Written by Econintersect
Early Bird Headlines 23 July 2018
Econintersect: Here are some of the headlines we found to help you start your day. For more headlines see our afternoon feature for GEI members, What We Read Today, published Monday, Wednesday and Friday, which has many more headlines and a number of article discussions to keep you abreast of what we have found interesting.
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​Global
- Nikkei drops 1.3% as dollar extends losses; rest of Asia closes mixed (CNBC) Asian shares closed mixed on Monday, with Japanese stocks pressured by strength in the yen after the dollar dropped on U.S. President Donald Trump’s criticism of the Federal Reserve. The dollar index was down slightly at 94.371 after stumbling in the last session. Brent crude dropped $0.10 (0.1%) to $72.97 a barrel by 0350 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures declined $0.08, or 0.1%, to $68.18 a barrel. Spot gold was up 0.2% at $1,234.24 an ounce at 0045 GMT, after rising 0.7% in the previous session.
- G20 calls for stepped-up trade dialogue; no agreement on path forward (Reuters) Global finance leaders called on Sunday for stepped-up dialogue to prevent trade and geopolitical tensions from hurting growth, but ended a two-day G20 meeting with little consensus on how to resolve multiple disputes over U.S. tariff actions.
U.S.
- Trump warns Iran to ‘never, ever threaten’ U.S. (Reuters) President Trump warned Iranian President Hassan Rouhani not to threaten the United States or face the consequences, hours after Rouhani told Trump that hostile policies toward Tehran could lead to “the mother of all wars.” See next article and also article under Iran.
- Trump Threatens Iran (Twitter) Here is how the president of the United States communicated with the president of Iran at 11:24 pm 22 July 2018:
- Trump says his campaign was ‘spied on illegally’ after FBI claims adviser ‘collaborated and conspired’ with Russia (Independent) Donald Trump has claimed documents released by the FBI that show the bureau believed one of his former campaign advisers was conspiring with the Russian government, proved his team had been “illegally spied on” as he battled to win the White House. The Department of Justice over the weekend released 412 heavily redacted documents related to Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant requests for former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, which were part of a federal investigation into the Trump campaign and Russia. “The FBI believes that Page has been collaborating and conspiring with the Russian Government,” said the surveillance application filed in October 2016, just one month before the presidential election. The documents also show the FBI believed the Russian government’s efforts were being coordinated by Mr Page and “perhaps other individuals associated with” the Trump campaign.
- Putin summit puts spotlight back on Trump’s tax returns (The Hill) President Trump’s tax returns are back in the spotlight after his private one-on-one meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump’s comments during a joint press conference with Putin on Monday alarmed lawmakers, leading some to wonder about the president’s possible financial ties to Russia.
- FBI Special Agent Turned GOP Congressman ‘Frankly Sickened’ by Helsinki Meeting: Trump ‘Was Manipulated by Vladimir Putin’ (AlterNet) Republican congressman and former FBI agent Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) on Sunday, speaking on NPR ‘All Things Considred‘, warned Donald Trump “was manipulated by Vladimir Putin,” telling NPR’s Michael Martin he was “frankly sickened by the exchange“.
- Is Trump a danger — or just ‘incompetent’ and a ‘buffoon’? (CNN) The opinion is extended that the country is overreacting to President Trump.
In The Boston Globe last week, distinguished scholar Andrew Bacevich put forth some strong criticism of President Donald Trump’s opponents. He said he increasingly has come to believe that “Trump’s election has induced a paranoid response, one that, unless curbed, may well pose a greater danger to the country than Trump himself. This paranoid response finds expression in obsessive attention given to just about anything Trump says, along with equally obsessive speculation about what he might do next.”
As opposed to a danger to democracy or a threat to constitutional rights, Trump, in Bacevich’s view, is just a “clownishly incompetent and willfully ignorant buffoon.“
- Now We Know Trump Wasn’t Bluffing on Tariffs (Bloomberg) Daniel Moss, editorial staff at Bloomberg, writes:
It’s no longer reasonable to assume that the Trump administration will make the U.S. economy a priority, or protect U.S. consumers. Now we know that those “empty threats,” all that pandering to a xenophobic base, was actually a straightforward plan for how Trump would deflate the economic expansion he inherited. For one thing, we should take more seriously Trump’s threats to withdraw from the World Trade Organization, rather than seeing them as an outlier.
Every now and then, there are noises from Capitol Hill hinting that Congressional Republicans might stand up for free trade, on behalf of American investors, corporations, voters and consumers. But no. The Hill majority continues to acquiesce.
He really is willing to sacrifice the American economy. Take the rest of his threats seriously as well.
- How Low Can Trump Go? (AlterNet) The answer is, we haven’t reached bottom yet, and we have the reason: Trump’s base is with him all the way. Look at what he’s done over a period of two years without losing a single percentage point of support.
EU
- Steve Bannon to set up ‘The Movement’ foundation to boost far-right across Europe (Independent) Donald Trump’s former adviser Steve Bannon is setting up a foundation to boost the spread of far-right political groups across Europe. The strategist hopes the non-profit organisation called “The Movement” will rival the liberal Open Society Foundation set up by billionaire George Soros in 1984. Mr Bannon told the Daily Beast website:
“Soros is brilliant. He’s evil, but he’s brilliant.”
UK
- Street attacks on Muslims rocket in UK as perpetrators ’emboldened’ by terror attacks and political rhetoric, report finds (Independent) Islamophobic street attacks are on the rise in the UK as perpetrators feel “emboldened” by terror attacks and political discourse, a report has found. Tell Mama, which measures anti-Muslim incidents in Britain, recorded a 30% rise in street incidents and a 16% rise in 2017, taking the number of verified reports to a record of 1,201.
