mr. mnuchin: -- mr. mnuchin: i think a little bit of inflation is a good thing.aspects of the tax plan is we want wages to increase. eight years have not been great for the average worker and have not seen wages increase. a little bit of wage inflation is a good thing. energy prices have the potential to, as we become energy independent, i am not concerned about energy inflation, and there are lots of good signs on the horizon. they authorized 65% i think since last summer. and we have is necessarily seen a big amount of u.s. supply. a lot of people thought it would win prices went up, that u.s. surprise would be upsetting. are you worried about that affecting working households in the u.s.? mr. mnuchin: again, i would say that we have a lot of liquid national gas. there is a lot of alternative energy. clean coal. there is a lot of opportunities in the energy markets. i'm a going to speculate where oil prices are. if oil prices were in the 40's, they would say they are going to 20. i'm not good at predicting where we are. inflation seen energy as a result of oil

mr. mnuchin: i expect he will see a decision from the president today. m obviously not going to get ahead of the president on his announcements. steven mnuchin speaking to stephanie flanders at the conference in beverly hills. tatrt tatro.ed by quin let's start on the possible exemption from tariffs and eu allies. are these cliffhangers helping fuel volatility? or is that part of life and we have to get used to it. i think it is absolutely fueling volatility when we don't have answers. the market does not like uncertainty but i also think it is the era of the trump administration and we just have to get used to it. we have gotten used to it to a degree but we're certainly going to see continued volatility to these uncertainties. and nobody wants to see a trade war. and i throw win this word interest rate war or bond war because we have a $350 billion trade deficit with china. to think that we're going to a close tariffs and they are going to impose tariffs to hurt us is ridiculous. what they will do is probably what we are seeing which is them stalling in

, who will be working with mr mnuchin, who will be travelling to paris tomorrow to deal with a number properties, subsidies, tra nsfer of intellectual properties, subsidies, transfer of properties and the control of strategic investments, in order to deal with the existing issues. for over 40 years, run has been mentioned in terms of hope or lack thereof. but as you know, in iran there is the guide, the president, elected by the people but wa nted president, elected by the people but wanted by the guide — both gifts from above. —— iran. and there is also the iranian people. as a matter of fa ct, also the iranian people. as a matter of fact, once a week i am on air in paris. so when you negotiate with iran, who do you negotiate with? negotiating with iran is about negotiating with its current leaders, in particular its president. but again it is a matter of principle for me in terms of diplomatic rules. there is a situation that you describe, but no power whatsoever — no foreign power has to replace a rainy and sovereignty. —— iranians sovereignty. —— iranians sovereignty. in paris and

chinese officials have welcomed mr mnuchin's proposed visit.r martin lewis is suing facebook for defamation. the money saving expert founder says at least 50 fake ads bearing his name have appeared on the social media platform, causing him reputational damage. facebook says misleading ads are not allowed and any reported are removed. the uk prime minister— theresa may— is facing a week of fresh parliamentary battles over brexit. last week, the government suffered defeat on the eu withdrawal bill in the house of lords when peers voted in favour of staying in the customs union. as a result, mps will get a chance to debate the proposal on thursday. more on this in a moment chinese conglomerate hna has cut its stake in german lender deutsche bank. the firm has gone on a multi—billion dollar spending spree in recent years but has recently started to get rid of some of its assets. leisha santorelli is in singapore with more on this. what's the story behind this? it's a reversal for one what's the story behind this? it's a reversalfor one china's what

mr. mnuchin. we have had an open relationship. that has allowed us to have clear discussions entree.l have meetings -- on trade. i will have meetings in with officials, and i hope they will understand that we are allies. the united states and france are allies. we cannot understand that between allies there are such threats coming from new tariffs on steel and aluminum. mainine: will that be the message for president trump when president macron comes to washington? >> i think that will be one of the messages. there will be many messages. betweenl be raised president macron and the united states. want to see the opportunity of those g20 and g7 meetings in washington to explain the political position of france and all european countries. we are allies. we want a full and permanent exemption. we do not want to run the risk of having decisions coming from one of our closest allies jeopardizing growth in france. francine: how much of the talk at the g20 and g7 level was about china, what china will do next, and what europe can do to bring china closer? >> we have to engage with china. we

