In Italy, Everything Changes to Stay the Same

(Bloomberg) --

A half-forgotten man in Italy’s fractious politics for more than a year, Giuseppe Conte has managed to outfox arguably the country’s biggest political player.

As prime minister, Conte was overshadowed by his deputies in an unruly coalition – the populist Five Star and the anti-immigration League fought constantly – and was dubbed a puppet and Mr. Nobody. League leader Matteo Salvini, with a commanding margin in opinion polls, recently collapsed that government in the hopes he could force a quick election and rule on his own.

And yet Conte, with no prior political experience and no discernible political base, used his background as a lawyer to help negotiate a mandate to form a new government and see off Salvini, at least for now.

He’ll need all his backroom navigating skills in the coming months. The new coalition will probably be as fragile as the old one – Five Star and the Democratic Party are long-time rivals with little in common aside from the desire to avoid snap elections. Expect clashes over the 2020 budget.

It’s a matter of when, not if, elections come. Salvini may have retreated to his corner but he’ll be doing his best to meddle. Bets are already on as to how long Conte’s new grouping lasts.

Global Headlines

Meeting murkiness | Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told Bloomberg News that U.S. trade officials expect Chinese negotiators to visit Washington, but wouldn’t say if a previously-planned September meeting would happen. It comes as concern about the prospects for a trade breakthrough continue to weigh on global markets.

• Record-low interest rates have the White House giving “very serious consideration” to selling ultra-long bonds with maturities of up to 100 years, Mnuchin said. But as Saleha Mohsin writes, Wall Street may not be ready to buy.

Citizenship limits | Donald Trump's administration said children adopted overseas by U.S. military personnel and government employees serving abroad will no longer be guaranteed citizenship. It's part of a White-House-directed push to make legal immigration to the U.S. harder and follows an effort to shift funds to build 20 additional miles of barriers at the Mexico border.

Key Tory departs | Scottish Conservative Party leader Ruth Davidson resigned, a blow to U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson amid talk an election is in the wings. Davidson was a key factor in delivering the Conservative seats needed for Johnson’s predecessor Theresa May to win the last vote in 2017. She mostly cited family reasons, but it comes after Johnson moved to suspend Parliament as he seeks to avoid further delays to Brexit.

• Click here to read how Johnson’s gambit could yet force a Brexit deal through.

Seeking time| Grappling with an uphill re-election bid and a worsening debt and currency crisis, President Mauricio Macri is trying to cajole creditors into giving Argentina longer to repay them. The risk for Macri is yet another default by a country that has earned a reputation as a serial defaulter over the past century.

Not the only one | Turns out Colombia, Peru and Bolivia are destroying their tropical forest at a faster rate than Jair Bolsonaro's Brazil. These countries aren’t necessarily encouraging deforestation but they do lack the ability to prevent ranchers, cocaine producers and illegal gold miners from ripping up and poisoning forests.

What to Watch

• New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand is the latest Democrat to drop out of the presidential race, after failing to qualify for the third debate.
• Trump — who has pledged to re-establish U.S. dominance in space — takes part in an event marking the creation of a new branch of the military called Space Command.
• A court ordered the retrial of Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Jay Y. Lee on bribery charges, reviving legal uncertainty around South Korea's largest company at a time of global trade turmoil. It did the same for ex-President Park Geun-hye.
• China said a U.S. warship sailing near disputed islands in the South China Sea was violating its sovereignty after the Navy conducted its sixth so-called freedom of navigation operation in the area in the past 12 months.

And finally... Trump and Democratic front-runner Joe Biden disagree on a lot. But they often sound alike. The 2020 rivals share more than a few verbal tics, including an outspoken appreciation of beautiful women, large crowds and their own IQs. Take our quiz to see if you can guess who said what.

--With assistance from Kathleen Hunter, Matthew Bristow and Robert Hutton.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Alan Crawford at acrawford6@bloomberg.net

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