney? Nope, dope, those guys would be awful too, for entirely different reasons. Whataboutism may be fun on Twitter, but it’s not a viable staffing strategy. The myth of the foreign policy naif overcoming his own knowledge/experience gap to defeat the War Machine and/or successfully advance American interests is a Hollywood fable, not a road map toward anywhere desirable. Anti-interventionists and other alienated foreign policy blocs need to develop their own talent pools of international scholars and advocates instead of indulging in short-term, headline-chasing delusions about whatever rando wanders near the reins of power.
And the people who should really object to rookies running foreign policy fiefdoms are arguably those in Trump’s political sweet spot: nationalist populists. If you think it’s long since past time that America asserted its own interests, and not the “globalist” agenda of sovereignty-busting internationalism, then the last person you want in the trenches against those sophisticated connivers is some babe in the woods who might as well be wearing a “Kick Me!” sign on his flak jacket.
Again, these are reasons to object to Kushner’s foreign policy portfolio regardless of his conflicts of interest. But let’s now talk about those—and Trump’s. It can be hard, in the ongoing drama of daily events, to lose sight of some ways this administration is truly unprecedented and troubling in contemporary history. But having two remarkably debt-leveraged real estate tycoons in the White House is one of them.
Both Trump and Kushner, rather than truly divesting from their extensive portfolios, have instead handed over control to immediate families, who have carried on with high-profile, frequently international, nine-digit fundraising expeditions that leverage the family name. The most infamous example of which came last year, when Kushner’s sister Nicole Meyer made a pitch to 100 Chinese investors in Beijing for a $150 million Kushner Companies project, which she advertised as coming from the “star Kushner real estate family,” and which, she underscored, “means a lot to me and my entire family.” (Jared’s elaborate business ties to China, one of his key foreign policy assignments, has elicited several warnings from U.S. counterintelligence services.)
Most of these activities fall under the category of “Legal, if skeevy.” But the standard by which taxpayers should hold government employees accountable is properly a good deal more strict than, Well, he didn’t OBVIOUSLY break the law. Lists like this should never become the norm.
Similarly, every president certainly has the right to appoint advisers and counselors heavy on loyalty but thin on experience. Bobby Kennedy made it all the way to his brother’s cabinet, after all, and Hillary Clinton had an exalted policy role as First Lady even post-Hillarycare (the Communications Decency Act, to cite the most toothy of her attempts to protect children by restricting speech, has Clinton’s fingerprints all over it).
But as conservatives used to be the first or second to tell you (particularly in the two preceding examples), license isn’t the same thing as propriety. I expect and even want Donald Trump to have some weirdo counselors—a little unorthodoxy can be good for bureaucracies running on autopilot. If he wants his son-in-law to convene White House meetings on innovation with tech CEOs, well, whatever. But Jared Kushner should not be within 500 yards of a personal meeting with a head of state, and when the adults are making the big decisions about foreign policy, he has only one appropriate seat: at the kids’ table.
from Hit & Run http://ift.tt/2oSjJ7p
via IFTTT
Despite repeated denials from the pro-tariff wing of White House advisers (a triumvirate that includes Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, trade adviser Peter Navarro and trade representative Robert Lighthizer), media reports about Gary Cohn’s impending departure from the White House have just kept coming.
And for its latest installment in the ongoing “will Gary stay, or will Gary go” saga, Bloomberg reports that Cohn is making a last-ditch effort to dissuade his boss from imposing steep and controversial tariffs on steel and aluminum by inviting executives from US firms that would be adversely affected by the tariffs…
…And, Bloomberg adds, if this last ditch effort fails, Cohn might follow this crowd of angry executives out the front gate…
A Trump order to impose the tariffs would be a huge setback for Cohn, who has vigorously opposed the move, citing concerns that it would harm the economy. This decision is viewed inside the White House as a possible breaking point for Cohn, a former senior executive at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., and some insiders believe he will depart if Trump doesn’t take his advice on the issue.
