U.S. consumer prices increased by the most in 14 months in March, but the underlying inflation trend remained benign amid slowing domestic and global economic growth.

The mixed report from the Labor Department on Wednesday was broadly supportive of the Federal Reserve’s decision last month to suspended its three-year campaign to raise interest rates.

The U.S. central bank dropped projections for any rate hikes this year after lifting borrowing costs four times in 2018.

Minutes of the Fed’s March 19-20 meeting, published on Wednesday, showed most policymakers viewed price pressures as “muted,” but expected inflation to rise to or near the central bank’s 2 percent target. The Fed’s preferred inflation measure, the personal consumption expenditures price index excluding food and energy is currently at 1.8 percent.

“For the most part, inflation remains tame,” said Joel Naroff, chief economist at Naroff Economic Advisors in Holland, Pennsylvania. “The Fed effectively went on vacation and is likely to stay there for quite a few more months.”

The Labor Department said its Consumer Price Index rose 0.4 percent, boosted by increases in the costs of food, gasoline and rents. That was the biggest advance since January 2018 and followed a 0.2 percent gain in February.

In the 12 months through March, the CPI increased 1.9 percent. The CPI gained 1.5 percent in February, which was the smallest rise since September 2016. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the CPI climbing 0.3 percent in March and accelerating 1.8 percent year-on-year.

Stripping out the volatile food and energy components, the CPI nudged up 0.1 percent, matching February’s gain. The so-called core CPI was held down by a 1.9 percent plunge in apparel prices, the largest drop since January 1949.

The government last month introduced a new method and data to calculate apparel prices. Apparel prices, which had increased for two straight months, trimmed the core CPI by 0.07 percentage point in March. Many economists expected a reversal in April.

“The new price collection methodology for apparel incorporates corporate data from one unidentified department store to complement prior survey-based collection,” said Kathy

Bostjancic, head of U.S. Macro Investor Services at Oxford Economics in New York. “The new methodology appears more likely to show large monthly declines due to the lifecycle of apparel.”

Low inflation expectations

In the 12 months through March, the core CPI increased 2.0 percent, the smallest advance since February 2018. The core CPI rose 2.1 percent year-on-year in February.

The dollar was trading slightly lower against a basket of currencies, while U.S. Treasury prices rose. Stocks on Wall Street were mostly higher.

Inflation has remained muted, with wage growth increasing moderately despite tightening labor market conditions. Minutes of the March policy meeting showed some Fed officials believed the benign price pressures could be the result of low inflation expectations and also an indication the labor market was likely not as tight as implied by measures of resource utilization.

“The minutes reinforce our view that rates are on hold for the foreseeable future, though this could shift if the economy and or inflation surprise to the up or down sides,” said Sal Guatieri, a senior economist at BMO Capital Markets in Toronto.

A 3.5 percent jump in energy prices in March accounted for about 60 percent of the increase in the CPI last month. Gasoline prices surged 6.5 percent, the biggest gain since September 2017, after rising 1.5 percent in February.

Food prices gained 0.3 percent after accelerating 0.4 percent in February.

Food consumed at home increased 0.4 percent. Consumers also paid more for rent. Owners’ equivalent rent of primary residence, which is what a homeowner would pay to rent or receive from renting a home, increased 0.3 percent in March after a similar gain in February.

Healthcare costs rebounded 0.3 percent after slipping 0.2 percent in February. There were increases in the costs of prescription medication and hospital services.

The cost of new vehicles rebounded 0.4 percent after declining 0.2 percent in February. But there were decreases in the prices of used motor vehicles and trucks, airline fares and motor vehicle insurance.
…

Mexico’s foreign minister on Wednesday criticized hold-ups in the flow of goods and people at the U.S-Mexico border, and said he planned to discuss the matter with U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials later in the day.

After days of traffic delays at sections of the border that have alarmed businesses, Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said the disruptions were raising costs for supply chains in both countries.

“Slowing down the flow of people and goods at the northern border is a very bad idea,” Ebrard said in a post on Twitter, using unusually frank language on an issue that has caused constant friction between Mexico and the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.

Ebrard said his ministry would get in contact on Wednesday with the new leaders of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The department’s former secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who had overseen Trump’s bitterly contested immigration policies during her tenure, stepped down at the weekend.

The border slowdowns have occurred after Trump late last month threatened to close the frontier if Mexico did not halt a surge in undocumented migrants reaching the United States.

On Monday, a judge in San Francisco said the Trump administration’s policy of sending some asylum seekers to Mexico while their claims worked through a backlogged immigration court system was not authorized by U.S. law.

The White House said on Tuesday it would appeal the ruling and that its policy was part of a “cooperative program extensively negotiated with the government of Mexico.”

However, in a sign of ongoing tensions over the issue, Mexico’s foreign ministry noted afterwards that the return of the migrants was a “unilateral” measure with which it did not agree but was allowing on a “temporary” basis.

On Wednesday morning, only one of six lanes for commercial vehicles was open at the Bridge of the Americas border crossing between Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, according to online data from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

 
…

Cloaked in black and carrying white buckets filled with artificial blood, the group filed in silence to the entrance of London’s Downing Street, behind a troupe of child and teen activists.

Ringing a bell as they walked, the 45 adults — all participants in Extinction Rebellion, a protest movement seeking rapid action to curb global warming — formed an arc facing the British prime minister’s residence and poured out their buckets, turning the surrounding road into a sea of red.

The liquid, they said, symbolized “the blood of our children,” on the hands of politicians who have failed to act on climate change and stem its impacts, from worsening floods and droughts to growing poverty and water and food shortages.

Among those at the protest in March were three members of Christian Climate Action, a small group of retirees and students who say their religious faith is compelling them to take an increasingly active role in trying to stop climate change.

Climate change “is leading to a social collapse. We need to respond in more caring and collective ways,” said Phil Kingston, 83, a Catholic church member from Bristol who took a train to London to participate in the Downing Street demonstration.

As climate change protests pick up in London and around the world, they are drawing an increasingly broad range of protesters, from students following in the footsteps of 16-year-old Swedish “school strike” leader Greta Thunberg to grandparents concerned about the growing risks their grandchildren face.

Religious groups — from Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim and other faiths — are among those joining the protests, out of concern, in some cases, about the moral and spiritual implications of human-driven climate change.

Christian Climate Action took shape about six years ago, initially with just a handful of active members from a range of Christian denominations, said Ruth Jarman, 55, one of the group’s original members.

But as it has become involved with Extinction Rebellion — an emerging movement that uses nonviolent protest to demand action on climate change — interest in the Christian action group is growing, especially among younger generations, members say.

“Finding Extinction Rebellion really fitted in with our values so well. It’s very clear on using nonviolence, being motivated by values of love and care rather than anger,” said Jarman, who lives in Hartley Wintney in Hampshire.

Since November, Christian Climate Action activists have disrupted traffic, spray-painted government buildings with political messages and the Extinction Rebellion hourglass symbol, blockaded entrances — and prayed for action, Jarman said.

An Anglican parishioner, she has been arrested five times for those protests — a risk not all Christians are willing to take, she admitted.

But “for me, it’s the first verse of the Bible that hits home: If God created all that is, what does it mean for us to be destroying it?” she asked. “For us to be participating in its destruction is sacrilegious — not something believing Christians should be doing.”

Faith in action

Faith groups, in Britain and around the world, have taken a growing role in pushing action on climate change, with some churches, mosques and temples pulling their investments out of fossil fuels, championing efforts to cut food waste and raising awareness about climate risks.

