The Jim Bakker Show

Senate tax drama enters complicated end-game gambit

By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Republican drive to push sweeping tax legislation through the U.S. Senate was hurtling on Thursday toward a dramatic conclusion, as Republican leaders pursued behind-the-scenes deals intended to secure enough votes for passage.

After an official 20 hours of debate, the Republican-controlled Senate was expected to begin a potentially chaotic “vote-a-rama” on amendments from Republicans and Democrats before moving to a final vote late on Thursday or early on Friday.

U.S. financial markets have rallied on optimism that the measure could pass, a sentiment shared by outside conservative groups that hope to see the first major overhaul of the U.S. tax code since 1986, when Republican Ronald Reagan was president.

“It’s the most unified effort I’ve seen on any issue in many years,” said Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity, a group aligned with billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch.

A Republican push to overturn Obamacare ended in an humiliating failure in the Senate earlier this year, and President Donald Trump and his Republican allies have since been under mounting pressure to enact a package of tax cuts for businesses and individuals before January, giving them their first major legislative victory.

Republicans acknowledge that failure to pass a tax bill could jeopardize their control of the Senate and House of Representatives in next year’s congressional elections.

Democrats say the Republican tax plan is a giveaway to corporations and the wealthy at the expense of working Americans.

The House approved its own tax bill on Nov. 16. If passed this week, the Senate legislation would need to be reconciled with the House version before a final bill could be sent to Trump.

As an initial action on Thursday, Senate Republicans were expected to take a procedural vote that would formally replace the House bill with their own legislation.

While campaign donors are strongly behind the push for tax cuts, the American public is sharply divided.

Among Americans aware of the Republican tax plan, 49 percent

said they were opposed, up from 41 percent in October, according

to a Nov. 23-27 Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday. The

latest online poll of 1,257 adults found 29 percent supporting

the plan and 22 percent saying they “don’t know.”

KEEPING THEM GUESSING

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell did not appear to have enough votes to pass the legislation as the day began, with several Republican lawmakers keeping their colleagues guessing about where they would come down in the end.

Republicans have a 52-48 majority in the 100-member Senate,

giving them enough votes to approve the bill if they can hold

together. Without Democratic support, they can afford to

lose support from no more than two of their own members. Vice President Mike Pence would be able to break a 50-50 tie.

The Senate voted along party lines to begin the debate on Wednesday and later turned away a Democratic attempt to return the legislation to the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee for reconsideration.

But some Republicans have withheld their support for final passage as they press Republican leaders for changes that would prevent tax cuts from expanding the federal deficit, allow Americans a federal deduction for up to $10,000 in property taxes and give bigger tax breaks to so-called pass-through enterprises, including small businesses.

The Senate bill would cut the U.S. corporate tax rate to 20 percent from 35 percent after a one-year delay and reduce the tax burden on small businesses and individuals, while adding $1.4 trillion to a federal debt load that already surpasses $20 trillion.

Some Republicans want to lower the corporate tax rate to only 22 percent and forgo income tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

Democrats and independents have sought to persuade nonpartisan Senate officials to disqualify parts of the bill, including one to allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, as impermissible under Senate rules, an aide said.

(Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Lucky 13? Stocks score longest run of monthly gains on record

By Marc Jones

LONDON (Reuters) – A dive in high-flying U.S. tech stocks on worries their boom may have peaked left investors wondering on Thursday whether the longest global equity bull run in living memory might be starting to splutter.

The caution was sparked by another Wall Street wobble involving a rotation from tech to financials which came just as the near 9-year global rally prepared to notch up another impressive milestone.

The world’s broadest equity gauge – the MSCI all-country index – was on course to finish November with its 13th straight monthly gain on Thursday – the longest winning streak in the index’s 30-year history. Lucky for some.

Though the celebrations were muffled by the tech problems – Samsung and China stocks had also taken another tumble in Asian trading [.SS] – the mood improved again in Europe.

Germany’s Dax <.GDAX> and France’s CAC 40 <.FCHI> both inched up for a third day, and though London’s FTSE <.FTSE> lagged as hopes of a breakthrough in Brexit negotiations pushed the pound higher again, Wall Street futures <ESc1> pointed to U.S. rebound later. [.N] [GBP/]

The latest Reuters global asset poll showed the majority of investors expect shares to keep rising. Robeco strategist Peter van der Welle was one of those, despite noting the market was “playing in extra time”.

