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It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so (Mark Twain)

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THE DAILY EDGE: 22 OCTOBER 2020: The No Deal Deal

Coronavirus Stimulus Vote Could Come After Election Day White House officials and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi opened the door to passing a coronavirus relief package after the election, a signal that time and political will has likely run out to enact legislation before then.

(…) “I’m optimistic that there will be a bill. It’s a question of, is it in time to pay the November rent, which is my goal, or is it going to be shortly thereafter and retroactive?” Mrs. Pelosi, a California Democrat, said Wednesday on MSNBC.

Larry Kudlow, a top White House economic adviser, said on CNBC Wednesday that negotiators were “running out of time, at least between now and the election” and that wrapping up work on a relief package in a lame-duck session, after the election but before the next administration begins, “could be a possibility.”

Punting a relief bill until after the presidential election would likely imperil its passage for months, since the election could change the political calculus. If Democratic nominee Joe Biden wins the White House, Democrats would have an incentive to wait until he is in office, where then they would have increased leverage to push for a larger bill, with more Democratic policy provisions. The dynamics are more uncertain if Mr. Trump wins re-election, but he is expected to be less motivated to strike an agreement without an election on the horizon. (…)

White House chief of staff Mark Meadows acknowledged the difficulty a deal would face after Nov. 3. “I don’t think our chances get better after [the] election,” he said on Fox News. (…)

Clearly the best outcome for everybody except… the American people. How big a blunder? We’ll see what happens…

Fed’s Brainard Says More Spending Needed to Avoid Recovery Imbalance

(…) “Apart from the course of the virus itself, the most significant downside risk to my outlook would be the failure of additional fiscal support to materialize,” said Fed governor Lael Brainard in remarks set for delivery in an online discussion on Wednesday. (…)

“Premature withdrawal of fiscal support would risk allowing recessionary dynamics to become entrenched, holding back employment and spending, increasing scarring from extended unemployment spells, leading more businesses to shutter, and ultimately harming productive capacity,” she said. (…)

U.S. Economy Seeing ‘Slight to Modest’ Growth This Fall, Fed’s Beige Book Says Report finds recovery proceeding on separate tracks, while employment growth remains slow

The report found that the recovery was proceeding on separate tracks, with the manufacturing, residential housing and banking industries reporting steady growth, while consumer spending and commercial real estate remained weak. (…)

The report painted a picture of a disjointed employment situation, where many companies continued to lay off some workers while also struggling to recruit others. Employers blamed the labor situation on employee health concerns and on a lack of access to child care. Many companies have raised wages or offered flexible work arrangements in response. (…)

Here’s the actual wording in the Beige Book: “Employment increased in almost all Districts, though growth remained slow. Employment gains were reported most consistently for manufacturing firms, although firms continued to report new furloughs and layoffs.”

Speaking of layoffs:

Job cuts announced by U.S.-based employers jumped to 118,804 in September, up 2.6% from August’s total of 115,762, according to a monthly report released [2 weeks ago] by global outplacement and business and executive coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.. September’s total is 186% higher than the 41,557 job cuts announced in September 2019. In September, market conditions caused 45,213 of the announced cuts, followed by 33,713 job cuts due to demand downturn, and 11,562 cuts due to restructuring. COVID-19 is the reason for 8,529 cuts last month.

Pointing up OCTOBER SALES MANAGERS SURVEY REVEALS US ECONOMIC ACTIVITY CUT AGAIN BY COVID

Tomorrow we get the flash PMIs. This is the Sales Managers Survey for the first month of the fourth quarter:

  • Headline Sales Index fell back into negative territory in October.
  • Business Confidence declined, again falling below the 50 “no growth” line.
  • The Sales Growth Index fell sharply, with panelists reporting the resurgence of the Covid virus is once again impacting on sales.
  • The Staffing Index fell sharply again, indicating employment levels remain a lot lower than one year ago.
  • The Profits Index remains way below the 50 level.

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UNITED STATES: STAFFING LEVELS INDEX

HOUSING:

BTW, (…) Lumber futures have tumbled from August’s record highs, though they’re still up 26% this year. (…) Elevated wood costs lifted the selling price of an average, new single-family home in the U.S. by $15,841 since mid-April, according to David Logan, director of tax and trade policy analysis for the National Association of Home Builders.

