North Korea, China, Tariffs, ZTE, Ireland, Starbucks, Pot

Marc Ross Daily
May 16, 2018
Curation and commentary from Marc A. Ross

Reporting from Alexandria, Virginia

Marc Ross Daily  = Global Business News at the Intersection of Politics + Policy + Profits

Subscribe here: https://goo.gl/bSQKwA

TOP FIVE

✔️ North Korea abruptly postponed talks with South Korea

✔️ US business groups bash Trump's China tariffs plan

✔️ Jacob Rees-Mogg refuses European Economic Area

✔️ Women sweep to victory in House primaries

✔️ China is Facebook's second largest market after the US

MR IN THE NEWS

US-China trade relations: Yesterday, I had the opportunity to speak with Asieh Namdar with CGTN-America. We discussed the state of US-China trade policy and the future of trade between the two countries. You can see the clip here: http://bit.ly/2InHcda

GEOECONOMICS

North Korea abruptly postponed talks with South Korea to protest US-South Korean military exercises and threatened to scrap a summit next month between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un if there is “a one-sided demand for us to give up our nukes.”

Welcome to The Bigs, Mr. Trump.

FT: Asia markets soften as Korea talks collapse

US firms seek tariff relief as US and China try to mend rift: AP reports, corporate America is seeking relief from President Donald Trump's threatened tariffs on at least $50 billion in Chinese goods as negotiators seek to prevent a trade war between the world's two biggest economies. As the US government began three days of hearings on the tariffs Tuesday, Chinese Vice Premier Liu He traveled to Washington to seek a resolution to the trade dispute. A similar high-level US delegation made a trip to Beijing earlier this month and returned empty-handed.

NYT: Businesses race to Washington to sway Trump on China tariffs

Bloomberg: US business groups bash Trump's China tariffs plan

Just about everything is odd about Trump’s support of Chinese firm ZTE: WP reports, just about everything is odd about President Trump's recent tweet that he wants to help Chinese technology company ZTE “get back into business, fast” because its failure costs “too many jobs in China.” It's odd that Trump, who campaigned on saving millions of U.S. jobs, suddenly says he cares about a few thousand Chinese jobs. It's odd that Trump, who championed “America First,” is worried about a single Chinese firm.

FT: US and China ‘still very far apart’ on trade, says US ambassador

Is China straight-up bribing Donald Trump? Vanity Fair reports, the president suddenly softens on a Chinese business after Beijing bankrolls a Trump Organization project.

"So it was a bit odd to see Trump pull a complete 180, suddenly insisting that the company and its 75,000 Chinese jobs must be saved, though to be fair, tweeting “Look, China just pumped $500 million into a Trump Organization project so I had to do them a solid” might not have gone over so well."

NAFTA: Negotiators from Canada, Mexico, and the United States are unlikely to strike a deal for a revised North American Free Trade Agreement deal by Thursday.

Pot in Canada: On Monday, the world’s largest marijuana producer was formed when Aurora Cannabis, which is headquartered in Vancouver, bought medical-marijuana firm MedReleaf for about CA$3bn (€2bn) in stock. The acquisition is the latest in a string of maneuvers in Canada’s cannabis economy ahead of new legislation that could legalize the drug on 1 July – Canada’s national holiday. 

WSJ: Trump's goal for NAFTA rewrite looks unattainable in 2018

Spain’s top economists vow to boycott all-male panel discussions. 

Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg refuses European Economic Area: Rees-Mogg met PM Theresa May yesterday and assured her that the 60 or so Tory Brexiteers that he leads in the European Research Group will not back down over the customs partnership. He argued that abiding by EU rules without having a say in how they were made would completely undo the purpose of the Brexit vote.

Why the future of Northern Ireland is crucial to Brexit negotiations: The Times reports, as a recent poll causes grave concern among senior Tories on all sides of the argument, Sam Coates, the Times deputy political editor, breaks down ten key reasons the province has become critical to the debate.

