市场消息

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Congressional Democrats exploring ways to obtain President Donald Trump’s tax returns may target the adequacy of the Internal Revenue Service audit that Trump often cites as his reason for not making the returns public, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Such a strategy, focused more on the IRS than on Trump, could help Democrats craft an iron-clad legal argument for what would likely follow from such a request – an unprecedented court battle over the tax records of a sitting president.

Targeting the audit would put the request for the returns squarely within the oversight authority of the House of Representatives’ tax committee, which oversees the IRS, and deflect Republican accusations of a fishing expedition by Democrats unfairly targeting the president, the sources said.

House tax committee Chairman Richard Neal, who has vowed to request Trump’s returns, said this week that the long-standing audit claim could be the basis on which the committee ultimately decides whether to go to court to obtain the returns.

The returns are expected to become an issue soon. A subcommittee of Neal’s panel on Thursday set a hearing for Feb. 7 on “presidential and vice-presidential tax returns.” A spokeswoman said the hearing would cover “H.R. 1,” a bill that would require presidential candidates to release their tax records for elections.

Another strategy for House Democrats might be to probe whether Trump profited from the Republican tax overhaul that he signed into law in 2017, or how his income could be affected by amendments to the tax code likely to come before the committee in months ahead.

No decisions have been made, and sources with knowledge of the discussions could not say how much weight House officials working on the issue might give to any proposal.

BEIJING/MOSCOW (Reuters) – The United States will stop complying with a landmark nuclear pact with Russia as soon as this weekend after last-ditch talks with Moscow to save it fell flat, a senior U.S. arms control official said on Thursday.

Washington has long accused Russia of flouting the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), alleging that a new Russian missile, the Novator 9M729, called the SSC-8 by NATO, violates the pact, which bans either side from stationing short- and intermediate-range, land-based missiles in Europe.

Russia denies that, saying the missile’s range puts it outside the treaty, and has accused the United States of inventing a false pretext to exit a treaty Washington wants to leave anyway so as to develop new missiles. It has also rejected a U.S. demand to destroy the new missile.

U.S. Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Andrea Thompson on Thursday held last-ditch talks with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov in Beijing ahead of the expiration of a U.S. 60-day deadline for Moscow to come back into compliance with the treaty.

Thompson and Ryabkov, who met on the sidelines of a P5 meeting of nuclear powers, said afterwards that the two countries had failed to bridge their differences.

GENEVA (Reuters) – China and the United States are ahead of the global competition to dominate artificial intelligence (AI), according to a study by the U.N. World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) published on Thursday.

The study found U.S. tech giant IBM had by far the biggest AI patent portfolio, with 8,920 patents, ahead of Microsoft with 5,930 and a group of mainly Japanese tech conglomerates.

China accounted for 17 of the top 20 academic institutions involved in patenting AI and was particularly strong in the fast growing area of “deep learning” – a machine-learning technique that includes speech recognition systems.

“The U.S. and China obviously have stolen a lead. They’re out in front in this area, in terms of numbers of applications, and in scientific publications,” WIPO Director-General Francis Gurry told a news conference.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Federal Reserve on Wednesday signaled its three-year-drive to tighten monetary policy may be at an end amid a suddenly cloudy outlook for the U.S. economy due to global headwinds and impasses over trade and government budget negotiations.

As it held interest rates steady, the U.S. central bank also discarded its promises of “further gradual increases” in interest rates, and said it would be “patient” before making any further moves.

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said the case for rate increases had “weakened” in recent weeks, with neither rising inflation or financial stability considered a risk, and “cross-currents” including slowing growth overseas and the self-inflicted wound of a federal government shutdown making the U.S. outlook less certain.

“We are now facing a somewhat contradictory picture of generally strong U.S. macroeconomic performance alongside growing evidence of cross-currents. Common sense risk management suggests patiently waiting greater clarity,” Powell told reporters after the end of a two-day policy meeting.

Continued U.S. economic growth was still “the likeliest outcome,” Powell said, but was now less certain than a month ago when the Fed said the economy was just as likely to grow faster than expected as it was to face a sharp downturn.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday introduced legislation to limit the president’s power to levy import tariffs for national security reasons.

The bills face an uncertain future but underscore bipartisan concerns on Capitol Hill over the rising costs of the Trump administration’s trade policies. The United States in 2018 slapped duties on aluminum and steel from other countries, drawing criticism from lawmakers who support free trade and complaints of rising supply chain costs across business sectors.

Two bipartisan groups of lawmakers on Wednesday introduced legislation known as the Bicameral Congressional Trade Authority Act in the Senate and the House of Representatives.

The bills would require Trump to have congressional approval before taking trade actions like tariffs and quotas under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. The law currently allows the president to impose such tariffs without approval from Capitol Hill.

“The imposition of these taxes, under the false pretense of national security (Section 232), is weakening our economy, threatening American jobs, and eroding our credibility with other nations,” said Republican Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, co-sponsor of the Senate bill.

GENEVA (Reuters) – The United States has accused China of hiding some trade-distorting subsidy programs from international scrutiny while disclosing others it does not need to, according to a document circulated on Wednesday at the World Trade Organization.

The U.S. document lists 70 questions about Beijing’s subsidy programs that highlight Washington’s misgivings about the role the state plays in China’s huge and growing market.

China is fighting a major trade dispute at the WTO against U.S. and EU claims that China is not a “market economy” and therefore that its export prices should not be taken at face value when evaluating whether it is trading fairly.

Topics covered by the U.S. questions include subsidies for China’s fishing industry and the activity of so-called government guidance funds, which seek to foster domestic innovation in different industries from advanced engineering and robotics to biotechnology and clean energy.

There were also questions about whether imported cars were eligible for tax breaks and scrappage schemes and whether imported goods were eligible for a Chinese fund for promoting energy saving products.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – White House national security adviser John Bolton raised questions about the United States’ intentions in Venezuela after he appeared at a briefing on Monday with a notepad containing the words “5,000 troops to Colombia,” which neighbors Venezuela.

It was not immediately clear what Bolton’s notes meant and whether President Donald Trump’s administration was seriously considering sending U.S. troops to Colombia.

It was also not clear if disclosure of the notes was intentional, and there was no indication that such a military option would be used any time soon.

Asked about a photograph depicting the notes, a White House spokesman said on Monday: “As the President has said, all options are on the table.”

Pentagon spokesman Colonel Rob Manning said the number of U.S. military personnel in Colombia remained unchanged as part of a pre-existing partnership.

LONDON (Reuters) – British lawmakers on Tuesday instructed Prime Minister Theresa May to reopen a Brexit treaty with the European Union to replace a controversial Irish border arrangement – and promptly received a flat rejection from Brussels.

Two weeks after overwhelmingly rejecting May’s Brexit deal, parliament backed a proposal intended to send her back to Brussels with a stronger mandate to seek changes that were more likely to win their support.

At the same time, they rejected a proposal to give parliament a path to prevent a potentially chaotic ‘no-deal’ exit by making May ask Brussels for a delay if she cannot get a deal through parliament.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States and China launch a critical round of trade talks on Wednesday amid deep differences over U.S. demands for structural economic reforms from Beijing that will make it difficult to reach a deal before a March 2 U.S. tariff hike.

The two sides will meet next door to the White House in the highest-level talks since U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed a 90-day truce in their trade war in December.

People familiar with the talks and trade experts watching them say that, so far, there has been little indication that Chinese officials are willing to address core U.S. demands to protect American intellectual property rights and end policies that Washington says force U.S. companies to transfer technology to Chinese firms.