Category: Business

The Trump administration is considering ways to require imported automobiles to meet stricter environmental standards in order to protect U.S. carmakers, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday. Responding to the story, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said President Donald Trump "will promote free, fair and reciprocal trade practices to grow the U.S. economy and continue to [bring] jobs and manufacturers back to the U.S." Citing unnamed senior administration and industry officials, the Journal said Trump had asked several agencies to pursue plans to use existing laws to subject foreign-made cars to stiff emission standards. It appears such nontariff barriers could have a greater potential effect proportionately on European automakers, which collectively import a greater percentage of cars from plants outside the U.S., according to sales figures from Autodata. In…

U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration said Friday that the United States was not engaged in a trade war with China, even as Trump threatened to impose tariffs on an additional $100 billion worth of Chinese goods and Beijing warned it was willing to fight back. “This is just a proposed idea, which will be vetted by USTR [the U.S. trade representative], and then open for public comment, so nothing has happened, nothing has been executed,” said White House chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow amid growing concerns about escalating rhetoric between Washington and Beijing. The economic adviser said Beijing’s theft of intellectual property was “at the root” of U.S. concerns and added “we can’t allow them [China] to steal our technology, because when they steal our technology, they are…

U.S. stocks plunged again Friday over increasing concerns about a trade war between the United States and China. The Dow Jones industrial average lost 572 points by the close, shedding 2.3 percent. The Standard & Poor's 500 dropped nearly 2.2 percent, while the NASDAQ fell nearly 2.3 percent at the end of trading. Earlier Friday, President Donald Trump continued to protest China's trade practices after threatening China on Thursday with increased tariffs on $100 billion worth of additional goods. In a twitter post Friday, Trump said, "China, which is a great economic power, is considered a Developing Nation within the World Trade Organization. They therefore get tremendous perks and advantages, especially over the U.S. Does anybody think this is fair. We were badly represented. The WTO is unfair to U.S." China's…

Did March provide another month of blowout hiring? Was pay growth healthy? When the government issues its monthly jobs report Friday, those two questions will be the most closely watched barometers. Economists have forecast that employers added a solid 185,000 jobs in March and that the unemployment rate dipped from 4.1 percent to a fresh 17-year low of 4 percent, according to data provider FactSet. The government will issue the jobs report at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time. In February, employers added a blockbuster 313,000 jobs, the largest monthly gain in 18 months. Over the past six months, the average monthly gain has been 205,000, up from an average of 176,000 in the previous six months. Hiring at that pace could help nudge the unemployment rate below 4 percent in the…

The Trump administration says China is responsible for a trade war with the United States because of its long-term unfair practices. A senior White House economic adviser said Thursday no measures have been enacted, but the situation cannot continue. U.S. President Donald Trump said the United States and China will have a "fantastic relationship" once they straighten out their trade issues. But analysts warn that raising tariffs is not good for the global economy. VOA's Zlatica Hoke has more. ...

Venezuela said on Thursday it was halting commercial relations with Panamanian officials and companies, including regional airline Copa, for alleged involvement in money laundering, prompting Panama to recall its ambassador. The resolution names Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela and nearly two dozen Cabinet ministers and top-ranking officials, adding that Panama's financial system had been used by Venezuelan nationals involved in acts of corruption. Venezuela said the individuals named in the resolution "present an imminent risk to the [Venezuelan] financial system, the stability of commerce in the country, and the sovereignty and economic independence of the Venezuelan people." The statement came a week after Panama declared President Nicolas Maduro and about 50 Venezuelan nationals as "high risk" for laundering money and financing terrorism. Caracas did not detail whether the move would halt…

The trade dispute rumbling between China and the U.S. has raised the possibility consumers in Beijing may end up paying higher prices for American beef, liquor and tobacco if Beijing goes ahead with hikes on tariffs for such products. Below are thoughts shared with The Associated Press by a few Beijing residents.   The investor   Yang Shumei, 29, a freelance worker from southwestern China's Guangxi province: "I think this [the threat of a trade war] does influence my life and other areas to a certain extent. I invest in stock markets, and shares have fallen sharply as the risk is high.''   The optimist   Feng Weifeng, 36, a salesman from Beijing: "I believe imposing extra tariffs from both sides is just a temporary measure and a win-win situation…

