U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Friday said he would extend for two more months one of the extraordinary cash management measures that the Treasury is using to stave off a debt-limit default.

Mnuchin said in a letter to House of Representative Speaker Paul Ryan that he would continue to withhold investments from the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund, until Sept. 29.

The Treasury’s previous “debt issuance suspension period” for the federal employee pension fund was due to expire on Friday.

Mnuchin had to take the step because Congress has not passed an extension or increase in the federal debt limit, and the Treasury needs to withhold funds from the pension fund in order to preserve its borrowing capacity. It has taken several similar measures since the last extension of the debt limit expired in March at just under $20 trillion.

Mnuchin urged lawmakers this week to act on the borrowing limit before their August recess, but his request fell on deaf ears. The House of Representatives is on recess until Sept. 5.

Mnuchin and fiscal watchdog groups have estimated that the Treasury will fully exhaust its remaining borrowing capacity in October, raising the risk that the United States cannot meet all of its payment obligations with incoming tax revenue.

The Treasury is required by law to make the pension fund whole, including interest, when the debt limit is increased.

In testimony before the House Financial Services Committee on Thursday, Mnuchin said that Congress’ budgeting process, including the role the debt limit plays, “needs to be looked at.”

“I’m all for [that] there should be very strong controls of spending money. But once we’ve agreed to spend the money, we should make sure that the government can pay for it,” Mnuchin said.
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The International Monetary Fund on Friday said that the U.S. dollar was overvalued by 10 percent to 20 percent, based on U.S. near-term economic fundamentals, while it viewed valuations of the euro, Japan’s yen and China’s yuan as broadly in line with fundamentals.

The IMF’s External Sector Report, an annual assessment of currencies and external surpluses and deficits of major economies, showed that external current account deficits were becoming more concentrated in certain advanced economies such as the United States and Britain, while surpluses remained persistent in China and Germany.

While the report assessed the euro’s valuation as appropriate for the eurozone as a whole, it said the euro’s real effective exchange rate was 10 percent to 20 percent too low for Germany’s fundamentals, given its high current account surplus.

Britain’s pound, meanwhile, was assessed as up to 15 percent overvalued compared with fundamentals, which include a high level of uncertainty over Britain’s post-Brexit trading relationship with the European Union.

The fund said the dollar’s appreciation in recent years was based on its relatively stronger growth outlook, interest rate hikes versus looser monetary policy in the eurozone and Japan, as well as expectations for fiscal stimulus from President Donald Trump’s administration.

But so far this year, the dollar index, the broad measure of its value against other major currencies, is down more than 8 percent and is off to the worst start to a year since 2002.

The IMF recommended that U.S. authorities take steps to shrink a current account deficit that remains too large, by reducing its federal budget deficit and passing structural reforms to increase the savings rate and improve the economy’s productivity.

“It’s important to address imbalances, because if they’re not dealt with appropriately and through the right policies, we could have a backlash in the form of protectionism,” IMF Research Division Chief Luis Cubeddu told a news conference.

No automatic fix

Cubeddu said that the persistence of current account surpluses in export countries such as China and the growth of deficits in debtor countries such as the United States suggested that the problem would not clear up automatically.

“That is, prices, savings and investment decisions don’t seem to be adjusting fast enough to correct imbalances. This partly reflects rigid currency arrangements, but also certain structural features, like inadequate safety nets, barriers to investment, which leads to undesirable levels of savings and investment,” he said.

The report said that while China’s yuan was broadly in line with its fundamentals, IMF models showed wide divergences with desired policies, from a 10 percent overvaluation to a 10 percent undervaluation due to uncertainties over Beijing’s policy outlook.

The U.S. Treasury in April refrained from declaring China a currency manipulator despite Trump’s campaign promises to do so, citing Beijing’s interventions last year to prop up the yuan’s value in the face of capital outflows. But it kept China, South Korea, Taiwan, Germany and Switzerland on a monitoring list for large external surpluses.

The IMF said China’s current account surplus was growing again after declining in 2015 and 2016 and needed to be reduced.

This should be achieved by rebalancing the economy away from investment and credit growth toward more consumption, with a stronger safety net, reforms to state-owned enterprises and opening Chinese markets to foreign competition.

The report also showed that the IMF considers Mexico’s peso and South Korea’s won both to be undervalued by 5 percent to 15 percent compared with their fundamentals. The fund said it expected Mexico’s undervaluation to reverse as risks of protectionist U.S. policies dissipated, but that South Korea needed to stimulate domestic demand to reduce a large current account surplus.
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Shares of Tesla rose nearly 1 percent on Friday ahead of a handover to customers of its first Model 3 sedans, the electric cars that Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk is betting will propel his company into the mass market.

Tesla is counting on the Model 3 to help turn the cash-losing company into a profitable one, and its event later on Friday at its factory in Fremont, California, comes as the car maker’s stock trades down 12 percent from a record high set in June.

Fueled by expectations that Tesla will become a carbon-free energy and transportation heavyweight, Tesla’s stock remains up 58 percent year to date, but it is also a favorite among short sellers.

Designed for easy production

Shorts sellers have about $8.5 billion bet against Tesla, equivalent to about 20 percent of the company’s float, according to Astec Analytics.

The $35,000 Model 3 is designed for easy production, with output targeted to reach 20,000 per month by December. The Silicon Valley car company aims to quickly ramp up its factory to reach a production target of 500,000 cars per year in 2018.

Tesla’s last launch was the luxury Model X SUV in 2015, which had a number of production issues.

Investors eager for update

Tesla reports its second-quarter results on Wednesday, and investors are keen for an update on how quickly its output is expanding after deliveries for the first half of 2017 came in at the low end of the company’s own forecast.

“This evening’s event will keep investors focused on the Model 3 ramp, and less on the upcoming quarter,” Barclays analyst Brian Johnson wrote in a note to clients. Johnson has a an “underweight” rating on Tesla.

Skeptics believe Tesla’s growth targets are unrealistic and that it is at risk of being overtaken by General Motors, BMW and other deep-pocketed manufacturers that are ramping up their own electric-vehicle offerings.

The stock was up 0.86 percent at $337.33.
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The surge in far-flung and destructive cyber attacks is not good for national security, but for an increasing number of hackers and researchers, it is great for job security.

The new reality is on display in Las Vegas this week at the annual Black Hat and Def Con security conferences, which now have a booming side business in recruiting.

