The government of Haiti has announced the imposition of a new nightly curfew and other restrictions in an attempt to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus as the French-speaking nation still awaits the long-promised delivery of the 756,000 AstraZeneca vaccine doses arranged through a United Nations program.

Though organised over a month ago, Haiti does not yet have any vaccines to offer its more than 11 million people as COVID-19 cases increase, raising concerns among health experts that the well-being of Haitians is being pushed aside as violence and political instability across the country deepen.

“We are all working hard with the government of Haiti, the Ministry of Health and other stakeholders so that Haiti can receive vaccines as soon as possible,” said Dr. Ciro Ugarte, director of health emergencies for the Pan American Health Organization, the WHO’s Americas branch.

The free doses were scheduled to arrive in May at the latest, but delays are expected because Haiti missed a deadline and the key Indian manufacturer is now prioritizing an increase in domestic demand.

Haiti is among 10 countries in the Americas that will receive vaccines at no cost through COVAX, an initiative to provide COVID-19 inoculations to countries that would otherwise have difficulty getting them. The nation of more than 11 million already struggled to administer routine vaccines and provide basic health care before the pandemic.

For this reason, all outdoor activity will be banned from 10 p.m. until 5 a.m. under the decree issued by President Jovenel Moise, who was in Ecuador on Monday for the inauguration of that country’s new president.

The decree also makes the use of face masks mandatory for anyone out in public, while temperature checks and handwashing stations are required for all public or private buildings, such as banks, schools, hospitals and markets. Social distancing in public places is set at nearly 5 feet.

The president also ordered public institutions to reduce staff on duty by 50 percent, while he encouraged that other employees work from home.

According to official government statistics, Haiti has had 13,906 coronavirus cases since the pandemic began in March 2020 and 288 deaths related to COVID-19. But a recent surge in daily cases of contagion has prompted authorities to declare a state of emergency.

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The U.S. dollar rose on Thursday as traders awaited a batch of U.S. economic data that could set the tone at central bank meetings later this month.

Investors have bet on the dollar falling as the world recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic, but they have lately grown nervous over whether a surprisingly strong U.S. economic rebound poses a threat to the assumption that interest rates will stay low for a long time.

The mood has kept speculators from adding much to short positions in recent weeks and has put the brakes on what a month ago seemed like a relentless downtrend.

Against the euro the dollar traded 0.2% higher at $1.2183 and it crept a fraction higher on Antipodean currencies. It rose 0.2% to buy 109.78 yen .

The dollar index , which measures the greenback against a basket of six currencies, rose to 90.112. It has found strong support around the 89.946 mark in recent sessions after falling 2% in April and a further 1.6% in May.

“At least for now, most of what is happening is simply confirming the consensus narrative and thus surprises are low,” said Mikael Milhøj, chief analyst at Danske Bank, noting the range-bound trade in euro/dollar.

“Maybe the next round of PMIs or the upcoming FOMC meeting can change that – but we are likely going sideways for now amid a vacuum in key data/surprises.”

Fed officials have begun to hint at tapering discussions and on Wednesday the Fed announced it will unwind corporate bond holdings it amassed through an emergency facility last year – another sign of pandemic measures coming to an end.

U.S. ADP payrolls – sometimes a litmus test for the broader non-farm figures – are expected to show a gain of 650,000 jobs when the data is released at 1215 GMT, a slowdown from a rise of 742,000 in the previous month.

April’s big miss on payrolls, when monthly hiring of 266,000 confounded expectations for 1 million, has added to the nervousness, with a miss likely to weigh on the dollar while a beat could support it. The consensus estimate is for 664,000.

PECKING ORDER

Globally, the Fed is becoming a laggard as other central banks start to discuss and even lay out timetables for hikes, as has happened in New Zealand, Canada, Norway and been hinted at by Bank of England policymakers – helping their currencies.

The next Fed meeting is in June, while the European Central Bank meets next week with investors focused on whether it will persist with its current pace of bond buying.

