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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Careem, a Middle Eastern rival to Uber, has become the first ride-hailing firm to operate in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Dubai-based Careem, whose name is a play on the Arabic word for generous or noble, launched in Ramallah in June, aiming to bring digital simplicity to the Palestinian territory.

There is certainly a market for easier ride-hailing among the nearly 3 million Palestinians living in the West Bank, but the fact the mobile network is still 2G, that electronic payments are not the norm and that Israeli checkpoints are common, make using the service somewhat cumbersome.

Yet Careem is optimistic about the potential.

“We are planning to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars within the coming year in the (Palestinian) sector,” Kareem Zinaty, operations manager for the Levant region said. “After the investment, it is also an opportunity to create jobs.”

Careem, which launched in 2012 and now operates in 12 countries and more than 80 cities across the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia, has said it aims to provide work for one million people across the region by 2018.

Careem’s captains

While a version of Uber and Israeli app Gett already operate in Israel, they do not venture into Palestinian territory. Drivers are excited to work with Careem, which they hope will help boost their incomes, especially with unemployment in the West Bank running at nearly 20 percent.

“It’s a very wonderful opportunity,” said one of the more than 100 new drivers, known as “captains” by Careem. “Most of the people who use it are young and happy with the price.”

Palestinians have limited self rule in parts of the West Bank, which they want for a future state alongside East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. Israel captured those areas in the 1967 Middle East war. It withdrew from Gaza in 2005, but still occupies the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Under interim peace accords, Israel still controls 60 percent of the West Bank, where most of its settlements are located. Careem’s drivers have Palestinian license plates, meaning they usually cannot enter Israeli-controlled areas.

In 2015, Israel and the Palestinian Authority agreed to expand 3G mobile access to the West Bank by 2016, but have yet to implement the agreement. In the meantime, the Ramallah municipality has set up public Wi-Fi in parts of the city center, allowing Apps like Careem to be used more easily.

Despite 2G’s slower service, Zinaty said their model was an opportunity for telecommunication companies to look into expanding services and technologies to better serve Palestinian start ups and businesses.
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The government of Peru’s President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski is no longer considering cutting the value-added tax (VAT) rate due to slumping government revenues as the economy slows, the country’s prime minister said Tuesday.

Trimming the VAT rate gradually to 15 percent from 18 percent had been part of Kuczynski’s economic platform as he took office a year ago, before severe flooding and a graft scandal thwarted investments and knocked Peru’s growth outlook.

Dropping the plan will likely be welcomed by the right-wing opposition that had feared a VAT reduction would widen the fiscal deficit. But it could be seen as a broken campaign promise by Kuczynski allies who expected a lower rate to stimulate the economy and encourage more people to pay the tax.

“Reducing the VAT has been ruled out,” Prime Minister Fernando Zavala told foreign media in a press conference. “Tax revenues haven’t grown in recent months and we think we have to improve that in coming years by making VAT collection more

efficient.”

Kuczynski named Zavala finance minister while keeping him in his post as prime minister last month after the opposition-controlled Congress ousted the former finance minister over a scandal involving an airport contract.

Peru, the world’s second biggest copper, zinc and silver producer, has enjoyed some of the strongest growth readings and slowest inflation rates in the region this century.

But the economy will likely slow to 2.8 percent this year from 3.9 percent in 2016, even with the government’s planned fiscal stimulus, Zavala said. Next year the economy should expand by between 3.8 percent to 4 percent, he added.

The government previously forecast growth at 3 percent in 2017 and 4.5 percent in 2018.

Zavala reiterated that the government planned to expand the fiscal deficit to 3 percent of gross domestic product this year and to 3.5 percent next year to pay to rebuild parts of Peru devastated by floods this year.

“It’s a deficit increase but only for resources for the reconstruction and only for a period of 3 to 4 years,” Zavala said. “We’re taking all the measures necessary for the economy to accelerate.”

Peru will likely sell sovereign bonds again next year to finance government spending or to extend the life of the country’s debt, Zavala said.

