The European Union says that if U.S. President Donald Trump initiates unfair trade measures against the 28-nation bloc, it would stand ready “to react swiftly and appropriately.”

In a weekend interview, Trump said he was annoyed with EU trade policy since he claims the U.S. cannot sufficiently export to the EU. He said his problems with the EU “may morph into something very big” from a trade standpoint.

EU spokesman Margaritis Schinas retorted Monday that “while trade has to be open and fair it also has to be rules-based.”

Schinas said: “The EU stands ready to react swiftly and appropriately in case our exports are affected by any restrictive trade measure from the United States.”

 
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Top trade representatives from Canada, Mexico and the United States are set to give an update Monday on the process of renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement, while people familiar with the process say a final deal could be pushed far beyond a March target date.

The three nations had tried to complete the talks by the end of 2017, but delayed the informal deadline as they worked to find common ground on several contentious issues.

The latest round of talks in Montreal included work on a dispute resolution mechanism and rules for the auto industry.

The United States wants to largely eliminate the dispute settlement panels and increase the percentage of U.S. content required to be in a vehicle. It has also proposed a clause that would end the trade agreement after five years unless all three countries agree to keep it going.

U.S. Representative Dave Reichert expressed optimism Sunday after he and a group of other lawmakers met with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. He said Lighthizer is “hopeful” while also recognizing “there’s a great deal of work to be done.”

Canada’s chief negotiator Steve Verheul said Saturday, “We’re moving in a slightly more positive direction.”

Lighthizer is meeting Monday with Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland and Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo to review the progress made by their teams and to make an announcement about the state of the negotiations.

One reason the countries were targeting a March end date is the looming July presidential election in Mexico. 

Another round of negotiations is expected to start in Mexico City in about a month. A lack of an agreement by the end of March could push the process deep into 2018 with a potential break for the Mexican election and similar considerations surrounding the November U.S. congressional elections.

U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to withdraw from the trade agreement if changes favorable to the United Sates are not made.
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Ingvar Kamprad, who founded Sweden’s IKEA furniture brand and transformed it into a worldwide business empire, has died at the age of 91.

Kamprad died Saturday of pneumonia in the southern Swedish region of Smaland where he grew up on a farm, and with some modest financial help from his father, starting selling pens, picture frames, typewriters and other goods. It was the start of what became IKEA, now with 403 stores across the globe, 190,000 employees and $47 billion in annual sales.

His brand became synonymous with the simplicity of Scandinavian design, modest pricing, flat-pack boxing and do-it-yourself assembly for consumers. It turned Kamprad into an entrepreneur with a reported net worth of $46 billion. The company name was an acronym of his initials, the name of his farm, Elmtaryd, and his town of origin, Agunnaryd.

Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said Kamprad “was a unique entrepreneur who had a big impact on Swedish business and who made home design a possibility for the many, not just the few.” King Carl XVI Gustaf called Kamprad a “true entrepreneur” who “brought Sweden out to the world.”

Kamprad’s life was not without controversy, however.

He faced sharp criticism for his ties to the Nazi youth movement in the 1940s. While Sweden was neutral during the war, its Nazi party remained active after the war. Kamprad said he stopped attending its meetings in 1948, later attributing his involvement to the “folly of youth,” and calling it “the greatest mistake of my life.”

While he eventually returned to Sweden, Kamprad fled his homeland’s high-tax structure for Denmark in 1973 and later moved to Switzerland in search of even lower taxes.

The European Commission last year launched an investigation into ways IKEA allegedly used a Dutch subsidiary to avoid taxes, with the Green Party contending the company avoided $1.2 billion in European Union taxes between 2009 and 2014. The Consortium of Investigative Journalists identified IKEA in 2014 as one of the giant multinationals that moved money to tax havens to avoid taxes.