“In the absence of a near-term recession trigger, current stretched equity valuations do yet not instil enough fear to change overall market direction,” he said.

Possibly feeding the tech concerns was a Morgan Stanley report earlier this week that the “super-cycle” in memory chip demand looks likely to peak soon.

Shares of Amazon.com <AMZN.O>, Apple <AAPL.O>, Google parent Alphabet <GOOGL.O> Facebook <FB.O> and Netflix <NFLX.O> slid between 2 percent and 5.5 percent on Wednesday. [.N] Asia’s bellwether Samsung <005930.KS> then slumped 4.3 percent to two-month lows.

Tech nerves were not just confined to stocks. Rocketing cryptocurrency Bitcoin <BTC=BTSP> dropped a cool $1,000 to a low of $9,250 before spending European hours pinballing between $9,700 and $10,100.

For perspective, though, the Nasdaq index is still up 26.8 percent so far this year, roughly 7 percentage points more than the MSCI world <.MIWD00000PUS>. For Bitcoin it is a mind-boggling 950 percent. http://tmsnrt.rs/2zJqD6m

“It is true that if you look at the world’s semiconductor sales on chart, their year-on-year growth appears to be peaking out,” said Hiroshi Watanabe, an economist at Sony Financial Holdings. “But if you look at what’s driving demand, it’s not just smart phones and actually a lot of things.”

DOLLAR IN THE DOLDRUMS

In the more mainstream FX markets, the U.S. dollar climbed to 112.25 yen <JPY=>, held its ground versus the euro <EUR> but fell to a two-month low of $1.3480 to the resurgent pound <GBP=>. Measured against major peers the dollar is headed for biggest monthly drop since July. [FRX]

The U.S. Senate took a step on Wednesday toward passage of tax legislation that is a top White House priority, setting up a likely decisive but finely-balanced vote later this week.

Investors also seem to have grown cautious about the outlook of the world’s biggest economy and there are growing signs that it certainly won’t be the only country raising interest rates.

J.P. Morgan Asset Management global head of rates David Tan predicted on Thursday that there will be some 1,000 rate hikes globally over the next decade.

“The current period of economic expansion has therefore been extraordinarily long, almost 10 years and counting, but we know that the days of super low global central bank rates are in the process of coming to an end,” he said.

Borrowing costs in Germany, the euro zone’s benchmark bond issuer, rose to their highest in just over two weeks. The 10-year U.S. Treasuries yield climbed too, reaching 2.3859 percent <US10YT=RR> to near this month’s high of 2.414 percent.

There was no market response after U.S. President Donald Trump nominated Carnegie Mellon University professor Marvin Goodfriend, viewed as a policy hawk, to be a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.

Oil meanwhile moved higher again as OPEC meet in Vienna to debate an extension of the group’s supply-cut agreement.

While the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and key non-member Russia look set to prolong oil supply cuts until the end of 2018, they have signaled that they may review the deal when they meet again in June if the market overheats.

U.S. crude futures <CLc1> traded at $57.72 per barrel in European trade, up 1.4 percent, while Brent futures <LCOc1> rose 0.7 percent to just over $64 a barrel. [O/R]

(Reporting by Marc Jones; editing by Mark Heinrich)

Over half of public comments to FCC on net neutrality appear fake: study

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – More than half of the 21.7 million public comments submitted to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission about net neutrality this year used temporary or duplicate email addresses and appeared to include false or misleading information, the Pew Research Center said on Wednesday.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, a Republican appointed by President Donald Trump, proposed in April to scrap the 2015 landmark net neutrality rules, moving to give broadband service providers sweeping power over what content consumers can access.

Pai has said the action would remove heavy-handed internet regulations. Critics have said it would let internet service providers give preferential treatment to some sites and apps and allow them to favor their own digital content.

From April 27 to Aug. 30 the public was able to submit comments to the FCC on the topic electronically. Of those, 57 percent used either duplicate email addresses or temporary email addresses, while many individual names appeared thousands of times in the submissions, Pew said.

For example, “Pat M” was listed on 5,910 submissions, and the email address john_oliver@yahoo.com was used in 1,002 comments. TV host John Oliver supported keeping net neutrality earlier this on his HBO talk show.

