Economics & Business Archive

The Maldives’ authoritarian president, Abdulla Yameen, began hastily burning documents at his campaign headquarters and moving boxes out of his official residence in the capital, Male, earlier this week, after being resoundingly—and astoundingly—defeated by the opposition in Sunday’s presidential election. Nearly 90 percent of voters turned out, 58 percent of them casting ballots for Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, popularly known as Ibu. Yameen was silent for the better part of a day, before conceding defeat on state television. To say the opposition had the odds stacked against them would be a major understatement. Among Yameen’s first acts after coming to power […]

Five years after Chinese President Xi Jinping introduced the Belt and Road Initiative to the world, the ambitious multitrillion-dollar infrastructure scheme is experiencing major growing pains. Months of harsh media scrutiny, criticism from the United States and Europe, some surprising grumbling domestically, and backtracking from key partner countries have put a dent in what had been promoted as a seamless chain of China-funded transportation and development projects spreading out across the Asian continent. Xi’s signature foreign policy initiative now faces skepticism in the country that has been its most enthusiastic cheerleader and most willing testing ground: Pakistan. On Sept. 9, […]

Since he turned 78 in July, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev has appointed a number of new ministers to his Cabinet, fueling speculation about whether he will run for another term in elections scheduled for 2020. Such speculation is not new in Kazakhstan, but given Nazarbayev’s advanced age, observers fear that without a clearly defined succession plan, the country’s stability could deteriorate. In an email interview with WPR, Paul Stronski, a senior fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, discusses Kazakhstan’s political outlook. World Politics Review: What is driving Nazarbayev’s ongoing Cabinet reshuffle? Paul […]

The traditional harvest festival of Chuseok is one of the most important days in Korean culture. It is a time to celebrate and rekindle family ties, aided by good food and good drink—that is, if you can make it through the traffic. Chuseok falls on the 15th day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar, which this year was Sept. 24, days after South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un met in Pyongyang for their third summit. In keeping with the spirit of the season, the two men and their spouses put on […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing series about corruption in various countries around the world. South Korean President Moon Jae-in entered office in May 2017 pledging to crack down on rampant corruption, in a country where political leaders often enjoy cozy relations with the business elite. But his push to reform South Korea’s giant conglomerates, known as chaebols, has stalled amid weak economic performance and a high-profile rapprochement with North Korea. In an email interview with WPR, Park Sang-in, professor of economics and public administration at Seoul National University, discusses the Moon administration’s efforts to address the […]

PARIS—French President Emmanuel Macron is probably glad to be in New York this week. His meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump—always a risky affair given Trump’s unpredictable bent—surprisingly went off without a hitch. And his address to the United Nations General Assembly offered him another high-profile opportunity to burnish his global image as the defender of the multilateral order. But the real appeal of the trip for Macron is that it took him out of France, where a series of self-inflicted wounds have dented his approval ratings. After winning the presidential election in April 2017 with a lopsided 66 percent […]

I was hoping that Bob Woodward’s new book would help me understand the strategy behind President Donald Trump’s trade policy. But like much of the rest of Washington, I found the “revelations” in the book, in a sense, shocking but not surprising. On trade policy, it largely confirmed what we already knew—the president just doesn’t like trade and will not listen to anything that contradicts his long-held views. Beyond the broad distrust of trade and trade agreements, specific policy decisions were disturbingly random, often depending on nothing more than who had last managed to catch the president’s ear. So, the […]

An indefinite nationwide strike by Costa Rica’s public workers is now in its third week, as unions remain bitterly opposed to a proposed package of tax reforms and changes to public servants’ compensation that aims to rein in the country’s public debt. Union representatives have met with their government counterparts for marathon negotiating sessions in recent days but have failed to resolve the dispute. In an email interview with WPR, Layla Zaglul, a Costa Rican doctoral candidate at the University of Sussex, discusses the strike and its political and fiscal implications. World Politics Review: What are the main reasons for […]

