Day: April 3, 2019

White House adviser Ivanka Trump is planning a trip to Africa to promote a global women’s initiative she’s leading.  

President Donald Trump’s daughter will visit Ethiopia and Ivory Coast over four days this month. The White House said Wednesday that her schedule includes a women’s economic empowerment summit in Ivory Coast as well as site visits and meetings with political leaders, executives and female entrepreneurs in both countries. 

Accompanying her will be Mark Green, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development. On parts of the trip, they will be joined David Bohigian, acting president of the Overseas Private Investment Corp., and Kristalina Georgieva, interim president of the World Bank Group. 

OPIC provides loans, loan guarantees and political risk insurance, funding projects that stretch across continents and industries. 

It will be Ivanka Trump’s first visit to Africa since the White House undertook the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity Initiative in February. In a statement to The Associated Press, she said she was “excited to travel to Africa” to advance the effort. 

Multi-agency effort

The initiative involves the State Department, the National Security Council and other U.S. agencies. It aims to coordinate current programs and develop new ones to assist women in job training, financial support, legal or regulatory reforms and other areas.  

Ivanka Trump says the goal is to economically empower 50 million women in developing countries by 2025.  

Money for the effort will come through USAID, which initially set up a $50 million fund using dollars already budgeted. The president’s 2020 budget proposal requests $100 million for the initiative, which will also be supported by programs across the government as well as private investment. The White House spending plan would cut overall funding for diplomacy and development.  

Ivanka Trump has made women’s economic empowerment a centerpiece of her White House portfolio. She has made a number of international trips, with a focus on these issues, including to Japan and India. Her travel to Africa follows a five-day tour that first lady Melania Trump made there last year, with a focus on child welfare.  

Like the first lady, Ivanka Trump’s efforts could be complicated by the president, who was criticized last year after his private comments about “s—hole countries” in Africa and other regions were leaked to journalists.
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U.S. President Donald Trump met NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the White House Tuesday, where he took credit for increased burden sharing in collective defense spending. As White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara reports, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is commemorating its 70th birthday in Washington with less pomp than usual, out of concerns for further verbal attacks from an American president who has repeatedly criticized the trans-Atlantic military alliance.
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The United States will not send high-level officials to attend China’s second Belt and Road summit in Beijing this month, a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said on Tuesday, citing concerns about financing practices for the project.

China’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, said on Saturday that almost 40 foreign leaders would take part in the summit due to be held in Beijing in late April. He rejected criticisms of the project as “prejudiced.”

The first summit for the project, which envisions rebuilding the old Silk Road to connect China with Asia, Europe and beyond with massive infrastructure spending, was held in 2017 and was attended by Matt Pottinger, the senior White House official for Asia.

There are no such plans this year.

“We will not send high-level officials from the United States,” a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said in answer to a question from Reuters.

“We will continue to raise concerns about opaque financing practices, poor governance, and disregard for internationally accepted norms and standards, which undermine many of the standards and principles that we rely upon to promote sustainable, inclusive development, and to maintain stability and a rules-based order.

“We have repeatedly called on China to address these concerns,” the official added.

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative has proven controversial in many Western capitals, particularly Washington, which views it as a means to spread Chinese influence abroad and saddle countries with unsustainable debt through non-transparent projects.

On Saturday, Yang called such criticisms “prejudiced,” saying China has never forced debt upon participants and the project was to promote joint development.

On Saturday, he did not name the 40 leaders he said would attend, but some of China’s closest allies have already confirmed they will be there, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen.

​The United States has been particularly critical of Italy’s decision to sign up to the plan this month, during a visit by Xi to Rome, the first for a G7 nation.

Washington sees China as major strategic rival and the Trump administration has engaged Beijing in a tit-for-tat tariff war. 

The world’s two biggest economies have levied tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of bilateral trade since July 2018, raising costs, disrupting supply chains and roiling global markets.

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow on Tuesday said the countries “expect to make more headway” in trade talks this week, while the top U.S. business lobbying group said differences over an enforcement mechanism and the removal of U.S. tariffs were still obstacles to a deal.
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Trade tensions between China and the United States are putting a drag on economies in the region, with growth likely to continue to slow in the coming two years, the Asian Development Bank says in a report released Wednesday.

The Manila, Philippines-based regional lender’s latest economic outlook forecasts that growth in developing Asia will slow slightly to 5.7 percent this year and 5.6 percent in 2020. In 2017 growth was at 6.2 percent.

“The main risk to the outlook is still the ongoing trade conflict, as heightened trade policy uncertainty can negatively affect investment and manufacturing activity,” it said. “A sharper slowdown in the advanced economies or the PRC (People’s Republic of China) is another risk.”

The annual update comes as China and the U.S. prepare for another round of talks, this week in Washington, aimed at resolving their dispute over China’s industrial policies and acquisition of technology.

After the dispute escalated in mid-2018, with both sides imposing billions of dollars’ worth of tariffs on each other’s products, world trade weakened, contracting nearly 2 percent in January from a year earlier, the report shows.

It said the solid growth momentum in the first nine months of the year began to fade in the last quarter. Growth in industrial production also showed signs of weakness, the ADB report said.

This is an added burden as the business cycle for major economies heads into a “negative trend,” said the ADB’s chief economist, Yasuyuki Sawada.

“This global business cycle seems to create some impact on Asian economies,” he said in an interview. “It’s not only trade tensions.”

Other reports show similar sluggishness in the region, which remains the main driver for world economic growth.

The latest set of purchasing manager indexes showed slight improvements in exports in March from January-February for Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and Taiwan as well as China.

“But other data suggest that growth in China could well weaken again in the near term,” Capital Economics said in a report. “As such, we think it is too soon to predict a turn in fortunes for the region’s manufacturing sectors.”