mr. mnuchin has been traveling to china is a positive development for the market.ew people are skeptical. especially analysts in you're a eurasia, at least for now, some of the tensions have subsided. back to you. >> joumanna bercetche live from london. >> i don't think i would want to take a misery index if you're getting up in the middle of the night to come to work. >>> coming up, axios has a look this morning at one big thing and fresh fallout over president trump's va secretary nominee, ronny jackson, a litany of allegations over his conduct as the white house faces renewed questions over its vetting process. plus more on the president's state visit with french president macron. >>> and democrats senator tammy baldwin and governor phil murphy discuss their party's plans 0 to secure a big win in the mid-term elections. tezla. otezla is not an injection or a cream. it's a pill that treats psoriasis differently. with otezla, 75% clearer skin is achievable after just 4 months, ... with reduced redness, thickness, and scaliness of plaques. and the otezla prescribin

mr. mnuchin. it is the whole cast of characters mr. trump has put in place. he's got to clean this up and you don't do it by adding someone like mr. jackson to the mix. meantime, the pruitt mess that's taking place helps blind the american public to the fact that this is an epa administrator who is attempting to gut the clean air and the clean water act, who refuses to acknowledge that climate change exists, and refused my request to debate him on this issue. he never should have been there in the first place. >> i will say, sometimes it is extraordinary, given statements from the epa administrator himself to think about the positions he's in. but having said that, democratic congressman mike quigley of illinois, it is very good to see you. thank you. >> good morning. thank you. >>> an interview between robert mueller and the president is back on the table, but does it even matter at this point? that's next. delivery should look like this. handcrafted layers of clean food you can give your kids. tomatoes. even the picky ones. panera. food as it should be. now

mr. mnuchin.ed to either be surprised or outraged at this, and i feel like there's going to be some more information to come out on this, beyond even what we and others have reported so far. i think there's another big question mark about precisely what happened. but it's clear that now, it's led into a little bit of fingerpointing, you know, larry kudlow versus ms. haley over who was confused. we were told when we reported on sunday night and monday morning about this that nikki haley was not confused, and was taking her direction directly from the white house. so, she wasn't in front of her skis, according to many people around her. it was the president who changed his mind. >> is there also clarity here on the contact between the u.s. government and the russian government on this matter? obviously, nikki haley made this pronouncement on sunday morning, on national television that the new sanctions were about to be announced, if they hadn't been already, did the u.s. government have contact with

mr. mnuchin said this is not the desired outcome. well, the problem is the markets are very confused. they want to believe that this is all negotiation and won't be as bad as they say but the president is doubling down and he seems to imply he's not as concerned about the markets. that's an issue for them now there could be real collateral damage to gdp and the overall economy and the trading community is having a hard time levitating itself to believe there won't be real damage that's making the market a little uninvestable. hard to understand and confusing. >> bob, talk to me quickly we have about a minute left and down 2% about some of those more protected names and how they've done for the week as a whole. >> real estate investment trusts, consumer staples have outperformed generally they're just not down as much. very few names that are up for the week we have about 40 names with 52-week lows, 9% of the index. again, we're a long way from any significant lows on the s&p or the dow jones. we would have to drop another 2300, 2400 points on the dow jones. even more than that. 3,000.

steven mnuchin joins us. mr. secretary as cabinet official what can you tell us about a potential trump administration response to syria? >> good morning, thank you, great to be here with you. we'll be reviewing the situation later today i expect to get an update from the national security team. and as you've pointed out with the president's tweet, this appears to be another horrible example of the assad regime, just incredibly targeted. >> brennan: military response to potentially on the table? >> i can't comment on what our response will be or won't be. but i expect to get update later today from the national security team and i assure you they will be reviewing with the president. >> brennan: you said on friday there is the potential of a trade war. how should americans prepare for that risk? >> well, actually i was very clear when i discussed i said, our expectation is that we don't think there will be a trade war. our objective is to continue to have discussions with china. we want to have free and fairy cip

mr. mnuchin asking him to look into this matter and ask him why we continue to cooperate with the postal agreement that basically binds us to these lower cost packages. so the way we begin to look at it is if most of -- if many of the packages contain illicit drugs and contain something we don't want shipped into the united states, why in the world are the united states citizens people that buy stamps and use them, why would we be subsidizing the very sending of the packages to the united states? >> yeah. i will try and answer that. not the subject matter experts on how the rates apply. familiar with the report and would say that it identifies one stream of mail coming into the country and looking at international with all of the pieces involved with. there have been changes that em aware of that change some of that cost coverage for the pieces coming in in the mail stream and going forward i can tell you that you know, getting back to the aed why it is important, some of us without that, china would see a substantial amount of additional ark ed coming in and that's been our focus. we ha

