A top Mexican trade negotiator traveled to Washington on Sunday to push back against U.S. officials for allegedly blindsiding Mexico with a provision to designate labor monitors as part of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), the Washington Post reports.
The big picture: House Democrats came out in support of the USMCA last week after successfully negotiating a mechanism to ensure the enforcement of labor standards in Mexico, which had been a sticking point during trade talks. Mexico had claimed during negotiations that foreign labor inspectors would violate its sovereignty, and the three countries had instead settled on three-person panels to resolve labor disputes.
Two of the biggest constraints to the world economy — uncertainty about Brexit and the China trade war — were alleviated last week, Bloomberg reports.
Why it matters: With a "phase one" deal between U.S. and China staving off more tariffs and the United Kingdom now on pace to leave the European Union on Jan. 31, the outlook for global growth should be more positive in 2020 after being hampered by widespread uncertainty in 2019.
China announced Sunday that it is postponing additional tariffs on U.S. automobiles, corn, wheat and other goods that were set to take effect on Dec. 15, Reuters reports.
The big picture: The U.S. and China agreed to a "phase one" trade deal last week in which Washington agreed to delay a tariff hike on $160 billion of Chinese products that was also planned for Dec. 15. In exchange, Beijing agreed to increase imports from the U.S. by at least $200 billion over the next two years, including agricultural goods.
The New York Times editorial board became on Saturday the latest to support the impeachment of President Trump, with an article simply headlined: "Impeach."
[T]he story told by the two articles of impeachment approved on Friday morning by the House Judiciary Committee is short, simple and damning"
— Excerpt from the New York Times editorial board op-ed
Fox News is most-watched news outlet in roughly 70% of U.S. congressional districts, according to a new analysis of more than 1 million respondents over the past year from Morning Consult.
Thousands of Instacart contract "shoppers" — who fetch groceries for one of the largest on-demand companies in the gig economy — have gone on strike for higher wages, the Washington Post reports.
The big picture: Instacart shoppers said their wages were slashed in late 2018 when the company introduced an algorithmic pay system to estimate workers' earnings per job, per the Post.
Shoppers spent less at restaurants and bars in November and didn't buy as many clothes and sporting goods as they had the month prior, according to the latest advance estimates from the Commerce Department.
The big picture: Strong consumer spending largely acted as the U.S. economy's backbone for the past two quarters and much of 2018. The Federal Reserve ended its interest rate-cutting streak on Wednesday, signaling confidence that the economy doesn't need easier borrowing conditions to stay afloat.
Campaigns are using targeted digital platforms to reach younger voters, especially first-time voters.
Driving the news: Facebook has become the primary platform for candidates to spend their political dollars online. The tech giant makes it easy for campaigns to buy ads at scale targeted to different age groups.
A firefighters pension fund in Florida filed a lawsuit on Friday against billionaire investor Carl Icahn over allegations that he bought $1.2 billion of stock in HP after learning that Xerox Corp. wanted to buy HP at a premium, per Bloomberg.
Why it matters: Icahn already was Xerox's largest shareholder, with an 11% stake, and now is HP's fifth-largest shareholder. Xerox offered to buy HP for $33.5 billion, but was rebuffed and now plans to go hostile.