The flood of purportedly fake comments has made it difficult to interpret the public’s true thinking on net neutrality and has even spurred New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to investigate for the last six months who posted the comments to the FCC website.

Pew did not say how many of the comments supported or opposed the FCC’s proposal. With three Republican and two Democratic commissioners, the FCC is all but certain to approve the repeal.

Pew found that only 6 percent of submitted comments were unique while the rest had been submitted multiple times, in some cases, hundreds of thousands of times.

Thousands of identical comments were also submitted in the same second on at least five occasions. On July 19 at precisely 2:57:15 p.m. ET, 475,482 comments were submitted, Pew said, adding that almost all were in favor of net neutrality.

“In fact, the seven most-submitted comments (six of which argued against net neutrality regulations) comprise 38 percent of all the submissions over the four-month comment period,” the study said.

Pew said its analysis of the submissions “present challenges to anyone hoping to understand the attitudes of the concerned public regarding net neutrality.”

The regulatory agency will vote at a Dec. 14 meeting on Pai’s plan to rescind the rules championed by Democratic former President Barack Obama.

The rules bar broadband providers from blocking or slowing down access to content or charging consumers more for certain content, and treated internet service providers like public utilities.

(Reporting by Chris Sanders; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Florida man sentenced to 25 years for attempt to blow up synagogue

(Reuters) – A Florida man was sentenced by a U.S. judge on Tuesday to 25 years in prison for trying to blow up a synagogue in the state during a Jewish holiday last year, court officials said.

James Medina, 41, will first be treated at a U.S. prison medical facility for a brain cyst and mental illness before being moved into the general prison population, U.S. District Judge Robert Scola in Miami ruled.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation began watching Medina, who had converted to Islam, after he began expressing anti-Semitic views and a wish to attack a synagogue. They launched an investigation in late March 2016, court documents showed

Medina, who faced up to life in prison, had pleaded guilty in August 2017 to charges of an attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and an attempted religious hate crime, court documents showed.

“This is a very, very serious offense,” Scola was quoted as saying in court by the Miami Herald.

Medina’s federal public defender, Hector Dopico, declined to comment when reached by Reuters on Tuesday afternoon.

Medina met with an FBI-affiliated confidential informant and explained his plan to attack a synagogue in Aventura, Florida, near Miami, the documents showed.

“Medina wanted to witness the explosion, hearing and feeling the blast from (a) nearby car,” the informant cited Medina as saying, according to the documents.

Asked why he wanted to do it, Medina said he wanted to kill Jews, adding: “It’s my call of duty.”

Medina was supplied with what he thought was an explosive device by federal law enforcement. The device was inert and posed no danger to the public, federal law enforcement said in court filings.

He was taken into custody as he approached the synagogue with the inert device and later admitted to his crimes, they said. No one was hurt.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; editing by Bernadette Baum and Diane Craft)

Democrats skip Trump meeting, raising risk of government shutdown

By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democratic leaders in Congress skipped a meeting with President Donald Trump on Tuesday that was to have focused on the budget, raising the risk of a government shutdown next month with both sides far apart on the terms of an agreement.

After Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi informed Trump they would not attend the meeting at the White House, the president and Republican congressional leaders went ahead with the talks without them.

Trump left empty seats on either side of him, with name cards for Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, and Pelosi, the top Democrat in the House of Representatives. He also criticized them as the cameras rolled during a picture-taking session.

“We have a lot of differences,” Trump said. “So they’ve decided not to show up. They’ve been all talk and they’ve been no action and now it’s even worse. Now it’s not even talk.”

Schumer and Pelosi said they pulled out of the meeting because of a tweet Trump sent earlier in the day attacking them as weak on illegal immigration and bent on raising taxes.

“I don’t see a deal!” the Republican president wrote on Twitter.

Pelosi tweeted after Trump’s White House session that “his empty chair photo opp showed he’s more interested in stunts than in addressing the needs of the American people. Poor Ryan and McConnell relegated to props. Sad!” she added, referring to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan,

Trump said he would “absolutely blame the Democrats” if a government shutdown takes place.

A Dec. 8 deadline is looming for passing a spending measure needed to fund a wide range of federal government programs.Although Republicans control both chambers of the U.S. Congress, their leaders will likely need to rely on at least some Democratic votes to pass the measure.

Democrats have said they will demand help for the “Dreamers” – young people brought to the United States illegally as children – as part of their price for providing votes on the budget measure.