On Monday, Peru sold some $3 billion in sol-denominated bonds that can be settled through post-trade services provider Euroclear, part of the country’s efforts to reduce debt in foreign currencies.
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With corruption charges delaying his unpopular proposal for the overhaul of Brazil’s costly pension system, President Michel Temer is trying to quickly push through a mini tax reform, a presidential aide told Reuters on Tuesday.

The simplification of the PIS/Cofins federal social security contributions levied on gross receipts would face easier passage in Congress and allow Temer to show his wavering allies that his administration is still advancing on its promised reform agenda.

“There won’t be the political environment to approve pension reform until the issue of the charges is out of the way,” said the aide, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

Federal prosecutors charged Temer last month with taking bribes.  Though his government is confident it has the backing in Congress to stop a trial by the Supreme Court, that support could melt away if his administration is seen to be paralyzed.

In a video statement released on social media on Monday, Temer said tax reform was a priority and a bill would be sent to Congress in “very little time.”  He has held talks this week on the tax reform with his economic team and a series of lawmakers.

Temer pointed to approval last week of a measure modernizing Brazil’s labor laws as a sign his government is still working.

“We know it is difficult to pass pension reform. It is clear there is no climate for that now,” said Lucio Vieira Lima, the deputy leader of the ruling PMDB party in the lower chamber of Congress.

The tax measure will be sent to Congress after the two-week recess that began on Tuesday, the aide said.

It will not tackle the more complicated levies in Brazil’s burdensome tax system, the ICMS tax on circulation of goods and the ISS tax on services. These are vital sources of revenue for cash-strapped local governments and any attempt to change them could be political dynamite for Temer at this moment.
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House Republicans on Tuesday unveiled a 10-year budget blueprint that would dramatically increase military spending while putting the GOP on record favoring Medicare cuts opposed by President Donald Trump.

The GOP plan, authored by Budget Chairman Diane Black, R-Tenn., would also pave the way for overhauling the U.S. tax code this fall, and would pair that effort with cuts to benefit programs such as food stamps. The plan also lays out a plan to balance the budget inside a decade through deep cuts to a wide swath of domestic programs — though GOP leaders have no intention of actually carrying out the cuts.

Black announced a committee vote for Wednesday, but action by the entire House could be delayed by an ongoing quarrel between the GOP’s tea party and moderate factions over spending cuts.

Medicare is the second largest mandatory program after Social Security, and the House GOP plan again proposes to turn Medicare into a voucher-like program in which future retirees would receive a fixed benefit to purchase health insurance on the open market. Republicans have proposed the idea each year since taking back the House in 2011, but they’ve never tried to implement it — and that’s not going to change now, even with a Republican as president.

The plan, in theory at least, promises to balance the budget through unprecedented and unworkable cuts across the budget. It calls for turning this year’s projected $700 billion or so deficit into a tiny $9 billion surplus by 2027. It would do so by slashing $5.4 trillion over the coming decade, including almost $500 billion from Medicare, $1.5 trillion from Medicaid and the Obama health law, along with enormous cuts to benefits such as federal employee pensions, food stamps, and tax credits for the working poor.

“The status quo is unsustainable. A mounting national debt and lackluster economic growth will limit opportunity for people all across the country,” Black said in a statement. “But we don’t have to accept this reality. We can move forward with an optimistic vision for the future and this budget is the first step in that process. This is the moment to get real results for the American people. The time for talking is over, now is the time for action.”

But in the immediate future the GOP measure is a budget buster. It would add almost $30 billion to Trump’s $668 billion request for national defense, which already exceeds an existing “cap” on spending by $54 billion. But while Trump proposed taking that $54 billion from domestic agencies and foreign aid, the GOP budget plan would restore most of the cuts, trimming non-defense agencies by just $5 billion.

All told, the GOP plan would spend about $67 billion more in the upcoming annual appropriations bills than would be allowed under harsh spending limits set by a failed 2011 budget and debt agreement and pads war accounts by $10 billion. And, like Trump’s budget, the House GOP plan assumes rosy economic projections that would erase another $1.5 trillion from the deficit over 10 years.

The measure, called a budget resolution, is nonbinding. It would allow Republicans controlling Congress to pass follow-up legislation through the Senate without the threat of a filibuster by Democrats. GOP leaders and the White House plan to use that measure to rewrite the tax code.

