Monthly Archives: July 2017

HAMBURG U.S. President Donald Trump hailed progress on trade after meeting his Mexican counterpart on Friday, as Mexico's government said it expected a general agreement on reworking the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) by the end of 2017.

For the first time since becoming president in January, Trump met Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, whose foreign minister Luis Videgaray said he expected talks on renegotiating NAFTA to start on Aug. 16., the earliest possible date.

The meeting at the Hamburg leaders' summit of the Group of 20 economies was keenly anticipated in Mexico, and officials were quick to stress talks had been productive, despite Trump repeating that Mexico would pay for his planned border wall.

"We're negotiating NAFTA and some other things with Mexico and we'll see how it all turns out, but I think that we've made very good progress," Trump said after the meeting.

In response to a shouted question from a reporter about whether he still wants Mexico to pay for the border wall, which aims to keep out illegal immigrants, Trump said, "Absolutely."

Pena Nieto, whom Trump called his "friend," said the meeting would "help us continue a very strong dialogue" on NAFTA, while his aides emphasized that they had not discussed the wall.

NAFTA underpins more than $1 trillion worth of trilateral trade between the United States, Mexico and Canada. Videgaray, who was present at the talks, told reporters afterwards it had been a "big part of the conversation" with Trump.

"We expect to have a meaningful, constructive, modernization of the agreement that is good for the three nations," the minister said. "And we think there is a lot of room to make it a better agreement for the three nations."

Speaking on Mexican radio, Videgaray also said both governments agreed the renegotiation "should be a relatively quick process" that looks to "generate agreements, at least in general terms, by the end of the year."

Disputes over migration, Trump's border wall - which Mexico has repeatedly said it will not pay for - and his claim that free trade with Mexico costs jobs in the United States, have strained relations between the two neighbors.

Trump has threatened to impose punitive tariffs on Mexican goods to protect U.S. industry, and to pull out of NAFTA altogether if he cannot rework it in the United States' favor.

However, especially since Trump stepped back from initiating the process of withdrawal in April, Mexican officials say business leaders from the NAFTA nations have increasingly coalesced around a shared desire to keep the agreement alive.

Trump reiterated his aggressive stance on NAFTA in a weekly address published by the White House online after his meeting with Pena Nieto, but apparently recorded beforehand. In it, Trump said he was pursuing a "total renegotiation" of the pact.

"And if we don't get it, we will terminate, that is, end NAFTA forever," he said in the video.

There has been uncertainty about the process because the United States has yet to set out its negotiating objectives. That is due to happen on or about July 16.

In the meantime, issues such as Trump's border wall remain sensitive. Pena Nieto's spokesman Eduardo Sanchez called in to Mexican broadcaster Radio Formula from Hamburg, stating that the two presidents did not discuss the wall.

"That subject was not part of the conversation," he said.

The two presidents also explored a possible guest worker program for migrants in the agriculture sector as well as the importance of "modernizing" NAFTA, according to a statement from Mexico's government released after the meeting.

(Additional reporting by Dave Graham, Adriana Barrera, Anthony Esposito and David Alire Garcia in Mexico City; editing by Noah Barkin and Jonathan Oatis)

NEW YORK Wall Street stocks closed on a high note Friday, with the S&P 500 index posting its best gain in six sessions on the heels of a U.S. payrolls report that gave investors more confidence in the strength of the U.S. economy.

WASHINGTON U.S. job growth surged more than expected in June and employers increased hours for workers, signs of labor market strength that could keep the Federal Reserve on course for a third interest rate hike this year despite sluggish wage gains.

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Trump hails NAFTA progress, Mexico eyes general deal by end-2017 - Reuters

ZURICH Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) said that it is making progress in its planned partial initial public offering (IPO) of its asset management unit, according to a recent memo to staff.

Germany's largest lender announced its plans for a partial IPO of the unit in March as part of a broader restructuring of the bank reeling from law suits and trading scandals.

Nicolas Moreau, a board member who oversees Deutsche Asset Management, said in an email to staff seen by Reuters, that Swiss regulator FINMA had approved the establishment of Deutsche Asset Management (Schweiz) AG.

The new entity incorporates the existing Swiss asset management activities formerly part of Deutsche Bank (Suisse) S.A.

"We continue to make excellent progress with our IPO preparations and achieve notable milestones in our preparations," Moreau said in the note.

