Quick Takes: News You May Have Missed

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August 12, 2015, 2 PM ET

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Iran Poised To Receive Tens Of Billions In Investment

While President Obama downplayed the impact of frozen assets Iran will receive under sanctions relief, European and Asian companies are already discussing up to $29 billion in potential mining investments in Iran once they get the go-ahead. And that is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to new business deals set to flood Iran’s economy, with the total amount of new investments clearly poised to dwarf the $56 billion Obama says Iran will get from unfrozen assets. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu places the total at closer to $150 billion in unfrozen assets. Yet even that number pales in comparison to the international deals coming Iran’s way. “Companies looking to invest don’t want to be identified until sanctions are removed,” Mehdi Karbasian, deputy minister of Iran’s Ministry of Industries, Mining and Trade, told Bloomberg news agency of those firms interested in new mining contracts. Karbasian described the $29 billion of mining investments in projects ranging from steel to aluminum production, gold mining and copper. This while Germany car companies Volkswagen and Skoda discuss plans to reenter the Iranian automotive market after almost a five-year absence. Indeed, just after the Vienna agreement was signed last month, senior Iranian government officials boasted to the country’s semi-official Fars news agency that “huge” investment sums will be “funneled” into their country. Iran’s official IRNA news agency quoted Abbas Akhoundi, minister of Roads and Urban Development, explaining the preparations underway to handle what he said would likely be a major increase in international travel to and from Iran. Akhoundi said the nuclear deal will enable Iran to modernize marine, aerial, and rail transport and purchase new passenger planes. One day before the deal was signed, Iran’s biggest oil-shipping company, which boasts the world’s largest fleet of super tankers, was already preparing to return to European and international markets in the wake of any agreement in Vienna. At the same time, clearly anticipating massive sanctions relief, Iranian companies last month signed a $2.3 billion agreement to construct 800 miles of pipelines, which Iran has identified as its most critical conduit for future gas exports to Europe.

Trump’s Plan, Revealed

Donald Trump has been criticized repeatedly, including by other Republican presidential candidates, for lacking specific prescriptions and details to back up his many generalized policy declarations. However, Trump’s 2011 book, Time to Get Tough: Making America #1 Again, contains 10 chapters of proposals for enacting policy changes on a host of key issues, including immigration, healthcare, and tax reform. In one striking clarion call, Trump uses the book to demand an end to the interpretation of law that allows for so-called anchor babies, where children of illegal-immigrant mothers who give birth on American soil automatically become U.S. citizens. He calls for a serious, layered fence or a wall separated by a 75-yard “no man’s lands” for border agents to operate. Trump additionally calls for Congress and the president to “hire another 25,000 border patrol agents and give them the aerial equipment they need, such as Predator drones, to provide real-time aerial reconnaissance information to agents guarding the border wall.” He has since updated his border plan, adding that Mexico should pay for the construction of the new barrier. Trump’s revenue prescription, which he labeled his 1-5-10-15 income-tax plan in the book four years ago, could form the basis for his campaign’s tax proposals. Here’s Trump’s proposed income-tax plan:

Those making up to $30,000 will pay 1 percent.
Income from $30,000 to $100,000 results in a flat 5 percent.
$100,000 to $1 million income will be taxed at 10 percent.
On $1 million or above will be taxed 15 percent.

He calls for companies who outsource jobs overseas to be punished with a 20 percent tax hike. The billionaire also suggests lowering to zero the tax rate for those companies that outsourced overseas but decide to return to the U.S. The reality star slams Obamacare as a “job-killing, health care-destroying monstrosity” and posits that “it can’t be reformed, salvaged, or fixed. It’s that bad.” “Obamacare has to be killed now,” he maintains, “before it grows into an even bigger mess, as it inevitably will.” Beyond simply repealing Obamacare, Trump offers a basic follow-up plan that he argues would “bring down health-care costs and make health-care insurance more affordable for everyone.” The first order of business, Trump writes, involves policies and legislation to increase competition between insurance companies. Primarily, allowing citizens to purchase healthcare plans across state lines. He urges Congress to use its constitutional authority over interstate commerce to pass bills allowing citizens in every state to purchase healthcare from providers nationwide. “Increasing competition is common sense,” he writes. Trump notes health-care costs vary drastically in each state, citing an example of an HMO plan for a 25-year-old male in California that costs $260 a month while a similar plan with equivalent benefits in New York cost about $1,228. Trump’s next order of business is enacting serious tort reform on frivolous lawsuits that, he argues, has resulted in doctors practicing “defensive medicine.” He writes that doctors are usually ordering excessive testing and procedures to avoid being sued, citing a Pricewaterhouse Coopers study finding such defensive medicine accounts for at least 10 percent of all medical costs. Trump’s plan? Capping lawsuit “pain and suffering” damages at $100,000 and the enactment of “loser pays” laws in which the loser pays the winner’s legal bills if the suit is determined to be baseless. Such legislation has already passed in Texas.