Economy

Below are some of the details from the 1,050-page bill.JUSTICE DEPARTMENTHouse of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson touted the fact that the legislation bars the Justice Department “from targeting parents exercising their right to free speech before school boards.”A section of the measure “prohibits the Department from targeting or investigating parents who peacefully protest at school board meetings and are not suspected of engaging in unlawful activity.”Republicans took issue with a department memo issued in 2021 that said it was using its authority to discourage a spike in harassment, threats and intimidation of school officials. Attorney General Merrick Garland has defended the memo, saying authorities never used the FBI against parents.ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCYJohnson said the measure imposed deep cuts on the Environmental Protection Agency, while Democrats said the bill rejected drastic cuts to environmental programs.The bill cuts funding to the EPA to $9.16 billion, down from $10.1 billion in the previous fiscal year. But it maintains staffing levels and funding for several programs.BUREAU OF ALCOHOL, TOBACCO AND FIREARMSJohnson said Republicans had won deep cuts to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. The bill cuts funding to the ATF by about 7%. Much of that decrease stems from the fact that there are not construction expenses included for the bureau in the current fiscal year.DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRSBoth Democrats and Republicans touted the fact that the legislation fully funded veterans’ healthcare. The bill boosts funding for veterans’ healthcare by more than $2 billion, including for mental health, women’s health and caregivers.FOOD AIDDemocrats touted the fact the legislation fully funded a key food aid program. The bill boosted funding for the program by about $1 billion.RENTAL ASSISTANCEDemocrats highlighted funds for rental assistance and for programs to help build housing. The legislation included money for a program to produce housing, housing vouchers and other rental assistance. More

A median forecast of 15 analysts predicted that the annual headline inflation rate would settle at 4.42% in February, down from 4.88% in January and continuing the downward trend that was briefly interrupted at the end of last year.The closely watched core inflation index, which strips out volatile energy and food prices, is seen dropping to 4.62% in the month, its lowest level since June 2021.Both rates, however, are still above the central bank’s target range of 3%, plus or minus one percentage point. Last month the monetary authority, also known as Banxico, again held the benchmark interest rate at a historic high of 11.25% but hinted that a rate cut could be on the table in upcoming meetings.A recent poll of economists by financial group Citibanamex showed that most estimate an initial rate cut to happen when Banxico’s board meets on March 21.On a month-over-month basis, Mexico’s consumer prices were seen rising 0.11% in February, with core inflation up 0.49%.Mexico’s national statistics agency will publish official inflation data for February on Thursday. More

(Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court is seeking $19.4 million in federal funds to bolster security for the nine justices and assign protection of their homes to its own police force rather than the U.S. Marshals Service, citing “evolving” risks faced by the nation’s top judicial body.The proposal was included as part of an overall $9.4 billion budget request posted online last week to provide funding for the Supreme Court and the rest of the federal judiciary in the fiscal year that begins on Oct. 1.That funding would include $5.8 million to expand the security activities of the Supreme Court Police, its in-house security force, and $13.6 million to let the court’s police take over the duties currently served by the Marshals Service of protecting the justices’ homes.Those proposed security-related expenditures help explain why the court is seeking to increase discretionary spending by about 21% to $146.3 million in the 2025 fiscal year over the prior year, according to the budget document. “Ongoing threat assessments indicate that there are evolving risks that require continuous protection,” according to the budget request.The rest of the judiciary is seeking $805.9 million for court security, citing “the significant increase in threats against federal judges.” Serious threats against federal judges rose to 457 in fiscal year 2023, from 224 in fiscal 2021, according to the U.S. Marshals Service.Last week, a Reuters investigation documented a sharp rise in threats and intimidation directed at judges who have been criticized by former President Donald Trump after ruling against his interests in cases they were hearing.The judiciary released its 2025 budget request even though Congress has yet to finalize funding for the government for the current fiscal year.Lawmakers last week passed the fourth stopgap measure since Oct. 1 to keep the government funded. Funding for part of the government will now run out on March 8 absent legislation and for other parts of the government including the judiciary on March 22.Congress in 2022 approved legislation to expand police protection to the families of the justices and senior officers of the court following the leak of a draft of the ruling overturning the Roe v. Wade decision that had legalized abortion nationwide. The draft and final ruling prompted protests outside the homes of members of the court’s 6-3 conservative majority. An armed California man was charged in 2022 with attempting to assassinate conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh after being arrested near his home. That man, Nicholas Roske, has pleaded not guilty.In December, a Florida man pleaded guilty to threatening to kill Chief Justice John Roberts. More

