BitGou: Tuesday Morning Briefing: Abrupt Syria policy shift is sign of Trump unchained

Top Stories

Over the span of just a few hours, U.S. President Donald Trump upended his own policy on Syria with a chaotic series of pronouncements, blindsiding foreign allies, catching senior Republican supporters off guard and sending aides scrambling to control the damage. While Trump’s erratic ways are nothing new, some people inside and outside of his administration worry that the risk of dangerous miscalculation from his seat-of-the-pants approach may only increase.

A federal judge on Monday said eight years of Trump’s tax returns must be provided to Manhattan prosecutors, forcefully rejecting the president’s argument that he was immune from criminal investigations. The Manhattan judge had called the immunity claim “repugnant to the nation’s governmental structure and constitutional values,” and said he could not “square a vision of presidential immunity that would place the president above the law.”

The U.S. government expanded its trade blacklist to include some of China’s top artificial intelligence startups, punishing Beijing for its treatment of Muslim minorities and ratcheting up tensions ahead of high-level trade talks in Washington this week. The decision, almost certain to draw a sharp response from Beijing, targets 20 Chinese public security bureaus and eight companies including video surveillance firm Hikvision.

Chinese state television said on Tuesday it wouldn’t air NBA exhibition games played in the country this week, heaping further pressure on the U.S. basketball league after a tweet by a Houston Rockets executive backing protests in Hong Kong. Rockets general manager Daryl Morey apologized on Monday for any hurt caused by the tweet, which he quickly deleted over the weekend.

Brexit

A Brexit deal is essentially impossible as German Chancellor Angela Merkel has told Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson that to do one Northern Ireland must stay in the European Union’s customs union, a Downing Street source said. With just 23 days to go before the United Kingdom is due to leave the EU, the future of Brexit remains deeply uncertain. See our interactive graphic on the events that led to a Brexit impasse.

Britain’s economy is increasingly showing signs of strain as the Brexit crisis and the global slowdown intensify, with the loss of momentum appearing to spread to areas which have hitherto been sources of growth. The different Brexit scenarios for the world’s fifth-largest economy make it hard to gauge the outlook for the year ahead, not least for the Bank of England, and some investors fear Britain is already flirting with recession.

Ireland’s finance minister will present a “no deal” Brexit budget for 2020 on Tuesday, detailing how he will keep firms afloat and allow the state’s finances to return to deficit if Britain leaves the European Union in a chaotic manner. Ireland is considered the most vulnerable among remaining EU members to Brexit due to its close trade links and shared land border with the United Kingdom

A team of experts has come up with a plan to use blockchain tracking for trade between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland to avoid the re-imposition of a hard border after Britain leaves the European Union. The consortium said that its proposal would involve building a secure freight transit system based on digital-locking containers, GPS routing records, automated certification and anti-tampering enforcement with every detail recorded in a blockchain time-series database.

Business

Hong Kong bourse pulls plug on $39 billion play for London Stock Exchange

Hong Kong’s bourse on Tuesday scrapped its unsolicited $39 billion approach for London Stock Exchange Group after failing to convince LSE management to back a move that could have transformed both global financial services giants. Last month’s surprise cash-and-shares approach threatened to upend the LSE’s $27 billion plan to buy data and analytics firm Refinitiv.

5 min read

Strong smartphone sales raise hopes of Samsung turnaround

Strong sales of Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy Note 10 smartphone series are limiting forecast profit falls at the South Korean tech giant, raising hopes it is getting back on a growth track after years of moribund sales. The world’s largest smartphone maker is powering ahead with the launch of 5G phones and $2,000 foldable handsets.

4 Min Read

WeWork's financing lifeline hinges on SoftBank talks

WeWork is locked in negotiations this week with its largest shareholder, Softbank, over a new $1 billion investment to enable the shared office space company to go through a major restructuring, according to sources familiar with discussions. WeWork had to abandon an initial public offering last week because of investor concerns about how it was valued and its business model.

5 min read

The end of Libor - the biggest banking challenge you've never heard of

Interest-rate benchmark Libor, once dubbed the world’s most important number, was discredited after the 2008 financial crisis when authorities in the United States and Britain found traders had manipulated it to make a profit. But replacing Libor is proving expensive and tricky with concerns that, if mishandled, it could trigger credit market confusion and waves of lawsuits

8 min read