RUSSIA: Lavrov Criticises Europe Over Trump Post Calling Putin "Crazy"
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has been speaking at a press conference in Turkey in the wake of US President Donald Trump's Truth Social post from 26 May, which referred to President Vladimir Putin as "absolutely crazy". Lavrov says that "Trump wants a result" on a Ukraine peace deal, adding the US leader "is showing emotion because he sees his Ukraine peace efforts are being sabotaged by European politicians". Russian officials have been careful not to criticise Trump directly for the strongly-worded post, highlighting Moscow's concern that any perceived rebuke could see Trump swing US support back to Ukraine.
- Regarding the removal of range limits for missiles being fired by Ukraine, announced by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on 26 May, Lavrov says that the statements "illustrate the level of competency of those who have risen to power in Europe," adding the remarks "suggest to Moscow that a decision on strikes deep into Russia was taken long ago but kept secret".
- Merz said at the WDR Europaforum in Berlin that “There are no more range limitations for weapons delivered to Ukraine. Neither from the Brits, nor the French, nor from us. Not from the Americans either,...[Ukraine must be allowed to retaliate] by attacking military infrastructure on Russian territory.”
- State-run Interfax reports that Russia has started major naval drills in the Baltic Sea in a further move that risks escalating tensions with NATO. Suspected sabotage of telecommunications and electrical cables running through the Baltic has seen European nations engaging more actively in shadowing Russian vessels in the region.
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US TSYS: Extraordinary Measures And Cash Look Sufficient To Head Off X-Date
Treasury has about $164B in "extraordinary measures" available as of April 23 to avoid hitting the debt limit, per its regular report out Friday. That's out of a maximum total of $375B (they have used $211B).
- With Treasury cash looking healthy (around $600B), that's a fair amount of dry powder to get through the summer months to wait out the debt limit impasse. Tax receipts have looked strong with tariff revenues also starting to boost cash flows, further reducing the near-term urgency to adjust bond issuance.
- This has also helped push back analyst “x-date” expectations to later in the summer/September. We expect to hear from Treasury about its own x-date assumptions next week.
US TSYS: Treasury Market Trading Stayed Orderly In April: Fed Report
Liquidity across financial markets including the Treasury market deteriorated after President Trump's April 2 reciprocal tariffs announcement but market functioning was generally orderly, according to the Federal Reserve's semiannual report on financial stability, released Friday. (PDF link is here)
- Treasury market liquidity has been poor for years and yields were particularly volatile in early April, contributing to a deterioration in market liquidity, the Fed said.
- Nevertheless "trading remained orderly, and markets continued to function without serious disruption," according to the report, which looked at information available as of April 11.
FED: Ex-Gov Warsh: Fed Has Failed To Satisfy Price Stability Remit
From our Washington Policy Team - Some fairly sharp words today from ex-Fed Governor Warsh on the central bank (who for what it's worth is seen by betting markets as by far the frontrunner for the next Fed Chair):
- The best way for the Federal Reserve to safeguard its independence is for policymakers to avoid expanding the institution's role over time, including wading into policy areas that are outside its core mission, former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh, a leading contender to replace Jerome Powell as chair next year, said Friday.
- "I strongly believe in the operational independence of monetary policy as a wise political economy decision. And I believe that Fed independence is chiefly up to the Fed," Warsh said in a speech at a Group of Thirty event on the sidelines of the IMF meetings. "Institutional drift has coincided with the Fed’s failure to satisfy an essential part of its statutory remit, price stability. It has also contributed to an explosion of federal spending." His speech made no mention of Trump's tariffs or the appropriate monetary policy to deal with them.
- He said the ideas of data dependence and forward guidance widely adopted by Fed officials are not especially useful and might even be counterproductive.
"We should care little about two numbers to the right of the decimal point in the latest government release. Breathlessly awaiting trailing data from stale national accounts -- subject to significant, subsequent revision -- is evidence of false precision and analytic complacency," he said.
"Near-term forecasting is another distracting Fed preoccupation. Economists are not immune to the frailties of human nature. Once policymakers reveal their economic forecast, they can become prisoners of their own words. Fed leaders would be well-served to skip opportunities to share their latest musings."