Kamprad was known for his frugality, buying his clothes at thrift shops, driving an aging Volvo and bringing his lunch to work.
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Why has Mumbai’s largest slum, which packs some one million people in about two square kilometers, emerged as an unlikely stop for foreign tourists? The draw is not images of squalor and poverty in the heart of India’s largest city, but a place where thriving entrepreneurship and stories of hope and success break many stereotypes of a slum. Anjana Pasricha reports.
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U.S. President Donald Trump touted the continued growth of the U.S. economy on Sunday, saying it is “better than it has been in many decades.”

“Businesses are coming back to America like never before,” Trump said in a Twitter remark, a likely theme of his State of the Union address on Tuesday. “Unemployment is nearing record lows. We are on the right track!”

He said, “Chrysler, as an example, is leaving Mexico and coming back to the USA,” an exaggeration of Chrysler’s expansion plans. Fiat Chrysler, the world’s eighth biggest auto manufacturer, says it is investing $1 billion to manufacture its profitable Ram pickup trucks in the midwestern state of Michigan, shifting the production from Mexico, but at the same time is not cutting any of its vehicle manufacturing jobs in Mexico.

The U.S. jobless rate has held steady at 4.1 percent for the last three months, the lowest figure in 17 years. The U.S. economy, the world’s largest, advanced at a 2.3 percent pace last year, Trump’s first year in office, up from 1.5 percent in 2016.

The U.S. economy, however, slowed in the last three months of 2017, expanding at a 2.6 percent annual rate, down from the 3.2 percent figure in the July-to-September period.

Attack on Jay-Z

In praising the U.S. economic performance, Trump also attacked Jay-Z, after the rap musician had assailed Trump in a Saturday news talk show over the president’s recent reported vulgar descriptions of people from Haiti and Africa as he seeks to block their immigration to the United States.

“Somebody please inform Jay-Z that because of my policies, Black Unemployment has just been reported to be at the LOWEST RATE EVER RECORDED!” Trump said. The black unemployment rate in the U.S. has fallen to 6.8 percent, which is still higher than the 3.7 percent figure for whites.

Jay-Z told CNN interviewer Van Jones that economic advances for blacks do not outweigh Trump’s attacks on predominantly black countries.

“Everyone feels anger, but after the anger, it’s really hurtful because he’s looking down on a whole population of people. And he’s so misinformed because these places have beautiful people,” Jay-Z said, adding, “It’s not about money at the end of the day. Money doesn’t equate to happiness. It doesn’t. That’s missing the whole point.

“You treat people like human beings,” he said.

 
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Tokyo-based cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck Inc said Sunday it would return about 46.3 billion yen ($425 million) of the virtual money it lost to hackers two days ago in one of the biggest-ever thefts of digital money.

That amounts to nearly 90 percent of the 58 billion yen worth of NEM coins the company lost in an attack Friday that forced it to suspend withdrawals of all cryptocurrencies except bitcoin.

Coincheck said in a statement it would repay the roughly 260,000 owners of NEM coins in Japanese yen, though it was still working on timing and method.

Theft and security

The theft underscores security and regulatory concerns about bitcoin and other virtual currencies even as a global boom in them shows little signs of fizzling.

Two sources with direct knowledge of the matter said Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) sent a notice to the country’s roughly 30 firms that operate virtual currency exchanges to warn of further possible cyber-attacks, urging them to step up security.

The financial watchdog is also considering administrative punishment for Coincheck under the financial settlements law, one of the sources said.

Japan started to require cryptocurrency exchange operators to register with the government in April 2017. Pre-existing operators such as Coincheck have been allowed to continue offering services while awaiting approval. Coincheck’s application, submitted in September, is still pending.

Coincheck told a late-Friday news conference that its NEM coins were stored in a “hot wallet” instead of the more secure “cold wallet,” outside the internet. Asked why, company President Koichiro Wada cited technical difficulties and a shortage of staff capable of dealing with them.

