Author: Busman

The Federal Reserve left its key interest rate unchanged Wednesday and projected no rate hikes in 2019, dramatically underscoring its plan to be “patient” about any further increases. The Fed said it was keeping its benchmark rate — which can influence everything from mortgages to…

U.S. tariffs on China are likely to remain in place for a while even if a trade deal is reached, President Donald Trump told reporters on Wednesday. “The deal is coming along nicely,” the president said about the ongoing trade talks with Beijing, noting U.S.…

German automaker BMW said Wednesday that profits in 2019 would be “well below” last year’s and that it planned to cut 12 billion euros ($13.6 billion) in costs by the end of 2022 to offset spending on new technology. The company said profits would be…

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador says talks with White House senior adviser Jared Kushner have led to advances toward an agreement that would have the U.S. government guarantee some $10 billion in development investments for Mexico and Central America. Lopez Obrador said Wednesday that…

Mexico's government said on Tuesday it had reached an agreement with Brazil on the free trade of light vehicles, subject to a 40 percent regional content requirement, paving the way for more open commerce between Latin America's two biggest economies. The agreement takes effect on…

General Motors said on Tuesday it would invest $2.7 billion in two Brazilian factories over the next five years, sparing them from a shakeup of the automaker's operations, a decision hailed by the governor of Brazil's largest state. Sao Paolo state Governor Joao Doria told…

Saudi Arabia said on Tuesday it would spend 86 billion riyals ($23 billion) to boost the quality of life in the capital Riyadh, increasing green space and recreational areas and installing 1,000 works of art across the city. The four projects unveiled are part of…

Investigators into the Boeing 737 MAX crash in Ethiopia have found striking similarities in a vital flight angle with an airplane that came down off Indonesia, a source said, piling pressure on the world's biggest planemaker. The Ethiopian Airlines disaster eight days ago killed 157…

Paris and Hong Kong for the first time joined Singapore as the world's most expensive cities to live in, a study revealed on Tuesday, with utilities and transport driving up the cost of living. Zurich, Geneva and Japan's Osaka trailed closely, with emerging market cities…

NATO is to receive the first of five Northrop Grumman high-altitude drones in the third quarter after years of delays, giving the alliance its own spy drones for the first time, the German government told lawmakers. Thomas Silberhorn, state secretary in the German Defense Ministry,…

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…

British Prime Minister Theresa May was making a last-minute push Monday to win support for her European Union divorce deal, warning opponents that failure to approve it would mean a long — and possibly indefinite — delay to Brexit. Parliament has rejected the agreement twice,…

The European Union will seek Beijing's agreement for deadlines to open up China's economy at an April 9 summit in Brussels, according to a draft leaders' statement, trying to coax it into making good on promises to deepen trade ties. China and the EU will…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

For the first time in recent years, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang’s annual Government Work Report did not mention Made in China 2025, the country’s ambitious plan to achieve high-tech dominance, and that has analysts asking whether Beijing is going to completely overhaul the plan or…

Australia and Singapore have suspended the Boeing 737 Max 8 passenger jet from operating in their respective airspaces, joining a growing list of countries taking precautionary measures involving the troubled plane after its second fatal crash in five months.   Airlines in countries across the…

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…

The United States should announce a Marshall Plan for South Asia if it wants to compete with China in projecting its "economic soft power" in the region, according to Pakistan's young political leader, Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari. "I think (the) United States and other powers that are…