The Asian Development Bank forecasts that growth in major economies will slip to 1.9 percent in 2019 and 1.6 percent in 2020 from 2.2 percent last year. The U.S. economy is forecast to expand at a 2.4 percent annual rate this year, slowing from 2.9 percent in 2018, and to decelerate to 1.9 percent growth in 2020. Japan’s growth will remain flat at 0.8 percent this year, it estimates, and fall to 0.6 percent next year.

The bank expects growth in the area using the euro to fall to 1.5 percent in 2019 and 2020 from 1.8 percent in 2018.

On the positive side, inflation should remain manageable and domestic demand in many economies in Southeast and South Asia is vibrant, the Asian Development Bank said.

That’s less true of East Asia, where consumers have grown more cautious about spending: auto sales in China, for example, have plunged in recent months in one of the biggest reversals of sentiment.

Developing countries in Asia are seeing an uptick in investment from many parts of the world, especially China, it noted. China’s foreign direct investment in new projects such as renewable energy, textile factories and property in the region nearly tripled, while investment by the U.S. jumped by nearly three-quarters.

While much of the ADB’s report focused on trade and investment, the bank urged governments across the region to devote more resources to cultivating resilience and taking measures to help prevent or mitigate natural disasters.

The report noted that 84 percent of the 206 million people affected by natural disasters each year in 2000-2018 lived in developing Asian economies. More than half of the 60,000 deaths from such catastrophes each year were in this region, which suffers a large share of extreme weather events and earthquakes.

The report says that a large share of the $1.7 trillion in annual investments in infrastructure needed over the coming decade should go to reducing risks from such disasters.

One area of concern is insurance.

“Almost all direct damage is not covered by insurance,” Sawada said.

Another area that could yield strong results is in weather forecasting and warnings in the Asia-Pacific, home to four of every five people affected by storms and other disasters.

While earthquakes and tsunamis are virtually impossible to predict, when it comes to extreme weather, “there is room for constructing mechanisms and building up early warning systems,” Sawada said. “There is huge potential.”
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Royal Dutch Shell on Tuesday became the first major oil and gas company to announce plans to leave a leading U.S. refining lobby due to disagreement on climate policies, citing its support for the goals of the Paris climate agreement.

In its first review of its association with 19 key industry groups, Shell said it had found “material misalignment” over climate policy with the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) and would quit the body in 2020.

The review is part of Shell’s drive to increase transparency and show investors it is in line with the 2015 Paris climate agreement’s goals to limit global warming by reducing carbon emissions to a net zero by the end of the century.

It is the latest sign of how investor pressure on oil companies, particularly in Europe, is leading to changes in their behavior around climate. Last year, Shell caved in to investor pressure over climate change, setting out plans to introduce industry-leading carbon emissions targets linked to executive pay.

Its chief executive, Ben van Beurden, has since repeatedly urged oil and gas producers to take action over climate and pollution, staking out a more radical position than the heads of other major oil companies.

“AFPM has not stated support for the goal of the Paris Agreement. Shell supports the goal of the Paris Agreement,” the Anglo-Dutch company said in its decision.

“The need for urgent action in response to climate change has become ever more obvious since the signing of the Paris Agreement in 2015. As a result, society’s expectations in this area have changed, and Shell’s views have also evolved,” van Beurden said in the report.

The company has disagreed with AFPM on a number of issues for some time, according to two lobbying sources. Shell said it also disagreed with AFPM’s opposition to a price on carbon and action on low-carbon technologies.

Shell and AFPM have also been at odds in recent months over regulation over the use of renewable fuels. While Shell and other large refiners invested in cleaner fuel technology, AFPM has fought hard against standards requiring refiners to blend or subsidize the blending of biofuels into the gasoline pool – saying it hurts independent refiners.

Shell and rivals Exxon and BP have in recent years left the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative political group, over its stance on climate change.

AFPM Chief Executive Chet Thompson thanked Shell for its “longstanding collaboration.”

“We will also continue working on behalf of the refining and petrochemical industries to advance policies that ensure reliable and affordable access to fuels and petrochemicals, while being responsible stewards of the environment,” Thompson said in a statement.

AFPM counts around 300 U.S. and international members including Exxon Mobil, Chevron, BP and Total SA that operate 110 refineries and 229 petrochemical plants, according to its 2018 annual report.

French oil major Total said in a statement to Reuters that consensus required by organizations such as AFPM does not always reflect its position, and that it regularly monitors the relevance of its participation.

“In this case, Total takes a pro-active approach in order to convince its peers, particularly on climate issues. In case of differing points of view, Total publicly defends its position, and is ready to reconsider its participation in case of disagreement,” the company said.

Total said it was fully aware of climate issues, has publicly recognised them and takes them into its strategy.

Shell’s review was welcomed by Adam Matthews, director of ethics and engagement for the Church of England Pensions Board, which invests in Shell and led discussions with the company over its climate policy.

“This is an industry first,” Matthews said. “With this review Shell have set the benchmark for best practice on corporate climate lobbying not just within oil and gas but across all industries. The challenge now is for others to follow suit.”

Walk Away

Shell also found “some” misalignment with nine other trade associations, including the American Petroleum Institute, the oil and gas industry’s main lobby.

Shell said that while it had some climate-related differences with the API, it welcomed the lobby’s advocacy on a range of state and federal issues such as trade and transport, as well as the API’s efforts to reduce methane emissions.

Shell said it will continue to engage with the API and other groups over climate policies and monitor their alignment.

Shell last month urged President Donald Trump’s administration to tighten restrictions on emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, instead of weakening them as planned.
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