Shades of Mt. Gox

In 2014, Tokyo-based Mt. Gox, which once handled 80 percent of the world’s bitcoin trades, filed for bankruptcy after losing around half a billion dollars worth of bitcoins. More recently, South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Youbit last month shut down and filed for bankruptcy after being hacked twice last year.

World leaders meeting in Davos last week issued fresh warnings about the dangers of cryptocurrencies, with U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin relating Washington’s concern about the money being used for illicit activity.
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Officials trying to settle differences over how to update the North American Free Trade Agreement have made some progress and hope politicians decide the talks should continue, Steve Verheul, Canada’s chief negotiator, told Reuters on Saturday.

The United States, Canada and Mexico are due to finish the sixth of seven planned rounds of NAFTA discussions on Monday, with several major issues far from being resolved.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who describes the $1.2 trillion pact as a disaster, has frequently threatened to walk away from it unless major changes are made.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland and Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo will hold a news conference later Monday to announce the next steps.

Asked whether he thought the three ministers would decide there is enough momentum to continue with the next round, Verheul said: “Well, that’s our hope.”

Later in the day, he told reporters: “We’re moving in a slightly more positive direction. We’ll take that encouragement where we can.”

On balance, a ‘positive’

A Mexican official, who asked not to be named, said “we don’t foresee a negative reaction to the round. We believe the balance will be positive.”

Work is moving ahead on less contentious parts of NAFTA, the Mexican official and a Canadian source close to the talks said Saturday, and the three nations have closed a chapter on measures to fight corruption.

Canada and Mexico initially dismissed some of the main U.S. demands as unworkable but later made it clear they were ready to be more flexible.

During the sixth round, Canada raised what it called creative ways of meeting U.S. demands for higher North American content in autos, a sunset clause that would allow one party to quit the treaty after five years, and major changes to existing conflict resolution mechanisms.

“I think we have demonstrated we have engaged on most of the big issues,” Verheul said in his remarks to Reuters. “We’ve made progress on some of the smaller ones, so I think [it was] not a bad week.”

The Mexican official said that Canada’s proposals on rules of origin for autos, the sunset clause and conflict resolution mechanism were “positive, inasmuch as they are an attempt to move things forward.”

Speaking separately, a second Canadian government source said Ottawa was cautiously optimistic about the round, given that the U.S. side had not summarily rejected the proposals for compromise.

But the source, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, said much would depend on Lighthizer’s reaction on Monday.

Fear for pact’s future

Markets and industries are worried about the possible collapse of the $1.2 trillion pact.

“It’s unclear to us that anything that anyone does here will be enough … which is concerning for agriculture,” said Brian Innes, president of the Canadian Agri-food Trade Alliance.

“Our position with all the political parties is that the negotiations must go on,” said Juan Pablo Castanon, president of the Consejo Coordinador Empresarial, the umbrella group representing Mexican private sector interests at the talks.

“We want free trade, but not at any cost,” he said.

The talks were initially scheduled to wrap up by the end of March to avoid clashing with Mexico’s presidential election in July. Guajardo told Reuters on Friday that the process could be extended if need be.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the leftist front-runner in the presidential race, said on Friday that the renegotiation should wait until after the election so that the next government, which he aims to lead, would get a say in the treaty’s future.
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Представники окремих районів Донецької області погодили з гарантіями безпеки тільки одну із сорока заявок на ремонт об’єктів інфраструктури на Донеччини поблизу лінії розмежування, повідомляє українська сторона Спільного центру контролю та координації на сторінці штабу АТО у Facebook.

За даними СЦКК, зокрема, йдеться про дамбу шламонакопичувача 3-ї черги промислових відходів коксохімічного виробництва ТОВ НПО «Інкор і Ко», розташованої поблизу населеного пункту Новгородське на Донеччині, а також ділянки аміакопроводу державного підприємства «Укрхімтрансаміак» біля Травневого.