According to the NAR, the U.S. housing affordability index jumped 6.2% between December 2019 and April 2020. It has since dropped 7.5%.

Retail Sales Slow in Canada After Strong Run Peters Out

Sales eked out a gain of 0.4% in August, Statistics Canada said Wednesday in Ottawa. That fell short of the 1.1% median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists. Excluding vehicles, receipts rose 0.5%, versus a forecast gain of 0.9%. (…) Core retail sales, which exclude gas and autos, rose 0.4% in August, partly reversing a decline in the previous month, Statistics Canada said. (…)

Retail sales growth in Canada slowed even before second wave

VIRUS UPDATE
Hospitals Across the U.S. Are Crammed With Covid-19 Patients

U.S. hospitalizations for Covid-19 hit the highest point since Aug. 22, with New York doubling its count from early September and at least 10 other states reporting records.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, meanwhile, cited four national studies that predicted a probable in-patient increase of as much as 6,200 daily over the next four weeks.

The U.S. on Tuesday had 39,230 people in hospitals, according to the Covid Tracking Project. Of those, 8,178 were in intensive-care units; it’s been two months since the U.S. had more under such care. The number on ventilators, 1,889, reached its highest since Sept. 10.

Across the country, 37 states are reporting increased hospitalizations, including 21 states that have recently reported new records or are approaching previous highs, according to Johns Hopkins University data. While the trend is national, the hardest-hit region is the Midwest, according to the university. (…)

8_US Cross Curves (19)

5R_Reg Hospitalized

Pandemic Out Of Control in Parts of Spain, Health Minister Says

From Fathom Consulting:

So far, the economic recovery has been about as V-shaped as could have been expected in many places (see the chart below, for those countries that report monthly GDP). But the recent spike in cases in Europe – and subsequent increase in localised lockdowns (with national lockdowns not ruled out) – increase the possibility of the final stages of a V-shaped recovery not materialising, or indeed the prospect of another letter forming. But there are three reasons we are sticking with a V (or at least a V drawn by someone with a shaky hand) as our central case for now. First, new restrictions are likely to be less onerous than they were in Q1 and Q2 this year. Second, many people have adapted their routines to live with lockdown measures (i.e. find ways to work from home and to consume despite restrictions). Third – and this one is key – government support packages remain generous.

Our measure of Chinese economic activity – the CMI 3.0 (blue line in the chart below) – suggests that annual growth was a more modest 3.4% in September (and 1.8% in Q3 as a whole), although this is still an impressive outturn.

A less positive aspect of China’s GDP print (at least from a sustainability perspective) was the increase in real estate investment growth, which was 5.6% higher in the first three quarters of 2020 relative to the same period last year. This was significantly higher than total investment, which climbed 0.8% over the same period. China’s housing market is suffering from huge overcapacity, which is reflected by the time taken to finish construction (one of our suite of proprietary indicators) below. The jobs market in China has also showed elements of improvement according to official figures revealed this week, with the surveyed unemployment rate falling to 5.4% in September1, from 5.6% in August. Nevertheless, the underemployment rate is likely to be far higher, a point reflected by another one of our proprietary indicators, the CUUI (China Urban Underemployment Indicator).

Nerd smile While on China and its all-important housing sector, this has all the looks of an accident waiting to happen:

Evergrande’s Push to Calm Investors Receives Mixed Response

(…) Evergrande has come under intense investor scrutiny in recent weeks after fears of a cash crunch triggered a sell-off in the company’s bonds and shares. While few expect the developer to default any time soon, it’s facing pressure to pare back a $120 billion debt pile and increase cash reserves.

In one of its calls with investors on Friday, Evergrande officials said the agreement signed late last month with strategic investors to waive a January deadline on about $13 billion of repayments doesn’t include any put options.

The officials also said China’s government may roll out measures to support some developers either by the end of this month or early next month, allowing firms to swap short-term debt into long-dated obligations to keep the real estate market stable, according to the attendees, who asked not to be identified because the call was private. (…)

Investors, however strategic, do not simply waive $13B of repayments. In any case, here’s the government’s measures announced this week:

China debt crackdown: regulators asking property developers for more details than expected

(…) The twelve companies, which collectively account for 28% of the homes sold in the country so far this year, were selected for a pilot debt reduction scheme as policymakers look to reduce broader financial risks.