“Hosting big parties has enabled us to meet more talent in the community, helping fill key positions and also retain great people,” said Jen Ellis, a vice president with cybersecurity firm Rapid7 Inc., which filled the hip Hakkasan nightclub Wednesday at one of the week’s most popular parties.

More tech, more jobs

Twenty or even 10 years ago, career options for technology tinkerers were mostly limited to security firms, handfuls of jobs inside mainstream companies, and in government agencies.

But as tech has taken over the world, the opportunities in the security field have exploded.

Whole industries that used to have little to do with technology now need protection, including automobiles, medical devices and the ever-expanding Internet of Things, from thermostats and fish tanks to home security devices.

More insurance companies now cover breaches, with premiums reduced for strong security practices. And lawyers are making sure that cloud providers are held responsible if a customer’s data is stolen from them and otherwise pushing to hold tech companies liable for problems, meaning they need security experts too.

1.8 million skilled workers needed

The nonprofit Center for Cyber Safety and Education last month predicted a global shortage of 1.8 million skilled security workers in 2022. The group, which credentials security professionals, said that a third of hiring managers plan to boost their security teams by at least 15 percent.

For hackers who prefer to pick things apart rather than stand guard over them, an enormous number of companies now offer “bug bounties,” or formal rewards, for warnings about vulnerabilities that leave them exposed to criminals or spies.

​New ways to make money

One of the outside firms that handle such programs, HackerOne, said it has paid out $18.8 million since 2014 to fix 50,140 bugs, with about half of that work done in the past year.

Mark Litchfield made it into the firm’s “Hacker Hall of Fame” last year by being the first to pull in more than $500,000 in bounties through the platform, well more than he earned at his last full-time security job, at consulting firm NCC Group.

In the old days, “The only payout was publicity, free press,” Litchfield said. “That was the payoff then. The payoff now is literally to be paid in dollars.”

There are other emerging ways to make money too. Justine Bone’s medical hacking firm, MedSec, took the unprecedented step last year of openly teaming with an investor who was selling shares short, betting that they would lose value.

It was acrimonious, but St Jude Medical ultimately fixed its pacemaker monitors, which could have been hacked, and Bone predicted others will try the same path.

“Us cyber security nerds have spent most of our careers trying to make the world a better place by engaging with companies, finding bugs which companies may or may not repair,” Bone said.

“If we can take our expertise out to customers, media, regulators, nonprofits and think tanks and out to the financial sector, the investors and analysts, we start to help companies understand in terms of their external environment.”

Chris Wysopal, co-founder of code auditor Veracode, bought in April by CA Technologies, said that he was initially skeptical of the MedSec approach but came around to it, in part because it worked. He appeared at Black Hat with Bone.

“Many have written that the software and hardware market is dysfunctional, a lemon market, because buyers don’t know how insecure the products they purchase are,” Wysopal said in an interview. “I’d like to see someone fixing this broken market. Profiting off of that fix seems like the best approach for a capitalism-based economy.”
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U.S. lawmakers said on Thursday that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told them he will defer to President Donald Trump on the timing of a decision on new steel import curbs, likely meaning further delays and deliberations on the issue.

Members of the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee attending a briefing with Ross said he did not specify a timetable for releasing a long-awaited report that will lay out options for shielding the steel industry from imports on national security grounds.

Ross had originally hoped to release the steel “Section 232” report at the end of June but the timing has slipped amid disagreements among White House aides over the merits of restricting imports that could hurt steel consuming industries.

A House Democratic aide who attended the briefing said Ross repeated President Donald Trump’s comments in a Wall Street Journal interview this week that the decision on potential steel tariffs would take more time and could come after congressional debates on health care, tax reform and infrastructure spending.

“I can only follow my leader,” the aide said Ross told the briefing.

The Commerce secretary also told lawmakers the issue had a lot of complexities and that he was considering the interests of both steel makers and steel users and concerned about potential trade retaliation against U.S. agricultural products. The lawmakers said Ross told them he was taking a similar approach to a parallel national security probe into aluminum imports.

“I think it’s a good sign that they’re actually slowing down and taking a long look, not trying to mix this in with these other issues that have to be lifted,” said Republican Representative Jackie Walorski.

“I think that Secretary Ross is committed to making sure that we’re doing no harm, that we’re getting this right. I need it to be right when it comes to aluminum,” Walorski said, adding that the recreational vehicle industry in her northern Indiana district does not want to higher aluminum prices due tariffs.

Representative Judy Chu, a California Democrat, said Ross told the lawmakers that the Trump administration also wanted to pursue negotiations with other steel-producing countries to address the problem of excess capacity that was causing a flood of dumped imports.

But Ross and U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin last week failed to secure commitments from their Chinese counterparts to make specific commitments to cut steel production capacity.

China, which produces half the world’s steel, is widely viewed as the source of much of the metal’s excess production.
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A proposed border tax in the House of Representatives was killed on Thursday, bringing relief to retailers and other large importers whose profits faced threats and removing a hurdle that had kept negotiations on the long-promised Republican overhaul of the U.S. tax code from advancing.

The border adjustment tax was part of a broad reform of the tax code being pushed by House Republican leaders. It was meant to discourage companies from manufacturing products overseas and then importing them into the United States for sale instead of producing goods in the U.S.

The tax would have generated roughly $1 trillion in revenue, allowing tax-code writers to slash the corporate tax rate without increasing the nation’s deficit.

Removing the controversial provision could make it easier to pass tax legislation, but likely narrows the scope of what could become law. It suggests Republicans are more likely to implement simple rate cuts and not accomplish sweeping tax reform on the scale of the last major overhaul in 1986, such as moving to a territorial tax system, in which companies would pay tax only on profits earned in the United States.

Without a new source of revenue, it will make it more difficult for Republicans to make tax code changes permanent and deficit-neutral. The Republicans are looking to use rules that would require passage of a tax bill only with a simple majority – meaning they would not need any Democratic votes. Those rules restrict creating long-term deficits, so if the bill is not deficit-neutral the tax cuts would likely carry an expiration date.

The group of six Republican negotiators working on tax reform on Thursday did not announce any agreement on their target for corporate rate cuts – a signal that tax lobbyists said shows continuing divisions among Republicans about the closely watched rate.

Corporate profits are currently taxed at 35 percent, but President Donald Trump wants them slashed to 15 percent, which he says will promote business spending, economic growth and job creation.

“While we have debated the pro-growth benefits of border adjustability, we appreciate that there are many unknowns associated with it and have decided to set this policy aside in order to advance tax reform,” the “Big Six” Republican tax negotiators said in a joint statement.