«У разі руйнування дамби, речовини, які зберігаються в шламонакопичувачі (до їх складу входять феноли, фенольні сполуки, сірчана кислота, формальдегіди, нафтопродукти, смолисті речовини, нафталін та інші речовини, що утворилися в процесі основного виробництва) можуть потрапити в річки Кривий Торець та Сіверський Донець, з якого, в свою чергу, здійснюється забір питної води для мешканців практично усього Донбасу», – мовиться у повідомленні.

Окрім того, наголошують в СЦКК, ненадання гарантій з боку ОРДО на безпечне проведення робіт унеможливлює введення в дію газорозподільчої станції та газогону на ділянці «Мар’їнка-Красногорівка», відновлених українською владою.

«Відсутність газу не дає змогу запустити 13 газових котелень, надати тепло в 6 шкіл, 5 дитячих дошкільних установ та будинки мешканців. Без енергоносія вимушено припинили роботу і підприємства в цих населених пунктах: ВАТ «Красногорівський вогнетривкий завод», ВАТ «Лактіс», Мар’їнський хлібозавод та інші. А це, окрім не виготовлення відповідної продукції, понад 3000 робочих місць для місцевого населення», – кажуть представники центру.

Також українське представництво СЦКК наполягає на важливості проведення негайний робіт із відновлення водопостачання Майорська, де живе 180 сімей, та ремонту на ділянках оптико-волоконних ліній зв’язку компанії «Vodafone-Україна» на території тимчасово непідконтрольній Уряду України (в районі населеного пункту Оленівка).

Начальник відділу зв’язків з громадськістю компанії «Vodafone-Україна» Вікторія Рубан 24 січня в ефірі Донбас.Реалії заявила, що компанія не може перевірити чи відремонтувати своє обладнанн без гарантій безпеки на окупованій території Донецької області. Вона зазначила також, що питання про ситуацію зі зв’язком в Донецькій області винесено на переговори контактної групи в Мінську.

11 січня зник зв’язок Vodafone на непідконтрольних територіях Донбасу. У компанії повідомили про пошкодження оптоволоконного кабелю. 19 січня повідомили про відновлення зв’язку на Луганщині.

22 січня угруповання «ДНР» опублікувало заяву до компанії Vodafone з проханням посприяти у відновленні роботи мережі і направити фахівців оператора на непідконтрольну Україні територію Донеччини.
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Народний депутат із групи «Відродження» Віталій Хомутиннік у січні задекларував 855 454 гривень процентів за банківськими вкладами – від «ОТП Банку» та «Укргазбанку». Така інформація міститься в Єдиному державному реєстрі декларацій осіб, уповноважених на виконання функцій держави або місцевого самоврядування, повідомляє #Точно, проект Радіо Свобода.

20 грудня 2017 року парламентар отримав 11 134 837 гривень через відчуження нерухомого майна (це відображено тут і тут). Джерелом доходу виступив Олександр Васильович Буряк. Особа з таким ім’ям кілька років тому також перебувала в статусі народного депутата України.

Окрім цього, увагу привернули зміни у майновому стані Віталія Хомутинніка, які він вніс за день до продажу майна Буряку. 19 грудня Хомутиннік отримав 50 319 058 гривень дивідендів від компанії Публічне акціонерне товариство «Закритий недиверсифікований корпоративний інвестиційний фонд «Каскад-Інвест», яка, за повідомленнями ЗМІ, йому і належить. Це підприємство займається наданням фінансових послуг (трасти, фонди).

 
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In a surprise move, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reversed itself Friday and stopped the approval process for the proposed Pebble Mine copper and gold mine project in southwest Alaska’s Bristol Bay region.

“It is my judgment at this time that any mining projects in the region likely pose a risk to the abundant natural resources that exist there,” EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said in a statement.

President Donald Trump has championed increased domestic mining, and the EPA’s decision to halt the Pebble Mine’s approval process comes as a surprise.

“Until we know the full extent of that risk, those natural resources and world-class fisheries deserve the utmost protection,” Pruitt said.

