Written by Econintersect
Early Bird Headlines 16 July 2017
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, 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
- Globally, More Name U.S. Than China as World’s Leading Economic Power (Pew Research Center) But Canada, Australia, and most of Europe name China.
U.S.
- Trump Voting Panel Asks for Public Comment and Gets an Earful (Bloomberg) Trump’s voting commission appears to have become a magnet for vitriol against the president and Nice Chairman Kobach personally. The panel released 112 pages of emails it’s received late Thursday. The writers are angry, funny, profane and in almost all cases adamantly opposed to the commission, Kobach and the president himself.
- Trump re-election campaign doubles spending on legal fees (The Hill) President Trump’s re-election campaign has more than doubled its legal spending over the last several months as the Russia investigations ramp up, according to new FEC filings.
Trump 2020 campaign committees have spent nearly $700,000 on legal fees between the beginning of April and the end of June, according to the FEC reports.
The spending is more than twice as much as they spent in the first three months of the year.
- Trump Takes Travel Ban Dispute to U.S. Supreme Court Again (Bloomberg) President Donald Trump’s administration took the dispute over his temporary travel ban to the Supreme Court again, asking the justices to let the government bar entry into the U.S. by people with grandparents and cousins in the country.
The administration filed papers late Friday asking the court to clarify a June 26 decision that said the government had to admit at least some close relatives, including spouses and parents-in-law. A federal trial judge in Hawaii this week said the government couldn’t exclude several other types of family members either, and the administration is seeking to free itself from that ruling.
- Trump’s war on the State Department (The Hill) President Trump is seeking to radically remodel the State Department in an unprecedented way, according to former officials from administrations of both political parties. The administration’s efforts, which include a proposed budget cut of nearly 30%, a hiring freeze and a potential reshuffling of offices within the State Department, have left scores of positions unfilled, demoralizing the staff that remain. According to Stewart Patrick, who served on the policy planning staff at the State Department in the George W. Bush administration:
“My suspicion is that within the White House, particularly amongst the nationalist faction … that this seems to actually be a concerted effort to diminish the role of the State Department in U.S. foreign policy and hamper its abilities to pursue policies that would be considered overly globalist. They also don’t see much use, frankly, in diplomacy.”
- McCain recovers from medical procedure in Arizona (The Hill) Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) underwent a procedure to remove a blood clot from his eye on Friday, according to statements from his office and the Mayo Clinic Hospital in Phoenix. See also McConnell Delays Health Debate as McCain Recovers From Surgery (Bloomberg).
- Optimism in Financial Markets Fails to Show in Real Economy (The Wall Street Journal) Surging optimism in financial markets hasn’t translated into a big pickup in economic growth.
- Dollar Bears’ Case Grows Stronger as Wagers on Fed Hikes Fade (Bloomberg) The dollar’s deepening slide is making a winner of hedge funds and other speculators who are the most bearish in four years. The greenback sank to a 10-month low Friday, rounding out its worst week since May, as weaker-than-forecast economic data raised doubts about the prospect of additional Federal Reserve tightening this year. Analysts at banks including Mizuho and Wells Fargo say the dollar’s got further to fall as Thursday’s European Central Bank meeting approaches.
France
- Trump may reverse decision on climate accord, France’s Macron says: JDD (Reuters) French President Emmanuel Macron said he was hopeful that U.S. President Donald Trump would reverse his decision to pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord, according to weekly newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche (JDD) on Sunday. Macron told the paper, referring to meetings the two leaders had this week in Paris:
“(Trump) told me that he would try to find a solution in the coming months.”
Iran
- Iran blames Trump for instability, rejects ‘rogue’ label (Reuters) Iran on Saturday blamed what it called Donald Trump’s “arbitrary and conflicting policies” for global security threats, rejecting the U.S. president’s description of Tehran as a rogue state. Tensions between Iran and the United States have heightened since the election of Trump, who has often singled out Tehran as a key backer of militant groups.
China
- Americans’ Views of China Improve as Economic Concerns Ease (Pew Research Center) For the first time in 5 years as many Americans have a favorable view of China as an unfavorable one.
Brazil
- Temer Signs Law That Could See Millions of Acres Lost in the Amazon (Common Dreams) MP 759 changes a key land program to make acquisition better for wealthy land thieves and worse for peasant families – a huge threat to the Amazon rainforest, say experts. The new law which is likely to embolden land thieves, when combined with the huge enforcement cuts, could lead Brazil into a period of lawlessness and unrest believes Deborah Duprat, Prosecutor for Citizen Rights in the Office of the Attorney General (PFDC).
