UBS to pay $300 million to resolve US mortgage securities cases
On August 1, Credit Suisse Securities entered into an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice to resolve all of Credit Suisse's outstanding consumer relief obligations under the 2017 settlement for its residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) business, the bank said.
Under the 2017 agreement, Credit Suisse agreed to pay $5.7 billion to settle with U.S authorities over claims it misled investors in residential mortgage-backed securities it sold in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis.
The decline in mortgage payments reduced the value of the assets, leading to huge losses for investors.
"With this agreement, UBS has resolved another of Credit Suisse's legacy issues, in line with its intention to resolve legacy matters at pace in a fair and balanced way, and in the best interest of all its stakeholders," UBS said.
Credit Suisse agreed to pay $495 million in 2022 to settle one case brought by the New Jersey Attorney General that alleged the bank had "misled investors and engaged in fraud or deceit in connection with the offer and sale of RMBS."
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New York Times
16 minutes ago
- New York Times
Does Japan Want American Cars? Trump's Push to Open Foreign Markets Faces Test.
Last month's pledge by Japan to open its markets to more American cars allowed President Trump to declare victory in a goal he had chased for decades. For Mr. Trump, the ubiquity of Japanese car brands in the United States is aggravating, when Japan buys virtually no American cars. The disparity has long fed his conviction that the openness of the U.S. economy is not fairly reciprocated, contributing to a persistent trade deficit. Now, in his second term, Mr. Trump is raising tariffs steeply and pressuring other countries into dismantling barriers that range from taxes on American beef and soybeans to car-safety and local-content requirements in Japan and Indonesia. Some trade experts question this strategy's efficacy. They say that countries have in some cases agreed to address specific grievances of Mr. Trump's, like sales of cars in Japan, that are unlikely to result in a flood of new American exports. Automotive experts and industry veterans who have worked for U.S. carmakers in Japan said the pledge to remove trade barriers might do little to boost sales. But in the view of supporters of Mr. Trump's policies, dismantling foreign obstacles to American trade — a longtime goal shared by both Republican and Democratic administrations — is overdue for a more forceful approach. 'Big trade partners have long had rules and regulations in place that lock us out of the market,' said Wilbur Ross, the Secretary of Commerce during the first Trump administration. 'The president knows he can go a lot farther than we went last time to rectify those,' he said. Since World War II, American car companies have never managed to gain a significant foothold in Japan, which hasn't put tariffs on imported vehicles since the late 1970s. Ford Motor pulled out of Japan in 2016, citing no path to profitability. Last year, American brands like General Motors made up less than 1 percent of sales. Mr. Trump blames unfair regulations in Japan for making it 'impossible' for American companies to sell cars in the market. These include Japan's unwillingness to accept vehicles that pass U.S. safety standards, which are different than international ones. Mr. Trump sought to change this in his first term. Late last month, he succeeded. In exchange for a 15 percent across-the-board U.S. tariff on its goods — lower than the previously threatened 25 percent — Japan agreed to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in the United States. Mr. Trump was keen on another concession. 'Perhaps most importantly,' Mr. Trump wrote in a social media post, 'Japan will open their Country to Trade including Cars and Trucks.' That means Japan would allow the import of American-made cars without the unique safety standards and testing it usually requires, the country's chief trade negotiator said at a recent news conference. Mr. Trump made a similar declaration last week when announcing a trade deal with South Korea. He said that, in exchange for the same 15 percent tariff rate as Japan, South Korea would begin accepting more American cars and trucks into its market without imposing duties on them. In South Korea, similar to Japan, American brands make up a very small percentage of sales. In Japan's case, industry analysts say that safety and testing requirements can add up to tens of thousands of dollars to the cost of American cars imported into the country. However, some industry experts said they doubt that changes to the standards and testing requirements will boost sales. In Japan, where streets are narrow and often congested, most consumers prefer small, fuel-efficient vehicles, typically with steering wheels on the right. Domestic brands like Toyota, Honda and Nissan offer a wide array of such options. For American carmakers in Japan, 'trade barriers have never been the problem,' said Tsuyoshi Kimura, a professor at Chuo University in Tokyo, who used to work at General Motors from the late 1990s through the early 2000s. Japan is a relatively small and already saturated car market, he said, so most American automakers have not put effort into designing models for the country. The lineups of American manufacturers are packed with bulky sports-utility vehicles and trucks in part because they struggle to make smaller cars profitably. 'Thinking about the basic needs of the market, their cars just don't fit,' Mr. Kimura said. 