2025-06-10 22:42

SAO PAULO, June 10 (Reuters) - Mexico eased a ban on chicken shipments from Brazil, setting the restriction now only to products coming from the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, instead of a previous countrywide ban, Brazil's Agriculture Ministry said on Tuesday. On the other hand, the ministry said in a statement that Mauritania announced a countrywide ban on imports of Brazilian chicken, while Oman suspended chicken imports coming from Rio Grande do Sul state. Sign up here. Brazil last month identified a case of bird flu on a commercial farm in Rio Grande do Sul, triggering trade restrictions from dozens of countries. https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/mexico-eases-trade-ban-brazilian-chicken-2025-06-10/

2025-06-10 22:24

HOUSTON, June 10 (Reuters) - Venture Global (VG.N) , opens new tab asked U.S. federal regulators to withdraw its application to build its proposed 24 million metric tons per annum Delta LNG export facility in Louisiana, saying it can build its proposed Plaquemines expansion project faster, according to a filing on Tuesday. Venture Global is the second largest U.S. liquefied natural gas exporter and has been able to build new LNG plants quicker than any other company by manufacturing modular parts outside of the U.S. and then putting them together on site. Sign up here. Pursuing the Delta LNG Project would not be the best use of its corporate resources, Venture Global said on Tuesday in a filing to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. It said it has instead decided to focus on the Plaquemines Expansion Project which the commission accepted in its pre-filing review process on April 4, Venture Global said. "Venture Global LNG expects that, upon completion, the Plaquemines Expansion Project will produce approximately the same quantities of LNG as the proposed Delta LNG Project, but on a faster schedule," the company said. The Plaquemines expansion project will be 18 million metric tons per annum. Venture Global plans to keep the land it had set aside for Delta, should the market support the revival of the project, the company said. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/venture-global-withdraws-application-build-delta-lng-plant-filing-shows-2025-06-10/

2025-06-10 22:04

WASHINGTON, June 10 (Reuters) - U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on Tuesday signed waivers allowing Arkansas, Idaho and Utah to bar participants in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program from using their benefits to buy certain processed foods like soda and candy. The administration of President Donald Trump has encouraged all states to request such waivers as part of its Make America Healthy Again initiative fronted by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Sign up here. Rollins had previously signed waivers from Indiana, Iowa and Nebraska to restrict SNAP purchases of soft drinks, energy drinks or candy. "It's about nutrition, and there's no nutrition in these products. We shouldn't be paying for them with taxpayer money," Kennedy told reporters at a press conference alongside Rollins. Additional waivers from Colorado, Kansas, West Virginia, Texas, Ohio, Florida and Louisiana are under review, Rollins said. Kennedy and Rollins also reiterated earlier statements that they plan to release an updated version of the nation's dietary guidelines this summer. Rollins said the guidelines will be released "very soon" and emphasize whole, nutritious foods. More than 41 million people receive SNAP benefits, sometimes known as food stamps. The tax and spending bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in May and being considered by the Senate would shrink SNAP enrollment by hiking work requirements to receive the benefits and moving significant costs for the program to states. https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/us-farm-agency-allow-three-more-states-bar-some-items-food-aid-2025-06-10/

