Asian shares rise, dollar strengthens ahead of US earnings; JGB yields surge
Oil prices edged lower after U.S. President Donald Trump issued a 50-day deadline for Russia to end the war in Ukraine to avoid energy sanctions. Japanese government bonds yields jumped to multi-decade high as a critical upper house election neared.
Trump signalled he was open to discussions on tariffs after his weekend threat to impose 30% duties on the European Union and Mexico from August 1. Japan is reportedly trying to schedule high-level talks with the U.S. this Friday.
Market reaction to the tariff uncertainty has been rather benign, making earnings in the United States this week all the more important for cues, said National Australia Bank strategist Rodrigo Catril.
"It'll be interesting to see what companies are saying, in particular in terms of the forward-looking outlook, in terms of where they see the next quarter, how they see their margins, are they going to get squeezed, or are they planning to pass it on," Catril said in a NAB podcast.
"I think that this idea of complacency is also because we're not quite sure how this whole thing is going to play out," he added.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS), opens new tab was up 0.4%, after U.S. stocks ended the previous session with meagre gains. Japan's Nikkei (.N225), opens new tab gauge added 0.2%.
The EU accused the U.S. of resisting efforts to strike a trade deal and warned of countermeasures if no agreement is reached. Trump said he was open to further discussions with the EU and other trading partners.
Japan's Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is arranging to meet U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in Tokyo on Friday, the Yomiuri newspaper reported, ahead of an August 1 deadline before 25% tariffs are due to take effect.
Ishiba also has an election to contend with on Sunday, with polls showing his ruling coalition may lose their majority in the upper house to political opponents who are advocating for expansive spending.
The benchmark 10-year JGB yield jumped to 1.595%, highest since October 2008, while the 30-year yield hit an all-time high of 3.195%.
Meanwhile, the U.S. earnings season is set to begin on Tuesday, with second-quarter reports from major banks. S&P 500 profits are expected to rise 5.8% year-over-year, according to LSEG data. The outlook has dimmed sharply since the early April forecast of 10.2% growth, before Trump launched his trade war.
Investors are also waiting for U.S. consumer price data for June, due on Tuesday, and will monitor for any upward pressure on prices from tariffs.
The dollar was little changed at 147.71 yen after touching a three-week high. The euro was flat at $1.1672.
U.S. crude dipped 0.3% to $66.80 a barrel. Trump announced new weapons shipments for Ukraine on Monday, and threatened sanctions on buyers of Russian exports unless Moscow agrees to a peace deal in 50 days.
Gold inched up 0.1% at $3,348.35 per ounce, while spot silver gained 0.1% to $38.15 per ounce, after hitting its highest level since September 2011 in the previous session.
In early trades, the pan-region Euro Stoxx 50 futures were up 0.1%, German DAX futures were up 0.1%, and FTSE futures were up 0.2%. U.S. stock futures, the S&P 500 e-minis , were down 0.1%.
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The Guardian
11 minutes ago
- The Guardian
CIA historian Tim Weiner: ‘Trump has put national security in the hands of crackpots and fools'
It may seem perverse to pity the Central Intelligence Agency. The powerful spy organization's history is rich with failures and abuses – from the Cuban missile crisis to the post-9/11 torture program to its role in the overthrow of a long string of democratically elected leaders. But among the many consequences of Donald Trump's open hostility toward America's intelligence community is that no less a CIA critic than Tim Weiner now sounds like a defender. To understand why, Weiner – author of the unsparing history of the agency, the 2007 bestseller Legacy of Ashes – suggested a thought experiment in a recent interview: imagine spending years as an intelligence officer, working diligently to subvert the Kremlin, only to watch the US stand with Russia, Iran and North Korea, as it did in February when it voted against a UN resolution condemning the invasion of Ukraine. In that moment, Weiner said: 'You come to the realization, if you hadn't already: 'My God, the president of the United States has gone over to the other side. He has joined the authoritarian axis.'' Weiner was sitting on the patio of his Brooklyn apartment, a sunny book-lined penthouse purchased with some of the proceeds of Legacy, the 700-page tome that, to his evident surprise, became one of the unlikeliest beach reads in recent memory. A former national security reporter for the New York Times, the author has spent nearly four decades laboring to unlock the agency's secrets. His latest book, The Mission, which is out on Tuesday, is something of a sequel, picking up where Legacy left off to examine the evolution of the CIA since 9/11. Based on interviews with numerous CIA officials (including, improbably, current deputy director for operations Tom Sylvester), it's the story of an organization purpose-built for a bygone era, still adrift more than a decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall, failing to spot the emergence of a formidable new adversary in Al-Qaida, and then playing a panicked and catastrophic game of catchup. The results included misbegotten intel about WMDs, the depraved and ineffective torture program, the failure to predict the Arab spring and other screwups. But it's the book's final chapters, which find the organization blindsided by Russia's influence operation on behalf of Trump's 2016 campaign for the presidency, that readers may find most striking. Weeks before the election, Russia's intelligence services, with an assist from Wikileaks, began releasing a trove of hacked DNC emails, dealing a devastating blow to Hillary Clinton's campaign. It was, as Weiner puts it in The Mission, 'an audacious act of political warfare [that] helped elect a demagogue president of the United States'. Weiner dismisses the theory that Trump is a Russian asset, but says it's beside the point. 