The acting secretary of the Army has instructed the Army Corps of Engineers to provide the final permit needed to complete the Dakota Access pipeline, according to two North Dakota GOP lawmakers who support the project.
Sen. John Hoeven and Rep. Kevin Cramer both issued statements Tuesday night saying the acting secretary of the Army, Robert Speer, had ordered the Corps to grant an easement for the pipeline to run under Lake Oahe.
"This will enable the company to complete the project," Hoeven said, "which can and will be built with the necessary safety features to protect the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and others downstream."
Neither the White House nor the secretary of the Army could be immediately reached for comment. Kamil Sztalkoper, deputy director of public affairs for the Army Corps of Engineers, referred comments to the Army secretary's chief spokesman and said he "can't confirm or deny whether that's accurate." A representative of the pipeline company, Energy Transfer Partners, said the company did not know anything beyond what it saw on Cramer and Hoeven's websites.
The apparent move came a week after President Trump issued a presidential memorandum instructing the agency to "review and approve in an expedited manner, to the extent permitted by law and as warranted… for approvals to construct and operate" the pipeline.
[With new directives, Trump aims to revive long-stalled pipeline projects]
The Dakota Access pipeline has become a central battle point for environmentalists who are trying to stop pipelines in general as part of a campaign to keep fossil fuels in the ground. And it became a heavily symbolic battle for Native Americans as the Standing Rock Sioux tribe sought to prevent the pipeline company from disturbing sacred burial grounds and archaeological sites.
The 1,170-mile pipeline crosses four states, and would carry crude oil from the rich shale oil basins of western North Dakota to the pipeline networks and refineries in Illinois. The pipeline is virtually complete, with the 1,100-foot stretch crossing underneath Lake Oahe being one of the final pieces.
The Standing Rock Sioux have also argued that the pipeline puts their drinking water in danger. The final stretch of pipeline crosses under Lake Oahe, a reservoir created when Army Corps built dams further south on the Missouri River. The company plans to drill horizontally below the river bottom and it argues that the pipeline will be safer than trains and trucks that carry some of the crude oil currently being produced.
But opponents of the pipeline say it could still leak and contaminate the water.
President Obama, as weeks of protests added to political pressures, instructed the Army Corps to look at different route options for the pipeline. The company building the pipeline, Energy Transfer Partners, had considered laying the pipeline in the Bismarck suburbs, about 25 miles north of the current site. The Standing Rock Sioux officials have accused the company of racism for shunning largely white areas of Bismarck and digging in area close to the Native Americans.
A statement by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, provided by its policy adviser Jodi Gillette Tuesday night, said that while a final easement had not yet been granted, tribal members planned to challenge any such action in court.
"The Army Corps lacks statutory authority to simply stop the [Environmental Impact Statement] and issue the easement. The Corps must review the Presidential Memorandum, notify Congress, and actually grant the easement. We have not received formal notice that the EIS has been suspended or withdrawn."
"To abandon the EIS would amount to a wholly unexplained and arbitrary change based on the president's personal views and, potentially, personal investments," the statement added. "We stand ready to fight this battle against corporate interest superseding government procedure and the health and well-being of millions of Americans."
Jan Hasselman, a lawyer with the environmental group Earth Justice, said the pipeline obstacles were still not settled. "The easement wasn't issued," he said. "We assume it's coming soon, and are ready to litigate. But we're still waiting for the shoe to drop."
But Trump made it clear during the presidential campaign he backed the development of both the Dakota Access pipeline and Keystone XL, a project that spanned the U.S.-Canada border that Obama vetoed after a seven-year federal review process. Trump issued a separate directive inviting the company behind Keystone XL, TransCanada, to reapply for a presidential permit, but that process will take much longer.
Midwest Alliance for Infrastructure Now, a coalition of business, agriculture and labor groups, issued a statement praising the move.
"We appreciate that President Trump is keeping his word to move lawful, carefully sited energy projects forward," the group said. "This is a positive development for the pipeline, construction workers across the country, and those who seek to invest in our nation's infrastructure."
Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) also issued a statement welcoming the move, saying "we know construction will move forward – though we are waiting on more information in regards to a timeline for when construction can begin."
Given the likely court challenge, it is unclear when work on the pipeline would restart. The tribal council has asked the few hundred protesters who remain on site to leave, in part because of harsh weather conditions.
Last fall, hundreds of law enforcement officers from different states and counties confronted protesters with water cannon, tear gas and pepper spray. Arrests reached a peak of more than 140 protesters. On Sunday, according to Hoeven, another 20 additional Bureau of Indian Affairs law enforcement officers arrived at Standing Rock to help local authorities.
The acting secretary of the Army has instructed federal officials to issue the easement necessary to build a controversial segment of the Dakota Access pipeline, members of the North Dakota congressional delegation said Tuesday.
"The Acting Secretary of the Army Robert Speer informed us that he has directed the Army Corps of Engineers to proceed with the easement needed to complete the Dakota Access Pipeline," Sen. John HoevenJohn HoevenArmy Corps told to clear way for Dakota Access construction Republicans who oppose, support Trump refugee order Cabinet picks boost 2018 Dems MORE (R-N.D.) said in a Tuesday night statement.
"This will enable the company to complete the project, which can and will be built with the necessary safety features to protect the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and others downstream."
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Speer's order comes one week after President Trump signed a directive instructing the Army Corps to quickly issue a construction easement for a stretch of the Dakota Access pipeline in North Dakota.
Hoeven's statement did not say the Army Corps has actually issued the easement, a step that would allow construction to move forward. An agency official did immediately reply to a request for comment on Tuesday.
"For months, North Dakotans have been on edge over the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline and the protests surrounding it, and for months they have faced uncertainty and delays on the ultimate fate of the project while constant disruptions took a toll on the sense of safety and security of communities near the construction,” Sen. Heidi HeitkampHeidi HeitkampDemocrats line up against Trump’s Supreme Court pick Army Corps told to clear way for Dakota Access construction Day before Trump pick, Dems talk filibuster MORE (D-N.D.) said.
"Now that the Acting Secretary of the Army has directed the Army Corps of Engineers to issue an easement to complete the project, we know construction will move forward – though we are waiting on more information in regards to a timeline for when construction can begin.”
The easement in question would allow Dakota Access developers to build the pipeline under Lake Oahe in North Dakota, nearing the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's reservation in the state.
The tribe, saying the pipeline threatens its water supply and sacred sites in the area, protested against it and brought a lawsuit to block it last year. The Army Corps approved but never issued the easement under President Obama, and in November administration officials said they would not issue the easement and instead conduct an environmental impact assessment of the line. That process could delay the project for years.
In a statement, the Standing Rock Sioux tribe contended the Army Corps can't stop the environmental review and issue the easement without consulting Congress or the tribe first.
"The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe will vigorously pursue legal action to ensure the environmental impact statement order issued late last year is followed so the pipeline process is legal, fair and accurate," the statement said.
Dakota Access protests cropped up around the country last year, and thousands of demonstrators established protest camps against it in North Dakota.
More than 600 demonstrators have been arrested at the camp, and Hoeven said 20 Bureau of Indian Affairs law enforcement offices have arrived in the state to police any protest activities that might happen there.
“It's time to get to work and finish this important piece of energy infrastructure enhancing America's energy security and putting North Dakotans and Americans back to work,” Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said in a statement.
Slack Technologies Inc. unveiled a new version of its popular workplace-messaging app that it hopes will reel in the large corporate contracts that have eluded the software maker.
