The markets are telling us a message of growth and optimism, says Joe Lavorgna
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UPI
3 hours ago
- UPI
Trump admin. hits Brazil with tariffs, sanctions over Bolsonaro case
Brazilian Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes participates in a June 9 hearing on the criminal case against former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. On Wednesday, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned the judge. File Photo by Andre Borges/EPA July 30 (UPI) -- The Trump administration on Wednesday hit Brazil with tariffs and sanctions over the criminal case against former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro. President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday imposing a 40% tariff on Brazilian goods, for a total levy of 50%. The executive order accuses Brazil of taking actions that harm and threaten the economy of the United States as well as mentioning Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, whom the American president said abused his judicial authority "to target political opponents," specifically Bolsonaro, a Trump ally. It also cites other prosecutions and censorship of social media in the South American nation. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday also announced sanctions against de Moraes, which include the blocking of all of his property and investments in the United States. "Alexandre de Moraes has taken it upon himself to be judge and jury in an unlawful witch hunt against U.S. and Brazilian citizens and companies," Bessent said in a statement. "De Moraes is responsible for an oppressive campaign of censorship, arbitrary detentions that violate human rights, and politicized prosecutions -- including against former President Jair Bolsonaro. Today's action makes clear that Treasury will continue to hold accountable those who threaten U.S. interests and the freedoms of our citizens." The action by the Treasury Department is based on the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act and targets perpetrators of serious human rights abuses worldwide. De Moraes was appointed to the Brazilian Supreme Court in 2017. "Since that time, de Moraes has become one of Brazil's most powerful individuals, wielding immense authority through his oversight of expansive STF investigations," the Treasury Department release said. "De Moraes has investigated, prosecuted, and suppressed those who have engaged in speech that is protected under the U.S. Constitution, repeatedly subjecting victims to long preventive detentions without bringing charges. "Through his actions as an STF justice, de Moraes has undermined Brazilians' and Americans' rights to freedom of expression. In one notable instance, de Moraes arbitrarily detained a journalist for over a year in retaliation for exercising freedom of expression." The judge is investigating online misinformation and has ordered the takedown of social media accounts that violate Brazil's freedom of speech. In 2024, Elon Musk's X restored service in the country after paying a $5 million fine and appointing a new legal representative there. Trump's social media company, The Trump Media & Technology Group, sued de Moraes in February, accusing him of censoring conservative voices on social media. On July 19, Secretary of State Marco Rubio revoked the visas of the judge and his family members. De Moraes doesn't travel often to the United States, The Washington Post reported. "President Trump made clear that his administration will hold accountable foreign nationals who are responsible for censorship of protected expression in the United States," Rubio said in a statement then. "Brazilian Supreme Federal Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes's political witch hunt against Jair Bolsonaro created a persecution and censorship complex so sweeping that it not only violates basic rights of Brazilians, but also extends beyond Brazil's shores to target Americans." The announcement came 11 days after the State Department revoked de Moraes' visa. The visa restriction policy is pursuant to the Immigration and Nationality Act, which authorizes the secretary of State to deny entry to anyone whose entry into the United States "would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences." The judge is on the judicial panel presiding over Bolsonaro's trial before Brazil's Supreme Court. He was indicted in February after an alleged coup. Bolsonaro has been accused of attempting to violently retain power after his 2022 election loss to Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Lula, in a speech earlier this month, condemned Bolsonaro's supporters, whom he accused of siding with Trump about the "witch hunt." "They're the true traitors of the homeland," he said. "They don't care about the economy of the country or the damage caused to our people." Four days before Rubio's order, Trump called the nation's treatment of the former leader a "witch hunt." Trump wrote a letter to Lula threatening a 50% tariff on imported goods on Aug. 1 because of how Bolsonaro "has been treated" and an "unfair trade relationship." The United States has a trade surplus, exporting roughly $49 billion worth of goods in 2024 compared with $42 billion in imports, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Trump said that "the way Brazil has treated former President Bolsonaro, a Highly Respected Leader throughout the World during his term, including by the United States, is an international disgrace. The trial should not be taking place. It is a Witch Hunt that should end IMMEDIATELY." Trump also noted "Brazil's insidious attacks on Free Elections, and the Fundamental Free Speech Rights of Americans." Three days later, Trump posted on Truth Social a letter sent to Bolsonaro about his "terrible treatment you are receiving at the hands of an unjust system turned against you," demanding an immediate trial. "It is my sincere hope that the Government of Brazil changes course, stops attacking political opponents, and ends their ridiculous censorship regime. I will be watching closely."