'He's Russia's ally.' (That said, as Putin is discovering this week, the president's loyalties are somewhat fluid.) The CIA soon embarked on a delicate balancing act: working to neutralize the very force that worked to put their new commander-in-chief in office. Tom Rakusan, then newly installed as the chief of the clandestine service, called a meeting of senior officials. 'He told them, in so many word: 'The Russians stole our fucking election. How do we make sure this never happens again?'' Weiner recounted. Agents who had spent the last 15 years working on counterterrorism would turn their attention back to the Russian threat. 'The call to arms proceeded, I'm quite confident, without his knowledge,' Weiner added, referring to Trump. Following two impeachments (and two acquittals), an insurrection and another election, Trump is back in the White House and bent on revenge. 'Donald Trump hates the CIA,' Weiner said, noting that Trump considers the agency the beating heart of a 'deep state' that he believes is working to undermine him. Consequently, the president has appointed 'a coterie of dangerously incompetent and servile acolytes to the highest positions of national security'. Weiner describes the new CIA director, John Ratcliffe – a former personal injury attorney, Maga congressman and, briefly, director of national intelligence in Trump's first term – as 'a spineless person who will do whatever Trump tells him to do'. Shortly after we spoke, Ratcliffe ordered a review that criticized the CIA's original report on Russia's pro-Trump influence operation, and former CIA director John Brennan became the subject of a criminal investigation by the FBI. The new director has also moved aggressively to implement a purge at the CIA's Langley, Virginia, headquarters. 'He's attempting to rid the CIA of its most experienced officers,' Weiner said, 'and to impose ideological purity tests. Ratcliffe said explicitly from the get-go that he aimed to align the leadership of the CIA with the president's view of the world. Since the president's view of the world is largely based on falsehoods and imaginary enemies, I think this will be an extremely difficult task.' Meanwhile, Ratcliffe dismissed hundreds of recently hired staffers and then sent their names to Elon Musk in an unclassified email that Weiner said was likely intercepted by the Russians and Chinese, who he posits are now presumably working to recruit them as spies. 'All they need to do is to find people who are either deeply resentful or who might have a financial or a drug problem to be exploited.' Trump's anti-diversity crusade will also have national security repercussions, Weiner predicted. In February, a judge allowed the administration to reassign the team responsible for diversifying the agency. 'For decades, the CIA has tried to hire people who don't look like they just got off the bus from Kansas on the very sound principle that if you want to spy in a nation like Somalia or Pakistan or China, it might be wise to have a workforce that is not made up exclusively of white guys, and who speak languages other than English,' Weiner said. 'Diversity was one of the CIA's few superpowers, and the mindless abolition of the effort to diversify the CIA's officers and analysts was one of the most stupid self-inflicted wounds that Radcliffe could have delivered.' Meanwhile, as Politico recently reported, allies may now be reluctant to share sensitive information with the US, no doubt mindful of the 2017 incident in which the president gleefully handed the Russian foreign minister a highly classified Israeli tip. 'The CIA, to an extent that people rarely understand or appreciate, is really dependent on allied intelligence services,' Weiner explained. The appointment of Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, who oversees the CIA and 17 other intelligence agencies only compounds the risk, Weiner said. Gabbard has never worked in the intelligence community and has been accused of parroting Russian propaganda. 'What ally would share secrets with a dangerously deluded person like that?' Weiner recognizes it might come as a surprise to some to hear him extolling the virtues of the agency he has previously skewered. 'I'm not known as a great defender of the CIA but neither am I a defender of willful ignorance,' he said of the Trump administration's seeming unconcern about the threats posed by foreign adversaries. 'I do think that the mission of intelligence to divine the secrets of the enemies in the United States is worthwhile. There's unfortunately no mechanism for defining the intentions of the president, and therein lies a danger. 'What keeps me up at night,' he continued, 'is the fact that Trump has put the instruments of American national security in the hands of crackpots and fools, and that their incompetence and ideological blinkers will blind them to a coming attack. If the United States gets hit again under Trump, he will destroy what is left of our democracy.' When I asked Weiner how he thought the CIA might respond to Trump's provocations, he chuckled. 'Is the CIA going to join the resistance? No,' he said flatly. That said, the spot where we sat was just blocks from the site where, weeks before, demonstrators had assembled for one of several thousand 'No Kings' protests – thought to be the largest mass demonstration in US history. 'We've learned, to our sorrow, that Robert Mueller is not going to save us,' Weiner said. 'Barack Obama is not going to save us. The supreme court is not going to save us. But the other day, several million Americans marched in the street to protest the Mad King. And just as only we can defeat ourselves, I think only we can save ourselves.' The Mission by Tim Weiner is available now on Mariner Books
STV News
23 minutes ago
- STV News
Trump to meet Starmer in Aberdeen during Scotland trip
