Harsh Reality of US Trade Deal Stirs EU Angst
The terms of the framework deal agreed on Sunday will mean a significant hit to European companies — the EU accepted a tripling of tariffs to 15% on most exports to the US and will keep its own levies on American goods to 1% or less once the pact goes into effect.
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Yahoo
20 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Detail still lacking ‘but Ireland would be worse off without EU-US deal'
A swathe of tariffs imposed on other nations show Ireland would be worse off if there was not an EU-US trade deal, the Irish deputy premier said. US president Donald Trump signed an executive order that sees tariffs of 15% or above imposed on trading partners including Brazil, Lesotho, Taiwan and Switzerland. The EU struck a trade deal with the US five days before Mr Trump said a 30% tariff would kick in for the bloc. The deal sees 15% tariffs on most EU goods including cars, semiconductors and pharmaceuticals entering the US. There are 'zero for zero' tariffs on a number of products including aircraft, some agricultural goods and certain chemicals – as well as EU purchases of US energy worth 750 billion dollars over three years. Simon Harris said on Friday after a meeting of the trade forum at Government Buildings that a lot of detail of the agreement still needs to be clarified as he defended the deal. 'Without a deal between the US and the EU, today would have seen 30% tariffs introduced by President Trump on the EU, and would also have seen very, very significant counter measures introduced by the EU to the tune of around 90 odd billion euro,' the Tanaiste said. 'There's absolutely no doubt that that would have been a moment of catastrophe in terms of our economic wellbeing as a country.' He added: 'We'd be in a very different and a much worse position I think if we were standing here today with no deal. 'You don't have to take my word for that, if you just see the executive order last night and all of the tariffs levelled in other countries, including countries that didn't have deals. 'They were generally much, much higher than the tariff rate for the European Union.' He said the EU tariff rate of 15% would come into effect from August 7. Tariffs on pharmaceuticals would remain at zero until the US administration concludes its Section 232 investigation, relating to imported goods of importance to national security, into the sector. Mr Harris said he was informed by Brussels that this is expected to conclude in around two weeks. Mr Harris also said 'there is too many variables' to yet know the effect of the tariff differential between Northern Ireland and Ireland. He said he spoke with Northern Ireland First Minister Michelle O'Neill, deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly, and the Economy Minister Caoimhe Archibald who agreed on this. 'So to give you an example, at the moment butter in Ireland already has a tariff of around 16% on it, pre-existing. 'It's had 10% on top of that since President Trump's last round, so that's meant butter in Ireland had a tariff of 26%. Under the new EU deal, that will fall to 16%. 'Butter in the UK, if I can use that as a comparison, will actually probably end up with 16%, plus 10%, so 26%. 'I'm just using a pound of butter as an example here, but if you look at it, you know, at a headline rate, you'd say 'Well, there'd be lower tariff on butter in the UK than Ireland', and actually that's probably not the case. 'So we need to tease our way through this. But there is no doubt that there will be challenges that will have to be worked through.' He said: 'I suppose the last point I'd make is that this is a subset of businesses. It's really a subset of a subset, because this will obviously only affect businesses that are doing cross-border trade and exporting to the United States of America. So it's not to be in any way dismissive of that, but it will obviously only affect that proportion of the business community. 'Pharma is another example. I mean, the EU seems to have a commitment in writing to 15% or less, no more than 15% for pharma. 'The UK language is much more vague. It doesn't have a number beside it, so we'll need to see where that brings us in the weeks ahead.'
Yahoo
20 minutes ago
- Yahoo
U.S. equity funds see weekly inflows on trade deal optimism
(Reuters) -U.S. equity funds attracted money inflows for the first time in three weeks in the week through July 30, fueled by optimism over a U.S.–EU trade deal and an upbeat corporate earnings season so far. Investors bought a net $6.34 billion worth of U.S. equity funds during the week, logging their largest weekly net purchase since July 7, data from LSEG Lipper showed. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq hit record highs on Thursday after strong earnings from Microsoft and Meta Platforms, but closed off those levels. LSEG data showed that, of the 317 S&P 500 constituents that have reported earnings so far, 81% have topped the estimates from analysts, exceeding the average 76% beat rate seen over the past four quarters. The large-cap equity funds segment witnessed a net $7.81 billion inflow during the week after a three-week-long streak of net selling. Small-cap and mid-cap funds, however, saw net $3.9 billion and $35 million weekly sales respectively. Sectoral funds gained a net $962 million for a second successive weekly purchase. The financial and tech sectors drew $650 million and $583 million weekly inflows, respectively. Investors, meanwhile, poured $6.08 billion into U.S. bond funds, extending their buying spree into a 15th week. They invested a net $1.99 billion in U.S. short-to-intermediate investment-grade funds in their largest weekly purchase since July 2. Short-to-intermediate government and treasury funds, and municipal debt funds also witnessed $1 billion and $937 million worth of net inflows. Money market funds meanwhile witnessed $1.89 billion worth of withdrawals after a net $7.33 billion weekly purchase.
