Aurelia Butler

Trump reiterated several of his campaign promises, most notably his harsh rhetoric on illegal immigration, as marked a victory lap rally ahead of his inauguration on Monday. It was also Trump’s first major address in Washington since 2021. “We will expel every single illegal alien, gang member and migrant criminal operating on American soil,” Trump said, speaking at the “Make America Great Again Victory Rally” at the Capital One (NYSE:COF) Arena. He vowed to withdraw all executive orders issued by President Joe Biden, and said he was preparing for a landmark first day in office. Fox News Digital reported Trump plans to sign over 200 executive orders when he takes office on Monday. Trump also vowed to lessen regulations on the American energy industry, reiterating his plans to reduce government oversight. He also flagged plans to cut government spending in an effort led by Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, under the Department of Government Efficiency. Missing from Trump’s remarks were his plans to impose trade tariffs, particularly on China. The President-elect had maintained a harsh rhetoric against China during his campaigning efforts, and had vowed to impose an up to 60% import tariff on all goods from China. Trump’s plans for tariffs have been a major point of concern, amid fears that they could underpin inflation and keep interest rates high in the long term. But Trump on Sunday vowed to bring down inflation and cut taxes. Despite his hawkish stance against China, Trump had earlier on Sunday vowed to delay a ban on popular social media app TikTok with an executive order on day one of his presidency. TikTok began restoring some of its services in the U.S. after Trump’s comments, with the President-elect calling for a joint venture with TikTok owner Bytedance to keep the app in the U.S.Sunday’s rally was marked by appearances and performances by several celebrities, including popular actor Sylvester Stallone and musician Kid Rock. Tesla’s Musk also made an appearance at the rally.  More

(Reuters) – A look at the day ahead in Asian markets. Signs of life being breathed back into China’s economy and a strong rally on Wall Street on Friday bode well for Asian markets on Monday, although nervousness around President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration could temper the optimism.U.S. markets will be closed for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, so global liquidity will be lighter than usual, and U.S. debt ceiling jitters are back in sharp focus. Further reason, perhaps, for investors in Asia to tread lightly.Investors have broadly welcomed the ‘market-friendly’ parts of Trump’s expected agenda like tax cuts and deregulation. But other parts, like tariffs and mass deportations, could rekindle inflation and slow the pace of Fed rate cuts.Furthermore, higher-for-longer rates could damage growth and stoke ‘stagflation’ concerns, making the Fed’s job even more difficult. His inauguration speech could be laden with market-moving policy pledges, directives and executive orders.In that context, the saga surrounding TikTok is being closely watched for clues on Trump’s policymaking and approach to China. His latest position is he will revive the China-owned social media app’s access in the U.S. by executive order after he is sworn in, but wants it to be at least half owned by U.S. investors.Back in the markets, the dollar and Treasury yields eased off Monday’s historic highs and ended last week lower, providing a welcome easing of financial conditions for Asian and emerging markets.The 10-year yield clocked a 16-month high of 4.80% but fell 17 basis points on the week and the dollar index hit a 27-month high to register only its second weekly loss in 16 weeks.The catalyst seems to have been relatively tame U.S. inflation data and dovish remarks from Fed Governor Christopher Waller, who floated the idea of three or four quarter-point rate cuts this year.The S&P 500 rose 3% last week – its best week in 10 – the Nasdaq climbed 2.4% and the MSCI World rose 1.7%. Asian stocks underperformed though – the MSCI Asia ex-Japan index rose 0.8%, Chinese stocks edged up only 0.3%, while Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell. China’s ‘data dump’ last week was more encouraging than analysts had expected. Overall growth in the fourth quarter was 5.4%, meaning Beijing met its annual GDP growth goal of around 5%.The People’s Bank of China sets interest rates on Monday. It is expected to ease policy slowly and cautiously in the first quarter of this year, but not necessarily starting on Monday. Investors in Japan, meanwhile, are gearing up for a possible rate hike from the Bank of Japan on Friday. The latest signals from BOJ officials are pointing firmly in that direction, and markets have reacted accordingly – the yen has rallied, and Japanese stocks have fallen.Here are key developments that could provide more direction to markets on Monday:- China interest rate decision- Japan machinery orders (November)- Malaysia trade (December) More