The service, revealed at an event Tuesday in San Francisco, is designed to handle the group messaging needs of companies with tens of thousands or more employees. Slack Enterprise Grid includes some features like security tools and regulatory compliance…
Companies dependent on global supply chains worry about new tariffs in response to President Donald Trump’s executive orders. | Getty
The administration's executive order hitting immigrants and recent steps toward protectionism are spurring a reversal of sentiment after excitement about cutting taxes and regulations.
NEW YORK — Fear is rippling through corporate boardrooms from Silicon Valley to Wall Street over the new White House's erratic approach to policy, with damage mounting from a travel crackdown, trade protectionism and a persistent habit of singling out individual companies for stinging public criticism.
The latest wave of worry is now focused mainly on President Donald Trump's executive order hitting immigrants, but the concerns are far broader. Companies dependent on global supply chains worry about new tariffs. Exporters hoping for greater access to Asian markets see those hopes fading. And just about everyone is afraid of saying anything publicly that could provoke presidential ire.
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The backlash comes after a few months of hope across much of the business world for an economic boom driven by cutting taxes and shredding regulations.
"It's just a very confusing time for corporate America, which hates to be blindsided by things and then doesn't want to say anything very critical because they will get hit back twice as hard," Greg Valliere, chief strategist at Horizon Investments, said Monday. "What's happened in the last 72 hours has to worry business because the administration looks so incompetent. Big companies notice when administrations seem this amateurish."
Concern over Friday's immigration order, which Silicon Valley giant Google said would affect 187 of its workers, helped drive down stocks on Monday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average back below the 20,000 level it finally broke last week.
Big technology companies have the most at stake from the Trump administration's move to block entry into the U.S. from seven Muslim-majority nations and restrict travel by legal permanent residents and citizens with dual nationalities.
"These tech companies need talent and much of that talent is coming from overseas," said Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group, which advises companies. "This is not about the ban from these seven countries. The numbers there are quite small. This is about creating an environment where America is no longer seen as an attractive place to live for a lot of people these companies really have to have. So these CEOs have to be loud. There is a war brewing here between Silicon Valley and the White House."
After a weekend of criticism from Silicon Valley, Wall Street chief executives began to join their tech colleagues in criticizing Trump's move.
"This is not a policy we support," Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein said in a voicemail Monday to bank employees. "I recognize that there is potential for disruption to the firm, and especially to some of our people and their families."
JPMorganChase CEO Jamie Dimon, in an email from the bank's operating committee to all employees on Sunday, reassured workers of the "unwavering commitment to the dedicated people working here," including those on sponsored visas possibly hit by the executive order.
“We do not support this policy or any other that goes against our values as a company,” Ford Motor Co. Executive Chairman Bill Ford said in a message to employees. | AP Photo
Ford Motor Co. Executive Chairman Bill Ford and President and CEO Mark Fields also took issue with Trump's order in a message to all employees: "Respect for all people is a core value of Ford Motor Company, and we are proud of the rich diversity of our company here at home and around the world," they wrote. "That is why we do not support this policy or any other that goes against our values as a company."
GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt, Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz have also been relatively outspoken in their criticism of Trump's immigration action. Schultz said Starbucks would hire 10,000 political refugees globally.
CEOs' concerns about the travel ban focused on both its potential impact on highly valued employees and confusion sown by its implementation, including mixed signals over whether it would cover legal permanent residents — those with so-called green cards — from returning to the U.S. from abroad.
"We're concerned about the impact of this order and any proposals that could impose restrictions on Googlers and their families, or that create barriers to bringing great talent to the U.S," Google said in a prepared statement. The company's CEO, Sundar Pichai, said in a memo to employees that it was "painful to see the personal cost of this executive order on our colleagues."
Corporate America's early backlash against Trump is not limited to immigration. The White House last week signaled it could pay for its planned border wall with a 20 percent tariff on goods imported from Mexico. The White House then backtracked and said the 20 percent tariff was just one idea among many for getting Mexico to pay for the wall.
Investors and executives who may support Trump's plans to lower the corporate tax rate and eliminate regulations are now buffeted by haphazard implementation, the threat of trade wars and limitations on the movements of highly skilled workers.
"Broad-brush policies like this people barrier impede growth and certainly do not accelerate it," Cumberland Advisors chief investment officer David Kotok wrote in a note to clients Sunday. "Trade barriers and tariffs in the goods market are unhealthy for economic growth. Trump's order extends that barrier policy to services and to skills that are in the human capital realm. Trump has now set back the positive elements of global exchange in both goods and services."
The split-screen nature of Trump's impact on corporate America was on full display Monday. Even as companies reacted to the travel ban, Trump met with nine representatives from small businesses and touted an executive action calling for the elimination of two regulations for every one new regulation put in place.
He also said the stock market was up "enormously" since his win and that the economy was "coming back fast," citing announcements by Ford, GM, Fiat/Chrysler, Lockheed and Boeing about plans for U.S-based jobs.
"The American dream is back," Trump said. "This isn't a knock on President Obama; this is a knock on many presidents preceding me." He also ripped the Dodd-Frank financial reform law and promised big changes, something that has helped financial shares drive the increase in stock prices in the weeks since his election. "Dodd-Frank is a disaster. We're going to be doing a big number on Dodd-Frank."
Many of the job announcements Trump highlighted were neither new nor a result of any of his policies. And Trump's own Treasury nominee, Steven Mnuchin, praised elements of Dodd-Frank in written responses to questions from members of the Senate Finance Committee, according to a document obtained by POLITICO.
All this has left much of corporate America caught between hope for Trump's broader agenda and deeply concerned about many of his initial actions in office.
"The concern is that we get so bogged down on immigration and the Supreme Court and Obamacare repeal that the good stuff on tax cuts and regulatory reform may not move until the fall and could get even more seriously bogged down," said Valliere of Horizon Investments.
Mr. Blankfein's carefully worded criticism still stood as one of the sharpest responses from the finance industry, where business is fundamentally about moving money across the globe. Wall Street has deep roots to immigrants. Marcus Goldman, as a case in point, was a German immigrant, as were the Lehman brothers.
And Wall Street, perhaps more than any other industry except the technology business, has prided itself on hiring top job candidates from anywhere in the world. That said, some banking executives said it was unclear how much the still-evolving contours of the travel ban would affect their staffs, with some saying relatively few employees appeared to have been affected thus far.
Still, the finance sector has had to confront growing nationalist sentiment in the United States and Britain, where the vote to leave the European Union, widely known as Brexit, has threatened to drive out much of that country's financial industry, which could limit global trade and the flow of both money and qualified employees.
"I think it would probably hurt them because they do tend to rely on the best international talent, regardless of where they're from," said Charles Geisst, a professor at Manhattan College who has studied Wall Street.
But the finance industry has largely been cautious in moving into political controversy outside its focus on regulation.
Mr. Blankfein has long been somewhat of an outlier in his willingness to be an outspoken backer of Hillary Clinton, as well as same-sex marriage and other social issues.
So perhaps it was unsurprising that Mr. Blankfein used a voice mail message sent to employees on Sunday — a time-honored Wall Street way of delivering firmwide messages — to criticize the travel ban and note that parts of the executive order had been at least temporarily suspended.
In his message, Mr. Blankfein cited Goldman's business principles, which included the line "Being diverse is not optional; it is what we must be."
Citigroup's chief executive, Mike Corbat, told employees in an internal memorandum on Monday that the firm was "concerned about the message the executive order sends," and he encouraged finding "the right balance between protecting the country and its longstanding role as an open and welcoming society."
And top officials at the asset-management giant BlackRock, which oversees $ 5 trillion in investments and counts big Middle Eastern countries as clients, said that while they recognized the need to keep the United States safe, any approach needed to respect the law.
"We, of course, all want to promote security and combat terrorism, but we believe it needs to be done with respect for due process, individual rights and the principle of inclusion," the executives, including Laurence D. Fink, a founder and the chief executive, wrote.
