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President Donald Trump signed legislation Friday to temporarily end the record long government shutdown, resolving the grueling 35-day closure but not the fight over his proposed border wall.
The measure funds the government for three weeks, until Feb. 15, while lawmakers try to reach a wider deal on immigration. Both the House and Senate passed the plan by voice vote on Friday.
Trump had demanded $5.7 billion to build his border wall before he agreed to end the partial closure — but relented on Friday. Congress will set up a bipartisan, bicameral conference committee to try to strike a deal on border security.
Trump again argued for a border wall Friday — and threatened to let funding lapse or even declare a national emergency if Congress does not craft an immigration deal he likes. The president agreed to end the shutdown as the pain from the wall impasse sharpened.
Trump left the political fight battered, faced with flagging approval ratings, an unfulfilled campaign promise and most of the blame for an episode that disrupted millions of American lives. As some conservatives criticized him for supporting a plan he originally planned to veto, Trump defended his decision to reopen the government on Friday.
"This was in no way a concession," the president wrote in a tweet. "It was taking care of millions of people who were getting badly hurt by the Shutdown with the understanding that in 21 days, if no deal is done, it's off to the races!"
About 800,000 federal workers started to miss their second paychecks Friday since funding lapsed last month. Many had to scramble to cover meals and bills during the closure. If the plan becomes law, they are expected to get back pay in four to five days, an administration official told CNBC on Friday.
The Trump administration had faced backlash for a perceived lack of empathy toward the government workers. The president repeatedly claimed many federal employees agreed with his tactics — though union officials and the vast majority of government workers denied that. His wealthy Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross also sparked criticism when he said he did not "understand why" workers went to food banks instead of taking out loans.
Democrats pounced on every perceived misstep. They had repeatedly urged Trump to reopen the government before lawmakers had a border security debate. Speaking after the president announced a deal to fund the government on Friday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said that "we can never hold American workers hostage again."
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., echoed Schumer after the House approved the funding measure Friday.
"I hope the experience of the last 35 days has taught us that we should never repeat this exercise of shutting down government again," he said.
The deal only temporarily delays another shutdown — or a potential constitutional fight over the president's power to declare a national emergency. Lawmakers may still fail to reach an immigration deal that satisfies Trump.
Meanwhile, Republicans hinted at more conflict to come. In a tweet, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump "is moving forward building the wall with or without the Democrats."
Rep. Mark Meadows, a North Carolina Republican and Trump ally, also tweeted that "compromise is important, but not required, to secure our border and protect American families."
The Senate chose seven members, all on the Appropriations Committee, to send to the conference committee on Homeland Security spending:
House Democrats chose six members from the House Appropriations Committee for the conference. It was not immediately clear who would represent the Republican side.
1-2. Trump Bows to Democrats, Temporarily Ends Shutdown without Wall
By Anna Edgerton, Billy House, Erik Wasson and Jennifer Jacobs
2019년 1월 26일 오전 3:52 Updated on 2019년 1월 26일 오전 7:30
President Donald Trump agreed to re-open the federal government for about three weeks without any guarantee Congress would provide money for his proposed border wall, his top campaign promise, capitulating to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Trump agreed Friday to a deal hastily negotiated by lawmakers after the 35-day shutdown, the longest in modern U.S. history, began to seriously impact air travel. Earlier in the day, LaGuardia Airport in New York was briefly closed due to a shortage of air traffic controllers, exacerbating flight delays across the country.
Under terms of the agreement, Trump will sign a short-term spending bill through Feb. 15 and Congress will immediately begin negotiating border security legislation
The Senate approved the deal on a voice vote shortly after Trump’s remarks, and the House is planning to take up the measure soon.
The president threatened that if a final deal doesn’t include money for a wall, he would either shut down the government again or declare a national emergency that he says would allow him to begin construction without congressional approval.
“We really have no choice but to build a powerful wall or steel barrier,” Trump told reporters in the White House Rose Garden. “If we don’t get a fair deal from Congress the government will either shut down on Feb. 15 again or I will use the powers afforded to me under the laws and the Constitution of the United States to address this emergency.”
Pelosi told reporters that a House-Senate conference committee “will draw out everyone’s view of what is the best way to protect our borders.” The Senate’s top Democrat, Chuck Schumer of New York, said lawmakers will “roll up our sleeves” to work out a deal that’s “acceptable to both sides.”
Trump said he will make sure that some 800,000 federal workers who haven’t been paid since the shutdown began Dec. 22 will receive back wages quickly. Many of those workers missed their second paycheck on Friday.