President Donald Trump said Wednesday the United States is not in a trade war with China, after Beijing announced plans to impose tariffs on $50 billion worth of U.S. goods in response to a similar package announced by the United States. In a Twitter post Wednesday, Trump contended, “We are not in a trade war with China, that war was lost many years ago by the foolish, or incompetent, people who represented the U.S.” He added, “Now we have a Trade Deficit of $500 Billion a year, with Intellectual Property Theft of another $300 Billion. We cannot let this continue!” On the same day, White House chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow told Bloomberg News, “None of the tariffs have been put in place yet, and these are all proposals.” Commerce…

Wall Street's three major indexes staged a comeback to close around 1 percent higher Wednesday as investors turned their focus to earnings and away from a trade conflict between the United States and China that wreaked havoc in earlier trading. After investors fled equities in the morning because of proposed retaliatory tariffs from China, their concerns about a potential trade war eased by the afternoon after President Donald Trump's top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, said the administration was in a "negotiation" with China rather than a trade war. Investors said they were comforted by the fact that any tariffs would not take effect immediately, if at all. Strategists also cited the Standard & Poor's bounce above a key technical support level and said they expected equities to rise further around the first-quarter earnings season, due to start in mid-April. "We're…

A jury has awarded nearly $17 million to a former Ford engineer who sued the automaker for discrimination because he says two supervisors repeatedly berated and criticized him for his Arab background and accent. The Detroit Free Press reports that a federal jury in Michigan ruled March 28 that Faisal Khalaf was subjected to workplace discrimination and retaliation after he reported the abuse. Khalaf was born in Lebanon. The jury awarded Khalaf $15 million in punitive damages, $1.7 million in retirement and pension losses, and $100,000 for emotional distress for the actions of Ford supervisors Bennie Fowler and Jay Zhou. A Ford representative says the company disagrees with the verdict and is pursuing options to get it "corrected." Ford has been criticized for workplace discrimination before, including in a December…

The possible closure of a major coastal tourism magnet in the Philippines for environmental cleanup will hurt business, but for a cause that helps everyone longer term, experts say. President Rodrigo Duterte said via the presidential website in March he would place Boracay Island under a “state of calamity.” The island may be shut down for two to 12 months, Philippine media reports say, citing other statements from Duterte and cabinet members. The government is “addressing wastewater issues through an improved sewerage system,” the country’s environment minister Roy Cimatu said in a March 27 statement. Boracay, a 10.3-square-kilometer feature in the central Philippines, has been compared to Bali and other Asian beach resort hot spots. Its main white sand beach runs four kilometers, paralleled by a strip of at least…

China announced Wednesday it plans to impose tariffs on $50 billion worth of U.S. goods in response to a similar package announced by the United States. The Chinese measures would boost tariffs by 25 percent on 106 U.S. products, including soybeans, aircraft and cars. China's commerce ministry responded with its own measures less than 11 hours after the U.S. issued a proposed list of Chinese goods. The ministry said the question of when the measures will go into effect will depend on when the U.S. tariffs become active. U.S. President Donald Trump announced his intention to impose $50 billion in increased tariffs on Chinese products last month, and on Tuesday the U.S. Trade Representative released a proposed list of 1,300 goods including aerospace, medical and information technology products. Subject to…

The Trump administration on Tuesday raised the stakes in a growing trade showdown with China, announcing 25 percent tariffs on some 1,300 industrial technology, transport and medical products to try to force changes in Beijing's intellectual property practices. The U.S. Trade Representative's office unveiled a list of mainly non-consumer products representing about $50 billion of annual imports that would nonetheless hit supply chains for many U.S. manufacturers. The list ranges from chemicals to light-emitting diodes, motorcycles and dental devices. Publication of the tariff list starts a public comment and consultation period expected to last around two months, after which USTR said it would issue a "final determination" on the product list. It has scheduled a May 15 public hearing on the tariffs. USTR said the tariffs were proposed "in response…