Still, other firms took a more cautious approach, refraining from outright criticism of Mr. Trump's actions. Most companies that issued statements said they intended to focus on helping any affected employees.
In an internal memo, JPMorgan Chase's top executives said that they were both "grateful" for efforts to keep the United States safe and supportive of diversity. Wells Fargo also posted a statement on its employee website saying that it was still assessing what the executive order meant for its business and employees but that it was "committed to fostering a culture of diversity."
Bank of America said in a message from its chief executive, Brian Moynihan, that it was working to ensure it had the most accurate information to best help affected employees.
The chief executive of Morgan Stanley, James P. Gorman, wrote to his employees, "Continuing to draw on talent from across the globe is a key element of Morgan Stanley's culture and ultimately to our success in serving our clients."
Other firms, such as Blackstone and TPG, had declined to comment.
Here are the various responses that major financial firms have sent to their employees regarding the executive order. (Some have been edited to remove internal company phone numbers.) We'll update the list with more responses as we collect them.
PhotoLloyd C. Blankfein, chief executive of Goldman Sachs. In a voice mail message sent to employees, he said the travel ban was "not a policy we support."Credit Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
Goldman Sachs
This is Lloyd. The president has issued an executive order that, generally, bans individuals from seven different countries from entering the United States and freezes the broader refugee program. This is not a policy we support, and I would note that it has already been challenged in federal court, and some of the order has been enjoined at least temporarily.
If the order were to become or remain effective, I recognize that there is potential for disruption to the firm, and especially to some of our people and their families. I want to assure all of you that we will work to minimize such disruption to the extent we can within the law and are focused on supporting our colleagues and their families who may be affected.
Let me close by quoting from our business principles: "For us to be successful, our men and women must reflect the diversity of the communities and cultures in which we operate. That means we must attract, retain and motivate people from many backgrounds and perspectives. Being diverse is not optional; it is what we must be." Now is a fitting time to reflect on those words and the principles that underlie them.
PhotoJames P. Gorman, chief executive of Morgan Stanley. He wrote to his employees, "Continuing to draw on talent from across the globe is a key element of Morgan Stanley's culture."Credit Joshua Roberts/Reuters
Morgan Stanley
To: All Employees
From: James Gorman
We are closely monitoring developments around the new United States travel restrictions imposed this weekend. While no individual employees were impacted in their travel to date, we are concerned for those individuals and their families who could be impacted and will provide them support as needed.
Any employee who has questions about upcoming travel should contact the Global Travel and Security teams.
We value immensely the contribution of all our employees from all over the world. Continuing to draw on talent from across the globe is a key element of Morgan Stanley's culture and ultimately to our success in serving our clients.
JPMorgan Chase
In light of recent executive orders in the United States regarding immigration policy, we want every one of you to know of our unwavering commitment to the dedicated people working here at JPMorgan Chase. This includes a number of our outstanding employees — all of whom have adhered to our country's immigration and employment processes — who have come to the United States to serve our company, clients and communities.
Over the weekend, we have worked to reach out to all JPMorgan Chase employees on sponsored visas who are potentially impacted by the recent orders. We understand the situation is evolving quickly, so if you have any concerns about your own situation and have not been contacted, please reach out to your local immigration specialist or human resources team.
With more than 140,000 employees in the United States alone, we are grateful for the hard work and sacrifices made to keep our country safe. At the same time, we understand that our country, economy and well-being are strengthened by the rich diversity of the world around us, where we are dedicated to serving customers and communities in more than 100 countries every day.
Thank you.
Citigroup
Dear Colleagues,
Since the weekend, we have been reviewing the executive order on immigration, as well as statements by administration officials, to assess its impact. As a United States company and the world's most global financial institution, we are concerned about the message the executive order sends, as well as the impact immigration policies could have on our ability to serve our clients and contribute to growth. We have been advising colleagues who could be affected and will continue to support them and their families.
We are proud of Citi's diversity and the fact that we hail from over 100 countries. We encourage the leaders of the United States to find the right balance between protecting the country and its longstanding role as an open and welcoming society.
PhotoLaurence D. Fink, chief executive of BlackRock. Top officials at the company said that while they recognized the need to keep the United States safe, any approach needed to respect the law.Credit Gian Ehrenzeller/European Pressphoto Agency
BlackRock
Dear colleagues,
Since Friday, we have been in touch with many colleagues, clients and friends worldwide concerned about the United States executive order restricting travel from seven countries in the Middle East and Africa.
As a truly global company, we are proud of the diversity at BlackRock and proud of the diversity of our client relationships. We have long had valued colleagues and clients in Muslim nations, and, from the earliest days of our company, we have worked hard to build an inclusive culture that welcomes and values the contributions of people from all parts of the world.
BlackRock will continue to embrace our values and culture, notwithstanding the challenges created by this order. Indeed, we believe that it is more important than ever that we promote our principles, which we established at the founding of our company 29 years ago, including our commitment to inclusion. We, of course, all want to promote security and combat terrorism, but we believe it needs to be done with respect for due process, individual rights and the principle of inclusion.
In addition to the broader implications of this order, we have been working to assess the impact it may have on travel for BlackRock's employees. At this time, we believe there are relatively few individuals whose travel will be directly impacted, but of course the full implications are still being assessed. We also are closely monitoring the repercussions for United States citizens traveling abroad.
As you have likely already seen in news reports, there are protests at many United States airports. Anyone traveling either internationally or domestically should anticipate longer delays getting to or from airports and passing through immigration. If you have any questions or concerns about your travel, please call the Corporate Security hotline 24 hours a day. We will continue to keep you posted as the situation evolves.
BlackRock always has and will continue to engage with and welcome people in all parts of the world. That is at the root of who we are and always will be.
Larry Fink, chairman and C.E.O.
Rob Kapito, president
Jeff Smith, global head of human resources
Wells Fargo
On Friday, President Trump signed an executive order on immigration that includes a provision blocking citizens of seven countries from entering the United States for 90 days — these countries are Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
The company is currently reviewing the executive order and its implications to determine whether it has any direct effect on team members or our business.
"While we are still assessing what this change means for Wells Fargo, we know that it may have deeply personal implications for team members who may have friends or family affected by it," says chief administrative officer Hope Hardison. "As always, Wells Fargo is committed to fostering a culture of diversity and inclusion where our team members are encouraged to value and respect others for their differences. These values will continue to be of great importance as we support team members who have been affected by this executive order."
PhotoBrian Moynihan, Bank of America's chief executive. He said the company was working to ensure it had the most accurate information to best help affected employees.Credit Mark Lennihan/Associated Press
Bank of America
Below is a message from C.E.O. Brian Moynihan.
As a global company, we depend upon the diverse sources of talent that our teammates represent. In view of this, we are closely monitoring the recent refugee- and immigration-related executive order in the United States, and subsequent developments.
We are connecting with teammates who may be affected, in response to questions. We also are working to ensure we have the most accurate and timely information to best assist potentially impacted teammates. We will share information and provide updates as the situation continues to develop.
Deutsche Bank AG was fined $ 629 million by U.K. and U.S. authorities for compliance failures that saw the bank help wealthy Russians move about $ 10 billion out of the country using transactions that were likely thinly veiled attempts to cover up financial crime.
The U.K. Financial Conduct Authority issued a 163 million-pound ($ 204 million) fine Tuesday, hours after New York's Department of Financial Services fined the bank $ 425 million, for failures over the so-called “mirror-trades.” A criminal investigation by the U.S. Justice Department is ongoing into the trades, which were used to convert rubles into dollars and transfer the money out of Russia.
