The Wall Street Journal - 22.08.2019

** THURSDAY, AUGUST 22, 2019 ~ VOL. CCLXXIV NO. 45 WSJ.com HHHH $4. 00

DJIA 26202.73À240.290.9% NASDAQ 8020.21À0.9% STOXX 600 375.80À1.2% 10-YR.TREAS. g 6/32, yield 1.577% OIL $55.68g$0.45 GOLD $1,504.60unch EURO $1.1087 YEN 106.

The U.S., which has imposed

punishing sanctions on Vene-

zuela’s state-run oil industry

and on influential government

and military figures, is pushing

for democratic elections that

would give opposition politi-

cians, including Juan Guaidó,

whom Washington considers

Venezuela’s legitimate leader,

a chance to take power.

The efforts to bring about

change in Venezuela come at a

critical time: More than four

million people have fled the

country since 2015 in an exo-

dus that is straining the re-

sources of neighboring coun-

tries. Inside Venezuela, hunger

is growing, the economy is dis-

integrating and companies are

closing. The U.S., human rights

groups and many ordinary Ven-

ezuelans accuse Mr. Maduro’s

government of everything from

carrying out extrajudicial exe-

cutions to jailing and torturing

political prisoners and stealing

elections.

Please turn to page A

Finance Chief

Gains Fame

As Home Chef

iii

As South Africa

struggles, a leader

retreats to kitchen

BYGABRIELESTEINHAUSER

ANDTHANDINTOBELA

JOHANNESBURG—South

Africa’s finance minister stirs

controversy, especially in the

kitchen.

Tito Mboweni, a former

central-bank governor, came

out of retirement last year to

help resolve the country’s sim-

mering economic crisis. Off-

hours, the rotund 60-year-old

shares his cooking secrets

with more than 440,000 Twit-

ter followers, whipping up

feeds that are part Martha

Stewart, part Alan Greenspan.

Not everyone finds it an ap-

petizing mix. A recent tweet

showcased his twist on beef

Please turn to page A

And Vietnam, with less than one-tenth

China’s population, is already running into

labor shortages as global manufacturers

rush to set up shop here to avoid U.S. tariffs.

“China has a 15-year head start—whatever

you want, someone’s doing it,” said Wing Xu,

the operations director for Omnidex Group,

which helps make large pumps for Pennsyl-

vania-based industrial equipment manufac-

turer McLanahan Corp.

Omnidex has shifted some production to

Vietnam, but out of more than 80 parts of a

pump used in mining operations, factories

here have been able to begin work on only

20 so far because molds must be created

from scratch.

Please turn to page A

Oracle is the #

Enterprise Applications vendor in

North America

basedon market share and revenue.

oracle.com/applications

IDCWorldwide Semiannual SoftwareTracker, April 2019, results for CY2018.

North America is the USA and Canada. Enterprise Applications refer to

the IDC markets CRM, Engineering, Enterprise Resource Management

(including HCM, Financial, Enterprise Performance Management, Payroll,

Procurement, Order Management, PPM, EAM), SCM, and Production and

Operations Applications.

Per IDC’s

latest annual market share results,

S

A

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E

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F

O

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E

I N T U I T

S

A

P M

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O R A C L E

blockedthe administration be-

fore. A legal challenge would

likely keep the policy from

taking immediate effect.

Administration officials say

the new rules are intended to

discourage family members

from attempting to cross the

border together in the belief

that they will gain an advan-

tage in lodging their asylum

claims because of the current

detention limits for children.

“No child should be used as a

pawn to scheme our immigra-

tion system,” said acting De-

partment of Homeland Secu-

rity Secretary Kevin

McAleenan on Wednesday.

President Trump said he

hoped the new rules—along

with other immigration poli-

cies—would deter migrant

families from risking their

lives on a perilous journey to

the U.S. border. “When they

see you can’t get into the

United States—or when they

see if they do get into the

United States, they will be

brought back to their coun-

try—they won’t come,” Mr.

Please turn to page A

Immigrant

Families to Be

Held Longer

New rules superseding

limits on how long

children can be detained

to face court challenges

WASHINGTON—The Trump

administration moved to allow

the government to indefinitely

detain families crossing the

U.S.-Mexico border and super-

sede a decades-old court set-

tlement that both limits how

long migrant children can be

held in custody and sets stan-

dards for their care.

The new rules are the Re-

publican administration’s lat-

est effort to tighten immigra-

tion laws on its own, with

Congress long unable to agree

on any legal overhaul.

Wednesday’s policy change

could permit authorities to de-

tain families through the dura-

tion of their immigration pro-

ceedings, rather than release

them or separate children

from their detained parents.

Immigration-rights advo-

cates are expected to chal-

lenge the rules in federal

court, where they have

BYMICHELLEHACKMAN

CONTENTS

Business News...... B

Capital Account.... A

Crossword.............. A

Heard on Street. B

Life & Arts....... A11-

Management.......... B

Markets..................... B

Opinion.............. A15-

Sports....................... A

Technology............... B

U.S. News............. A2-

Weather................... A

World News........ A7-

s 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

All Rights Reserved

>

What’s

News

 The Trump administration

moved to allow the govern-

ment to indefinitely detain

families crossing the U.S.-

Mexico border and supersede

a court settlement that limits

how long migrant children

can be held in custody. A

 The U.S. has been secretly

talking with top Maduro aides

in a bid to push Venezuela’s

authoritarian president from

power and clear the way for

free elections in the econom-

ically devastated nation. A

 Trumpsaid he favors

beefed-up background checks

for gun buyers, but offered

no clarification of his stance

amid signs he wasbacking

away from stricter rules. A

 Washington envoy Khal-

ilzad arrived in Qatar for a

crucial phase of U.S.-Taliban

negotiations on ending

America’s military engage-

ment in Afghanistan. A

 Putin said a deadly ex-

plosion in northern Russia

earlier this month occurred

during the test of a prom-

ising weapons system. A

 Britain’s Johnson ,ina

visit to Berlin, told Merkel

he is serious about a Brexit

deal but that “backstop”