Last July, the Church of England’s governing body, the General Synod, voted to disinvest by 2023 from fossil fuel companies that fail to meet the aims of the Paris climate agreement.

Under that 2015 deal, world governments agreed to hold global average temperature hikes to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius.

Because faith groups around the world control trillions of dollars in assets, such pledges can help drive action in companies that fear losing investment, or push much-needed cash to greener investments.

Experts say religions, which connect with people’s emotions and personal lives, could help mobilize them in the fight against climate change where facts and politics have failed.

Kingston, of Christian Climate Action, points to Laudato Si – Pope Francis’ 2015 papal encyclical that called on the world to unite against climate change impacts, particularly on the poor and powerless – as one of his motivations for taking action.

Most members of Christian Climate Action have a history of campaigning against climate change by writing letters to politicians, doing charity work or walking in marches, Jarman said.

But over time, they saw their efforts produce little action — one reason the group has stepped up its tactics, she said.

“As Christians, we should be prepared to make any sacrifice necessary to serve and protect God’s creation,” Jarman said.

Father Martin Newell, 51, a Catholic priest who works with the Congregation of the Passion, a religious order devoted to serving vulnerable communities, has been committed to activist causes for decades, having previously advocated against nuclear arms and weapons trading.

These days, however, Newell — who lives at Birmingham’s Austin Smith House, a shelter for refugees and asylum seekers — is also working with the Christian Climate Action.

“I realized when someone asked what keeps me up at night [that] I was having nightmares about climate change,” he said.

When the group asked Newell, who has been arrested many times as part of protests, how to get started taking a more active role in climate campaigning, “I thought this is maybe an answer to my prayer,” he said.

The priest has since educated members of the group on how to effectively use civil disobedience tactics and has become an active member of the group.

In late February, Christian Climate Action held a training session in London that featured everything from prayer and discussions about what the Bible says about non-violent action to practice with protest tactics, according to a flier for the event.

At such events, 83-year-old Kingston said he has “gained much clarity about the nuances of non-violent direct action,” including how to best interact with the police and other authorities.

“Being respectful in word and deed to all persons is the essential component,” he said.

Disapproval

Not all of the Christian Climate Action protesters have had the support of their churches, and some say they have faced strong disapproval.

Kingston’s priest, for instance, was “rather horrified” when the parishioner was sent to court in 2016 for criminal damage, stemming from a protest during which Jarman and Newell were also arrested and fined, Kingston said.

The activists had targeted the Department of Energy and Climate Change building in London, to point out that the U.K. government’s action at home on climate change didn’t match its rhetoric at talks leading up to the 2015 Paris Agreement.

“We painted whitewash — it’s from the Bible, it comes from Jesus talking about hypocrisy — on the building, and we painted in black paint, ‘Department for Extreme Climate Change,'” Jarman said.

“Then we kneeled down on the pavement and prayed, and got arrested.”

Kingston subsequently was banned him “from any kind of public face with the parish” by his priest at the time, the activist said.

But he has pushed ahead, contacting other parishioners through his private email and becoming increasingly public with his views.

“I don’t care — the stakes are too high. The church should be much more upfront and brave,” he said.

The protester said he began seeing climate change as a serious threat when his first grandchild was born nearly two decades ago.

He realized that “my grandchildren and all their generations in front of them … are voiceless” despite being likely to face climate change’s worst impacts, he said.

“It’s a justice issue. The upcoming generations need life, and we are creating tremendous suffering” by destabilizing the planet’s climate, he said.

He said having older protesters working alongside young activists in the Extinction Rebellion protests has its particular benefits.

“What we’ve realised is neither the corporations nor the government want to arrest us,” he said. “We are a liability in terms of health.”

The activists say their protests aim to achieve a few things in particular: big cuts in Britain’s climate-changing emissions, more honesty from politicians about climate threats, and the creation of a formal parliamentary “Citizen’s Assembly” to discuss needed changes to climate policy and advise the government.

The assembly is crucial in order to “do what is right rather than what is politically acceptable,” Jarman said.

But the protest movement is having a secondary effect as well, Jarman said, in bringing together people who might not otherwise have met and joined forces.

Mothiur Rahman, a legal strategist who works with Extinction Rebellion, for instance, said protesters who are members of faith groups have asked their churches to house out-of-town participants arriving to take part in a new round of protests set to begin April 15.

“One church has given their support and will have their doors open for us to sleep over in, and I am speaking to a mosque as well,” Rahman added.

Newell said he thinks faith-based protesters have found a solid welcome among more traditional environmental activists, and have a role to play as climate protests grow.

“The people who started Extinction Rebellion, and environmentalists, tend to be more secular. But they understand faith and trusting God and are open to people joining them,” the priest said.

“We appreciate them and they appreciate us,” he said.

 
…

After generations of trawling the same waters, the fishermen on the coast of Tamil Nadu in southeastern India know where to cast a net or park a boat without resorting to signs or GPS maps.

But their customary rights over this common space – a right won by families who have fished it for centuries – are under threat as the demands of modern life threaten age-old livelihoods and their once fertile habitat.

First, families’ land and precious sea access was usurped by factories and ports. Now, their rights are under fresh attack by a newly amended Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) law.

“Governments have treated the coastline as an empty space that economic actors can take over, forgetting that it is common property of coastal villages, towns and cities,” said Kanchi Kohli, a researcher at think tank Center for Policy Research.

“The changes to the law negate the socio-ecological uniqueness of this space and opens it up to mindless real estate development, mass-scale tourism and industry,” she said.

R.L. Srinivasan, who lives in Kaatukuppam – one of half a dozen villages by Ennore Creek near the city of Chennai – is typical of the fishermen under threat.

The Ennore Creek is drained by two seasonal rivers that empty into the Bay of Bengal through a network of canals, wetlands, salt marshes and mangroves, where villagers once harvested salt, caught crabs and filled their nets with fish.

Home to about 300,000 people, the area was protected by state and federal coastal zone laws, which banned construction, reclamation or alteration of the course of the water bodies.

But as Chennai expanded and industries fled the city, the state greenlighted ports, coal-powered thermal plants, and petroleum and chemicals factories, which destroyed the salt pans, polluted the water and killed the fish and the crabs.

“The Creek has been our life, our livelihood for generations,” said Srinivasan.

“Yet for the government, it is just land that can be used as an industrial zone and a dumping ground. The lives and livelihoods of the fishers do not matter,” he said.

Millions at risk

It is a scene playing out in thousands of coastal settlements dotting India’s 7,500-kilometer- (4,660 mile-) shoreline, from remote rural hamlets to bustling urban colonies.

With reduced no-development zones, and laxer rules for real estate and commercial projects, the new CRZ opens up common-use spaces such as beaches, salt marshes, and boat parking areas for tourism and industry, according to analysts.

More than 4 million people in India are estimated to make a living from fishing and related activities. They are often among the nation’s earliest inhabitants, yet have few formal rights over the land or the water on which they depend.

Amid urbanization and industrialization, India’s coasts have become dumping grounds for sewage, garbage and factory waste, even as they fight the rising threat of erosion and flooding.

The Congress party-led government sought to protect the fishing community and preserve their ecology by enacting the CRZ law in 2011.

But several states diluted it, so as to promote tourism and industry and generate jobs. In 2014, a new government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi ordered a review of the CRZ.

Despite protests from coast dwellers and environmentalists, a cut in the no-development zones was announced in January, allowing eco-tourism and waste treatment in sensitive areas.