The deals come weeks after Deutsche Bank agreed to a $ 7.2 billion settlement to resolve a U.S. investigation into its sales of toxic mortgage debt. While the bank has been pressing to wrap up regulatory reviews, investigations into whether it manipulated foreign-currency rates and precious metals prices haven't been resolved.
From April 2012 to October 2014, mirror trades were used by Deutsche Bank customers to transfer more than $ 6 billion from Russia, through the German lender's arm in the U.K., to overseas bank accounts including in Cyprus, Estonia, and Latvia, the FCA said. Another nearly $ 4 billion in suspicious “one-sided trades” were also carried out.
Making Progress
Deutsche Bank chief administrative officer Karl von Rohr said in a memo to staff that the bank is "making progress" toward resolving the investigations.
"We are cooperating with other regulators and law enforcement authorities, which have their own ongoing investigations into these securities trades," von Rohr said in the memo, which was published on the bank's website Tuesday. "We have some way to go until we can put our major legacy legal matters behind us, but we continue to pursue their resolution step-by-step."
The mirror trades allowed clients to buy local blue-chip shares for rubles, while the same stocks would be sold in London for dollars, in order to obtain the U.S. currency. Although such trades can be legal, there were a lack of controls in place at Deutsche Bank to prevent money laundering and other offenses.
The New York regulator said Monday it also appeared a close relative of a Deutsche Bank supervisor in Moscow received bribes worth a quarter million dollars so that the supervisor would clear the trades.
"Financial crime is a risk to the U.K. financial system,” Mark Steward, director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA, said in a statement. “We have repeatedly told firms how to comply with our anti-money laundering requirements and the failings of Deutsche Bank are simply unacceptable.”
Fines Reflected
Fines to settle the probes into Russian securities trades were "materially reflected in existing litigation reserves," Deutsche Bank said in a separate statement Tuesday morning. The bank received the FCA's standard 30 percent discount on the bulk of the penalty for cooperating with the probe at an early stage.
Nearly 6,000 pairs of suspicious mirror trades were carried out during the period, the FCA said.
Shares of the Frankfurt-based bank rose as much as 2.1 percent when markets opened Tuesday. The lender is scheduled to release its fourth-quarter earnings results on Thursday.
“Removing uncertainties is great news,” said Neil Smith, an analyst with Bankhaus Lampe KG, who has a buy rating on Deutsche Bank. “And it's largely covered by provisions, which means there shouldn't be a big impact on profit. This came earlier than expected.”
ByKaren Freifeld and Arno Schuetze|NEW YORK/FRANKFURT
NEW YORK/FRANKFURT Deutsche Bank AG (DBKGn.DE) has agreed to pay $ 425 million to New York’s banking regulator over a “mirror trading” scheme that moved $ 10 billion out of Russia between 2011 and 2015, the regulator said on Monday.
In addition, Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority is about to penalize the bank roughly $ 200 million for the suspicious trades, a person familiar with the matter said.
The scheme involved clients buying stocks in Moscow in rubles and related parties selling the same stocks shortly thereafter through the bank’s London branch, the New York Department of Financial Services (DFS) said in a statement.
The trade of a Russian blue chip stock, typically valued at between $ 2 million to $ 3 million an order, was cleared through the bank’s New York operations, with the sellers typically paid in U.S. dollars, DFS said.
The regulator, which licenses and supervises the New York branch, found the bank conducted its business in an unsafe and unsound manner in violation of state banking law.
Though the trades appeared to have no legitimate economic purpose, Deutsche’s deficient anti-money laundering controls and know-your-customer policies did not detect and stop the scheme for years, DFS superintendent Maria Vullo said.
Deutsche Bank said “it has been unable to identify the actual purpose behind this scheme,” according to a consent order between the New York regulator and the bank. “It is obvious, though, that the scheme could have facilitated capital flight, tax evasion or other potentially illegal objectives.”
In addition to the penalty, Deutsche is required to retain an independent monitor to review the bank’s compliance programs.
Deutsche Bank said in a statement that the settlement monies were already reflected in existing litigation reserves. It said the regulator considered its cooperation and remediation in reaching the penalty.
Deutsche also said it was cooperating with other regulators and law enforcement authorities with their ongoing investigations of the trades.
A spokesperson for the Financial Conduct Authority declined to comment. The source on the FCA’s expected penalty did not want to be identified because the terms were not public.
The New York regulator said it worked closely on the investigation with the FCA.
Reuters reported on Monday that Deutsche Bank was poised to settle with British and U.S. authorities over the trades.
The U.S. Department of Justice, which also has been investigating the suspicious trades, is not party to the deal. A spokesman for the department declined to comment on the status of its probe.
Deutsche Bank disclosed last September that it had taken disciplinary measures against certain employees as part of an investigation of the trades and would continue to do so.
The bank also cut back on its investment banking activities in Russia last year.
Monday’s consent order found Deutsche Bank’s Moscow traders facilitated the scheme, with most of the trades placed by a single trader representing both sides of the transaction.
Deutsche’s Moscow traders did not question the suspicious trades because it made for easy commissions when their Russian business had slowed, the regulator found.
The regulator also noted that one Moscow supervisor may have been bribed to facilitate the schemes, and that senior bank employees missed red flags and did not take action towards real reform until 2016.
Deutsche Bank had set aside 1 billion euros ($ 1.1 billion) in provisions for the Russian probes, people close to the matter have told Reuters.
The resolution of the New York mirror trade probe comes on the heels of a $ 7.2 billion agreement with the Justice Department for misleading investors in selling mortgage-backed securities in the run-up to the financial crisis. The two settlements lift much of the uncertainty swirling around the bank over its exposure to fines and enforcement.
The bank is due to report fourth-quarter financial results on Thursday.
(Reporting by Karen Freifeld and Arno Schuetze; Editing by Bernard Orr)
—An executive order President Trump signed on Monday could lead regulators to, strictly speaking, think twice before they introduce a new rule. For every new regulation they put forward, agencies must identify two others they plan to eliminate to offset costs.
The "one in, two out" order is the Trump administration's first stab at reining in federal regulations and their associated spending in order to benefit businesses.
"This will be the biggest such act that our country has ever seen," Mr. Trump said in the Oval Office as he signed the order, surrounded by small business owners, according to Politico. "There will be regulation. There will be control. But it will be normalized control."
During his campaign and his first days in office, Trump vowed to cut 75 percent of regulations in order to help businesses, big and small. He and his staff said Monday that "one in, two out" is just the start. But critics argue the order is an attack on public protections and a solution with a catchy banner in search of a problem.
The order aims to both limit federal regulations and prepare the process to set an annual cap on the cost of new regulations. In the rest of fiscal year 2017, the order will require regulators seeking a new rule to identify two existing ones they plan to eliminate. They will report to the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which reviews major regulations already.
The order does not require the repeal of the two regulations simultaneously. But the stated intention is that no agency will increase its total spending on regulations this year. The order does make exemptions for emergencies, the military, and national security.
Starting in 2018, the order then calls on the director of OMB to give each agency a budget for how much it can increase regulatory costs or cut regulatory costs, according to The Hill:
Senior administration officials touted it as the "most significant administrative action in the world of regulatory reform since President Reagan created the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) in 1981.”
OIRA is tasked with reviewing and signing off on all proposed and final rules before they are published in the Federal Register.
When the new order does kick in, consumer rights groups say its affect could be disastrous.
"It's horrifying that even after the Wall Street crash, the massive BP oil spill and numerous other public health and safety disasters across the country due to a lack of strong regulations, Americans will once again have to pay the price for the consequences of corporate recklessness, greed and lawbreaking," Robert Weissman, the president of the group Public Citizen, said in a statement on Monday. "This [executive order] is just the next and most arbitrary attack in a litany of attacks against public protections."