As proposed by House leaders, tax reform would essentially be deficit neutral, which means cuts to tax rates would be mostly “paid for” by closing various tax breaks such as the deduction for state and local taxes. However, the GOP plan would devote $300 billion claimed from economic growth to the tax reform effort.

But conservatives are insisting on adding cuts to so-called mandatory programs, which make up more than two-thirds of the federal budget and basically run on autopilot. After extended negotiations, Black would instruct 11 House panels to draw up $203 billion worth of mandatory cuts. But neither tea party lawmakers nor moderates are pleased with the idea. Conservatives want larger cuts, while moderates are blanching at voting to cut popular programs such as food stamps.
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The Trump Administration has launched “Made In America Week” to highlight the importance of U.S. manufacturing and tout its policies to bring more such jobs back home from overseas. But as VOA White House Bureau Chief Steve Herman reports, many Trump family products are made in foreign factories, leading to criticism of the president’s trade campaign.
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President Donald Trump inspected products brought to the White House on Monday from all 50 U.S. states to launch his “Made In America Week.”

On display from the easternmost state of Maine was a yacht. From the distant shores of Hawaii, more than 7,500 kilometers from the nation’s capital, there was a bottle of rum.

Even Marine One, the presidential helicopter, was turned into an expensive prop to tout Connecticut manufacturing.

The president hopped into a Wisconsin firetruck.

“Where’s the fire? I’ll put it out,” he asked as Vice President Mike Pence looked on and press secretary Sean Spicer snapped photos.

Highlighting US manufacturing prowess

Minutes later, Trump signed a proclamation declaring July 17 as Made in America Day, saying the “hard part now is done,” because his administration has removed regulatory barriers.  

“For decades Washington has allowed other nations to wipe out millions of American jobs through unfair trade practices,” said the president to representatives of the featured businesses from 50 states. “Wait ‘till you see what is up for you. You are going to be so happy.”  

The latest weekly-themed campaign of the six-month-old Trump administration (and there are more to come in the next few weeks) is meant to highlight the importance of U.S. manufacturing and tout its policies to bring more such jobs back from overseas.

Amid the continuing pursuit of health care legislation and the growing investigations into links between the Trump campaign and Russia, another themed week should have come as a welcome and positive distraction.

Monday’s launch, however, was somewhat overshadowed by the fact that many, if not most, of the Trump family business products are made in foreign factories.

Steel and aluminum to build some of the most recent Trump hotels in the U.S. came from China. Much of the merchandise sold in those hotels, as well as the president’s private golf courses, are of foreign origin.  

What about Trump products?

The Democratic National Committee calls the domestic promotion campaign “the epitome of hypocrisy,” saying the president, instead of lecturing, should try setting an example.

“If you’re going to preach something, start at home, start at home,” said Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Party’s leader in the Senate. “Trump shirts and ties: where are they made? China. Trump furniture: where is it made? Turkey.” 

The clothing line carrying daughter Ivanka Trump’s name is also made overseas. That point was repeatedly raised by reporters at Monday’s off-camera White House press briefing.

“Some products may not have the scalability or the demand here in this country,” acknowledged Spicer. “But like so many other things, if that demand – if there is enough of demand then hopefully somebody builds a factory and does it.”  

Globalization makes ‘Made in…’ obsolete

Trade analysts say it is not that simple, because we are now in an interconnected global economy.

“The factory floor has broken through its walls and now spans borders and oceans,” said Daniel Ikenson, who directs trade policy studies at a libertarian think tank, the Cato Institute. “So things, a final good on an American retail store shelf, tends to have components, value-added, in five, six, 10 countries.”

While internationalists acknowledge there is a problem with Americans displaced from their jobs by technological changes or trade treaties, “The way to address that is not to compel people to buy American. The way to address that is to get rid of the frictions in the labor market that will make it easier for people to adjust to the new conditions,” Ikenson told VOA.

White House policymakers are undeterred by such arguments, pursuing their protectionist agenda. It seeks to reverse decades of work by administrations of both parties – supported by major U.S. business groups — to promote international commerce and trade agreements. 
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EU foreign ministers approved on Monday measures to allow Ukraine to export more industrial and agricultural products free of tariffs to the bloc in recognition of reforms undertaken by Kyiv and the country’s fragile economy.

