EU summons Russia envoy over attack of a diplomat in Vladivostok

BRUSSELS — The European Union has summoned Russia's envoy to Brussels for an explanation after one of the bloc's officials was attacked in the eastern city of Vladivostok last month, an EU spokesperson said Wednesday.
The diplomat was attacked on May 26. Their name, nationality and medical condition weren't provided. German news outlet Der Spiegel reported that the official was a Romanian woman who had traveled to the city on official business.

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Yahoo

22 minutes ago

• Yahoo

President Trump says he'll set unilateral tariff rates within weeks

US President Donald Trump told reporters on Wednesday that he would send letters to trading partners in the next week or two, outlining unilateral tariff rates. 'We're going to be sending letters out in about a week and a half, two weeks, to countries, telling them what the deal is,' Trump said at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington. 'At a certain point, we're just going to send letters out. And I think you understand that, saying this is the deal, you can take it or leave it,' he added. This would put Trump ahead of his tariff deadline, as the president previously paused so-called 'reciprocal' duties for 90 days until 8 July. The higher rates are set to kick in on the 9th. Trump told reporters at the Kennedy Center that a delay to the deadline is unlikely, although US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent previously suggested there may be some flexibility. "It is highly likely that those countries - or trading blocs as is the case with the EU - who are negotiating in good faith, we will roll the date forward to continue the good-faith negotiations," Bessent told the House Ways and Means Committee. "If someone is not negotiating, then we will not." Related EU targets Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill' over tax provision in tariff talks US federal appeals court rules Trump tariffs may remain in effect while appeals process continues The US has thus far only managed to secure a trade framework with the UK, as well as clinching a tariff deal with China. Trump was nonetheless upbeat about negotiations on Wednesday. "We're rocking in terms of deals," he said. "We're dealing with quite a few countries and they all want to make a deal with us." Following talks in London, Trump said on Wednesday that magnets and rare earths would be supplied up front by China and that the US would allow Chinese students into its colleges and universities. The president added that a 55% tariff would be applied to Chinese imports. A White House official, who was not authorised to discuss the terms publicly, said the 55% was not an increase on the previous 30% tariff on China because Trump was including other pre-existing import taxes. Specifically, the president was tallying up his 10% baseline tariff, the 20% fentanyl trafficking levy and a 25% pre-existing tariff on China. In May, the US agreed upon a trade framework with the UK, which allows US goods to be fast-tracked through customs and reduces trade barriers on a number of products. The framework lowers US duties on British steel, aluminum and cars, although there are some knots to work out, meaning the specifics of the deal could arrive later than the 9 July deadline. US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on Wednesday that a deal with the European Union will likely be among the final trade agreements concluded by the United States. 'I'm optimistic that we can get there with Europe. But Europe will be probably [at] the very, very end,' Lutnick told CNBC. In May, Trump threatened a 50% tariff on EU goods coming to the US, although he later said he would hold off on this threat until 9 July. The president originally placed a 20% so-called 'reciprocal' levy on EU goods, but this duty was lifted during the 90-day pause window. Sign in to access your portfolio

27 minutes ago

Armenian prime minister to meet Erdogan in rare visit to Turkey aimed at mending ties

