Tesla founder Elon Musk told tech investors in Paris on Thursday he opposed U.S. tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles (EVs), an about-face from his January warning that trade barriers were needed or China would “demolish most other car companies in the world.” On Thursday, Musk said he did not favour measures that distorted the market. … Read more
Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal on Thursday said the focus of G20 Trade and Investment Ministerial Meeting (TIMM) is to ease barriers to international trade and investment, help boost productivity and output and foster economic growth. Addressing the opening session of the two-day TIMM in Jaipur, he said the meeting aims to formulate fair, … Read more
India has raised concerns over new trade barriers such as vaccine discrimination and Covid passports being imposed by some developed countries, saying they were impacting movement of persons and services exports. New Delhi, which has been pushing for relaxation in intellectual property rights to facilitate access to Covid medicines, took these issues up at a … Read more
The European Union agreed Monday to impose targeted sanctions against Russian officials and entities allegedly involved in the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny but officials insisted the move should not undercut Europe’s continued high-level contacts with President Vladimir Putin. Foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg backed a Franco-German proposal to impose a travel ban … Read more
The Trump administration is launching an investigation into the trade practices of Vietnam, faulting the country for currency practices and invoking the same trade law the U.S. used in imposing sweeping tariffs on Chinese imports. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative Friday evening said it would pursue an investigation into Vietnam’s “acts, policies, and practices that … Read more
The Trump administration threatened Wednesday to impose an array of fresh sanctions to deter China and Russia from selling weapons to Iran after an arms embargo on Washington’s Middle East foe expires next month. Elliott Abrams, the administration’s special envoy for Iran and Venezuela, told reporters that the sanctions “will have a very significant impact” … Read more
The World Trade Organization ruled Tuesday that some U.S. tariffs against China broke international trading rules, a conclusion that exacerbates U.S.-WTO tensions but likely will have no consequence for American tariff policy because the organization’s appellate system currently doesn’t function. The WTO sided with a complaint filed by China in 2018, which said the Trump … Read more
TOKYO—Yoshiyuki Kasai, longtime boss of Japan’s biggest bullet-train line, says he thinks Tokyo’s alliance with the U.S. comes first and China needs to hear that message. If Beijing doesn’t like it, he says, tough luck. Hiroaki Nakanishi, head of Japan’s most powerful business federation, says he thinks that attitude is self-defeating. After all its work … Read more
Whoever wins the presidential election, one thing is clear: The U.S. has turned a corner in its relations with China and is likely to maintain a harder line. In the past four years, President Trump, a longtime trade hawk, broke with decades of policy that broadly fostered closer ties between the two giants. Seeing China … Read more
For decades, Britain’s Conservative Party politicians decried the European Union for its supposed aversion to free markets. Now trade negotiations that will define the future relationship between the U.K. and the EU from next year have stalled, in large part because Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government wants the freedom to ignore EU rules limiting state … Read more