But such restrictions aren't unheard of on the world stage. Canada, Australia, and Britain have all introduced similar orders, according to The Hill. For every rule issued in Britain, three existing rules must be eliminated. According to a government report, the rule saved businesses £885 million ($ 1.1 billion) from May 5, 2015 to May 26, 2016.
But Steve Benen, a political blogger for MSNBC, warns that the Trump administration's version is a hasty and dangerous approach:
Obviously, Trump and his Republican team are going to be hostile towards regulations, safeguards, and layers of accountability. These attitudes are deeply rooted in GOP orthodoxy and are common among those who see government protections as needless hindrances to the free market.
But the grown-up way of reducing regulations is to identify existing safeguards that an administration considers unnecessary or out of date and then eliminate them. Trump's way of reducing regulations is an arbitrary little game he expects federal officials to play.
In his first month in office, Trump has also promised to scale back environmental regulations to bolster the auto industry. Auto execs that met Trump at the White House welcomed the promises intended to aide them in opening new assembly plants in the US.
“I come out with a lot of confidence that the president is very, very serious about making sure that the United States’ economy is going to be strong and have policies on tax, regulatory, or trade to drive that,” Mark Fields, the chief executive of Ford, told reporters after the meeting, according to The Washington Post. “That encourages all of us as CEOs as we make decisions going forward. It was a very, very positive meeting.”
This report contains material from the Associated Press and Reuters.
President Donald Trump was surrounded by business leaders in the Oval Office while signing the executive action Monday.
By Steven Mufson Washington Post
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump signed an order Monday aimed at cutting regulations on businesses, saying that agencies should eliminate two regulations for every new one.
The White House later released the text of the order, which added that the cost of any new regulation should be offset by eliminating regulations with the same costs to businesses. It excluded regulations regarding the military.
The impact of the order was difficult to judge based on the president's remarks. It could be difficult to implement under current law, and would concentrate greater power in the Office of Management and Budget, which already reviews federal regulations.
Trump signed the document — which he called ''a big one'' — at his desk in the Oval Office surrounded by nine small business owners, who earlier this morning met in the Roosevelt Room.
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''This will be the largest ever cut by far in terms of regulations,'' Trump said. ''If you have a regulation you want number one we're not going to approve it because it's already been approved probably in 17 different forms. But if we do the only way you have a chance is we have to knock out two regulations for every new regulation. So if there's a new regulation they have to knock out two. But it goes way beyond that.''
But experts on government policy said Trump's formulation made little sense. ''There's no logic to this,'' William Gale, a tax and fiscal policy expert at the Brookings Institution, said before seeing the executive order. ''The number of regulations is not the key. It's how onerous regulations are. This seems like a totally nonsensical constraint to me.''
Trump said the move would help both large and small businesses. ''Regulation has been horrible for big business, but it's been worse for small business,'' he said, noting that small businesses cannot hire the talent and compliance personnel that larger businesses do.
''There will be regulation, there will be control, but it will be a normalized control where you can open your business and expand your business very easily and that's what our country has been all about,'' Trump said.
Administration members who attended the signing included White House counsel Donald McGahn; chief of staff Reince Priebus; Jared Kushner, domestic policy director Andrew Bremberg; and National Economic Council director Director Gary Cohn.
The president was surrounded by small business leaders as he signed the order in the Oval Office Monday morning.
Trump says that the order is aimed at ''cutting regulations massively for small business.''
He says it will be the ''biggest such act that our country has ever seen.''
Earlier, White House officials called the directive a ''one in, two out'' plan. It requires government agencies requesting a new regulation to identify two regulations they will cut from their own departments.
The officials insisted on anonymity in order to detail the directive ahead of Monday's formal announcement.
President Trump signed an executive order reducing regulations on small businesses, on Jan. 30 at the White House. (The Washington Post)
President Trump signed an order Monday aimed at cutting regulations on businesses, saying that agencies should eliminate at least two regulations for each new one.
The White House later released the text of the order, which added that the cost of any new regulation should be offset by eliminating regulations with the same costs to businesses. It excluded regulations regarding the military.
The impact of the order was difficult to judge based on the president's remarks. It could be difficult to implement under current law and would concentrate greater power in the Office of Management and Budget, which already reviews federal regulations.
Moreover, any effort to scrap a regulation triggers a regulatory process, complete with draft rules, comment periods, and regulation rewriting. That process often ends in litigation. At the least, Trump's proposal would add a new time-consuming requirement for any new congressional legislation or agency regulation on topics as varied as banking, health care, environment, labor conditions and more.
[Congress can now start erasing some of Obama's environmental rules. Here's what they're targeting.]
Trump signed the document — which he called "a big one" — at his desk in the Oval Office surrounded by nine small-business owners, who earlier this morning met in the Roosevelt Room.
"This will be the largest ever cut by far in terms of regulations," Trump said. "If you have a regulation you want, number one we're not going to approve it because it's already been approved probably in 17 different forms. But if we do, the only way you have a chance is we have to knock out two regulations for every new regulation. So if there's a new regulation, they have to knock out two. But it goes way beyond that."
But experts on government policy said Trump's formulation made little sense. William Gale, a tax and fiscal policy expert at the Brookings Institution, said "the number of regulations is not the key. It's how onerous regulations are. This seems like a totally nonsensical constraint to me."
Moreover, many departments impose regulations that have costs for businesses but benefits for individuals.
Ken Kimmell, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, called the executive order "absurd, imposing a Sophie's Choice on federal agencies. If, for example, the Environmental Protection Agency wants to issue a new rule to protect kids from mercury exposure, will it need to get rid of two other science-based rules, such as limiting lead in drinking water and cutting pollution from school buses?"
Kimmell added that Trump's order was "also likely illegal. Congress has not called upon EPA to choose between clean air and clean water, and the president cannot do this by executive fiat."
Other government regulations often taken for granted include Food and Drug Administration requirements for calorie counts in restaurants, Federal Aviation Administration regulations on aircraft safety, EPA regulations on automobile fuel efficiency, and Treasury regulations on banking standards. Many businesses, however, call federal regulations burdensome and costly.
Trump's order directs the Office of Management and Budget to provide guidance on how to estimate costs and set standards for what qualifies as new and offsetting regulations. Trump advisers, who briefed White House reporters on background, said the administration would establish a new management regime — "a strong structural process" — to handle task.
Jim Tozzi, a former head of OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs and now head of the nongovernmental Center for Regulatory Effectiveness, said that Trump's proposal would require a lot of analytical work.
"It is not a trivial undertaking at all," Tozzi said.
He said existing regulations, many of them quite old, may have costs much different from the original estimates. Updating those estimates would be "a huge undertaking," he said. Tozzi favors a federal budget for new regulations alone.
"It's extraordinary. That's all I can say," said Tom McGarity, a law professor at the University of Texas-Austin who focuses on environmental law and the regulatory process. "It is amazingly ham-handed. Because it applies to every regulation. It's not limited to major regulations."
McGarity said there doesn't seem to be much of a way to challenge the executive order. Trump can do this under laws such as the Administrative Procedures Act of 1946, he said.
Trump said the move would help both large and small businesses. "Regulation has been horrible for big business, but it's been worse for small business," he said, noting that small businesses cannot hire the talent and compliance personnel that larger businesses do.
"There will be regulation, there will be control, but it will be a normalized control where you can open your business and expand your business very easily and that's what our country has been all about," Trump said. He said he hoped to eliminate 75 percent of government regulations.
Administration members who attended the signing included White House Counsel Donald McGahn, Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, senior adviser Jared Kushner, Domestic Policy Council Director Andrew Bremberg and National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn.