Nearly a dozen U.S. states and Washington, D.C., on Tuesday promised to defend federal automobile efficiency standards against a rollback proposed this week by Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency. "All Americans ... deserve to enjoy fuel-efficient, low-emission cars and light trucks that save money on gas, improve our health and support American jobs," the attorneys general from 11 states said in a statement responding to Pruitt's proposal on Monday to ease the Obama-era standards. The standards called for roughly doubling by 2025 the average fuel efficiency of new vehicles sold in the United States to about 50 miles (80 kilometers) per gallon. Proponents say such standards help spur innovation in clean technologies and cut emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. California has long been allowed by an EPA waiver to impose stricter standards than Washington…

The government of Aung San Suu Kyi is opening the economy and growth is rebounding in Myanmar, though the possibility of broader Western sanctions over the Rohingya refugee crisis is nevertheless giving some foreign investors pause, according to a senior IMF official. Shanaka Jay Peiris, the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) mission chief to Myanmar, said in a recent interview that initial data reviewed by the IMF indicated that some foreign investors were delaying final approval of projects until there was clarity about how the situation may unfold. "The numbers we have for FDI [foreign direct investment] aren't showing it yet ... but foreign investment approvals are slowing down, so there is some indicator that going forward FDI may be weaker," Peiris told Reuters following the publication last week of the…

Stock markets in Asia fell Tuesday, but did not suffer losses as steep as those Monday in U.S. markets where continued fears about a U.S.-China trade war and a verbal attack on an online retailer by President Donald Trump sent stocks lower. Markets in Japan and Hong Kong fell by more than one percent in early trading, but by midday had rebounded to make back half the losses. The U.S. Down Jones Industrial Average closed down 1.9 percent Monday, while the Standard & Poor's 500 dropped 2.3 percent and the NASDAQ fell nearly three percent. Trump has strongly criticized online giant Amazon three times in the last few days. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos also owns The Washington Post, whose revelatory stories on Trump and his administration frequently draw the president's…

First, the United States imposed a tax on Chinese steel and aluminum. Then, China counterpunched Monday with tariffs on a host of U.S. products, including apples, pork and ginseng.  On Wall Street, the stock market buckled on the prospect of an all-out trade war between the world's two biggest economies. But it hasn't come to that - not yet, anyway. "We're in a trade slap-fight right now,'' not a trade war, said Derek Scissors, resident scholar and China specialist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. China is a relatively insignificant supplier of steel and aluminum to the United States. And the $3 billion in U.S. products that Beijing targeted Monday amount to barely 2 percent of American goods exported to China. But the dispute could escalate, and quickly. Already, in…

For farmers trying to figure out how to heal a sick cow or grow tomatoes commercially in this Himalayan community, help is at hand in the form of a crumbling, earthquake-scarred library. In a rural area where searching for information online or paying for expert advice is rarely an option, the library is a first stop for female farmers daunted by their new role: running the family farm while their husbands are away looking for work. "Most of the men have migrated for money now in Nepal. It's a very huge problem," said Meera Marahattha, the "human Google" who runs the library. But there's an upside. "Because of this male migration, females have the opportunity to lead," she added - sometimes for the first time. Migration is growing around the…

China raised import duties on a $3 billion list of U.S. pork, fruit and other products Monday in an escalating tariff dispute with President Donald Trump that companies worry might depress global commerce. The Finance Ministry said it was responding to a U.S. tariff hike on steel and aluminum that took effect March 23. But a bigger clash looms over Trump's approval of possible higher duties on nearly $50 billion of Chinese goods in a separate argument over technology policy. The tariff spat is one aspect of wide-ranging tensions between Washington and Beijing over China's multibillion-dollar trade surplus with the United States and its policies on technology, industry development and access to its state-dominated economy. Forecasters say the immediate impact should be limited, but investors worry the global recovery might…

Jonathan Garland's fascination with architecture started early: He spent much of his childhood designing Lego houses and gazing at Boston buildings on rides with his father away from their largely minority neighborhood.  But when Garland looked around at his architectural college, he didn't see many who looked like him. There were few black faces among students, and fewer teaching skills or giving lectures.    "If you do something simple like Google 'architects' and you go to the images tab, you're primarily going to see white males," said Garland, 35, who's worked at Boston and New York architectural firms. "That's the image, that's the brand, that's the look of an architect." And that's not uncommon in other lucrative fields, 50 years after the Reverend Martin Luther King, a leader in the fight…

As the world's population heads toward 10 billion by midcentury, experts are wrestling with how to feed the world without wrecking the planet. It's not easy to find foods with lower environmental impact that still taste as good as the ones they are intended to replace. But chefs and environmentalists are both cheering one new menu item: the mushroom-blended burger. VOA's Steve Baragona has more. ...

