Senior Adviser: White House to lure US firms to Latam from Asia in nearshoring drive – Reuters

Early Thursday morning in Asia, Reuters relied on the comments of a senior member of the Trump administration to convey the US bias to lure their firms off Asia.

Key quotes

The Trump administration is working on a new initiative that would use financial incentives to encourage U.S. firms to move production facilities out of Asia and into the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean.

The project could bring $30 billion to $50 billion in U.S. investment back to the Americas, Mauricio Claver-Carone told Reuters in an interview, adding that infrastructure, energy and transportation could be the first potential areas of focus.

We’re essentially creating a ‘Back to the Americas’ initiative.

Trump’s top Latin America adviser, who has played a key role pushing for punitive measures against socialist-run Venezuela and Cuba, said 15 countries in the region had publicly supported him for the IDB job and six others had privately expressed their backing.

FX implications

Although the news failed to offer any immediate market reaction, due to the generally inactive timing of the trading day, it offers another challenge to the market sentiment and could weigh on the US dollar. That said, AUD/USD remains directed to 0.7200 while nearing the highest levels since April 2019.