mr. mnuchin. >> on "power lunch". >> thanks. >> coming up more on trump's trade policy and tariffs as the federation ceo says we're in a, quote, dangerous spiral more "squawk on the street" right after this break you know what's awesome? gig-speed internet. you know what's not awesome? when only certain people can get it. let's fix that. let's give this guy gig- really? and these kids, and these guys, him, ah. oh hello. that lady, these houses! yes, yes and yes. and don't forget about them. uh huh, sure. still yes! xfinity delivers gig speed to more homes than anyone. now you can get it, too. welcome to the party. and so i think as we look at this, it's the uncertainty that's getting created here. that's not good for consumers either. >> retail is in a world of hurt as we've been reporting on for the past few years, if these go through does that have the potential to put your industry into recession >> well, i think what we've seen in the retail industry is a massive amount of transformation and disruption the retail industry grew at 4.5% we had the best holiday season we've had since 200

mr. mnuchin is there anything can do since senate leader mitch mcconnell told you this week that he has no for that a deal is a deal? >> having the president, having some mechanism that the president isn't just handed a giant take it or leave it deal is important. and we've talked about the line-item veto. the line-item veto doesn't work knits own construct but there are other ways of making it work where the president can withhold certain spending, send it back to congress for up-or-down vote that has a similar impact that would be constitutional. >> what would that mechanism be? we don't know but as we watch the debt balloon and deficit widen, one trillion dollars by 2020 according to the congressional budget office, imf chief christine laggard told me today, broken and bruised trade deals are not helping at all. >> what i'm concerned about is that with talks about trade threats or trade threats implementation we're going to dent what is precious good in the economy which is trust. which is the confidence that entrepreneurs be that decisionmakers have in a system that determines supply c

mr. mnuchin on at the same time, he talked about the potential for a trade war. not his preferred outcome. mr. powell's written testimony came out, much more important is the q&a. we'll keep an eye on that. all throughout the day, two sectors, financials, industrials, have been underperforming the market lower rates, bad for bank stocks regional banks have all been weak sitting near the lows for the day. down 2% or 3%. sun trust, zions, same situations, boeing is basically flat, slightly up on the week, but all these names, again, clearly moving in relation to trade and tariff issues here defensive names, generally doing a lot better, but that has been the case all throughout the week where you have companies like campbell's soup, pg & e, all doing better defensive names in the dow this week, all are fractionally to the upside mcdonald's, koch, j & j, up. on this whole issue about what has been causing the drop recently, issues on the fed or trade and tariff i would point out, it's true the jobs report numbers and the wage inflation was the initial cause for the

president's key economic team going to china to meet with their counter part, stephen mnuchin is going with larry kudlow and mr. lighthouser. what can they accomplish? from they're starting a process. it's important to keep the expectations under realistic control. there is a lot of stuff that needs to be adjusted between the two countries. china has very high tariffs. basically makes it difficult for foreigners, including the united states, to export into china. they have restricted ability to invest in a lot of industries in china. they have difficult regulation standards and customs. they have some difficulties for us with protecting intellectual property. and so all of these are big issues and they're unbalanced. and they tend to be in favor strongly of china. and the u.s. government just wants to level the playing field so that companies can compete fairly. what's normal for a developing county is to have a number of these issues in place to allow them to grow. china has reached the point where they're much more mature, they're about 14% of the world's economy and they're growing double the rate of the u.

mnuchin. thank you for joining us. >> it is great to be here with you. >> the let's talk about the end of march, mr. secretary you hoped to avoid a trade war with china. in that period of time, the chinese have put retaliatory tariffs on $50 billion of u.s. goods. and the president last night threatened an additional tariffs on additional $100 billion of u.s. goods is this now a trade war, mr. secretary? >> no, it is not and our objective is still not to be in a trade war but let me be perfectly clear, president trump has been from day one very clear on we are going to defend free and fair trade. and a year ago at mar-a-largo president trump and president xi discussed trade. we've been working with them over the last year and on the one hand, we're willing to continue negotiations on the other hand the president is absolutely prepared to defend our interests. >> mr. secretary, there was an article in the "wall street journal" on the 26th of march that said there were quiet negotiations going on. today a chinese official said that it is absolutely wrong there are negotiations going on behind the scen

mrs. merkel mentioned dialogue between treasury secretary steve mnuchin and her finance minister.ld say the economic issues are front and center, even though there was very important security news coming out of the meeting. liz: let's not forget that germany makes a lot of cars here in the u.s., and exports them, but they employ united states workers, and i've been to the vance, alabama, mercedes plant. we have a very good relationship with germany. give me the quick over/under, you think they'll get may 1st? permanent exemption? >> hard to say. if the president wasn't willing to talk about it, i'm not in a position to say, but liz, you brought up a really good point. 800,000 americans will get their paychecks from companies headquartered in germany. you mentioned daimler in vance, alabama. volkswagen in chattanooga. i was there in munich in 1992 when helmut kohl and george h.w. bush witnessed a bmw to go to south carolina. much more needs to be done. hard to predict what's going to happen tuesday. liz: good to see you, ambassador. >> thank you, liz. liz: thank you, your entire fa