The government says the law was amended to “conserve and protect the unique environment of coastal stretches and marine areas, besides livelihood security to the fisher communities and other local communities in coastal areas.”

But life is about to get much harder for Srinivasan and his fellow anglers, said Pooja Kumar at the advocacy Coastal Resource Center in Chennai.

“Coastal communities are hanging by a thread,” she said. “The communities have fished and lived in these areas for generations, but with no record of their common spaces, their fishing grounds, they are extremely vulnerable.”

Mapping

Their one hope may be the modern mapping methods they once shunned.

The Coastal Resource Center began mapping coastal villages in Tamil Nadu about five years ago, using handheld GPS devices to mark common spaces – including where fishermen parked their boats and dried the catch – then plotting the spots on a map.

These maps are then sent to district and state officials for their approval, so they can be integrated into official maps under the coastal zone management plan.

Kumar and her colleagues have mapped about 75 of Tamil Nadu’s 650 coastal villages so far.

Not all their maps have been integrated with official survey maps, but they have been used to resolve disputes between fishing communities, and helped stop the construction of a road that would have passed through a coastal settlement, she said.

“The mapping gives the community a sense of confidence and security. They are seen as people with rights, rather than as encroachers,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “There is an urgent need to map the coastal commons. It is the most effective tool for assertion of the community rights.”

Of some 677 ongoing Indian land conflicts documented by research organization Land Conflict Watch, nearly a third involve commons, including forests, grazing lands and coasts.

But with no legal protection for the coastal commons, mapping them and having the states recognize them will still not protect them under the new CRZ notification, said Kohli.

The Congress party, in a manifesto released ahead of a general election starting on April 11, has vowed to reverse the dilutions of the CRZ, and preserve the coasts without affecting the livelihoods of fishing communities.

That may be Kaatukuppam’s only hope, after the state in 2017 released a map that did not show most of Ennore Creek. In its place stood land earmarked for a petrochemical park.

“We have seen the crabs disappear, the fish disappear. We had never seen a river disappear,” Srinivasan said. “But it is not just us who are suffering; people should realize this sort of development hurts everyone.”
…

U.S. federal agents have smashed a worldwide medical care scheme that defrauded U.S. taxpayers of more than $1 billion.

The Justice Department said Tuesday 24 people have been charged, including doctors, telemarketers and the heads of companies that provide back, wrist and knee braces.

“This Department of Justice will not tolerate medical professionals and executives who look to line their pockets by cheating our health care programs,” U.S. Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowski said Tuesday.

The extensive and complex scheme stretched from the U.S. to call centers in the Philippines and across Latin America.

Telemarketers would phone patients offering them free medical braces. When call centers verified that the patients were covered by Medicare, they were transferred to telemedicine companies, where doctors — who never examined the patients — would prescribe the braces even if there was no medical reason to have one.

The medical equipment companies would bill the government and kickback a portion of the funds to the others in the scam.

The fraud was detected last year when a number of Medicare beneficiaries smelled what sounded like a scam and called a government hotline.

The FBI, Health and Human Services, and Internal Revenue Service investigated.

“The breadth of this nationwide conspiracy should be frightening to all who rely on some form of health care,” IRS investigations chief Don Fort said. “The conspiracy … details broad corruption, massive amounts of greed and systemic flaws in our health care system that were exploited by the defendants.”
…

China and the European Union agreed Tuesday to strengthen their trade relationship, pledging to work toward making it easier for foreign investors to get access to China, the world’s second biggest economy.

In a joint statement, the two sides said they committed to widening market access and eliminating discriminatory requirements for foreign companies and agreed that businesses should not be forced to transfer their technology — issues that foreign investors in China have long complained about.  

EU leaders Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang discussed the issues at their summit before claiming a breakthrough in their trade relationship.

“Negotiations have been difficult but ultimately fruitful,” Tusk said.” We managed to agree a joint statement which sets the direction for our partnership based on reciprocity.”

The stakes at the annual summit were high, with two-way trade between the EU and China worth around 575 billion euros ($648 billion) annually. The EU is China’s biggest trading partner, while for the EU, only the United States is bigger.

The EU and China also said they reaffirmed the “rules based multilateral trading system” with the World Trade Organization at its core and plan to intensify discussions aimed at beefing up international rules on industrial subsidies.  

China wants a bigger role in the WTO and other international organizations like the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund. But China’s ample financial support for state-owned companies has been the target of Western trade officials. EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom has in the past called out China for “unfair trade practices” including government subsidies intended to give its companies a competitive advantage.

The summit statement shows “China is willing to make some concessions and that’s important,” said Mikko Huotari, deputy director of the Mercator Institute for China Studies, a Berlin-based think tank. The promises don’t mean China will quickly transform from a state-led economy into a market driven one, but “it’s about getting back on track with regard to reform promises and ambitions that the Chinese themselves have expressed,” he said.  

The leaders discussed China’s policy of forcing foreign companies to turn over intellectual property as a condition for access to its big and growing market — an issue that Washington has also made a centerpiece of its trade dispute with Beijing.

In their closing statement, they said: “Both sides agree that there should not be forced transfer of technology.”

The EU in December stepped up a WTO legal challenge filed in 2018 against China’s forced tech transfers, calling it a major issue affecting European companies.

Li strongly denied that Beijing is behind industrial espionage, saying the government has never called on Chinese companies to infringe intellectual property rights or steal trade secrets.

The EU’s executive Commission said last month in a strategy report that China was a “systemic rival” which preserves its domestic markets for national champions while placing “onerous requirements” on EU companies doing business there.

Li said after the summit that will change.

“We will not treat EU companies, especially those registered in China, with discriminatory policy, including solely foreign-owned companies in China,” he said. “And likewise Chinese companies should not be discriminated against in their operation in the European Union.”

The summit comes two weeks after Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed during a visit to Paris to work with European leaders to seek fairer trade rules.

 
…

The first woman to head one of Bangladesh’s biggest garment associations said on Tuesday she would boost female leadership as most factory workers were women, amid scrutiny over safety.

Rubana Huq, 55, is managing director of Mohammadi Group, which owns a string of factories supplying brands like H&M and Primark in Bangladesh, the world’s second largest garment exporter, employing 4 million people.

“I believe that in an industry where more than 80 percent of the workers are women, they should be given a greater chance to voice their interests,” said Huq, the new president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association.

“Today, the workforce is largely women but people in the managerial levels are mostly men. That needs to change.”

In Bangladesh’s 4,500 factories, women have traditionally had to negotiate with male managers over pay, workplace safety and respect on the job, a fact Huq wants to change.

Her election comes at a time when Bangladesh’s Supreme Court is deciding whether to shut down a factory inspection mechanism which was set up by European fashion labels after the Rana Plaza factory collapsed in 2013, killing 1,100 people.

Huq said that manufacturers needed to strengthen their own monitoring mechanisms to help the government take over from the Bangladesh Accord – signed by about 200 major brands.

The textile magnate, who was elected unopposed, said her decision to represent manufacturers and exporters was a natural extension of her two-decade career in the industry, where she is one of a handful of senior female executives.

“As a woman there is always a hiccup and always a mindset to change,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation from Dhaka.

“But I’m here now and, being a woman, I believe my attitude towards the challenges faced by women workers will be different and more empathetic.”

Huq said she planned to educate women workers to secure their futures and step up to mid-managerial levels in factories.

“I would like to have a gender-based leadership program that ensures more women are empowered to take on these roles,” said Huq, who is also an award-winning poet and columnist.