“Guessing the pecking order in which various central banks might be starting to normalise policy is clearly having an impact,” said NAB chief currency strategist Ray Attrill, noting recent gains in the Canadian dollar, kiwi and sterling.

Sterling was the best-performing G10 currency against the dollar in May, with a 2.9% gain, but moves have been even more dramatic against the Japanese yen, since there are no expectations of Japan’s gigantic monetary support backing off.

Indeed speculators in March flipped rapidly into short yen positions and Japanese currency has been the biggest major loser against the dollar during 2021, dropping almost 6%.

Sterling is up 10% on the yen this year and the Canadian dollar, which has been further bolstered by rising oil prices, has gained more than 12% against the yen .

Sterling was 0.1% lower to the dollar at $1.4154 on Thursday as investors fret a little about whether a new virus variant spreading in Britain can delay plans for reopening the economy.

Cryptocurrencies were little changed, with bitcoin last at $38,700.

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By Peter Sullivan –

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(CNN) Kamala Harris will try to deepen the United States’ “strategic partnership and bilateral relationship” with Guatemala and Mexico on her first foreign trip as vice president, according to her senior staff members.

Harris will visit the region next week as part of her role leading diplomatic efforts to stem the flow of migration from Central America, and she will focus on economic development, climate and food insecurity, and women and young people, according to her staff.

The trip underscores the administration’s heightened focus on Central America and migration from the region, especially as record numbers of unaccompanied minors cross the US-Mexico border and officials roll back some Trump-era immigration restrictions.

“The goal of the vice president’s trip is to deepen our strategic partnership and bilateral relationship with both the Guatemalan and Mexican governments to advance a comprehensive strategy to tackle the causes of migration,” said Symone Sanders, Harris’ chief spokesperson and senior adviser, in a call with reporters Tuesday night.

“We will also engage community leaders, workers, young innovators and entrepreneurs, and others about ways to provide economic security, address the core factors of migration, and to give people the hope for a better life at home,” Sanders added.

Biden administration formally ends ‘remain in Mexico’ policy after suspending it earlier this year

President Joe Biden had tasked Harris with the politically fraught assignment in March, and one official said she is “really picking up” from where Biden left off, after he was tasked by then-President Barack Obama to lead diplomatic efforts in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador in his last term after a surge of unaccompanied minors from those countries began arriving in the US.

As CNN has previously reported, Republican critics and the media have portrayed Harris’ new immigration role as a border assignment, potentially opening her up to criticism for the handling of the seemingly intractable problem. Her performance is critical to her future political career, which could well include a run for president, as well as of special concern right now as she prepares to depart for the foreign trip — her first official foray into in-person, in-country talks about the troubles that push Central American migrants toward the US.

The vice president and her staff have made it clear that they want to focus narrowly on diplomatic efforts in Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, where they believe they are more likely to achieve tangible results in addressing the root causes of migration, like economic despair, according to two White House officials familiar with the dynamic.

The vice president will land in Guatemala on Sunday and has a day full of events in the country the next day, including an in-person bilateral meeting with President Alejandro Giammattei. Harris will then fly to Mexico that night.

She will have a bilateral meeting with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, in addition to other events on Tuesday before returning to the US the same day.

The vice president will meet with Guatemalan community leaders, innovators and entrepreneurs as well as greet and thank US embassy staff, per Mazin Alfaqih, special adviser to the vice president for the Northern Triangle.

In Mexico, Harris will participate in a conversation with female entrepreneurs, hold a roundtable with labor workers and greet US mission Mexico staff, according to Hillary Quam, special adviser to the vice president for the Western Hemisphere.

While it will be her first in-country and in-person meetings with leaders from both countries, Harris held virtual bilateral meetings with both leaders earlier this year. They came in a steady stream of highly produced events that showcased Harris meeting with government officials and private-sector companies and seeking input from experts and civil society leaders on how to best help the region.

Vice President Harris’ team tries to distance her from fraught situation at the border

“The vice president’s strategy is built around catalyzing efforts across the United States government, regional governments,” Sanders said, “as well as private sectors and philanthropic sectors and international partners.”