The new policy will effectively limit developers’ annual debt growth to around 15% on average. (…)

According to Chinese media, the cap for the debt-to-assets ratio will be set at 70%, the cap for net debt to equity will be set at 100% and the developers should also have enough cash to match their short-term liabilities. (…)

Analysts at ANZ estimate about one-fifth of real estate companies with China A-shares have leverage ratios exceeding the thresholds.

A sharp reduction in leverage could rattle credit markets and weigh heavily on the property sector, a key driver behind China’s swift economic recovery from the coronavirus crisis.

China Evergrande Group 3333.HK, the country’s most indebted property developer, has been among those scrambling to raise money, with fears of a cash-crunch sending its shares and bonds skidding last month.

Bloomberg seems to count differently than ANZ analysts: “According to Bloomberg’s analysis of 180 listed property companies, 8% of them are in the red group, 15% are in the orange, 30% in the yellow and less than half, or 47% in the green category. Therefore, well over half of the combined balance sheet of the entire real estate sector would face material deleveraging pressure over the medium term.”

Bloomberg also informs us that “less than two weeks  after the August proposal surfaced, Evergrande started to offer aggressive discounts…” in an already oversupplied market per Fathom Consulting.

Almost Daily Grant:

Evergrande, which dabbles in electric vehicles, movie theaters and life insurance in addition to its core business, continues to wheel and deal as it contends with a fearsome debt load of $120 billion (of which $5.8 billion comes due within in the next two months). The company is haggling with banks [the so-called strategic investors] over a HK$11.4 billion ($1.5 billion) three-year, senior secured loan to refinance an $HK8 billion loan coming due next month, Bloomberg reports today. (…)

The prospect of an imminent cash crunch briefly loomed large last month, following news of an Aug. 24 letter purportedly from Evergrande to regional authorities in Guangdong warning of systemic risks including cross-defaults in the event it is unable to secure permission to list its shares in mainland China by Jan. 31. Failure to list by that deadline would trigger some RMB 130 billion ($19 billion) in repayments to investors, equivalent to nearly all of its cash and cash equivalents as of June 30. Evergrande, which decried the letter as fabricated, managed to come to a deal with those investors a few days later, successfully kicking the can down the road.

Fake letter or not, might government assistance indeed be forthcoming?  Bloomberg reported last Friday that company insiders believe the Chinese government “may roll out measures to support some developers either by the end of this month or early next month,” with debt swaps among the likely remedies.

That doesn’t mean that the powers-that-be are going to take it easy on Evergrande, which carries net leverage of 11 times Ebitda, nearly twice the second-most encumbered Chinese developer and triple the industry average. (…)

Chinese authorities are clearly pro-active here, trying to avoid their own Lehman moment. Banks only become strategic investors when a systemic risk looms. In Chinese, the word “banks” translates into Chinese government. We’ll see what happens…

EARNINGS WATCH

imageWe now have 84 reports in, an 86% beat rate and a +16.9% surprise factor leading to a 7.6% decline in earnings for these companies on revenues down 1.4%.

Q3 earnings are now seen down 18.0% (vs -21.4% on Oct. 1) and Q4 -12.8% vs -13.6%.

Trailing EPS are now $137.20, on their way to $131.97 for the full year 2020 and $166.27 for 2021.

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Analysis: Biden tax increase might not be so bad for big banks Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s plan to raise corporate taxes would have a modest impact on profits of big U.S. banks and probably not before 2022, analysts said.

(…) Biden’s plan would raise the current 21% corporate rate to 28%, putting back only seven of the 14-point reduction enacted during the Trump administration.

That seven-point hike would reduce big banks’ earnings per share by a median of 7.4% based on 2021 estimates, according to Morgan Stanley analyst Betsy Graseck. (…)

A Democratic sweep might benefit banks in another way, by launching proposed infrastructure projects. That government money would flow through to businesses and their employees, making it easier for them to repay their loans, analysts said.

Big U.S. banks have put set aside more than $60 billion for potential loan losses since the pandemic started. If those losses do not materialize, the banks will be able to bring the money back into reported earnings.

