Wednesday Morning Briefing: How one U.S. firm tried escaping Trump's China tariffs
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August 21, 2019
Reuters News Now
Global Trade
“You don’t know what’s coming next in China,”says Larry Sloven. When he heard last year that U.S. tariffs threatened his China electronics business, he knew that setting up shop elsewhere would be a slog rather than an adventure. The 70-year-old had spent half his life building supply chains in southern China to produce goods for big-box U.S. retailers. Rising labor costs and tighter regulations in China had already led him to consider moving the business elsewhere in Asia. But the trade war forced his hand. President Trump’s tariff plans have roiled global markets and unnerved investors as the trade dispute between the world’s two largest economies stretches into its second year with no end in sight.
Danes expressed shock and disbelief over Trump’s cancellation of a state visit to Denmarkafter its prime minister rebuffed his interest in purchasing Greenland. Trump’s proposal at first elicited incredulity and humor from politicians in Denmark, a NATO ally of the United States, with former premier Lars Lokke Rasmussen saying: “It must be an April Fool’s Day joke.” But the mood turned to shock when the U.S. president called off the Sept. 2-3 visit after Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called his idea of the United States buying Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory, “absurd”.
Israeli officials offered a muted response to remarks by Trumpwho said American Jews who vote for the democratic Party were ‘disloyal.’ Referring to Democrat Congresswomen Ilahn Omar and Rashida Tlaib who, who under pressure from Trump were denied entry to Israel last week, the president told reporters at the Oval Office: “Where has the Democratic Party gone? Where have they gone where they’re defending these two people over the state of Israel. And I think any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat, I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty.”
President Donald Trump said his administration was in “meaningful” talks with Democratsabout gun legislation after the latest mass shootings, but congressional aides downplayed the discussions as low-level and not very productive. Democrats have accused Trump of reversing course after he initially voiced support for tougher background checks following the latest shootings to rock the United States, so that “sick people don’t get guns.” He also suggested the National Rifle Association lobby group might ease its strong opposition to gun restrictions.
Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte handed in his resignation after accusing his interior minister, Matteo Salvini, of putting his League party before the needs of Italy. President Sergio Mattarella begins two days of talks with parties to seek a way out of a political crisis that will lead to the formation of the country’s 67th government since World War Two or to early elections.
A major bank warned that weeks of protests in Hong Kong could hit the economies of the Chinese-ruled city and mainland China itself as demonstrators prepared a sit-in at a subway and site of a mid-summer mob attack. Hong Kong-based Bank of East Asia posted a 75% slump in first-half net profit after it wrote down loans in China because of a downturn in commercial property markets outside China’s top cities.
Separatist leaders in Indian Kashmir have urged people to defy a ban and join a mass march after Friday prayers this week, the first such call since the federal government revoked the region’s autonomy, stirring anger in the region and beyond.
