One night in Buenos Aires could define Donald Trump's presidency. Within a few hours, Trump telegraphed ambivalence about the two issues that have defined his time in politics: China and the wall.
Why it matters: Trump's comments mean the next three months may define his presidency. His first term is slipping away from him. On the trail, he promised to build a wall. But almost two years into his presidency, he's barely built anything. He also promised to force China to end its abuse of American businesses. But China hasn't changed in any meaningful way.
Women don't earn 80% of what men earn. The true number is closer to 50%.
Driving the news: A new report from the Institute for Women's Policy Research looks at how much money women actually earned, in aggregate, over three different 15-year time periods. While men's incomes were largely unchanged over the past 50 years, and women's rose significantly, women are still only halfway to equality.
Did you know I take requests? Lobbyist Bruce Mehlman writes in to ask: "If more than 70% of firms regularly beat Wall Street quarterly earnings expectations, doesn't that suggest the experts setting expectations are not so good at their jobs?"
It's a good question. In the second quarter of this year, the earnings-beat ratio actually reached 81%.
CNBC's Carl Quintanilla passes along a Morgan Stanley report that has quantified the amount that stocks fall after a data breach is made public.
Driving the news: Marriott was above average. It fell 5.6% on Friday, after a data breach that could have affected as many as 500 million customers. That's more than the 4% one-day decline Morgan Stanley has calculated after looking at Target, Home Depot, Yahoo, Heartland Payment and Anthem.
The G20 summit in Buenos Aires exceeded all expectations. No one thought Donald Trump had prepared for his dinner with Chinese President Xi Jinping, but somehow an agreement was hashed out that calls a 90-day truce to the trade war between the two countries. The planned tariff hike on Chinese goods from 10% to 25% will no longer happen on Jan. 1 as scheduled. Instead, a more normal set of trade negotiations will commence.
Why it matters: Score one for the globalists: This is a win for NEC Director Larry Kudlow and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin; it's a loss for White House trade hawk Peter Navarro. But "90 days is a short time," says Axios' Jonathan Swan. "Trump has hedged and could easily reverse."
"The global economy is ... palpably weakening," the NY Times' Peter Goodman reports from London. "Many nations are mired in stagnation or sliding that way. Oil prices are falling and factory orders are diminishing, reflecting slackening demand for goods."
Be smart: Slower growth is not going to make anyone feel more secure about the prospect of robots replacing human hands, or jobs shifting to lower-wage lands.
Following dinner between President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 on Saturday, the United States and China reached a ceasefire in their ongoing trade dispute after the Trump administration postponed a plan to increase tariffs while trade negotiations continue, according to the White House.
Details: The United States was set to hike tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods from 10% on 25% on Jan. 1. That's now on hold for at least 90 days after China agreed to negotiate issues like forced technology transfer, cybersecurity and intellectual property theft. China also agreed to purchase a "very substantial" — though unspecified — amount of farm and industrial products from the U.S.
In a joint declaration signed by all G20 nations Saturday, leaders acknowledged that the current multilateral trading system is "falling short of its objectives" and voiced support for "necessary reform" of the World Trade Organization.
The big picture: President Trump — who has made trade imbalances a hallmark complaint of his presidency — has threatened to withdraw from the WTO, which he believes was "designed by the rest of the world to screw the United States." Trump will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping Saturday night to discuss the ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China, per Reuters.
High-speed broadband and mobile internet have created more opportunities to access free news and information than ever before.
Yes, but: It's also made it harder for quality news and information outlets, particularly ones in rural areas, to survive. Tech has disrupted the local media business model and pushed more journalism behind paywalls — and there's no end in sight.
The federal government's efforts to provide ubiquitous internet access have had varying levels of success.
Why it matters: Congress mandates that the FCC take "immediate action" if advanced telecom capability is not being deployed to "all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion." Chairman Ajit Pai says closing the digital divide is his top priority, but the FCC can't compel ISPs to expand networks; it can only offer incentives to do so.