Trump advisers who favor the tariffs want him to sign the paperwork while in Pennsylvania steel country on Saturday, but the signing location has not yet been decided, according to two people familiar with the location discussion.
Of course, Cohn isn’t alone in pushing back against the tariffs. Republicans in Congress, led by Speaker Paul Ryan, have launched a campaign to stop Trump from imposing the trade wars. The European Union is threatening to impose reciprocal tariffs on US goods produced in Republican controlled states – an outcome meant to ratchet up pressure on Trump’s fellow Republicans.
Ryan told reporters earlier this week that he and other Republicans in Congress are “extremely worried” about this plan, and are “urging the White House to not advance with this plan.” In response, Trump insisted that he’s not backing down; indeed, it’d be politically difficult to give up on the tariffs, especially since he listened to the emotional pleas of steel and aluminum executives last week. The European Commission, lea=d by Jean-Claude Juncker, is threatening to impose reciprocal tariffs on certain goods manufactured in Republican states.
Trump’s aides have urged him to unveil the tariffs in beautiful Steel City Pittsburgh. The visit would come days before a House special election in the heart of America’s steel country.
The candidate, Republican Rick Saccone, who is seeking to fill the seat of fellow Republican Tim Murphy – the Congressman who resigned in October after revelations he suggested that his mistress seek an abortion – has struggled against Democratic challenger Connor Lamb.
The district formerly represented by Murphy includes some 17,000 voters who are either steelworkers or related to them, the AFL-CIO told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
But Trump must balance placating his base of down-and-out manufacturing workers with other considerations, like doing everything he can to support the US economy and financial markets.
Trump wants to protect industries that are “the backbone of this country” and to “make sure we’re doing everything we can to protect American workers,” said White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders at a Monday briefing for reporters.
Trump is reportedly expected to formally impose the tariffs later this week – or early next week.
As analysts at Citi pointed out, Trump has said he “still ha[s] some people that I want to change” – an obvious red flag that could signal that he is willing to back away from his tariff push.
One thing’s for sure: With markets moving higher this week, it’s possible investors won’t fully price in the tariffs until they’ve been signed into law.
via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2FXNdss Tyler Durden
Overnight Media Digest
WSJ
– The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. ordered Qualcomm Inc to delay its annual shareholder meeting by 30 days to give CFIUS time to review Singapore-based rival Broadcom Ltd’s proposed $117 billion takeover of the chip maker.on.wsj.com/2H8EX8n
– HCR ManorCare Inc, one of the largest skilled nursing home chains in the U.S., filed for bankruptcy protection as part of a deal in which its landlord, Quality Care Properties Inc, will take control of the company. on.wsj.com/2HbECSp
– U.S. President Donald Trump said he would consider attending the opening of the new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem later this year, a move likely to affect Palestinians who see the embassy as an obstacle to a peace deal. on.wsj.com/2H9lvIA
– Republican Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi said he would resign on April 1 due to poor health after more than four decades in Congress, opening a second Senate seat in the conservative state. on.wsj.com/2H8Kyvj
– 3M Co said Chief Executive Inge Thulin will step down from that position in the summer as the company splits its CEO and chairmanship roles. on.wsj.com/2H9QaW6
– The founding family of Nordstrom Inc experienced their second setback in trying to take the company private on Monday, when a special committee of the board rejected their roughly $8 billion buyout offer as too low. on.wsj.com/2H9eAiO
FT
– Sports Direct International Plc has increased its Debenhams Plc stake to 29.7 percent, which is just under the threshold at which it would be required to make a formal takeover offer.
– UK newspaper publisher Trinity Mirror Plc is changing its name to Reach after it agreed to buy Express Newspapers from Northern & Shell last month.
– UK’s Financial Conduct Authority fined a former Deutsche Bank AG trader 180,000 pounds for attempting to manipulate the Libor interest rate benchmark. They also banned him from working in any regulated financial activity.
– UK Prime Minister Theresa May proposed an overhaul of the national planning policy framework, admitting that the housing shortage was reinforcing inequality, adding that young people were “right to be angry” that they weren’t able to buy their own property.