Trump's nominee for OMB director, Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.), is awaiting confirmation. The position for OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs has not been filled.
— Chris Mooney contributed to this report.
More from Energy and Environment:
Trump administration backs off plan to scrub climate pages from EPA website
President Trump signed an order Monday aimed at cutting regulations on businesses, saying that agencies should eliminate two regulations for each new one.
The White House later released the text of the order, which added that the cost of any new regulation should be offset by eliminating regulations with the same costs to businesses. It excluded regulations regarding the military.
The impact of the order was difficult to judge based on the president's remarks. It could be difficult to implement under current law and would concentrate greater power in the Office of Management and Budget, which already reviews federal regulations. And it would add a new time-consuming requirement for any new congressional legislation on topics as varied as banking, health care, environment, labor conditions and more.
Trump signed the document — which he called "a big one" — at his desk in the Oval Office surrounded by nine small-business owners, who earlier this morning met in the Roosevelt Room.
"This will be the largest ever cut by far in terms of regulations," Trump said. "If you have a regulation you want, number one we're not going to approve it because it's already been approved probably in 17 different forms. But if we do, the only way you have a chance is we have to knock out two regulations for every new regulation. So if there's a new regulation, they have to knock out two. But it goes way beyond that."
But experts on government policy said Trump's formulation made little sense. "There's no logic to this," William Gale, a tax and fiscal policy expert at the Brookings Institution, said before seeing the executive order. "The number of regulations is not the key. It's how onerous regulations are. This seems like a totally nonsensical constraint to me."
Moreover, many departments impost regulations that have costs for businesses but benefits for individuals.
Ken Kimmell, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, called the executive order "absurd, imposing a Sophie's Choice on federal agencies. If, for example, the Environmental Protection Agency wants to issue a new rule to protect kids from mercury exposure, will it need to get rid of two other science-based rules, such as limiting lead in drinking water and cutting pollution from school buses?"
Kimmell added that Trump's order was "also likely illegal. Congress has not called upon EPA to choose between clean air and clean water, and the president cannot do this by executive fiat."
Jim Tozzi, a former head of OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs and now head of the non-governmental Center for Regulatory Effectiveness, said that Trump's proposal "is going to be a lot of analytical work. It is not a trivial undertaking at all." He said existing regulations, many of them quite old, may have costs much different from the original estimates. Updating those estimates would be "a huge undertaking," he said. Tozzi favors a federal budget for new regulations alone.
Trump said the move would help both large and small businesses. "Regulation has been horrible for big business, but it's been worse for small business," he said, noting that small businesses cannot hire the talent and compliance personnel that larger businesses do.
"There will be regulation, there will be control, but it will be a normalized control where you can open your business and expand your business very easily and that's what our country has been all about," Trump said. He said he hoped to eliminate 75 percent of government regulations.
Administration members who attended the signing included White House Counsel Donald McGhan; Chief of Staff Reince Priebus; senior adviser Jared Kushner; Domestic Policy Council Director Andrew Bremberg; and National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn.
More from Energy and Environment:
Trump administration backs off plan to scrub climate pages from EPA website
President Donald Trump defended the immigration clampdown that sparked a global backlash over the weekend by blaming the confusion at airports on protesters and on a computer outage at Delta Air Lines Inc. that caused flight cancellations.
"Only 109 people out of 325,000 were detained and held for questioning. Big problems at airports were caused by Delta computer outage" and "protesters," Trump said in a series of Twitter messages Monday. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly "said that all is going well with very few problems."
The computer interruption at Delta didn't begin until about 6:30 p.m. New York time on Sunday, more than 48 hours after Trump signed the executive order that caused chaos at several U.S. airports as everyone from travelers to airline gate crews to immigration officers were left to contend with conflicting edicts. Crowds of thousands gathered from New York to Atlanta to Detroit on Sunday to protest the travel restrictions.
The Department of Homeland Security late Sunday said permanent U.S. residents from seven mostly Islamic countries covered by Trump's order should no longer be detained at American airports and no one covered by the ban should be getting on planes overseas.
While Delta's outage grounded about 170 flights, it lasted less than three hours and didn't affect international flights. A Delta spokesman didn't immediately comment.
Allies Condemn Move
Trump was defending an executive order issued two days earlier that sets new barriers to entry for people from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen and Libya. Refugees, visa holders and permanent U.S. residents were all among those affected, at least initially. But three U.S. court orders were issued blocking parts of the plan and White House aides sought to minimize the impact of the order Monday after allies from the U.K. to Germany condemned the move and major international companies said it threatened to strangle the free flow of workers and commerce.
Besides defending the substance of the policy, Trump defended putting it into immediate effect. "If the ban were announced with a one week notice, the 'bad' would rush into our country during that week. A lot of bad 'dudes' out there!" the president said in another tweet Monday.
Trump compared his order to one issued by his predecessor, Barack Obama, and effectively told fellow Republicans who criticized him to mind their own business.
"This is not about religion — this is about terror and keeping our country safe," Trump said in a statement Sunday pushing back against the international uproar that followed his action. "There are over 40 different countries worldwide that are majority Muslim that are not affected by this order."
Figuring It Out
The fallout from the order was swift, compounded by the fact that few — including some of Trump's own aides — seemed clear what was in it. Two of his top aides, strategist Steve Bannon and son-in-law Jared Kushner, had to get on the phone with British officials to walk them through it. Another Trump aide said the order added a new step to re-entry for some green-card holders. Yet another aide said the status of such permanent legal residents would be clarified later.
Late in the day Sunday, Kelly issued a statement declaring that the entry of green-card holders is in the national interest. He said such individuals would be allowed into the country barring any significant evidence that they pose “a serious threat to public safety and welfare."
Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway said on CNBC Monday that there was a campaign of "misinformation" about the order.
'Most Generous Country'
"We are the most generous country in the world when it comes to our immigration policies but you have to go stand in line and you can't be, at least for the next 90 days, a foreign national or a citizen of seven countries," Conway said.
One Trump friend and adviser, Tom Barrack, said the president has indicated that the immigration order serves two purposes: one, to keep a potential terrorist out, but two to send a signal to the larger Middle East that the countries there need to take control of the situation at home and stop using a flood of refugees as a bargaining chip to pressure the West.
Given that Trump's foreign policy team is only now taking shape, "it is just a way to push back with the only tool that he has, so he is giving a time-out while his team gets in place and then they will have a run at it," Barrack said in an interview.
Trump views the order as the first step of what he has described as a "Marshall plan" for the Middle East, where he will help countries with U.S. support in hopes of improving lives and putting as many as 60 million young people to work on electricity and other infrastructure projects, Barrack said. Trump made calls on Sunday to two U.S. allies in the region — Saudi Arabia's King Salman and Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed.
Read about Trump's calls to Arab allies to boost anti-terrorism efforts.
Courts Jump In
Amid the confusion over Trump's order, the courts went into the breach, with no fewer than three federal judges seeking to block parts of it temporarily. The judges intended to prevent people stopped from entering the country from being sent back home, and to let most of those who were stopped enter the U.S. But they did little to clarify the state of the law going forward. White House officials insisted the rulings were moot because the travelers were processed as provided under the law.
Read about a judge's ruling that may help tech workers bypass the order.
Adding to the legal drama is the expectation that Trump will now name his Supreme Court nominee on Tuesday, setting the constitutionality of this order as a backdrop to what is sure to be a brutal confirmation battle with Democrats who joined the outcry against Trump's move.
The human drama played out at airports across America, Europe and the Middle East, as officials struggled to interpret instructions that appeared to catch much of the U.S. government by surprise.
