Ebola, May, Merkel, ZTE, Vegas Knights, Netflix, Interview, Drones
Marc Ross Daily
May 22, 2018
Curation and commentary from Marc A. Ross
Reporting from Alexandria, Virginia
Marc Ross Daily = Business News at the Intersection of Global Politics + Policy + Profits
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TOP FIVE
✔️ Ebola vaccine arrives in Democratic Republic of Congo
✔️ UK Election this September?
✔️ Merkel to seek China as free-trade ally
✔️ Multinationals bow to China’s political sensitivities
✔️ US, China agree on outline to settle ZTE controversy
GEOECONOMICS
Ebola vaccine arrives in Democratic Republic of Congo: WSJ reports, health officials in the Democratic Republic of Congo began administering an experimental Ebola vaccine in the northwestern city of Mbandaka on, as the country battles to contain its ninth outbreak of the hemorrhagic fever.
Paraguay opened its embassy to Israel in Jerusalem Monday, becoming the third country to do so following the United States and Guatemala.
Santiago Times: Chile doesn’t recognize Maduro’s victory in Venezuela, says Piñera
UK Election? Buzz around Westminster is growing that PM May will call for a general election in September to secure more support for her Brexit plans. Such a move would require Parliment approving the decision.
Italy: Italy’s about to be ruled by a populist coalition that features “the high-spending ambitions of the left with the low-tax ambitions of the right,” writes Bloomberg's Clive Crook.
Trump trade threat looms large as Merkel heads to China: Reuters reports, Germany's Angela Merkel faces a delicate diplomatic balancing act when she travels to China this week on a visit clouded by U.S. President Donald Trump's trade threats and his decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal.
Bloomberg: Merkel to seek China as free-trade ally on Beijing trip
Reuters: China relieved US trade war is 'on hold'; U.S. business ambivalent
Multinationals bow to China’s political sensitivities: FT reports, US calls Beijing’s demands ‘Orwellian nonsense’, but global groups are apologizing. The climbdowns by multinationals are part of a string of incidents that demonstrate that global groups are finding themselves in an awkward position as they try to balance the demands of a more assertive China and potential damage to their image in their home markets if they are seen to be conceding to Beijing.
Opinion: Trump is the gift that keeps on giving — to China
Caixin - Kent Harrington
"All bad management, a business guru once remarked, is taught by example. Donald Trump is teaching a master class on how not to serve as America’s chief executive. By abandoning the thoughtful policymaking of his predecessors in favor of a presidency modeled on reality TV, Trump has failed to articulate anything resembling a credible national strategy."
China plans to end all its limits on the number of children families can have as soon as this year.
China’s economic supremo has upper hand in US trade tussle: FT reports, Liu He passes his first big test in negotiations with US by putting trade war on hold.
US, China agree on outline to settle ZTE controversy: WSJ reports, the US and China have agreed on the broad outline of a deal that would save imperiled Chinese telecom giant ZTE, as the two sides move closer to resolving their trade dispute. The details are still being hammered out, the people said. If completed, the Trump administration would remove the ban on US companies selling components and software to ZTE, a penalty that has threatened to put the company out of business. Instead, ZTE would be forced to make big changes in management, board seats and possibly pay significant fines, the people said.
AFP: Donald Trump at center stage in Mexican presidential debate
Today: The National Press Club will host former Mexican President Vicente Fox.
The Over | Under on Vicente Fox mentioning The Wall is 17.
AMERICAN POLITICS
Steve Bannon is mad with The Globalists: He is among those displeased by the US-China trade truce. Trump "changed the dynamic regarding China but in one weekend Secretary Mnuchin has given it away," the former presidential adviser told Bloomberg. He suggested Mnuchin's views on trade were out of sync with Trump's populist base.
Chances of China trade win undercut by Trump team infighting: NYT reports, by the time American negotiators wrapped up high-level talks with a visiting Chinese delegation last week, President Trump’s ambitions for a multibillion-dollar trade agreement had, for the time being, shriveled into a blandly worded communiqué without any dollar figures. It was not clear that the talks set a path to success. Ceaseless infighting and jockeying for influence on the White House’s trade team helped deprive Mr. Trump of a quick victory on his most cherished policy agenda, several people involved in the talks said. The deep internal divisions carried over into how officials characterized the agreement and muddied the outlook for the next phase of the negotiations between Washington and Beijing.
Trump’s charm and threats may not be working on China. Here’s why. NYT reports, China has called President Trump’s bluff. Chinese negotiators left Washington this weekend with a significant win: a willingness by the Trump administration to hold off for now on imposing tariffs on up to $150 billion in Chinese imports. China gave up little in return, spurning the administration’s nudges for a concrete commitment to buy more goods from the United States, and avoiding limits on its efforts to build new high-tech Chinese industries. https://nyti.ms/2rXosHi
WP - Catherine Rampell: It’s been amateur hour on China negotiations: The Trump administration is supposed to be negotiating with China. But right now it more often seems to be negotiating with itself. China knows what it wants out of these bilateral negotiations; the White House plainly does not. Trump officials have offered shifting and at times contradictory demands and objectives, further complicated by administration infighting, public turf wars, reversals, retractions and clumsy errors. In short: Over here on Team USA, it’s been amateur hour. https://wapo.st/2rXfiKW
How China acquires ‘the crown jewels’ of US technology: Politico reports, the US fails to adequately police foreign deals for next-generation software that powers the military and American economic strength. A six-month Politico investigation found that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, the main vehicle for protecting American technology from foreign governments, rarely polices the various new avenues Chinese nationals use to secure access to American technology, such as bankruptcy courts or the foreign venture capital firms that bankroll US tech startups. https://politi.co/2IGIOLb
Legal fees: WP reports, the Republican National Committee paid nearly half a million dollars to a law firm that represents former White House communications director Hope Hicks and others in the Russia investigations, according to a new federal filing.