Last month, Harris announced she had secured commitments from 12 private companies and organizations to invest in the Northern Triangle, looking to bolster her work.

In next week’s bilateral meeting, Harris will discuss with Giammattei “ways to increase economic opportunities in Guatemala, strengthen rule of law and deepen bilateral law enforcement cooperation,” Alfaqih told reporters.

Already in their virtual bilateral, the two sides agreed to increase the number of border security personnel, among other agreements. The US will also increase the number of its own security forces on the ground to provide training, Alfaqih said.

Asked whether Harris will address the asylum capacity in the region, White House officials said they expect the first migrant resource center, the creation of which was agreed on in the virtual bilateral meeting, to be open by next week’s trip.

In the vice president’s meeting with Mexico’s President, Harris will look to build on the two countries’ previous agreements to secure the US-Mexico border and work to bolster economic opportunities in the region while establishing “further areas of collaboration,” the officials said.

Sanders wouldn’t say whether Covid-19 vaccines would be a topic of discussion in both countries during the visit, just that they would discuss “Covid cooperation.”

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In May, Harris met with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus to brief members on the administration’s plans. CNN previously reported that Democratic Rep. Norma Torres of California said Harris had confirmed to the group that the Northern Triangle will be a part of the 80 million vaccine doses shared by the administration.

Sanders would not say Tuesday if there will be conversations in Mexico about Title 42, the public health authority put in place under the Trump administration in early 2020 that allows border officials to expel migrants encountered at the US-Mexico border due to the pandemic, lifting restrictions on nonessential travel, or the Temporary Protected Status for Guatemalans.

The vice president has yet to call the leaders of El Salvador and Honduras, as both have underlying issues that have dogged US efforts in the region for years and her staff is finding the best way to engage. Those delayed talks show just one aspect of the challenges in this task.

“We have to give people some sense of hope that if they stay, that help is on the way,” Harris told CNN’s Dana Bash in April. “It’s not going to be solved overnight; it’s a complex issue. If this were easy, it would’ve been handled years ago.”

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Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s drive to strengthen state control of natural resources faces a key test on Sunday at mid-term elections that will determine control of Congress for the rest of his administration.

The leftist Lopez Obrador has upset many of Mexico’s main trade partners and leading business groups by pushing through legislation to reverse the previous government’s opening of the energy market to more private capital.

Though that has sapped investment, his argument that he is fighting for Mexico’s poor against unscrupulous elites still resonates with voters, making his National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) heavily favored to retain the lower house of Congress.

“Mexico’s a rich country, but we’ve allowed other people to come and take our riches from us,” said Cesar Lopez, a 42-year-old MORENA supporter in the northern city of Hermosillo who is firmly behind the president’s energy agenda.

Though voters tend to criticize this government’s record on job creation and fighting crime, they are more skeptical of Mexico’s former rulers, now in opposition. Lopez Obrador has also benefited from the vaccine rollout against COVID-19.

Opinion polls suggest MORENA may lose a few seats in the lower house, which controls the budget. But it should comfortably reach a majority with the help of political allies.

If it beats expectations, the alliance could even get a two-thirds majority allowing Lopez Obrador to pursue constitutional changes to back his statist vision in the second half of his six-year term. That prospect worries some investors.

He is barred from seeking re-election by law.

The president has put taking control of energy policy at the center of his economic agenda, arguing that past governments prioritized private interests at the public’s expense.

That ambition has been cramped by a 2013-14 constitutional energy reform by his predecessor Enrique Pena Nieto, and many of MORENA’s legislative changes have been frozen by lower courts.

His answer has been: see you at the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court rulings are still pending on Lopez Obrador’s moves to give precedence over private interests to national power utility the Comision Federal de Electricidad (CFE) and its oil and gas counterpart, Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex).

Pressuring the court to side with him, he has threatened to change the constitution if it does not.

Such a step could exacerbate disputes with allies by breaching Mexico’s commitments under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement trade deal, business groups say.