Negotiations in the Senate restarted Thursday after the chamber rejected rival plans from Trump and Democrats to fund the government. Trump had refused to end the shutdown until he received $5.7 billion for a border wall, and Democrats had refused to negotiate with him on wall funding as long as the shutdown continued.
The temporary funding deal came together Thursday in a meeting between Schumer and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, according to a Democratic aide. McConnell said there would need to be a down payment on the wall -- terms that Schumer rejected.
Schumer then suggested a short-term funding measure to reopen government followed by a House-Senate conference committee on a funding bill that would focus on border security, according to the aide.
McConnell took the proposal to the White House, the aide said. Schumer and McConnell spoke several times by phone on Friday to discuss how to pass the temporary funding measure, and Schumer spoke with Pelosi, who was on the same page, according to the aide.
Some of Trump’s most conservative supporters turned on him after he announced the deal, including author Ann Coulter, who called him a “wimp” in a tweet. Breitbart News published a headline noting the government would re-open but there would be “no wall.
2. Why Davos was so gloomy: 2019 is impossible to predict, CNN Business
By Ivana Kottasová, CNN Business
Updated 1635 GMT (0035 HKT) January 25, 2019
Davos, Switzerland (CNN Business) A year ago, the mood in Davos was upbeat. The global economy was humming, President Donald Trump's tax cuts were kicking in and a trade war between the United States and China was still just a threat.
Fast forward to this week's World Economic Forum and the atmosphere could hardly have been more different.
"There's not much optimism," said Nelson Cunningham, lawyer and a former adviser to the Clinton administration who has been coming to Davos for 21 years. "But are we too pessimistic? I don't know, I think the pessimism this year is warranted."
The week started with the International Monetary Fund cutting its outlook for global economic growth in 2019, the second downgrade to this year's forecast. The IMF warned of worse to come if the trade war remains unresolved and Britain crashes out of the European Union without a deal that protects business.
"After two years of solid expansion, the world economy is growing more slowly than expected, and risks are rising," IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said at a press conference in Davos on Monday.
She set the tone for the week.
"It's the lack of certainty that is hurting," said Cunningham. "If you are a CEO today, looking ahead to the next year -- what are tax rates going to be like in a year? What is the US budget deficit going to be like? Will there be tariffs?"
Plenty to worry about
Deutsche Bank (DB) CEO Christian Sewing said China's slowing economy and the trade war were already hurting Germany's biggest companies. Chinese executives are worried, too.
"We've seen the damaging effect on many of the companies, including Huawei, from the trade war," said Ken Hu, Huawei's deputy chairman.
Ning Gaoning, chairman of Chinese state-owned oil and gas company Sinopec, said that Chinese companies are likely to reduce investment in the United States. "They thought they are welcome to invest in another country, and now they realize they are not ... welcome all the time," he said.
Meanwhile, companies doing business in the United Kingdom still have no idea how they'll be able to trade with Europe after March 29. Warnings of the dire consequences of a disorderly Brexit from Airbus (EADSF) and Ford (F) added to the sense of gloom hanging over Davos.
The fact that the world is running out of time to act on climate change and avert a catastrophic rise in global temperatures also featured prominently.
Has the needle swung too far?
But some executives thought that there was too much pessimism in the corridors of the Davos congress center.
"Last year at this time, people were almost too bullish in 2018. Now when I talk to people, they are almost too cautious about 2019," said Sewing.
American CEOs in particular should still be pretty optimistic.
"The underlining fundamentals, they are positive, they are strong, there are not many factors to point to that indicate that we are close to a recession in any way," said Lynne Doughtie, CEO of KPMG in the United States.
And she worries about the danger of being too gloomy.
"We have to be careful that we don't making this a self-fulfilling prophecy by the negativism when a lot of the underlining data would suggest that the elements of the US economy are strong," she added.
3. Government debt hits record $66 trillion, 80% of global GDP, Fitch says, CNBC
Published 11:05 AM ET Wed, 23 Jan 2019 Updated 12:55 PM ET Wed, 23 Jan 2019
Published 11:05 AM ET Wed, 23 Jan 2019 Updated 12:55 PM ET Wed, 23 Jan 2019
Governments are continuing to run up huge debt levels, with emerging countries helping push the total global IOU to 80 percent of gross domestic product.
The worldwide tab through 2018 is now up to $66 trillion as measured in U.S. currency terms, about double where it was in 2007, just as the financial crisis was beginning to unfold, according to Fitch Ratings' new Global Government Debt Chart Book released Wednesday.
"Government debt levels are high, leaving many countries poorly positioned for financial tightening as global interest rates begin to move higher," James McCormack, Fitch's global head of sovereign ratings, said in a statement.