'Even if it's been declared that Japan's opening its car market, it's unlikely that American cars will sell.' Mr. Trump's fixation on American car sales in Japan echoes his past trade negotiation tactics such as his emphasis on U.S. dairy exports during his first-term formulation of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, according to Alan Wolff, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. 'What could have been negotiated could have been far-reaching, and perhaps more important,' Mr. Wolff said. For example, addressing topics such exchange rates, he said. However, he added, securing agreements to open specific export sectors have 'political salience' for Mr. Trump. 'They matter to him, and therefore they matter to the United States,' he said. Mr. Ross, the former commerce secretary, agreed with this sentiment. He spent years as chairman of the Japan Society, a nonprofit dedicated to strengthening U.S.-Japan relations. He said he doubted that regulatory changes would sell customers on American cars. Still, for Mr. Ross, removing trade barriers in countries like Japan was a matter of principle. He likened the situation to a negotiation he had with a European Union official during Mr. Trump's first term about the trade bloc's ban on U.S. chicken sterilized with chlorinated wash. 'I asked, why do you have these trade barriers, and she said 'Oh, Europeans will never eat those foods,'' Mr. Ross recalled. 'I said, well, let's put them on grocery shelves and clearly mark them and if you're right, then Europeans won't eat them, we'll stop selling them, and we won't have to argue about it.' The current Trump administration has continued to pressure the European Union to buy American chickens. As part of its recent trade deal, the European Union agreed to work to address 'barriers affecting trade in food and agricultural products,' without detailing further. For others in Japan, these latest trade negotiations feel somewhat like a rerun of the 1980s and 1990s, when the United States and Japan seemed on the brink of a trade war, in part over the issue of American versus Japanese car sales. In 1995, Japan agreed to several measures, including encouraging greater dealership access for foreign cars. American sales in Japan ultimately didn't budge. But Japanese automakers at the time were investing heavily in producing vehicles in the United States and discussions about autos largely faded from U.S.-Japan trade talks. Around that time, Glen S. Fukushima, then an executive at AT&T and a vice president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan, was leaving a meeting with Walter Mondale, the U.S. Ambassador to Japan, when the diplomat noticed that Mr. Fukushima's company car in Tokyo was a Nissan. Given the recently concluded agreement aimed at securing more market access for American automakers in Japan, the ambassador suggested to Mr. Fukushima that his driver really should be driving an American car. Mr. Fukushima took the suggestion and tried out a Cadillac Fleetwood. However, it proved much too large for the turns near his Tokyo residence. He ultimately went back to his Nissan Cima and returned to Mr. Mondale to explain the situation. 'He was a reasonable man,' Mr. Fukushima said. 'He understood.' Hisako Ueno contributed reporting.
Yahoo
44 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Analysis-Brazil's economy ready to ride out Trump's 50% tariff
By Marcela Ayres and Bernardo Caram BRASILIA (Reuters) -Brazilian goods imported by the United States will soon carry one of the highest tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump, but that will not likely derail Latin America's largest economy, due to ample exemptions and stronger trade ties with China. The lower stakes for the Brazilian economy give President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva more room to stand his ground against Trump than most Western leaders, after calling him an unwanted global "emperor" and comparing his tariff threats to blackmail. Lula has said he is open to negotiating a trade deal, but dismissed Trump's complaints about the trial of right-wing ally Jair Bolsonaro as a threat to Brazilian sovereignty and judicial independence. Brazil's Supreme Court is trying the ex-president for allegedly plotting to overturn the 2022 election he lost to Lula. Those tensions, stoked by Bolsonaro's house arrest on Monday, are likely to make negotiations about the 50% U.S. tariff on Brazilian goods between Washington and Brasilia thorny and drawn out, even as the fallout for Brazil's economy looks limited. Unlike Mexico and Canada, which sell about three-quarters of their exports to the United States, Americans buy just 12% of Brazilian exports. By comparison, Brazil's exports to China have doubled in value over the past decade, now accounting for 28% of the country's total shipments. After exemptions laid out in Trump's executive order last week, including on aircraft, energy, and orange juice, the tariff taking effect on Wednesday will apply to just under 36% of Brazilian exports to the U.S. by value, according to estimates in Brasilia. Many of the affected exports are commodities such as beef and coffee, which should find alternative markets at modest discounts, according to economists. "We were already expecting a limited impact, but it dropped further with the exemptions," said Luiza Pinese, an economist at XP, who halved her forecast for the tariff impact on Brazil's gross domestic product this year to 0.15 percentage points. Goldman Sachs maintained its projection for Brazil's economy to grow 2.3% this year in light of the "notable" exemptions, adding that government support for affected sectors, expected in the coming days, should further soften the economic blow. "Brazil depends on the United States, that's true, but also on BRICS countries, on