What is Trump enjoy doing in the run up to president? - New York Times

You would think forcing Mitt Romney to eat frog legs, while swallowing his dignity, would have been enough humiliation during the dinner segment of his failed tryout for secretary of state. You would think.
But the president-elect wanted more. Romney was a “choker,” in Donald Trump’s earlier put-down; that, and he walked “like a penguin.” If Romney could take his flightless bird-in-a-tuxedo-act outside and apologize for calling Trump a fraud, then maybe the job was his. Romney would waddle no further. Apologize? Cripes, the title of his book is “No Apology.”
Still, high-five! For Trump, the debasement of Romney was just another hit of dopamine — the neurotransmitter once called the Kim Kardashian of molecules. He needs a jolt several times a day. But in turn, he gives it back to you, the millions in his personality cult, and certainly the click-bait web and cable press, who need it just as much.
Earlier this month, Representative Jim McDermott, Democrat of Washington, took to the floor of the House to plead for one thing from the incoming leader of the free world: “Stop tweeting, Mr. President-elect.” Not a chance. His tiny fingers can launch 140 predawn characters from the fortress of his gilded tower and mighty Boeing will lose more than a billion dollars in stock value a few hours later.
At the other end, his 17.3 million followers wake up every day eager for a shot of unfiltered Trump. It’s a dangerous codependency. “Saturday Night Live”? “Unwatchable!” Vanity Fair, after a scathing review of a Trump restaurant? “Dead!” The slaughter of civilians in the ancient city of Aleppo? Nothing. The real-world consequences of weaponized hatred are no concern for a man with a shameful incuriosity and a profound lack of empathy.
But look again at the Trump Tower stage — it’s Kanye! Who cares about Aleppo, or a foreign adversary deliberately trying to undermine an American election, when you’ve got a troubled rapper stopping by for his hit of Trump. The Orange One recognizes him — on CNN, now cutting away from Syria.
And so we see the clear design that Trump will use to rule: He will give us showmanship and cheap drama, put-downs and promises — the stagecraft of the world’s most powerful narcissist. And meanwhile, the nation will be governed by oil oligarchs, climate change deniers and Goldman Sachs tycoons brought in to do the real work.
The Koch brothers didn’t support Trump. But they got their dream team of hold-back-the-clock fossil fools and corporate sycophants. The bullet-headed nominee for labor secretary, Andrew Puzder, is against expanding the minimum wage for all the poor souls who voted for Trump. The Energy Department nominee, Rick Perry, vowed to eliminate that very agency. And he sits on the board of the pipeline company that wants to carry oil directly under a tribal water supply in North Dakota.
Pay no attention — it’s back on the road with the thank you tour. This traveling gloat-fest is an excuse for more of the Trump narcotic. He is having trouble getting A-list musicians to perform at his inauguration. The sound of an angry mob is music enough. The rallies are a contact high for both sides and — as in Wisconsin the other day — a chance for one more chant of “Lock her up!”
But locking Hillary Clinton up for careless management of her email could be problematic when it seems that Trump’s future national security adviser, the fake news enthusiast Michael Flynn, was himself investigated for wrongly sharing classified information with foreign leaders.
Time for another tweet, a put-down of a union man who dared to question how Trump played Indiana workers for suckers in his big factory stroll. Trump helped to save, at most, a thousand jobs. If President Obama had held a big press tour for all the 15 million new jobs created on his watch, he could boast of 36,000 jobs, once a week, throughout his eight years in office.
It’s boring stuff, anyway. Just like that daily intelligence briefing, which Trump says he doesn’t need because “I’m, like, a smart person.” But more to the point: for Trump, there’s no thrill in basic information. He’ll certainly feel something if there’s a catastrophic terrorist attack and, as with George W. Bush, there was an intelligence community warning of a looming threat.
Back to Trump Tower — oh look, all the tech titans! They didn’t back him, these captains of Apple and Facebook, Tesla and Amazon. And, given his record of boasting on tape of being a sexual predator, Trump couldn’t get hired as deputy office boy at any one of those companies. But as with the Romney grovel, he gets another hit by bringing them to heel. For another day, at least, it’s all a president-elect needs.
I invite you to follow me on Twitter (@nytegan).
New York Times

How Japan’s Radically Different Approach to AI Could Lead to Wild New Tech - TIME Business

How Japan’s Radically Different Approach to AI Could Lead to Wild New Tech Posted: 14 Dec 2016 12:33 PM PST Thanks to artificial intelligence, the automobile — that most American of possessions — is being remade. Self-driving cars from Google’s new Waymo subsidiary will hit the streets next year. Tesla’s fully automated cars will arrive in 2018. Uber is testing its own self-driving fleet in Pittsburgh. More than a dozen other companies have AI-powered vehicles in the works. Conspicuously left out out from the self-driving car boom has been Japanese auto makers. While Toyota is belatedly creating a $1 billion research center for AI-powered vehicles, most of Japan’s auto giants will need five or 10 years to catch up, by some estimates. But there is another, wildly different way that Japan has been deploying AI in cars: to make them more lovable. Next month, Honda will take the wraps off a concept vehicle, named the NeuV, which will use AI technologies from Softbank to, in Honda’s words, “enable machines to artificially generate their own emotions.” Honda has released few details, but says the boxy electric commuting car will have an “emotion engine” that promises car lovers an automobile that will love them right back. In a news release last July, Honda said it would work with Softbank to create an AI technology that could converse with a driver and use sensors and cameras “to perceive the emotions of the driver and to engage in dialogue based on the vehicle’s own emotions.” The NeuV seems to be Honda’s first effort to include the technology inside a vehicle. Softbank’s robotics division earlier developed an “emotion engine” for Pepper, a humanoid robot that retailed for $2,000 and learned the habits and preferences of family members. But Pepper didn’t catch on with consumers. According to Bloomberg, “bad decision making and missed opportunities” left the AI software buggy. Pepper is now being rented out for menial tasks like store greeting jobs, lottery-ball selection and handing out tissue packets, a form of advertising in Japan. Meanwhile, Toyota plans to sell its own humanoid robot next year. Kirobo Mini is a four-inch-tall version of an astronaut robot that spent 18 months aboard the International Space Station. It’s designed as a companion who can recognize faces and locations, talk and gesture to humans, and detect and respond to emotions. Kirobo’s solemnly stated mission is to “help solve the problems brought about by a society that has become more individualized and less communicative.” Toyota also believes the technology could make cars more emotionally interactive. The average person spends nearly four and a half years inside cars, giving Toyota ample personal data that can “better the everyday lives of drivers all over the world.” So like the American companies building self-driving cars, Japanese automakers are aspiring to improve lives with their own AI projects. But in some ways, the impulse is radically different from the way AI is thought of in the U.S., where it’s directed toward faceless, if highly practical innovations, like safer driving and smoother traffic. In Japan, the AI is directed toward alleviating loneliness. iRobot’s Roomba can clean your floors, but aren’t really cute unless kittens hop on board. Japan’s robotic baby seals are so adorable they’re used as a form of therapy. In general, Japan’s approach to AI and robots has less anxiety and ambivalence than in the West. And while industrial-robot makers like Fanuc are adopting machine-learning, much of the innovative work in Japanese robotics over the years has centered on humanoid robots that can interact with and help humans. In the U.S., the discussion of AI and robotics often centers around displacing jobs. Tech leaders like Elon Musk talk openly about their misgivings about AI’s destructive potential even as their companies grow dependent on the software. In a recent interview with The Guardian, Genevieve Bell, an anthropologist employed by Intel to research how humans interact with technology, underscored the different approaches cultures take toward artificial intelligence: What we are seeing now isn’t an anxiety about artificial intelligence per se, it’s about what it says about us. That if you can make something like us, where does it leave us? And that concern isn’t universal, as other cultures have very different responses to AI, to big data. The most obvious one to me would be the Japanese robotic tradition, where people are willing to imagine the role of robots as far more expansive than you find in the west. Bell pointed to the work of Masahiro Mori, a pioneer of Japan’s robotics industry best known for the uncanny valley hypothesis, in which humans are repulsed by robots that look nearly but not exactly like humans. In his book The Buddha in the Robot, Mori offers a perspective on human-automobile interaction that seems radical by western standards. In Mori’s view, humans and robots have a connection that is more egalitarian than master-slave: Depending on how you look at it, I could be regarded as managing the automobile, or it could be regarded as managing me. To control, in effect, is to be controlled: by driving the car properly I enable it to play a safe and useful role in life; but by controlling me, the automobile enables me to be a reliable and effective driver. The same relationship links human beings with all machines. They don’t do what you want them to do unless you do what they force you to do. Such a view has taken Japanese AI researchers down a different road. It’s also left them, for now, lagging behind their Western counterparts, at least in the auto industry. The software powering Pepper or Kirobo may not bring us a futuristic Herbie the Love Bug any time soon, but in time it could lead to a different kind of self-driving car than Google has in mind. After all, the word for “love” in Japanese, when rendered into English, is spelled “A-I.”