John Cryan, Deutsche's CEO, has said the bank would maintain a "controlling and super-majority stake" in the business.

The sale would take place at some point over the next two years, Deutsche said at the time, and could raise 2 billion euros ($2.3 billion).

Deutsche hopes that by giving its asset management unit more operational independence the unit will be more attractive to talent.

Deutsche Asset Management has more than 700 billion euros invested worldwide.

(Reporting by Oliver Hirt; Writing by Tom Sims; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)

DUBLIN JPMorgan Chase & Co Chief Executive Jamie Dimon met Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar in Dublin on Thursday to discuss expansion in the Irish capital two months after the U.S. investment bank bought an office building in the city with room for 1,000 staff.

FRANKFURT Deutsche Bank is evaluating whether to move a large part of its securities trading business from London to Frankfurt or elsewhere in Europe as it prepares for Britain's exit from the European Union, a source told Reuters on Thursday.

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Deutsche Bank sees progress toward IPO of asset management arm: memo - Reuters

The Presidents Xi and Trump have several things in common: both entered professions in which their fathers gave them natural advantages. (Xi Jinpings father, the revolutionary hero Xi Zhongxun, helped build Chinas Communist Party; Donald Trump inherited a fortune, and a real-estate business, from his father, Fred.) Xi and Trump both perceive the world in zero-sum terms. Both dispute the notion of loyal opposition. And both favor coercion over consensus.

But, in most respects, Trump struck the Chinese leadership as an oddity, and, as soon as he became President, Chinese leaders started reading his books in search of clues to his thinking. From The Art of the Deal they concluded, among other things, that Trumps theatrical demands are only a tool of negotiation. Trumps approach, according to Cheng Li , of the Brookings Institution, who researches Chinese lite politics, was clear: You should put some of your demands outrageously high, so you will never be a loser.

The Chinese leaders reading paid off. When Trump and Xi met for the first time, at Mar-a-Lago, in May, Xi was unruffled by Trumps assertions of bravado, including his revelation, during dessert, that the United States was about to fire missiles at Syria. Xi succeeded in handling Trump. Emerging from the Citrus Summit, Trump made no mention of tariffs or trade war; he proclaimed great chemistrynot good, but great and hailed Xi as a very good man with an incredibly talented wife. Trump, like many, had looked at Xis genial half-smile and succumbed to the misreading that they were in agreement. A Chinese editor in Beijing once told me, of Xi, Hes round on the outside and square on the inside; he looks flexible, but inside he is very hard.

Xi, for his part, did not bother to reciprocate Trumps outpouring of emotion. Though Trump asserted that he would succeed in persuading Xi to choke off trade to North Korea, as a way to curb its nuclear program. (Trump tweeted, I have great confidence that China will properly deal with North Korea.) An Arab foreign minister who visited Beijing shortly after the trip told me privately that, given all of Trumps campaign talk of China raping the United States, Chinese officials were very pleased to have mollified him at his own country club.

Unsurprisingly, the one-way romance proved fragile. Last week, after Trump realized that Xi was not going to pressure Pyongyang into submission, the White House announced sanctions against Chinese entities accused of aiding North Koreas weapons programs. The Administration also announced a $1.4 billion arms sale to Taiwan, moved U.S. ships into contested waters in the South China Sea, and dusted off threats of tariffs and a trade war. In a dyspeptic phone call with Trump, Xi complained about these moves as negative factors.

Then things got worse. On July 4th, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un personally led the test-launch of the countrys first intercontinental ballistic missile. Kim defiantly crossed a de-facto red line that Trump had drawn in January, when he said that such a test wont happen. For most Presidents, the public failure of a central pillar of foreign policy would be humbling, but Trump is disconnected from the details of diplomacy, and he directed his frustration, via Twitter, toward China: So much for China working with us - but we had to give it a try!

Now the U.S. and China can, in theory, start the real work of forging a response to the Korean crisis. John Delury, a North Korea expert at Yonsei University, in Seoul, told me, Unfortunately, Xis own ties with Kim Jong-un are tenuous, and thus Beijing is of not much use in getting a read on Pyongyang or facilitating diplomacy. Trump, for his part, seems to be moving away from the notion that China can solve the North Korea problem for him, which is a mark of progress in his learning curve.

