Biden looking strong post-Super Tuesday - Politico

With help from Doug Palmer

Editor’s Note: Morning Trade is a free version of POLITICO Pro Trade’s morning newsletter, which is delivered to our subscribers each morning at 6 a.m. The POLITICO Pro platform combines the news you need with tools you can use to take action on the day’s biggest stories. Act on the news with POLITICO Pro.

Quick Fix

— Former Vice President Joe Biden won big in Tuesday night’s primaries, marking a notable turnaround for his campaign — with a moderate trade agenda — over the past several days.

— The Trump administration has no plans to remove tariffs against China or the EU to help boost the U.S. economy amid a downturn sparked by the coronavirus outbreak, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told lawmakers.

— U.S. senators are urging U.K. lawmakers to reconsider their government’s decision to allow Huawei to help build its 5G network.

IT’S WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4! Welcome to Morning Trade, where your host brings the reassuring news that it’s an asteroid, not the coronavirus, that we should all be worried about. Any trade tips or news out there today? Let me know: mcassella@politico.com or @mmcassella.

Driving the Day

BIDEN LOOKING STRONG POST-SUPER TUESDAY: The Democratic presidential primary campaign was all but solidified after Tuesday night’s contests as a two-way race between Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders, two candidates with competing worldviews on trade.

The new dynamic emerged after Biden swept primaries across the South and picked up surprise wins in places like Minnesota and Massachusetts — less than a month after his fifth-place finish in New Hampshire had some pundits and analysts writing off his candidacy entirely. Sanders picked up delegates in states including Vermont and Colorado.

Both men have a lengthy record on trade, and they’re at odds on four of the major issues of the past few decades. Biden supported NAFTA in 1994 and the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement that replaced it this year. He also backed permanent normal trade relations with China in 2000 and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which he gathered support for as a member of the Obama administration in 2016.

Sanders, meanwhile, opposed all four.

Parsing their differences: Sanders, speaking to supporters at a rally in Vermont midway through Tuesday night’s results, sought to emphasize how his platform contrasts with Biden’s.

“One of us led the opposition to disastrous trade agreements which cost us millions of good paying jobs. That's me,” Sanders said. “And another candidate voted for disastrous trade agreements.”

MNUCHIN: NOT CONSIDERING TARIFF REPRIEVE TO BOOST ECONOMY: The Trump administration has no plans to suspend punitive tariffs its has imposed on China and the European Union to help the U.S. economy weather the ill effects of the coronavirus, Mnuchin told lawmakers Tuesday.

“We’re not considering that at this moment,” Mnuchin said in response to a question from Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.) at a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on the Treasury Department’s fiscal 2021 budget. “But as this progresses, as I said, we’ll look at all the options that we think are important to help, particularly [small and medium-size businesses] and particular areas of the economy that are impacted by this.”

DelBene represents Washington’s 1st District, which is mostly north of Seattle. Not only is Washington one of the most trade-dependent states, but so far all six U.S. deaths from the coronavirus have been in DelBene’s district.

A movement afoot?: Rick Helfenbein, the former president and CEO of the American Apparel and Footwear Association, penned an op-ed in Forbes calling on President Donald Trump to suspend the tariffs on China to help retailers struggling with billions of dollars in additional costs.

Travel industry to take a hit: The U.S. Travel Association is forecasting a 6 percent drop in travel to the U.S. from abroad over the next three months as the outbreak continues to spread. If realized, that dip would be the largest decline in international inbound travel since the financial crisis in 2007 and 2008, the association said.

Association President and CEO Roger Dow noted in a statement that the drop is expected even though there are currently no travel restrictions within the country. The uncertainty alone, Dow said, “is having an effect on travel demand — not just from China, and not just internationally, but for domestic business and leisure travel as well.”

SENATORS URGE U.K. TO RECONSIDER ON HUAWEI: A bipartisan group of 20 senators wrote to members of the United Kingdom’s House of Commons on Tuesday asking members of Parliament to reconsider the government’s decision to allow the Chinese telecom company Huawei to help build its 5G infrastructure.

“Given the significant security, privacy, and economic threats posed by Huawei, we strongly urge the United Kingdom to revisit its recent decision, take steps to mitigate the risks of Huawei, and work in close partnership with the U.S. on such efforts going forward,” wrote the lawmakers, led by Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)

The letter comes as the House of Commons is expected today to begin debating the security implications of allowing Huawei into the country and its 5G network.