Donald Trump’s Denial About Russia - New York Times

Donald Trump’s Denial About Russia
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
DECEMBER 15, 2016
No matter how divided our politics and our times, Americans can agree that our status as a strong, democratic nation rests on the bedrock of free and fair elections. That confidence is what was targeted when Russia, one of our oldest, most determined foreign adversaries, invaded American computer networks and released thousands of pages of documents to undermine the legitimacy of the 2016 election.
This news emerged last summer. Last month, the Central Intelligence Agencyshared a further conclusion, based on months of analysis, that the Russian hacking was intended to favor Donald Trump.
“There shouldn’t be any doubt in anybody’s mind,” Adm. Michael Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency and commander of United States Cyber Command, said recently. “This was not something that was done casually, this was not something that was done by chance, this was not a target that was selected purely arbitrarily,” he said. “This was a conscious effort by a nation-state to attempt to achieve a specific effect.”
Extrapolating motive from evidence is always tricky. But after the C.I.A. provided classified briefings for Congress and the White House, members of both political parties were convinced.
But not President-elect Trump.
Mr. Trump’s instant rejection of the C.I.A. findings as “ridiculous,” based on no review of its work, echoed Moscow’s. “This tale of ‘hacks’ resembles a banal brawl between American security officials over spheres of influence,” Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, wrote on Facebook. Mr. Trump said of American security officials, “They’re fighting among themselves.”
On Nov. 10, two days after the election, Sergei Ryabkov, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, said “there were contacts” between Moscow and Mr. Trump’s campaign. “I cannot say that all of them, but quite a few have been staying in touch with Russian representatives,” Mr. Ryabkov said.
Paul Manafort, one of Mr. Trump’s campaign managers, resigned after reports described his political ties to Russia. Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, sat with Mr. Putin at a gala for Russian state television, where he has appeared as a commentator.
Mr. Trump’s own business ties to Moscow date to the late 1980s. His son Donald Trump Jr. told a real estate gathering in 2008 that “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets,” adding “we see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”
Mr. Trump hasn’t released tax returns or other records that could ease fears that he has financial deals in Russia to protect. And he’s refusing to divest his business interests, so whatever ties there may be are likely to remain.
Kremlin meddling in the 2016 electionwarrants further investigation, with an eye toward preventive or retaliatory measures. President Obama has asked the nation’s intelligence community to deliver a fuller report on its findings before he leaves office on Jan. 20, and a bipartisan group of lawmakers is pushing for a congressional investigation. The results of that inquiry should be made public, and the intelligence community should tell Americans as much as it can about the cyberattack and its goals.
Mr. Trump’s reaction to the C.I.A.’s findings leaves him isolated, and underscores his dangerous unfamiliarity with the role of intelligence in maintaining national security. There could be no more “useful idiot,” to use Lenin’s term of art, than an American president who doesn’t know he’s being played by a wily foreign power. Or maybe it’s as Mr. Trump says: He’s “a smart person,” and avoids presidential intelligence briefings because they repeat what he already knows. If so, what else does he know about Russia that the intelligence agencies don’t?
New York Times

Donald Trump Meets With Silicon Valley Executives to Smooth Over Post-Election Friction - TIME