At the G-20 meeting in Hamburg this week, the worlds attention will focus largely on Trumps meeting with Vladimir Putin. But Trumps meeting with Xi will have more immediate relevance in dealing with the Korea crisis. In an op-ed published in the Washington Post on Thursday, Jake Sullivan and Victor Cha, foreign-policy advisers in the Obama and Bush Administrations, respectively, proposed a new approach to getting China invested in freezing the North Korean missile tests. Instead of threatening North Korea with cutting off trade, they propose, in effect, paying it to cut off missile tests. The basic trade would be Chinese disbursements to Pyongyang, as well as security assurances, in return for constraints on North Koreas program. . . . If North Korea cheated, China would not be receiving what it paid for. The logical thing would be for it to withhold economic benefits until compliance resumed. The Times outlined a similar idea in an editorial of its own this week.

This approach is no silver bullet, but, in the land of lousy options, as diplomats call the North Korea problem, it is as good as any, in part because it does not rest on a false understanding of the other party. The relationship between Xi and Trumpleaders of the worlds two largest economies, a rising power and an addled power, straining to coexistmay well prove to be the most consequential diplomatic liaison of its time.

It is too soon to know whether Xi and Trump could build a genuine relationship, but, until now, they have been operating on separate wavelengths, intersecting only at moments of superficial understanding. In Chinese, this is known as a chicken talking to a duck. Both sides are talking, but neither truly understands the other.

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How Xi and Trump Can Make Real Progress on North Korea - The New Yorker

BRISTOL It was a night of surprises as both the 2017 outstanding citizens and the new Miss Bristol Shania Dumelle never expected to be chosen as this years winners at the 48th annual Bristol Progress Days coronation banquet Friday at the Parkway Chateau.

Hearing her name called as one of the 2017 outstanding citizens came as a complete surprise to Connie Kirchner, who was also serving as the events emcee. The annual award is given to two adults and two youths for their selfless dedication, good character and work in the community.

Im speechless, said 66-year-old Kirchner, a mother of three and grandmother of five. There are so many outstanding citizens in this room.

Kirchner has been active in 4-H, is active in her church and has helped coordinate volunteers working concessions at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee. She also works for the Kenosha County Court system as a bailiff.

The second outstanding citizen, Robert LeFebve, 76, has lived in Bristol for 35 years. The father of two and grandfather of two is a former trustee of Paddock Lake, and was chairman of the Rehabilitation District and the committee to form a community library. Hes been a member of the Bristol Planning Commission for 10 years and is a charter member of the Bristol Historical Society.

I, too, love Bristol, LeFebve said. I think each and every one of us should provide service to our community. We have an excellent community willing to help each other. Thats what community is.

This years junior outstanding citizens were Logan Piktel and Ruby Loecher, both 13 and seventh-graders at Bristol Grade School. Both are members of advanced jazz band and received music contest medals for solo and ensemble competitions.

Piktel has been a drama club member for three years and was nominated for being a good kid and a good friend. Loecher is a member of the Challenge 4-H Club, Randall Optimist Club and was called the type of student well on the road to success for life by her teacher.

This years Miss Bristol, 18-year-old Shania Dumelle, called her win a complete surprise. She entered the contest to do something different. I thought maybe if I didnt do it, Id regret it.

Her goal, she said, is to be like a big sister to everybody.

Dumelle graduated from Central High School and plans to attend the University of Wisconsin-Parkside to study applied health sciences/pre-med. She wants to be a physicians assistant. Asked what one thing shed want to change in the world, she said, If I could change one thing it would be childhood hunger and thirst. No matter who you are, everyone should be nourished and well-fed.

The contest included four contestants. Other winners included:

Third runner-up: Ashley Lura, 18, who graduated from Central High School and plans to attend UW-Parkside majoring in business management and minor in art.

Second runner-up: Nina Scott, 16, a junior at Central High School who plans to follow her familys tradition and go into the Navy. She later wants to study to be a dermatologist. She sang, I Cant Help Falling in Love for the talent portion of the contest.

First runner-up and Miss Congeniality award winner: Haley Gorsuch, 18. She loves drawing and Disney, and plans to attend UW-Whitewater to study art education. She wants to be an art teacher.

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Progress Days honor top citizens, crowns Miss Bristol - Kenosha News