Also noteworthy this morning: Oil pact, meet the new US treasury secretary, the fate of Trump’s businesses
Among the handful of international news stories worth noting this morning if you should have a moment:
- In what’s being billed as the first such pact since 2001, OPEC and Russia surprised us yesterday by agreeing to production cuts. Oil prices surged more than 9 percent to break above USD 50 per barrel. Reuters and Bloomberg have coverage, and if you have five extra minutes this morning, go and re-read Goldman Sachs’ argument about why higher oil prices are good for the global economy (even though they’ll make our subsidy rationalization program a bit more challenging — and urgent — here at home).
- Donald Trump’s nominee for treasury secretary gets a scouring from the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times today. All look at his turnaround of IndyMac, wondering whether the “defining deal of his career” could come back to haunt him: “He knew that the government needed to sell the failed bank—and he played hardball.” And that’s been a crime since when, exactly? The New York Times notes that “Trump’s economic cabinet picks signal embrace of Wall St. elite.”
- Speaking of Trump: The US president-elect took to Tweeter yesterday to pledge he will step away from his personal businesses to focus exclusively on the presidency, Reuters reports.
- Coke is it: “Coca-Cola and its Palestinian bottling franchisee have opened what the Financial Times is calling “the US beverage group’s first production plant in the Gaza Strip.” The Times of Israel says the USD 20 mn investment will create 270 direct jobs. The story has also made the WSJ.