Donald Trump Meets With Silicon Valley Executives to Smooth Over Post-Election Friction Posted: 14 Dec 2016 01:37 PM PST (NEW YORK) — U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and some of Silicon Valley’s most powerful executives met at his Manhattan tower on Wednesday, a summit convened to smooth over frictions after both sides made no secret of their disdain for each other during the presidential campaign. The meeting was expected to focus on economic issues and skirt the numerous disagreements the tech industry has with Trump – including on immigration, the trade relationship with China and digital privacy – in favor of a focus on shared priorities, sources said. “There’s nobody like the people in this room, and anything we can do to help this go along we’re going to do that for you,” Trump told the executives gathered in a conference room on the 25th floor of Trump Tower. “You call my people, you call me, it doesn’t make any difference. We have no formal chain of command,” he said. Three of Trump’s adult children, Donald Jr., Eric and Ivanka, sat at the head of a large rectangular table as the meeting began. Their attendance may fuel further concern about potential conflicts of interests for Trump, who has said he would hand over control of his business empire to his children while he occupies the White House. Vice President-elect Mike Pence was also in attendance. Guests sat in front of paper name plates and bottles of water sporting the Trump brand logo. The meeting between tech luminaries, including Apple Inc’s Tim Cook, Facebook Inc’s Sheryl Sandberg and Tesla Motors Inc’s Elon Musk, took place as Trump has alarmed some U.S. corporations with his rhetoric challenging long-established policy toward China, a main market for Silicon Valley. A senior Chinese state planning official told the China Daily newspaper Wednesday that Beijing could slap a penalty on a U.S. automaker for monopolistic behavior, a warning delivered days after Trump questioned acknowledging Taiwan as part of “one China.” The official did not identify the automaker. The tech summit is being billed as an introductory session, said sources briefed on the talks. Several company executives thanked Trump for hosting the meeting during introductions attended by reporters. Sandberg said she was most interested in discussing job creation. Other expected participants include Alphabet Inc’s Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, Amazon.com’s Jeff Bezos, Microsoft Corp’s Satya Nadella, and Ginni Rometty from IBM, sources said. Cook and Musk will join Trump for a smaller meeting after the other technology executives leave, a spokesman for Trump’s transition team said. The CEOs of Airbnb and Uber were invited but are not attending. Uber’s Travis Kalanick will instead be traveling in India all week, according to a person familiar with his plans. ‘SOME HESITATION’ Trump clashed with Silicon Valley on several issues during the election campaign, including immigration, government surveillance and encryption, and his surprise victory last month alarmed many companies that feared he might follow through on his pledges. He has said that many tech companies are overvalued by investors. “You look at some of these tech stocks that are so, so weak as a concept and a company and they’re selling for so much money,” he told Reuters in an interview in May. Those concerns have not been assuaged in recent weeks as Trump has threatened to upset trade relationships with China and appoint officials who favor expanded surveillance programs. “For some of the companies, there was some hesitation about whether to attend” because of sharp political and personal differences with Trump, one tech industry source said. More than 600 employees of technology companies pledged in an open letter on Tuesday to refuse to help Trump’s administration build a data registry to track people based on their religion or assist in mass deportations. Silicon Valley enjoyed a warm rapport with President Barack Obama and heavily supported Democrat Hillary Clinton during the presidential campaign. Schmidt was photographed on election night at Clinton headquarters wearing a staff badge, and Musk said in interviews before the election that Trump’s character reflected poorly on the United States. Despite those tensions, Trump named Musk to a business advisory council that will give private-sector input to Trump after he takes office on Jan. 20. Uber’s Kalanick was also appointed to the council. From the employees of the 10 largest Fortune 500 tech companies, Trump raised just $179,400 from 982 campaign donors who contributed more than $200. Clinton raised $4.4 million from the employees of the same companies, with more than 20,400 donations, a Reuters review of contribution data found. Trump publicly bashed the industry during the campaign. He urged his supporters to boycott Apple products over the company’s refusal to help the FBI unlock an iPhone associated with last year’s San Bernardino, California, shootings, threatened antitrust action against Amazon and demanded that tech companies build their products in the United States. Trump has also been an opponent of the Obama administration’s “net neutrality” rules barring internet service providers from obstructing or slowing consumer access to web content. Two advisers to his Federal Communications Commission transition team are opponents of the rules, as are the two Republicans on the FCC. Last week, the two Republicans on the panel urged a quick reversal of many Obama policies and one, Commissioner Ajit Pai, said he believed that net neutrality’s “days are numbered.”

China’s exports to the US fall for first time since crisis ( GFC ) in 2008 - Financial Times

China’s exports to the US are set to fall this year for the first time since the height of the global financial crisis.

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InvaThe value of US merchandise imports from the Middle Kingdom has fallen 4.7 per cent this year, based on annualised data for the first 10 months of 2016, according to Standard Chartered, putting them in line for their first annual decline since 2009, as the first chart shows.

The figures come ahead of the inauguration as US president of Donald Trump, who has threatened to impose tariffs of up to 45 per cent on imports from China, a country he considers a “currency manipulator”, suggesting that China’s exports to the US could decline still further in the coming years.

This year’s decline marks a sharp turnround from the period between 2010 and 2015, when Chinese exports to the US rose at a compound annualised growth rate of 5.6 per cent, according to StanChart, outstripping nominal US gross domestic product growth of 3.7 per cent a year.

Although the renminbi has fallen 5.9 per cent against the dollar so far this year, Thomas Costerg, senior US economist at StanChart, does not believe it was a factor in the declining dollar value of China’s exports to the US, arguing that these exports tended to be priced in greenbacks, not redbacks.

Instead, he says a decline in exports of electronic goods was the “main culprit” behind the overall fall in trade.

Exports of Chinese mobile phones, tablets, laptops and related accessories to the US have fallen in value by 4.8 per cent this year. These categories accounted for 28 per cent of China’s total merchandise exports to the US in 2015, worth some $132bn, giving China a 40.8 per cent market share for such products, according to analysis by Mizuho Securities Asia.

This year’s fall appears to be driven by a declining American appetite for new electronic gadgets, with imports of mobile phones (from all countries) falling 4.9 per cent in unit terms in the first 10 months of the year, to 176m, according to figures from the US Department of Commerce and US International Trade Commission. 

“We have seen a drop in phone sales recently in the US,” says Mr Costerg, who speculates this is linked to the product cycle, with few “must-buy” gadgets being launched.

“We have seen a huge increase in demand for phones, which seems to be coming to an end. It’s unlikely to accelerate [again]. I think the US market is saturated in terms of phones and tablets,” he adds, arguing that a recovery in US electronics imports may be reliant on a new mass-market product emerging, with drones one possibility cited by some commentators. 

The decline in Chinese exports to the US has been far more pronounced in areas such as clothing and footwear, however. 

Chinese footwear sales to the US have slumped 14.4 per cent year to date in 2016 (compared with January-October 2015), from $14.9bn to $12.7bn, far outstripping the 7 per cent decline in American boot and shoe imports in general.

As of 2015, China accounted for 62.5 per cent of US footwear imports, but its market share is being rapidly eroded by Vietnam, which has enjoyed a 12.4 per rise in YTD exports to $4.1bn in the 10 months to October, as the second chart illustrates. Third-placed Indonesia has retained its sales at $1.1bn in a declining market

A similar story is unfolding for apparel and clothing accessories, where China’s exports to the US are down 9 per cent to $27bn year to date, again a bigger fall than the 5.7 per cent decline in the overall market.

Here, too, China’s market share, some 36.4 per cent in 2015, is being eroded by Vietnam, which has seen a 2.3 per cent rise in exports year to date to $9.2bn, as well as Bangladesh, Indonesia and India, as the third chart indicates.

“It does surprise me that clothing and footwear are struggling. [Chinese exports] have been weak for the past two to three years, but they seem to be falling more quickly [now], and that’s not just the exchange rate,” says Mr Costerg.

He believes this is a long-term structural shift, with heightened competition from Vietnam and other low-wage Asian economies increasingly meaning Chinese goods are “crowded out”.

China has also been attempting to move up the value chain as part of its government’s strategy to lessen the country’s reliance on low value-added exports.

This may also be behind weakness in Chinese toy exports to the US, which have fallen 2.2 per cent year on year, according to StanChart. The Middle Kingdom accounted for 82.4 per cent of America’s toy imports in 2015, worth some $25.7bn, according to Mizuho. 

However Gareth Leather, senior Asia economist at Capital Economics, believes China’s exports to the US will bounce back in dollar terms in the coming months.

He argues that the price of many finished goods has fallen in the past couple of years because weak commodity prices have lowered the cost of raw materials, such as steel. 

But with most commodity prices now markedly above the lows they plummeted to early this year, “the dollar value [of Chinese exported goods] is going to rebound over the next few months as the base effect from falling commodity prices falls out,” Mr Leather says.

