Bloomberg After a year of chest thumping, President Donald Trump has finally delivered the type of trade blow his political base has been craving. Trump slapped tariffs on imported solar panels and washing machines in his first major move to level a global playing field he says is tilted against American companies. The decision came two days after the one-year ...

Bloomberg UK regulators dealt a setback to 21st Century Fox Inc.’s planned 11.7 billion-pound ($16.3 billion) takeover of Sky Plc, saying the deal would give Rupert Murdoch too much control over the country’s media. Fox’s bid to buy the European pay-TV broadcaster wouldn’t be in the public interest, the Competition and Markets Authority said in provisional findings on Tuesday in ...

Bloomberg Britain recorded its smallest budget deficit for any December in 17 years as value-added tax receipts reached a record and the Treasury received a bumper credit from the European Union. Net borrowing narrowed to 2.6 billion pounds ($3.6 billion), well below the median forecast of economists, from 5.1 billion pounds a year earlier, figures showed. It left the shortfall ...

Bloomberg German investor confidence rose to an eight-month high in January, setting an optimistic tone for Europe’s largest economy in 2018. The ZEW Center for European Economic Research in Mannheim said that its index of investor expectations increased to 20.4 from 17.4 in December. Economists in a Bloomberg survey predicted a gain to 17.7. Germany’s economy has been enjoying a ...

Bloomberg Netflix Inc. surged in late trading after a blow-out quarter, vaulting past $100 billion in market value for the first time to put the video service on a lofty perch with the likes of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Qualcomm Inc. The world’s largest online TV network reported its strongest year of subscriber growth to date. Netflix added 24 ...

Bloomberg It’s been a decade since western bankers commanded the deference in Davos they enjoyed before the financial crisis. That blight appears to be spreading to politicians. The so-called masters of the universe headed to this year’s annual gathering of the global elite are looking less than magisterial. With the US in “America First” mode under Donald Trump, Britain consumed ...

Bloomberg For UK Prime Minister Theresa May, the Irish border issue may resurface sooner than she imagined. In a deal agreed last month to unlock divorce talks with the European Union, May guaranteed no hard border will re-emerge on the island of Ireland after Brexit. If all else fails, Northern Ireland will play by the same EU rules that apply ...

Bloomberg US Vice President Mike Pence said the US should retain its dominant role as mediator of the Israeli-Palestinian conf-lict, rebuffing Palestinian appeals to the European Union to take the reins. “The United States has played a historic role in this region to pursue and promote peace, and I think the United States should continue to play a preeminent role,” ...

Bloomberg South Africa’s main opposition party is proving to be its own worst enemy as it bids to topple the ruling African National Congress from power in next year’s elections. Instead of capitalising on voter antagonism towards the ANC and President Jacob Zuma over a succession of scandals, the Democratic Alliance has stumbled, with its mayors’ performance drawing criticism in ...

WASHINGTON / Reuters The US government’s aid chief, Mark Green, made an unannounced visit to Raqqa in Syria, the most senior US civilian official from the Trump administration to visit the war-struck northern city months after it was retaken from IS. Green was accompanied by head of the US Central Command General Joseph Votel as the United States ramps up ...