After a decade in which global central banks kept interest rates low and made running up debt far less expensive, monetary policy is in a normalization period. The U.S. Federal Reserve, for instance, has raised interest rates eight times since late 2015, and its counterparts around the world are ending the extreme easing conditions from the financial crisis.
Debt in developed countries has remained fairly steady, around $50 trillion, since 2012, though that's not true of the U.S. Total public debt for the American government has jumped from $15.2 trillion to $21.9 trillion, or 44 percent, during the period, Treasury Department data show.
Fitch noted that the total U.S. debt is nearly 10 times the size of France, Germany, Italy and the U.K. combined.
While the U.S. debt stands out among larger economies, it has plenty of company in the developing world.
Fitch said emerging market economy debt surged 50 percent in the period since 2012, from $10 trillion to $15 trillion. Leaders during that time proportionately were the Middle East and North Africa, with a 104 percent increase, and sub-Saharan Africa at 75 percent. Those two regions, though, have less than $1 trillion each in debt.
The 11 sovereigns rated "AAA" carry 40 percent of the debt load. Lower-rated "B" countries accounted for about 3 percent of global government debt.
However, credit quality has deteriorated notably over the years, with emerging market debt, excluding China, carrying an average rating of slightly below "BB+," which is the lowest since 2005 and denotes a speculative outlook.
"Common themes that have driven sovereign ratings in the last few years will dominate again in 2019, including tightening sovereign financing conditions, commodity price fluctuations and political and geopolitical developments," McCormack said. "Slowing economic growth in some countries may bring fiscal concerns back to the fore, particularly given the high starting positions with respect to government debt."
U.S. debt began accelerating at the turn of the 21st century. The total jumped 85 percent to $10.6 trillion during former President George W. Bush's two terms, another 88 percent to $19.9 trillion under President Barack Obama and has risen 10 percent during the first two years of President Donald Trump's term.
미국 에너지 청(Energy Department)에 따르면 미국은 내년부터 석유 수츨량이 석유 수입량을 능가할 것이라고 함(1953년 이래 처음, 당초 예상보다 2년 빠름). Shale oil과 천연가스 생산량 증가 덕분. 그리고 이러한 순수출국 상태는 2050년까지 계속될 것으로 예상. -> 복 받은 나라!.
한편 EIA에 따르면, 미국의 전력생산에 있어 석탄 발전이 2008년 전체 48%에서 2050년 17%로 크게 감소하고, Renewable energy는 현 18%에서 2050년 31%로 증가할 것이라고 하네요.
Next year, the US will export more energy than it imports. That hasn't happened since 1953, CNN Business
Updated 1804 GMT (0204 HKT) January 24, 2019
New York (CNN Business) The United States, long beholden to foreign oil, is poised to become a net energy exporter starting next year.
Thanks to the shale oil and natural gas boom, the United States will export more energy than it imports in 2020 for the first time since 1953, according to a forecast published Thursday by the Energy Department's statistics division. That's two years earlier than what was previously expected.
And it won't be a one-off achievement. The United States is likely to be a net energy exporter through at least 2050, the Energy Information Administration said.
"It's a big deal. We're not as reliant on foreign oil as we were," said Michael Tran, managing director of global energy strategy at RBC Capital Markets.
The seeds for this milestone were planted by the shale revolution that began last decade. New technology unlocked vast amounts of natural gas and crude oil in the United States. Production of both skyrocketed, WHICH reshapED the global energy landscape.
The end of the 40-year ban on oil exports in late 2015 really changed the game. US shipments of crude have exploded since then.
According to the scenario the EIA thinks is mostly likely to happen, the United States should become a net exporter of petroleum liquids — oil and products like gasoline — after 2020. It's a milestone that was briefly achieved late last year. For one week in November, US exports of crude oil and petroleum products exceeded imports, the EIA said. It was the first time that happened on a weekly basis since the EIA began tracking in 1991.
"US crude exports are wildly disrupting the global oil trade. And US shale continues to grow at an unbridled pace," Tran said.
Daily oil output to spike above 14 million barrels
Fueled by shale hotbeds like the Permian Basin of Texas, the United States surpassed Russia and Saudi Arabia in terms of monthly oil production last year. US output spiked from about 5 million barrels per day in 2008 to a record 10.9 million barrels last year, the EIA said.
The International Energy Agency said the 2 million barrel-per-day jump in US production last year was the biggest jump ever recorded by any country.