As for the longer-term outlook, he argues that Chinese exports to the US are likely to be bolstered by stronger US economic growth if Mr Trump pursues the expansionary fiscal policy he outlined on the campaign trail, suggesting that the president-elect may turn out be good news for China’s exporters, rather than bad.

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What Is America Without Influence? Trump Will Find Out - New York Times

What Is America Without Influence? Trump Will Find Out.
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By ANTONY J. BLINKEN
DECEMBER 13, 2016
WASHINGTON — In February 1945, in the twilight of World War II, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill convened in Yalta, a Russian resort town in the Crimea, to deliberate on the direction of the war and the peace to follow. They agreed to a postwar order managed by Roosevelt’s “Four Policemen” — the United States, Britain, Russia and China.
Roosevelt was convinced he could cajole Stalin into keeping his Yalta commitments to collective security and an undivided Europe. Stalin had a very different vision: a world shaped by spheres of influence within which the will of the strongest prevails. In the Soviet sphere, darkness descended on Eastern Europe for 45 years.
It fell to President Harry Truman to contain Soviet expansionism. He built America’s first peacetime alliances, starting in Western Europe, then in Asia. The United States took the lead in shaping the norms, rules and institutions of what became the liberal international order, including the United Nations, the international financial institutions and the Marshall Plan.


From left, Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, and Josef Stalin in 1945, at Yalta.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
The liberal order led by the United States favored an open world connected by the free flow of people, goods, ideas and capital, a world grounded in the principles of self-determination and sovereignty for nations and basic rights for their citizens. It did fall short of its ideals, often in Latin America and Southeast Asia. Yet despite the hair-trigger tensions of the Cold War, it produced decades of peace between the great powers while building shared prosperity.
The postwar order that America built now is facing acute challenges, including from old competitors. Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, is no Stalin and Russia is no Soviet Union. But Mr. Putin does seek to recreate a Russian sphere of influence while picking apart the liberal international order that prevailed in the Cold War. China remains focused on stability at home, but the “new model of great power relations” it has proposed to the United States would have us stick to our side of the Pacific and let China play the pre-eminent role on its side.
America’s allies in Europe and Asia are fixated on whether the Donald Trump administration will reject the re-emergence of spheres of influence or embrace them. They worry that, in his campaign, Mr. Trump seemed to approve of the “strong” leadership of autocrats and favor a transactional approach to Mr. Putin. He showed little concern about Russia’s cybermeddling in our election or aggression in Ukraine while suggesting that NATO is “obsolete.” He argued that the United States should get out of the business of “defending the world” and described Japan and South Korea as free riders that should pick up the burden of their own defense and nuclear deterrence.
He has promised to jettison the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, ceding to China economic leadership and strategic influence in Asia. For many Europeans and Asians, these proclamations translate into a world in which the United States retreats into its cocoon, and Russia and China dominate them in both political and economic spheres.
The United States must not see China or Russia through a zero-sum prism. The Obama administration has deepened areas of cooperation with Beijing, from the Paris climate agreement, the handling of the Ebola epidemic, the Iran nuclear deal and North Korea to joint projects in developing countries. It negotiated the New Start nuclear arms reduction treaty with Moscow and championed Russia’s admission into the World Trade Organization.
Yet when Russia or China challenge the principles of the liberal international order, the United States must stand up to them. In Ukraine, Mr. Putin has sought to change the borders of Russia’s neighbor by force while denying its people the right to decide with which countries, unions or alliances they associate. It is why American support for Ukraine matters.
So does our resolute support for international law in the South China Sea. There, China’s conduct in claiming vast territorial waters and building military outposts on artificial islands risks undermining the freedom of navigation and free flow of commerce upon which our prosperity depends, the peaceful resolution of disputes that undergirds stability and the rights of allies we have vowed to defend.
A sphere-of-influence world would not be peaceful or stable; the United States will not be immune to its violent disruptions. Hegemons are rarely content with what they’ve got; the demand to expand their zones as well as cycles of rebellion and repression within them will lead to conflicts that draw us in. The United States would have to accept permanent commercial disadvantage as economic spheres of influence shut us out or incite a race to the bottom for workers, the environment, intellectual property and transparency.
America’s greatest contribution to peace and progress has been laying the foundation for an open, rules-based, connected world. Now we have to decide whether to continue to defend, amend and build upon that foundation or become complicit in dismantling it.
Antony J. Blinken is the deputy secretary of state.
New York Times

Four key points from the Fed’s meeting - Financial Times

Federal Reserve
Four key points from the Fed’s meeting
Policymakers’ ‘dot plot’ for 2017 overshadows expected decision to raise rates

© AP
4 HOURS AGO by: Eric Platt and Joe Rennison in New York
US government bond markets were jolted by the Federal Reserve’s unexpectedly hawkish turn on Wednesday, when the US central bank increased interest rates for the second time since the financial crisis and set a more aggressive path for tightening than investors had anticipated.
A sell-off accelerated into the close of trading, with the yield on the two-year note climbing 10 basis points to 1.263 per cent, the highest level since August 2009 shortly after the US emerged from recession. Yields rise as bond prices fall.
Losses were concentrated in the shortest-dated US Treasuries, with the three- and five-year Treasury yields rising 11 and 13 basis points, respectively. The dollar clinched its best daily performance in a month, rising 0.9 per cent against a basket of currencies, while commodities including oil and gold sank.
Stock markets weakened, led by declining shares of energy, utility and real estate companies, the latter two highly sensitive to changes in monetary policy expectations. The S&P 500 dipped 0.8 per cent and the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which at one point in the day was 34 points from eclipsing the 20,000 level, fell 0.6 per cent.
Several investors said they had expected a more dovish announcement, given the uncertainty of President-elect Donald Trump’splans to boost government spending and cut taxes that the incoming administration hopes will accelerate economic activity. But momentum in the US economy that began before the election won a vote of confidence from policymakers, with Fed chair Janet Yellen saying she expects progress to continue.
“The surprise and what the market is reacting to is that most people expected a wait-and-see stance from the [Fed] in terms of how they would consider the impact of Trump-enomics in the year ahead,” said Ian Lyngen, a strategist with BMO Capital Markets. “It was a bit of a surprise seeing the Fed buy into the market’s optimism.”
Four key points from the meeting . . .
Three not two
The widely anticipated decision to raise interest rates was overshadowed by the Fed’s policy projections. Along with its decision to lift the target range of federal funds futures to between 0.5 and 0.75 per cent, policymakers at the US central bank plotted a more aggressive path for 2017. The so-called dot plot — the individual projections of officials on the Federal Open Market Committee — showed policymakers projecting three quarter-point rate rises in 2017, up from the committee’s forecast for two when it met in September.
It is a signal from the Fed of confidence in the strength of the US economy, with firming inflation expectations and a healthy labour market, Ms Yellen said.
“We have opened the door” to a faster tightening cycle, said Scott Minerd, chief investment officer of Guggenheim Investments. “If the data continue to come in how we expect, the Fed will have to move faster than people were expecting.”
Beyond 2017, the Fed policymakers projected two increases a year through 2019 and lifted their long-term view of where rates will find equilibrium.
It is a signal from the Fed of confidence in the strength of the US economy, with firming inflation expectations and a healthy labour market, Ms Yellen said.
“We have opened the door” to a faster tightening cycle, said Scott Minerd, chief investment officer of Guggenheim Investments. “If the data continue to come in how we expect, the Fed will have to move faster than people were expecting.”
Beyond 2017, the Fed policymakers projected two increases a year through 2019 and lifted their long-term view of where rates will find equilibrium.

