Written by Econintersect
Early Bird Headlines 11 April 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
- Asia trades mixed after global markets rally on Xi comments (CNBC) Asian stocks traded mixed on Wednesday after global markets advanced overnight as recent trade fears waned. The dollar index was steady at 89.602. U.S. West Texas Intermediate shed 0.24% to trade at $65.35 per barrel and Brent crude futures were off by 0.39% at $70.76. Spot gold was on track for a fourth straight session of gains, up 0.2% at $1,341.26 an ounce as of 0114 GMT.
- “That system of rules and shared responsibility is now in danger of being torn apart,” Lagarde said, referring to the multilateral trade order she said helped bring millions out of poverty.
- “This would be an inexcusable, collective policy failure.”
- The U.S. and China have announced hundreds of billions of dollars worth of trade tariffs on each other’s key exports, a tit-for-tat standoff that experts say will only cripple growth and harm jobs.
U.S.
- Trump at crisis point on Mueller (The Hill) President Trump’s showdown with Robert Mueller headed toward a crisis point on Tuesday, with the White House saying Trump has legal authority to fire the special counsel. Republicans unnerved by the president’s anger in public and private sought to talk him down, fearing a “Saturday night massacre”-style series of firings harking back to the Nixon era was growing more likely. GOP lawmakers fear presidential firings of Mueller, Attorney General Jeff Sessions or Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein would cause chaos in Washington and dim Republican hopes of holding their congressional majorities. See several other articles below and also Trump mulling firing Rosenstein: report.
- White House: Trump believes he has power to fire Mueller (The Hill) President Trump believes he has the power to fire Robert Mueller as special counsel leading the Russia probe, the White House said Tuesday.
- April Ryan to Sarah Sanders: Has Trump ‘thought about stepping down?’ (The Hill) Sanders shot back in answer to a question from April Ryan, a White House correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks and a CNN contributor, before calling on another reporter:
“No, and I think that’s an absolutely ridiculous question.”
- Dershowitz: Targeting Trump’s lawyer should worry us all (Alan Dershowitz, The Hill) A famous criminal defense lawyer is disturbed by the seizure of files and records o the president’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, by the Department of Justice. See aalso next article. In the course of his Op Ed Dershowitz describes some of the limits of lawyer-client privilege:
There are, of course, exceptions to the lawyer-client privilege. First, the lawyer must be acting as a lawyer, not as a friend or business associate. But the scope of a lawyer’s work is quite broad, encompassing much more than merely giving legal advice. It includes settling cases by making payments to potential litigants. Second, the lawyer must be engaged in lawful activities on behalf of the clients. Illegal or fraudulent activities are not covered by the privilege. Nor are communications with third persons, such as the lawyer for the other side, though such communications may be covered by the much weaker “settlement privilege.”
- Conway’s husband responds to Trump with link to US attorney rules showing he’s wrong (The Hill) The husband of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway responded to President Trump on Twitter after Trump tweeted that “attorney – client privilege is dead” following a raid on the offices of his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen.
George Conway retweeted the message Tuesday morning from the president and included a link to the Justice Department’s website explaining why Cohen’s offices were not protected from a Monday no-knock FBI raid by attorney – client privilege.
- Police report sheds light on fatal crash involving immigrant couple and ICE (Los Angeles Times) Delano police say immigration agents gave statements that conflicted with surveillance footage in the wake of a crash in which two immigrants in the country illegally died while fleeing.
The death of Santos Hilario Garcia and Marcelina Garcia Profecto sparked protests in the Central Valley community. The couple, who had six children, were not the intended targets for arrest, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
EU
- Fox offices in London raided by European Commission investigators (CNBC) European Commission investigators raided Twenty-First Century Fox‘s London office on Tuesday, The Daily Telegraph reported. Sources at the location told the newspaper that authorities were trying to be discreet and had been told to keep details of their mission confidential. The Telegraph reported that investigators will be on site through Wednesday and maybe Thursday. The raid comes amid Fox‘s drawn out takeover of Sky, which has fallen under intense scrutiny by regulators at the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority.
UK
- British Business Wants to Keep EU Rules After Brexit (Bloomberg) British businesses overwhelmingly want to stick to European rules after Brexit, according to the most detailed sector-by-sector analysis of what companies need the U.K. to fight for in negotiations.
The Confederation of British Industry, which compiled the data, argues that the opportunities presented by breaking free from European Union regulations are vastly outweighed by the cost of losing access to Europe’s single market.
Syria
- Now Mattis Admits There Was No Evidence Assad Used Poison Gas On His People (Newsweek) For longer article see US has no evidence of Syrian use of sarin gas, Mattis says (Associated Press). Hat tip to Roger Erickson. In February Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said that the U.S. has no evidence to confirm reports from aid groups and others that the Syrian government has used the deadly chemical sarin on its citizens. From Newsweek:
Mattis offered no temporal qualifications, which means that both the 2017 event in Khan Sheikhoun and the 2013 tragedy in Ghouta are unsolved cases in the eyes of the Defense Department and Defense Intelligence Agency.
Mattis went on to acknowledge that “aid groups and others” had provided evidence and reports but stopped short of naming President Assad as the culprit.
- What the Syrian War is Really About (Twitter)
Russia
- Deripaska Goes From Famous Russian Billionaire to Global Outcast in Just Three Days (Bloomberg) On Friday, the U.S. aimed its toughest sanctions at Oleg Deripaska’s metals empire, banning Americans from dealing with companies including United Co. Rusal. As the drastic nature of Washington’s move became clear on Monday, the biggest aluminum producer outside China lost half its value in one day.
- Capital in Russia (Thomas Piketty) An excerpt:
… the characteristic of Putin’s Russia is an unbounded drift into kleptocracy. Between 1993 and 2018, Russia had massive trade surpluses: approximately 10% of GDP per annum on average for 25 years, or a total in the rage of 250% of GDP (two and a half years of national production). In principle that should have enabled the accumulation of the equivalent in financial reserves. This is almost the size of the sovereign public fund accumulated by Norway under the watchful gaze of the voters. The official Russian reserves are ten times lower – barely 25% of GDP.
China
- Xi vs Trump: Who has the better hand in potential trade war? (Associated Press) The brewing China-U.S. trade conflict features two leaders who’ve expressed friendship but are equally determined to pursue their nation’s interests and their own political agendas. But while President Donald Trump faces continuing churn in his administration and a tough challenge in midterm congressional elections, China’s Xi Jinping leads an outwardly stable authoritarian regime. Xi recently succeeded in pushing through a constitutional reform allowing him to rule for as long as he wishes while facing no serious electoral challenge. See also The U.S. vs. China: A Trade War (II)?.
- Chinese investment in the United States dropped 36% last year (CNN) Chinese investment in the United States plummeted in 2017. And that was before a trade fight erupted between the two countries. For years, Chinese entities have pumped a significant amount of money into the US, deepening ties between the world’s two largest economies.
But such investment fell from $46.5 billion in 2016 to $29.7 billion in 2017, according to a report released Tuesday by the Rhodium Group and the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. That’s a drop of more than one third, though 2017 was still the second highest year on record.