Large retailers and other importers had lobbied aggressively against the border tax proposal, including a coalition that included automakers like Toyota and stores like Target , Autozone and Best Buy.

The retailers argued that the border tax would drastically increase consumer prices, hitting low- and middle-class households the most.

The Big Six is comprised of Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Gary Cohn, the head of the National Economic Council – both representing Trump – House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the heads of the two tax-writing committees in Congress, Senator Orrin Hatch and Representative Kevin Brady.

In addition to killing the border tax, the group offered other vague goals but no details, saying they remain committed to increased expensing for corporations, or allowing them to write off the cost of new equipment more quickly, and to return profits held by American companies overseas, known as repatriation, at a lower tax rate than the current 35 percent.

The statement offered no specific goals or targets on the personal income tax code.

“We have always been in agreement that tax relief for American families should be at the heart of our plan,” the Big Six said.

Trump has vowed to finish a tax overhaul by the end of this year.

Republicans leaders in Congress are hopeful that the current debate on repealing and replacing Obamacare, which is now before the Senate, can be completed quickly, allowing Congress to then turn its attention to the tax code.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce praised the announcement as progress toward an ultimate goal of overhauling the code.

“We’re pleased, but we’re not satisfied until we get an outcome,” said Neil Bradley, the head of policy for the business group.
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Amazon is introducing express delivery to Singapore in its first direct effort to tap into surging online shopping in fast-growing Southeast Asia.

The American e-commerce company announced Thursday it will begin operating a distribution facility bigger than a football field in the wealthy island nation. It promises to deliver tens of thousands of types of items within two hours for free, if customers spend at least 40 Singapore dollars ($29.52).

That’s a step up from past international shipping options offered by Amazon, where items sometimes took weeks to arrive.

Amazon is late to capitalize on the region’s rising middle class. The biggest local competitor is Lazada, which is backed by Chinese giant Alibaba and launched in the region in 2012. It operates in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam and Singapore.

Henry Low, the Asia Pacific director of Amazon Prime Now, said the company is keen to expand elsewhere in Southeast Asia, a market of more than 600 million people.

“I’m super excited about future possibilities,” Low said.

The number of internet users in Southeast Asia is expected to rise from 260 million now to 480 million by 2020, according to research by Google and state-owned investor Temasek Holdings. It forecasts that the value of e-commerce in the region will soar to 88 billion by 2025 from 5.5 billion in 2015.

“The offline-to-online shift will continue and we strongly believe in the great success of e-commerce [with] the rising middle class in many Southeast Asian markets,” said Hanno Stegmann, chief executive of the Asia Pacific Internet Group, the Asian arm of Rocket Internet, which founded Lazada.

As Amazon gears up in Singapore, Rocket Internet already is looking at other emerging markets. Its current focus is on Daraz, an e-commerce platform aimed at the 400 million people living in Myanmar, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Still, there’s plenty of room for growth in Southeast Asia, where e-commerce accounts for only 2.6 percent of the retail market, said Sebastien Lamy, a partner at management consultancy Bain & Company.

That’s compared with 15 percent to 25 percent seen in the U.S. and China.

Even if online commerce is just getting started, it’s already having an impact in Singapore, whose glitzy malls are the backbone of the local economy and tourism.

Mall vacancies along Orchard Road and in other areas are rising, abandoned by shoppers like Rahil Bhagat, a content producer.

Rahil started buying video games and accessories online from the U.S. in 2009. Now, he makes 75 percent of his purchases, from car parts to quinoa, online.

“Physical shopping has lost its appeal,” he told the AP. “Even if I visited a brick-and-mortar store, I would be checking online to see if it’s cheaper. It usually is.”

 
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We know that staying active and involved with family and friends can help keep our brains healthy as we get older. A new study in Portland, Oregon, combines those activities to gauge their effectiveness in warding off dementia. Faith Lapidus reports.
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The U.S. central bank remains upbeat about the US economy, choosing to keep interest rates unchanged at historic lows after concluding its 2-day meeting Wednesday. Amid an improving job market but weak inflation, the Fed characterized US economic growth as “moderate” — far slower than what President Donald Trump promised. But now six months into his presidential term, there’s still very little action on the president’s economic agenda. Mil Arcega has more.
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U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Wednesday urged federal lawmakers to raise the federal debt limit before they leave Washington for their August recess to avoid increased interest costs to taxpayers and market uncertainty about a potential default.

Mnuchin told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee that maintaining U.S. creditworthiness was of “utmost importance” and that the United States must pay its bills on time.

“As I’ve suggested in the past, based upon our best estimate at the time, we do have funding through September, but I have urged Congress to take this up before they leave for the recess,” Mnuchin said.
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President Donald Trump plans to announce Wednesday that electronics giant Foxconn will build a liquid crystal display panel plant in Wisconsin, according to an invitation to the event obtained by The Associated Press.

The AP obtained the invitation from a person with knowledge of the afternoon gathering at the White House, but the person wasn’t authorized to publicly release the information. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker tweeted earlier Wednesday that Trump planned to make a “major jobs announcement for Wisconsin.”

White House spokesman Josh Raffel confirmed the Trump announcement would be on Foxconn, but said he would not release details ahead of the event. Walker and several other Wisconsin officials, including U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan and Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, were expected at the event.

Wisconsin is among seven states that have been vying to land a Foxconn assembly plant, which is expected to result in billions of dollars in investments in the state and employ thousands of people. Republican leaders in the Wisconsin Senate have said Walker has been negotiating a memorandum of understanding with Foxconn – best known as the assembler of the iPhone – to build such a factory in southeast Wisconsin.

Foxconn did not immediately return messages seeking comment Wednesday. Other states vying for the plant are Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas.

Landing the multi-state competition for the plant has been cast as a once-in-a-generation opportunity. Foxconn is the biggest contract assembler of smartphones and other devices for Apple and other brands. It has been eyeing building the plant in a part of Wisconsin represented by Ryan, who said he has met with company officials at the request of the Republican governor.

Critics have cautioned that Foxconn has made promises before to invest in the U.S. and not followed through. Foxconn promised in 2013, for example, to invest $30 million and hire 500 workers for a new high-tech factory in Pennsylvania, but it was never built.

Still, landing Foxconn would be a victory both for Trump, as he touts his build America agenda, and for Walker, who is up for re-election next year.

White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, who is from Ryan’s congressional district in southeast Wisconsin, told WTMJ-TV on Tuesday that Trump, when flying over the area in Kenosha County during a visit to Wisconsin in April, noticed vacant land where a former Chrysler Motors plant used to be.