New York Post
21 minutes ago
- New York Post
Warner Bros. boss David Zaslav is the real ‘Man of Steel' in shifting media landscape
They hate him in Hollywood, but increasingly they're loving David Zaslav on Wall Street. OK, maybe it's not quite love but there's definitely some canoodling going down. Shares of Warner Bros. Discovery are up more than 53% over the past 12 months. Bob Iger gets endless kudos for turning around Disney following years of mismanagement and woke programming hated by much of the American public. His stock is up just 27% over the same time period. Shares of Warner Bros. Discovery are up more than 53% over the past 12 months. CEO David Zaslav has proven the creative snobs wrong. Jack Forbes / NY Post Design Zas, as he is known in the media business, is a long-time media executive who landed at the top of major media by getting the telephone nerds at AT&T to offload its Warner Media subsidiary that they didn't know how to operate to his company, Discovery, in 2022. The deal was valued at $43 billion and contained lots of debt, a drag on its share price. Shares dipped to near penny stock levels (just above $5) last year. They closed at $13.17 on Thursday. Hollywood's skepticism toward Zas began with his lack of creative chops. He was a longtime NBCUniversal executive, an acolyte of Jack Welch when he ran the media company as head of the General Electric conglomerate. He then became CEO of Discovery, a mid-sized media outfit with cable channels like the Food Network, Animal Planet and HGTV that were losing viewers in an era of cord cutting. They churned out profits based on Zas's deft balance sheet management as opposed to top-notch programming, or so his Hollywood critics said. Adding credence to the Zas' haters' world view: His reign as media mogul included a major branding misstep, renaming HBO's streaming service 'Max,' a moniker (for obvious reasons) that never stuck. He also alienated those in La La Land by canceling programs as he slashed through the balance sheet. It became nearly impossible to defend Zaslav given his stock's uneven performance and his massive $52 million pay package in 2024 – in an industry that is literally melting away because of seismic changes in the way people consume entertainment, news and sports. Warner Bros. Studios' 'Superman' is the smash hit of the summer. Warner Bros. Pictures But there's a bullish Zas story when you sit with the business types – not crazy lefties in Hollywood who still haven't forgiven him for pulling the plug on useless movies like 'Batgirl' or refusing to overpay for NBA rights because he believed $2.6 billion a year could be put to better use. Despite the name screw-up, his streaming service makes money, a near anomaly among traditional media companies. He's breaking up WBD and will control the HBO Max streaming properties and Warner Bros. studios as CEO. His current chief financial officer, Gunnar Widenfels, will get something named Discovery Global, a holding company for the Discovery+ streaming service and all the cable networks. Those include Discovery Channel, CNN and TNT. Charlie Gasparino has his finger on the pulse of where business, politics and finance meet Sign up to receive On The Money by Charlie Gasparino in your inbox every Thursday. Thanks for signing up! Enter your email address Please provide a valid email address. By clicking above you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Never miss a story. Check out more newsletters The move lets Zas transfer some of his debt to a company that has better cash flow while he rebuilds the studio, or probably sells it. Smaller is always better in M&A, particularly if you're looking for a Big Tech player like Amazon as a buyer, which he ultimately is, I am told. Lately, Zas has even proven the creative snobs wrong. Warner Bros. Studios' 'Superman' is the smash hit of the summer. 'Sinners,' a stylistic vampire flick, has been a surprise box office success. Plus, Zas admitted defeat and went back to HBO Max for his streaming channel. Rich Greenfield, the 'ax' or eminence grise of media analysts at LightShed Partners, says Wall Street may be starting to appreciate Zas as a survivor who will keep living to fight another day, and that day may well pay off for his shareholders. 'Obviously this isn't an easy business.' Greenfield says. 'But the brilliance of David Zaslav is that he got out of Discovery which was going nowhere and convinced AT&T to engage in a merger that gave it a second life. The question now is how he builds the Warner Bros. studio and HBO given this environment.'