More government infrastructure spending could also support demand for loans and increase inflation. Higher interest rates would lift bank revenue from loans and securities.

Combined, those factors could offset two-thirds of the 7.4% drag on bank earnings from a 28% corporate tax rate, Morgan Stanley’s Graseck estimated. (…)

THE DAILY EDGE: 22 JULY 2020

  • President Donald Trump rebooted his coronavirus briefings with a warning about a surge in U.S. cases even as he sought to reassure Americans that his administration has the crisis under control. He took a notably more reserved tone than in earlier briefings, encouraging Americans to wear masks and avoid risky behavior. “It will probably, unfortunately, get worse before it gets better — something I don’t like saying about things, but that’s the way it is. It’s the way — it’s what we have. If you look over the world, it’s all over the world, and it tends to do that.”
  • Far more people were infected with the novel coronavirus than previously reported in several corners of the U.S., according to data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency conducted a survey looking at antibodies to the virus in 10 U.S. regions. It found prevalence was highly variable from one region to the next, but far higher than the reported number of cases across the board. In the New York City metropolitan area, for example, the CDC estimated based on samples collected in March and April that 6.9% of the population had contracted the virus, a level that would be equivalent to at least 12 times the number of reported cases.
  • Covid antibodies in patients with mild symptoms fade quickly, raising concerns that their immunity from a future infection may not last very long, researchers said in the New England Journal of Medicine. The first analysis was done on antibodies taken an average of 37 days after symptoms began, with a second after about 86 days, or less than three months. The researchers determined that antibody levels had fallen precipitously, with a half-life of about 73 days between the two time frames. That raises concern that immunity may not last long in people who develop a mild infection, which accounts for the majority of cases.
  • Ten states were added to New York’s quarantine list and one was removed, for a new total of 31, Governor Andrew Cuomo said. The advisory is based on a seven-day rolling average of the number of positive tests in excess of 10%, or the number of positive cases exceeding 10 per 100,000 residents.
  • Reopening is on hold in most of the US, as states containing about 80% of the population have explicitly paused or taken targeted steps to reverse reopening. The number of new virus cases per day is either increasing or at very high levels in almost every state. While the acceleration of virus spread (Rt) has been less sharp than in the spring, it is still occurring at a rate that appears to be preventing state governments from pushing forward with economic reopening plans. (GS)
  • Almost 1,000 new infections were reported in the Netherlands last week, according to the health agency RIVM. The total of 987 positive tests was almost double the amount from a week earlier. The percentage of tests coming back positive has increased, a further sign of a resurgence, RIVM said. The reproduction factor — or R value — rose to 1.29.
  • Austria is tightening measures against the spread of the novel coronavirus again, dialing back part of its easing in the past few weeks as new infections have surged in various clusters.
  • Tokyo has now seen more than 1,600 infections in the past week, while hospitalizations have risen almost fivefold in the past month.

0_All Key Metrics (8)

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PANDENOMICS
U.S. Sales Managers Report Continuing Decline in Business Confidence, Profits, Sales and Jobs in July

The Business Confidence Index moved up significantly closer to the 50 “no growth” level in July, but nevertheless remained  in negative territory signalling a continuation of falling optimism about the course of economic activity over the next few months.

UNITED STATES: HEADLINE SALES MANAGERS INDEX

The Profits Index also moved up closer to the 50 line, but remains firmly below it, mirroring falling sales levels. (…) the Staffing Index remains deep in negative territory, with few respondents appearing to have need of more people, and most making do with fewer employees than a year ago.

CHINA SALES MANAGERS REPORT A CONTINUING FALL IN ACTIVITY IN JUNE
  • The China Sales Managers Headline Index remains well below the 50 “no growth ” level for the 5th consecutive month.
  • The Market Growth Index remains well below 50 and fell further in June.
  • The Staffing Index remains embedded in negative territory for 5th consecutive month.
  • The Services sector Indexes are reflecting a greater decline than Manufacturing.