“He said, ‘That land should be used,’ ” Priebus said. “So when Foxconn came into the White House, into the Oval Office, the president said, ‘I know a good spot that you should go to, that place in Kenosha.’ ”

That part of the state is an attractive location for a large plant because of the area’s proximity to Lake Michigan and its abundant water supply. To make flat-panel displays, the company will need access to great quantities of water to keep work spaces dust-free, among other things.

Wisconsin could be on the hook for billions of dollars in incentives as part of the deal, though no details of the state’s proposal have been released.

State Sen. Alberta Darling, co-chair of the Legislature’s budget committee, said any deal would be examined with a “fine-toothed comb” and have to win approval by the Republican-controlled Legislature.

 
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Peruvian authorities have launched a major crackdown on modern slavery after a warehouse fire in Lima last month killed four workers, including two who were trapped inside a padlocked container on the roof.

Officials said they had shut down six furniture factories in the capital on Monday in an operation to root out forced labor and exploitation, following raids by prosecutors, police and labor inspectors.

Last month’s toxic blaze which tore through several warehouses in the city center highlighted labor exploitation in the capital and prompted calls for better protection of workers’ rights and more labor inspections.

President visits site of blaze

Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski said the victims were “practically slave workers” when he visited the site following the June 22 blaze.

Peru’s attorney general said on Monday there would be more raids on factories and warehouses to prevent further “tragic accidents.”

Another eight operations are planned this year in the wider Lima region and the north of the country where forced labor has been linked to the fishing industry.

Prosecutors said the furniture factories targeted in Monday’s raids were operating without a licence, health and safety was “inadequate” and fire exits had been blocked, putting workers at risk.

Over 200,000 trapped in slavery

An estimated 200,500 people are trapped in modern day slavery in Peru, according to rights group The Walk Free Foundation, the third highest number in Latin America after Mexico and Colombia.

The International Labor Organization (ILO), which estimates there are 21 million people in forced labour worldwide, welcomed the new labor inspections in Peru.

“The tragic fire was shocking. People were outraged,” said Teresa Torres, coordinator of ILO’s program against forced labor in Peru.

“Having this kind of task force carrying out inspections is progress and an important response from the government,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Need for ‘justice’

Public prosecutors have launched an investigation into possible human trafficking following the fire.

“What’s important in this case is that there’s justice, and as such those people responsible are punished,” Torres said, adding those found guilty could face up to 25 years in prison.

Across Peru, forced labor is more commonly linked to the illegal logging industry and illegal gold mines in the Amazon jungle. Girls are also trafficked to these areas for sex work.

Forced labor widespread

Torres said the warehouse blaze showed forced labor is more widespread than many Peruvians believe.

“This is more evidence to show that forced labour doesn’t just happen in … remote areas of the Amazon, but it could be happening right in the center of the capital too,” Torres said.

“We have information that forced labor is also happening in the north of Peru, in other sectors such as the shrimp fishing industry.”

She said victims of forced labor were often hidden from view, working on fishing vessels, in small clandestine workshops, commercial agriculture or private homes.
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Continuing its focus on curbing government regulations, a Republican-led House is seeking to overturn a rule that would let consumers band together to sue their banks or credit card companies rather than use an arbitrator to resolve a dispute.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau finalized the rule just two weeks ago. It bans most types of mandatory arbitration clauses, which are often found in the fine print of contracts governing the terms of millions of credit card and checking accounts.

Republican lawmakers, cheered on by the banking sector and other leading business trade groups, have wasted no time seeking to undo the rule before it goes into effect next year. They’ll succeed if they can get a simple majority of both chambers of Congress to approve the legislation and President Donald Trump to sign it. The numbers are likely on their side, just as they were earlier this year when Republicans led efforts to upend 14 Obama-era rules.

GOP lawmakers described the rule as a bad deal for consumers but a big win for trial lawyers. They said the average payout in a class-action lawsuit was just $32 while the payout for the attorney in the case was nearly $1 million.

“Arbitration is an alternative to the judicial system and it offers results and a better outcome for consumers,” said Representative Ken Buck, a Republican from Colorado. “Arbitration allows parties to use an independent mediator instead of hiring expensive lawyers to settle a dispute.”

Support for the rule

Democratic lawmakers are fighting to keep the rule. They said the point of participating in a class-action lawsuit is generally to pursue relief from small financial injuries — the kind that would not be worth the time and expense for someone to pursue on their own through the legal system. Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, said that when a whole lot of people get hurt in the same way, they should have a chance to join together to pursue redress.

“If you’re going to cheat people, there’s going to be some accountability,” Warren said. “That’s what this provision is all about.”

Democratic lawmakers framed the debate as Republicans sticking up for powerful financial companies at the expense of consumers who often are outgunned and outmanned in their disputes with banks and other creditors.

“It sadly reflects a Republican Party that works relentlessly to empower Wall Street and to rig the system against consumers,” Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said of the repeal effort.

Republicans portrayed arbitration as a superior option for consumers and said that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s action could force banks to hold greater reserves to prepare for future litigation. The money could instead be used to lend out to small businesses and families.

The consumer protection agency estimated that the cost of complying with the new rule would be less than $500 million annually for banks. The agency also said that banks generated more than $171 billion in profits in 2016.
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Greece successfully sold debt to private investors for the first time in three years Tuesday, taking a significant first step toward financial independence when its third international bailout ends next year.

The deal came a month after eurozone finance ministers signed off on a new loan and sketched out measures to chip away at Greece’s debt mountain after the current bailout finishes in August 2018.

Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos hailed the successful sale, saying it was “a beginning” and a sign of confidence in the country’s economy.

“There will be a second and a third [market foray], to approach August 2018 with confidence and emerge from the bailouts,” he said.

In the test run to ensure it will be able to rely on market funding next year, Athens sold 3 billion euros of new five-year bonds alongside a tender to buy back outstanding five-year paper issued in 2014. That was to help lower its repayments in the years following the bailout exit.

Less demand

The deal did not attract as much demand as the country’s brief foray into markets in 2014, but Athens paid less to borrow the same amount.

The bonds were priced to yield 4.625 percent, 32 basis points below a bond of similar duration that Athens last sold in 2014. The coupon was set at 4.375 percent versus 4.75 percent on the 2014 bonds.

“The return of Greece to the capital markets was and is the goal of the ongoing adjustment program. We therefore welcome the fact that Greece has the chance to return to the market on a step-by-step basis,” a spokeswoman for the finance ministry in Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, said.

