Tag: Steven Mnuchin

Struggling Bank Gets Bailed Out with Help from Former Trump Admin Treasury Secretary

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New York Community Bank

New York Community Bancorp (NYCB) announced on Thursday that it would be getting more than $1 billion from investors to help stabilize the bank, including from a firm run by a former Trump administration Treasury secretary.

The bank will receive $450 million from Mnuchin Liberty Strategic Capital, headed by former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, as well as a $250 million and $200 million investment from Hudson Bay Capital and Reverence Capital, according to an announcement from the bank. NYCB posted a $252 million loss in the fourth quarter of 2023, sending its stock to the lowest level since 1997 and worrying investors about another potential crisis in the banking sector, accordingto CNN.

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Blackburn Joins Other Senators in Urging Trump Administration to Reach Consensus with Congress on Two-Year Budget That Fully Funds the Military

Jason M. Reynolds

  U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) joined her colleagues in encouraging officials with President Donald Trump’s Administration to reach consensus with congressional leaders on a two-year budget deal to fully fund the military. Blackburn, along with Senators that include David Perdue (R-GA) and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-OK), sent the letter to Acting Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought, Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, according to a press release from Blackburn. The full letter is available online here. In the letter, the senators caution that another continuing resolution (CR) would devastate the United States military, delay the implementation of the President’s National Defense Strategy (NDS) and increase costs. Blackburn recently voted to fund the United States Military in Fiscal Year 2020, via the National Defense Authorization Act, The Tennessee Star reported Monday. The NDAA funds crucial projects that will directly impact military communities in Tennessee. According to the letter, “The Administration’s efforts last year to pass the Department of Defense (DOD) appropriations bill on time allowed our military for the first time in a decade to be properly funded without the use of a continuing resolution…

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US Treasury Chief: Trump ‘Perfectly Happy’ to Tax More Chinese Imports

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  Treasury chief Steven Mnuchin said Sunday that President Donald Trump would be “perfectly happy” to tax more imports from China if the U.S. leader cannot reach a trade deal with Chinese President Xi Jinping when they meet later this month. “We made enormous progress, I think we had a deal that was almost 90% done,” Mnuchin told CNBC. “China wanted to go backwards on certain things,” which Beijing has denied. “We’ve stopped negotiating,” Mnuchin said, with the next steps depending on Trump’s meeting with Xi in Osaka, Japan at the G-20 meeting of world leaders at the end of June. “The president will make a decision [on tariffs] after the meeting,” Mnuchin said. “I believe if China is willing to move forward on the terms that we were discussing, we’ll have an agreement. If they’re not, we will proceed with tariffs.” Trump has already imposed tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods, but now is weighing whether to tax an additional $325 billion worth of Chinese products, a move that would encompass virtually all Chinese goods exported to the U.S. The world’s two biggest economies have sparred for months over a trade deal, but not been able to…

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US Holds ‘Constructive’ Trade Talks With China

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American and Chinese trade negotiators made progress during “candid and constructive discussions” in Beijing Friday, said the White House, and will continue talks in Washington next week. The two sides are working to strike a deal to lift eight-month-old tariffs affecting $250 billion of Chinese imports to the U.S., and about $110 billion of American exports to China. The latest round of talks comes amid a report by the Bureau of Economic Analysis that the U.S. trade deficit with China again rose in 2018. “The 2018 goods and services trade deficit with China alone was $379 billion. That’s $70 billion, or 23 percent, higher than in 2016. It’s more than 3 times the size of the 2018 deficit with the entire European Union. China by itself contributed 61 percent of the total US deficit both in 2016 and last year,” according to Derek Scissors, Resident Scholar of American Enterprise Institute. U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who is in Beijing, posted on Twitter that the talks will continue next week. .@USTradeRep and I concluded constructive trade talks in Beijing. I look forward to welcoming China’s Vice Premier Liu He to continue these important discussions in Washington next week. #USEmbassyChina pic.twitter.com/ikfcDZ10IL —…

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US Wants Pledge for Stable Chinese Yuan as Talks Resume

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Xi Jinping

by Reuters   The United States is seeking to secure a pledge from China it will not devalue its yuan as part of an agreement intended to end the countries’ trade war, Bloomberg reported on Monday. Officials from the two countries, which resumed talks on Tuesday in Washington, are discussing how to address currency policy in a “Memorandum of Understanding” that would form the basis of a U.S.-China trade deal, the news agency reported, citing unnamed people involved in and briefed on the discussions. U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had told Reuters last October that currency issues must be part of U.S.-China trade negotiations and that Chinese officials told him that further depreciation of the yuan was not in their interests. The Bloomberg report said the U.S. request for a pledge to keep the yuan’s value stable was aimed at neutralizing any effort by Beijing to devalue its currency to counter American tariffs. Spokesmen for the U.S. Trade Representative’s office, which is leading the talks, and the U.S. Treasury, which leads currency policy, could not immediately be reached for comment. Two days of negotiations between deputy-level officials began on Tuesday, led by Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Jeffrey Gerrish on the…

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Mnuchin Pulls US Out of Saudi Investment Conference

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U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has pulled out of an investment conference next week in Saudi Arabia, as Riyadh continues to face questions about its involvement in the disappearance and alleged killing of a U.S.-based Saudi journalist in Turkey. Mnuchin made the announcement Thursday on Twitter, following numerous Western corporate chiefs who have dropped out of the three-day gathering that starts Tuesday in Riyadh. As reports from Turkey have mounted alleging Saudi agents tortured, killed and dismembered Jamal Khashoggi two weeks ago inside Riyadh’s consulate in Istanbul, the chief executives announced they will not be attending the Future Investment Initiative conference. Saudi Arabia has denied killing Khashoggi, a critic of the country’s de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Khashoggi wrote about Saudi Arabia in columns for The Washington Post. Saudi Arabia says it says it will disclose the results of its investigation into his disappearance. The investment conference is being organized by Saudi Arabia’s mammoth sovereign wealth fund and was being billed as a showcase for economic reforms advanced by Salman as he attempts to diversify the kingdom’s economy, for decades focused on its role as the world’s leading oil exporter. The gathering had been dubbed “Davos in…

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