Fixed income pummeled
The sell-off was swift in government bond markets, with knock-on effects felt in investment-grade corporate bonds and emerging market debt.
Yields across the Treasury curve climbed as investors cut positions in US government debt, but this was concentrated on shorter-dated notes. The yield on the 10-year Treasury closed above 2.5 per cent for the first time since September 2014 while the five-year note passed 2 per cent for the first time since May 2011.
“We’re on our way to a 2.75 per cent [yielding] 10-year,” said Rick Rieder, BlackRock’s chief investment officer of fixed income. “I don’t subscribe to the thesis we’re moving to much higher interest rates, but it will be pretty hard until we get other information from the Fed for interest rates to do anything other than drift higher.”
US paper has suffered as investors prepare for faster economic growth and a more aggressive Fed, as well as with the concern that deficits could be funded with a spurt of new Treasury issuance. The yield curve flattened materially, with the difference between five and 30-year paper declining 9 basis points to 113bp, the lowest since September.
The weakness spread to Asian sovereign bond markets as they opened, with yields on 10-year Japanese, Australian and New Zealand government debt rising.

The boon to the dollar
The surge in yields have bolstered the greenback’s appeal, with the DXY dollar index hitting its highest level since 2003 on Wednesday.
The gain has been propelled by the accelerating divergence between US and global rates, with the attraction of higher yields on US sovereign bonds drawing investors to the country’s currency.
The difference between the yield on two-year Treasuries and the safe-haven two-year German Bund hit a high of 205 basis points on Wednesday, a level last touched in 2000. The premium to Japanese two-year notes surged to nearly 150bp, the highest since 2008.
The yen subsequently fell to a 10-month low while the euro slipped below $1.05. As central banks in Europe and Japan retool policy to jumpstart economic activity and inflation, they remain at stark odds with the Fed as the latter tightens policy.
“The US dollar may have been ahead of the Fed in digesting what the US election result might mean for growth, but it will still likely strengthen further on the Fed’s swifter than expected conversion to a possible fiscal reflation theme,” said Daragh Maher, a currency strategist with HSBC.

The market is now (mostly) in agreement with the Fed
The Fed has repeatedly overestimated how quickly it would raise interest rates, drawing the ire of investors and traders who last December put the odds on four quarter-point hikes — as the central bank then projected — at roughly 9 per cent.
On Wednesday traders put the odds on three 25bp rises in 2017 at roughly 45 per cent. Two or more? Traders put those odds at more than 76 per cent, according to calculations on federal funds futures by Bloomberg.
The alignment is visible in December fed funds futures contracts, which climbed to 1.165 per cent on Wednesday. The median of the Fed’s projection: 1.375 per cent.
“The Fed won’t feel constrained because the market isn’t pricing in the level of tightening that they wanted to deliver, which is what we saw in 2016,” Mr Lyngen added.

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Financial Times

After China’s Hubris, It’s Trump’s Turn - Wall Street Journal

After China’s Hubris, It’s Trump’s Turn
By ANDREW BROWNE
Updated Dec. 13, 2016 4:06 a.m. ET
SHANGHAI—China’s belligerence during the Obama era began with hubris —a conviction that post-financial-crisis America was in irreversible decline and its own rise was unstoppable.
That triumphant sense of destiny abruptly ended decades of foreign-policy caution. Chinese dredgers ripped up South China Sea reefs to build militarized islands. Paramilitary fleets swarmed around islets disputed with Japan in the East China Sea. And China served notice that it not only intended to contest the U.S.-led regional security order, but reshape the global financial architecture too. Nothing symbolized that ambition more than Beijing’s successful effort to convince the IMF to ordain the yuan a global reserve currency.
Today, as Beijing tries to figure out how to play Donald Trump, the economic fortunes are reversing.The U.S. economy has new wind in its sails. Investors are betting on a fresh gust from Mr. Trump’s pledge to splurge on public works and cut taxes. Stocks are hitting new highs; the dollar is surging.
Meanwhile, the Chinese economy is struggling. Just months after the yuan formally joined the world’s top currency elites, it has become a symbol not of China’s economic ascendancy but its decline. Chinese citizens are scrambling out of the yuan, spooked by slowing growth, soaring debt and a property bubble.
The yuan has dropped more than 6% against the dollar this year and is now at eight-year lows. Beijing has discovered that the prestige of reserve-currency status, which required China to allow greater cross-border capital flows, has become a liability. Authorities are reimposing restrictions.
Worse, liberalization in the financial realm was supposed to spur reforms in the real economy, particularly the laggard state-owned industrial sector. That project is now largely abandoned, threatening China’s long-term prospects.
It’s not a crisis yet; the government still has plenty of financial firepower left. But one is brewing.
How does all this play into U.S.-China relations on the eve of a Trump presidency?

Mr. Trump accuses China of “raping” America by stealing its jobs through unfair trading practices. During the campaign he threatened to label China a currency manipulator and slap punitive tariffs of 45% on Chinese exports. On Sunday, he raised the stakes exponentially by positioning Taiwan as a bargaining chip—continued U.S. adherence to a “one-China” policy, which underpins the U.S.-China relationship, in return for Chinese concessions on flashpoints such as trade.
Mr. Trump clearly thinks he has the upper hand. “We have trade power over China,” he told the Washington Post before his election.
On the Chinese currency, though, Mr. Trump is hopelessly out of date: China is trying to prop up the yuan—the opposite of manipulation Mr. Trump suggests.
On trade, although the headline data shows China accounted for 50% of the U.S. trade deficit last year, that number gives a highly distorted view since around 37% of those exports consist of imported parts, mainly from Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, according to Deutsche Bank Chief Economist Zhiwei Zhang. In value-added terms, he calculates, China accounted for just 16% of the U.S. deficit, slightly ahead of Japan and Germany.
A trade war with China, Mr. Zhang notes in a report, “would be a war against all participants of the global supply chain, including U.S. companies.”As for dragging Taiwan into the trade dispute, if Mr. Trump tries that as president it will almost certainly backfire. No Chinese leader could bargain over Taiwan and hope to hold on to power. And no other issue would be more likely to inflame China’s nationalistic public and put pressure on the government to lash out, perhaps militarily.
Of course, Mr. Trump’s economic policies are untested. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development says they could either boost U.S. and global growth, or spoil it all if they led to trade protectionism that invited retaliation.
Don’t entirely count China out, either. The Cornell economist Eswar Prasad,an expert on the Chinese currency, says that while the yuan’s “value and prestige have both taken a beating,” this could turn out to be “just temporary stumbles” if growth continues at a decent clip and the government recommits to economic overhauls.
David Dollar, formerly the U.S. Treasury’s emissary to China and now a scholar with the Brookings Institution, argues that if Mr. Trump wants to play hardball in pursuit of balanced trade, he should try to force China to open up its markets and allow U.S. companies to export more products and services. A potentially fruitful way to apply pressure, he writes, would be to restrict the acquisition of U.S. companies by Chinese state enterprises.
As Mr. Trump prepares to ascend to the presidency, however, he risks succumbing to a similar hubris that overcame China, miscalculating both strategically and economically just as China overreached at a moment of U.S. weakness. The consequences for both countries could be even more destructive.
Wall Street Journal

