Summary of today’s Essential Eight:

1. Outbreaks - Cases are rising again, Shanghai has more cases and more testing, and perhaps most worrisome, Xi’an is going back into something like a lockdown because the city has detected several cases of the BA.5 variant. BA.5 vs. dynamic zero-Covid could be a very protracted struggle.

2. More infrastructure funds - The old playbook is hard to quit, and the economic situation is still not great, and may get worse again if BA.5 really starts spreading and more lockdowns occur.

3. US-China officials talking, some tariffs may go away - Multiple media outlets are reporting a variation of the story that the Biden Administration is about to remove some of the Trump-era tariffs. The Biden team has been split on the issue and after months of debate appears to have settled on a compromise that will make few happy. Liu He and Janet Yellen spoke overnight, and Wang Yi and Anthony Blinken will meet later this week at the G-20. I continue to hear chatter the Xi and Bid…