By the end of September, Ukraine will be able to export greater tonnage of farm products, including grains, honey and processed tomatoes for three years.

The EU will also remove for the same period import duties on fertilizers, dyes, footwear, copper, aluminum, televisions and sound recording equipment.

The measures add to a free-trade agreement provisionally in place since January 2016 that has opened both markets for goods and services.

“It is our duty to support Ukraine and strengthen our economic and political ties, also in the face of the ongoing conflict on its soil,” said Estonia Foreign Minister Sven Mikser, whose country holds the six-month rotating presidency of the European Union.

Trade has been at the heart of a dispute between Russia and the European Union over relations with Ukraine, with Moscow and Brussels both competing to bring Kyiv closer to their side through offers of greater economic integration.

While Kyiv has moved westward, Russia has sought to destabilize Ukraine, EU governments and NATO say, by annexing Crimea and providing separatists with weapons and troops in Ukraine’s industrial east.
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On a sweltering summer morning in the southern Indian city of Chennai, a dozen garment workers crowd into a small courtroom for the latest hearing in a protracted battle over low wages in factories supplying global fashion brands.

The women are among tens of thousands of workers in Tamil Nadu state – the largest hub in India’s $40 billion-a-year textile and garment industry – who are seeking millions of dollars in compensation following a landmark court ruling last year that declared they had long been grossly underpaid.

The Madras High Court ordered that the garment workers should receive a pay rise of up to 30 percent – the first minimum wage hike for 12 years – and that they could claim arrears going back to 2014.

But 12 months on, many factory bosses have failed to pay up.

Squeezed into a corner at the back of the stuffy Chennai courtroom, a middle-aged woman leans against the blue walls, clutching polythene bags full of documents to prove her claim.

Normally she spends her days hunched over a sewing machine, stitching skirts, shirts and dresses destined for high streets around the world.

But for months she has been taking days off work to attend court.

“I forgo a day’s salary to come for these hearings. It may not seem like a big amount, but for us it is hard earned money,” said the 48-year-old seamstress, who did not wish to be identified fearing it would impact her case. “I am only asking for what is rightfully mine. And they won’t even tell me how they are calculating my dues.”

More than 150 claims have been filed against tailoring and export garment manufacturing units in the Chennai region alone, according to data requested by the Thomson Reuters Foundation under the Right to Information Act.

The claims, which would benefit at least 80,000 workers at factories around the port city, add up to more than 490 million Indian rupees ($7.6 million).

But workers’ unions say these claims are probably the tip of the iceberg as they only represent cases filed by government labor inspectors.

Salary cuts

Under the 2016 Madras court ruling, Tamil Nadu’s garment and textile workers should see their pay rise from a monthly average of 4,500 to 6,500 rupees – which campaigners say is comparable to wages for textile jobs in most other states.

But workers say managers have defaulted or delayed on payments since the ruling, with some even introducing pay cuts.

Despite the state’s minimum wage laws, salaries continue to be “grossly low” for thousands of workers who are still not given pay slips or are often hired only as apprentices, campaigners say.

“Instead of paying workers their correct salaries, companies are finding ways to surreptitiously squash their rights,” said Selvi Palani, a lawyer helping workers’ unions fight their cases. “There is a court order but the money is not on the table.

Workers continue to be underpaid.”

Sujata Mody of Penn Thozhilalargal Sangam, a women workers’ union, said some companies that had raised wages were now docking pay for sick days, and for factory meals and shuttle buses which were previously free, meaning many workers had seen little or no change in pay.

Some factories were also firing more expensive workers on trivial grounds, she added.

“The workers are struggling to be heard and the managements are coming up with new forms to deduct their income,” Mody said.

Repeated delays

Under the 1948 Minimum Wages Act, state governments are required to increase the basic minimum wage every five years to protect workers against exploitation, but textile manufacturers have repeatedly challenged pay rises in Tamil Nadu.

The state’s labor commissioner, Ka Balachandran, said inspectors were verifying every company’s records to check that wages were now in line with last year’s ruling.

“We are doing everything to ensure workers get fair wages, and get it quickly,” he added.