The Obama administration blocked the proposed mine in 2014 over environmental concerns. Last year, Pruitt reversed that decision, allowing the Canadian company behind the mine project to apply for a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The Pebble Limited Partnership, comprising Canadian miners Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd and First Quantum Minerals Ltd, is planning to mine 1.2 billion tons of material, including 287 million pounds of copper.

Environmentalists, commercial and sport fishermen, many Alaska Native tribal organizations and even some Republican politicians have all criticized the project, which would be built on land near Lake Clark National Park.

Alaska Governor Bill Walker, an independent, applauded the decision and thanked Pruitt “for listening to my input and that of thousands of Alaskans” who oppose the mine.

Pruitt indicated the mine could ultimately be approved.

“This decision neither deters nor derails the application process of Pebble Limited Partnership’s proposed project,” he said.

“The project proponents continue to enjoy the protection of due process and the right to proceed. However, their permit application must clear a high bar, because EPA believes the risk to Bristol Bay may be unacceptable,” he said.
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President Donald Trump’s “America First” policy on trade aims to reverse decades of lopsided exchange by withdrawing from international trade deals, renegotiating others and raising tariffs on foreign-made goods destined for the U.S. But, in a connected global economy, analysts warn the U.S. could find itself increasingly isolated as other countries rush forward to embrace new trade deals. Mil Arcega reports.
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Alaska’s all-Republican congressional delegation three weeks ago praised Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke after he announced nearly all federal waters off the state’s coast could be offered for petroleum lease sales.

But after hearing from critics who do not want drilling in their home waters, U.S. Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan and Rep. Don Young are backtracking.

In a letter Friday to Zinke, the delegation requested that most Alaska waters from the state’s Panhandle to the Bering Strait be removed from the proposed five-year drilling plan.

Instead, they urged lease sales in only three areas: Cook Inlet, where petroleum platforms have extracted oil and natural gas for decades, and the Arctic waters of the Chukchi and Beaufort seas.

“We believe the strongest near-term offshore program in Alaska is one that focuses on the Chukchi, Beaufort and Cook Inlet,” they wrote. “Such a program will maximize agency resources and reflect the areas with the broadest support for development among Alaskans.”

Zinke announced the proposed lease sale plan Jan. 4. He said revisions could be made after public comment.

Immediate opposition

The proposal excluded only one area of Alaska: the North Aleutian Basin, home to Bristol Bay and the world’s largest run of sockeye salmon.

The proposal drew immediate opposition from governors in East and West Coast states. After Florida Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, met with Zinke, the secretary announced that drilling would be “off the table” for waters in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean off Florida.

Subsistence resources

In Alaska, proposed lease sales in the Bering Sea drew strong condemnation from the Bering Sea Elders Group, an association of Alaska Native elders appointed from 39 tribes, and Kawerak Inc., a regional nonprofit organization, which said oil and gas activities pose a serious threat to marine life.

“These basins are where tribes from our region have harvested subsistence resources for millennia and where local people from our region fish and crab commercially,” Kawerak said in an announcement.

Drilling in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, home to polar bears, walrus and ice seals that support the subsistence economies of coastal villages, is strongly opposed by environmental groups. They say the harsh climate makes spills inevitable and that cleanup of a major spill would be impossible in waters choked by or covered in sea ice.

Oil estimates

However, federal regulators say the Beaufort Sea, off Alaska’s north coast, holds an estimated 8.9 billion barrels of oil and the Chukchi, off Alaska’s northwest coast, holds an estimated 15.4 billion barrels.

Royal Dutch Shell spent $2.1 billion on Chukchi Sea leases in 2008, invested another $5 billion overall in U.S. Arctic waters, and pulled out after drilling a dry hole in 2015.

