Economics & Business Archive

When Singapore’s government enacted a law aimed at cracking down on fake news last fall, activists, academics and free speech advocates warned that it was a pretext by the ruling People’s Action Party to censor voices critical of the government. The Protection of Online Falsehoods and Manipulation law, or POFMA, allows the government to force social media platforms and users to issue corrections or remove any offending posts. Failure to comply can result in steep fines or even a jail sentence Since it was passed, the law has been invoked several times against opposition figures and media outlets critical of […]

When it comes to repairing the harm done by populist authoritarian leaders, restoring the independence of democratic institutions is often just the start. The next challenge can be to steer polarized societies through the economic belt-tightening that is required after an autocrat’s spending spree. That seems to be the message from Ecuador, where President Lenin Moreno won overwhelming support in a 2018 constitutional referendum that overturned much of the political legacy of his predecessor and one-time mentor, the brash leftist Rafael Correa, and also blocked him from returning to office by putting a two-term limit on the presidency. But Moreno […]

After the United States and China signed their “phase one” trade deal in mid-January, it seemed that the European Union might be the next target in President Donald Trump’s trade wars. At the time, the White House was threatening to increase tariffs amid the ongoing dispute over EU subsidies to Airbus and impose new tariffs over France’s proposed tax on digital service providers, while still holding out the possibility of tariffs on more than $40 billion in automobile imports from Europe. Since then, the Trump administration has held its fire in those disputes, and the prospects for a bilateral trade […]

After four months of widespread protests, Lebanon has a new government. Voted in by a slight majority in parliament in late January, it must deal with the gargantuan task of an economic meltdown of historic proportions, and of assuaging countrywide protesters questioning the legitimacy of the entrenched political elite. Lebanon’s economy, and with it perhaps its long-term political fortunes, are at stake. Since October, protesters across Lebanon, disillusioned with the gross political and economic mismanagement of successive governments, have demanded sweeping reforms. They have put the blame squarely on elites who draw their influence from Lebanon’s dysfunctional power-sharing system. This […]

An economy in freefall. A humanitarian crisis that has caused millions to flee the country. Frequent mass demonstrations against the government. And an opposition movement whose leader is recognized by dozens of countries as the legitimate interim president. In many places and at many points in history, these ingredients have proven sufficient for regime change. But in Venezuela, the government of President Nicolas Maduro continues to hang on. For this week’s interview on Trend Lines, Raul Gallegos joins WPR’s Elliot Waldman for a conversation about how Maduro has been able to remain entrenched in the presidential palace in Caracas despite […]

ISTANBUL—Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has made multibillion-dollar infrastructure schemes a hallmark of his years in power, championing megaprojects like an ongoing extension of Turkey’s high-speed rail network and a gargantuan new airport outside Istanbul. He and his ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, claim they spur economic development and create jobs. Many activists in Turkey have long opposed Erdogan’s building spree due to its high social and environmental costs, but have had little success in stopping it. That may change with Erdogan’s latest push for what he once called his “crazy project”: digging a 28-mile canal on the […]

Across Africa and beyond it, there is widespread agreement among governments and policymakers that economic integration would give a critical boost to growth and development on the continent. Yet when he visited Washington earlier this month, Kenya’s president, Uhuru Kenyatta, pledged alongside President Donald Trump to launch negotiations toward a bilateral trade deal. The two leaders’ motivations are likely quite different, and the odds of a successful negotiation are uncertain at best. But, like the European Union’s own ad hoc trade deals throughout Africa, a U.S.-Kenya free trade pact would create new barriers to intra-African trade, rather than reducing them, […]

Decades of technological advances have made drones readily available not only to governments, but to non-state groups, commercial actors and hobbyists as well, for everything from military strikes to package deliveries. The United States last month used an MQ-9 Reaper drone to assassinate Iran’s top military commander, Qassem Soleimani. In September, an attack on Saudi oil facilities utilizing drones and cruise missiles temporarily cut Saudi oil production in half. Even smaller, unarmed drones can cause massive disruptions. In December 2018, London’s Gatwick Airport, the second-busiest in Britain, shut down for 36 hours after a drone was spotted nearby, causing hundreds […]

