Month: March 2019

U.S. President Donald Trump says he will not sign a trade deal with China unless it is a “very good deal.” Trump made the comments Friday as he left the White House to tour tornado damage in the southern U.S. state of Alabama. The United States and China have been battling over trade tariffs since last year. The White House is planning a summit between Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Florida later this year. “If this isn’t a great deal, I won’t make a deal,” Trump said. Then he added: “We will do very well either way, with or without a deal.” The trade dispute between the United States and China has begun to affect China’s economic growth. China’s exports and imports fell significantly more than expected in the month of February, data published Friday by the country’s customs administration showed. China’s trade surplus with the U.S. narrowed to $14.7 billion for the month, from $27.3 billion in January. China’s February exports plummeted 20.7 percent from the same period a year prior, and imports dropped 5.2 percent from a year earlier, considerably more than expected. According to a Bloomberg News poll, the forecast was 5.0 percent and 0.6 percent respectively.    China economist Chang Liu of Capital Economics in London told VOA that the drop in Chinese exports is due, at least in part, to the tariffs. Last year, he said, “firms were front-loading their shipments [shipped more goods in the first half of the year] to avoid further …

Wall Street has rewarded its most patient investors handsomely over the past 10 years. Is there more to come? The S&P 500, the U.S. market’s benchmark index, has gained about 309 percent since bottoming out at 676.53 points in March 2009 during the Great Recession, according to FactSet. The index is now 5.4 percent below its recent peak of 2,930.75 set on Sept. 20.    This bull market’s lifespan, the longest on record, speaks to financial markets’ resiliency in the face of a variety of shocks, including a brutal fourth quarter of 2018. Whether the bull keeps running hinges on whether companies can continue raking in profits, a key driver of the stock market, and whether the U.S. economy can avoid sliding into a recession. Bull markets tend to wither when fear of a recession kicks in.  Profits are ‘oxygen’   “As long as corporate profits are growing, that’s usually the oxygen for further gains in the stock market,” said David Lefkowitz, senior Americas equity strategist at UBS Global Wealth Management. Profit growth for the companies in the S&P 500 averaged 25.6 percent in the first three quarters of last year. That slipped to 13.4 percent in the fourth quarter, but still topped expectations. But earnings are expected to decline slightly in the first quarter and grow in the mid-single digits for the full year, according to FactSet. And the U.S. economy has been showing signs of slowing and is expected to continue to do so this year.    “The …

The International Monetary Fund on Thursday called Venezuela one of the most “complex situations” it had ever seen.    IMF spokesman Gerry Rice described Venezuela and its economy as a combination of “food and nutrition crises, hyperinflation, a destabilized exchange rate, debilitating human capital and physical productive capacity, and a very complicated debt situation.”    Rice said tackling this challenge would take “strong resolve” and “broad international support” from all 189 IMF members.    IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde told The Economist Radio, a podcast, that the fund would help “as soon as we are asked by the legitimate authorities of that country.”    “We will open our wallet, we will put our brain to it, and we will make sure our heart is in the right place to help the poorest and most exposed people,” she added, calling the task it faced in Venezuela  “monumental.”    Rice said Thursday that the IMF had yet to determine whom to recognize as the leader of Venezuela — President Nicolas Maduro or opposition leader Juan Guaido, the self-declared interim president. …

Chinese tech giant Huawei has sued the U.S. government, arguing that legislation Congress passed last year that restricts its business in the United States is “unconstitutional.” The case, which analysts see more as a public relations move, is but the latest in an intensifying effort by the telecommunications company to fight U.S.security concerns, which Huawei argues are unfair and unfounded. In its lawsuit, Huawei argues that Section 889 of the National Defense Authorization Act violates the constitutional principles of separation of powers and due process. By singling out the company and punishing it without a trial, the company also argues that the law violates the Constitution’s bill of attainder clause. Section 889 bans federal agencies and their contractors from purchasing equipment and services from Huawei as well as another Chinese telecom company ZTE. It was signed into law last year by President Donald Trump. “This ban is not only unlawful but also harms both Huawei and U.S. consumers,” Huawei’s rotating chairman, Guo Ping, told reporters at news conference in Shenzhen on Thursday. “This section strips Huawei of its due process, violating the separation of powers principles, breaks U.S. legal traditions, and goes against the very nature of the constitution.” Guo said that Huawei was left with no choice but to take legal action, noting that neither lawmakers nor the government had shown any proof to date to back up concerns the company is a security concern. Huawei’s chief legal officer, Song Liuping, added that the clause gives it no recourse …

Marin Mendez leaned a shoulder into his rusty Chevy Malibu rolling it forward each time the line of cars inched closer to the pump. Waiting hours to fill up, he says, is the high cost he pays for gasoline that’s nearly free in socialist Venezuela. “You line up to get your pension, line up to buy food, line up to pump your gas,” an exasperated Mendez said after 40 minutes of waiting in the sweltering heat in Maracaibo — ironically the center of the country’s oil industry — and expecting to be there hours or days more. “I’ve had enough!” Lines stretching a mile (1.6 kilometers) or more to fuel up have plagued this western region of Venezuela for years — despite the country’s status as holder of the world’s largest oil reserves. Now, shortages threaten to spread countrywide as supplies of petrol become even scarcer amid a raging struggle over political control of Venezuela.  The Trump administration hit Venezuela’s state-run oil firm PDVSA with sanctions in late January in a sweeping strategy aimed at forcing President Nicolas Maduro from power in favor of opposition leader Juan Guaido.  Doomsday predictions immediately followed — mostly fueled by Maduro’s opponents and U.S. officials — that Venezuela’s domestic gasoline supplies would last no more than a week or so. That hasn’t happened yet, but more misery is feared as expected shortages have economic implications far beyond longer gas lines, turning Venezuela’s crisis to a catastrophe. “Crucially, it will lead to more shortages of …