(…) The question relating to the markets in which panelists are working , asks simply if markets served are growing, stable or in decline (note: no time period is specified). This question produced the most negative answer of all the questions asked in June. Furthermore the number of respondents reporting worsening conditions rose, after several months of negative replies. This is not an optimistic result. Few respondents see their markets as buoyant, indicating that Covid-19 related problems are far from over. (…)

Like the Market Index, Staffing remains deep in negative territory, with few respondents appearing to have need of more people as of June. Again this suggests that the poor months immediately following the outbreak of the Coronavirus have not been followed by resurgent demand, but by the cautious reopening of existing plants and offices.

In general panelists report an economy largely re-opened and ready to produce, but still waiting for the foreign orders that previously made up a sizeable section of overall economic activity. Conditions do appear to be getting better, but very slowly

CHINA: STAFFING LEVELS INDEX

We will get the flash Purchasing Managers Surveys on Thursday. Here’s the NY Fed WEI as of July 18:

unnamed (33)

Employment recovery going backward in states hit hard by virus, small business data shows

(…) CNBC looked at the trailing seven-day average of employees working from July 19 compared with June 14, which captured much of the time represented the official June jobs report from the Labor Department. The data showed that six states, including Florida, Arizona and Texas, saw the number of employees going to work decline by at least 5% over that period.

Those three states have seen some of the biggest increases in coronavirus cases since they began to reopen their economies. California, which has also seen a surge in cases, has seen employment stay roughly flat over the past five weeks, according to Homebase. (…)

Nationally, employees going to work at small and medium-sized businesses was down more than 23% compared with its pre-crisis levels for the seven-day period ending July 19, according to Homebase. (The Homebase data measures employment at certain small- and medium-sized businesses and is not representative of the entire economy, giving a heavier weight toward the service sector.) (…)

  • TSA data showed the first weekly decline in people passing through checkpoints since April. “Economic data over the next few weeks will likely underscore the depth of the recession and provide a warning that a full recovery is still far from being achieved,” David Kelly, chief global strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management, says in a note to clients. (Axios)
  • A meeting of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Senate Republicans descended into chaos, several GOP lawmakers said, revealing how far apart the two groups are on key priorities for the next economic package. (Axios)
Retail Sales in Canada Recover to Pre-Pandemic Levels

Receipts rose 19% in May, the agency said in its first full release for the month. June looks to have recorded another strong gain, with a flash estimate predicting another 25% increase. That would bring sales last month to about 100% of February levels, according to Bloomberg calculations. (…) Auto sales led gains, jumping 66%. Excluding this sector, retail sales were up 10.6% on the month. (…) Based on the June flash estimate, quarterly sales were down 15% in the three months from the prior period, according to Bloomberg calculations. (…)

The report confirms Canadian consumers are emerging from nationwide lockdowns with pent up demand and keen to spend. At issue is whether the sharp rebound will be sustained in coming months. (…)

“At the moment, sales are still being buoyed by the enormous government income-support programs and consumers satisfying pent-up demand, both of which could fade in the second half of the year,” Royce Mendes, an economist at CIBC World Markets, said in a report to investors. (…)

According to a report Tuesday by Toronto-Dominion Bank, consumer spending growth moved into positive territory in early July on an annual basis for the first time since the pandemic started. Three provinces — British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario — have been driving the national improvement in consumption, the bank said.

Bank of Canada to reduce purchases of federal, provincial debt as market stabilizes
Falling Rents Point to Economic Pain in China Rents in the country’s biggest cities fell about 2% in June, a sign of weakness as the coronavirus hit the economy

Nationwide, average residential rent levels in large and midsize Chinese cities fell more than 2% in June from a year earlier, for a third consecutive month of declines, according to real-estate data company Beijing Zhuge House Hunter Information Technology Co. (…)

“Landlords have been forced to lower their rents, and there still aren’t that many tenants,” says Zhang Chaofeng, an agent at a Beijing branch of Lianjia, a brokerage company with thousands of offices across the country. Mr. Zhang estimates vacancy rates in central Beijing are now roughly three times as high as a year ago.

A long-running trade war with the U.S. and now the coronavirus have weighed on rental prices.

(…) “for those tenants who changed houses, most of them moved to a worse one, with lower rents,” (…).

EARNINGS WATCH

We have 58 reports in, a 78% beat rate and a +11.6% surprise factor. Those 58 reporters have shown aggregate earnings down 35.0% on a -3.3% revenue drop. Q2 earnings are now seen down 41.8%, a small improvement from -43.0% on July 1.