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Sharif, 72, officially took up office at a swearing-in ceremony at the presidential office in the nation’s capital, Islamabad, a day after parliament elected him prime minister despite protests from lawmakers aligned with jailed former premier Imran Khan.Sharif wore a black traditional overcoat, called a sherwani, in the ceremony, broadcast live on state TV and attended by civil, military, bureaucracy and other dignities.The Feb. 8 election was marred by a mobile internet shutdown, arrests and violence in its build-up and the unusually delayed results triggered accusations that the vote was rigged.Candidates backed by Khan gained the most seats but the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) agreed to form a coalition government. The PML-N is spearheaded by Shehbaz Sharif’s elder brother, three time premier Nawaz Sharif, but he decided not to take the prime minister’s post.The younger Sharif returns to the role he previously held until August, when parliament was dissolved to prepare for the election. Economists, investors and foreign capitals would now be watching closely for an announcement by Sharif on the cabinet, especially the important finance portfolio. The next finance minister will have to immediately undertake tough talks with the International Monetary Fund to get a new multi-billion dollar funding agreement, with the current one expiring in April.Former four-time finance minister Ishaq Dar remains the top contender, PML-N sources have told Reuters, though several other candidates were being seriously considered. More

March futures on the S&P/TSX index were down 0.3% at 7:18 a.m. ET (1218 GMT).Following favorable U.S. inflation data last week, labor market reports in the country, including nonfarm payrolls, are expected to guide expectations from the Federal Reserve on interest rate cuts during the year.Back home, Bank of Canada’s (BoC) decision on borrowing costs is due on Wednesday, where it is widely expected to keep interest rates on hold at the current level of 5%.Markets, however, will watch for clues regarding a rate cut, with money market pricing in about 73% chance of at least a 25-basis-point (bps) reduction in June. [#BOCWATCH]Oil prices edged down on Monday as traders indulged in some profit taking a day after the widely expected extension of voluntary output cuts by the OPEC+ producer group. [O/R]Gold lingered close to a two-month high, while copper prices rose ahead of a key political meeting in China that could pave the way for growth stimulus in the top consumer. [GOL/] [MET/L]The Toronto Stock Exchange’s S&P/TSX composite index on Friday closed at its highest level since April 2022, led by gains in resources and technology shares. (TO)Fuel retailer Parkland Corp’s biggest shareholder Simpson Oil said on Sunday it would evaluate options to protect its rights after Parkland advanced its annual meeting, limiting Simpson’s ability to nominate directors. COMMODITIES AT 7:18 a.m. ETGold futures: $2,090.9; -0.2% [GOL/]US crude: $79.43; -0.7% [O/R]Brent crude: $83.14; -0.5% [O/R] More