Lopez Obrador’s taste for using referendums to cancel infrastructure projects he opposes has further unsettled investors.

He has also sparred with mining companies, criticizing how many concessions were granted them by past governments.

Still, Lopez Obrador on Wednesday hinted he did not envisage many major legal changes in what remained of his term, saying the “constitutional reforms are pretty much done.” Only very few remained, he added, without going into detail.

SELF-INTEREST

Lopez Obrador took office in December 2018 pledging to improve growth and reduce violent crime. Instead, the economy has shrunk for the past two years – contracting 8.5% in 2020 – and homicides have reached unprecedented levels.

Neil Herrington, senior vice president for the Americas at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said it was in Mexico’s interest to create certainty for business and lift the economy.

An important signal towards restoring confidence would be for Mexico to walk back energy policies designed to tilt the playing field in favor of state-run firms, Herrington noted.

“U.S. investors across all industries are watching Mexico’s actions on energy closely because they’re convinced the outcome of the sector’s current challenges will have a major impact on the country’s broader economy and investment climate,” he said.

Lopez Obrador argues that billions of dollars in power industry contracts awarded by predecessors ripped off taxpayers, and he wants companies to agree new terms more favorable to the state.[

A few companies are believed to be pursuing international arbitration. But unless firms sell up, analysts expect most to reach some sort of deal with Lopez Obrador – just as natural gas pipeline operators did in 2019 during a similar renegotiation.

Mexico’s economic fortunes in 2021 have been buoyed by U.S. stimulus spending under President Joe Biden, fueling demand for Mexican goods. Some 80% of Mexico’s exports go to the United States, and exports are at record levels. Mexico’s government says the economy could grow 6.5% this year.

Businesses have flagged concerns about Lopez Obrador’s policies to Washington, but the focus of bilateral relations has been keeping a lid on illegal immigration.

U.S. reliance on Mexico to help stem migrant flows gives Lopez Obrador more latitude to pursue an independent economic agenda, Mexican officials say privately.

The president has wrapped his economic vision in a narrative that business, political and media elites connived to hog Mexico’s riches, fueling poverty, inequality and violence.

Lopez Obrador is right to want to solve those problems, but his rhetoric is stoking serious division, argued Andres Rozental, a former Mexican deputy foreign minister.

“This polarization,” he said, “is extremely damaging and worrisome for a country that needs to get its people together to get out of the rut that it’s in.”

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Reuters- Lack of effective political leadership has hampered efforts to stop the COVID-19 pandemic in Latin America, where infections are dangerously on the rise again, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said on Wednesday.

While the United States, Canada and Mexico are reporting overall reductions in COVID-19 cases and deaths, new infections are increasing in the rest of the Americas, PAHO Director Carissa Etienne said.

Colombia is reporting the highest rate of infections in South America, where new cases have nearly tripled in some regions, and Brazil is seeing a rise in new infections and hospitalizations, she said.

But without effective leadership, Latin American countries are failing in their response to the illness.

“Sadly, across our region we’ve seen misinformation about COVID-19 sow doubt on proven health measures, often in the context of political disputes,” Etienne said in a briefing.

“By stoking controversy where there is none, our leaders are sending mixed messages to the public and standing in the way of effective measures to control the virus,” she said.

Of greatest concern now is Haiti, where despite sharp increases in cases, hospitalizations and deaths, public health measures required to stop transmission are being largely ignored by the population, Etienne said.

She said it was encouraging that Haiti’s government has accepted the AstraZeneca (AZN.L) vaccine and doses will be arriving soon through the COVAX facility led by the World Health Organization.

Latin America and the Caribbean have the world’s highest death toll from COVID-19 in proportion to its population, with at least 33,289,000 reported infections and 1,043,000 reported deaths, according to a Reuters tally.

Interactive graphic tracking global spread of coronavirus: open https://tmsnrt.rs/2FThSv7 in an external browser.

Brazil leads the region with the most new cases and deaths, and a 7-day average of 1,881 fatalities per day. Argentina and Colombia follow in infections and deaths.

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