Trump to Push Tech Executives on Jobs - Wall Street Journal

Trump to Push Tech Executi ves on Jobs
During campaign and since his victory, the president-elect has emphasized the importance of boosting U.S. jobs
By ROLFE WINKLER
Updated Dec. 12, 2016 8:03 p.m. ET
President-elect Donald Trump is expected to press prominent technology executives to boost American employment when he meets them in New York this Wednesday, according to a person familiar with the meeting agenda.
Mr. Trump also plans to ask for recommendations on how tech companies can help the government run more efficiently, said this person, in what is expected to be a wide-ranging round-table discussion.
Invitations went out last week, but the agenda hasn’t been publicly disclosed. The meeting is scheduled to take place at 2 p.m. Eastern time at Trump Tower.
Executives from at least 10 companiesare expected to attend, including Apple Inc. Chief Executive Tim Cook,Amazon.com Inc. CEO Jeff Bezos,Alphabet Inc. chief Larry Page and Tesla Motors Inc. CEO Elon Musk.
During the election and since he won, Mr. Trump has emphasized the importance of boosting U.S. jobs. He has specifically targeted companies including Apple for purportedly sending jobs overseas. Apple, Amazon and Alphabet are among the most valuable companies in the U.S., yet they generally employ fewer people than big firms in other industries.
Wall Street Journal

Lesson for Trump in Hong Kong: try to bounce China at your peril CY Leung’s bitter experience illustrates diplomatic difficulties facing US president-elect - Financial Times

Hong Kong politics Add to myFT
Lesson for Trump in Hong Kong: try to bounce China at your peril
CY Leung’s bitter experience illustrates diplomatic difficulties facing US president-elect

YESTERDAY by: Tom Mitchell in Beijing
CY Leung’s decision not to seek a second term as Hong Kong’s chief executive is a disappointing denouement for a man who once seemed uniquely qualified to bridge the divide between his free, open city and China’s Communist rulers.
His failure to be that bridge also highlights an important lesson for Donald Trump as the US president-elect threatens to turn diplomatic precedent with Beijing upside down. Just nine days after accepting a congratulatory phone call from Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ying-wen, Mr Trump has publicly mulled whether he should be bound by the “One China” policy that has been a decades-long feature of the Sino-US relationship.
The lesson for Mr Trump is this: you try to push Beijing across its own “red lines” at your peril.
Years before he became chief executive in 2012, Mr Leung would tell international visitors that if they wanted to see the real Hong Kong, they needed to stray far beyond the territory’s globally famous business and tourist districts.
He advised them to ride a tram eastward along King’s Road to Shau Kei Wan. Only that way could they begin to understand the cramped conditions in which most people lived in what is ostensibly one of the world’s richest cities, at least as measured by per capita gross domestic product.
Mr Leung could rattle off the income disparity statistics that made a nonsense of Hong Kong’s impressive per capita GDP and was fully versed in the monopoly dynamics that belied perennial assertions that the territory was the world’s “freest economy”.
In addition to his understanding of the socio-economic divisions fuelling Hong Kong’s increasingly divisive and paralysed political scene, the chief executive-in-waiting was a long-time Beijing loyalist with unique insight into the inner workings of the Communist party.
According to people close to him, Mr Leung would in private conversations emphasise the Communist party’s preference for “zero risk” outcomes. Convincing Beijing to accept more risk than it was comfortable with was always his biggest challenge, especially in the context of Hong Kong’s political development.
Mr Leung and his two predecessors were selected by a 1,200-member “election committee” dominated by pro-Beijing figures. The Chinese government agreed to a plan for Hong Kong’s chief executive to be popularly elected in 2017, while insisting that the final candidates first be approved by the committee.
It was a remarkable gift from Mr Leung to Hong Kong’s pro-democracy camp, which had long distrusted him because of his close ties to Beijing. Mr Leung was offering Hong Kong’s registered voters the power to sack him.
But the landmark reform was vetoed by pro-democracy legislators who objected to the election committee vetting mechanism. They essentially said: “If Beijing does not give us everything we want right now, we will reject a compromise that moves us much closer to our final objective.”
Hong Kong’s democrats are, in short, well intentioned men and women of principle, but also tactically inept. Beijing refused their ultimatum and the reform died, meaning that Mr Leung’s successor will be chosen by the election committee as well. The stalemate also sparked the “Occupy Central” protests of 2014 that marked the beginning of the end of Mr Leung’s political career.
Mr Trump seems to believe that he can succeed where Hong Kong’s democrats did not, by forcing Beijing to cross a red line it has said it will never cross. It is true that the US has a lot more leverage over Beijing than Hong Kong does, but recovering Taiwan is also a far more important priority for the Communist party than Hong Kong’s constitutional development.
The US president-elect has indicated that Beijing’s One China policy is a bluff that he can call in return for concessions on other fronts, from trade policy to containment of nuclear North Korea. If Mr Trump needs a second opinion on just how wrong he is, he need only pick up the phone and ring Mr Leung.
Financial Times

C.I.A. Judgment on Russia Built on Swell of Evidence - New York Times

C.I.A. Judgment on Russia Built on Swell of Evidence

By MARK MAZZETTI and ERIC LICHTBLAUDEC. 11, 2016

WASHINGTON — American spy and law enforcement agencies were united in the belief, in the weeks before the presidential election, that the Russian government had deployed computer hackers to sow chaos during the campaign. But they had conflicting views about the specific goals of the subterfuge.

Last week, Central Intelligence Agency officials presented lawmakers with a stunning new judgment that upended the debate: Russia, they said, had intervened with the primary aim of helping make Donald J. Trump president.The C.I.A.’s conclusion does not appear to be the product of specific new intelligence obtained since the election, several American officials, including some who had read the agency’s briefing, said on Sunday. Rather, it was an analysis of what many believe is overwhelming circumstantial evidence — evidence that others feel does not support firm judgments — that the Russians put a thumb on the scale for Mr. Trump, and got their desired outcome.

It is unclear why the C.I.A. did not produce this formal assessment before the election, although several officials said that parts of it had been made available to President Obama in the presidential daily briefing in the weeks before the vote. But the conclusion that Moscow ran an operation to help install the next president is one of the most consequential analyses by American spy agencies in years.

Russian Hackers Acted to Aid Trump in Election, U.S. Says DEC. 9, 2016

Mr. Trump’s response has been to dismiss the reports by citing another famous intelligence assessment — the botched 2002 conclusion that the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, had weapons of mass destruction — and portraying American spies as bumbling and biased.