Analysts said some investors may be put off Greek government bonds because they have the lowest credit rating in the eurozone and are not eligible for purchase by the European Central Bank under its quantitative easing scheme.

When Greece sold 3 billion euros of five-year bonds in 2014, demand reached over 20 billion euros from 600 investors. Tuesday’s sale saw demand come from about 200 investors, a government official said.

Thomson Reuters’ International Financing Review reported over 6.5 billion euros of orders had been placed.

Greece’s comeback has been timed to take advantage of its borrowing costs hitting seven-year lows. But it is still paying 3.9 times Portugal’s borrowing costs on five-year paper.

A treasurer at one of Greece’s big banks, who wished to remain anonymous, told Reuters that he expected a large chunk of demand for the bond came from domestic banks and pension funds. He added that the deal would also open the way for Greek banks to borrow in capital markets.

Turning a page

Athens lost market access shortly after it sold bonds in 2014 because its newly elected leftist government quarreled with creditors over debt relief.

Some investors may have been put off by that experience, analysts said, especially as there are lingering concerns about Greece’s debt mountain. That stands at 180 percent of economic output versus the 60 percent or falling toward 60 percent required by the European Union.

“Given Greece’s fundamentals, the problem with this bond sale is that it fuels speculation about investor willingness to lend to an almost insolvent country,” said ABN AMRO senior fixed-income analyst Kim Liu. “Regardless of the success of the deal, debt-to-GDP levels of Greece will still be at high levels.”

But Europe’s economics commissioner, Pierre Moscovici, said Tuesday that he was confident Greece was “turning a page” from its economic crisis.

The bond sale is also emblematic of the recovery of the eurozone as a whole, coming five years after European Central Bank President Mario Draghi brought the bloc back from the brink of splintering with a pledge to do “whatever it takes.”

The International Monetary Fund, which has lent financial support to Greece alongside the European Union and the ECB, upgraded its 2017 gross domestic product growth projection for the eurozone and pointed to “solid momentum.”

“We believe that changes in the European political landscape, together with recent strong economic data, mean the bond should perform well,” said Nicholas Wall, a portfolio manager at Old Mutual Global Investors.
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A Ghanaian teenager wanted to develop a video search engine that could challenge the dominance of YouTube. As Faith Lapidus reports, he’s well on his way.
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From recycled paint to rented jeans, businesses large and small are looking at ways to cut waste, use fewer resources and help create what has been coined a “circular economy” in which raw materials and products are repeatedly reused.

Unilever, Renault, Google and Nike are some of the companies starting to move towards a circular business model, experts say.

Cities too – including London, Amsterdam and Paris – are looking at how they can shift to a circular economy, which means reusing products, parts and materials, producing no waste and pollution, and using fewer new resources and energy.

London’s Waste and Recycling Board last month published a road map for how the city as a whole could make the shift, thereby cutting emissions and creating jobs.

“As London grows it faces unprecedented pressure on its land and its resources. If we are to meet these challenges, moving London to a circular economy will be vital,” Shirley Rodrigues, London’s deputy mayor for environment and energy, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The city would likely need less land and infrastructure to manage waste, freeing up space for housing and saving up to 5 billion pounds ($6.5 billion) in infrastructure costs. The shift could generate 40,000 jobs, including 12,500 new jobs across London, she said.

It would also cut harmful greenhouse gas emissions.

“It is widely accepted that the circular economy has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions … through using less resources to make products in the first place and releasing less gases from energy generation, for example,” Rodrigues said.

“This can also be achieved through using resources more efficiently by extending the life of products and through the sharing of goods,” she added.

PwC, which offers audit, tax and consulting services, is going circular, and offering advice about this to its clients, who number 26,000 in Britain with more overseas.

The company uses cooking fat from its canteens and other kitchens to fuel its offices, it re-uses and remanufactures office furniture where possible and donates the rest to charity, and when its computers and phones need upgrading – a frequent occurrence – they send them to another company which resells them.

‘Walk the talk’

Bridget Jackson, PwC’s head of corporate sustainability, is looking at everything from office carpets to recycled wall paint to see how to cut the company’s waste and use of resources. Even worn out company uniforms are taken apart and reused.

“There are big cost savings, there’s reputational benefits from being responsible, and it is a topic which is of a lot of interest to our employees,” Jackson said.

“We are often giving advice to clients about how they can make their operations more efficient and be more sustainable, and we try to walk the talk,” she said.

Some companies are looking for ways to become less reliant on raw materials because they fluctuate in price and become harder to source.

That can mean recycling aluminum for cars, old trainers for sportswear, and others are looking at reusing parts.

Many have developed ways to lease products – including jeans, lighting and photocopiers – to customers who return them when they want to upgrade.

London authorities are hoping that architects will increasingly design buildings which can be taken apart at the end of their lives and the materials and components used again.

“I think increasingly, everything that we do will be seen through the lens of a circular economy,” said Wayne Hubbard, chief operating officer of the London Waste and Recycling Board.

Experts say change is happening in pockets.

“We’re still in the early stages where you see some businesses, some cities, national governments playing around with these ideas and … starting to make moves towards a circular economy,” said Ashima Sukhdev, head of governments and cities at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. “I’m very hopeful that London will become a circular economy.”
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More steps to free up trade globally have been taken since Donald Trump was elected than measures to restrict it, the World Trade Organization said, despite concerns his administration would introduce a raft of punitive rules to protect U.S. jobs.

The WTO’s global monitoring report, debated at a trade policy review on Monday, covers October 2016 to May 2017.

“The report shows an encouraging decrease in the rate of new trade-restrictive measures put in place — hitting the lowest monthly average since the financial crisis,” WTO Director-General Roberto Azevêdo said in a statement.

The semi-annual report, largely coinciding with the period since the election of U.S. President Donald Trump, showed that the 164 WTO members put 74 new restrictive measures in place, including tariffs, customs regulations and quantitative restrictions, with an impact of $49 billion of trade.

At the same time, they took 80 steps to help trade, such as cutting tariffs or simplifying customs procedures, affecting a much bigger $183 billion of trade.

Restrictions peaked in 2011

Trade-restrictive steps peaked at 22 per month in 2011, roughly twice the level in the period of the latest report.

During the period under review, the United States introduced new restrictions including a provisional duty on Canadian softwood lumber, suspecting it of being unfairly priced.

It also brought in “Buy America” provisions to ensure that, subject to some conditions, state loan funds are not used for water infrastructure projects unless all the steel used in the project was produced in the United States, the WTO report said.