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.This article is an on-site version of our Trade Secrets newsletter. Sign up here to get the newsletter sent straight to your inbox every MondayWell, you can’t blame me for the multiple things that went wrong at the WTO ministerial in Abu Dhabi last week. As you may recall, in last week’s newsletter I temporarily ditched Grouchy WTO-Bashing Alan for Perky WTO-Cheerleading Alan, a move which had several long-standing friends and contacts asking me if I was quite all right as I wandered around the conference centre. Today, I revert to something closer to type and look at the aftermath of the talks. IMHO the only substantial positive was a grudging continuation of the moratorium on ecommerce tariffs — aka countries promising not to punch themselves in the face for another two years — plus the talks not actually collapsing. Today’s main piece is on what ought to be discussed in the WTO right now and isn’t. Charted waters is on Brexit still being a bad idea.Get in touch. Email me at [email protected] gap where green trade should beThe main missing subject in Abu Dhabi, of course, was the environment in general and climate change in particular. It was a real shame that the agreement restraining fisheries subsidies made in 2022 didn’t expand further at this meeting. (I’m not just saying that because the fisheries campaigners are among the sparkier ones you’ll meet on the trade policy circuit and have a great line in piscine lapel pins, pictured.) Protecting fish stocks was a new and promising development, a WTO deal that focused on environmental global public goods rather than just increasing commercial market access. The main blockage continued to be — you’ll never guess — India, arguing for large loopholes in the rules for its fishers. There were some pretty chaotic and poignant scenes towards the end of the meeting. A group of Pacific island nations (their position eloquently articulated by Manoa Kamikamica, Fiji’s deputy prime minister) were visibly distraught that the fisheries deal did not progress. Kamikamica thanked a long list of advanced and lower-income economies for supporting the extension of the deal, including the US, EU and China, but pointedly not India.New Delhi continues to obstruct large parts of the WTO agenda. Piyush Goyal, India’s ebullient commerce minister, was quoted by India’s Financial Express yesterday pretty bluntly saying India didn’t actually have any offensive (that is, export) interests in the WTO.I would say this of course, since I was part of it, but I found the FT’s interview with Goyal (mainly conducted by my colleague Andy Bounds) particularly striking. A mini-industry of bureaucrats and think-tank pointy-heads has been working for years on how to use the WTO to tackle climate change. (A particular shout-out here to the work of the diligent and much-admired WTO deputy director-general Jean-Marie Paugam.) But India has said a flat no to the whole idea, even blocking the suggestion of non-binding deliberative discussions at the WTO on the environment.A bunch of other low and middle-income countries had the courage to make a statement calling for the WTO to address the environment, but it’s unlikely to shift the Indian veto. India is pretty brutal about protecting its interests. Last week it forced Thailand to withdraw its ambassador after comments she made about Indian grain stockpiling driving up international food prices. Soi-disant Global South solidarity (told you so) at its finest there: I wonder if Thailand will be invited to India’s next Voices of the Global South summit. Goyal is obviously right that there’s a lot of hypocrisy from rich countries, particularly not delivering the climate finance promised as part of the 2015 Paris agreement. But we are where we are. Tackling climate change and the environment more generally should be an imperative that multilateral trade policy is nonetheless apparently going to ignore.Businesses are doing it for themselvesEvidently bureaucrats aren’t going to do much to help world trade survive, at least at a multilateral level. (I was right about that too.) It will have to rely on the momentum from (1) international businesses and (2) free-trading countries doing what they can.As it happens, the business folks’ conversations were among the livelier and more interesting at the ministerial. They were pretty despairing of governments but actually quite optimistic that value networks would cope with geopolitical stress pretty well. There was, of course, an example, handily sited just across the Arabian peninsula. The Red Sea blockages have been occurring for nearly three months now and yet global trade has signally failed to grind to a halt.One of Trade Secrets’ favourite doomsayer-defiers, University of St Gallen professor Simon Evenett, has just published a paper based on conversations with 13 senior executives from international businesses. Apart from noting that execs define “geopolitics” in a bunch of ways, some of them less existential than the typical media usage, it also found they had discovered a variety of ways to combat it and could improve their performance further.With regard to governments, it’s true that not much can get much done at the WTO so long as too few big countries are committing to it. It’s not just India. The US’s focus on the institution is accurately summed up by Katherine Tai, the US trade representative, leaving the ministerial meeting early.But the US is an outlier in its gut dislike of globalisation, despite what you hear in Washington about the widespread international backlash against free trade. Even India has signed some bilateral deals, albeit pretty thin ones.A lot of Asia-Pacific countries really want the US to be driving liberalisation in the region. But in its absence they will do it themselves, signing up to deals with China or agreements such as CPTPP, and continuing to encourage foreign direct investment.While in Abu Dhabi I talked to Tengku Zafrul Abdul Aziz, the Malaysian trade minister, about whether the anti-globalisation backlash had reached the politics of small open economies such as his. (The Malaysian prime minister Anwar Ibrahim told the FT recently that his country would not be forced to choose between good relations with China and with the US.)Zafrul said: “In parliament, I think there are more questions on this. So if you want to use that as a reflection or barometer of people raising concerns, the answer is yes. Whether it’s big enough an issue that it can bring down government or change our policy direction from being an open economy, the answer is no.”My conclusion: hard-nosed transactionalism from companies and smaller free-trading countries is what’s keeping globalisation alive. That’s just as well, because someone has to do it.Charted watersDoes it keep needing to be explained that Brexit was a bad idea for trade? Apparently it does, to some. So: the FT has calculated that UK goods trade has had its fastest five-year fall on record, and is heavily underperforming other advanced economies. Brexit was a bad idea for trade.Trade linksThe St Louis Federal Reserve looks at the effect of the Red Sea disruptions on the world economy.The European Centre for International Political Economy examines how Huawei has weathered the storm of US sanctions and other challenges.The Wall Street Journal looks at how it’s harder than it looks for Asian manufacturers to onshore high-tech production in the US.The FT’s Unhedged newsletter interviews the Peterson Institute’s Adam Posen about how resilient the world economy has been.Joe Biden has warned that Chinese smart cars could be a security threat if they control large parts of the US market.Trade Secrets is edited by Jonathan MoulesRecommended newsletters for youBritain after Brexit — Keep up to date with the latest developments as the UK economy adjusts to life outside the EU. Sign up hereFree Lunch — Your guide to the global economic policy debate. Sign up here More

