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Rebuilding Trade Trust between the U.S. and EU

Rebuilding Trade Trust between the U.S. and EU

(Bloomberg) -- On "What'd You Miss This Week", Scarlet Fu, Joe Weisenthal, Caroline Hyde and Romaine Bostick spoke with European Commission trade commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom while she was in Washington to meet with U.S. trade representative Robert Lighthizer. The EU would be forced to retaliate and has already prepared a list of American-made products worth 20 billion euros if the U.S. follows through on President Trump's proposed tariffs on imported cars, Malmstrom said.

The net result would be a blow to the entire global economy, Malmstrom warned. “It would be very harmful for our economy, it would be harmful for the global economy, and it would be harmful for the U.S. economy," she said. "Many cars are produced here in the U.S. with car parts from Europe."

The biotech sector got dragged down by headlines this week. Food and Drug Administration commissioner Scott Gottlieb announced his resignation from the Trump administration. His tenure was marked by speeding up the drug-approval process, and pushing to lower prescription drug costs. The Nasdaq Biotech index fell on the news, while the biotech ETF Direxion Daily S&P Biotech Bear 3X Shares, ticker LABD, saw record volume.

Dennis Purcell, the founder of Aisling Capital, an early stage biotech investment firm, joined to discuss the news, and said the market was right to be nervous about Gottlieb's departure. "We're just getting all these new drugs that are trying to get approved at the FDA, and Scott was one who was really ahead of the curve," he said. "Scott moved the FDA into the twenty-first century."

Jamie Montgomery, the founder and managing director of March Capital Partners, came on from his namesake-technology conference, The Montgomery Summit, which is in its sixteenth year. Montgomery discussed how the ongoing public backlash against big technology companies was weighing with his attendees. "It's a real issue globally, but it's not one of our top ten issues here though," he said. "You're seeing a couple big companies behave poorly - Google, Facebook particularly - and a lot of concern about them."

James Anderson, partner and portfolio manager at Baillie Gifford as well as the co-manager of the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust, also joined. Anderson, who is a veteran investor with a remarkable track record of early stakes in companies including Tencent, Tesla, Alibaba, and Amazon, offered his extreme long-term view of the markets. Anderson said he was "tempted to say forever" when defining just how long long-term was for him. Anderson, who is also a self-described "growth-equity investor", explained how he measures his performance without using benchmarks.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tim Andreacci at tandreacci@bloomberg.net

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