She dismissed allegations of labor abuse in the industry as “isolated, negative practices”.

“The fact that 80 percent of our women are freely working and contributing to the economy is a much bigger narrative,” she said.

Labor rights campaigners said that while Huq had broken through the glass ceiling for women, her loyalties – as head of Mohammadi Group – were more to businesses than workers.

“Her election is good but I am not sure how much impact she will have in an organization that is still dominated by men,” said Nazma Akter, a former child worker and founder of Awaj Foundation, which campaigns for labor rights.

“I wish she would look at issues of living wages, health of workers, maternity benefits and violence in factories.”
…

The International Monetary Fund is downgrading its outlook for growth in the United States, Europe, Japan and the overall global economy and points to heightened trade tensions as a key reason.

The IMF expects the world economy to grow 3.3 percent this year, down from 3.6 percent in 2018. That would match 2016 for the weakest year since 2009. In its previous forecast in January, the IMF had predicted that international growth would reach 3.5 percent this year.

For the United States, IMF economists downgraded their growth forecast for this year to 2.3 percent from 2.9 percent in 2018.

The IMF’s “World Economic Outlook” comes on the eve of meetings in Washington this week of the fund and its sister lending organization, the World Bank.

In Europe, the IMF expects the 19 countries that use the euro currency to expand 1.3 percent collectively in 2019, weaker than last year’s 1.8 percent growth or in any year since 2013.

Japan is expected to eke out 1 percent growth this year, up from 0.8% in 2018 but slightly down from the fund’s earlier forecast.

The IMF foresees the Chinese economy growing 6.3 percent this year, down from 6.6 percent in 2018. But the fund’s latest 2019 outlook was a slight upgrade from the 6.2 percent growth it had forecast for China in January.

China’s prospects brightened, the fund said, after President Donald Trump decided to suspend a planned increase in tariffs on $200 billion worth of U.S.-bound Chinese exports.

Still, the fund is expressing worries about tensions between the world’s two biggest economies, which have traded tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of products in a fight over China’s aggressive push to supplant American technological supremacy. The prospect of Britain’s messy departure from the European Union also weighs on the global economy.

The IMF expects growth in world trade to drop to 3.4 percent this year — a sharp slowdown from the 4 percent it had expected in January and from 3.8 percent trade growth in 2018.

 
…

U.S. officials are “not satisfied yet” about all the issues standing in the way of a deal to end the U.S.-China trade war but made progress in talks with China last week, a top White House official said on Monday.

The United States and China have been embroiled in a tit-for-tat tariff battle since July 2018, roiling global financial markets and supply chains and costing both of the world’s two largest economies billions of dollars.

U.S. officials are pressing China to make changes to address longstanding concerns over industrial subsidies, technology transfer and intellectual property rights.

The two sides wrapped up the latest round of talks in Washington late last week and will be resuming discussions this week remotely.

“We’re making progress on a range of things, and there’s some stuff where we’re not satisfied yet,” Clete Willems, a top White House trade official, told Reuters on the sidelines of a U.S. Chamber of Commerce event on Monday.

He declined to get into specifics on which issues remained unsettled. Last week, President Donald Trump said a deal could be reached in about four weeks.

Willems also declined to specify a timeline for the pact, noting: “It should be a good sign for people that we’re not rushing into this we want to get it right and we need to nail down specifics.”

Willems said that the two sides were still trying to settle on how to handle existing tariffs. The United States has slapped tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Chinese goods, and the Trump administration sees those as leverage to ensure Beijing keeps any promises made in the deal. Chinese officials want the levies removed.

The United States and China have agreed on an enforcement structure that would give Washington the right to retaliate if Beijing was not honoring the terms of the agreement, Willems said.

European Union leaders did not take issues with Chinese trade policy as seriously as they should have in the past, but the United States and the EU are now “working hand in hand” at the World Trade Organization on China’s non-market economic policies, Willems said earlier in remarks at the Chamber of Commerce.

The United States and the EU want to work together on joint projects that provide market-based alternatives to state-led initiatives “that can come with strings attached,” he said.

This month China is hosting its second summit for its Belt and Road initiative, which envisions connecting China with Asia, Europe and beyond with massive infrastructure spending, but the United States will not be sending high-level officials to the event.

Washington views Beijing as a major strategic rival. The United States has said it views the initiative as a way of spreading Chinese influence overseas and saddling low-income countries with unsustainable debt using opaque projects.

Willems, who has been a key figure in negotiations with China, said last month he will be leaving the White House in the coming weeks to spend more time with his family after the birth of a new baby.
…

The U.S. securities watchdog’s request that a federal judge hold Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk in contempt over the billionaire entrepreneur’s use of Twitter was “reasonable,” said a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission official on Monday.

SEC Commissioner Robert Jackson, a Democrat, told reporters at a conference in Washington that the SEC was reasonable in suggesting greater oversight of Musk’s communications, including the threat of new fines if he backslides.

“The idea (is) that we would have future oversight to prevent future problems from recurring,” Jackson said.

The SEC had asked U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan to hold Musk in contempt over a Feb. 19 tweet in which the agency said he had improperly posted material information about Tesla’s vehicle production outlook without seeking approval from its lawyers.

In a Friday order, the judge gave both sides until April 18 to reach a resolution. If they do not, the judge said she would decide whether to hold Musk in contempt. If he is held in contempt, the judge would allow discussions on possible sanctions.

“I understand those who are skeptical and who feel that it’s innovative relief … to me it was important relief and I thought enforcement took very reasonable steps, both to the nature of the relief and our oversight of that relief,” added Jackson of the judge’s order.

The SEC, which had sued Tesla, asked the company in September to consider removing Musk. The CEO agreed to step down as Tesla’s chairman in an agreement that also required pre-approval of Musk’s written communications that could be material to the company, such as volumes of cars produced or other information likely to change the value of its securities.

In a statement by Tesla on Thursday, Musk said “the tweet in question was true, immaterial to shareholders, and in no way a violation of my agreement.”

The SEC said the first of the Feb. 19 tweets conflicted with Tesla’s Jan. 30 outlook, when it targeted annualized Model 3 production exceeding 500,000 as soon as the fourth quarter, and projected 360,000 to 400,000 vehicle deliveries this year.

At the time the SEC also said Musk had violated their agreement by sending a tweet that had not been vetted by Tesla’s lawyers and he should be held in contempt. It did not say what penalties it wanted imposed, raising the question of whether it would again seek his removal or propose less drastic measures.
…

One of the key Russian officials to foster a supply pact with OPEC, Kirill Dmitriev, signaled on Monday that Russia wanted to raise oil output when it meets with OPEC in June because of improving market conditions and falling stockpiles.

Dmitriev, head of Russian sovereign wealth fund RDIF, was the first Russian official to predict a deal with OPEC in 2016 and since then has become a key defender of the pact despite pressure from domestic oil firms to drop the agreement.

Dmitriev, an envoy for Moscow in the Middle East in general and Saudi Arabia in particular, had in recent months said it was still too early to terminate output cuts, echoing the position of OPEC’s de facto leader, Saudi Arabia.

But in an apparent change of position, Dmitriev said on Monday supply cuts may not be required after June.

“It is quite possible that given the improving market situation and falling stocks, [OPEC and its allies] could decide in June this year to abandon supply cuts and subsequently increase output,” Dmitriev told a conference in Moscow.

“This decision will not mean the end of the deal, but a confirmation that participants continue their coordinating efforts when it is important not only to cut but to increase output depending on market conditions,” he told the conference.

