World leaders will gather at the United Nations tomorrow. Lots of economic policy will be discussed throughout the week, shifting to the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh Thursday and Friday. The Federal Open Market will meet tomorrow and Wednesday. Everyone will be promoting economic recovery, financial reregulation, and averting trade wars. New economic policy decisions and concrete steps towards these ends will be hard to find. Here’s the day-to-day rundown.
Monday 21 President Obama highlighted Troy, New York’s rise from the ashes by fostering community college and business partnerships.
Tuesday 22 President Obama will do some Middle East peacemaking in a meeting with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas before turning to a U.N. climate change luncheon. The main event will be President Obama’s meeting with China’s President Hu Jintao. The two will have lots of foreign policy to discuss, but averting a trade war over the U.S. Section 421 35% Chinese tire tariffs will certainly be on the agenda, as will economic recovery, climate change, and impending U.S. economic sanctions against Iran until it relents on its development of nuclear weapons. House Foreign Affairs Chair Howard Berman plans to mark-up H.R.2194 next month. The bill would outlaw any U.S. financial transactions with any firm selling refined oil to Iran or financing or shipping it or investing more than $20 million in Iran’s oil industry. With 310 cosponsors the bill will sail through the House quickly. Senator Evan Bayh’s (D-IN) companion bill, S.908, has 74 cosponsors, ensuring quick Senate passage as well. If President Obama signs it, it would impact China big time.
Wednesday 23 President Obama will address the U.N. General Assembly. World markets will carefully weigh any shifting emphasis on economic and foreign policy. He will also meet with Japan’s new Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, whose Democratic Party of Japan ousted the Liberal Democratic Party on August 30 after 55 years of LDP rule. The LDP has long put business interests ahead of everything else, and the DPJ won on a platform of tax cuts and increased worker benefits. How Mr. Hatoyama will handle international economic affairs is yet to be seen. The Federal Open Market Committee will begin meeting in Washington.
Thursday 24 President Obama will chair a U.N. Security Council meeting on nuclear nonproliferation and, along with other world leaders will travel to Pittsburgh for the two-day G-20 Summit. The main agenda will focus on combating the world financial crisis and on how to reform the International Monetary Fund toward that end and to better enfranchise Asian countries. The markets are particularly focused on whether tougher capital requirements will be forced on financial institutions, lowering the profitability. At 2:15 p.m., world financial markets will focus on every letter of the Federal Open Market Committee’s statement, looking in particular for a more optimistic characterization of the recovery. No one expects any change in interest rate targets or in last month’s magic words, “The Committee will maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent and continues to anticipate that economic conditions are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for an extended period.”
Friday 25 President Obama will wrap up the G-20 Summit with a press conference and return to Washington.
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