“I think it’s ridiculous. I think it’s just another excuse. I don’t believe it,” Mr. Trump said on Sunday in an interview on Fox News. Some top Republican congressmen have said the same, although with less bombastic language, arguing that there is no clear proof that the Russians tried to rig the election for Mr. Trump.

Yet there is a loud chorus of bipartisan voices, including Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, going public to accuse the Russians of election interference.

Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said the public evidence alone made it clear that Moscow had intervened to help the “most ostentatiously pro-Russian candidate in history.”

“If the Russians were going to interfere, why on earth would they do it to the detriment of the candidate that was pro-Russian?” Mr. Schiff asked.

The dispute cuts to core realities of intelligence analysis. Judgments are often made in a fog of uncertainty, are sometimes based on putting together shards of a mosaic that do not reveal a full picture, and can always be affected by human biases

“This is why I hate the term ‘we speak truth to power,’” said Mark M. Lowenthal, a former senior C.I.A. analyst. “We don’t have truth. We have really good ideas.”

Mr. Lowenthal said that determining the motives of foreign leaders — in this case, what drove President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to order the hacking — was one of the most important missions for C.I.A. analysts. In 2002, one of the critical failures of American spy agencies was their inability to understand Saddam Hussein’s goals and motives.

At the same time, Mr. Lowenthal said, intelligence agencies have always been loath to be seen as taking sides in disputes about American politics.

“This is the one place you don’t want to be as an intelligence officer: the meat in someone’s partisan sandwich,” he said.

Both intelligence and law enforcement officials agree that there is a mountain of circumstantial evidence suggesting that the Russian hacking was primarily aimed at helping Mr. Trump and damaging his opponent, Hillary Clinton.

In July, the infiltration of the Democratic National Committee’s computer servers produced embarrassing emails and other internal party documents, the publication of which caused a backlash that led to the resignation of the committee’s chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and her top staff. Just weeks before the election, hacked emails from the account of John D. Podesta, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign manager, were made public and produced numerous stories about the internal dynamics of the campaign. That hack also produced the text of speeches Mrs. Clinton had given to Wall Street banks.

American intelligence officials believe that Russia also penetrated databases housing Republican National Committee data, but chose to release documents only on the Democrats. The committee has denied that it was hacked.

Beyond the specific targets of the hacks, American officials cite broad evidence that Mr. Putin and the Russian government favored Mr. Trump over Mrs. Clinton.

After demonstrators marched through Moscow in 2011 chanting “Putin is a thief” and “Russia without Putin,” Mr. Putin publicly accused Mrs. Clinton, then the secretary of state, of instigating the protests. “She set the tone for some actors in our country and gave them a signal,” he said.

More generally, the Russian government has blamed Mrs. Clinton, along with the C.I.A. and other American officials, for encouraging anti-Russian revolts during the 2003 Rose Revolution in Georgia and the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine. What Americans saw as legitimate democracy promotion, Mr. Putin saw as an unwarranted intrusion into Russia’s geographic sphere of interest, as the United States once saw Soviet meddling in Cuba.

By contrast, Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin have had a very public mutual admiration society. In December 2015, the Russian president called Mr. Trump “very colorful” — using a Russian word that Mr. Trump and some news outlets mistranslated as “brilliant” — as well as “talented” and “absolutely the leader in the presidential race.” Mr. Trump called Mr. Putin “a strong leader” and further pleased him by questioning whether the United States should defend NATO members that did not spend enough on their militaries.

Russian television, which is tightly controlled by the government, has generally portrayed Mr. Trump as a strong, friendly potential partner while often airing scathing assessments of Mrs. Clinton.

And yet, there is skepticism within the American government, particularly at the F.B.I., that this evidence adds up to proof that the Russians had the specific objective of getting Mr. Trump elected.

A senior American law enforcement official said the F.B.I. believed that the Russians probably had a combination of goals, including damaging Mrs. Clinton and undermining American democratic institutions. Whether one of those goals was to install Mr. Trump remains unclear to the F.B.I., he said.

The official played down any disagreement between the F.B.I. and the C.I.A., and suggested that the C.I.A.’s conclusions were probably more nuanced than they were being framed in the news media.

The agencies’ differences in judgment may also reflect different methods of investigating the Russian interference. The F.B.I., which has both a law enforcement and an intelligence role, is held to higher standards of proof in examining people involved in the hacking because it has an eye toward eventual criminal prosecutions. The C.I.A. has a broader mandate to develop intelligence assessments.

Law enforcement officials said that if F.B.I. agents had the evidence to charge Russians with specific crimes, they would do so. The F.B.I. and federal prosecutors have already gone aggressively after Russian hackers, including two men detained in Thailand and the Czech Republic whom the United States is trying to extradite.

Russia has tried to block those efforts and has accused the United States of harassing its citizens.

The F.B.I. began investigating Russia’s apparent attempts to meddle in the election over the summer. Agents examined numerous possible connections between Russians and members of Mr. Trump’s inner circle, including former Trump aides like Paul Manafort and Carter Page, as well as a mysterious and unexplained trail of computer activity between the Trump Organization and an email account at a large Russian bank, Alfa Bank.

At the height of its investigation before the election, the F.B.I. saw some indications that the Russians might be explicitly seeking to get Mr. Trump elected, officials said, and investigators collected online evidence and conducted interviews overseas and inside the United States to test that theory.

The F.B.I. was concerned enough about Russia’s influence and possible connections to the Trump campaign that it briefed congressional leaders — including Senator Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat and Senate minority leader — on some of the evidence this summer and fall. Mr. Reid, in particular, pressed for the F.B.I. to find out more and charged that the agency was sitting on important information that could implicate Russia.

But the agency’s suspicions about a direct effort by Russia to help Mr. Trump, or about possible connections between the two camps, appear to have waned as the investigation continued into September and October. The reasons are not entirely clear, and F.B.I. officials declined to comment.

Now that a partisan squall has erupted over exactly what role Russia played in influencing the election, there is growing momentum among both Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill to have a congressional investigation.

“I’m not trying to relitigate the election,” said Senator Angus King, independent of Maine, who is one of the lawmakers calling for such an investigation. “I’m just trying to prevent this from happening again.”

Adam Goldman, Scott Shane and David E. Sanger contributed reporting.

Trump's cabinet so far - NBC News

President-elect Donald Trump is building out his Cabinet with allies, old friends, and even some former rivals. Here's a look at who Trump has picked so far:


Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. speaks to media at Trump Tower in New York. Carolyn Kaster / AP
Sen. Jeff Sessions, Attorney General — The Alabama senator became the first member of the upper chamber to endorse Trump in February. As the chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration, Sessions helped Trump craft a hardline immigration plan that he touted would prevent people from entering the country illegally.
Though respected by his Republican colleagues in the Senate, Sessions will likely face Democratic opposition during his nomination hearing for past controversial remarks. Sessions was appointed by President Ronald Reagan for a federal district judgeship in the 1980s, but was blocked by the Senate after being accused of making racially insensitive comments about a former colleague. Thomas Figures, an African-American, said Sessions told him to be careful what he said to "white folks" and once made a comment sympathetic to the KKK. Sessions claimed he had been joking.