Liberalized trade

Trump had also liberalized trade by scrapping broadband privacy rules, allowing Internet service providers to commericalize user data without explicit permission from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, the report said.

China, routinely the WTO member most often accused of unfair pricing and illegal subsidies, had introduced new restrictions with a cybersecurity law, requiring data generated in China to be stored in China, and a film production law, requiring Chinese movies get two-thirds of the screen time at Chinese cinemas.

But it also eased approval requirements for foreign-owned banks to invest in Chinese banks and to supply some investment banking services in China, the WTO report said.
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An Australian man who died in a Sydney car crash may be the 18th death linked to faulty Takata air bags, after police said he was killed when hit in the neck by shrapnel from an air bag.

Police did not say the air bag in the Honda CR-V was from manufacturer Takata, whose faulty air bags have been linked to 17 deaths and more than 180 injuries worldwide.

However, Honda Australia director Stephen Collins confirmed on Saturday that the vehicle involved was linked to the worldwide recall.

“The vehicle involved, a 2007 Honda CR-V, was the subject of Takata airbag inflator recalls,” Collins said in a statement, in which he offered the company’s condolences to the family of the dead driver. “Honda Australia is working closely with authorities to provide whatever assistance is required.”

Takata has declared 2.7 million vehicles to have potentially defective airbags.

Takata Corp filed for bankruptcy last month after being forced to recall around 100 million air bags worldwide, but that figure could be set to double pending an ultimatum set by U.S. regulators.

Dozens of models of vehicles and nearly 20 automakers have been affected by the air bag recalls, with Takata’s automaker customers having so far borne much of the estimated $10 billion cost of replacing the faulty products.

Some automakers still use Takata inflators for replacements in the recalls, although some including Honda Motor Co, Toyota Motor Corp and Nissan Motor Co have said they will stop using Takata inflators for new contracts for future models.
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The Carrier manufacturing facility in Indianapolis, Indiana, owned by United Technologies Company, was in the limelight during the 2016 presidential election when then-candidate Donald Trump criticized UTC’s announcement it was moving jobs from the facility to Mexico. While Trump’s postelection negotiations, including tax incentives, encouraged Carrier to remain in Indianapolis, hundreds of employees still face layoffs this year. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh has more from Indiana.
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President Donald Trump was expected to sign an executive order Friday authorizing a comprehensive review of the U.S. manufacturing sector to help ensure the security of the nation, according to White House officials.

White House National Trade Council Director Peter Navarro told reporters Friday industrial supply chains will also be reviewed in the effort to address possible industrial vulnerabilities that may have been created as a result of U.S. factory closings.

Administration officials say there is a dearth of U.S. companies that can repair submarine propellers and circuit boards and produce parts such as flat panels in the event of a war.

“America’s defense industrial base is now facing increasing gaps in its capabilities,” Navarro said, adding that “certain types of military-grade semiconductors and printed circuit boards have become endangered species.”

The order will call for a 270-day review that will be conducted by the Pentagon, along with the departments of Commerce, Energy, Homeland Security, Labor and the National Security Council.

The Commerce Department is already reviewing the possibility of imposing steel tariffs for national security reasons as a possible way to reshape international trade without negotiating new agreements with foreign countries.
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Businesses owned by U.S. President Donald Trump have filed requests for visas with the Department of Labor to hire dozens of temporary foreign workers.

The news of the requests comes during the White House’s “Made in America Week,” urging American companies to hire American workers, a central theme of Trump’s presidential campaign.

The president’s Mar-a-Lago Resort and his nearby golf club in southern Florida are seeking to bring in the workers under the H-2B visa program, which allows companies to hire temporary, non-agricultural workers when American workers can’t be found. The jobs would run during the clubs’ busy season between October and May.  

Mar-a-Lago is seeking to hire 70 cooks, servers and housekeepers, while the golf club is looking for six cooks.

The Department of Labor certifies companies to apply for the visas, which are issued by the Department of Homeland Security.  

Trump announced a one-time expansion of the H-2B visa program earlier this week, increasing the number of available visas from 66,000 to 81,000. 
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An international energy watchdog warns that the decline in global investment in the oil sector could lead to energy shortages when prices start to rebound. The International Energy Agency says energy investments have declined 20 percent in the past three years as oil profits fell. One analyst tells VOA that is a short-term recipe for long-term problems. Mil Arcega reports.
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The government of Peru’s President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski said on Thursday that it was firing its special counsel in a corruption probe of Brazilian builder Odebrecht, sparking accusations of interference.

Justice Minister Marisol Perez said she dismissed special attorney Katherine Ampuero for blocking Odebrecht’s sale of its irrigation company Olmos. Perez said the decision put thousands of jobs at risk and deprived the state of revenues it would have seized as payment for reparations under a new anti-graft law.

Ampuero argued that Odebrecht would have used the sale of Olmos to pay its creditors abroad instead of Peru, which the company denied.

“Trust in Ampuero was lost because she did not apply the law, and by not applying the law she created economic loss for the state,” Perez told reporters on Thursday.

The announcement put the Odebrecht graft probe in Peru under increased scrutiny and renewed tensions between Kuczynski’s year-old government and the opposition-controlled Congress, which has already pressured three of Kuczynski’s ministers to step down.

“The president should ask Perez to resign immediately,” Popular Force lawmaker Hector Becerril said in broadcast comments on local broadcaster RPP. “This is a government of lobbyists.”

Odebrecht has been offloading its assets as it faces at least $2.6 billion in fines and graft probes in several countries where it has admitted bribing officials. In Peru, the company has been negotiating a plea deal with the attorney general’s office in which Ampuero had taken part as the state’s representative.

Anti-corruption state attorney Julia Principe said she was fired for refusing to dismiss Ampuero and noted that Ampuero had asked the attorney general’s office in March to look into any links that Kuczynski might have had with Odebrecht.

“This situation is a clear interference by the executive branch,” Principe said in a news conference flanked by Ampuero.

Kuczynski’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Kuczynski has denied knowing about or being involved in the $29 million in bribes that Odebrecht has said it paid to officials in Peru over a decade.

Last year Odebrecht said it agreed to sell Olmos to Brookfield Infrastructure Partners LP and Suez SA for an undisclosed sum.

The sale will remain blocked pending an appeals court’s decision on whether to allow it.
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Sears will begin selling its appliances on Amazon.com, including smart appliances that can be synced with Amazon’s voice assistant, Alexa.

