logo
Austria's Andritz Expects Clarity on US Tariffs by End of Summer

Austria's Andritz Expects Clarity on US Tariffs by End of Summer

Bloomberg29-05-2025

One of Europe's largest manufacturers of specialist factory machines expects clarity on US tariffs to encourage industrial firms to start making investment decisions again within weeks.
Many companies have been stalling decisions on plant expansions and business development due to uncertainty around President Donald Trump's trade policies, according to Joachim Schönbeck, chief executive officer of Austrian supplier Andritz AG.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Top Banker Vows Loyalty to DEI at Tokyo Pride Parade as Trump's Pushback Rages
Top Banker Vows Loyalty to DEI at Tokyo Pride Parade as Trump's Pushback Rages

Bloomberg

time25 minutes ago

  • Bloomberg

Top Banker Vows Loyalty to DEI at Tokyo Pride Parade as Trump's Pushback Rages

The head of one of Japan's largest investment banks used the Tokyo Pride parade to strike a rare public stance on pushing ahead with diversity initiatives, as US President Donald Trump seeks to abolish such policies. Few Japanese corporate executives have taken a clear position on US efforts to roll back the diversity, equity and inclusion policies that had become common at global corporations, though many firms appear to have quietly maintained their initiatives.

ECB should not 'overreact' if inflation edges below 2%, Vujcic says
ECB should not 'overreact' if inflation edges below 2%, Vujcic says

Yahoo

time29 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

ECB should not 'overreact' if inflation edges below 2%, Vujcic says

By Francesco Canepa DUBROVNIK, Croatia (Reuters) -The European Central Bank should not "overreact" to euro-zone inflation edging below its 2% target as there are good reasons to believe it will come back up, ECB policymaker Boris Vujcic told Reuters. The ECB cut interest rates on Thursday for the eighth time in a year but signalled at least a policy pause next month, despite projecting inflation at just 1.6% next year. Inflation in the 20 countries that share the euro was 1.9% in May, according to a flash reading published last week. Vujcic, who is also Croatia's central bank governor, said price growth was likely to bounce back later and that monetary policy should not try to do "precision surgery" on small fluctuations from its goal. "A few tens of basis points' deviation on either side of the target is not a problem," Vujcic said in an interview on Saturday in Dubrovnik. "Because you will always have small deviations. If you consider them as a problem, then you will overreact. This is not precision surgery." Vujcic said it was reasonable to expect inflation to edge back up as energy prices find a bottom and the economy accelerates. Euro strength is also unlikely to have second-round effects on prices unless it lasts several quarters, Vujcic said. Some ECB policymakers, especially Portugal's central bank governor Mario Centeno, worry that euro-zone inflation may slow too much. Vujcic said he sees the risks surrounding the inflation outlook as "pretty balanced" but cautioned there was "complete uncertainty" surrounding global trade tensions with U.S. President Donald Trump's administration. ECB STRATEGY REVIEW Vujcic recalled advice he received as a young deputy governor from then-Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan: a high rate of inflation was more dangerous than a low one. Greenspan cited two decades of relatively benign deflation in the late 19th century, which was partly due to improvements in productivity, Vujcic said. "Nobody cared about low inflation because of the productivity growth," he said. "You have a monetary policy problem to bring it up. Yes, but why would you insist so much if you don't have a problem in the economy?" The ECB is reviewing its long-term strategy, including the role of massive bond purchases, or quantitative easing, in reviving inflation when it is too low. The ECB injected some 7 trillion euros ($8 trillion) of liquidity into the banking system through QE and other tools over the past decade. These schemes were blamed for inflating bubbles in real estate and setting up the central bank for sizeable losses. "The next time around, people will take the lessons from the previous episode, and I think that the bar for QE would be higher," Vujcic said. He said QE could help stabilise dysfunctional markets - such as during the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic - but if used "for years and years to try and bring inflation up, its marginal efficiency declines". Such calls for self-criticism are shared by some policymakers in the ECB's hawkish camp. But sources told Reuters they were unlikely to feature in the ECB's new strategy document, to be published this summer. ($1 = 0.8777 euros)

New questions emerge from the new charges in Kilmar Abrego Garcia case
New questions emerge from the new charges in Kilmar Abrego Garcia case

