Economics & Business Archive

North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party held its Eighth Party Congress earlier this month, followed by a big military parade—the second one since October. According to Duyeon Kim, a Seoul-based fellow with the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, the series of well-publicized events were meant to project resilience at a time when North Korea is reeling from a “triple whammy” of economic sanctions, natural disasters and COVID-19. Kim joined WPR’s Elliot Waldman on the Trend Lines podcast this week to discuss the big takeaways from the party congress. Listen to the full interview with Duyeon […]

The United Kingdom’s delayed departure from the European Union and the implementation of a hard-fought, post-Brexit trade agreement on Jan. 1 have led to the most significant rise in barriers between any major trading partners in recent memory. With trade volumes between the U.K. and the rest of the EU having grown significantly since the 1990s, particularly through the establishment of regional or global value chains, there is no meaningful precedent to draw on when projecting what comes next, other than the general experience that higher trade barriers mean less trade and more economic loss. It is early days, but […]

If “European strategic autonomy” were a hashtag, it would be trending. But it’s a phrase that has as many different meanings as there are people using it. At the most basic level, it refers to Europe’s ability to defend and advance its interests in a global arena increasingly characterized by strategic competition among great powers. How and in what areas it should do so, though, and to what ends, are the subject of a high-stakes debate still taking shape. The recently concluded investment agreement between the European Union and China highlights how the concept of European strategic autonomy has moved […]

For decades, the Caribbean twin-island nation of Trinidad and Tobago has relied on oil and natural gas production to guarantee its energy security and provide a measure of fiscal stability for the government.* Even as oil and gas revenues have steadily declined since hitting a peak in the late 1970s, the country’s economy remains highly reliant on the energy sector, which accounts for around 75 percent of exports and 40 percent of GDP. However, the crash of global energy markets amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the growing threat of climate change are providing an impetus for a reevaluation of Trinidad […]

Editor’s Note: Guest columnist Daniel McDowell is filling in this week. The dollar’s status as the global reserve currency is in grave danger—at least that’s what a growing chorus of pundits and observers are saying. The U.S. government has embarked on a debt-driven spending spree as the country grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic repercussions. This explosion of U.S. borrowing, combined with more “money printing” by the Federal Reserve, has led mega-investors, hedge fund managers, economists and elite financial institutions to sound the alarm in recent months. America’s fiscal and monetary policy efforts to prop up the economy […]

Joe Biden’s election as U.S. president was greeted with deep relief in Berlin, as it was in most other European capitals. After Donald Trump’s presidency—which was characterized by animosity toward Germany and repeated attempts to sow division among European countries—German policymakers hope that some immediate sources of tension can now be resolved, such as Trump’s tariffs on European steel and aluminum imports or the long-running trans-Atlantic dispute over aerospace subsidies. There are also multiple opportunities for Germany to collaborate on key strategic challenges with Biden, a committed multilateralist and Atlanticist, who has repeatedly underlined the value of a strong and […]

The son of a Brooklyn Supreme Court judge. A masonry worker from Des Moines, Iowa. A one-time Cleveland educator who said a day after the siege that she was “switching paths” to expose the “global evil of human trafficking and pedophilia.” A guy wearing a knit cap bearing the logo of the Chicago Fire Department, known on Twitter only as #extinguisherman for the footage showing him wielding an extinguisher near the steps where Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick was beaten to death. These are the new anti-heroes of American democracy’s violent convulsions. There are hundreds more pro-Trump supporters implicated in […]

The last time China’s most famous billionaire, Jack Ma, was seen in public was October. It was an appearance that did not please the regime in Beijing. The founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba—something of a Chinese Jeff Bezos—may have grown too confident and too powerful for the Chinese Communist Party, which may have decided it was time to not just silence him and limit his power, but to send a message to other potential critics with wealth and influence. It would not be the first time that China has used repressive tactics to put elites in their place. And it […]

