U.S. Industrial Policy, EU-U.S. Trade Accord, China PPI: Eco Day

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Welcome to Wednesday, Europe. Here’s the latest news and analysis from Bloomberg Economics to help you start the day:

• The U.S. senate passed an industrial policy bill to invest almost $250 billion in boosting U.S. manufacturing to compete with China, while President Joe Biden released a multi-pronged strategy to secure supply chains in products ranging from medicines to microchips
• EU leaders and Biden will commit to ending outstanding trade battles when they meet next week
• The economist who helped change the way the Fed assesses long-run inflation expectations says it needs to start laying the groundwork for shrinking its huge bond-buying program
• Bank of England Chief Economist Andy Haldane said the U.K. housing market is “on fire” and contributing to a growing wealth gap -- but there’s little the central bank can do to fix structural issues
• Surging commodity costs drove China’s factory-gate inflation to its highest level since 2008, further adding to global price pressures, but there was little effect on consumer prices
• Germany faces legal action more than a year after the nation’s top court delivered a ruling about a European Central Bank QE program, with the European Commission poised to kickstart a so-called infringement case as soon as Wednesday
• Many nations will keep struggling with the pandemic and its aftermath even as a few major economies spur the strongest post-recession global growth in 80 years, the World Bank said
• After Russian officials bemoaned the collapse of migrant labor in the coronavirus pandemic, the head of the country’s prison service offered a solution: reviving the Soviet-era practice of putting convicts to work. Just don’t call it a Gulag.
• Poland is set to look past the fastest inflation in a decade to maintain record-low interest rates, though analysts see growing price pressures chipping away at the central bank’s resolve
• An end to two years of near paralysis in Israeli economic policy making is in sight as lawmakers prepare to vote Sunday on a new coalition government that would eject Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
• Former Fed Vice Chairman Donald Kohn voiced concern that the bank is not well-positioned to deal with a rising inflation threat, while Bloomberg Economics has dusted off an academic model that forecasts CPI to touch 4.8% in May before easing
• U.S. job openings rose in April to a fresh record high, along with the number of people who voluntarily left their jobs

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