secretary steven mnuchin will be for china within the next few days for negotiations with officials over u.s. trade disputes. president trump confirmed to visit today with the french president. mrys if they cannot find common ground, then his proposal for chinese goods will go into effect. the trip for china will be secretary mnuchin's first as u.s. secretary of treasury. the northern rebels held province could become the country's newest humanitarian crisis area. today, along with the foreign-policy chief, he spoke. challenge.ig new 2.5 million people, and you will not believe that all of them are terrorists, of course, their women, children, civilians. making that it would be sure it does not become the new -- the dimensions are completely different. mark: the syrian that serve the toy for human rights says 177,000 people fled combat in the area -- the syrian service for human rights says 177,000 people fled combat in the area. faulty classroom designs and police radio systems contributed to the chaos in a high school. the broward sheriff's office commission today that teachers could not block the classroom doors from the inside during the february 14 shooting. the broward sh

china says it was a potential does it right stephen mnuchin who says that he is cautiously optimistic that the two sides can reach an agreement on trade. mrng told that minutia -- steve mnuchin is planning to travel to beijing. a full-blown trade dispute could derail the global economy. dte is taking steps to resolve the westech been by the company says it runs at survival. zte is being blocked from buying u.s. parts for seven years. they said the ban could had its -- hurt its global business. iran says it will be start's nuclear program if the u.s. breaks the deal struck with the six powers. president trump campaigned on strong opposition to the 2015 agreement and has threatened to drop it amidst what he calls serious flaws. the iranian foreign minister said that would lead america isolated and trigger unpleasant consequences. advice that has this is not a bilateral agreement between iran and the united states. withdrawing from it would be seen by the international indication that you do not states is not a reliable partner. iran has many options and those options are not pleasant. >> at least 57 people have been killed by a suicide bomb

small businesses in florida, treasury secretary steve mnuchin also in attendance there, who monitored the event and bring you the headline. we heard mr wants to veto any bill that would overturn the tax laws. it is time for the stock of the hour, c-shares of bristol-myers squibb is falling more than 8% with rivals make advances a lung cancer drug. joining us is taylor riggs. of who is race getting ahead and was falling behind, and in this case bristol-myers is falling behind its lung cancer drug. they made significant advances today, and if you come into my terminal at gtv , you can see by the share price alone the difference between these two and tell investors are feeling about merck and green. from's a presentation cancer research today, and mark combined with chemotherapy had a practice changing result. bristol-myers had good results, but left out specifics, so analysts were questioning how much progress they need to make to leapfrog and catch up to merck. up 29% of sales, but interestingly enough, it will go from number one to number two. you get the sense they are sort of falling behind in this race. some analysts halfway t

mr. macron. president trump has talked about sending secretary mnuchin to china to smooth things out.part oft chile the trans-pacific partnership. it was signed in santiago last month. where are we in the process and what would you say to president trump bring up the idea of rejoining the deal? felipe: first, thank you. pleasure to be here. we have the opportunity to discuss that the secretary mnuchin. haim visited us in santiago. we have a trade issue and the tpp. on dvd, i think it would be in the u.s. interest to get int -- on tpp, i think a be in the u.s. interest to get into it. but it would be in the interest of tpp to have the u.s. in because it is an important part of the world economy and the main economy of the world. by withdrawing from negotiations, this could be significantly improved. i am not in a position to leave the door open, but with the position of chile, we would welcome that the u.s. reconsiders its participation. but the 11 members have signed the agreement, so would you be able to bring the agreement to be able to implemented by the end of the year if the u.s.

mr. trump was surrounded by the likes of senator marco rubio and treasury secretary steve mnuchin and a number of small business owners here in the south florida and talking about how their businesses help tax cuts. right at the end there was a bit of shifting fierce from the president to economic hot button topic, one he talked about in recent weeks, that is trade as he once again called out the chinese. >> with china, we're at 375 billion-dollar trade deficit. so we started a process and we'll see how it ends up but we're going to win. reporter: well, he said, he made these comments on the same day which he called out both the chinese and the russians in a tweet allegedly manipulating their currencies. in big picture you can expect trade to be a big issue for president throughout the week. he has moved north up to palm beach, settling in at mar-a-lago where he will host the japanese prime minister shinzo abe the next couple days. funny enough japan was one of the countries he mentioned in a long list of nations he says we're losing to when it comes to trade. you can pretty much guarranty, me

