News from Around the World

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PHOTO: JASON LEE/REUTERS

Tariff Fight Costs China Spot as Top U.S. Trading Partner


WASHINGTON—Escalating tariff disputes between Washington and Beijing cost China its position as the U.S.’s top trading partner in the first half of the year, as exports and imports between the two largest economies fell sharply.

sciencemag.org

The Enduring Benefits of Trade


With large multilateral trade deals under the World Trade Organization having ground to a halt over the past decade, countries have turned to regional or preferential free trade agreements among smaller numbers of participants to inch liberalisation ahead.

The leader in this process has been the EU, concluding multifaceted deals with developed and developing countries since 2005. Its latest success was a series of agreements with Singapore signed last month.

Credit: Lexey Swall for The New York Times

The Fed Just Cut Interest Rates. Here’s What That Means for You.


Americans juggle a lot of interest rates in their daily lives. They pay interest on car loans, credit card balances and mortgages. They earn interest, at least a little, on the money they save with banks.

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios

The Green New Deal That the Market Loves


While the Green New Deal is drawing both devotees and detractors on Capitol Hill, green energy is seeing nothing but love in the market.

REUTERS/KIYOSHI OTA/POOL

The IMF is worried that big tech could make the financial system less stable


The International Monetary Fund thinks big technology companies are going to dig deeper into the financial sector—a shift that could modernize things like payments and loans for millions of people. But it also raises concerns about data privacy and the concentration of power among a small number of mega-corporations.

The latest round of Trump tariffs effectively tax half of all Chinese goods exported to the US. GETTY IMAGES

The US and China may be nearing a trade deal. That won't stop the global economic slowdown


The U.S. and China appear to be close to ending a tariff fight that hurt financial markets and dented economic activity worldwide, but that's not going to stop the slowdown already seen in the global economy, experts said on Monday.

A severely malnourished infant is bathed in a bucket Aug. 25, 2018 in Yemen's Hajjah province

The World Bank’s latest tool for fighting famine: Artificial intelligence


The group is partnering with Silicon Valley to tackle a problem affecting millions around the world.

Despite being a slow-moving disaster, famine is notoriously difficult to predict.

economist.com

The world is fixated on the past


Politicians have always exploited the past. But just now, rich countries and emerging economies are experiencing an outbreak of nostalgia. Right and left, democracies and autocracies, all are harking back to the glories of yesteryear. Even as President Donald Trump vows to “Make America great again”, President Xi Jinping is using his “Chinese dream” to banish a century of humiliation and return China to its golden age. Mexico’s new president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has a mission to withstand global capitalism and restore his country’s economic sovereignty.

REUTERS

Theresa May loses control of Brexit


LONDON — No one has a clue what happens now.

Getty Images

Theresa May Takes Her Brexit Deal to the People


Theresa May has one over-riding goal in the next two and a half weeks. She needs to get more than half of the MPs in the House of Commons to back her Brexit deal in the key vote on December 12.

But as she makes the case for the pact, the PM is not just focused on parliament. She is also taking her argument to a much wider constituency: the British people.