Britain has watched President Trump’s tariffs with a mix of shock, fascination and queasy recognition. The country, after all, embarked on a similar experiment in economic isolationism when it voted to leave the European Union in 2016. Nearly nine years after the Brexit referendum, it is still reckoning with the …
President Trump spared Russia from the tariffs he had imposed on 180 other nations in a bid to reshape global trade. But that did not exempt the country from the ensuing economic havoc. The price of oil, the lifeline of Russia’s economy and war machine, has fallen nearly 15 percent …
President Trump made one of the biggest gambles of his presidency Tuesday by initiating sweeping tariffs with no clear rationale on imports from Canada, Mexico and China, triggering a trade war that risks undermining the United States economy. His actions have upended diplomatic relations with America’s largest trading partners, sent …
Andrew Rackstraw has lived in Marlow, a small, wealthy town on the River Thames about 30 miles west of London, for nearly three decades. Its main streets are dotted with luxury boutiques, high-end cafes and stores like Saddle Safari, Mr. Rackstraw’s bike shop. With a population of about 14,000, Marlow …
After the fall of Communism, Russia ushered in capitalism by selling off billions of dollars in state assets. Now, 30 years later, the Russian government is stepping up a wartime campaign to do the opposite: seizing private businesses, this time in the name of national security. In the last month, …
When Xi Jinping, China’s leader, made his entrance at a symposium with a group of top entrepreneurs this week, he seemed to be in good spirits. China has had a few good weeks. The artificial intelligence models by the start-up DeepSeek sent U.S. stocks tumbling and Western commentators screaming, “Sputnik …
Three decades ago, he was a scrappy campaigner roaming the world’s corridors of power with a dream to win independence for his tiny homeland. Today, at 75, José Ramos-Horta is both the president and a relentless salesman for East Timor. He asked China’s president, Xi Jinping, to “help us resolve …
The world economy was already grappling with a perplexing assortment of variables, from geopolitical conflicts and a slowdown in China to the evolving complexities of climate change. Then, President Trump unleashed a plan to uproot decades of trade policy. In starting a process to impose so-called reciprocal tariffs on American …
President Trump’s promise to hit the United States’ trading partners with tit-for-tat tariffs — including penalties for taxes that he claims the European Union unfairly imposes on American imports — could hardly come at a worse time for the continent. Mr. Trump on Thursday signed a memo directing his teams …
A chorus of criticism greeted Friedrich Merz, the favorite to become Germany’s chancellor, last month when he broke a taboo against working with a hard-right party to pass legislation. But it was a lone voice of dissent that rocked the country’s political scene: Angela Merkel, the once-beloved former chancellor, who …