General James Mattis served as Commander of U.S. Central Command until his retirement in 2013. YURI GRIPAS / Reuters
Retired Gen. James Mattis, Secretary of Defense — Mattis, a former commander of U.S. Central Command, is known for his blunt, outspoken style and his selection likely signals Trump will take an increasingly hardline stance with Iran. U.S. officials told NBC News that Mattis' philosophy clashed with the Obama administration when it came to handling Iran and U.S. adversaries around the globe.
Mattis, known by the nickname "Mad Dog," aggressively led a Marine division into Baghdad during the 2003 invasion in Iraq. He has openly talked about enjoying war and "brawling." But he is also considered a "warrior monk" with a deep understanding of military strategy and planning.
Mattis, who retired in 2013, will need a Congressional waiver before he can be confirmed. A 1947 law requires a seven-year wait before an active general can head the Pentagon.


Gen. John Kelly has been nominated to head homeland security. Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP
Retired Gen. John F. Kelly, Secretary of Homeland Security — The retired four-star general led the U.S. Southern Command and commanded Marines during some of the most intense fighting in Iraq. Kelly's son, Robert, was killed in combat in Afghanistan, making him the highest-ranking military officer to lose a child during the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. As head of homeland security, Kelly will be responsible for overseeing Trump's controversial immigration plans. As Southern Command chief, Kelly oversaw U.S. military operations in South and Central America -- including the southern border. He, like Trump, has expressed concerns over drug trafficking across the U.S.-Mexico border.


Chairman of the House Budget Committee Tom Price (R-GA) has been nominated to head the Department of Health and Human Services. JOSHUA ROBERTS / Reuters
Rep. Tom Price, Secretary of Health and Human Services — Georgia Rep. Tom Price has been one of the fiercest opponents of the Affordable Care Act and his nomination signals Trump intends to make major changes to Obama's signature legislative accomplishment. The six-term Congressman is an orthopedic surgeon and has written a proposal that would drastically alter the health care law by offering tax credits to purchase insurance based on age.
Price describes himself as a member of the Tea Party and opposes both abortion and gay marriage. His nomination drew swift rebuke from advocates of those causes in addition to proponents of Obamacare.


Ben Carson was nominated as HUD secretary. STEVE MARCUS / Reuters
Ben Carson, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development - Trump's former rival finally accepted Trump's offer to run the Department of Housing and Urban Development after first being approached about the position before Thanksgiving. Carson rivaled Trump at the top of the polls for a time during the GOP primaries, but he ultimately fell short and endorsed the eventual nominee despite the heated rhetoric Trump directed his way.
Before his 2016 run, Carson was best known for his work as a neurosurgeon. At 33 years old, Carson became the director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Children's Center. He gained international fame for his role in helping to separate infant conjoined twins.


President-elect Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos pose for a photo after their meeting at Trump International Golf Club in Bedminster Township, New Jersey. Drew Angerer / Getty Images
Betsy DeVos, Secretary of the Department of Education — DeVos, a 58-year-old billionaire philanthropist, heads the American Federation for Children. Her group advocates for charter school education and she has been an advocate for school vouchers.
DeVos donated to Carly Fiorina and Jeb Bush during the Republican primaries, though she ultimately endorsed Marco Rubio. Bush praised Trump's pick, saying in a statement she has, "a long and distinguished history championing the right of all parents to choose schools that best ensure their children's success."
Groups like the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers have opposed her nomination, arguing her work promoting charter schools has undercut public education and corporatized the nation's school systems.
The Michigan native is married to Dick DeVos, an heir to the Amway fortune, and is the sister of Erik Prince, founder of the government-contracted security company formerly known as Blackwater.


South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley has been nominated by Trump to lead the U.S. delation to the United Nations. KEVIN LAMARQUE / Reuters
Gov. Nikki Haley, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations — South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley quickly accepted Trump's offer to become the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations after the two spent much of 2016 in a tiff. Haley endorsed Marco Rubio in the lead up the Palmetto State Primary back in February, and at one point called Trump "everything a governor doesn't want in a president." She then backed Ted Cruz after Rubio ended his run, and only tepidly endorsed Trump at the Republican National Convention in July.
Haley became the first woman Trump appointed to his Cabinet, though the 44-year-old's nomination to lead the U.S. delegation to the UN raised some eyebrows since her foreign policy experience is limited. Haley, the daughter of Indian immigrants, served three terms in the South Carolina State House before becoming governor in 2010.


Former US Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao has been nominated to head the Department of Transportation. EDUARDO MUNOZ ALVAREZ / AFP - Getty Images
Elaine Chao, Secretary of Transportation — Trump tapped Chao, a former labor secretary, to head the Department of Transportation. Chao became the first Asian-American woman to hold a Cabinet position when President George W. Bush appointed her labor secretary. She stayed in the post for eight years, becoming the only Cabinet member to serve during Bush's entire time in office.
Chao is married to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and has served as director of the Peace Corps, CEO of the United Way of America. She was the deputy secretary of transportation under President H.W. Bush.


Steven Mnuchin, the national finance chair for Trump's campaign, has been nominated as Secretary of the Treasury. ANDREW GOMBERT / EPA
Steve Mnuchin, Secretary of the Treasury — Mnuchin served as the Trump campaign's national finance chair and was largely considered the frontrunner for the job. He began his career at Goldman Sachs, where he spent 17 years and rose to become a partner. He left to start his own hedge fund and went on to become a financier of Hollywood films like "Avatar" and "American Sniper." Throughout his career, Mnuchin showed only a limited interest in politics and remained mostly behind the scenes during Trump's run.


Billionaire Wilbur Ross was selected to head the Commerce Department. Drew Angerer / Getty Images
Wilbur Ross, Secretary of Commerce — The 79-year-old billionaire made his fortune by buying up and restructuring companies in industries like steel and coal, the kinds of jobs that Trump has pledged to bring back. He also has been an outspoken critic of free trade agreements, which was a hallmark of Trump's campaign. His relationship with Trump goes back decades. Ross helped Trump keep control of his failing Taj Mahal casino in the 1990s by persuading investors not to push out the real estate mogul.
Ross is expected to face questions during his confirmation about his role in the 2006 Sago Mine disaster in West Virginia. Twelve miners were killed after an explosion there shortly after his company purchased the mine. Ross said he was aware of the mine had multiple violations but said he felt comfortable sending workers into what he thought was a safe situation.
Still Outstanding
Secretary of State: Trump is believed to be considering Rudy Giuliani, John Bolton, Bob Corker, Mitt Romney, David Petraeus for the high-profile post.
Secretary of the Interior: Mary Fallin is believed to be a finalist and Sarah Palin has expressed interest.
Secretary of Veterans Affairs: Palin expressed interest in the position, and Rick Perry is a potential pick.
Secretary of Agriculture: Perry and Sid Miller are believed to be under consideration.
Secretary of Labor
Secretary of Energy

ANDREW RAFFERTY