VOA’s Xu Ning contributed to this report. Over the past several weeks, the U.S. government has launched a seemingly unprecedented campaign to block the Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies from competing in the global rollout of next-generation 5G mobile networking technology, claiming that the company is effectively an arm of the …
U.S. President Donald Trump is attacking General Motors, the country’s biggest automaker, for costing 5,400 factory workers their jobs when it closed a manufacturing plant where it built a compact model car that Americans were increasingly not interested in buying. Trump said on Twitter he talked with Mary Barra, GM’s …
Oil producer group OPEC on Monday scrapped its planned meeting in April and will decide instead whether to extend output cuts in June, once the market has assessed the impact of U.S. sanctions on Iran and the crisis in Venezuela. A ministerial panel of OPEC and its allies recommended that …
After wrapping up thousands of town hall meetings, France starts a new chapter of its “great debate,” aimed to address longstanding public grievances and offer solutions to the yellow vest protest movement. But the broader crisis lingers, seen with upsurge of violence in Paris Saturday, where about 10,000 yellow vests …
British Prime Minister Theresa May warned Sunday that it would be “a potent symbol of Parliament’s collective political failure” if a Brexit delay meant that the U.K. has to take part in May’s European elections — almost three years after Britons voted to leave the bloc. Writing in the Sunday …
Brazil is considering granting an import quota of 750,000 metric tons of U.S. wheat per year without tariffs in exchange for other trade concessions, according to a Brazilian official with knowledge of the negotiations ahead of President Jair Bolsonaro’s visit to Washington. That is about 10 percent of Brazilian annual wheat imports and is part of a two-decade-old commitment …
Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said on Saturday that frequent U.S. comments about oil prices had created market tensions, the ministry’s news website SHANA reported. U.S. President Donald Trump, who has made the U.S. economy one of his top issues, has repeatedly tweeted about oil prices and the Organization of the Petroleum Producing Countries. He has …
Veteran Conservative lawmaker Nigel Evans has been in Britain’s House of Commons for more than a quarter-of-a-century and, like most of his parliamentary colleagues, is stunned at the turn of Brexit events. “I got elected in 1992 and I don’t know if I have known any time more uncertain than …
China’s top legislature is expected to pass the country’s first Foreign Investment Law this week at a time when negotiators from Beijing and Washington work to hammer out a trade deal. Analysts and business groups say the legislation is a step in the right direction, but still falls short. In …
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he was in no rush to complete a trade pact with China and insisted that any deal include protection for intellectual property, a major sticking point between the two sides during months of negotiations. Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping had been expected …
Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives gave a cool reception to the replacement for the North American Free Trade Agreement on Wednesday as the top U.S. trade negotiator opened a campaign to win broad support for the accord in Congress. Several Democrats said a closed-door meeting between United States …
The United States is working on a plan to lift tariffs from Mexican and Canadian steel and aluminum but preserve the gains that domestic producers have received from the duties so far, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said on Tuesday. “What I’m trying to do is a have a practical …
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Tuesday denied any delay to a flagship refinery project in his home state after the deputy finance minister was quoted as saying $2.5 billion for its construction will be moved to state oil firm Pemex. The planned investment for the Dos Bocas refinery …
The United States is preparing to impose “very significant” Venezuela-related sanctions against financial institutions in the coming days, U.S. special envoy Elliott Abrams said on Tuesday. Abrams did not elaborate on the fresh measures but his warning came a day after the U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions on Russian bank Evrofinance …
Carmen Perry decided to rent rather than buy immediately after she divorced her husband and sold the family home. The 67-year-old realtor sees definite advantages to living in a space owned by someone else. “If something breaks or something needs to be replaced, water heater or whatever, I just call …
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un may not be able to achieve his economic development goals given the divergent ideas over denuclearization exhibited by Washington and Pyongyang after the Hanoi summit, said experts. After the Hanoi summit broke down last month over discussions of Washington’s demand on denuclearization and Pyongyang’s …
U.N. experts say they are investigating possible violations of United Nations sanctions on North Korea in about 20 countries, from alleged clandestine nuclear procurement in China to arms brokering in Syria and military cooperation with Iran, Libya and Sudan. The expert panel’s 66-page report to the Security Council, obtained Monday …
The United States told international carriers on Monday that the Boeing 737 Max 8 is airworthy as regulators scrutinize two fatal crashes of the new model of aircraft since October, but said it will mandate forthcoming “design changes” from Boeing by April. An Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max 8 bound for …
President Donald Trump plans to seek another $8.6 billion for a border wall in his new budget to be released Monday, White House officials say. This new request would be on top of the nearly $7 billion Trump has ordered to be used to build a wall under his state …
One of the biggest concerns for university graduates in Iraq is finding a job. Young graduates often seek the government’s help to find employment, but in the city of Sulaymaniyah in Iraq’s Kurdish region there’s another alternative. An organization called 5-1 Labs helps train and fund young graduates who want …
White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow says that President Donald Trump will call for a 5 percent “across the board” cut in domestic government spending in 2020 when he proposes his new budget on Monday. “It will be a tough budget,” Kudlow told the Fox News Sunday show. “We’re going …
After months of Brexit deadlock, this is it: decision time. At least for now. With Britain scheduled to leave the European Union in less than three weeks, U.K. lawmakers are poised to choose the country’s immediate direction from among three starkly different choices: deal, no deal or delay. A …
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Friday that the healthy U.S. economy and low inflation are allowing the central bank to take a “patient, wait-and-see approach” on interest rates. Speaking at Stanford University, Powell said the Fed is well along in its effort to normalize Fed operations by scaling back …
Hiring tumbled in February, with U.S. employers adding just 20,000 jobs, the smallest monthly gain in nearly a year and a half. The slowdown in hiring, though, might have been depressed by harsh winter weather and the partial shutdown of the government. Last month’s weak gain came after employers had …
U.S. President Donald Trump says he will not sign a trade deal with China unless it is a “very good deal.” Trump made the comments Friday as he left the White House to tour tornado damage in the southern U.S. state of Alabama. The United States and China have been …
Wall Street has rewarded its most patient investors handsomely over the past 10 years. Is there more to come? The S&P 500, the U.S. market’s benchmark index, has gained about 309 percent since bottoming out at 676.53 points in March 2009 during the Great Recession, according to FactSet. The index …