2025-06-10 21:34

Starbucks will deploy an increased labor model to all North American company-owned stores by the end of the summer Pilot tests of new staffing model saw increased sales, CEO says Starbucks to focus investments on 'Back to Starbucks' turnaround, cut costs elsewhere June 10 (Reuters) - (This June 10 story has officially been corrected to say the staffing surge applies to the more than 11,000 company-owned stores in North America, rather than 18,000 company-owned and licensed stores, in the headline, first bullet point and paragraph 2) Starbucks (SBUX.O) , opens new tab CEO Brian Niccol told Reuters on Tuesday that he would accelerate the rollout of the coffeehouse chain's new staffing and service model, aiming for all North American stores by summer's end, rather than the initial plan for just a third of U.S. stores by fiscal year-end. Sign up here. The plan applies to the more than 11,000 company-owned stores in North America, rather than the roughly 18,000 combined company-owned and licensed stores, Starbucks said. Niccol says the model is a foundational element of his turnaround strategy for the company, as he bets on an improved in-store customer experience to reclaim the sales growth that has eluded Starbucks in recent quarters. Niccol said early tests of the model have sped up service times and grown sales, without providing specifics. “We’ve learned, and now we know what we need to do, so let’s scale it,” he told Reuters at the company's three-day leadership summit in Las Vegas on Tuesday. The Green Apron model includes in-store technology to more efficiently sequence orders, as well as a dedicated barista for drive-through orders. Starbucks rolled out the service changes to 700 stores initially. During the company's April 29 quarterly earnings call, Niccol said it would be introduced in a third of U.S. stores by fiscal year-end. Niccol took over as Starbucks CEO in September with a plan to return the chain to its coffeehouse roots, focusing on the in-store experience and away from a reliance on mobile and to-go orders, in what the company calls "Back to Starbucks.” The goal is to get baristas to get customers their orders in four minutes or less. He did not share any financial figures about the cost of the Green Apron model's deployment, but said the company would host an investor day in 2026. The Las Vegas summit, the company's first since 2019, is hosting more than 14,000 managers and other company leaders. Analysts and investors have wondered how long Niccol will need to turn the company around. Shares have gained 11% over the last five years, compared with an 88% rise in the broad-market S&P 500. TD Cowen recently downgraded its rating of Starbucks to "hold" from "buy", saying in part that it believed Niccol's turnaround would take longer than expected to deliver results. Niccol said the transition will take time. Starbucks has not issued annual guidance, and Niccol told investors in an earnings call earlier this year that earnings-per-share “shouldn’t be used as a measure of our success” at this stage, instead pointing to in-store metrics like average wait times for orders. He said the transition's effect on earnings would be temporary. On Tuesday, he emphasized his goal isn't to achieve short-term performance solely through cost reduction. As Starbucks increases investments in its labor and elsewhere, Niccol said he would be "ruthless" in cutting expenses not related to the company's turnaround. “We have to be critical of where we’re spending if it’s not driving toward the Back to Starbucks strategy and growth programs.” https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/starbucks-accelerates-new-staffing-model-all-north-american-stores-2025-06-10/

2025-06-10 21:12

WASHINGTON, June 10 (Reuters) - The U.S. Energy Department's loan office should fund oil and gas infrastructure, a White House aide said on Tuesday, as President Donald Trump's administration moves away from supporting projects designed to curb climate change. "One of the big problems is, in the past the ... Loan Program Office has been used for a lot of these renewable projects," Jarrod Agen, a deputy assistant to the president and executive director of the National Energy Dominance Council, said at a Politico conference on energy. Sign up here. The administration is changing the priority of the LPO, meant to help finance emerging energy projects that show promise but face difficulties getting bank loans. "So, yes, we want to invest more and prioritize projects that are oil and gas-related, nuclear-related," Agen said. The Loan Programs Office grew rapidly under former President Joe Biden, thanks to legislation passed during his term. It has hundreds of billions of dollars in loan and loan guarantee capacity. Trump's energy dominance council has focused on increasing already record-high oil and gas output and cutting climate and pollution regulations on fossil fuels. It was not immediately clear what oil and gas projects, which typically have little trouble getting bank financing, Agen was referring to. U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright has said LPO financing is one option on the table to support Alaska LNG, a long-shot, expensive project to ship liquefied natural gas from the north of the state to consumers in Asia. In his first term, Trump only used the LPO to finance the Vogtle nuclear plant in Georgia. Wright told a hearing in the House of Representatives he wants to offer LPO financing for nuclear projects, critical minerals and "potentially even geothermal." The White House's fiscal year 2026 budget requests a $750 million credit for the cost of loan guarantees for small modular reactors. Republicans in the House of Representatives have pushed to slash LPO's lending. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/us-energy-loan-office-should-fund-oil-gas-white-house-aide-says-2025-06-10/