Celebrity chef Mario Batali on Wednesday said he had cut ties with his U.S. restaurants after being accused of sexual harassment by multiple women. Batali has sold his shares in the 16-restaurant operation, including Babbo and Del Posto in New York, to former partners Tanya Bastianich Manuali and her brother, Joe Bastianich, he said. “I have reached an agreement with Joe and no longer have any stake in the restaurants we built together. I wish him the best of luck in the future,” Batali said in a statement from his representative, Risa Heller. He is also selling his stake in the Eataly market and restaurant complex, according to a report in The New York Times, citing Eataly spokesman Chris Giglio. Representatives for Eataly did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The New York Police Department last year opened a criminal investigation into an accusation that Batali drugged and sexually assaulted an employee in 2005, following a CBS “60 Minutes” report on the allegations that aired in May 2018. Batali at the time denied the report, and the NYPD closed its investigation in January without charges, according to local news media. Batali’s charisma and culinary flair turned him into a restaurant executive, television star, author and one of the world’s most recognizable chefs. He premiered on Food Network in 1997 on the show “Molto Mario” and in 2011 helped launch “The Chew” on ABC. He is among dozens of high-profile men who have been fired or resigned from their jobs …

U.S. officials have warned at an energy conference in Brussels that the Trump administration will take punitive action against European companies that are building the Kremlin-favored Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline, which will deliver energy from Russia to Germany while bypassing Ukraine. Nord Stream 2 (NS2) will largely replace an older pipeline running through Ukraine and Poland that has the backing of the German government. But it is prompting the alarm of Central European governments, increasingly infuriated with Berlin’s dismissal of their concerns. They object to Nord Stream 2 — which will run 1,200 kilometers from Vyborg, Russia, to Lubmin, Germany, and snake under the Baltic Sea — not only because they’ll lose lucrative transit fees from the older pipeline, but because they fear the Kremlin wants to develop NS2 largely for political reasons, not commercial ones. Speaking at the energy conference in the Belgian capital, Nicole Gibson, deputy director of the U.S. State Department’s office for Europe, warned that if European companies resume laying pipe later this year they “risk significant sanctions.” Declining to go into any details about the threatened sanctions, Gibson said Washington doesn’t accept that Nord Stream 2 is a done deal. “Some people say it is a fait accompli that Nord Stream 2 will be done. We don’t see it that way… We call on European leaders to make sure Nord Stream 2 is not implemented,” she said. Ukrainian leader Petro Poroshenko has warned that NS2 would allow the Kremlin to switch off gas …

When it comes to getting a job, women lag far behind men.  The International Labor Organization (ILO) reports the work and pay gender gap remains wide, and only strong policies and laws that are implemented will change this situation for the better.   The ILO has reached the conclusion in a new report – A Quantum Leap for Gender Equality: For a Better Future of Work for All – it is releasing in advance of International Women’s Day on March 8. The ILO finds the needle on this has hardly moved over the past 27 years. It says 26 percent fewer women than men are likely to be employed. It says this also extends to women in top jobs. ILO data show globally that just one-quarter of managers or leaders are women. It says women who make it to the top tend to be one year younger and better educated than their male counterparts. Despite these qualifications, authors of the study say women do not draw the same salary for the same top job done by men. Globally, the study finds the gender wage gap remains at an average of 20 percent.   Shauna Olney, chief of the ILO Gender, Equality and Diversity branch, says mothers of young children up to age 6 have the lowest chance of being employed. “The motherhood employment penalty has increased over the past 10 years by 38 percent. So, again, something is not going right.  This is going in the wrong direction. There is …

As iPhone sales slip, Apple has been positioning its booming digital-services business as its new profit engine. But there could be a snag in that plan. A brewing backlash against the rich commissions Apple earns from all purchases and subscriptions made via iPhone apps could undercut the app store, which generates about a third of the company’s services revenue. Late last year, Netflix rebelled against Apple’s fees, which can range from 15 percent to 30 percent. Analysts fear other companies may follow. And attorneys representing consumers in a pending Supreme Court case charge that Apple is an unfair monopolist in the market for iPhone apps. An adverse decision in that case could open a legal door that might eventually force Apple to cut its generous commissions. Apple shares have plunged 25 percent from their peak in early October thanks to concern over iPhone sales. Investors are now hanging onto Apple services as a “life preserver in the choppy seas” just as it’s about to float away, Macquarie Securities analyst Benjamin Schachter concluded after the Netflix move. These app-store fees mostly hit app developers themselves, although some pass along the costs to users of their iPhone apps. Spotify, for instance, used to tack $3 onto the cost of its $10-a-month paid service — but only for users who signed up via its iPhone or iPad app. Apple has doubled down on digital services as consumers cling to older iPhone models, hurting sales. Apple’s iPhone revenue this year is expected to drop …