Donald Trump has said he will meet with Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Aberdeen when he visits Scotland later this month. On Monday, Downing Street said Starmer was 'pleased to accept' an invitation to an 'informal' meeting with the US President, who is expected to travel to Scotland in July. It comes ahead of an unprecedented second state visit for the President, which will see Trump and the First Lady hosted by King Charles at Windsor Castle from September 17 to 19. Trump was initially due to meet King Charles in Scotland this summer, but the visit was cancelled due to 'diary reasons'. In a BBC News interview on Tuesday, Trump confirmed his meeting with Starmer will be held in Aberdeen and spoke of the city's links to the oil and gas industry. 'That's gonna be up in Aberdeen, which is the oil capital of Europe,' he said, adding 'They should bring it back too, they have so much oil there. 'They should get rid of the windmills and bring back the oil.' Trump is a big backer of oil and gas, known for his 'drill, baby, drill' oil policy in the US and his stance against the building of wind turbines near his Menie Estate golf course in Aberdeenshire. He spoke of his relationship with Starmer, quipping: 'I really like the Prime Minister a lot, even though he's a liberal. He added: 'He did a good trade deal with us, which a lot of countries haven't been able to do.' Trump last visited Scotland in 2023, attending a ceremony to break ground on a second golf course at the Menie Estate, which is due to be completed this summer. The trip to Scotland will be his first since he was elected for a second term. Police Scotland's deputy chief constable said that the force will look to secure extra funding from the Scottish Government to police the visit. Get all the latest news from around the country Follow STV News Scan the QR code on your mobile device for all the latest news from around the country
Daily Mail
24 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Trump's FBI boss Dan Bongino escalates Epstein feud with Pam Bondi with bold plan to address 'failures'
Donald Trump 's second-in-command at the FBI is escalating his feud with DOJ's Pam Bondi after Jeffrey Epstein 'failures' sparked a MAGA civil war. Last week, Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino were targeted with fury after a leaked DOJ/FBI memo found convicted pedophile Epstein did not kill himself and there was never a 'client list' of his co-conspirators. Despite the backlash, all three political appointees appear to be keeping their Trump administration jobs – for now. But that isn't stopping nasty infighting among the agency heads. Sources close to Bongino said last week that he wouldn't stick around at the FBI if Bondi remained in her post because he blames her for the rough rollout of the memo's findings. A person close to the White House told the Daily Mail that Bongino was working at FBI headquarters on Monday, but he may only be staying under one condition. They said Bongino is pressuring Bondi to hold a press conference to answer lingering questions on the Jeffrey Epstein files. That includes why the review came up way short of what she promised to reveal in the high profile child sex trafficking case. 'While the Deputy Director has many significant operations underway that he finds very important to see through, he does plan to continue to fight for transparency and accountability for failures in the Epstein saga, including a press conference from the attorney general to explain discrepancies in communication directly to the American people,' the source said. The Justice Department did not respond to a request on whether there are plans for Bondi to hold a press conference. Attorney General Pam Bondi has faced a slew of criticism from MAGA world for the letdown of the Justice Department's review of the documents in the Epstein investigation Patel, for his part, dispelled 'conspiracies' that he was also considering a departure due to the Justice Department's botched handling of the review of Epstein's crimes. President Donald Trump came to the defense of his AG in a lengthy Truth Social post over the weekend where he told his supporters and critical FBI leadership to 'let Pam Bondi do her job.' He said that Patel and Bongino should be focused on matters outside of the Epstein files – like investigating voter fraud, political corruption and the 2020 election. Trump's 2024 campaign centered on his promise to break down the bureaucracy of government and reveal federal secrets – including the Epstein files and documents related to the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Bongino is particularly irked by Bondi overselling what she had during the early stages of the Epstein investigation. In February, the Attorney General invited MAGA influencers to the White House and gave them binders containing 'a truckload' of new details in 'phase one' of the release. Upon closer inspection it was discovered the folders contained no new information. Bondi then said she had Epstein's highly anticipated 'client list' on her desk waiting for review and release, which never came. An unsigned memo with DOJ and FBI seals was leaked this month and maintains Epstein's client list does not exist. It also concluded that Epstein likely died by suicide, rather than the long-held conspiracy held by many within MAGA that he was murdered in jail while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. Bondi said that no more people would be arrested or convicted in the case. Currently, British socialite and Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence for her role in the sex trafficking ring. She is the only living person facing the music for Epstein's crimes. The Justice Department on Monday opposed a filing requesting the Supreme Court take up Maxwell's appeal in the case. Maxwell's lawyers argue that their client shouldn't have been prosecuted because she was protected under a plea agreement that Epstein made with the Southern District of Florida in 2008. Several high profile and famous people – including Trump – were associated with Epstein and on the flight logs of his private plane, which he used to go to and from his island. Democrats claim that Trump is using Bondi to prevent any more information from coming to light in the Epstein files because they claim the president and some of his rich buddies might be implicated.