But Trump said in a tweet late on Tuesday: “I ran on stopping illegal immigration and won big. They can’t now threaten a shutdown to get their demands.”

Congress has three choices: approve a massive bill for more than $1 trillion to keep the government operating through Sept. 30, 2018; pass a shorter extension of current funding to buy more time; or fail to pass anything and risk a partial government shutdown.

On Capitol Hill, Schumer said he and Pelosi believed the best path forward would be to negotiate with Republican leaders in Congress instead of going to the White House for a “show meeting.”

(Reporting by Steve Holland; Editing by Peter Cooney)

U.S. Supreme Court weighs major digital privacy case

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday takes up a major test of privacy rights in the digital age as it weighs whether police must obtain warrants to get data on the past locations of criminal suspects using cellphone data from wireless providers.

The justices at 10 a.m. (1500 GMT) are due to hear an appeal by a man named Timothy Carpenter convicted in a series of armed robberies in Ohio and Michigan with the help of past cellphone location data that linked him to the crime locations. His American Civil Liberties Union lawyers argue that without a court-issued warrant such data amounts to an unreasonable search and seizure under the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth Amendment.

Law enforcement authorities routinely request and receive this information from wireless providers during criminal investigations as they try to link a suspect to a crime.

Police helped establish that Carpenter was near the scene of the robberies of Radio Shack and T-Mobile stores by securing from his cellphone carrier his past “cell site location information” tracking which cellphone towers had relayed his calls.

The legal fight has raised questions about the degree to which companies protect their customers’ privacy rights. The big four wireless carriers, Verizon Communications Inc, AT&T Inc, T-Mobile US Inc and Sprint Corp, receive tens of thousands of these requests annually from law enforcement.

Verizon was the only one of those four companies to tell the Supreme Court that it favors strong privacy protections for its customers, with the other three sitting on the sidelines.

There is growing scrutiny of the surveillance practices of U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies amid concern among lawmakers across the political spectrum about civil liberties and authorities evading warrant requirements.

The Supreme Court twice in recent years has ruled on major cases concerning how criminal law applies to new technology, both times ruling against law enforcement. In 2012, the court held that a warrant is required to place a GPS tracking device on a vehicle. Two years later, the court said police need a warrant to search a cellphone seized during an arrest.

Carpenter’s bid to suppress the evidence failed and he was convicted of six robbery counts. On appeal, the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld his convictions, finding that no warrant was required for the cellphone data.

The ACLU said in court papers that police need “probable cause,” and therefore a warrant, in order to meet Fourth Amendment requirements.

Based on a provision of a 1986 federal law called the Stored Communications Act, the Justice Department said probable cause is not needed to obtain customer records. Instead, it argues, prosecutors must show only that there are “reasonable grounds” for the records to be provided and that they are “relevant and material” to an investigation.

President Donald Trump’s administration said in court papers the government has a “compelling interest” in acquiring the data without a warrant because the information is particularly useful at the early stages of a criminal investigation.

Civil liberties groups said the 1986 law did not anticipate the way mobile devices now contain a wealth of data on each user.

A ruling is due by the end of June.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)

Senate tax drama intensifies as bill faces key panel vote

By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s drive for a big U.S. tax cut package headed toward a new drama on Tuesday in the Senate, where a pair of Republican lawmakers demanded changes in exchange for their help in moving the measure forward.

Trump was due to lobby Republicans at their weekly policy luncheon in the U.S. Capitol, with the Senate poised for a possible vote on tax legislation as early as Thursday.

The president has called on Republicans to deliver a tax bill to his desk before Christmas. The House of Representatives has already approved its version of the package, which would cut taxes for businesses and individuals.

But a Senate Budget Committee hearing on Tuesday, which Republican leaders have hoped will send legislation to a full Senate vote, has hit a potential hurdle with Republicans Ron Johnson and Bob Corker saying they may vote against the measure.

Their opposition could be the first major obstacle for the Republican tax overhaul in the Senate, where earlier this year political infighting prevented the party from overturning the Obamacare healthcare law.

Johnson and Corker both say they will back the tax cut package if their separate concerns are satisfied. Corker, a prominent fiscal hawk, wants a measure that would prevent the tax bill from causing the federal deficit to balloon. Johnson wants a better deal for so-called pass-through enterprises that include small businesses.