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(Reuters) -TikTok stopped working for 170 million Americans late on Saturday after the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday ruled against TikTok’s bid to avoid a ban that could shut the app down. The ban is the end result of 2024 legislation passed on national security concerns that called for TikTok parent ByteDance to sell the popular short-video app or see it shut in the United States on Jan. 19.It remained unclear how long the ban would stay in place as President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office on Monday, has said he would try to find a “political resolution” of the issue to keep the app operating in the United States. On Sunday, Trump said on Truth Social: “SAVE TIKTOK!” Here is what is happening now.WHAT HAPPENS TO THE APP?New users will not be able to download TikTok from Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) app stores and existing users will not be able to update the app, because the law prohibits any entity from facilitating the download or maintenance of the TikTok application.It was not immediately clear if TikTok’s business partners, including Oracle (NYSE:ORCL), which provides TikTok’s cloud infrastructure services and stores its U.S. user data, has suspended services. TikTok plans to keep paying its 7,000 employees in the U.S., the company’s leadership has said in an internal memo. HOW WILL USERS BE AFFECTED?TikTok’s 170 million users in the U.S. are unable to use the app even if they did not delete it from their phones.As of Sunday, U.S. users hoping to access TikTok through virtual private networks, or VPNs, which can conceal the internet protocol, or IP, address of a user and thereby their location, were unsuccessful.Other Chinese social media apps such as RedNote, known in China as Xiaohongshu, are expected to continue gaining traction among U.S. users. Content creators who have built businesses from their TikTok followings have urged their followers to find them on alternatives such as Instagram and YouTube. WHAT WILL ADVERTISERS DO?Advertisers have rushed to prepare contingency plans ahead of the ban, fearing a shutdown will jeopardize their campaigns on the platforms. One marketing executive described it as a “hair on fire” moment for the ad world, after months of conventional wisdom saying that a solution would materialize to keep the short-video app up and running.TikTok has continued to pitch advertisers on new features, like a tool launching in test form that would make it easier to create, modify and add advertisements in bulk.The ban puts more than $11 billion in annual U.S. ad investment up for grabs, according to a forecast from marketing group WARC Media.”Wall Street will be watching the results of Meta (NASDAQ:META), Snap, and others to see who benefits from this rapid spend shift,” said Craig Atkinson, CEO of digital marketing agency Code3.WHAT HAPPENS TO U.S.-CHINA TRADE RELATIONS?A TikTok ban could worsen trade tensions between the U.S. and China that were already strained after export curbs on advanced American semiconductor technology to Beijing.  However, “such a ban would be no surprise as it has been under discussion for five years,” said Sean Ennis (NYSE:EBF), professor from the University of East Anglia.Trump could try to use an executive action to protect TikTok for his four years in office, but he could use the risk of him changing his position to extract something meaningful from China, analysts at LightShed Partners have said.Reversing the ban could give Trump some bargaining power with China, analysts say.WHO ARE THE POTENTIAL BUYERS?TikTok has repeatedly said it cannot be sold from ByteDance.That hasn’t deterred billionaire businessman Frank McCourt, a former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team. His consortium values the app without its algorithm at around $20 billion.Other media have reported that Chinese officials are in talks about potentially selling TikTok’s U.S. operations to billionaire Elon Musk, a big financial backer of Trump. TikTok called those reports “fiction”.Hours before the ban went into effect on Saturday, U.S. search engine startup Perplexity AI submitted a bid to merge with TikTok’s U.S. operations, according to a source familiar with the matter.  More

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden will sign an executive order on Sunday aimed at prioritizing government resources to help economically distressed American communities – a day before he leaves the White House.Biden’s order is targeting so-called “Left-Behind Communities” and aims to help incoming President Donald Trump, who will oversee significant spending on infrastructure, semiconductors, energy, broadband internet and other programs approved during Biden’s presidency.By one estimate, 15% percent of the U.S. population — or around 50 million Americans — live in a distressed zip code, which is measured by poverty, unemployment, education, abandoned homes, median income and declines in jobs and businesses. The White House touted a number of programs funded over the last four years including $54 billion in investments to Energy Communities — coal, oil and gas, and power plant areas — as well as $210 million announced last week for six new tech hubs, $525 million for job training in distressed areas and billions in infrastructure for distressed regions.Biden’s order prioritizes left-behind communities for economic development funding including those “facing economic distress, undergoing industrial transitions, emerging as innovation hubs, and rebuilding from natural disasters.” “It’s not splashy. It’s just fulfilling his determination to help left-behind communities, particularly in the heartland, make comebacks,” said White House economic adviser Lael Brainard in an interview.The Commerce Department under Biden has awarded $700 million for “tech hubs” seeking to spread benefits of tech sector growth beyond traditional hubs from California’s Silicon Valley to Boston and made other major investments.Biden said in a statement his administration “made historic investments to help left-behind communities, such as distressed areas, factory towns, and coal communities, turn setbacks into comebacks.”His order directs a “whole-of-government coordination of federal investments in left-behind communities and creates a “No Wrong Door” to help distressed areas identify resources across the federal government.It also tells federal employees in areas that recently suffered natural disasters to identify funding opportunities to address long-term economic development and infrastructure needs.”This locks down the things that we learned about how to do this work well and what gives these communities the best chance of success,” Brainard said.Trump in 2018 signed his own executive order that created a White House Opportunity (SO:FTCE11B) and Revitalization Council to address concerns about distressed communities saying “despite the growing national economy, these communities are plagued by high poverty levels, failing schools, and a scarcity of jobs.”The Republican president has vowed to cut regulations and hike tariffs during his second term as part of a plan to boost the U.S economy. More