A $1 Trillion Glut of Bonds Is Dwarfing Central-Bank Demand

Half the stocks in the S&P 500 are lagging the index by over 10%. Only 22% of the members are outperforming by more than 10%. Such divergence is highly unusual. (Scotia Capital)

spy

rsp

Because the large stocks are dominating the index so much right now, the index itself can show a gain even when most of its stocks are declining. That’s what happened on Monday, and to a historic degree. Never before in 30 years has the S&P risen so much on a day when so many more of its component stocks declined rather than advanced.

From SentimenTrader:

This has been an absolutely horrid sign for forward returns. (…) The risk/reward ratios over all time frames were heavily skewed to the downside. Even if we look for smaller gains in the index but with worse breadth, returns were poor. It wasn’t just the S&P. Across the entire NYSE, more securities declined than advanced, and more volume flowed into those declining issues. We tend to not put a lot of weight on single-day breadth readings. Sometimes a single stock can heavily skew volume figures, or some weird news event can trigger an odd reading. It’s more worrying when these oddities pile up. We’re seeing some evidence of that in recent weeks, and when combined with extremely high optimism, it’s a concern.

Entering seasonally more dangerous period:

Seasonality - Average Monthly Total Return for the S&P 500 Index and Statistical Significance

PANDEMONIUM
Xi Pledges Stronger Domestic Market, Global Ties as Strife With West Brews President Xi Jinping said China was ‘on the right side of history’ in its commitment to globalization

Xi Jinping’s remarks come as confrontation has been increasing between Beijing and the West, as more countries follow the U.S. lead in limiting Chinese companies’ presence in their markets. (…) Mr. Xi (…) urged Chinese firms to boost their overseas expansion, according to the state-run Xinhua News Agency. (…)

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (…) urged countries to work together to counter China’s strategic ambitions. (…) Pompeo said he wants “every nation who understands freedom and democracy” to recognize “this threat that the Chinese Communist Party is posing” and to work together to counter it. (…)

Mr. Xi said China won’t close its doors to the world in the face of rising protectionism, a cooling global economy and weakening demand. Instead, China will take full advantage of its huge domestic market and better connect it with the global market to achieve robust and sustainable economic growth, he said.

Senate report says US may lose ‘cyber domain’ to China

A new US Senate report warned that the US has not done nearly enough to challenge Beijing’s position as a leading tech superpower.

“Three and a half years into the Trump administration, the United States is now on the precipice of losing the future of the cyber domain to China,” said the report, published on Tuesday.

“If China continues to perfect the tools of digital authoritarianism and is able to effectively implement them both domestically and abroad, then China, not the United States and its allies, will shape the digital environment in which most of the world operates.”

The 58-page report, written by the Democratic Party staff on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is the latest glaring sign of the distrust toward China that now runs rampant in Washington, across the entire political spectrum. (…)

Senior US senator pushes for new tools to rein in China Chairman of foreign relations committee says Washington lacks ‘long-term’ strategy

U.S. Orders China to Close Its Consulate in Houston The U.S. ordered the closure of China’s consulate in Houston “in order to protect American intellectual property” and private information of U.S. citizens, the State Department said.

Washington’s demand, issued Tuesday, marked “a political provocation unilaterally launched by the U.S.,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said Wednesday at a routine briefing in Beijing. “China urges the U.S. to immediately rescind its erroneous decision, otherwise China will undertake legitimate and necessary responses.” (…)

U.S. Moving Military Assets Around Asia to Counter China, Esper Says The U.S. is positioning forces across Asia for a possible confrontation with China, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said in remarks outlining the military component of the Trump administration’s hardening stance toward Beijing.

(…) In his speech, Defense Secretary Esper said China had bullied regional allies and partners out of as much as $2.6 trillion in potential offshore oil and gas revenue, despite an increasingly aggressive U.S. military posture in the region. (…) “This policy champions a free and open Indo-Pacific in which all the region’s diverse nations can live and prosper in peace, and makes clear that the [People’s Republic of China] has no right to turn international waters into a zone of exclusion or its own maritime empire,” Mr. Esper said. (…)