By David Lawder and Andrea Shalal
WASHINGTON/ROME, Oct 28 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary
Janet Yellen will use her third trip to Europe to push a slew of
White House global economic priorities on corporate taxes,
climate financing, preventing new pandemics and easing
inflationary supply chain disruptions.
Over the next week, she will make the pitches at Group of 20
meetings in Rome and at the United Nations Climate Change
Conference 26 (COP26) in Glasgow, with an interim stop in
Ireland to thank the low-tax country for its hard-fought
decision to support a deal for a 15% global minimum corporate
tax.
U.S. President Joe Biden and other G20 leaders at a weekend
summit are expected to endorse the tax deal https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/global-corporate-tax-deal-nears-holdouts-drop-objections-2021-10-08
agreed by 136 countries, cementing progress made this year
under Yellen's leadership.
NEXT PANDEMIC
Yellen arrived in Rome late on Wednesday -- a day earlier
than Biden -- to hold bilateral meetings and attend a G20 joint
finance and health ministers meeting on Friday, the day before
the leaders summit this weekend.
She will urge the finance and health group to better prepare
for the next pandemic through a new disease detection and
coordination forum and a separate financing mechanism. She
outlined the proposals in a letter to G20 colleagues https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy0435
along with Sri Mulyani Indrawati, the finance minister for
Indonesia, which chairs the G20 in 2022.
One diplomatic source said other G20 countries had not fully
embraced the financing mechanism amid a crush of other funding
requests for climate, COVID-19 vaccinations and debt relief.
Treasury officials said Yellen will also push for faster
progress in debt restructurings for highly indebted countries
under a G20 framework.
The G20 is not expected to support a proposed extended
freeze of poor countries' bilateral debt payments after the end
of this year, the official added.
TAX DEAL BENEFITS
On Sunday and Monday, Yellen will meet with government and
business leaders in Dublin to discuss the tax deal, which will
affect many U.S. technology companies that were drawn to invest
there by Ireland's low 12.5% tax rate.
Treasury officials say they are confident about the Biden
administration's ability to implement the global tax deal using
a Democrats-only budget measure even as a deeply divided
Congress struggles to agree on Biden's massive spending bill.
U.S. Senate Democrats have proposed a new, across-the-board
15% corporate minimum tax https://www.reuters.com/world/us/details-emerge-corporate-minimum-tax-plan-us-senate-democrats-cnbc-2021-10-26
to work alongside a proposed tax on the unrealized gains from
billionaires' assets https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-senate-democrat-unveils-billionaires-tax-biden-agenda-2021-10-27.
At COP26 in Glasgow on Nov. 2-3, Yellen will emphasize using
multilateral development banks to mobilize more private sector
investments in carbon abatement and using tax and economic
policy incentives to accelerate the transition a lower carbon
economy, Treasury officials said.
She will also tout work done by the U.S. Financial Stability
Board to incorporate climate risks https://news.trust.org/item/20211021221428-49kw
as an "emerging threat" to financial stability in the
regulatory agency's every day work.
But here too, Yellen will have to contend with a less
ambitious U.S. climate spending agenda as incentives to replace
coal power plants with wind, solar and nuclear power were
dropped from the package.
(Reporting by David Lawder and Andrea Shalal; Additional
reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Heather Timmons and
Aurora Ellis)