U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s decision to allow Huawei to participate in some 5G development comes as the two countries are working to get bilateral free trade negotiations off the ground. Johnson and his advisers appeared to recognize that their decision could jeopardize the chances of getting a quick agreement — but they chose to move forward anyway.

GRASSLEY STILL HOPES TO CRAFT 232 REFORM BILL WITH WYDEN: Senate Finance Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said Tuesday that he wants to resolve differences with ranking member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) over the contents of a Section 232 reform bill but could decide to work with other senators to move the legislation.

Grassley had hoped to introduce a bipartisan committee bill in November but pulled back because Wyden wanted to focus on the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement first, he said.

“That’s done now, so we’re reinstituting our talks,” Grassley said, referring to Wyden. “But just in case Wyden doesn’t want to do anything, I’m going to work with the two Republican co-sponsors [Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.)] because they have some Democrat support for their bills, and see what we can get out of committee without necessarily having a Wyden-Grassley mark. But I’d rather have a Wyden-Grassley mark.”

Not aimed at Trump, really: “This isn’t directed at the administration,” Grassley emphasized. “But I can tell you the president’s use of tariffs has brought to our attention the shortcomings of the 1962 and 1974 legislation on trade that delegated too much authority from Congress’ constitutional power [over trade] to the executive branch.”

THE CATCH-22 IN TRUMP’S PHASE ONE CHINA DEAL: One of the Trump administration’s stated goals in launching trade negotiations with China was to pressure Beijing into reining in the support it provides to its state-owned enterprises. But the phase one deal the two sides signed earlier this year is likely to make those SOEs even more influential in the Chinese economy, according to new research out Tuesday from the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

The nitty-gritty: The deal leaves in place Beijing’s tariffs on American exports, duties that make those goods more costly for China’s privately owned businesses and less attractive than cheaper alternatives from domestic producers or other countries. For China to get close to meeting the steep purchasing commitments it agreed to in the deal, then, Beijing will need to amp up the pressure on its state-owned enterprises to buy more.

But SOEs only accounted for about one-quarter of imports last year, and could have trouble buying enough to meet those targets.

“By structuring the deal so that U.S. exports grow only if China’s SOEs increase in importance and at the expense of the Chinese private sector, Beijing hears double talk,” PIIE fellows Chad Bown and Mary Lovely said in the report released Tuesday. “The message is that the Trump administration cares little about China becoming more market-oriented after all. And the rest of the world will hear it the same way.”

The coronavirus effect: Despite being hit hard by the coronavirus outbreak, Beijing so far at least appears to be working to make progress on implementing its deal with the U.S. And Trump administration officials, like Mnuchin on Tuesday, are continuing to emphasize that they still expect China to meet its commitments.

But there is concern among some analysts that demands for Beijing to fulfill those already lofty goals amid a slowing economy caused by an epidemic will only increase the need for state-owned enterprises to pick up the slack.

The combination of both the coronavirus and the phase one deal, among other factors, means “we’re just seeing the China model on steroids,” Scott Kennedy, a China expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Morning Trade recently.

WALORSKI ASKS FOR ANSWERS ON 232 TARIFF EXPANSION: Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.) is asking the Trump administration to explain its decision earlier this year to quietly expand the Section 232 tariffs to cover some downstream steel and aluminum products in addition to the raw materials.

Walorski, a Ways and Means member who has long pressed the Trump administration on the tariffs and their exclusion processes, asked Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross how his agency could legally justify the duty expansion without a second Section 232 investigation. In a letter sent to Ross on Tuesday, she also asked why certain products were chosen and whether the agency had enough staff to process exclusion requests.

“There remains a great deal of uncertainty surrounding the new tariffs more than a month after they were announced,” Walorski wrote.

International Overnight

— The hotel industry could see its worst-performing year since the recession because of the coronavirus, The Wall Street Journal reports.

— Trump advisers and Republican lawmakers are pushing the White House to develop a package of economic stimulus measures designed to prop up the economy amid growing fears about the spread of the coronavirus in the U.S. More from POLITICO.

THAT'S ALL FOR MORNING TRADE! See you again soon! In the meantime, drop the team a line: abehsudi@politico.com; mcassella@politico.com; dpalmer@politico.com; srodriguez@politico.com; jyearwood@politico.com and pjoshi@politico.com. Follow us @POLITICOPro and @Morning_Trade.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

"looking" - Google News
March 04, 2020 at 10:00PM
https://ift.tt/39mwxZv

Biden looking strong post-Super Tuesday - Politico
"looking" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2tdCiJt
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update

Bagikan Berita Ini

Search