BUENOS AIRES—Once again, Argentina has become synonymous with crisis. The Argentine peso has already lost half of its value against the dollar this year, and the economy is projected to contract by at least 2 percent while inflation reaches 40 percent. Beleaguered President Mauricio Macri is asking the International Monetary Fund for additional assistance, only three months after finalizing a loan agreement. Not surprisingly, Macri’s domestic popularity has suffered, weakening his re-election prospects next year. But while the situation is indeed serious, comparing it with Argentina’s total economic, political and social collapse in 2001—as some Argentine and foreign commentators have—is […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and managing editor, Frederick Deknatel, discuss the latest escalation in the U.S.-China trade war and new developments in North Korean nuclear diplomacy. For the Report, Michael Semple talks with WPR’s senior editor, Robbie Corey-Boulet, about the Taliban’s resurgence in Afghanistan and life on the ground in territories under their control. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve read on WPR, you can sign up for our free newsletter to get our uncompromising analysis delivered straight to your inbox. The newsletter offers a free preview article […]

AMSTERDAM—If you think the annual rundown of a government’s policy plans has to be a droll, soporific affair, perhaps you should look at the Netherlands. Its version of the State of the Union is a carnival of color, pageantry and whimsy, cleverly concealing the arcane necessity of a national budget, and the delicate state of negotiations over politically charged policy choices. Tuesday was Prinsjesdag in the Netherlands—the Princes’ Day, also known as Budget Day. It happens every year on the third Tuesday in September, when the Dutch monarch, now King Willem-Alexander, formally opens the new parliamentary year, reading a speech […]

Last week, at a meeting on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum in the Pacific port of Vladivostok, in far eastern Russia, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to improve their long-strained bilateral relationship. It was their seventh meeting since late 2012, though each one has been on the sidelines of international gatherings, rather than full-fledged bilateral visits. The reason is that, up until recently, China has been hesitant to court Japan and restore traditional high-level exchanges through state visits, especially since their relations fell off a cliff seven years ago due to tensions […]

President Donald Trump’s trade war with China escalated Tuesday, when he slapped tariffs on an additional $200 billion worth of Chinese imports. Beijing retaliated immediately with tariffs on an additional $60 billion worth of imports from the U.S. The move followed a similar round of tit-for-tat tariffs in July, when both sides targeted $50 billion worth of each other’s exports. Trump famously declared on Twitter in March that trade wars are “good, and easy to win.” His optimism in the standoff with Beijing stems in part from the current strength of the U.S. economy, the more-troubling recent economic indicators for […]

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR’s newsletter and engagement editor, Benjamin Wilhelm, curates the top news and analysis from China written by the experts who follow it. A report that China is nearing an agreement with the Vatican on Catholic bishop appointments has raised eyebrows given the Communist Party’s ongoing crackdown on religion. The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that momentum is building for an agreement between China and the Vatican that would see Beijing recognize the pope’s authority over the Catholic Church in China. In return, Pope Francis would recognize seven excommunicated Chinese bishops who were appointed by the […]

Last week, Denmark reached an agreement with the government of Greenland, which is an autonomous Danish territory, to fund improvements to airports on the island. The project aroused controversy when a Chinese company expressed interest and was pre-qualified to participate, a concerning development for Danish and American officials. While Denmark’s $559 million deal decreases the chances of Chinese involvement, it came at a steep political price, as it led the pro-independence Naleraq party to break away from Greenland’s ruling coalition, depriving it of its majority in Greenland’s Parliament. In an email interview, Ulrik Pram Gad, a professor of Arctic politics […]

Despite hopes that the negotiations to salvage the North American Free Trade Agreement will conclude with some degree of success, the other fronts in U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade wars continue to escalate. The looming tariffs on another $200 billion in U.S. imports from China will carry high costs for American consumers and exporters, much higher than the first round of tit-for-tat tariffs on $50 billion in trade with China this summer. Yet it is the political and institutional implications of potential tariffs on $200 billion in automobile imports later this year that raise even bigger questions. For many consumers, […]

The Afghan Taliban are experiencing a revival. Today, they find themselves in control of much of the territory they claimed before 9/11, a new version of the Islamic Emirate that the U.S. intended to eliminate. Instead of focusing on public statements, policymakers trying to assess the Taliban’s motives must closely examine what life in Taliban-controlled territory looks like. In 1992, after groups of guerrilla fighters known as mujahideen succeeded in toppling Afghanistan’s communist government, which had been backed by the Soviet Union, they quickly turned on each other, kicking off a civil war. In response, a group of young clerics […]