BRIGADOON EVENTS

Brigadoon Annapolis | Salon Dinner + Lectures = Sep. 20-21, 2018

Brigadoon Detroit | Salon Dinner = Oct. 11, 2018

Brigadoon Cincinnati | Salon Dinner = Nov. 1, 2018

Brigadoon Scotland 2018 = Nov. 11-13, 2018

More info @ http://thebrigadoon.com

AMERICAN POLITICS

CIA: Gina Haspel is on track to be confirmed by the US Senate.

Today: Trump will meet and hold a working lunch with Uzbekistan President Shavkat Mirziyoyev. 

Novartis has announced the departure of general counsel Felix Ehrat over his role in a $1.2M contract it struck with Michael Cohen.

Related: Marc Ross: CEOs need to learn lessons from the AT&T and Michael Cohen scandal http://bit.ly/2rMzX39

Election 2018: Democratic women had a good night, winning seven primaries for House seats in Pennsylvania and threatening the state's all-male congressional delegation.

Women sweep to victory in House primaries: Politico reports, voters decide key battleground contests in 4 states.

Top Dem presidential hopefuls audition for 2020: Politico reports, the first cattle call of 2020 drew a host of big names, The Center for American Progress’ Ideas Conference allowed possible 2020 candidates to test out messages on progressivism in the Trump era.

A reckoning for Obama's foreign-policy legacy: Veterans of the last administration are learning a hard lesson: Policies constructed by executive order and executive agreement are just as easily blown up by them. https://theatln.tc/2IMEkFY

Hurricane Genesis and Outlook Project report predicts that there will be 11 to 18 named tropical storms this year.

ENTERPRISE

Starbucks is looking to double down on the Chinese market as traffic growth comes under pressure in the U.S. The coffee chain hopes to more than triple its revenue and almost double its store count in China over the next five years. It currently has around 3,300 stores in 141 cities across the country.

China is Facebook's second largest market after the US: AdAge reports, nearly 10 percent of Facebook's global revenue, or about $5 billion, comes from China, despite being banned from operating in the country, according to a new report by Pivotal research analyst Brian Wieser. This means China is the second-largest ad spender on Facebook, only behind the US.

No Facebook for you: As part of its purge of bad content from its platform, Facebook deleted 583 million fake accounts and 865.8 million posts during Q1 2018.

Facebook’s blockchain move raises eyebrows: FT reports, Zuckerberg flirts with decentralization of his very centralized social network.

Amazon is debuting a Prime loyalty program that includes an extra 10% off on sales items and weekly discounts at Whole Foods.

Kellogg has discontinued its operations in Venezuela due to the ongoing social and economic distress in the nation.

Lime, the e-scooter company, is raising $500 million.

How China's tech revolution threatens Silicon Valley: A look inside Beijing's booming start-up scene shows how ubiquitous the country's tech culture is. https://theatln.tc/2wKkiHn

TRENDS

Great things take time: Why focusing on the long-term is more important than ever http://bit.ly/2IlN0E4

CULTURE

RIP: Tom Wolfe employed literary techniques in his magazine articles, pioneering the New Journalism of the 1960s and ’70s. He wrote books such as “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” and “The Right Stuff”; his first novel, “The Bonfire of the Vanities,” was a bestseller.

Tom Wolfe, writer, 1930-2018: FT reports, American literary and journalistic iconoclast who Norman Mailer said was the hardest working writer of his time.

The Tom Wolfe syllabus: The pioneer of New Journalism died at the age of 88 on Monday. From ‘The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test’ to ‘Bonfire of the Vanities,’ the Ringer staff looks back on his most striking work. http://bit.ly/2IJRgMV

Royal Wedding: UK Home Office Minister Victoria Atkins has today signed the order relaxing pub licensing laws for the royal wedding this weekend. UK subjects will be permitted to toast the happy couple in pubs across the land until 1:00 am on both Friday and Saturday night.

SPORT

Today @ 2:45 pm ET: UEFA Europa League Final = Marseille vs. Atletico Madrid