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR contributor Rachel Cheung and Assistant Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curate the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. Subscribers can adjust their newsletter settings to receive China Note by email every week. Speaking at a financial conference in Shanghai last fall, Jack Ma, China’s most famous entrepreneur, started his speech with a disclaimer: “If you think my advice doesn’t make sense, just forget about it.” But Beijing never forgets and certainly does not forgive. The charismatic billionaire proceeded to dish out advice at the Bund Summit, as he loves to do in public speeches. He […]

Despite prevailing early sentiment that the coronavirus pandemic and the anxieties associated with it could further fracture the European Union as a tumultuous Brexit process wound to a close, the bloc now finds itself more integrated and united than it has been in years. As COVID-19 spread across the continent last year, mainstream EU leaders overcame their differences and found compromises on politically sensitive issues, ranging from pandemic recovery to climate change to the rule of law—and even a last-minute post-Brexit trade agreement with the United Kingdom. The many populist and euroskeptic parties that enjoyed surging support in the aftermath […]

Editor’s Note: Guest columnist Daniel McDowell is filling in this week. Presidential pledges to revitalize American manufacturing are one of the few remaining vestiges of bipartisanship in Washington. Back in 2012, President Barack Obama used the word “manufacturing” 15 times in his State of the Union address—more than “security” and even the “economy” itself. Striking an optimistic tone about the potential for an industrial comeback, Obama criticized policies that encouraged American manufacturers to move jobs overseas, and he called on U.S. business leaders to consider bringing production home. Four years later, then-candidate Donald Trump blamed Obama’s love of globalization for […]

International expectations are high for Joe Biden’s presidency, but perhaps nowhere more than in Europe, where political leaders and observers see an opportunity to revitalize the trans-Atlantic relationship after years of drift and then downright antagonism under Donald Trump. They have reason to be optimistic. Biden and his pick for secretary of state, Antony Blinken, are confirmed Atlanticists. They recognize that, despite Asia’s rise, the United States and Europe are still the load-bearing pillars of any open and stable international system. The president-elect has pleased Europeans so far by pledging to return to the Paris Agreement on climate change, remain […]

In early December, amid rising tensions between Australia and China, Prime Minister Scott Morrison posted a statement on the Chinese social media platform WeChat to voice his outrage at an incendiary tweet from a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson. Within a day, WeChat, which routinely polices sensitive content on its platform, had blocked Morrison’s post, ostensibly for violating the company’s policies. It was not the only instance of a foreign official being censored on a Chinese social media platform. The most prominent offenders are WeChat—the largest social media site in China, with over 1 billion active users—and Weibo, a microblogging platform […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Subscribers can adjust their newsletter settings to receive Africa Watch by email every week. Africa rang in the New Year with the official launch of a new, continent-wide free trade zone. The African Continental Free Trade Area, or AfCFTA, aims to bring 1.3 billion people into a $3.4 trillion economic bloc, creating a single market for goods and services that could significantly boost intra-African trade and investment. However, implementation of the agreement is expected to be slow, as experts and officials from […]

After a long delay, Cambodia finally began producing oil from its offshore fields in the Gulf of Thailand last week. The Cambodian government’s partner in the oil venture, Singapore-based KrisEnergy Ltd., plans to ramp up production at new wells, with peak extraction expected to hit around 7,500 barrels per day by mid-February. Cambodia has known about its offshore deposits for more than a decade, and major oil firms like Chevron had previously invested in exploration efforts off the country’s coast. But some investors were scared off by low global oil prices, and the Cambodian government initially had trouble securing a […]

Editor’s Note: Guest columnist Daniel McDowell is filling in this week. “The exchange rate is the most important price in any economy, for it affects all other prices,” as Harvard political economist Jeffry Frieden put it. Since the U.S. dollar is the most widely used currency for cross-border exchange and investment, it is fair to say its value is the most important price in the global economy. Though American presidents have limited control over the dollar’s value, their words and their policy choices still carry weight. After four years of an unconventional dollar policy under President Donald Trump, what should […]