Europe, on Mercosur," Planning Minister Simone Tebet said at a public event last week, referring to major developing nations such as China, India, and Russia and a South American trade bloc. She said almost half of Brazil's agribusiness trade, an engine for Brazil's economy in recent years, is concentrated in Asia, compared to just 10% with the United States. "When it comes to industry, the ratio is four to one - four times more to Asia than to the United States," she added. SMALLER ROLE FOR TRADE Brazil is far less open to trade than most major global economies, limiting fallout from trade disruptions. Exports and imports amounted to 36% of its GDP last year, less than half the share in Mexico and nearby Paraguay, and just a quarter of the level in trade-focused Asian economies such as Thailand and Malaysia, according to World Bank data. Much of Brazil's exports are commodities easily redirected to different markets over time, said Thiago Carlos, a PIMCO portfolio manager for emerging markets. In the short term, more domestic food supply may even help to bring down inflation, he added. "With inflation likely to trend lower, the central bank may find room to begin easing monetary policy sooner than expected," said Carlos, noting the benchmark rate at the current level of 15% keeps monetary policy extremely tight, dragging on growth. Analysts polled by Reuters estimated that even without a U.S. trade deal and before exemptions, Brazil's growth outlook for 2026 would remain virtually unchanged from their consensus of 1.6%-1.7%. Still, Luis Otavio Leal, chief economist at asset manager G5 Partners, warned of potential knock-on effects if government aid is not well targeted to protect vulnerable sectors and jobs. "Exemptions applied to nearly 700 products - and Brazil exports about 4,000 different goods to the U.S.," said Leal. "A large number of firms that sell to the U.S. were not covered." Brazil's central bank said on Monday that U.S. levies on Brazilian goods could have "significant" effects on specific sectors, but broader macroeconomic effects are uncertain and will depend on negotiations and market risk perceptions. Flavio Ataliba, a researcher at Brazilian university FGV, noted that the vast country's regional variety will result in uneven impacts. The Northeast region, in particular, could be hit harder due to its export base of low-value-added, labor-intensive goods such as fresh fruit, seafood, textiles, and footwear - all now subject to the full 50% tariff, he added. 擷取數據時發生錯誤 登入存取你的投資組合 擷取數據時發生錯誤 擷取數據時發生錯誤 擷取數據時發生錯誤 擷取數據時發生錯誤
The Hill
an hour ago
- The Hill
House GOP subpoenas DOJ, Clintons in Epstein probe
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) issued subpoenas to the Department of Justice and a number of high profile former government officials, including former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as his members press for probes into matters surrounding the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The subpoenas come after members of a subcommittee last month voted on a bipartisan basis to subpoena the DOJ for the 'full, complete, unredacted Epstein Files' — with three Republicans joining the Democratic-led motion — and to subpoena the 10 former U.S. officials, a Republican-led motion that was approved by voice vote. Per the rules of the committee, Comer was compelled to issue the subpoenas, which relate to both to Epstein and the case of his associate, Ghislaine Maxwell. In a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, Comer directs the DOJ to deliver the documents pursuant to the Epstein subpoena by Aug. 19. 'While the Department undertakes efforts to uncover and publicly disclose additional information related to Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell's cases, it is imperative that Congress conduct oversight of the federal government's enforcement of sex trafficking laws generally and specifically its handling of the investigation and prosecution of Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell,' Comer wrote in the letter to Bondi. 'The Committee may use the results of this investigation to inform legislative solutions to improve federal efforts to combat sex trafficking and reform the use of non-prosecution agreements and/or plea agreements in sex-crime investigations.' Comer also announced that he issued subpoenas to 10 high-profile former government officials: Former President Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former FBI Director James Comey, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, former Attorney General Eric Holder, former Attorney General Merrick Garland, former FBI Director and special counsel Robert Mueller, former Attorney General Bill Barr, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. The Oversight panel also subpoenaed Maxwell, the longtime associate of Epstein, but last week agreed to delay deposing her until after the Supreme Court considers her petition to overturn her conviction for sex trafficking. Comer set dates for depositions of the officials, which have the possibility of changing based on negotiations with attorneys: Former U.S. Attorney General William Barr: August 18 Former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales: August 26 Former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions: August 28 Former FBI Director Robert Mueller: September 2 Former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch: September 9 Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder: September 30 Former U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland: October 2 Former FBI Director James Comey: October 7 Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: October 9 Former President Bill Clinton: October 14