2025-06-10 21:07

ORLANDO, Florida, June 10 (Reuters) - TRADING DAY Making sense of the forces driving global markets Sign up here. By Jamie McGeever, Markets Columnist I'm excited to announce that I'm now part of Reuters Open Interest (ROI), an essential new source for data-driven, expert commentary on market and economic trends. You can find ROI on the Reuters website, and you can follow us on LinkedIn and X. Global markets remain buoyant, awaiting the outcome of U.S.-China trade talks in London and U.S. inflation figures on Wednesday, both of which could have a bearing on guidance from the Federal Reserve next week and investor sentiment more broadly. In my column today I look at how the Trump administration's crackdown on immigration could cause labor market distortions and headaches for Fed officials. More on that below, but first, a roundup of the main market moves. If you have more time to read, here are a few articles I recommend to help you make sense of what happened in markets today. Today's Key Market Moves Buoyancy trumping uncertainty On the day The World Bank slashed global growth forecasts, warning of the "significant headwind" from tariffs and heightened uncertainty, global stocks clocked their fifth consecutive all-time high. Britain's benchmark FTSE 100 is a whisker from reaching new peaks and Germany's DAX hit an all-time high last week, while on Wall Street the Nasdaq and S&P 500 are within a couple of percentage points of new record levels also. Yet the reasons for equity investors to be fearful right now are plentiful - worries over growth, inflation, tariffs, long-term interest rates, U.S. debt and deficits, and the fact that China, the world's second-largest economy, is still mired in a low growth and deflationary funk. Something not quite adding up, right? Perhaps. On the other hand, the fiscal taps are being turned on in China and Germany, British finance minister Rachel Reeves outlines her multi-year 2 trillion pounds ($2.7 trillion) spending plan on Wednesday, and U.S. President Donald Trump's 'big beautiful bill' currently going through Congress is front-loaded with fiscal stimulus too. None of that is really fresh news but the upshot is a lot of liquidity coursing through the global economy. Right now it is something investors appear willing to accept even if the price is increased debt, and for the U.S. and UK in particular, worse public finances. Big corporate deals are being struck, like the OpenAI and Google cloud service tie-up and Meta Platforms reportedly paying $15 billion for a 49% stake in AI startup Scale AI, and implied equity and bond volatility is low. After a period of fretting more about deficits and spiking bond yields, investors may now be viewing the future with their glass half full. Fiscal stimulus is coming and interest rates around the world are being cut. The monetary outliers are Japan and the U.S., but the Bank of Japan could be near the end of its tightening cycle and the Fed may be about to begin easing later this year. On top of this, there's a general belief that Trump will back down from his hardline stance on tariffs and that a palatable deal with China will be reached, the so-called 'TACO' - Trump Always Chickens Out - trade. Fresh news on that front, at least, should be forthcoming on Wednesday. Trump immigration crackdown creates jobs distortions, Fed headaches Seismic shifts in immigration are distorting the U.S. employment picture, making it harder for investors and policymakers to know exactly how much the labor market is actually slowing. Assuming the Trump administration makes good on its pledge to reduce immigration, either by stopping the flow of people coming into the country or by deporting many already here, the labor supply will shrink. The long-term impact of lower immigration is generally agreed to be negative, as new workers are needed to replace retirees, fill job vacancies and drive economic growth. Over time, fewer new workers will likely mean lower growth. But in the short term, a smaller pool of workers results in a tighter labor market, which keeps a lid on the unemployment rate, albeit artificially and probably temporarily. This may already be playing out. Figures released last week showed that employment in May fell by 696,000 jobs. That's the biggest single monthly decline since the historic losses seen during the pandemic in early 2020. Some economists argue that the recent drop is a consequence of Trump's immigration crackdown. Nonfarm payrolls rose 139,000. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate held steady at 4.2%, which though higher than it was two years ago, is still historically low by any measure. All else being equal, this points to a tight labor market, which should put upward pressure on wages and perhaps even warrant a more hawkish policy stance from the Federal Reserve. But that is almost certainly a misreading. When labor supply and the labor force participation rate fall, this brings down a country's so-called 'breakeven' job growth. That's the number of net new jobs the economy needs to keep up with growth in the working-age population and maintain a steady unemployment rate. That figure is falling, and if the Trump administration toughens up its anti-immigration policies further, this decline is likely to accelerate. LOWER FOR LONGER According to economists at Morgan Stanley, breakeven employment growth averaged 210,000 jobs a month last year, and is averaging 170,000 so far this year. They reckon it will fall to 90,000 by the end of this year and 80,000 next year. Ryan Sweet, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, goes further, estimating that the breakeven rate is "quickly approaching" 50,000 jobs a month due to weakening labor supply growth, primarily because of reduced immigration. "The unemployment rate can remain low, but for the wrong reasons," Sweet says. If these projections prove accurate, monthly employment and job growth could continue to slow without raising the unemployment rate. The contradictory signals this sends could create confusion for both investors and policymakers. In his press conference after the most recent Fed policy meeting, Chair Jerome Powell repeatedly told reporters that the labor market is "solid". The unemployment rate "remains low," and the labor market is "at or near maximum employment." If these headline indicators are the gauge, Powell is absolutely correct. But he also stressed that policymakers are looking at the "whole huge array" of labor market indicators for a truer guide. One of those inputs in the months ahead will no doubt be net immigration. And that could generate significant uncertainty, as there are huge gray areas and wide margins of error when trying to estimate net immigration and its impact on the labor market. In January, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office projected net immigration of 2 million people this year and 1.5 million next year, down from an estimated 3.3 million in 2023. With Trump seemingly hardening his stance on immigration, those projections could turn out to be far too high. Morgan Stanley's economists just slashed their immigration forecasts to 800,000 this year and 500,000 next year. If these figures turn out to be closer to reality, we could soon be looking at a "tight" labor market with monthly payrolls gains of well under 100,000. Pity the poor Fed Chair who has to communicate policy in that environment. What could move markets tomorrow? Opinions expressed are those of the author. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles , opens new tab, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias. https://www.reuters.com/world/china/global-markets-trading-day-graphic-pix-2025-06-10/