Traditional handicrafts from Pakistan are exported to many countries around the world. One item that appears to be gaining in popularity are the country's hand-made bamboo curtains. VOA's Saman Khan has more in this report from Lahore, Pakistan, narrated by Sarah Zaman. ...

A financially distraught yellow cab driver from Romania recently hanged himself in his New York garage, marking the fourth suicide among city taxi drivers in as many months. In the tragedy's aftermath, members of New York's taxicab drivers union are renewing their calls for a cap on the number of app-based for-hire vehicles, such as Uber and Lyft, which they say are driving workers of a once-thriving industry into the ground. VOA's Ramon Taylor reports. ...

The Trump administration is expected to announce that it will roll back automobile gas mileage and pollution standards that were a pillar in the Obama administration's plans to combat climate change.  It's not clear whether the announcement will include a specific number, but current regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency require the fleet of new vehicles to get 36 miles per gallon in real-world driving by 2025. That's about 10 mpg over the existing standard.  Environmental groups, who predict increased greenhouse gas emissions and more gasoline consumption if the standards are relaxed, say the announcement could come Tuesday at a Virginia car dealership. EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman said in an email Friday that the standards are still being reviewed. Legal showdown Any change is likely to set up a lengthy…

A wider Sino-U.S. trade dispute would help export-reliant Vietnam compete against Chinese companies but put the country at risk of any global fallout, analysts say. The numerous exporters in Vietnam that ship manufactured goods to the United States would save money compared with Chinese peers if not subject to American tariffs, said Dustin Daugherty, senior associate with business consultancy Dezan Shira & Associates in Ho Chi Minh City. The U.S. government said this month it would develop a list of tariffs on up to $60 billion in Chinese imports. China has threatened to impose its own in response. “Let’s say (the United States) went the more traditional route, tensions kept escalating and more tariffs are slapped on Chinese products,” Daugherty said. “In that case Vietnam’s export sector definitely benefits. We’re…

Corn has been dethroned as the king of crops as farmers report they intend to plant more soybeans than corn for the first time in 35 years. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says in its annual prospective planting report released Thursday that farmers intend to plant 89 million acres (36 million hectares) in soybeans and 88 million acres (35.6 million hectares) in corn. The primary reason is profitability. Corn costs much more to plant because of required demands for pest and disease control and fertilizer. When the profitability of both crops is close, farmers bet on soybeans for a better return. The only year that soybean acres beat corn in recent memory was 1983, when the government pushed farmers to plant fewer acres to boost prices in the midst of…

U.S. President Donald Trump attacked online tech giant Amazon, accusing the company of paying too little taxes and being responsible for putting retailers out of business. In a Twitter post early Thursday, Trump blasted the online retail titan, saying “I have stated my concerns with Amazon long before the Election,” adding, “Unlike others, they pay little or no taxes to state & local governments, use our Postal System as their Delivery Boy (causing tremendous loss to the U.S.), and are putting many thousands of retailers out of business!” Trump has a long history blaming Amazon for hurting traditional brick-and-mortar retailers. He tweeted last August, “Amazon is doing great damage to tax paying retailers. Towns, cities and states throughout the U.S. are being hurt - many jobs being lost!” For years,…

The world's largest passenger jet landed at Beirut's international airport on Thursday, bringing with it hope for a revival of Lebanon's vital tourism sector. The one-off Emirates Airbus A380 flight from Dubai was an acknowledgement of the substantial passenger traffic between Lebanon and Gulf nations, where many Lebanese nationals work and more pass through to destinations farther afield. Emirates said it scheduled the flight, the first of its kind to carry paying passengers, to see if Beirut's Rafik Hariri International Airport was ready to handle regular A380 service. Lebanese officials hope the results are positive, as tourist arrivals climb to levels last seen in 2010, before the uprising in neighboring Syria the following year raised fears of violent spillover. Lebanon welcomed 1.85 million tourists in 2017, according to the Tourism…