Speaking to reporters on Monday evening, Dmitriev added that it could be appropriate for Russia to increase output by 228,000 barrels per day, by which it had previously cut production, “and maybe even further.”

“It is possible that as part of the June [meeting] a decision may be taken, subject to market conditions at that time, that it is necessary to remove these reductions,” he said.

Dmitriev and energy minister Alexander Novak have come under increased pressure over the past year from firms such as Rosneft , whose boss Igor Sechin, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, has said Russia should abandon output cuts.

Sechin is arguing that Russia is losing market share to the United States, which is not participating in production cuts and has hence been boosting output to record levels of some 12 million barrels per day.

Russia and Saudi Arabia produce around 11 million and 10 million barrels respectively, but could raise output fairly quickly if needed.

In January, Dmitriev said Russia should not unleash an oil price war against the United States but rather stick with output cuts even at the cost of losing market share in the medium term.

Saudi Energy Khalid al-Falih has also said it was important to extend oil cuts until the end of the year.

But on Monday he said the market was moving towards balance and added that the picture would become clearer in May.

Global oil markets have tightened despite booming U.S. production after Washington imposed new sanctions on Iran and Venezuela, reducing their output and exports and effectively grabbing their market share.

OPEC and its allies had to cancel their meeting in April and will now convene on June 25-26 as officials said they needed to see first what new sanctions Washington will impose on Iran in early May.
…

American Airlines is extending by over a month its cancellations of about 90 daily flights as the troubled 737 Max plane remains grounded by regulators.

American said Sunday it is extending the cancellations through June 5 from the earlier timeframe of April 24. The airline acknowledged in a statement that the prolonged cancellations could bring disruption for some travelers.

The Boeing-made Max jets have been grounded in the U.S. and elsewhere since mid-March, following two deadly crashes in Ethiopia and Indonesia. Airlines that own them have been scrambling other planes to fill some Max flights while canceling others.

American Airlines Group Inc., the largest U.S. airline by revenue, has 24 Max jets in its fleet. The Dallas-based airline said it is awaiting information from U.S. regulators, and will contact customers affected by the cancellations with available re-bookings.

Boeing and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said last week the company needs more time to finish changes in a flight-control system suspected of playing a role in the two crashes. That means airlines could be forced to park their Max jets longer than they expected.

American said Sunday that by canceling the flights in advance, “we are able to provide better service to our customers with availability and re-booking options,” and to avoid last-minute flight disruptions.

American’s reservations staff will contact affected customers directly by email or phone, the airline said. “We know these cancellations and changes may affect some of our customers, and we are working to limit the impact to the smallest number of customers,” the statement said.

Boeing said Friday that it will cut production of the Max jet, its best-selling plane, underscoring the mounting financial risk it faces the longer the airliner remains grounded.

Starting in mid-April, Boeing said, it will cut production of the plane to 42 from 52 planes per month so it can focus on fixing the flight-control software that has been implicated in the two crashes.

Preliminary investigations into the deadly accidents in Ethiopia and Indonesia found that faulty sensor readings erroneously triggered an anti-stall system that pushed down the plane’s nose. Pilots of each plane struggled in vain to regain control over the automated system.

In all, 346 people died in the crashes. Boeing faces a growing number of lawsuits filed by families of the victims.

The announcement to cut production came after Boeing acknowledged that a second software issue has emerged that needs fixing on the Max — a discovery that explained why the aircraft maker had pushed back its ambitious schedule for getting the planes back in the air.
…

Top EU leaders meet Chinese Premier Li Keqiang this week at a summit in Brussels, but their hopes of winning solid commitments on trade look set for disappointment.

Brussels is trying to beef up its approach to the Asian giant as it shows little willingness to listen to longstanding complaints about industrial subsidies and access to its markets, and as fears grow about growing Chinese involvement in European infrastructure.

But the half-day summit on Tuesday is on course to fizzle out with little to show in terms of agreements, with European sources saying it looks highly unlikely a final joint statement will be agreed.

EU officials say China is unwilling to give binding commitments on their key demands, including the inclusion of industrial subsidies as part of World Trade Organization reform, and they are reluctant to agree the kind of anodyne declaration of good intentions pushed out after last year’s summit in Beijing.

The European Commission last month issued a 10-point plan proposing a more assertive relationship with Beijing, labelling China a “systemic rival” — a move welcomed by French President Emmanuel Macron as a belated awakening.

But while the EU’s 15 trillion euro market gives it significant economic clout, it struggles to maintain unity among its 28 members on issues of foreign policy, allowing China to pursue one-on-one deals with individual countries.

“When economic policy intersects with foreign policy and security, the EU lacks the will and capacity to act strategically,” Philippe Legrain, visiting senior fellow at the London School of Economics’ European Institute, wrote in an analysis for Project Syndicate magazine.

“Apart from France and the UK, which is leaving the EU, member governments lack a geopolitical mindset.”

This most striking recent example came last month when Italy became the first G7 nation to sign up to China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI), a massive network of transport and trade links stretching from Asia to Europe.

Concerns have been raised about the way the BRI saddles countries with Chinese debt and leaves key infrastructure nodes owned by a potential strategic rival, though Beijing insists the initiative is a “win-win” arrangement.

Former Greek finance minister and scourge of the EU, Yanis Varoufakis, said Europe only had itself to blame if Mediterranean countries turned to China.

“We created a vacuum and the Chinese are filling it. The Chinese are coming in because there is a dearth of investment in this continent… We are failing to generate investment that would give our business the opportunity to compete with them,” he said in Brussels last week.

‘The summit has already taken place’

Macron’s own China initiative last week — hosting President Xi Jinping for a summit with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker — may also have been a double-edged sword for the EU.

The meeting in Paris gave the EU — through its two most powerful members — the chance to press its concerns directly with the paramount Chinese leader.

But analysts say it also seriously undercut this week’s summit in Brussels, where Li will hold talks not with heads of government but with Juncker and EU Council President Donald Tusk.

“The China summit has already taken place. It is not Europe for China without France and Germany in the same room,” Hosuk Lee-Makiyama, director of the ECIPE Brussels think tank, told AFP.

“Xi has already spoken. Xi has already shaken hands with his counterparts so by default the summit has already taken place. In a sense, they only bring out Li for Europe or when something bad is going to happen and somebody needs to take the blame.”

At the same time, Lee-Makiyama warned, Europe risks being left playing catch-up if ongoing U.S.-China trade talks result in a deal between the world’s two biggest economies.

“China is going to probably offer us some watered down version of what they gave to the Americans, but that also means that we have to give something,” he said.

But while Tuesday’s meeting may not yield a breakthrough in the EU’s complex relationship with China, European officials insist it still has value in keeping up the pressure.

“There is broad agreement within the EU that it is important to communicate to China that we are at a point where we want to see… concrete steps forward on their willingness to work with us at the WTO,” an EU diplomat told AFP.

“What is important is that we give a signal to China that the EU is partner but also a competitor and requires Beijing to make some steps.”

 
…

in the United States rebounded in March as U.S. employers added a solid 196,000 jobs, up sharply from February’s scant gain and evidence that many businesses still want to hire despite signs that the economy is slowing.

The unemployment rate remained at 3.8 percent, near the lowest level in almost 50 years, the Labor Department reported Friday. Wage growth slowed a bit in March, with average hourly pay increasing 3.2 percent from a year earlier. That was down from February’s year-over-year gain of 3.4 percent, which was the best in a decade.

