Plus: Trump demands Murdoch be deposed within 15 days; Dollar surges as markets digest US-EU tariff deal; Trump says Gaza children are starving, contradicting Netanyahu.
Good morning. Here’s what happened overnight and what you need to know today.
1.
New baseline: Donald Trump said the US will impose a baseline tariff “in the range of 15 to 20%” on countries that have not reached individual trade deals ahead of his 1 August deadline. The rate is an increase from the 10% baseline announced in April and contrasts with earlier suggestions from Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick that smaller nations would face a 10% rate. Notably, Australia has not struck a deal, and US$24 billion of its exports, mainly meat, gold and pharmaceuticals, are exposed to the potential new tariff baseline. “We are going to be setting a tariff for essentially the rest of the world, and that’s what they’re going to pay if they want to do business in the United States, because you can’t sit down and make 200 deals,” Trump said. Meanwhile, top US and Chinese economic officials met in Stockholm for more than five hours, seeking to extend a trade truce by three months. (CBS News)(CNBC)(AFR)(Reuters)(White House)
2.
Murdoch’s brief: US President Donald Trump asked a US court to order an expedited deposition of Rupert Murdoch in his US$10 billion ($15.4 billion) defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal, citing the 94-year-old’s age and history of serious health issues. Trump’s lawyers said Murdoch should be deposed within 15 days as he has “suffered, but thankfully overcome, multiple health issues” and may be unable to appear at trial. The 18 July lawsuit accuses the Journal, Dow Jones, News Corp and two reporters of defamation over an article published a day earlier that said Trump sent Jeffrey Epstein a 2003 birthday letter with a sexually suggestive drawing and a reference to secrets they shared. According to Trump’s lawyers, he warned Murdoch it was fake before the article was published, and claims Murdoch said he would “take care of it.” Judge Darrin Gayles has ordered Murdoch to respond by 4 August. Dow Jones defends the article. Meanwhile, Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell urged the US Supreme Court to overturn her conviction. (Capital Brief)(NYT)(Reuters)(Forbes)
3.
Tariff check: The dollar climbed the most since May and stocks closed almost flat as markets digested the tariff framework announced yesterday between the US and EU setting import tariffs for the block to 15%. The euro slid the most in over two months. The S&P 500 briefly topped 6,400 before falling in the afternoon to end 0.02% higher, while the Nasdaq hit an intraday record, led by gains in Nvidia. The deal, announced in Scotland, helped bolster hopes for an extension of a China tariff truce, as top US and Chinese officials resumed talks in Stockholm. Trump kept pressure on the Federal Reserve, saying it expects the central bank lowers interest rates this week, despite market expectation for a hold decision amid mixed economic signals. Visa and Mastercard are expected to report higher profits this week on steady consumer spending. About 82% of S&P 500 companies that have reported have beaten profit forecasts. (WSJ)(Reuters)(Bloomberg)(White House)
4.
Starvation picture: Donald Trump said there is “real starvation” in Gaza, contradicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim that there is “no starvation”. Speaking in Scotland alongside British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Trump said children in Gaza “look very hungry” and that “we have to get the kids fed”. He said Israel bore “a lot of responsibility” for the crisis and said he told Netanyahu “you have to now maybe do it a different way.” Trump said the US would set up “food centers” in Gaza with “no boundaries” and criticised the current system as ineffective. At the meeting with Starmer, Trump criticised wind power in the UK, repeating his long-standing complaints about windmills spoiling views near his Turnberry golf course. (WSJ)(NYT)(CNN)(The Guardian)(White House)
5.
Oil reacts: Oil prices rose 2% on Monday after US President Donald Trump said he would shorten the 50-day deadline he gave Russia to end its war in Ukraine to 10 to 12 days. The gains also followed the US-EU trade framework that sets a 15% tariff on most EU goods and includes US$750 billion in planned EU energy purchases from the US. Brent crude rose US$1.36 to US$69.80 a barrel, and West Texas Intermediate gained US$1.33 to US$66.49. Speaking in Scotland during talks with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Trump said: “I’m going to make a new deadline of about 10, 10 or 12 days from today,” he said. “There’s no reason in waiting. It was 50 days, I wanted to be generous, but we just don’t see any progress being made,” he added. Trump had initially threatened sanctions and secondary tariffs unless a deal was reached by early September. (Capital Brief)(AP)(Reuters)(Bloomberg)(White House)
6.
Crypto checkout: PayPal Holdings will allow businesses to accept more than one hundred cryptocurrencies at checkout, the company told Bloomberg. The option is going live in the coming weeks and will enable merchants to accept crypto such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC, from wallets including Coinbase, OKX, Phantom, MetaMask and Exodus. When a consumer pays with crypto, the funds will be automatically converted into fiat or PayPal’s PYUSD stablecoin for deposit in the merchant’s account. “You have globally 650 million users that participate in the US$3 trillion market of cryptocurrencies,” Frank Keller, general manager of large enterprise and merchant platform at PayPal, told Bloomberg. “We wanted to give small businesses access to this customer base that is growing.” He also said cross-border payment fees can exceed 10% and take several days to settle, while crypto payments are instant. (Bloomberg)
7.
Clean sprint: Labor will expand the Capacity Investment Scheme by 25%, from 32 to 40 gigawatts, to accelerate the rollout of clean energy as its 2030 climate targets slip further out of reach. Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen will announce the expansion on Tuesday in a speech to major institutional investors, according to The Australian Financial Review. It includes 5 gigawatts of dispatchable capacity or storage (typically large batteries) enough to power 4.6 million households during peak periods, and 3 gigawatts for new wind and solar farms, which Bowen says can supply more than one million homes. The move comes as new renewables projects are not being delivered fast enough, despite strong investor interest. In the past financial year, new clean power generation grew at only half the pace required to reach Labor’s 2030 target of 82% renewables, which underpins its emissions reduction commitment under the Paris Agreement. (AFR)
8.
Border truce: Thailand and Cambodia agreed to an “immediate and unconditional ceasefire” after five days of deadly border fighting, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim announced. The deal followed a meeting in Kuala Lumpur with Thai acting prime minister Phumtham Wechayachai and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet, and came after US President Donald Trump made a ceasefire a condition for further trade talks with both countries. Both leaders thanked Trump, with Hun Manet calling the mediation decisive and Phumtham saying the outcome reflected Thailand’s desire for peace while protecting its sovereignty. The conflict, the deadliest in over a decade, stems from a long-running dispute around the Preah Vihear temple. It escalated after a Thai soldier was killed in May and five more died in a mine blast this month. At least 35 to 36 people, mostly civilians, have been killed and more than 300,000 displaced. (Capital Brief)(WSJ)(NPR)(Reuters)
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