At the same time, the potential implications began to set in for multinational companies. After an early outburst of anger by some American technology leaders — Apple's Tim Cook, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Tesla's Elon Musk — chief executive officers of other industries from finance to autos started to grapple with the order's reach.
Jeff Immelt, General Electric Co.'s chairman and CEO, wrote in an internal e-mail that GE has "many employees from the named countries” who are “critical to our success and they are our friends and partners.” GE, he said, would "continue to make our voice heard with the new administration."
Trump's move is "not a policy we support," Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein said in a voicemail Sunday to employees. Seeing possible "disruption to the firm," Blankfein said Goldman will work to help people and families affected. "Being diverse is not optional. It is what we must be," he said.
Google, Microsoft
Silicon Valley executives were more outspoken. Google CEO Sundar Pichai, an immigrant from India, called the policy "painful" and Microsoft Corp.'s Satya Nadella took to the company's LinkedIn to highlight "the positive impact that immigration has on our company, for the country, for the world."
Friday's executive order suspended the admission of all refugees for 120 days and imposed a 90-day entry freeze for citizens of seven countries, from U.S. ally Iraq to longstanding enemy Iran.
Two Republican senators, John McCain and Lindsey Graham, warned that the measure may not succeed. They said it risked spurring anti-American sentiment and turning into a "self-inflicted wound in the fight against terrorism," questioning whether all the relevant government departments had been properly consulted.
The two also said they were "concerned by reports that this order went into effect with little to no consultation with the Departments of State, Defense, Justice, and Homeland Security."
Sudan Reaction
Unsure of the rules, officials at airports everywhere played it safe. In Amsterdam and London, all U.S.-bound travelers from the seven countries — the others are Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen and Libya — were being turned away.
Sudan's foreign minister, Ibrahim Ghandour, said the ban comes as the two countries started to work more closely to combat terrorism, and only two weeks after Obama lifted decades-old sanctions on the North African country.
The leaders of key American allies distanced themselves from Trump.
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Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his country would welcome those fleeing persecution, "regardless of your faith." German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who spoke to Trump on Saturday, expressed her concern that the fight against terrorism "doesn't justify placing people of a particular origin or faith under general suspicion," according to her chief spokesman Steffen Seibert. "We do not agree with this kind of approach," U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May said of the immigration freeze on Sunday, two days after meeting with Trump in Washington.
In the U.K., an online petition calling for Trump's upcoming state visit to be canceled had a million signatures — 10 times the number needed to trigger an almost-automatic debate in Parliament. Still, there's no vote at the end of it and lawmakers don't have the power to force May's hand.
President Donald Trump is vigorously defending his immigration restrictions, as protests spread throughout the country, saying “this is about terror and keeping our country safe.”
Trump released a statement asserting, “To be clear, this is not a Muslim ban, as the media is falsely reporting.”
The president addressed the issue late Sunday in a statement as some Republicans in Congress — including Ohio’s Sen. Rob Portman — urged caution amid legal challenges to the order banning travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries. Top congressional Republicans have largely remained behind Trump on the issue.
“America is a proud nation of immigrants and we will continue to show compassion to those fleeing oppression,” Trump said, “but we will do so while protecting our own citizens and border. This is not about religion — this is about terror and keeping our country safe. “
“I have tremendous feeling for the people involved in this horrific humanitarian crisis in Syria,” he said. “My first priority will always be to protect and serve our country, but as President I will find ways to help those who are suffering.”
In a background call with reporters Sunday, a senior administration official declared the order’s implementation “a massive success story,” claiming it had been done “seamlessly and with extraordinary professionalism.”
That, despite widespread confusion and an apparent walk-back about how the order, which temporarily bars the citizens of seven majority Muslim nations from entering the U.S., would be applied to certain groups, like U.S. legal permanent residents.
Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly issued a statement Sunday saying that, absent information indicating a serious threat to public safety and welfare, residency would be a “dispositive factor in our case-by-case determination.” That means citizens of the seven countries who hold permanent U.S. residency “green cards” will not be barred from re-entering the U.S., as officials had previously said. It remains unclear what kind of additional screening they will now face.
Trump’s order, which also suspends refugee admissions for 120 days and indefinitely bars the processing of refugees from Syria, has sparked widespread protests and denunciations from Democrats and a handful of Republicans. Many have accused the administration of rushing to implement the changes, resulting in panic and confusion at the nation’s airports.
“You have an extreme vetting proposal that didn’t get the vetting it should have had,” said Portman, who urged the new president to “slow down” and work with lawmakers on how best to tighten screening for foreigners who enter the United States.
“In my view, we ought to all take a deep breath and come up with something that makes sense for our national security” and reflects the fact that “America’s always been a welcoming home for refugees and immigrants,” he said.
Several Democrats in Congress said they would be introducing legislation to stop the ban.
White House adviser Kellyanne Conway said the changes were “a small price to pay” to keep the nation safe.
But it’s unclear whether the order will accomplish that. The order does not address homegrown extremists already in America, a primary concern of federal law enforcement officials. And the list of countries in Trump’s order doesn’t include Saudi Arabia, where most of the Sept. 11 hijackers were from.
The developments came a day after a federal judge in New York issued an emergency order temporarily barring the U.S. from deporting people from the seven majority Muslim nations subject to Trump’s 90-day travel ban.
The order barred U.S. border agents from removing anyone who arrived in the U.S. with a valid visa from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen. It also covered anyone with an approved refugee application.
The Department of Homeland Security said Sunday the court ruling would not affect the overall implementation of the White House order.
Top congressional Republicans, meanwhile, were backing Trump despite concerns raised Sunday from a handful of GOP lawmakers and condemnation from the Koch political network, which is among the most influential players in the conservative movement.
Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham warned of unintended consequences, expressing fear the order could “become a self-inflicted wound in the fight against terrorism.”
“This executive order sends a signal, intended or not, that America does not want Muslims coming into our country. That is why we fear this executive order may do more to help terrorist recruitment than improve our security,” they wrote.
Trump fired back on Twitter, calling the pair “sadly weak on immigration.”
———
Associated Press writers Alicia Caldwell and Steve Peoples in Palm Springs, California, contributed to this report.
———
Follow Colvin on Twitter at https://twitter.com/colvinj
Visitors use their mobile phones before a ceremony marking the end of trading in 2016 at the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) in Tokyo, Japan December 30, 2016. REUTERS/Toru Hanai
Delta Air Lines Inc. started resuming U.S. domestic flights after a 2 1/2-hour computer breakdown grounded about 150 flights and left passengers stranded across the country.
More services will probably be canceled as the airline's technology systems return to normal, Delta said in a statement on its website. The Federal Aviation Administration said "automation issues" at Delta were to blame. International flights weren't affected.
"I want to apologize to all of our customers who have been impacted by this frustrating situation," Delta Chief Executive Officer Ed Bastian said in the statement. "This type of disruption is not acceptable."
Marooned at Houston, Atlanta, Minneapolis and other regional airports, passengers who got stuck in lines or in stationary aircraft took to social media. It was the second disruption among major U.S. domestic airlines in just one week, after United Continental Holdings Inc. grounded U.S. flights following a computer failure.
The United outage also lasted about two and a half hours, though resulted in relatively few cancellations.
Hub Delays
Even if they landed on time, some Delta passengers were delayed on arrival at the airline's hub airports, the Atlanta-based carrier said. Complicating matters further, not all delays and cancellations were showing up on Delta's own systems, including its main website, it said.
Delta, the second-largest U.S. airline, operates almost 6,000 flights a day during peak summer months, according to a Delta release from August. The airline operates more than 800 aircraft and flies almost 180 million passengers a year.