The announcement Thursday sent shares of Sears soaring almost 11 percent. The tie-up with the internet behemoth could give shares of the storied retailer one of its biggest one-day percentage gains ever.

Sears, which also owns Kmart, said that its Kenmore Smart appliances will be fully integrated with Amazon’s Alexa, allowing users to control things like air conditioners through voice commands.

“The launch of Kenmore products on Amazon.com will significantly expand the distribution and availability of the Kenmore brand in the U.S.,” Sears Chairman and CEO Edward Lampert said in a company release.

Sears bleeding money?

Sears has struggled with weak sales for years, and announced more store closings earlier this month, partly due to the emergence of Amazon.com and other internet operators. It said in March that there was “substantial doubt” it could continue as a business after years of bleeding money.

Neil Saunders, managing director of research firm GlobalData Retail, said it’s a win for Sears, putting its products where customers are shopping.

Sales at existing Sears stores, a key measure of a retailer’s health, have been in rapid retreat for years.

“Other channels and routes to market are needed,” Saunders said.

Lifeline for Sears

Many saw the agreement with Amazon.com as a lifeline for Sears, with the volume of trading company shares enormous on Thursday.  

And the law of action-reaction is almost always visible when Amazon.com is in the mix.

Shares of other major retailers that sell appliances, Best Buy, Home Depot and Lowe’s, fell between 4 percent and 6 percent.

Sears will handle after-sale services

The agreement with Seattle-based Amazon goes beyond the point of sale for Sears. Also part of the deal is delivery, installation and the service work that comes with product warranties, which will be provided by Sears Home Services.

While Saunders doesn’t think the deal represents a big shift for the retail sector, he said that it does illustrate how retailers must adapt and offer goods through multiple channels if they want to thrive. He believes others are already scrambling to do so.

Shares of Sears Holdings Corp., based in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, just outside of Chicago, jumped 92 cents to close at $9.60.
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U.S. law enforcement officials say they have shut down AlphaBay, the largest online marketplace for the sale of drugs, weapons, fraudulent and stolen ID’s and other illicit products.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Thursday described AlphaBay’s closure as “the largest dark net marketplace takedown in history.“

AlphaBay’s seizure came as Dutch authorities announced the takedown of Hansa Market, another dark net site. Authorities say Hansa Market sold illegal drugs, toxic chemicals, malware, counterfeit identification documents and illegal services.

According to an indictment unsealed on Thursday, AlphaBay was created in 2014 by Alexandre Cazes, a Canadian citizen who went by the online pseudonyms “Alpha02” and “Admin.”

The Justice Department says Cazes was living in Thailand, where he was arrested July 5 as part of an internationally coordinated operation to seize AlphaBay. U.S. authorities say Cazes apparently committed suicide on July 12 while in custody.

The European law enforcement agency Europol as well as authorities in Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Lithuania, the Netherlands an Thailand took part in the operation.

Authorities say AlphaBay serviced more than 40,000 illegal vendors for some 200,000 customers who traded illegal drugs, stolen and bogus identification documents and access devices, counterfeit goods, malware and other computer hacking tools, firearms, and toxic chemicals worldwide.

The majority of AlphaBay’s business involved illicit drugs “pouring fuel on the fire of the national drug epidemic,” said Sessions.

“Around the time of takedown of the site, there were more than 250,000 listings for illegal drugs and toxic chemicals on AlphaBay – more than two-thirds of all listings on AlphaBay,” added the attorney general.

Sessions said several Americans were killed by drugs sold on AlphaBay, including an 18-year-old who overdosed on a powerful synthetic opioid she purchased on the dark market place and had delivered to her home.
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The U.S. Treasury Department has fined ExxonMobil Corporation $2 million for violating Russia sanctions related to Ukraine, while Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was CEO of the global oil and gas conglomerate.

The department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control imposed the civil penalty after concluding ExxonMobil did not voluntarily disclose the violations, which “constitute an egregious case,” it said in a statement.

Treasury said executives of ExxonMobil’s U.S. subsidiaries signed legal documents with Igor Sechin, President of Rosneft, a Russia state-owned oil giant that describes itself as “the world’s largest publicly traded petroleum company.”  Sechin is on Treasury’s list of “Blocked Persons.”

The documents, which Treasury said ExxonMobil failed to “voluntarily self-disclose,” were related to oil and gas projects in Russia.

The agency said ExxonMobil showed “reckless disregard” for the sanctions by dealing with Sechin, a person they knew was on the U.S. blacklist.  The Treasury Department said ExxonMobil caused “significant harm” to the sanctions program.

The violations occurred “Between on or about May 14, 2014 and on or about May 23, 2014,” when Tillerson was CEO.

Tillerson established close relations with Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, while he was CEO of ExxonMobil.

While at ExxonMobil, Tillerson generally opposed sanctions because he thought they were usually ineffective.
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U.S.-based payment card companies, including American Express, MasterCard and Visa, are preparing to submit license requests to operate in China within months, according to three people with direct knowledge of the matter.

The long wait for the U.S. companies is, though, unlikely to end soon. It may take as long as two years or more for the companies to clear all official scrutiny, including from banking regulators, and for them to pass a security review, as well as meeting other conditions, the sources said.

The move comes against a backdrop of growing economic friction between China and the United States, after the two countries failed on Wednesday to agree on major new steps to reduce the U.S. trade deficit with China.

U.S. payment network operators have been waiting for more than a decade to get access to China. It is set to become the world’s largest bank card market by 2020, when the number of cards in circulation is forecast to rise to 9 billion from 6 billion in 2016, according to research firm GlobalData Plc.

China first agreed in 2015 to open the card market to local and foreign businesses, a move triggered by a 2012 World Trade Organization ruling. However, foreign card companies have been unable to set up local operations in the absence of a clear roadmap from Chinese authorities.

In May, Beijing and Washington agreed to a July 16 deadline for China to issue “necessary guidelines” for the launch of local operations by U.S. payment network operators, leading to “full and prompt market access.”

The People’s Bank of China (PBOC), the central bank, issued the guidelines on June 30, according to three people familiar with the matter and a copy of the document reviewed by Reuters.

The expected entry of foreign card companies will challenge the dominance of state-backed China UnionPay Co Ltd, which currently is the sole operator in a yuan bank card payment network worth more than $8 trillion in China.

“It’s exciting that the uncertainty is finally over and they have finally come out with the rule book, but it’s not going to be a fast and smooth journey,” said one of the people with knowledge of some of the U.S. payment companies’ plans.

The people said the applicants would be subject to intense scrutiny by the banking regulator as well as security agencies.