NYT
– Nordstrom Inc’s long, winding attempt to move into private ownership took another turn on Monday. A special committee of the retailer’s board rejected a roughly $8.4 billion offer from the Nordstrom family to buy the company, saying the price was too low. nyti.ms/2H8DTRY
– Qualcomm Inc, one of the world’s largest chip makers, has spent the last four months fending off a hostile takeover from Broadcom Ltd , a Singaporean rival. The fate of the proposed takeover now rests with a little-known committee of top White House administration officials who meet in secret, wielding power to kill the biggest multibillion-dollar global deals. nyti.ms/2H9eJTt
– A record low 26.5 million people watched Sunday night’s telecast, a nearly 20 percent drop versus last year. It also represents a startling drop off: As recently as four years ago, the Academy Awards had an audience of 43.7 million viewers. nyti.ms/2Hbyd9Z
– Paul Ryan, the Republican House speaker, criticized U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposed steel and aluminum tariffs on Monday, saying they could lead to a damaging trade war. nyti.ms/2H8Zlq9
Canada
THE GLOBE AND MAIL
** U.S. President Donald Trump’s advisers say he does not want to spare Canada and other U.S. allies from punishing tariffs on steel and aluminum – but are also suggesting individual companies can apply for exemptions and no final decision has been made, adding to mounting confusion over the President’s looming trade attack. tgam.ca/2FTnO34
** Bombardier Inc is raising C$638 million ($491.60 million) in its first share issue in more than three years, taking advantage of recent sharp gains in the plane and train maker’s stock to beef up its balance sheet. tgam.ca/2FtnTwx
NATIONAL POST
** Canada’s biggest export market for oil, the United States, is set to dramatically ramp up its own oil exports and reshape the global oil trade in the next five years. “We see there is huge investment going on in this part of the United States – in Texas,” the International Energy Agency’s executive director Fatih Birol told reporters on Monday as CERA Week organized by IHS Markit, a major energy conference in Houston, kicked off. bit.ly/2HazY70
** Canadian National Railway Co is searching for a new chief executive officer after it announced on Monday that Luc Jobin would be leaving the role of president and chief executive of CN immediately – a move that comes less than two years after he stepped into the position. bit.ly/2H9z6j4
Britain
The Times
– The Financial Conduct Authority was warned last year that Beaufort Securities, the failed broker that faces fraud charges in the United States, was not acting in the best interests of its 14,000 clients. bit.ly/2H4B6sQ
– The Pensions Regulator has expressed concerns that Melrose Industries Plc’s proposed takeover of GKN Plc could have a “detrimental impact” on the covenant of the engineering group’s pension schemes. bit.ly/2H4nMov
The Guardian
– European aerospace manufacturer Airbus SE has warned it would have to consider its position in Britain without imminent clarity over customs rules after Brexit. bit.ly/2Hb1lhr
– Fears of the first full-scale tariff war since the 1930s have been raised by the head of the World Trade Organisation, in a direct warning to U.S. President Donald Trump that his proposed levies on steel and aluminium will trigger a domino effect that will lead to global recession. bit.ly/2H8cxLX
The Telegraph
– British Prime Minister Theresa May promised investors that the City of London would not lose its status as a finance hub post-Brexit. bit.ly/2H7ZfPo
– The chief executive officer of Trinity Mirror Plc has said he is “not in the slightest bit concerned” about a review by competition watchdogs of his plans to slash costs following the publisher’s takeover of the Star and the Express newspapers. bit.ly/2H4yqLO
Sky News
– Carmaker Aston Martin is considering whether to snub the London stock market and pursue a listing in New York. bit.ly/2H98a2S
– The water supply has returned to the plants of Jaguar Land Rover and Cadbury, which had both been hit by a shortage that had affected much of the country. bit.ly/2H8w6ni
The Independent
Cash-starved government departments are unable to fund Theresa May’s pledge to scrap the public sector pay cap, a new analysis has warned. ind.pn/2H7mskD
via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2D3bytU Tyler Durden