The Dow closed down 328 points Monday, following news that President Trump plans to further crack down on Chinese investment in major U.S. tech companies by blocking additional technology exports to Beijing.
Yes, but: Trump's trade adviser Peter Navarro told CNBC that the market overreacted to the news, adding: “There’s no plans to impose investment restrictions on any countries that are interfering in any way with our country. This is not the plan.”
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin tweeted that reports from Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal that the Trump administration plans to block Chinese investment in U.S. tech are "fake news," saying the restrictions will apply to other countries, too.
Why it matters: It's a disingenuous slam of the media given everything the White House has said so far about its trade moves. The Trump administration has cited China — and only China — in official statements about intellectual property theft.
The IPO window is no longer just open. It's been shattered, had its frame removed and is now a chasmal cavity for capital.
Bottom line: This should be the year's busiest week for new U.S. listings, with the boom being driven by factors like political uncertainty and increased M&A activity.
AT&T has announced it will acquire AppNexus, one of the largest privately-owned ad exchanges. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but The Wall Street Journal reports that the price tag is around $1.6 billion.
Why it matters: The acquisition will help AT&T build its automated digital advertising business that could compete with Google and Facebook’s massive duopoly.
Harley-Davidson is set to move some of its motorcycle production out of the United States as a result of President Trump's burgeoning trade war with the European Union, reports Bloomberg.
The details: The EU's tariffs on Harleys will raise their prices by about $2,200, but, according to an SEC regulatory filing, the company plans to eat the $90 million to $100 million increase itself rather than pass costs along to customers.
"President Donald Trump, already embroiled in a trade battle with China, plans to ratchet commercial tensions higher by barring many Chinese companies from investing in U.S. technology firms, and by blocking additional technology exports to Beijing," The Wall Street Journal's Bob Davis reports.
Why it matters, from Chris Krueger of Cowen Washington Research Group: "Of all the strands of U.S. trade and sanctions policy against China, perhaps least appreciated by markets is the potential for significant investment restrictions and export controls to be recommended by Treasury by the end of [this] week, ... and implemented soon thereafter by President Trump. This opens a major new front in the U.S.-China conflict, adding fuel to the ongoing trade war with potentially wide-ranging effects on financing markets."
eBay, the first major marketplace that revolutionized how people viewed the usefulness of the internet in the 1990s, pioneered both the promise and pitfalls of online platforms, including the dynamics that plague the largest forces on the internet today, argues New York Times reporter John Herrman.
Why it matters: The influence of internet platforms — primarily Google and Facebook — have grown exponentially since eBay's heyday, when only half of U.S. adults used the internet. Regulators and consumers alike are trying to sort out how news, information, data and ads are peddled on these platforms — and how it all impacts competition and general discourse.
The harrowing images of children in detention centers and President Trump's flip-flop on his administration's "zero tolerance" family separation policy dominated last week’s news cycle, but the lineup of Sunday’s five major morning news programs had just one Hispanic headliner, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) on ABC's "This Week," per the Daily Beast.
Why it matters: The lack of diversity — all of the shows' 12 main guests were male — on the Sunday shows highlights the need for a more nuanced and wider range of perspectives, especially after such a tumultuous week of news.
It's well-known that after his mornings of "Executive Time" in the White House residence, President Trump spends a good chunk of his workdays camped in the private dining room adjoining the Oval Office.
The big picture: I asked a former senior administration official who spent plenty of time in that dining room to paint the scene — with some since-departed characters — to the best of their recollection: "Sitting in the private dining room. Stack of newspapers on the table. Landline telephone sitting beside them. Briefing papers and/or documents to sign also there on the table."
People think of Peter Navarro, the top White House trade adviser, as President Trump’s mind-meld on tariffs — the most hardline protectionist in the White House. But Navarro used to preach very different ideas in his early career as an economist.
The bottom line: In his 1984 book, "The Policy Game: How Special Interests and Ideologues are Stealing America," that's no longer in print — Axios got a copy from a university library — Navarro sounds a lot like the very administration officials he's sparred with on trade policy. And he argues that tariffs will inevitably send the global economy into crisis.
Peter Navarro is considered to be the closest to President Trump when it comes to tariffs. He's the most hardline protectionist in the White House.
But as we revealed, Navarro used to preach the views of globalists, advocating for free trade and warning against the economic and national security risks of protectionism. We asked Navarro why he changed his tune so dramatically given the underlying economics haven't changed. He wrote lengthy responses to our questions and below we quote him in full.
Venture capitalists, corporations and the federal government are investing in quantum computers, a powerful new generation of machines that one day could help develop new drugs and decrypt secrets.
The big picture: The problems such devices can solve today are still limited. But the technologies are advancing and as China invests heavily in the field, some researchers and policymakers in the U.S. are calling for a national plan to develop fundamental research into commercial products
David Bossie, the former deputy campaign manager for President Trump in 2016, told Democratic strategist and fellow Fox News panelist Joel Payne, who is black, that he was "out of [his] cotton-picking mind" during an immigration discussion on "Fox & Friends" this morning.
The response: After a commercial break, Fox News anchor Ed Henry said, "Bossie used a phrase that clearly offended Joel Payne and offended many others. ... But I want to make sure that Fox News and this show, myself, we don’t agree with that particular phrase. It was obviously offensive and these debates get fiery, that’s unfortunate. We like to have honest and spirited debates, but not phrases like that, obviously.”