The companies will also have to set up extensive local infrastructure.

An American Express spokesman said it will apply for a license as soon as possible. “The PBOC’s guidelines clearly set forth the process … and we’re continuing to work with different regulators as we move through this process,” he said.

A spokeswoman for Visa declined to comment, citing the quiet period ahead of the announcement of the company’s quarterly results. MasterCard did not immediately respond to request for comment.

The PBOC declined to comment in response to questions faxed to them by Reuters.

Onshore data

Under the conditions laid out by the central bank, all payment companies would have to set up technology and data infrastructure and a back-up data system within China.

This is a concern for the foreign payment network operators, which fear this could result in internal systems being put under surveillance and could make it difficult to maintain the confidentiality of proprietary data, according to industry insiders familiar with the situation.

“There was some expectation that this requirement would be eased a bit but that has not happened, so all the companies will have to build business plans keeping this mind,” said one of the people. “That’s the biggest challenge.”

Some industry insiders have privately expressed concerns about whether China would provide a level-playing field for foreign companies, which could significantly impact the market share of UnionPay, set up in 2002 by China’s central bank and China’s top government body, the State Council.

UnionPay also has been expanding its operations overseas and has a presence in over 160 countries including the United States, while the likes of MasterCard and Visa have been waiting to offer yuan-denominated cards for years.

UnionPay’s share of the global credit card market rose to 25 percent in 2015 from 13 percent in 2010, drawing level with MasterCard but lagging Visa’s more than one-third market share, according to Euromonitor International.

The plans by the major global card companies to enter China also comes at a time when Chinese consumers are increasingly turning to mobile and online payments and money transfers using services such as Tencent Holdings’ WeChat Pay and Alibaba Group Holding’s affiliate Alipay.
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Amazon.com has launched a social feature called Spark that allows members to showcase and purchase products on its platforms, the retail giant’s first clear move into the world of social media.

Spark, which is currently only available for Amazon’s premium paying Prime members, encourages users to share photos and videos, just like popular social media platforms Instagram and Pinterest. The new feature publicly launched on Tuesday for use on mobile devices that use Apple’s iOS operating system.

Spark users can tag products on their posts that are available on Amazon and anyone browsing the feeds can instantly find and purchase them on the platform. Users can also respond to posts with “smiles,” equivalent to Facebook’s “likes.”

“We created Spark to allow customers to discover – and shop – stories and ideas from a community that likes what they like,” said an Amazon spokeswoman.

“When customers first visit Spark, they select at least five interests they’d like to follow and we’ll create a feed of relevant content contributed by others. Customers shop their feed by tapping on product links or photos with the shopping bag icon.”

Amazon has also invited publishers including paid influencers and bloggers to post on Spark. Their posts are identified with a sponsored hashtag.

Many Amazon users on social media called the service a cross between Instagram and Pinterest with a touch of e-commerce.

Brand strategist Jill Richardson (@jillfran8) said: “Been messing with #AmazonSpark all morning and I am LIVING. It’s like Pinterest, Instagram, and my credit card had a baby and it’s beautiful.”

Community manager Lucas Miller (@lucasmiller3) also tweeted: “So #amazonspark is going to be a dangerous pastime.

The app is already too easy to shop…” Amazon shares closed up 0.2 percent at $1,026.87 on Wednesday.
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The U.S. Carrier factory where President Donald Trump says he saved 800 jobs from moving to Mexico is expected to notify 300 people this week that they are being laid off.

The layoff notices are expected to start as early as Thursday, exactly six months since Trump took office. The layoffs are part of a deal Trump made with the company in December to prevent deeper cuts at the Indianapolis plant.

The layoffs are the first of a group of 630 job terminations planned for the year as the company moves some of its operations to Mexico. Carrier announced in December that its fan coil department would relocate to Mexico by the end of 2017.

In a letter sent to the Indiana Department of Workforce Development in May, a human resources manager for Carrier said, “While the entire facility is not closing, the separations are expected to be permanent.”

In addition, Carrier’s parent company, United Technologies Corporation, is expected to lay off an additional 700 workers at factories in the town of Huntington, Indiana, near the city of Fort Wayne.

However, Carrier has also said it will honor its commitment, made in 2016, to employ about 1,100 people in Indianapolis.

Robert James, the man who heads the Carrier workers’ local union, has told VOA the union is trying to negotiate retirement incentives and “voluntary separation” incentives, or buyouts, for the workers to cut down the number of actual job losses.

The Carrier plant, which makes gas furnaces, became an issue in last year’s presidential election when United Technologies announced plans to eliminate about 2,100 jobs in the state and transfer those operations to Mexico. As a presidential candidate, Trump roundly criticized that decision.

After winning the presidential election, Trump worked out a deal with his vice president-elect, then the governor of Indiana, to provide as much as $7 million in tax incentives and training grants for Carrier in exchange for keeping about 700 of those jobs in the state.

Trump also tweeted twice about former union leader Chuck Jones after Jones criticized the deal. Trump said Jones had done a “terrible job” negotiating for the workers and suggesting that he “spend more time working.”

Jones has since retired.

Carrier said the employees who lose their jobs will get severance pay. It says at least 30 people are taking advantage of educational funding offered by Carrier.
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Talks aimed at breaking down trade barriers between the United States and China appeared to hit a snag Wednesday in Washington, as the two sides canceled news conferences that were scheduled for the end of the meeting.

As the talks started in Washington, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin called for “a more fair and balanced economic relationship” between the United States and China.

Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang said trading cooperation between the two countries “is a realistic choice for both sides,” but he warned “confrontation will immediately damage the interests of both.”

Washington and Beijing govern the world’s two biggest economies, but China sells more than $300 billion more to U.S. customers each year than American firms sell to China.

Analysts say domestic politics in both nations make it difficult for negotiators to make progress on trade issues. Derek Scissors of the American Enterprise Institute tells VOA that President Donald Trump’s criticism of China during the election campaign means Washington has to press for significant concessions from Beijing in these talks. Scissors says the next step might be for the Trump administration to impose a tariff on steel or aluminum imports from China. 

Meanwhile, Bookings Institution scholars David Dollar and Ryan Hass write that China’s leadership cannot be seen as giving in to Washington in the run-up to the Party Congress, which is a major political event.  

The U.S. Treasury chief said the U.S. and China had made progress earlier in their trade relations as a result of the April summit between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, with China’s markets being opened to U.S. beef processors and American credit-rating agencies gaining new information to assess the creditworthiness of Chinese corporations.
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