But manufacturers in Tamil Nadu say the hike is too high, putting them at a disadvantage to competitors in other states. Some say they are already paying workers more than the minimum wage.

“The new norms are not distinguishing clearly between skilled and non-skilled workers,” said S Shaktivel of the Tirupur Exporters’ Association.

He said some companies had launched an appeal against the order at the Madras High Court.

In the Chennai labor court, case numbers are called out in quick succession.

The seamstress, who is expecting arrears of up to 5,000 rupees, strains to listen over the slow whirring of the ceiling fan.

“My financial situation is not very good,” she whispers. “My husband had surgery a few months back, we have a loan to pay back and a house to run. The company owes me arrears for almost one year. I need that income desperately.”

Her case is called. The lawyer representing the company asks for more time. Another date is set, with the judge warning against further delays.

“I hope I get a good settlement,” the seamstress said as she left court. “After all these years, I would like to stop working, but that looks unlikely. At least if they paid me properly, I would feel a little better.”
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A severed marine cable has left Somalia without internet for weeks, triggering losses for businesses, residents said, and adding a layer of chaos in a country where Islamist insurgents are carrying out a campaign of bombings and killings.

Abdi Anshuur, Somalia’s minister for posts and telecommunications, told state radio that internet to the Horn of Africa state went down a month ago after a ship cut an undersea cable connecting it to global data networks.

Businesses have had to close or improvise to remain open and university students told Reuters their educational courses had been disrupted.

Anshuur said the outage was costing Somalia the equivalent of about $10 million in economic output.

“The night internet went off marked the end of my daily bread,” Mohamed Nur, 22, told Reuters in the capital Mogadishu.

Nur said he now begged “tea and cigarettes from friends” after the internet cutoff also severed his monthly income of $500 that he took in from ads he developed and placed on the video website, YouTube.

Somalia’s economy is still picking up slowly after a combined force of the army and an African Union peacekeeping force helped drive the Islamist group, al Shabaab, out of Mogadishu and other strongholds.

Al Shabaab wants to topple the western backed government and rule according to its strict interpretation of Islamic sharia law.

The group remains formidable and lethal, with its campaign of frequent bombings and killings a key source of significant security risk for most businesses and regular life.

Now the internet outage potentially compounds the hardships for most firms. Most young people who say they are unable to work because of the outage spend hours idling in front of tea shops.

Mohamed Ahmed Hared, commercial manager of Somali Optical Networks(SOON), a large internet service provider in the country, told Reuters his business was losing over a million dollars a day. Hared’s clients, he said, had reported a range of crippled services including passport and e-tickets printing and money remittances.

Some students and staff at the University of Somalia in Mogadishu told Reuters their learning had been disrupted because Google, which they heavily rely on for research, was now inaccessible.

The absence of especially popular internet sites like Facebook and YouTube and Google was, however, cause for celebration for some in the conservative, Muslim nation.

“My wife used to be (on) YouTube or Facebook every minute,” Mohamud Osman, 45, said, adding the online activity would sometimes distract her from feeding her baby and that the habit had once forced him to try to get a divorce.

“Now I am happy … internet is without doubt a necessary tool of evil.”

 
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Gibraltar will not be a victim of Brexit and has had guarantees from the British government it will not do a trade deal with the European Union which doesn’t include the territory, its chief minister said on Sunday.

The future of Gibraltar, a rocky enclave on the southern tip of Spain captured by Britain in 1704, and its 30,000 inhabitants is set to be a major point of contention in Brexit negotiations. The EU annoyed Britain and Gibraltar in April by offering Spain a right of veto over the territory’s post-Brexit relationship with the bloc.

Gibraltar, which Spain wants back, voted strongly in favor of remaining in the EU at last year’s referendum but is committed to staying part of Britain.

Gibraltar’s Chief Minister Fabian Picardo told Sky News he had had “cast iron assurances” from Britain’s Brexit minister David Davis that the government would not do a trade deal with the EU if it did not include Gibraltar.

“I’m the backbone of this negotiation for Gibraltar and the backbone is made of limestone rock, it’s not going to be easy to buckle on that. We can have the War of the Summer, the War of the Autumn or the War of the Winter, if you like, on that, Gibraltar is not going to change its position,” he said.

