Fed Chair Powell will testify at 10 AM EST before the Senate Banking Committee. His testimony will be posted here at 9:45 AM. Watch the hearing live here. I will forward a transcript as soon as it becomes available. More in this morning’s Wall Street Journal preview.
President Trump is in Hanoi to meet tomorrow with North Korea’s Kim. Hanoi is 12 hours ahead of EST.
“Trump says he expects to sign a trade deal with China ‘fairly soon.’” Last night’s Washington Post article led with:
President Trump stoked expectations Monday for a successful conclusion to U.S.-China trade talks, saying he anticipated signing an agreement with Chinese President Xi Jinping “fairly soon.” [White House transcript]
Speaking to a gathering of the nation’s governors at the White House, Trump was optimistic about closing the remaining gaps over U.S. demands for major changes in China’s state-led economic system.
“We’re going to have another summit. We’re going to have a signing summit, which is even better,” the president said, referring to plans he announced Sunday to host the Chinese leader at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida next month. “So hopefully, we can get that completed. But we’re getting very, very close. . . . I think it’s going to happen, and it could happen fairly soon.”
Trump spoke as investors digested his cancellation one day earlier of a scheduled increase in tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods to give negotiators more time to strike a deal. The import levies were slated to rise to 25 percent on Saturday from 10 percent, a move that would have significantly increased the trade war’s economic costs.
“Too Much Cash, Too Little Time: The Latest U.S. Debt Cap Dilemma.” Yesterday afternoon’s Bloomberg article stated in its entirety:
Uncle Sam has to find a way to shovel more than $100 billion in cash out the door by the end of this week.
That’s when the U.S. Treasury has to reduce its cash balance to about $199 billion in order to comply with rules surrounding the reinstatement of the debt ceiling. The cap is set to go back into effect at the end of this Friday and at that point the cash balance should be at or below the level it was at when the current suspension went into effect in February 2018.