The latest problem at Delta struck just as airlines struggled to comply with new travel restrictions following President Donald Trump's executive order blocking travelers from seven predominantly Muslim nations. Parts of the order were temporarily blocked by judges.
Last year, a rash of computer failures disrupted flight operations at U.S. airlines. Thousands of passengers were stranded as carriers struggled to keep older information systems working.
Delta took a $ 100 million hit to sales after a power-control module at the company's Atlanta command center caught fire in August, cutting power to computers. Southwest Airlines Co. had to halt flights the month before that because of issues with "multiple technology systems."
Ground stops, as the FAA calls them, are relatively common reactions to thunderstorms and other disruptions in the U.S. aviation system. They are typically short-lived and narrowly drawn, such as halting departures to a congested airport for an hour or two.
SAN FRANCISCO — As news about President Trump's temporary ban on immigrants and visitors from seven Muslim-majority countries filtered through Silicon Valley on Saturday, tech leaders from firms such as Apple and Tesla began condemning the move.
But in anguished phone calls, late-night text messages and emails over the weekend, Silicon Valley executives were struggling to figure out whether they would — or should — take bigger and more coordinated actions to condemn the executive order, which also suspended the nation's refugee program, according to people who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the conversations were private.
There was even discussion in some circles of finding ways to pressure Peter Thiel, a billionaire venture capitalist who was Trump's highest-profile supporter in Silicon Valley and was mocked by critics over the weekend for predicting that Trump wouldn't follow through on his campaign proposal to ban Muslims. (Thiel said this weekend that the executive order falls short of a Muslim ban.)
But by Sunday evening, it wasn't clear whether Silicon Valley planned to go beyond statements and a few other isolated actions to counter Trump's move to restrict immigration.
"Right now, everyone is facing different levels of conflict between what they know would be right, to stand up for American values, versus what they might have to lose," Ali Partovi, an entrepreneur and early investor in Airbnb, Uber, Dropbox and Facebook, said in an interview. "Leaders of tech companies have been talking for a year about when to take a stand or draw the line, and I think last week was sort of an awakening that the time is now."
Technology leaders have previously pinballed as they weighed the benefits of a Trump relationship against the potential costs to the bottom line. For Silicon Valley, the weekend represented a watershed moment in those deliberations, said Sam Altman, president of the Silicon Valley start-up incubator Y Combinator.
During the presidential campaign, tech executives were sharply critical of Trump. But after he was elected, industry leaders, including Apple chief executive Tim Cook, Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella and Tesla Motors chief executive Elon Musk met with him in an attempt to gain the good graces of the administration. During the meeting, the executives raised many issues where the government could help their businesses, including cutting the corporate tax rate, navigating the Chinese market, improving the contracting and bidding process for start-ups, and supporting development of cloud computing.
Then over the weekend, dozens of technology leaders, including those who attended the Trump Tower meeting, denounced the immigration ban. In strongly worded, companywide emails, open letters, and on Twitter, Apple chief executive Tim Cook quoted the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., while Google chief executive Sundar Pichai wrote that it was "painful to see the personal cost of this executive order on our colleagues."
"Any fairly elected president deserves an open-mind," Altman said of the initial meetings. "But clearly something has happened here that people feel is important and that it is time to stand up and object."
Altman was among the thousands who gathered at San Francisco International Airport this weekend to protest, as was Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google (Brin, a refugee, was careful to say he was not attending as a Google official).
Not all technology leaders were vocal about the new immigration policies. Oracle Corp., whose chief executive, Safra Catz, was a Trump ally and attended the tech summit at Trump Tower, didn't make a statement. Amazon.com sent a companywide email advising employees who were from the seven affected countries to avoid traveling outside the United States, but chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos did not personally speak out against the policy. (Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
It's not clear if tech companies' concerns will make a difference with Trump and his advisers.
During the campaign, Trump defended in a radio interview with then-Breitbart chief executive Stephen K. Bannon the importance of high-skill immigration. "We have to keep our talented people in this country," the candidate said.
Bannon, now Trump's chief strategist, seemed to take issue with that perspective.
"When two-thirds or three-quarters of the CEOs in Silicon Valley are from South Asia or from Asia, I think . . . " Bannon said, without completing the thought. "A country is more than an economy. We're a civic society."
Immigration's home
Few industries benefit from immigration as much as Silicon Valley. The tech industry is the biggest user of high-skilled visas for engineers. Apple founder Steve Jobs was the son of a Syrian immigrant; Syria is one of the countries included in the ban. Just over half of all start-ups valued more than $ 1 billion by private investors were founded by immigrants, according to the think tank National Foundation for American Policy.
Over the weekend, in response to the executive order, several companies took actions beyond public statements. Airbnb promised to host families stuck overseas, and ride-sharing company Lyft announced a $ 1 million donation to the American Civil Liberties Union. (Several companies, including Google and Salesforce, recalled overseas staffers and helped employees sort visa issues.)
Partovi, who was among the organizers of an open letter last year from dozens of chief executives protesting discriminatory travel restrictions in an act signed by President Barack Obama, said that travel restrictions were just bad for business and that the concerns were not partisan.
"Discrimination is un-American whether it's done by a Democrat or a Republican. Every smart businessman knows that draconian travel restrictions are bad for business," he said.
The sharpened political division that followed Trump into office has greeted tech leaders, as well, with critics saying the tech industry could do much more.
When Jack Dorsey, chief executive of Twitter and Square, said this weekend that the refugee ban "goes against our principles," many people responded with pleas to ban Trump from Twitter — depriving the president of what seems like his favorite way to level criticisms far and wide. Dorsey so far has resisted doing so.
Worries that Trump plans to build a computerized Muslim registry led to a review of which tech firms would be willing to help assemble such a database. Some, such as Microsoft, IBM and Facebook, have announced they would not help with such an effort. Separately, hundreds of tech workers have signed a pledge to not help with a registry.
Uber's maelstrom
The ride-sharing juggernaut Uber — a Silicon Valley darling valued at more than $ 60 billion — was pulled into the weekend's protests at airports when it said it was not increasing fares at John F. Kennedy International Airport, despite heightened demand from people flocking to the terminal to protest. The ride-hailing company thought it was doing the right thing. But its message came on the heels of a call by the New York Taxi Workers Alliance to stop picking up customers at JFK from 6 to 7 p.m. Saturday to protest Trump's order. To some, it sounded as if Uber was attempting to undercut the taxi strike.
That fed an online campaign to "Delete Uber." And it took off.
Author Ayelet Waldman said she was done with the service.
Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes accused Uber of collaborating with "Trump's anti-immigrant actions."
Sanho Tree, a fellow at the progressive think tank Institute for Policy Studies, said he chose to boycott Uber because this was just the latest in a series of questionable tactics by the company.
"They keep punching themselves in the face," Tree said.
Uber tried to clarify its position, explaining in social-media posts and to reporters that it intended to lower fares for protesters, not undercut the taxi stoppage. It also promised to compensate drivers stuck abroad.
"We're sorry for any confusion about our earlier tweet — it was not meant to break up any strike," an Uber spokesman told The Post. (Bezos, the newspaper's owner, is an investor in Uber.)
Uber previously was criticized for comments by its chief executive, Travis Kalanick, that the company would "partner with anyone in the world" if they agree with Uber's views on transportation.
Kalanick is also one of several corporate leaders serving on Trump's economic advisory team — the only other person from the technology sector is Musk — which is scheduled to meet for the first time this Friday. Kalanick said in a Facebook post that he planned to bring up the refugee ban at that meeting. Musk did not respond to requests for comment.
"I'll leave it to each individual to decide the relationship they want to have with the administration," investor Hunter Walk said. "But I'm seeing a norm move toward ensuring we preserve human rights ahead of short-term business decisions."
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