Happy Monday and welcome back to On The Money. I’m Sylvan Lane, and here’s your nightly guide to everything affecting your bills, bank account and bottom line.
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THE BIG DEAL–Trump: New China tariffs will take effect immediately if Xi skips G-20: President Trump on Monday threatened to immediately impose tariffs on $300 billion in Chinese goods if Chinese President Xi Jinping does not appear at this month’s Group of 20 (G-20) summit.
Asked during a CNBC interview if the new tariffs would take effect if Xi does not attend the gathering of world leaders in Osaka, Japan, Trump responded, “Yes, it would.” Trump said he would be “surprised” if Xi did not attend because the two leaders are expected to meet to discuss the U.S.-China trade dispute.
“He’s actually an incredible guy. He’s a great man. He’s very strong and very smart, but he’s for China and I’m for the United States,” the president said during a phone interview with the cable business news channel.
- Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on an additional $300 billion in Chinese imports if the two countries do not reach a deal soon to end their long-running trade dispute.
- The president raised tariffs on roughly $200 billion in Chinese goods last month after trade talks collapsed, prompting Beijing to increase tariffs on around $60 billion in U.S. imports.
- The additional tariffs would cover nearly all Chinese imports and could dramatically raise consumer prices.
Trump expressed confidence China wants to make a deal but also said he would be fine leaving the tariffs in place. He added that the “best deal we could have” is the revenue from the import duties, which are paid by U.S. firms and often passed on to consumers.
Business groups have urged Trump to broker a deal to lift the tariffs, pointing out they are paid for by U.S. importers — not Chinese companies — and the cost is often passed on to the consumer.
Axios reported Sunday that a major coalition of business groups backing Trump’s North American trade deal update considered “redirecting their money toward opposing Trump’s tariffs and potentially to support efforts to claw back the president’s trade powers.”
Trump appeared on CNBC shortly after Myron Brilliant, a vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, criticized the president’s use of tariffs in trade and immigration disputes.
The president shot back at Brilliant and the Chamber, even threatening to end his own membership with the storied business lobbying group.
“I’m a member of the U.S. Chamber,” Trump said. “Maybe I’ll have to rethink that, because when you look at it, the chamber is probably more for the companies and the people that are members than they are for our country.”
“I just want to say to the United States Chamber of Commerce, if we didn’t have tariffs, we wouldn’t have made a deal with Mexico,” he added.
Speaking of tariffs: Trump also suggested he may take action to address what he deems an unfair tariff imbalance on wine imports and exports with France.
BREAKING- House Democrats pull bill that would give lawmakers a pay raise: House Democrats are pulling a spending bill that would give lawmakers a pay raise for the first time in a decade amid a backlash from swing-district freshmen.
The House is still slated to consider the rest of an appropriations package for other agencies, but not the section concerning legislative branch operations.
A senior Democratic aide said consideration of legislative branch spending will remain on hold as lawmakers discuss the pay raise issue.
The Hill’s Cristina Marcos will have more details here.
ON TAP TOMORROW
- The Peter G. Peterson Foundation hosts its 10th Fiscal Summit, featuring House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and other top officials, 8 a.m.
- The House Financial Services Committee holds a hearing on oversight of student loan servicers, 10 a.m.
- The House Budget Committee holds a hearing entitled “The Costs of Climate Change: Risks to the U.S. Economy and the Federal Budget,” 10 a.m.
- The Senate Banking Committee holds a hearing entitled “Data Brokers and the Impact on Financial Data Privacy, Credit, Insurance, Employment and Housing,” 10 a.m.
- The House Appropriations Committee holds a markup of the fiscal 2020 Homeland Security and Financial Services and General Government spending bills, 10:30 a.m.
- The House Financial Services Committee holds a markup of eight bills, including flood insurance reauthorization and reform measures, 2 p.m.
The Hill event: On Tuesday, June 11, The Hill will host Affordable Housing & the American Dream at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. The Hill’s Editor-at-Large Steve Clemons and staff writer Rafael Bernal will sit down with Reps. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), Steve Stivers (R-Ohio) and an expert panel for a discussion on how leaders in Washington and the private sector can help ensure that every American has an equal chance of owning a home. RSVP here.
LEADING THE DAY
Senate Republicans, White House to meet on avoiding the next shutdown:
Top Senate Republicans and members of the Trump administration will sit down Tuesday as they turn their attention to how to avoid a government shutdown starting on Oct. 1.
Who will be there? Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) will meet in the Capitol with acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought.
The goal? Shelby said the “goal” of the talks was to get a deal to allow the Appropriations Committee to start moving government funding bills. Lawmakers have to pass 12 appropriations bills, either individually or as part of a package, if they want to avoid a shutdown. So far the committee has passed none.
Part of the wrinkle for the Senate in starting to move appropriations bills is that they don’t yet have a deal to lift defense and nondefense spending caps. Without an agreement, steep, across-the-board cuts, known as sequestration, are set to kick back in. Lawmakers use the agreement to determine the totals of the 12 appropriations bills.
The Hill’s Jordain Carney has more on the meeting here.
House passes bipartisan IRS reform bill without ‘Free File’ provision: The House on Monday easily passed a new version of a bipartisan IRS reform bill after lawmakers removed a controversial provision that would have codified a program in which the agency partners with tax-preparation companies.
The legislation, called the Taxpayer First Act, passed by voice vote. It now heads to the Senate, where it also has the support of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.
- “This is not a Republican or a Democratic bill. It is an American one,” said Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), the chairman of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight.
- Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a statement after the House vote that the bill “should pass in the Senate without delay.”
The measure, which includes dozens of provisions aimed at improving the IRS, could be one of the few pieces of legislation to be enacted this year under a divided government. The Hill’s Naomi Jagoda tells us more about it here.
- The bill includes provisions designed to bolster the IRS’s customer service, strengthen taxpayers’ rights during the enforcement process, improve the agency’s information technology and help victims of tax-related identity theft.
House to take up second package of spending bills: The House will consider a second “minibus” of five appropriations bill totaling roughly $383 billion.
The package will include bills covering commerce, justice and science; agriculture, rural development and the Food and Drug Administration; interior, environment military construction and veterans affairs; and transportation and housing and urban development.
- The House is set to consider a first package of five spending bills starting Wednesday.
- Democrats are moving at a furious pace to pass all 12 annual spending bills through the House in June.
- The final bills, however, will look significantly different from those being considered this month.
GOOD TO KNOW
- President Trump on Monday accused technology companies like Facebook and Google of discriminating against him, adding that there’s “something going on in terms of monopoly.”
- A group of 75 conservative organizations and leaders on Monday sent a letter to Congress expressing their opposition to a carbon tax, pushing back at an idea that has received support from politicians and policy experts on both sides of the aisle as a way to fight climate change.
- The New York Times explains how President Trump is mixing economic and national security in ways with little, if any, precedent.
- The Wall Street Journal explores why the economy of the South is lagging behind the rest of the U.S.
- Bloomberg: “The Trump administration is weighing sanctions against the Iranian financial body set up as a go-between for humanitarian trade with Europe, a move likely to sever the economic and humanitarian lifeline that France, Germany and the U.K. have sought to create for Tehran.”
ODDS AND ENDS
- The struggling news industry is joining calls to increase oversight of tech giants like Facebook and Google, urging policymakers to also take into account how Silicon Valley has upended the business of journalism.
- New York City is finalizing a plan to ban cashless stores, according to Bloomberg Law.