The growth is likely to continue, albeit at a more moderate pace. According to the EIA's most likely scenario, US oil production is expected to keep setting annual records through 2027, and remain greater than 14 million barrels per day through 2040.
These long-term energy projections are subject to some uncertainty. Analysts are making assumptions on technology, policies and prices, some of which may not pan out.
Climate impact
Still, America's energy boom has profound implications for the economy, national security and, of course, the environment.
Last week, a report by Oil Change International warned that new US oil and gas development could unleash the same amount of carbon pollution as nearly 1,000 coal-fired power plants.
The group called it a "climate catastrophe" at precisely the worst time.
The EIA offered more promising signs on the carbon front in the power sector. Electricity generation from coal is expected to shrink to 17% by 2050, a sharp drop from 48% in 2008. Renewable energy is expected to take 31% of the power market by 2050, up from 18% today.
Energy independence?
Even though the United States is shrinking its reliance on foreign oil, it won't be able to credibly declare energy independence in 2020.
"You're not going to be fully insulated from geopolitical risk or decisions that OPEC makes," RBC's Tran said.
That's in part because of the makeup of America's refinery complex, which requires a healthy dose of medium and heavy crudes found overseas. Refineries can't operate solely on the very light crude found in domestic shale oilfields.
While becoming a net energy exporter is a "tremendous development," the United States wouldn't be "completely self-sufficient," said Joe McMonigle, a former Energy Department official under President George W. Bush who is now senior energy policy analyst at Hedgeye Potomac Research.
"Until the US refining sector is able to process more lighter crudes, we're never going to have energy independence," McMonigle said.
China will overtake the US as the world's biggest retail market this year
CNN Business, By Daniel Shane
Updated 1200 GMT (2000 HKT) January 23, 2019
Hong Kong (CNN Business)China's economy may be slowing down, but the country is still set to eclipse the United States as the world's top retail market for the first time.
Retail sales in China will reach more than $5.6 trillion this year, about $100 billion more than in the United States, according to a report published Wednesday by research firm eMarketer.
The Chinese population's growing wealth and the rapid development of e-commerce have driven the country's epic retail boom.
"In recent years, consumers in China have experienced rising incomes, catapulting millions into the new middle class," said Monica Peart, senior forecasting director at eMarketer. "The result has been a marked rise in purchasing power and average spending per person."
The firm's prediction highlights China's increasing importance as a market for global brands even as growth overall cools. The country is already the world's largest market for cars and smartphones.
The gap between the Chinese and US retail markets is set to widen in the coming years, with China's growing more quickly through at least 2022, according to eMarketer.
China's biggest e-commerce companies, Alibaba (BABA) and JD.com (JD), have played a key role in the industry's explosive growth. More than 35%, or almost $2 trillion, of Chinese retail spending is expected to take place online this year, eMarketer said, compared with just 11% in the United States.
China is home to Singles Day, Alibaba's annual online spending blitz that regularly racks up bigger sales than Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined.
Alibaba accounts for more than half of all online sales in China, but it faces increasing competition from smaller rivals like Pinduoduo, according to eMarketer.
Like Amazon (AMZN) in the United States, China's internet giants have moved into the brick-and-mortar retail industry, as well.
Tencent (TCEHY), the owner of top messaging app WeChat, and three other companies invested $5 billion in Wanda Commercial Properties, China's biggest mall operator, a year ago. Tencent is also a major shareholder in JD.com.
In 2017, Alibaba paid $2.9 billion for a 36% stake in Sun Art Retail Group (SURRY), widely considered the Chinese equivalent of Walmart
Slowdown fears overdone?
Chinese consumers are feeling the effects of the country's slowing economy and trade war with the United States. Retail sales growth is expected to weaken to 7.5% in 2019, from around 8.5% last year, according to eMarketer.
Apple (AAPL) alarmed investors earlier this month by warning that its sales in China were lower than anticipated for the holiday quarter. CEO Tim Cook said in a letter to investors that the company had been blindsided by "the magnitude of the economic deceleration" in China.
Spending on products like cosmetics and jewelery is suffering as consumers feel the pinch from cooling growth in the real estate market and rising debt, according to Michelle Lam, an analyst at investment bank Societe Generale.
"As China's growth has been losing momentum, consumer spending has also exhibited clear signs of weakness," she wrote in a note to clients this week.
But other analysts are more optimistic.
"While we expect consumption growth to slow, we think that the anxiety about China's consumers is largely overdone," Tianjie He, a senior economist at research firm Oxford Economics, wrote in a note on Wednesday.
"We do not expect a significant slowdown in 2019," he wrote, adding that China's consumers will remain "a key driver of economic growth."