mr. gallego: another example, treasury secretary mnuchin. $1 million on seven military flights instead of flying commercial like his predecessors. including a day trip to ottawa with his fiance, a $26,900 military flight to kentucky in august. coincidentally while at the same time, a trip still under investigation by the investigator general. mr. lieu: and then we have interior secretary ryan zinke who spent $139,000 of taxpayer money to renovate some office doors. $39,000 for a helicopter tour of national monuments in nevada. $12,000 on a private jet from las vegas, nevada, where he spoke to a hockey team owned by a major donor, to his home in montana. as well as a taxpayer-funded security detail that also accompanied him and his wife on their personal vacation to greece and turkey at considerable taxpayer expense. mr. gallego: let's talk about h.u.d. secretary ben carson. $31,000 for a dining set for his office. mr. lieu: and now we have veterans affairs secretary david shulkin who spent over $122,000 of taxpayer funds with his wife to go to europe for their primary purpose of site seei

mnuchin will announce those on monday. >> reporter: haley fired back saying with all due respect, i don't get confused. a source close to haley tells cnn she's willing to stand up to mr. trump, saying, quote, she resprekts the presidency more than the current president. haley insists the relationship with the president is just fine. >> how is your relationship with president trump? >> it is perfect. >> reporter: and as for the potential for that meeting between president trump and the north korean dictator kim jong-un, senior administration officials, white house officials, they are all pointing to this trip that mike pompeo made to north korea to sit down with kim jong-un as evidence to democrats as to why his nomination should be approved and in the senate. >> and you're in the grand ballroom at mar-a-largo. the president's resort in palm beach florida and that is where he's holding the news conference with the visiting prime minister. >> reporter: that is right. and i suspect the news that we're reporting now that the trump administration informed the russian embassy on sunday there would not be an additional round of sanctions on moscow is very likely to come up.

mr. trump has taken the view that a very hardline approach works with north korea and china. >> president trump said that steve mnuchine the treasury secretary, would be going to china to try and pass things up on trade. where is the path forward for the united states in china? >> there is a potential meeting a littleon issues like property. -- intellectual property. the difference is the chinese want to do it in their own way at their own pace . they don't want to do these negotiations with the overhang of trade threats. that they have reacted negatively against. how will we get over -- how we will get over the trade deficit issue remains the sticking point. we also have the 10 year going up over 3% now, the equity markets seeming very skittish. is there a connection between those two things. >> they could become much more closely related. the economy seems fundamentally quite sound. in u.s. is certainly engaged a perilous experiment right now with the economy doing well, andy biggs fisk is coming in to is on top of that the trade tensions start creating some disruption, that sets a very negative tone in terms of mar

secretary steve mnuchin said the russian government engages in a range of maligned activity around the globe. they have placed him in special counsel robert mueller's russia investigation. >> mr. putin may believe he's winning in this new form of warfare. >> h.r. mcmaster spoke out against russian aggression citeding russian cyber attacks and the poisoning of a former russian spy in great brittain. >> perhaps he believes the three nations are weak and will not respond to his provocations. he is wrong. >> the white house says that these sanctions will not prevent the president from holding a proposed summit with putin, but, of course, whether or not that summit actually occurs, that will depend how russia responds to these sanctions. >>> late last night secretary jim mattis approved using defense department money to pay for as many as 4,000 national guard soldiers for border security missions. it has texas and arizona deploying 400 members to the u.s./mexico border by next week. mr. trump says the military will fight drug trafficking and illegal immigration, until progress is made on his proposed border wall. >>> scott pruitt is fighting calls for his ouster over alleged finan

mnuchin and his wife made the cut. there will be subtle hints of bipartisanship and the decor, along with 1200 obama-inspired cherry blossom branches to decorate. it says mrstrump will use china from the clinton white house. go ahead, republican line. caller: i wanted to suggest a couple of things about people judging whether mike pompeo can do the job as secretary of state. it might be helpful to think back about every secretary of state that i can remember was elected without having any experience as the secretary of state, but he sure does the job and got a good record. the second thing, i would like for folks to start talking about the democrats not voting and helping out to get people elected, so maybe trump could do a better job. i should appreciate you taking my call. this is my first time. host: thanks for watching and calling. dave in indiana, independent line. caller: i think that mike pompeo seems like he would be a pretty good representative for the united states. host: why? caller: well, because the last eight years, we have took second seat. i think it is about time we take a proper seat in the front. so far, he has not done anything wrong. i