Senators were working “feverishly” to address concerns, Corker told CNBC on Tuesday morning.

“I know it’s important not just to me but numbers of members who want to make sure that if for some reason these projections are off – we don’t have the growth that’s been laid out, it doesn’t generate revenues – that we’re not passing on increased debt to future generations,” he said.

Two Republican “no” votes at the committee hearing would stall the effort, as Republicans control the 23-member committee by only one vote and no Democrats are expected to support the bill.

Republicans, who control both chambers of Congress and the White House, have yet to score a major legislative victory since Trump took office in January. After their failed push to repeal Obamacare, they are eager to score a win before next year’s midterm elections, when control of the House and the Senate is at stake.

TAX CUTS, DEFICIT RISES

The Senate bill would slash the corporate tax rate to 20 percent from 35 percent after a one-year delay. It would impose a one-time, cut-rate tax on corporations’ foreign profits, while exempting future foreign profits from U.S. taxation.

But it would also add more than $1.4 trillion to the federal deficit over the first decade, according to congressional analysis. Republicans have said that economic growth spurred by tax cuts would generate enough new tax revenue to eliminate any new deficit.

The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation is not expected to release a full macroeconomic analysis of the tax bill head of a Senate vote.

As a result, Corker and other Republican deficit hawks, including Senator James Lankford, have been holding talks with Senate tax writers and the administration about adding a provision that would raise tax rates if revenues fall short of expectations.

Other lawmakers have expressed concern that the Senate bill could effectively raise, not cut, the amount of tax paid by some people because it would eliminate a popular federal income tax deduction for state and local tax payments. They are also concerned it could increase health insurance costs for people with medical conditions.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), another nonpartisan research unit of Congress, said the number of Americans with health insurance would fall by 13 million by 2027 under the Republican tax bill, which would repeal an Obamacare federal fine meant to encourage people to buy health insurance.

The CBO said this would make people with incomes below $30,000 net losers under the bill, and most of those earning more would be net winners, especially those with incomes between $100,000 and $500,000.

If the Senate manages to pass the tax bill, its version and the House version will have to be reconciled into a piece of legislation that both chambers must approve before it can be signed into law by Trump.

(Reporting by David Morgan; Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu and Andy Sullivan; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Frances Kerry)

TransCanada to restart Keystone pipeline on Tuesday

By Nia Williams

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) – The Keystone crude oil pipeline will restart at reduced pressure on Tuesday, TransCanada Corp <TRP.TO> said, nearly two weeks after closing the line after it leaked 5,000 barrels of crude in rural South Dakota.

Calgary-based TransCanada shut down the 590,000 barrel-per-day pipeline, one of Canada’s main crude export routes linking Alberta’s oil fields to U.S. refineries, on Nov. 16. The company is still cleaning up the spill and investigating the cause.

TransCanada said on Monday the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) reviewed its repair and restart plans. It said it will start operating the pipeline at reduced pressure, and gradually boost the volume of crude moving through.

TransCanada did not specify what the reduced pressure would be or when the pipeline would return to full capacity. PHMSA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“We are communicating plans to our customers and will continue working closely with them as we begin to return to normal operating conditions,” TransCanada said in a statement.

In its most recent update, TransCanada said it has so far cleaned up 1,065 barrels of oil.

The cleanup “is going as fast as we would hope, they are working 24 hours a day,” said Brian Walsh, environmental scientist manager with the South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

Keystone has leaked substantially more oil, and more often, in the United States than the company indicated to regulators in risk assessments before operations began in 2010, according to documents reviewed by Reuters.

The Keystone outage roiled crude oil prices on both sides of the border as market players anticipated a glut of crude building up in Alberta while inventories fell in the U.S. futures trading hub of Cushing, Oklahoma.

The West Texas Intermediate (WTI) prompt spread <CLc1-CLc2> widened to a session low of negative 10 cents on news of the pipeline returning to service. Traders see the spread as an indicator for supply at Cushing.

The discount on Western Canada Select heavy blend crude for December delivery in Hardisty, Alberta, narrowed in thin trade to $17.90 a barrel below U.S. crude, according to Shorcan Energy brokers. On Friday December WCS settled at $21.50 a barrel under the U.S. benchmark.