The group warned of a “marked shift” towards more serious offline incidents like physical attacks, vandalism and abuse, as hatred continues to spread on social media.
Iran
- Rouhani warns Trump conflict with Iran would be ‘mother of all wars’ (Independent) See also articles nder U.S. Iran’s president has issued a stark warning to Donald Trump, telling him that if the US was to engage in military conflict it would be the “mother of all wars“. Speaking to Iranian diplomats on Sunday, Mr Rouhani said:
“America should know that peace with Iran is the mother of all peace, and war with Iran is the mother of all wars.”
Russia
- Key public opinion findings on Trump, Putin and the countries they lead (Pre Research Center) Most Americans (68%) express an unfavorable opinion of Putin, but Russians have a relatively positive view of Trump. Globally, there is low confidence in Putin and Trump on international affairs. America’s edge over Russia in terms of global popularity has shrunk.
- Who the Hell Is Bill Browder – And Why Does Putin Want to Get His Paws on Him So Badly? (AlterNet) Behind last week’s Helsinki headlines lies a fascinating mystery with deep roots and many unanswered questions. The only American specifically named by Putin was William F. Browder, a 54-year-old investor and financier, originally from Chicago, who reportedly made hundreds of millions of dollars in the Wild West marketplace of post-Soviet Russia. Below are some excerpts from this article. (This is probably the longest group of excerpts ever posted in an Early Bird aor What We Reas Today, but they merely scratch the surface of this article.)
Several major publications supplied obligatory “Who is this guy?” articles almost immediately, and Browder himself wrote a piece for Time magazine, offering his own highly truncated version of his history with Putin. None of it was untrue, exactly, but for my money those accounts largely served to obscure the deeper historical currents that flow beneath this implausible tale. Neither man is likely to mention that they were once close allies; Browder was described as among Putin’s “most vocal cheerleaders” in a 2006 Economist article (which has become remarkably difficult to find). Furthermore, Browder becomes slightly more difficult to cast as an American hero once you notice that he renounced his U.S. citizenship 20 years ago, for reasons he has never adequately explained.
Bill Browder’s grandfather, Earl Browder, was perhaps the most famous American Communist during the decades before World War II. An all-American boy from a farm family in Kansas, Earl Browder became a socialist as a teenager, spent several years in the Soviet Union after the Russian Revolution and was leader of the Communist Party USA for 15 years, even running for president as the party’s nominee in 1936 and 1940. He was also almost certainly a Soviet spy and recruiter, meaning that he worked for the same organization that would educate and employ the young Vladimir Putin some years later.
Bill Browder went to Moscow in 1996, 75 years or so after his grandfather met his Russian Jewish grandmother there at the apex of post-revolutionary fervor. The younger Browder — indeed, he was only 32 at the time — had a $25 million stake largely supplied by the New York banker Edmond Safra, which he multiplied many times over, building enormous wealth for himself and his investors. At first, he did so with the apparent friendship or at least toleration of Vladimir Putin, who during that same period was rising rapidly from regional obscurity to unquestioned domination of the entire country.
There are almost too many reasons for Putin and Browder to hate each other’s guts: They have been embroiled in a bitter public feud ever since Hermitage Capital Management, Browder’s investment firm, became the target of systematic Russian government harassment beginning around 2005. Browder himself was abruptly barred from entering Russia, forcing him to move to London full-time. His employees and associates in Moscow were subjected to a series of violent assaults and quasi-legal police raids. One of them was a lawyer and accountant named Sergei Magnitsky, who died in prison in November 2009. He had been arrested after investigating an alleged tax-fraud scheme in which corrupt Russian officials siphoned off $230 million from either Hermitage or the Russian state or both.
Japan
- Japanese yen stands tall on policy stimulus unwind bets (Reuters) The Japanese yen rallied to near two-week highs against the euro on Monday following reports the central bank was debating moves to scale back its massive monetary stimulus.
- BOJ Policy ‘Tweak’ (Twitter) The 10-year bond in Japan “jumps” to 0.09% yield. That is a 200% incrase, a jump of 6 basis points.
China
- China says threats, intimidation on trade will never work (Reuters) Threats and intimidation on trade will never work on China, its foreign ministry said on Monday, after U.S. President Donald Trump said he was ready to impose tariffs on all $500 billion of imported goods from the country.
- China probes stainless steel imports from Indonesia, EU, Japan and Korea (Reuters) China on Monday launched an anti-dumping probe into stainless steel imports worth $1.3 billion, including from a privately owned Chinese mill with operations offshore, after complaints that a flood of product has damaged the local industry.
Mexico
- Mexican leftist appeals to ‘anti-establishment’ Trump, seeks NAFTA deal (Reuters) Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador sent U.S. President Donald Trump a letter urging a swift end to NAFTA negotiations and suggesting the leaders could work well together due to their shared anti-establishment style, Mexican officials said on Sunday.
Canada
- At least 2 dead, including gunman, in a shooting in Toronto (Business Insider) Toronto is grappling with a sharp rise in gun violence this year. Deaths from gun violence in the city jumped 53% to 26 so far in 2018 from the same period last year, Reuters reported, citing police data released last week showing the number of shootings rising 13%. Toronto deployed about 200 police officers from July 20 in response to the recent spate in shootings, which city officials have blamed on gang violence.
- A woman and a gunman died in a shooting in Toronto’s Greektown neighborhood Sunday evening. At least 14 others were shot, police said.
- Their conditions were not immediately known.
- The suspected shooter is dead, according to police.