Yahoo

time29 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

New questions emerge from the new charges in Kilmar Abrego Garcia case

The sudden return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States on Friday to face federal charges of smuggling migrants across the country was a messaging triumph for the Trump administration. The news deflected public attention from a series of unanimous court rulings—including a Supreme Court decision—that President Donald Trump did not have the power to unilaterally detain and deport individuals to foreign prisons without a review by a judge. And the allegations against Abrego Garcia are damning. A federal grand jury found that the 29-year-old was an MS-13 member who transported thousands of undocumented immigrants, including children, from Texas to states across the country for profit for nine years. He allegedly also transported firearms and drugs, abused female migrants and was linked to an incident in Mexico where a tractor-trailer overturned and killed 50 migrants. Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, a lawyer representing Abrego-Garcia, said Saturday that he planned to meet his client for the first time on Sunday, but declined to further comment. A former senior law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing fear of retaliation, said he was struck by the large amount of resources the DOJ put into investigating Abrego Garcia. 'It is odd that they would use all of these folks to go after a low-level driver,' said the official. 'Usually, we used the driver to go after the coyotes and up if we could. But they really wanted to get this guy and it looks like they found a path.' In a telephone interview with NBC News's Kristen Welker on Saturday, Trump hailed Abrego Garcia's indictment and predicted it would be easy for federal prosecutors to convict him. 'I think it should be,' he said. 'It should be.' Multiple questions about Abrego Garcia, the case against him, and the political fallout remain unanswered. For months, Abrego Garcia's lawyers, his wife, and some Democrats, have denied that he was an MS-13 gang member. They generally portrayed him as a Maryland construction worker and claimed he was transporting co-workers when a Tennessee state trooper stopped him on Interstate 40 on November 30, 2022. The indictment paints a different picture: Abrego Garcia was transporting nine Hispanic males without identification or luggage in a Chevrolet Suburban. Prosecutors allege he 'knowingly and falsely' told the trooper they 'had been in St. Louis for two weeks doing construction' and were returning to Maryland. However, license plate reader data showed that the Suburban had not been near St. Louis for twelve months. Instead, it had been in Houston where, according to prosecutors, Abrego Garcia had picked up the men. The vehicle was not carrying tools or construction equipment, but its rear cargo area had been modified with makeshift seating to transport more passengers. The apparent strength of the government's case could reignite debate among Democrats about the risks of focusing on Abrego Garcia's case. For weeks, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland, and other Democrats emphasized that their criticism targeted Trump's decision to unilaterally deport Abrego Garcia without judicial oversight, not a defense of Abrego Garcia himself. When Welker asked about Van Hollen, President Trump mocked the Senator and said defending the Abrego Garcia would backfire on Democrats. 'He's a loser. The guy's a loser,' Trump said, referring to Van Hollen. 'They're going to lose because of that same thing. That's not what people want to hear. He's trying to defend a man who's got a horrible record of abuse, abuse of women in particular.' Van Hollen defended his stance in a CNN interview. 'You know, I will never apologize for defending the Constitution,' he said. 'In fact, it's the Trump administration and all his cronies who should apologize to the country for putting us through this unnecessary situation.' In an Oval Office visit on April 15, 2025, Trump, Attorney General Pam Bondi and other Trump administration officials asserted that it was not possible for the Trump administration to 'facilitate' the return of Abrego Garcia's return from El Salvador as the Supreme Court had ordered. El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele mocked a reporter for asking whether he would do so.'How can I return him to the United States? Like if I smuggle him into the United States?' Bukele said, sitting beside Trump in the Oval Office. 'Of course I'm not going to do it. The question is preposterous.' Trump, in turn, chided the assembled journalists, saying, 'They'd love to have a criminal released into our country. These are sick people.' Bondi said only El Salvador could decide whether to return Bukele. 'If they want to return him, we would facilitate it, meaning provide a plane,' said Bondi said. 'That's up for El Salvador if they want to return him. That's not up to us.' Yet, in a Friday press conference at the Justice Department, Bondi described the return of Abrego Garcia as smooth and seamless. 'We want to thank President Bukele for agreeing to return Abrego Garcia to the United States,' she said. 'Our government presented El Salvador with an arrest warrant, and they agreed to return him to our country.' Asked what had changed since the traffic stop in 2022, she lauded Trump. 'What has changed is Donald Trump is now president of the United States,' Bondi said, 'and our borders are again secure.' In an unusual move, Bondi also described allegations against Abrego Garcia that were not included in the indictment. She said that co-conspirators alleged that Abrego Garcia 'solicited nude photographs and videos of a minor' and 'played a role in the murder of a rival gang member's mother.' For decades, attorneys general from both parties and state and local prosecutors have generally accused defendants of crimes only for which a grand jury indicted them. Discussing other potential crimes has long been regarded as an abuse of prosecutorial power, risking unfair harm to defendants' reputations. A former senior Justice Department official, who requested anonymity, citing fears of retaliation, said that Bondi often speaks as a partisan Trump loyalist, not a neutral law enforcement official. 'She says the president's name every time,' said the former DOJ official. 'She talks more like a politician, stumping for a candidate than an attorney general who is out there talking independently. You can see that in the words she uses.' The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that people close to the matter said the indictment prompted the resignation of a veteran career prosecutor who headed the criminal division at the U.S. attorney's office where the case was filed. The Journal did not name the prosecutor. However, days after Abrego Garcia was indicted by a federal grand jury in Nashville, Ben Schrader, the head of criminal division in the U.S. Attorney's office in Nashville, resigned. 'Earlier today, after nearly 15 years as an Assistant United States Attorney, I resigned as Chief of the Criminal Division at the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Tennessee,' Schrader posted on LinkedIn. 'It has been an incredible privilege to serve as a prosecutor with the Department of Justice, where the only job description I've ever known is to do the right thing, in the right way, for the right reasons. I wish all of my colleagues at the U.S. Attorney's Office in Nashville and across the Department the best as they seek to do justice on behalf of the American people.' Asked about Schrader's resignation by NBC News, a spokesperson for the Justice Department said it does not comment on personnel changes. Schrader, reached by NBC News via text on his cell phone, sent a two-word reply when asked why he had resigned: 'No comment.' This article was originally published on

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store