border provisions for Ire-

land must be scrapped. A

 The president accused

Denmark’s leader of “blowing

offtheU.S.,”adayafterhe

canceled a trip to her country

because she rejected possible

talks on selling Greenland. A

 Chinaconfirmed that

mainland police detained an

employee of the British Con-

sulate in Hong Kong for alleg-

edly violating Chinese law. A

W

ashington policy mak-

ers and Wall Street in-

vestors are being confronted

with a scenario in which there

are few good options for deal-

ing with an economic down-

turn should one occur. A

 Federal deficits are pro-

jected to grow much more

than expected over the next

decade after a budget agree-

ment struck last month. A

 Strict mortgage-lending

requirements put in place

after the financial crisis

are starting to erode. A

 Existing-homesales rose

2.5% in July, a sign lower

mortgage rates may have

started to spur buying. A

 Retailers offering deals

are snaring customers at the

expense of chains that have

been slow to innovate. B

 U.S. stocks rose as strong

earnings reports from retail-

ers eased some growth fears.

The Dow gained 0.9%. B

 Alibabahas postponed

plans for a share listing in

Hong Kong due to market

instability and political

uncertainty in the city. B

 Details about the U.S.

sanctions-busting case

against Huawei emerged

in Canada court filings. A

 The SEC voted 3-2 to

urge proxy advisers to take

more steps to disclose how

they craft shareholder rec-

ommendations. B

 The Trump administra-

tion is preparing to soon re-

lease its plan to return Fan-

nie and Freddie to private-

shareholder ownership. A

 Germany sold 30-year

debt at a negative yield for

the first time. B

Business&Finance

World-Wide

U.K. Leader Lobbies Germany for Brexit Deal

ONEDGE: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in

Berlin on Wednesday, said he is serious about getting a deal to smooth the U.K.’s exit from the

European Union, but said EU provisions regarding the border of Ireland will have to go. A

MICHAEL

SOHN/ASSOCIATED PRESS

U.S. and Venezuela

Hold Secret Talks

The Trump administration

has been secretly talking with

top aides of Nicolás Maduro in

an effort to push Venezuela’s

authoritarian president from

power and clear the way for

free elections in the economi-

cally devastated country, ac-

cording to officials in Caracas

and Washington familiar with

the discussions.

The talks have involved

powerful Maduro lieutenant

Diosdado Cabello, who heads

the country’s National Constit-

uent Assembly and has been

put under sanctions by Wash-

ington for alleged involvement

in drug trafficking, and other

important backers of the pres-

ident in an effort to find a ne-

gotiated solution to the coun-

try’s crisis, these people said,

adding the talks are at an

early stage.

By Joséde Córdoba ,

Juan Forero

and Vivian Salama

HOCHI MINH CITY, Vietnam—With the

U.S. and China tangled in a nasty trade fight,

this should be Vietnam’s time to shine. In-

stead, it is becoming increasingly clear that

it will be years, if ever, before this Southeast

Asian nation and other aspiring manufactur-

ing destinations are ready to replace China

as the world’s factory floor.

The specialized supply chains that made

China a production powerhouse for smart-

phones and aluminum ladders and vacuum

cleaners and dining tables are nowhere near

as developed in Vietnam. Factories with U.S.-

focused safety certifications and capital-in-

tensive machinery aren’t as easy to find.

BYNIHARIKAMANDHANA

With short-term interest

rates already low, the Federal

Reserve has little room to cut

borrowing costs to spur spend-

ing and investment as it usu-

ally does in a slowdown. Mean-

time, the federal debt is

exploding, which could ham-

string any efforts to boost

growth with tax cuts or spend-

ing increases.

Further complicating mat-

ters, Democrats and Republi-

cans strongly disagree about

how best to rev up the econ-

omy, with Democrats favoring

higher spending and the GOP

wanting lower taxes. Even

within their own ranks there

are disagreements about what

course to take.

President Trump on

Wednesday backed away from

pursuing new tax cuts, a sharp

reversal from a day earlier,

when he described several such

measures the White House was

contemplating. Mr. Trump is in

the awkward position of calling

for economic stimulus at the

same time he says the economy

is strong.

“I just don’t see any reason

to,” Mr. Trump told reporters

at the White House when asked

if he was contemplating tax

cuts. “We don’t need it. We

have a strong economy.”

He dismissed an idea he

floated Tuesday: lowering capi-

tal-gains taxes by indexing in-

vestment gains to inflation.

Please turn to page A

After debating for days

whether the U.S. is going into

an economic downturn, Wash-

ington policy makers and Wall

Street investors on Wednesday

barreled into an even more dif-

ficult problem: There are few

good options to deal with one

if it happens.

BYREBECCABALLHAUS

ANDNICKTIMIRAOS

Officials See Few Options if Slowdown Hits

Manufacturers in China Find

Breaking Up Is Hard to Do

Companies try Vietnam and other bases, but run into complications

INSIDE

LIFE& ARTS

In a batch of new novels and movies, tech

companies are cast as the bad guys A1 1

North Carolina bill requiring

ICE cooperation vetoed....... A

Greg Ip: Trade war leaves

bigger mark than Fed........... A

 Risky mortgages rise a

decade after crisis.................. A