Murkowski, Sullivan and Young contend drilling in Arctic waters can be done safely. They said they strongly support the inclusion of the Beaufort and Chukchi seas for lease sales between 2019 and 2024, while at the same time urging “meaningful consultation” with communities.
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A U.S. trade commission on Friday handed an unexpected victory to Bombardier Inc. against Boeing Co., in a ruling that allows the Canadian company to sell its newest jets to U.S. airlines without heavy duties, sending Bombardier’s shares up 15 percent.

The U.S. International Trade Commission’s unanimous decision was the latest twist in U.S.-Canadian trade relations that have been complicated by disputes over tariffs on Canadian lumber and U.S. milk and President Donald Trump’s desire to renegotiate or even abandon the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Trump, who did not weigh in on the dispute personally, took his “America First” message to the world’s elite on Friday, telling a summit that the United States would “no longer turn a blind eye” to what he described as unfair trade practices.

The ITC commissioners voted 4-0 that Bombardier’s prices did not harm Boeing and discarded a U.S. Commerce Department recommendation to slap a near 300 percent duty on sales of the company’s 110- to 130-seat CSeries jets for five years. It did not give a reason immediately.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement that the commission’s finding “shows how robust our system of checks

and balances is.”

Boeing’s shares closed flat.

“It’s reassuring to see that facts and evidence matter,” said Chad Bown, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. “This part of the trade policy process works unimpeded despite President Trump’s protectionist rhetoric.”

Removing ‘uncertainty’

The decision will also help Bombardier sell the CSeries in the United States by removing “a huge amount of uncertainty,” at a time when its Brazilian rival Embraer is bringing its new E190-E2 jet to market, a source familiar with the

Canadian plane and train maker’s thinking said.

The ITC had been expected to side with Chicago-based Boeing. The company alleged it was forced to discount its 737 narrow-bodies to compete with Bombardier, which it said used government subsidies to dump the CSeries during the 2016 sale of 75 jets at “absurdly low” prices to Delta Air Lines.

Bombardier called the trade case self-serving after Boeing revealed on December 21 that it was discussing a “potential combination” with Embraer. Boeing denied the trade case was motivated by those talks.

Boeing to look at options

The dispute may not be over. “This can still be appealed by Boeing,” Andrew Leslie, parliamentary secretary to Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia

Freeland, told reporters in Montreal.

Boeing said it would not consider such options before seeing the ITC’s reasoning in February.

But Boeing said it was disappointed the commission did not recognize “the harm that Boeing has suffered from the billions of dollars in illegal government subsidies that the Department of Commerce found Bombardier received and used to dump aircraft in the U.S. small single-aisle airplane market.”

Bombardier, Delta and the U.S. consumer advocacy group Travelers United all called the ITC decision a victory for consumers and airlines.

The decision may end up helping Trump’s goal of boosting U.S. jobs as the CSeries jets for U.S. airlines will be built in the United States rather than Canada.

Through a venture with European planemaker Airbus SE, which has agreed to take a majority stake in the CSeries this year, Bombardier plans to assemble CSeries jets in Alabama to be sold to U.S. carriers starting in 2019.

Sweet surprise

Airbus Chief Executive Tom Enders promised to push ahead “full throttle” with the Alabama plans. “Nothing is sweeter than a surprise, a surprise victory,” he said.

The case had sparked trade tensions between the United States and its allies Canada and the United Kingdom. Ottawa last year scrapped plans to buy 18 Super Hornet fighter jets from Boeing.

The well-paid jobs associated with the CSeries are important both to Ottawa and the British government. Bombardier employs about 4,000 workers in Northern Ireland.

The British prime minister’s office said it welcomed the decision, “which is good news” for the British industry, while Canada’s innovation minister said the ITC came to the “right decision” on Bombardier.

Former ITC Chairman Dan Pearson praised the decision. “Not a single commissioner was willing to buy Boeing’s arguments,” he said. “I think ‘America First’ is a policy of the White House and the Commerce Department. But it’s not the policy of an independent agency [like the ITC].”
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