The daily business briefing: July 16, 2018

1. Trump and Putin head into summit in Helsinki

President Trump started his closely-watched summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday in Helsinki, Finland. On the eve of the meeting, Trump said he viewed Russia, along with China and the European Union, as "foes" of the U.S. "I think the European Union is a foe, what they do to us in trade," Trump said. "Russia is foe in certain respects. China is a foe economically." Trump arrived in Helsinki late on Sunday after golfing earlier in the day at his private club in Scotland. Hours before the meeting, which comes three days after Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team indicted several Russian nationals for allegedly interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Trump said he blamed Washington's "foolishness and stupidity" for bad relations between the U.S. and Russia.

Reuters CNBC

2. China files WTO complaint over latest Trump tariff plan

China announced Monday that it had filed a World Trade Organization challenge to President Trump's proposal to raise tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods. The move came less than a week after Trump announced the plan, unusually fast for such a trade challenge. The tariffs have to go through a review process, so they won't take effect until September or later, if Trump goes through with them. China has warned that it will retaliate with similar measures if the Trump administration enacts the new tariffs. The U.S. Trade Representative said last week that the levies were a response to Beijing's retaliation over $34 billion in tariffs the U.S. imposed as part of an effort to get Beijing to revise trade policies that have hurt U.S. firms.

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3. Report: Former tenants say Kushner Cos. pushed them out

More than a dozen current and former residents of a building owned by the Kushner Cos., White House adviser Jared Kushner's family real estate firm, told The Associated Press that they believe the company used relentless construction and rent hikes to drive them out of rent-stabilized apartments. The tenants said loud hammering and drilling went on from early morning until nightfall. The work, they said, started months after the company bought the converted warehouse apartment building in Brooklyn. Over the last three years, more than 250 rent-stabilized apartments making up 75 percent of the building were emptied or sold in a conversion of the building to luxury condos. The company acknowledged receiving complaints but said it didn't harass any tenants to get them to leave.

The Associated Press

4. Stocks inch up as corporate earnings overshadow trade tensions

U.S. stock futures edged higher early Monday as strong corporate earnings reports continued to overshadow trade tensions. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by 0.2 percent, while those for the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq-100 inched up by 0.1 percent. The three main U.S. indexes all made modest gains on Friday. European stocks also edged up on Monday as optimism over corporate earnings and potential mergers outweighed last week's clash between European leaders and President Trump, who meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday. Data showing that China's economic growth and factory production had slowed weighed on stocks in Asia.

MarketWatch Reuters

5. European leaders urge China and the U.S. to ease trade tensions

Senior European officials on Monday called on the U.S. and China to end their intensifying trade war. "There is still time to prevent conflict and chaos," European Council President Donald Tusk said at a summit between China and the European Union. The plea came after Trump's renewal last week of his threat to impose tariffs on another $200 billion worth of Chinese goods as early as September. China has vowed to retaliate, as it did when the Trump administration recently targeted $34 billion worth of Chinese imports with new levies. Chinese officials said they did not plan to make "any third country" the focus of the summit with the EU.

The Washington Post