“It’s our obligation now to energetically and enthusiastically pursue the result of the referendum and deliver a successful Brexit. We’re not going to get in the way of Brexit but we’re not going to be the victims of Brexit.”

During a state visit to Britain this week, Spain’s King Felipe said he was confident an acceptable arrangement could be worked out with Britain over the future of Gibraltar, but Prime Minister Theresa May’s spokeswoman said the topic had not come up during their bilateral meeting.

“There is not going to be any new arrangements in relation to the sovereignty of Gibraltar, that is going to remain 100 percent British,” Picardo said.
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Bilateral talks aimed at reducing the U.S. trade deficit with China have yielded some initial deals, but U.S. firms say much more needs to be done as a deadline for a 100-day action plan expires Sunday.

The negotiations, which began in April, have reopened China’s market to U.S. beef after 14 years and prompted Chinese pledges to buy U.S. liquefied natural gas. American firms have also been given access to some parts of China’s financial services sector.

More details on the 100-day plan are expected to be announced in the coming week as senior U.S. and Chinese officials gather in Washington for annual bilateral economic talks, rebranded this year as the “U.S.-China Comprehensive Economic Dialogue.”

A U.S. Commerce Department spokesman declined to discuss potential areas for new agreements since a May 11 announcement on beef, chicken, financial services and LNG.

​Trade deficit grows

Earlier in April, when Chinese President Xi Jinping met U.S. President Donald Trump for the first time at his Florida resort, Xi agreed to a 100-day plan for trade talks aimed at boosting U.S. exports and trimming the U.S. trade deficit with China.

The U.S. goods trade deficit with China reached $347 billion last year. The gap in the first five months of 2017 widened about 5.3 percent from a year earlier, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

“It is an excellent momentum builder, but much more needs to be done for U.S.-China commercial negotiations to be considered a success,” said Jacob Parker, vice president of China operations at the U.S.-China Business Council (USCBC) in Beijing.

Biggest irritants

There has been little sign of progress in soothing the biggest trade irritants, such as U.S. demands that China cut excess capacity in steel and aluminum production, lack of access for U.S. firms to China’s services market, and U.S. national security curbs on high-tech exports to China.

The Trump administration is considering broad tariffs or quotas on steel and aluminum on national security grounds, partly in response to what it views as a glut of Chinese production that is flooding international markets and driving down prices.

Deals struck

American beef is now available in Chinese shops for the first time since a 2003 U.S. case of “mad cow” disease, giving U.S. ranchers access to a rapidly growing market worth around $2.6 billion last year.

More beef deals were signed during an overseas buying mission by the Chinese last week.

“There are hopes there will be even more concrete results,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a daily news briefing in Beijing on Friday. He did not elaborate.

Critics of the 100-day process said China had agreed to lift its ban on U.S. beef last September, with officials just needing to finalize details on quarantine requirements.

China, meanwhile, has delivered its first batch of cooked chicken to U.S. ports after years of negotiating for access to the market. 

But unlike the rush by Chinese consumers for a first taste of American beef, Chinese poultry processors have not had a flurry of orders for cooked chicken.

Biotech crops, financial services

Other sectors in China under U.S. pressure to open up have moved more slowly.

Beijing had only approved two of the eight biotech crops waiting for import approval, despite gathering experts to review the crops on two occasions in a six-week period.

U.S. industry officials had signaled they were expecting more approvals. U.S. executives say the review process still lacks transparency.

Financial services is another area where little progress has been made, U.S. officials say.

USCBC’s Parker said it is unclear how long it will take for foreign credit rating agencies to be approved, or whether U.S.-owned suppliers of electronic payment services will be able to secure licenses.

The bilateral talks have also not addressed restrictions on foreign investment in life insurance and securities trading, or “the many challenges foreign companies face in China’s cybersecurity enforcement environment,” Parker said.

In an annual report released Thursday, the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai said China remained a “difficult market.”
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Take care of your soil, and your soil will take care of you. That’s the message agriculture experts have for farmers worldwide. They say farmers can halt the degradation of their land and save money by using techniques known as conservation agriculture. But as VOA’s Steve Baragona reports, adopting those techniques takes a change of attitude.
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