Trump’s tweets include grammatical errors. And some are on purpose: BG reports, The hallmark of President Trump’s Twitter feed is that it sounds like him — grammatical miscues and all. But it’s not always Trump tapping out a Tweet, even when it sounds like his voice. West Wing employees who draft proposed tweets intentionally employ suspect grammar and staccato syntax in order to mimic the president’s style, according to two people familiar with the process.
Twitter bots most likely played a large role in both the 2016 presidential election and the Brexit vote, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Barack and Michelle Obama sign production deal with Netflix: TechCrunch reports, Former U.S. President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama have reached an agreement to produce films and series for the streaming service. Netflix’s official announcement makes it sound like that continues to be what the Obamas have in mind, with Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos describing them as “uniquely positioned to discover and highlight stories of people who make a difference in their communities and strive to change the world for the better.”
ENTERPRISE
Small brands nibble at Campbell’s business: WSJ reports, as Americans become more adventurous with the grocery cart, food aisles are undergoing a transformation that is forcing big food companies to keep up with $10 bottles of juice and sophisticated-tasting cookies.
Lyft plans to seek permits to run an electric scooter service in San Francisco.
Facebook breakup? Progressive and pro-consumer groups are calling on the Federal Trade Commission to force the separation of Instagram, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp from the Facebook mothership.
Thanks, UBER: Investors poured more than $21 billion into the company, which has yet to turn a profit. Uber posted $4.5 billion in losses last year alone, subsidizing rides in an all-out effort to establish a monopoly.
I for one am happy to have fancy VCs subsidize my transportation needs.
Sony is to spend $1.8 billion on buying EMI Music Publishing.
Adobe is shelling out $1.68 billion on Magento Commerce, maker of tools for operating online stores.
Netflix has 125 million subscribers worldwide.
Larry Culpepper, the badly dressed football fanatic in Dr Pepper commercials, is reportedly not returning this season.
TRENDS
Boston wants Amazon, but is there room? WSJ reports, the possible arrival of Amazon’s second headquarters in East Boston is triggering both hopes and apprehension in a neighborhood already dealing with fallout from surging costs in a growing city.
Drones are "potentially as disruptive as the internet": From a loyal reader in Cincinnati, Dezeen released a short documentary setting out how drones could revolutionize the way people travel, transform how buildings are designed and built, and radically alter the form cities take. Watch the 18-minute doc here: http://bit.ly/2ICPRZv
For me droids > drones
Financial crisis may have hit ’80s generation the hardest: WSJ reports, Fed research finds wealth levels 34% below what they would be if the last recession hadn't occurred for those born in the '80s.
CULTURE
Guardian: Interview magazine closes, ending a 50-year survey of Manhattan cool
PODCAST
Exchanges at Goldman Sachs: Beyond VR & AR: Get to know Extended Reality (XR): It’s not a matter of if Extended Reality (XR) will touch all aspects of our lives—it’s a matter of when, says Heather Bellini of Goldman Sachs Research. By 2025, XR is projected to generate over $100 billion in sales, with the consumer and e-commerce sectors being its biggest beneficiaries. The technology carries broad implications for healthcare, education and real estate as well. “Ultimately, this AR/VR/mixed reality movement will change the way we interact with technology forever,” Bellini says. You can listen to the podcast here: http://bit.ly/2rZA23L
SPORT
LAT: It wasn't supposed to happen this way, but the Golden Knights are bound for the Stanley Cup Final
The Knights are better than your hockey team: 538 reports, the Vegas Golden Knights became just the second-ever expansion team in the post-1960 histories of the NHL, NBA, NFL or MLB to reach the championship in their very first season of existence. The Knights dispatched the Winnipeg Jets after winning four games of their series to the Jets’ one. The 1967-68 St. Louis Blues are the only previous team to pull it off.
Space Needle hockey: The NHL is asking $650 million of an ownership group from Seattle to expand to that city and add a 32nd franchise to the league.
A closer look at the technology inside the 2018 World Cup soccer ball: The Telstar 18 is a high-tech, look-alike cousin of the ball that forever changed soccer. But the biggest innovation of the new model is one you can’t see: Each ball is embedded with an NFC — near-field communication — chip that allows interaction with the ball via a smartphone. https://lat.ms/2IYHjv2
Spain’s La Liga opposes the SoftBank consortium’s proposed expansion of FIFA’s tournaments.
Independent: Next Arsenal manager: Unai Emery set to for job after Mikel Arteta talks stall
