Interior Design

The State Department Spent $52,701 on Curtains for Nikki Haley’s Residence

What’s a 6,000-square-foot penthouse on First Avenue if the blinds don’t automatically retract?
Nikki Haley
Haley photographed at a UN Security Council emergency meeting on April 14th at UN headquarters.By Drew Angerer/Getty Images.

Poor Nikki Haley has become another victim of out-of-control government spending. First there was Tom Price, whose private jet habit, among other things, cost him his job as H.H.S. secretary. Scott Pruitt was ousted as E.P.A. administrator over luxe, non-government-approved hotels stays, and four-figure fountain pens, and that $43,000 phone booth he had built in his office. Ben Carson survived the uproar over his $31,000 dining set at Housing and Urban Development, but only because everyone quickly forgot that Ben Carson exists.

Today, it’s Haley’s turn in the barrel. The New York Times reports that the State Department spent more than $50,000 last year buying “customized and mechanized curtains” for the windows in her official residence on First Avenue—a 6,000-square-foot penthouse that costs $58,000 a month—across from the U.N. That the purchase happened as former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was freezing hiring, pushing out senior diplomats, eliminating projects, and proposing budget cuts of up to 31 percent isn’t the best look! “How can you, on the one hand, tell diplomats that basic needs cannot be met and, on the other hand, spend more than $50,000 on a customized curtain system for the ambassador to the U.N.?” Brett Bruen, a White House official in the Obama administration, wondered aloud to the Times.

To be fair, plans for the fancy new curtain system were apparently made during the Obama administration in 2016. Haley “had no say in the purchase,” her spokesperson told the Times. Also, she’s working with a skeletal staff that would barely have time to set out drinks and appetizers while Haley is entertaining, let alone draw the blinds. “All she’s got is a part-time maid,” said Patrick Kennedy, the top management official at the State Department during the Obama years, “and the ability to open and close the curtains quickly is important.”

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U.S. trade talks with China are off to a productive start

And by productive we mean potentially derailed by President Tariffs, who apparently told aides on Thursday to move forward with another $200 billion in levies on Chinese goods, in addition to threatening a third round of tariffs on another $267 billion worth of imports. And while Trump appears under the impression that he has Chinese officials right where he wants them, others aren’t so sure!

Trump’s view that the Chinese are suffering while the U.S. thrives helps explain his confidence that Beijing ultimately will buckle. But the president’s expectation that financial hardship will prompt Chinese President Xi Jinping to cave in a fresh round of diplomatic talks is misplaced, analysts said. . . . The Shanghai Composite Index, China’s main stocks gauge, is down 23 percent this year, making it the world’s worst-performing major exchange.

But unlike in the United States, the ups and downs of the Chinese stock market affect relatively few people, meaning sell-offs are unlikely to translate into pressure on Chinese leaders.

“To the extent that Trump is looking at that and thinking he has China by the neck, he’s wrong,” said economist Andrew Polk, a partner at Trivium, a Beijing-based advisory firm. “China’s economy has its own issues. It’s slowing down, but it’s not about to blow up. Trump has less leverage than he thinks.”

And given that Beijing has vowed to respond to every round of tariffs in kind, President Trade Wars Are Good and Easy to Win’s strategy looks like an increasingly terrible idea. “The U.S. administration runs the risk of a downward spiral of attack and counterattack, benefiting no one,” William Zarit, the president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Beijing, told The Washington Post.

Area mom tells sons to knock it off

In this case, “it” is a lawsuit over control of their family business. Per Bloomberg:

A public rupture between the heirs to one of India’s most storied business houses looks to be healing after the mother of the two Singh brothers—synonymous with each other for decades—convinced her younger son to withdraw a lawsuit against the elder.

Shivinder Singh withdrew a suit alleging “oppression and mismanagement” against his brother, Malvinder, and a senior manager in their corporate group after their mother requested they engage in mediation led by family elders instead, according to an order Friday by Justice M.M. Kumar of India’s National Company Law Tribunal.

Shivinder did however, make it clear that his “decision to disassociate himself” still stands, and if mediation fails he reserves the right to sue again, no matter what his mom says.

Steve Mnuchin: stealth resistance fighter?

Not exactly, but there is this:

The Trump administration is drastically increasing pressure on Iran, including by tightening the financial noose on the regime and banks it uses to fund malign activities across the Middle East. One key tool Trump is considering is to force Iranian banks off SWIFT, the international system that clears trans-border financial transactions. Banning Iran from SWIFT was a crucial plank of the pressure campaign that brought Tehran to the negotiating table earlier this decade. . . . Several administration officials claim that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has found a way to “resist” the president’s maximum-pressure strategy on Iran: simply neglect to give the president a document he requested several weeks ago.

How Gary Cohn of him! In a statement, a Treasury spokesman told the Post, “Secretary Mnuchin has led an intense economic pressure campaign against Iran as part of this administration’s comprehensive strategy to address the totality of Iran’s malign and destabilizing activity.”

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Take my Trump Tower apartment instead of my money, Manafort tells Mueller (CNBC)

Fannie Regulator Refused to Cooperate with Harassment Probe, Report Says (Bloomberg)

Elon Musk’s SpaceX Says It Signed Up Its First Round-the-Moon Tourist (W.S.J.)

U.S. Probes Alleged Russian Money Laundering at Danish Bank (W.S.J.)

How JPMorgan’s C.F.O. became the top prospect to succeed Dimon (Reuters)

Pot Shop Employee Fights Off Attackers with Trusty Glass Bong (HuffPo)