The employment figures reported Friday by the government suggest that February’s anemic job growth — revised to 33,000, from an initial 20,000 — was merely a temporary blip and that businesses are confident the economy remains on a firm footing. Even with the current expansion nearly 10 years old, the U.S. economy is demonstrating its resilience.

At the same time, the economy is facing several challenges, from cautious consumers to slower growth in business investment to a U.S.-China trade war that is contributing to a weakening global economy.

Stock futures rallied after Friday’s jobs data was released at 8:30 a.m., and bond prices rose as well, with yields slipping.

So far this year, U.S. job gains have averaged 180,000 a month, easily enough to lower the unemployment rate over time, though down from a 223,000 monthly average last year.

Last month, job growth was strongest in the service sector. Health care added 47,000 jobs, restaurants and bars 27,000 and professional and business services, which includes such high-paying fields as engineering and accounting, 37,000.

Manufacturers cut 6,000 jobs, marking their first decline in a year and a half. The weakness stemmed from a sharp drop in employment at automakers, likely reflecting layoffs by General Motors. Construction firms added 16,000.

The overall economy is sending mixed signals. Most indicators suggest slower growth this year compared with 2018. That would mean hiring might also weaken from last year’s strong pace.

Consumers have shown caution so far this year. Retail sales fell in February, and a broader measure of consumer spending slipped in January, potentially reflecting a waning effect of the Trump administration’s tax cuts. Businesses have also reined in their spending on industrial machinery and other equipment and on factories and other buildings.

And in Europe and Asia, weaker economies have reduced demand for U.S. exports. Europe is on the brink of recession, with its factories shrinking in March at the fastest pace in six years, according to a private survey.

The U.S. trade war with China has weighed on the Chinese economy, which has hurt Southeast Asian nations that ship electronic components and other goods that are assembled into consumer products in China’s factories.

Economists now forecast that the U.S. economy will expand roughly 2 percent to 2.5 percent this year, down from 2.9 percent last year.

Some positive signs for the economy have emerged in recent weeks: Sales of both new and existing homes rose in February after declining last year. More Americans are applying for mortgages now that rates have fallen.

And some of the weakness in spending earlier this year likely reflected delays in issuing tax refunds because of the government shutdown. Refunds largely caught up with their pace in previous years in March, economists at Bank of America Merrill Lynch said, suggesting that spending may as well.
…

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told visiting NATO foreign ministers Thursday that the 29 country alliance must alter its approach to developing threats, singling out Russian aggression and China’s “strategic competition.” Pompeo cautioned his NATO allies that there is a risk the U.S. will not be able to share information in the same way it could if there were not Chinese network supplier systems operating inside of their networks. VOA’s diplomatic correspondent Cindy Saine reports.
…

The U.S. president and the vice premier of China confirmed on Thursday that while significant progress has been made, there is no new trade agreement yet between the world’s two largest economies. 

“We’re certainly getting a lot closer,” Trump said sitting at his desk in the Oval Office with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He alongside him.

Announcement of a deal could come in “the next four weeks, maybe less, maybe more” and at that time, something “monumental could be announced,” he said, adding, “We are rounding the turn. We’ve made a lot of progress.” 

Liu, speaking in English, praised the direct guidance of Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, adding: “Hopefully, we’ll get a good result.”  

Trump said if a deal can be reached, then he will hold a summit with Xi.

“If we have a deal, there will be a summit,” he said. “I look forward to seeing President Xi. It’ll be here.” 

Intellectual property protection, as well as certain tariffs remain under discussion, Trump confirmed.  

“Some of the toughest things have been agreed to,” he added. 

Asked to make a comment by the president about the status of the negotiations, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer was more cautious, replying, “We’ve made a lot of headway. We’re working very hard,” but “there are still some major, major issues left.” 

Responding to questions from reporters, Trump said, “We’ve never done a deal like this with China,” predicting the agreement could be “the granddaddy of them all” and “a tremendous thing for the world.”

He also described it as potentially “epic” and “historic.” 

The two countries had originally hoped to reach an agreement by March 1, but negotiations have extended well beyond that date.

“The relationship with China is very strong, probably the strongest it’s ever been,” Trump declared. 

Liu had met Wednesday in Washington with Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

​

For months, the economic superpowers have engaged in a reciprocal tariff war, with both countries imposing levies on hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of each other’s exports, which could be eased or ended with a deal. 

Officials familiar with their negotiations say an agreement could give Beijing until 2025 to meet its commitment on U.S. commodity purchases and allow U.S. companies to wholly own businesses in China.

“Nobody thought these talks would be easy, but as they enter these final stages, we’re encouraged by the continued progress towards detailed text on both structural and enforcement issues,” said Linda Dempsey, National Association of Manufacturers vice president of International Economic Affairs, following Thursday’s Trump-Liu meeting.

“Manufacturers in the United States have long been harmed by China’s unfair trade practices. That is why we believe negotiations must result in an innovative, enforceable bilateral trade agreement that levels the playing field for manufacturers in the United States,” Dempsey added.

Trump’s meeting with Liu came just days after a Chinese woman, Yujing Zhang, was arrested trying to enter the U.S. president’s Atlantic oceanfront retreat in Florida, and detained after she entered the compound claiming she was there for what turned out to be a non-existent event.

She was charged with illegal entering and lying to U.S. agents. The U.S. Secret Service, which protects Trump and his family, said she was carrying four cellphones, a laptop computer, an external hard drive, thumb drive containing computer malware and two Chinese passports.
…

U.S. lawmakers of both parties say hurdles remain for approving a new trade pact between the United States, Canada and Mexico, rejecting President Donald Trump’s call for prompt votes on a replacement for the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA.

Last year, the administration made good on one of Trump’s main campaign promises – negotiating a replacement for NAFTA, which went into effect in 1994, with a new trade accord, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA.

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California made headlines Tuesday demanding changes to the pact to strengthen enforcement provisions and announcing the chamber will not vote on the accord until Mexico approves and implements tougher labor standards.

“No enforcement, no treaty,” Pelosi said at a Politico event, adding, “It’s a big issue, how workers are treated in Mexico.”

Senate Democrats echoed the speaker.

“There’s still work to do [on the USMCA]“ Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen told VOA. “I agree with Speaker Pelosi that Mexico needs to fully enact the labor rights reform measures. There are also a number of issues on the environmental front, and we need to make sure we have an effective enforcement mechanism.”

“We’re waiting to see whether or not the proposal will have a lot more fortified enforcement provisions, that’s my top concern,” Democratic Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania said. “That’s always been a major concern of trade agreements generally. That’s why I have always been an aggressive skeptic, and I remain so.”

Democrats are not alone in expressing reservations. Forty-six House Republicans wrote a letter to the White House opposing language in the USMCA proposed by Canada to protect the rights of LGBT sexual minorities.

“A trade agreement is no place for the adoption of social policy,” conservative Freedom Caucus members said in the letter.

Devil in the details

Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio said he, like all lawmakers, needs time to assess the USMCA’s impact on economic sectors in his state.

“Trade deals are generally difficult to get votes on because, the bigger they are, the likelier there are individual industries affected by some detail of the deal – Florida included, with our vegetable growers [who complete with Mexico],” Rubio said.

To go into effect, the USMCA would have to be approved by legislatures in the United States, Mexico and Canada. Some on Capitol Hill railed against any delay.

“It would be a killer, a big mistake” the Senate’s number two Republican, John Thune of agriculture-rich South Dakota, told VOA. “That’s a very carefully negotiated agreement we got signed, sealed and delivered. Now it’s just a function of signing off on it. And we just need to get it done.”