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s Premier Li Qiang will not hold a press conference after the close of this year’s annual parliamentary meeting, an official said on Monday, ending a tradition maintained for three decades.Moreover, barring special circumstances, there will also be no such press conferences by Li after each year’s meeting for the remaining term of China’s parliament ending in 2027, National People’s Congress (NPC) spokesman Lou Qinjian added. Since 1993, China’s premiers have met the media after the annual NPC gathering, taking wide-ranging questions from Chinese and foreign journalists in news conferences broadcast live globally. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s when China was opening up its economy to the rest of the world, it had actively sought to elucidate its politics and policies in a bid to attract foreign investment and boost trade.Political observers say the surprise decision to not hold such news conferences is a sign of the diminishing authority of the premier with Xi Jinping as China’s president, and a further indication that the world’s second-largest economy could be headed towards “an era of isolation”.”China was heading towards an era of opening up. Now it is heading towards an era of isolation, as shown by the cancelled premier news conference,” said Chen Daoyin, a independent political commentator who formerly taught at Shanghai University of Political Science and Law.The decision to cancel the premier’s news conference was made because there would be more briefings on diplomacy, the economy and the livelihoods of the people by government ministers during the week-long parliament meeting, Lou said.The premier’s annual meet-the-press session used to be the highlight of the parliamentary meeting, because as the head of the State Council and the main person tasked to run the economy, his answers to reporters’ questions on the economy were seen as more authoritative and having a more big-picture perspective than cabinet ministers.At the close of the annual parliament last year, Li sought to reassure the country’s private sector in his first media conference as premier. While premiers generally toe the Communist Party line in their answers, some have in the past used the news conference to express views that struck a different tone.Li Qiang’s predecessor, Li Keqiang, said in 2020 that 600 million people earned less than $140 per month, a revelation that stood in stark contrast with the rosy picture the party painted about having eradicated rural poverty.Wen-Ti Sung, a political scientist at the Australian National University, said that scraping the premier’s news conference is Beijing’s effort to further control the narrative about the state of China.This does not mean that Xi distrusts Li Qiang, the current premier, Sung said. “This is consistent with their relations with Xi playing policy architect and Li playing Xi’s faithful policy implementer.””Willingly stepping away from the limelight is an act of loyalty,” Sung said. More