In consecutive victories for the country’s oil-producing provinces, Canadian courts recently turned down challenges to a contentious plan to expand a major oil pipeline. Last month, the Supreme Court rejected a bid by British Columbia to block the expansion of the Trans Mountain Pipeline, which would triple the flow of oil from the tar sands of Alberta to Canada’s Pacific Coast, allowing more oil to be shipped to growing export markets in Asia. A similar legal challenge from indigenous groups, largely based on environmental concerns, was dismissed by a federal appeals court last week. The court decisions are likely to […]

One of the most contentious elements of the U.S.-China relationship today is over the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei and its outsized role in the development of next-generation 5G telecommunications infrastructure around the world. The Trump administration argues that Huawei’s close ties to the Chinese government make it a national security risk. Last summer, the Commerce Department added Huawei to a blacklist that prevents American companies from doing business with it, although it has subsequently granted some limited reprieves. U.S. officials have urged other countries to avoid Huawei as well, but in a blow to those efforts, the United Kingdom recently […]

The United Kingdom may have officially left the European Union, but the terms of its exit are still being worked out, including what British trade policy will look like post-Brexit. During the current transition, which lasts until at least the end of the year, the U.K. will continue trading under EU rules while negotiating new arrangements with Brussels. Once that is done, the British government will be free to negotiate new trade terms with the rest of the world. While a potential free trade deal with the U.S. gets all the attention, development advocates are watching to see how the […]

The fast-spreading new coronavirus that originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan is, at its most immediate level, a public health crisis. But it is also much more than that. As governments struggle to contain the epidemic, the virus is already having economic ramifications in China and around the world. That’s the second level of its impact. And as the epidemic threatens to become a pandemic, and the speed of the contagion exceeds the number of cases of the 2003 SARS outbreak, there is a third level of consequences that has received far less attention: This coronavirus could leave a […]

At first glance, the Nile valley at Wad Ramli, an hour’s drive north of Khartoum, looks as lush and fertile as ever. Date palms sag, heavy with fruit along the banks. Neat rows of barley await harvesting in the heat. With thousands of miles of unbroken desert to the west and many hundreds to the east, this narrow, green strip—at points only 200 meters wide—still closely resembles the life-giving refuge from a hostile environment that it has been for millennia. But ask the farmers, fishermen or anyone else who depends on the river for their livelihood, and they’ll tell you […]

BELFAST, Northern Ireland—The two main political parties in Northern Ireland announced a deal last month to restore the region’s power-sharing government, which had ceased to function three years ago. Within 24 hours of the announcement of the deal on Jan. 10, which was brokered by the British and Irish governments, Northern Ireland’s institutions of devolved government were back up and running. Yet while many in Belfast are breathing a sigh of relief, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s recent Brexit deal has created a host of new problems for the region that the reopened Northern Ireland Assembly will need to confront. […]

In a month spent celebrating supposed trade triumphs, the White House quietly conceded that some of President Donald Trump’s tariffs, on imports of steel and aluminum, were in fact failing to achieve their stated aim of boosting American production. But instead of rolling the tariffs back, Trump issued new ones. Late on a recent Friday night, a time when all presidents try to bury bad news, the White House released a proclamation in which Trump ordered new tariffs on nails, wire, car bumpers and certain other metal-based products because increased imports of those “derivative” products were “undermin[ing] the purpose” of […]

LIMA, Peru—When Martin Vizcarra stepped up from the vice presidency to replace the disgraced Pedro Pablo Kuczynski as president of Peru in March 2018, the odds appeared stacked against him. An austere, accidental leader whose tiny political party, Peruvians for Change, controlled a fast-disintegrating congressional bloc, Vizcarra immediately came under heavy fire from the hard-right Popular Force party, led by Keiko Fujimori, which had seized on a bribery scandal to force Kuczynski to resign. After three months of attempting to appease the Fujimoristas—and seeing his approval ratings plummet—Vizcarra launched a make-or-break campaign against Peru’s rampant corruption, and by implication Popular […]