Thune added, “Any attempt to go back and rewrite it is a non-starter.”

Thune’s impatience matches that of the White House, which is pressing Congress to act on the USMCA as soon as next month to get the vote out of the way before the 2020 U.S. election cycle fully heats up, at which point trade votes could be even more dicey.

Administration officials have sought to reassure wavering lawmakers that their concerns can be addressed in side agreements with Canada and Mexico, rather than reopening negotiations on the pact itself.

Pelosi rejected such assurances.

“We’re saying that enforcement has to be in the treaty,” the House speaker said. “[I]f you don’t have enforcement, you ain’t got nothing.”

Enforcement is key

American business and labor groups are weighing in, as well.

“This agreement right now, for it to be voted on, would be premature,” Richard Trumka, president of America’s largest labor federation, the AFL-CIO, told Bloomberg TV. “The Mexican government has to change their [labor] laws, then they have to start effectively enforcing them, and then they have to demonstrate that they have the resources necessary to enforce those laws, because if you can’t enforce a trade agreement, it’s useless.”

The U.S. Farm Bureau, by contrast, urged swift implementation of the USMCA.

“Farmers know a good deal when we see one,” Farm Bureau president Zippy Duvall wrote in a statement. “Without USMCA, our most critical markets hang in the balance. Both Canada and Mexico have already signed another deal that does not include the United States.”

The USMCA would replace NAFTA, a pact implemented under the Clinton administration in the 1990s. NAFTA has been credited with vastly expanding trade in North America, but also blamed for accelerating the pace of manufacturing job losses in the United States.

Trump repeatedly blasted NAFTA as a disastrous trade deal for America during his successful 2016 campaign — a view Pelosi and other Democrats have echoed.

“I, myself, voted for NAFTA the first time,” the speaker said at the Politico forum. “I do think I was burned by it. I don’t think it lived up [to its promises].”

 
…

Britain’s government redoubled its efforts Thursday to win over the main opposition party in a last-gasp bid to avoid a chaotic exit from the European Union next week.

The latest round of talks came after lawmakers tried to safeguard against a doomsday ending to the 46-year partnership by fast-tracking a bill Wednesday night seeking to delay Brexit.

May is racing against the clock in a desperate search for votes that could push her ill-loved divorce deal with the other 27 EU leaders through parliament on the fourth attempt.

May’s spokesman said there would be “intensive discussions over the course of today”, noting the “urgency” of the situation.

Britain’s latest deadline is April 12 and resistance to May’s plan remains passionately strong.

But increasingly weary EU leaders — tired of Britain’s political drama and eager to focus on Europe’s own problems — want to see either a done deal or a new way forward from May before they all meet in Brussels on Wednesday.

Her European counterparts will decide whether to grant May’s request to push back Brexit until May 22 — the day before nations begin electing a new European Parliament.

One alternative is to force her to accept a much longer extension that could give Britain time to rethink Brexit and possibly reverse its decision to leave.

The other is to let Britain go without a deal on April 12 in the hope that the economic disruption is short-lived and worth the price of eliminating long-term Brexit uncertainties.

‘Sense of resignation’

May dramatically ended her courtship of her own party’s holdouts and resistant Northern Irish allies by turning to the main opposition Labour Party this week.

The premier met Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn on Wednesday for a reported 100 minutes of talks both sides described as “cordial” but inconclusive.

The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier on Thursday welcomed the cross-party effort to resolved the deadlock.

“It’s time for decisions,” he tweeted.

But May’s decision to hear out Corbyn’s demands for a closer post-Brexit alliance with the bloc that includes membership in its customs union has enraged Britain’s right-wing and seen two junior ministers resign.

One senior minister said May had no other choice.

“It’s very simple — there’s nowhere else to go,” the unnamed cabinet minister told the news website Politico.

“There’s a sense of resignation about her that ‘we get this through and I take the flak’.”

Pro-European members of May’s team also insisted that it was time to compromise on long-standing political beliefs for the benefit of safe resolution of Britain’s biggest crisis in decades.

“Both parties have to give something up,” finance minister Philip Hammond told ITV.

“There is going to be pain on both sides.”

Competing visions

May and Corbyn have competing visions of Britain’s place in Europe and neither has shown much willingness to compromise in the past.

Corbyn said late Wednesday that he did not see “as much change as I expected” from May.

The Times newspaper quoted an unnamed government source as saying that May’s office thought it more likely than not that the negotiations would fail.

May has resisted the customs union idea because it bars Britain from striking its own independent trade agreements with nations such as China and the United States.

And Corbyn is under pressure from Labour’s pro-EU wing to push for a second referendum that would pit May’s final deal against the option of staying in the bloc.

Corbyn has shied away from backing another vote due in part to his own sceptical view of Brussels.

The Labour-backing Mirror newspaper said May and Corbyn would let their teams negotiate Thursday before deciding on whether to meet again face to face Friday.

 
…

White House adviser Ivanka Trump is planning a trip to Africa to promote a global women’s initiative she’s leading.  

President Donald Trump’s daughter will visit Ethiopia and Ivory Coast over four days this month. The White House said Wednesday that her schedule includes a women’s economic empowerment summit in Ivory Coast as well as site visits and meetings with political leaders, executives and female entrepreneurs in both countries. 

Accompanying her will be Mark Green, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development. On parts of the trip, they will be joined David Bohigian, acting president of the Overseas Private Investment Corp., and Kristalina Georgieva, interim president of the World Bank Group. 

OPIC provides loans, loan guarantees and political risk insurance, funding projects that stretch across continents and industries. 

It will be Ivanka Trump’s first visit to Africa since the White House undertook the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative in February. In a statement to The Associated Press, she said she was “excited to travel to Africa” to advance the effort. 

Multi-agency effort

The initiative involves the State Department, the National Security Council and other U.S. agencies. It aims to coordinate current programs and develop new ones to assist women in job training, financial support, legal or regulatory reforms and other areas.  

Ivanka Trump says the goal is to economically empower 50 million women in developing countries by 2025.  

Money for the effort will come through USAID, which initially set up a $50 million fund using dollars already budgeted. The president’s 2020 budget proposal requests $100 million for the initiative, which will also be supported by programs across the government as well as private investment. The White House spending plan would cut overall funding for diplomacy and development.  

Ivanka Trump has made women’s economic empowerment a centerpiece of her White House portfolio. She has made a number of international trips, with a focus on these issues, including to Japan and India. Her travel to Africa follows a five-day tour that first lady Melania Trump made there last year, with a focus on child welfare.  

Like the first lady, Ivanka Trump’s efforts could be complicated by the president, who was criticized last year after his private comments about “s—hole countries” in Africa and other regions were leaked to journalists.
…

U.S. President Donald Trump met NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the White House Tuesday, where he took credit for increased burden sharing in collective defense spending. As White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara reports, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is commemorating its 70th birthday in Washington with less pomp than usual, out of concerns for further verbal attacks from an American president who has repeatedly criticized the trans-Atlantic military alliance.
…

The United States will not send high-level officials to attend China’s second Belt and Road summit in Beijing this month, a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said on Tuesday, citing concerns about financing practices for the project.

China’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, said on Saturday that almost 40 foreign leaders would take part in the summit due to be held in Beijing in late April. He rejected criticisms of the project as “prejudiced.”

The first summit for the project, which envisions rebuilding the old Silk Road to connect China with Asia, Europe and beyond with massive infrastructure spending, was held in 2017 and was attended by Matt Pottinger, the senior White House official for Asia.

