House Republicans voted Thursday to deliver on their promise to repeal Dodd-Frank – the massive set of Wall Street regulations President Barack Obama signed into law after the 2008 financial crisis.
House Resolution 10, or the Financial Creating Hope and Opportunity for Investors, Consumers and Entrepreneurs (CHOICE) Act of 2017, passed by a vote of 233-186 in the lower chamber; eleven representatives did not vote.
President Donald Trump on Monday reiterated his push for his executive order banning travel and immigration from six majority-Muslim countries, lashing out against his own Justice Department and potentially exacerbating the continued legal battle over the order.
"People, the lawyers and the courts can call it whatever they want, but I am calling it what we need and what it is, a TRAVEL BAN!" Trump said in the first of a series of tweets Monday morning.
The US and China have reached a 10-point trade deal that opens the Chinese market to US credit rating agencies and credit card companies. Under the deal, China will also lift its ban on US beef imports; in return, Chinese cooked chicken will be allowed into the US market and Chinese banks can enter the US market. And there were numerous other parts of the preliminary agreement. This included language that appears to pave the way for U.S. firms to export liquid natural gas to China, the expediting of Chinese safety reviews for U.S. biotechnology applications, and cooperation between Chinese and U.S. regulators over financial transactions.The deals are the first tangible results of trade talks that began in April after US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in Florida.
Some economists expect the Fed to resume its plan of increasing key interest rates at a gradual pace if the US economy outperforms itself this year. Do you share this point of view?
I do not think the economy really needs to outperform to make the Federal Reserve raise rates. If the economy evolves as expected, the Fed will be hiking interest rates. The Federal Open Market Committee feels that the economy is performing well and that monetary policy needs to be in a normal position. Currently, monetary policy in the US is accommodative, but with the economy close to normal, the FOMC believes that policy should be close to normal too.
President Donald Trump has had experience with bankruptcy. This will prove to be useful as his tax plan, if approved by Congress, will push the US ever closer to financial disaster.
During Obama’s presidency, the US energy industry was hit strongly by environmental protection measures. Now, oil and gas industry is expected to surge forward. Do you share this point of view or not? In your opinion, will Trump’s regulations help the US become more energy independent?
At the moment, it is hard to say whether the energy industry is really going to surge forward thanks to Trump’s regulations. Still, with relatively low oil prices, the industry is not going to receive more money regardless of any regulations the President might implement. What I mean is that the government can still make these rules easier for the companies, but it will not change the investment significantly. Overall, the new regulations implementation might be positive, but it is still not a game changer. Furthermore, I suppose that there is no need for the President to relax the environmental regulations because the industry is already capable of meeting higher environmental standards.
President Trump clearly wants to avoid friction with Xi Jinping and therefore no longer rails against China.
The Swiss government on Tuesday acknowledged the country’s reappearance on a U.S. Treasury watch list of currency manipulators, but said the status would have no immediate consequences, as Reuters reported.
Switzerland met two of the three criteria to be named a manipulator, both in the most recent report and the previous one in October: it runs a material current account surplus and it engages in persistent, one-sided intervention in foreign exchange markets.
