Evening Briefing: Americas

Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Neel Kashkari said he supported the US central bank’s decision to lower interest rates this week and penciled in two additional cuts this year.

Fed officials cut the benchmark rate by a quarter percentage point — the first reduction since December — at their policy meeting Wednesday, citing the need to support a more fragile job market.

Kashkari said the risk of a sharp increase in unemployment warrants the committee taking more action to support the labor market. He characterized this week’s cut and any coming reductions as “insurance” to keep the labor market from falling dramatically while inflationary dynamics play out.

By the end of the long-anticipated Fed week, stocks were notching fresh all-time highs as prospects for rate cuts bolstered the outlook for corporate earnings. —Jordan Parker Erb

What You Need to Know Today

Congress moved closer to an Oct. 1 government shutdown as Senate Democrats and Republicans on Friday each blocked the other party’s plans to provide temporary funding. Democrats are demanding a boost to health-care spending while Republicans refuse to go along and back a simple bill to keep the lights on through Nov. 21. Resolving the conflict is complicated by the Senate’s plan to take a week-long break as the Oct. 1 funding lapse nears. The Senate could return to Washington as late as Sept. 29. Republican leaders hope Democrats will drop their demands and concede as the deadline nears rather than risk blame for a disruption in government services.

Bloomberg Opinion

Schumer Finally Has a Plan for a Government Shutdown

Six months after he caved to Republicans, the Senate minority leader has new and better tactics.

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Ray Dalio said the US is unable to cut back on runaway spending that’s piling up debt and putting the monetary order at risk. Dalio said the US will spend $7 trillion this year and take in only $5 trillion. Given interest payments and roll-over of maturing borrowings, “this means you have to sell $12 trillion in debt,” he said, creating a supply-demand imbalance. The Bridgewater Associates founder has long warned of the risks of spiraling debt becoming unsustainable. He has said that politicians on both sides of the aisle in Washington have been reluctant to deal with the growing fiscal challenges.

The European Union’s next round of sanctions against Russia will target large parts of the global oil industry as the bloc looks to intensify pressure on the Kremlin’s access to petrodollars. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told reporters on Friday the EU’s latest measures will focus on entities in so-called third countries. About a dozen Chinese and several Indian bodies will be affected, according to people familiar with the matter. The announcement comes after US President Donald Trump urged the EU to step up pressure on Russia’s energy trade. He has called for the bloc to impose secondary tariffs on buyers of Russian oil.

‘It’s Going to Hurt Us’: Trump Puts 15,000 Offshore Wind Jobs at Risk With Halt Orders

Cesar Lima never gave much thought to the politics of offshore wind. Most days, the ironworker focused on his shift 15 miles out at sea, climbing turbines and watching dolphins gliding past his vessel off the coast of Rhode Island. That changed when the Trump administration ordered work to stop on the Revolution Wind project a month ago.

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Trump’s lawsuit against The New York Times has been tossed, for now, for being too long. US District Judge Steven Merryday concluded that the president’s $15 billion defamation lawsuit “unmistakably and inexcusably” violated the court’s rules by featuring “repetitive,” “superfluous” and “florid” allegations and details, but said that his lawyers could refile an edited version within the next month. Trump filed the 85-page lawsuit in federal court in Tampa earlier this week against the Times and Penguin Random House, accusing the paper of serving as a “mouthpiece” for the Democrats.

Trump is expected to sign a proclamation that would move to extensively overhaul the H-1B visa program, requiring a $100,000 fee for applications in a bid to curb overuse. The move is the latest immigration reform by the administration and would heavily affect the technology industry in particular, as it relies heavily on H-1Bs.