The Keystone spill in South Dakota came days before neighboring Nebraska approved a route for TransCanada’s planned Keystone XL pipeline, but the approved route differed from the company’s preferred path. TransCanada has asked the state to reconsider, according to a filing posted on the Nebraska Public Service Commission website on Monday.

A company spokesman said TransCanada is seeking a “clarification” on the Nov. 20 decision, but did not provide further details.

On Saturday, landowners opposed to the pipeline responded to TransCanada’s request with their own motion seeking oral arguments on the issue.

A PSC spokesperson said the body has 60 days to respond to TransCanada’s motion.

(Additional reporting by Catherine Ngai in New York, Val Volcovici in Washington and Ethan Lou in Calgary; Editing by David Gregorio)

Trump Panama hotel owners trying to strip president’s name -report

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Owners of the Trump International Hotel in Panama City are trying to strip the president’s name from the building and remove his company from management, the Associated Press reported on Monday.

When it was completed in 2011, the 70-floor building was the future U.S. president’s first international hotel venture, a complex including apartments and a casino in a waterfront building that has earned Trump between $30 million and $50 million.

In August this year, Miami-based Ithaca Capital Partners completed its purchase of the hotel amenities and the majority of the units in the Trump International Hotel.

In October, Ithaca proposed removing the Trump Organization’s directors from the hotel board and sending a notice of default to Trump, to begin terminating Trump’s link to the property, after complaints over alleged mismanagement, the AP reported.

“Not only do we have a valid, binding and enforceable long-term management agreement, but any suggestion that the hotel is not performing up to expectations is belied by the actual facts,” the Trump Organization said in a statement.

Ithaca did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump licensed his brand to the luxury project and provided hotel management. A Reuters investigation published in November found that alleged fraudster Alexandre Ventura Nogueira had sold between one-third and one-half of the advance sales for the Trump Ocean Club, as the complex including the hotel and apartments is known. (http://reut.rs/2zOaBYo)

The story, reported in conjunction with U.S. broadcaster NBC News, detailed how Nogueira did business with a Colombian money launderer and two criminals from the former Soviet Union.

Nogueira told Reuters and NBC how, in the project’s early days, he had participated in business meetings with Ivanka Trump and that she had endorsed his recommendation to sell the apartments for a higher price.

Ivanka Trump declined to comment on the allegations, while the Trump Organization said it did not remember Nogueira.

Earlier in November, the Trump Organization said it would give up management of the Trump SoHo hotel in New York City by the end of the year.

The Trump Ocean Club Panama Owners Association could not be reached for comment.

(Reporting by Christine Murray, Stefanie Eschenbacher and Ned Parker; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Turkey, United States ‘on same wavelength’, to speak again this week: Erdogan

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday his talks with U.S. President Donald Trump last week were the first occasion in a long time the two NATO allies were “on the same wavelength” and they would speak against this week.

Diplomatic ties between Ankara and Washington have been strained by several disagreements, particularly over the United States’ support for the YPG Syrian Kurdish militia, which Ankara regards as a terrorist group.

“The telephone call which we had with Trump on Friday was the first in a long time in which we got on the same wavelength,” Erdogan said in a speech to deputies from his ruling AK Party in parliament.

He said discussions would continue in the coming days on the issues of the YPG, defense industry cooperation and the fight against the network of a U.S.-based cleric whom Ankara accuses of orchestrating last year’s failed coup in Turkey.

According to Turkey’s foreign minister, Trump on Friday told Erdogan he had issued instructions that weapons should not be provided to the Syrian Kurdish YPG.

However, the Pentagon said on Monday it was reviewing “adjustments” in arms for Syrian Kurdish forces, but it stopped short of halting weapons transfers, suggesting such decisions would be based on battlefield requirements.

Speaking to reporters in parliament after his speech, Erdogan said the Pentagon statement would be discussed at Turkey’s National Security Council (MGK) meeting later on Tuesday.

He also said that Trump indicated that another call may happen this week.

“If he doesn’t call, I’ll call,” Erdogan said.

The YPG spearheads the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias fighting Islamic State with the help of a U.S.-led coalition.

Turkey regards the YPG as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has fought a decades-long insurgency in Turkey and is designated a terrorist group by Ankara, the United States and European Union.

(Reporting by Ercan Gurses, Ece Toksabay and Tuvan Gumrukcu,; Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by DAvid Dolan)

Sign up for Jim Bakker Show