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Good morning! Today we look at the increasingly isolated U.S. position in trade talks, a robust American economy, early fallout from tariffs, and a Swiss referendum to blow up one of the foundational features of global finance.
“UNANIMOUS CONCERN AND DISAPPOINTMENT”
The U.S. is looking more and more isolated. Top finance officials from the Group of Seven leading nations issued a rare public rebuke of Washington’s steel and aluminum tariffs Saturday, expressing their “unanimous concern and disappointment.” The following day in China, Beijing said it wouldn’t buy more American products if the U.S. goes ahead with another round of tariffs on Chinese imports. Still, the Trump administration showed no sign of backing down. “When you’re almost 800 Billion Dollars a year down on Trade, you can’t lose a Trade War!” President Donald Trump said on Twitter. Next up: Mr. Trump faces leaders of countries who have termed his policies extreme, unwise and in some cases illegal when he arrives in Quebec for a summit of G-7 heads of state scheduled for Friday and Saturday, Josh Zumbrun and Bob Davis report.
TRADE FIGHT! WHO CARES?
Despite uncertainty on trade, the U.S. economy is powering ahead. Friday’s employment report showed robust job gains and the lowest unemployment rate in 18 years. Forecasts call for a pick-up in overall growth during the second quarter—as long as tariffs and retaliation don’t spiral out of control. That’s not a given. Already, trade barriers are causing higher prices and hurting businesses that buy steel and aluminum. The European Union, Canada and Mexico have promised payback. The Trump administration is planning more: tariffs on $50 billion in imports from China and possibly an additional wave of tariffs on global auto imports. “Even the threat of a full-fledged trade war could be highly contractionary if it led to a plunge in confidence, but for now at least, most people on Main Street as well as Wall Street remain fairly optimistic,” High Frequency Economics’s Jim O’Sullivan said.
Do you think the U.S. is heading toward a global trade war? Write to Jeffrey Sparshott at realtimeeconomics@wsj.com, tweet to @WSJecon and visit wsj.com/economy for the latest.
WHAT TO WATCH TODAY
This week is light on economic data, though politically sensitive international trade numbers come out in the U.S. on Wednesday and China on Friday. The real focus will be political as the Trump administration, allies and rivals talk trade.
For Monday:
U.S. factory orders for April are due out at 10 a.m. ET. Economists expect a 0.5% decline.
And here’s an interesting nugget on the White House calendar: President Trump is scheduled to meet with Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, in the Oval Office at 2:45 p.m. ET. The World Economic Forum, which meets annually in Davos, Switzerland, is peak globalist.
TOP STORIES
MR. ROSS GOES TO BEIJING
President Trump dispatched Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to Beijing for high-level talks over the weekend. They didn’t yield anything concrete. Mr. Ross and Liu He, China’s economic czar, discussed getting China to buy more American farm and energy products, Lingling Wei and Bob Davis report. But White House statements last week that it plans to impose tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese goods and other penalties clouded the talks, causing Chinese officials to dig in their heels. “Before committing to anything, the Chinese side wants assurance that Washington won’t go ahead with its tariff threats,” said one person with knowledge of the talks. So the sides appear closer to imposing tariffs on one another, rather than closer to striking a deal.
LAW OF UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES
U.S. steel producers are benefiting from tariffs that make it more expensive for companies to buy the metals overseas. But some U.S. firms that use the metals to make everything from refrigeration parts to wheels say the tariffs have led to higher materials prices that are forcing them to charge more for their products. These firms say that in some cases, customers are turning to foreign suppliers that use cheaper, tariff-free metals to make the same products. The fallout, while so far limited, illustrates how efforts to protect some U.S. companies can cause unintended pain for others, Andrew Tangel and Ruth Simon report.
GLOBAL OUTLOOK CLOUDY
Trade isn’t the only thing clouding the outlook. Stock indexes that rode accelerating global growth to fresh records in January are now hamstrung by a moderate but unmistakable slowdown in economic momentum in Europe and elsewhere. Business activity globally has slowed from multi-year highs. Other measures investors watch for signs of economic vigor, such as shipping costs and copper prices, have been on the decline. Among developed economies, data on the whole have been missing expectations by a wide margin. While hardly anyone expects a recession any time soon, many investors are turning to lower-risk assets in a bid to brace against what is expected to be a volatile market year, Michael Wursthorn, Daniel Kruger and Ben Eisen write.
SWISS PONDER FUTURE OF MONEY
In Switzerland, a country synonymous with stability and neutrality, voters are poised to decide whether to blow up one of the foundational features of global finance: the ability of banks to create money with just a few keystrokes, Brian Blackstone writes. It’s something that banks do every day around the world. But if the Swiss referendum passes on June 10, all money creation there would have to be done directly by the country’s central bank. Electronic deposits—basically the money people see in their bank statements—would be converted to central bank money issued by the Swiss National Bank. The plan is coming to a vote because of Switzerland’s direct-democracy system under which people can obtain a referendum by gaining 100,000 signatures.
CHARTS OF THE DAY: JOBS
The headline numbers in Friday’s jobs report were strong. Underlying details suggest economic growth is reaching deeper into the population and lifting prospects for many who had been left behind.
The jobless rates for black women fell to a record low.
The jobless rate for workers 25 and up without a high-school diploma fell near a record low.
Wages for production and nonsupervisory workers rose 2.8% in May from a year earlier, the best annual gain since mid-2009.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“I think we’re on the front end of what will turn out to be the best prosperity boom in several decades. The economy is clicking on all cylinders.” – Lawrence Kudlow, White House economic adviser, speaking on Fox News Sunday
TWEET OF THE DAY
[wsj-responsive-sandbox id = "0" ]UP NEXT: TUESDAY
The European Central Bank’s Mario Draghi speaks in Frankfurt at 9 a.m. ET.
The Institute for Supply Management’s nonmanufacturing index for May, out at 10 a.m. ET, is expected to rise to 57.7 from 56.8 the prior month.
The Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover survey is out at 10 a.m. ET.
from Real Time Economics https://ift.tt/2Jon2iL
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