There are no such plans this year.

“We will not send high-level officials from the United States,” a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said in answer to a question from Reuters.

“We will continue to raise concerns about opaque financing practices, poor governance, and disregard for internationally accepted norms and standards, which undermine many of the standards and principles that we rely upon to promote sustainable, inclusive development, and to maintain stability and a rules-based order.

“We have repeatedly called on China to address these concerns,” the official added.

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative has proven controversial in many Western capitals, particularly Washington, which views it as a means to spread Chinese influence abroad and saddle countries with unsustainable debt through non-transparent projects.

On Saturday, Yang called such criticisms “prejudiced,” saying China has never forced debt upon participants and the project was to promote joint development.

On Saturday, he did not name the 40 leaders he said would attend, but some of China’s closest allies have already confirmed they will be there, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen.

​The United States has been particularly critical of Italy’s decision to sign up to the plan this month, during a visit by Xi to Rome, the first for a G7 nation.

Washington sees China as major strategic rival and the Trump administration has engaged Beijing in a tit-for-tat tariff war. 

The world’s two biggest economies have levied tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of bilateral trade since July 2018, raising costs, disrupting supply chains and roiling global markets.

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow on Tuesday said the countries “expect to make more headway” in trade talks this week, while the top U.S. business lobbying group said differences over an enforcement mechanism and the removal of U.S. tariffs were still obstacles to a deal.
…

As movie theater owners converge on Las Vegas for their annual convention, one topic that keeps coming up is how they contend with a company that has resisted their traditional business model: Netflix.

The world’s most successful streaming service sends some movies to theaters but has insisted on making them available on Netflix at the same time, or just a few weeks later. That has upset big movie chains, which refuse to show Netflix films and want a longer “window” of time to play films exclusively.

The issue of how Netflix fits into, or threatens, the theater business dominated a press conference on Tuesday at CinemaCon, the theater industry trade show.

“All of your questions from the first 17 minutes or whatever are about Netflix,” grumbled John Fithian, president and chief executive of the National Association of Theatre Owners.

He insisted that Netflix and theaters can happily co-exist, citing data that showed the biggest consumers of streaming video visit theaters more often. He also said Netflix had helped revive interest in documentaries, which had helped draw people to theaters to see them.

Earlier, Fithian told a crowd in a Caesars Palace theater that films reached their full potential only with a “robust theatrical release.” He spoke just after “Crazy Rich Asians” director Jon M. Chu said his film would not have had as big an impact if it had debuted on a streaming service.

Some members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, the group that hands out the Oscars, have been debating whether films must play in theaters for a specific length of time to compete for the awards, which could exclude Netflix or force the company to agree to longer exclusive theatrical runs.

Department of Justice Weighs In

Hollywood publication Variety reported on Tuesday that the Department of Justice had weighed in on the issue.

Antitrust chief Makan Delrahim sent a letter to the academy warning that any changes that limited eligibility for the industry’s highest honors “may raise antitrust concerns,” according to Variety.

An academy spokesperson confirmed it had received the letter and said any rule changes would be considered at an April 23 meeting. A source close to Netflix said the company was not involved with or aware of the Justice Department’s letter.

Netflix is a member of the Motion Picture Association of America, the trade association for Walt Disney Co., AT&T’s Warner Bros. and other movie studios.

“We are all stronger advocates for creativity and the entertainment business when we are working together … all of us,” MPAA CEO Charles Rivkin said on the CinemaCon stage.

Both Rivkin and Fithian noted that box office receipts hit a record $11.9 billion in the United States and Canada in 2018 even as Netflix released dozens of original movies.

Mitch Neuhauser, managing director of CinemaCon, also was asked to address the issue when he wandered into a work room for reporters.

“Streaming is not a problem!” he exclaimed, noting that there are limits to how much people can stand to stay at home with all of the modern conveniences including grocery delivery. “We’ve got to get out of the house. We are talking about becoming a society of hermits!”
…

Three of the eight countries to which Washington granted waivers to import Iranian oil have now cut their shipments from Iran to zero, a U.S. special representative said on Tuesday.

While the United States has set a target of driving Iranian oil exports to zero, it granted temporary import waivers to China, India, Greece, Italy, Taiwan, Japan, Turkey and South Korea.

“In November, we granted eight oil waivers to avoid a spike in the price of oil. I can confirm today three of those importers are now at zero,” Brian Hook, the envoy on Iran, told reporters.

Hook did not identify the three countries.

“There are better market conditions for us to accelerate our path to zero. We are not looking to grant any waivers or exceptions to our sanctions regime,” Hook said.

A senior Trump administration official told reporters on Monday that the U.S. government was considering additional sanctions against Iran that would target areas of its economy that have not been hit before.

The administration aimed to follow through with new sanctions around the anniversary of U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement last May withdrawing the United States from a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and several world powers, the official said.

The accord sought to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb in return for the removal of sanctions that had crippled its economy. Trump ordered U.S. sanctions to be reimposed on Iran.
…

Vice President Mike Pence said on Tuesday the United States would continue to pressure Venezuela’s oil industry and those who support it with economic sanctions, citing world oil prices as low enough to allow for the measures.

Oil prices hit their highest point since November on Tuesday, with Brent crude approaching $70 a barrel, based in part on fears that U.S. sanctions against OPEC members Iran and Venezuela would result in a cut to global supplies.

“We recognize the importance of energy to the United States,” Pence told reporters. “But the price of oil around the world has been quite low for some time, quite competitive for some time, and we’re just going to continue to stand firm and bring even more pressure on this regime,” he said.

A White House official said while oil prices have crept up from historic lows recently, prices are still under last year’s highs.

Pence’s comments stood in contrast to concerns that President Donald Trump has voiced about oil prices. As recently as last week, Trump called for the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to boost production, saying on Twitter that the price of oil was “getting too high.”

Pence, who is helping lead the White House campaign to dislodge Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from power, made his remarks in a meeting with family members of six executives jailed in Venezuela since 2017. The executives worked for Citgo Petroleum, the U.S. refinery division of Venezuelan state oil firm PDVSA.

The United States and most other Western countries have backed Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, who declared himself interim president in January, arguing that Maduro’s 2018 reelection was illegitimate. Maduro has called Guaido a puppet of the United States.

The United States slapped stiff sanctions on PDVSA in January, aimed at cutting Maduro’s government off from oil revenues.

Trump is considering expanding the measures with sanctions on foreign companies that do business with Venezuela, his national security adviser John Bolton said on Friday.

“We’re going to continue to bring pressure on the oil industry. We’re going to continue to bring pressure on countries in this hemisphere who are supporting the dictatorship in Venezuela,” Pence said.

Pence also said the Trump administration was considering new measures to punish Cuba, which has close ties with Maduro.

“We’re looking at strong action against Cuba which continues to provide personnel and support for the dictatorship in Venezuela,” he said.

‘Worried for Their Life’

Pence expressed sympathy to the family members of the six Citgo executives – five U.S. citizens and one legal permanent resident – who were arrested in Caracas during corporate meetings and accused of embezzlement and money laundering.

Pence said the men had been “illegally detained” and that 16 court hearings had been canceled as the men languished in basement cells without enough food or medical treatment. He said the Trump administration was working for the prisoners’ release.

“We are just worried for their life and we just want them home as soon as possible,” said Carlos Anez, who told Pence his father had worked for Citgo for more than 20 years before he was detained.
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