ISTANBUL -- Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is scheduled to hold talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday as part of the two countries' efforts to normalize ties that were strained over historic disputes and Turkey's alliance with Azerbaijan. The talks between the two countries, which have no formal diplomatic ties, were expected to center on the possible reopening of their joint border as well as the war between Israel and Iran. Turkey, a close ally of Azerbaijan, shut down its border with Armenia in 1993 in a show of solidarity with Baku, which was locked in a conflict with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. In 2020, Turkey strongly backed Azerbaijan in the six-week conflict with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh, which ended with a Russia-brokered peace deal that saw Azerbaijan gain control of a significant part of the region. Turkey and Armenia also have a more than century-old dispute over the deaths of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians in massacres, deportations and forced marches that began in 1915 in Ottoman Turkey. Historians widely view the event as genocide. Turkey vehemently rejects the label, conceding that many died in that era but insisting that the death toll is inflated and the deaths resulted from civil unrest. The rare visit by an Armenian leader comes after Ankara and Yerevan agreed in 2021 to launch efforts toward normalizing ties and appointed special representatives to lead talks. Pashinyan previously visited Turkey in 2023 when he attended a presidential inauguration ceremony following an election victory by Erdogan. The two have also held talks on the sideline of a meeting in Prague in 2022. It is Ankara and Yerevan's second attempt at reconciliation. Turkey and Armenia reached an agreement in 2009 to establish formal relations and to open their border, but the deal was never ratified because of strong opposition from Azerbaijan.

