American Debt Pile, Italy's China Pivot, RBNZ's Emails: Eco Day

(Bloomberg) -- Happy Friday, Asia. Here’s the latest news from Bloomberg Economics:

• The U.S. government’s interest payments have now surpassed Belgium’s total economic output
• Italy is scrapping efforts to limit Chinese investment in favor of fostering relations with Beijing. Meantime, the populist government’s controversial budget plans are hanging on economics that look too optimistic
• New Zealand’s central bank made a renewed bid to keep a Treasury Department official away from interest-rate decisions, newly released emails show
• Export-dependent Singapore has a strong warning: Damage from a prolonged trade war will be severe
• Hong Kong has long marketed itself as the gateway into China for foreign firms, especially America -- and that’s now precisely its problem
• Justin Trudeau dreams of closer Canadian ties with China. The deal he just made with Donald Trump makes it harder for that to happen
• With the Fed intent on tightening, Treasury yields are finally taking flight to multi-year highs. Yet inflation is absent from this equation
• ECB officials stressed they will only gradually scale back stimulus as they try to nudge inflation higher amid rising political and trade risks
• One of the reasons for the strength of U.S. employment could be breakneck hiring in goods production. Tonight’s jobs results are likely to be distorted by Hurricane Florence, says Carl Riccadonna

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