UPI
4 hours ago
- UPI
U.S. sanctions massive Iranian oil shipping network
The Treasury under Secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday issued dozens of sanctions targeting a massive Iranian shipping network. Photo by Yuri Gripas/UPI | License Photo July 31 (UPI) -- The United States on Wednesday sanctioned dozens of individuals, entities and vessels accused of being an Iranian oil and petroleum shipping network, as the Trump administration continues with its so-called maximum pressure campaign targeting Tehran. The 50 people and entities and 50 vessels blacklisted by the U.S. Treasury, along with 20 entities and 10 vessels sanctioned by the State Department on Wednesday, represent the largest punitive package against Iran since 2018, when President Donald Trump first imposed mass sanctions against Iran during his first term. In 2018, Trump pulled the United States from a landmark multinational Obama-era accord aimed at preventing Tehran from securing a nuclear weapon, and slapped sanctions on the country as part of his maximum pressure campaign that failed to bring Iran to the negotiating table on a new deal. Instead, Iran escalated its nuclear program to the point that the State Department remarked in 2022 that it would need as little as a week to produce enough weapons-grade highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon. Trump reinstated his maximum pressure campaign on Iran in February and has been targeting its ability to generate revenue since. He also attacked three Iranian nuclear sites last month, amid Israel's war against Iran-backed Hamas in Gaza. The sanctions unveiled Wednesday target the vast shipping network of 49-year-old Mohammad Hossein Shamkhani that the United States accuses of laundering billions in profit from the sales of Iranian and Russian crude oil and other petroleum products to buyers mostly in China. Hossein is the son of Ali Shamkhani, a top political advisor to Iranian leader Ayatollah Khamenei, and who was sanctioned by the United States in 2020. "The Shamkhani family's shipping empire highlights how the Iranian regime elites leverage their positions to accrue massive wealth and fund the regime's dangerous behavior," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement. "These actions put America first by targeting regime elites that profit while Tehran threatens the safety of the United States." Bessent added on X that with Wednesday's sanctions, the United States has sanctioned more than 500 Iranian and Iran-linked targets this year. The announcement of sanctions comes a day after Iran's foreign minister, Seyed Abbas Araghchi, threatened to retaliate against any new threats to its nuclear program. "If aggression is repeated, we will not hesitate to react in a more decisive manner and in a way that will be IMPOSSIBLE to cover up," he said on X on Monday. Trump claimed his strikes "obliterated" Iran's nuclear program, while others have questioned the severity of the damage.
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
The bad-news-is-good-news stock market
For stock-market investors over the last three months, even bad news was considered good news. Take falling corporate profits, which would normally be bearish. But not in the second quarter of this year, during which the S&P 500's SPX estimated calendar 2025 earnings per share fell nearly 10%. In response, the overall stock market rose 11%. Social Security wants to make a change that would cause 3.4 million more people to have to visit its field offices Josh Hawley's $600 rebates bill shows why Republicans win Why is Meta's stock soaring after earnings? It's about far more than the numbers. Or take a rising price/earnings ratio, which was the source of the market's rally in the face of a falling EPS. The 'normal' historical pattern is for the P/E's trend to be inversely correlated with that of interest rates, but once again this was not the case in the second quarter of this year. At the end of June, Treasury rates across the maturity spectrum stood very close to where they were at the end of March. In other words, today's stock market isn't rising on fundamentals or interest rates, but on something else. Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway's BRK.A BRK.B founder and most likely the most successful investor alive today, spoke about this 'something else' in a now-famous column in Fortune magazine in late 1999, just a few short weeks before the internet bubble burst. 'Once a bull market gets under way, and once you reach the point where everybody has made money no matter what system he or she followed, a crowd is attracted into the game that is responding not to interest rates and profits but simply to the fact that it seems a mistake to be out of stocks. … Like Pavlov's dog, these 'investors' learn that when the bell rings — in this case, the one that opens the New York Stock Exchange at 9:30 a.m. — they get fed. Through this daily reinforcement, they become convinced that there is a God and that He wants them to get rich.' This helps to explain how the stock market has become even more overvalued than it already was earlier this year. In fact, almost without exception, valuation indicators with good long-term records are more valued today than at almost every other time in U.S. history. This is indicated in the table at the bottom of this column by the 100% readings. To be sure, valuation indicators have little predictive power over the shorter term. But their predictive power over the long term is good enough to give all of us pause. Each of the indicators in the table below was selected because of its excellent historical record predicting the stock market's real total return over the subsequent decade. Their latest readings therefore point to disappointing stock-market performance between now and 2035. How disappointing? For each indicator, I constructed a simple econometric model based on its historical relationship since 2000 to the stock market's subsequent 10-year return. I then used that model to predict the stock market's return over the next decade. On average, the indicators listed below predict the S&P 500's total return between now and 2035 will be 2.0 annualized percentage points below inflation. While we can hope this forecast will be wrong, hope is not a strategy. To believe that the stock market over the next decade will do even as well as its historical average, much less better (as it has over the last decade), is in effect to bet that 'this time is different' — the four most dangerous words in investing. . Comcast could see its heaviest internet-subscriber losses ever. Then what? Why the man behind 'The Hater's Guide to the AI Bubble' thinks Wall Street's hottest trade will go bust