Politico

34 minutes ago

• Politico

How the Israel-Iran conflict could hit the economy

Presented by As the U.S. weighs intervention in Israel's conflict with Iran, Wall Street has been skittish, eyeing the potential fallout for oil prices and inflation. To get a better sense of what's driving the oil market and what economic risks might lie ahead, MM caught up with Rory Johnston, an oil market analyst at research service Commodity Context who's been following all of this closely. A takeaway from that conversation: The price jump has been notably large for a market that has become desensitized to political risks after safely weathering multiple shocks over the last few years, including Covid and the Russia-Ukraine war. Now, 'even a numb cynical oil market sees Israel bombing Tehran and says, 'OK, maybe worry a bit here,'' he said. Conflict with Iran is the 'No. 1 risk scenario that people talk about, and now we're living in it,' he added. A worst-case scenario would be if Tehran is driven to close off the Strait of Hormuz, a channel through which about a fifth of the world's oil passes. Experts including Johnston say it's unlikely Iran would do that unless pushed to the brink — such a move would run the risk of hurting its own economic lifeline, as well as antagonizing its neighbors in the region — but the shockwaves would be significant. For now, what struck your host is that this conflict is helping prop up prices at a time when they'd really started to drop, and that could help boost U.S. oil production, which had previously been forecast to contract in 2026. But the exact trajectory of all this is highly unclear. 'This is usually the lead-up to summer driving season, so gasoline prices were set to rise anyway,' POLITICO's resident oil market expert Ben Lefebvre told MM. 'Because of the current Middle East situation, they'll rise further than they might have when oil was still around $60 a barrel. But when compared to what U.S. drivers experienced even last year, it won't be too far off recent norms … if there is such a thing as 'recent norms.'' 'The interesting thing is whether this spurs U.S. oil companies to drill more,' he added. 'They might just see this as a temporary boost and not something they want to get too far ahead of.' Rewind to before the current Israel-Iran conflict escalated. OPEC, the cartel of major oil-exporting countries, had been holding back production but then ramped up output earlier this year. That move was taken, in part, to get ahead of the effects of President Donald Trump's tariffs, which had raised fears that demand for oil would crater amid a global slowdown. That was leading to forecasts of oversupply later this year, Johnston said, reducing incentives for oil companies to produce. Now, Israel's attacks on Iran have likely led to fear-buying, as well as speculative trading, that has pushed up prices as much as 15 percent. Fighting so far has spared infrastructure that would significantly crimp the outflow of crude. 'While theoretically on its face, nothing that's happened so far has changed anything physical about supply and demand, part of the way … price formation has occurred is you have physical participants — a refinery, whatever — that's all of a sudden worried they're not going to be able to get cargos next month or the month after,' Johnston said. For prices to stay high or go higher, there likely would have to be some actual damage to key oil infrastructure, he said. But in the meantime, the scope for economic disruption is still significant. The largest price increases have been for diesel, a key input for shipping and therefore a potential risk to inflation in many sectors. 'It might not seem as harsh at the pump, but your shipping and your route delivery is going to feel the pinch of diesel far more,' Johnston said. More broadly, John Fagan, co-founder of Markets Policy Partners and the former markets head at the Treasury Department, said this oil price shock feeds the narrative that the U.S. is going to have slower growth and higher prices: stagflation. 'Demand is not collapsing, and oil prices are not unbelievably high, so you don't have that pop and drop kind of dynamic' when prices rise above where the market can support, he said. 'And if the dollar can't rally, that's supportive of [higher] oil prices.' HAPPY FRIDAY — Hope many of you got to have a restful day off yesterday. Send thoughts about the economic outlook to vguida@ and as always, send MM tips and pitches to Sam Sutton, who is back next week: ssutton@ Driving the day Deputy Treasury Secretary Michael Faulkender speaks at the Council on Foreign Relations at 12:30 p.m. Debt warnings fall on deaf ears — Republicans are largely ignoring a host of reports warning that their bill would worsen the nation's fiscal trajectory in a serious way, our Ben Guggenheim reports. The Congressional Budget Office estimates Tuesday led to an unusual finding. Usually tax cuts tend to cost less under so-called dynamic scores that include economic effects. Not so here: The $2.8 trillion figure released Tuesday outstripped the CBO's prior $2.4 trillion estimate that did not include economic analysis — mostly because the bill would increase interest rates. But the GOP is relying instead on estimates from the White House that Kyle Pomerleau of the American Enterprise Institute called 'outrageous' and 'way higher than everyone else's.' Your MM host chatted last week with Joe Lavorgna, who joined the Treasury Department this month as a counselor to Secretary Scott Bessent, and he had thoughts on CBO's projection that the economy would grow at an average rate of 1.8 percent over the next 10 years. 'Once the One Big Beautiful Bill passes, it's going to lock in the gains that we saw in the first Trump administration, when we were growing at nearly 3 percent,' he told your MM host. 'Then, you could make a case because of AI,' productivity growth will be much higher. 'The trailing 10-year growth rate of GDP is 2.5 percent. Why aren't we using that? .. 1.8 is unbelievably pathetically slow.' On the pods: Hear from CBO Director Phillip Swagel himself on Bloomberg's Big Take podcast. Sober news on entitlements — The longterm financial health of Social Security and Medicare worsened last year, our Michael Stratford reports. 'Annual reports released by the Treasury Department on Monday show that Social Security's reserve funds, if combined, would run out of money to fully pay beneficiaries in 2034 — a year sooner than projected last year,' Stratford writes. 'And the trust fund that pays Medicare's hospital bills would be depleted in 2033 — three years earlier than expected.' Trump calls for 'clean' Senate crypto bill to pass — Late Wednesday, Trump called on House Republicans to move 'LIGHTNING FAST' to send Senate-passed stablecoin legislation to his desk, dialing up pressure on GOP lawmakers in the lower chamber to adopt the measure without any changes, our Jasper Goodman reports. The Economy ICYMI: Fed holds rates steady — Federal Reserve officials announced Wednesday that they will hold interest rates steady, ignoring repeated calls from President Donald Trump to dramatically lower borrowing costs. In fact, projections from the central bank's policymakers suggest they're less confident they will be able to significantly decrease rates than they were in March. Vibe check: Here was Trump's response on Truth Social Thursday morning: ''Too Late' Jerome Powell is costing our Country Hundreds of Billions of Dollars. He is truly one of the dumbest, and most destructive, people in Government, and the Fed Board is complicit. Europe has had 10 cuts, we have had none. We should be 2.5 Points lower, and save $BILLIONS on all of Biden's Short Term Debt. We have LOW inflation! TOO LATE's an American Disgrace!' Jobs report Carolyn Davis is now director of comms at Better Markets. She previously was director of external comms at Leadership for Educational Equity. Mike Spratt has joined the ICI as an associate general counsel. He previously was assistant director in the Division of Investment Management Disclosure Review office at the SEC. He also served as counsel to former SEC Commissioners Kara Stein and Elisse Walter.