Opinion

Until now, the defining feature of the Trump administration’s trade policy has been a worrisome yet vague recklessness. The US Commerce Department’s new ruling on Boeing’s dispute with Bombardier, a Canadian aircraft maker, shows the harm that comes when the administration gets specific. The rules that regulate trade can’t work without restraint and a commitment to a liberal economic order. …

Political pressure is gradually forcing Facebook executives to take responsibility for the content that appears on the social network, at this point mainly for the advertising. So far, they are doing a good job of avoiding the real subject. On Wednesday, Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg addressed the recent discovery that ads on Facebook could be targeted at “Jew haters”—or, …

The Federal Reserve and other central banks have been on a quest since 2012 to get inflation back up to levels they deem appropriate for a stable, growing economy. There have been many setbacks along the way, leaving central bankers stumped, with Fed Chair Janet Yellen saying the slowdown in inflation has been a “mystery.” But their crusade may now …

Eric Ries, an entrepreneur and the author of “The Lean Startup” and other business books, has started a company to create a new stock exchange. The Long-Term Stock Exchange will lock up investors’ money for a long time, forcing them to think beyond next quarter’s earnings. Obviously this lack of liquidity will cause stock sold on the new exchange to …

Unsurprisingly, President Donald Trump hasn’t held back when speaking about the political crisis in Venezuela. Before the United Nations General Assembly, he demanded the full restoration of “democracy and political freedoms” in the Latin American country. A month earlier, he stunned many by stating that he would not rule out a military intervention. His UN ambassador, Nikki Haley, has echoed …

Japan’s main opposition party agreed to merge with a new group created by Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike, setting her up as the main challenger to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as he dissolved parliament ahead of an October 22 election. The Democratic Party, one of Japan’s top political forces for the past two decades, decided on Thursday to run its candidates …

When you think of pollution from coal-fired power plants, you may envision dark soot puffing out of tall smokestacks, peppering the air and making it harder for people to breathe. But since technology has eliminated much of this airborne pollution, what’s worse for the environment now is coal ash, a sludge that pours from US power plants at the rate …

With the release of their new “framework” for tax reform, President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans have once again succeeded in avoiding an actual plan. At best, it’s the start of a process that might conceivably lead somewhere. The framework has some commendable principles—calling for simpler, lower taxes for businesses and the middle class; a broader tax base with fewer …

“We have to get massive border security,” President Donald Trump declared 10 days ago. There has to be “100 percent operational control” of America’s border with Mexico, Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, likes to say. This is good stuff for the conservative base, evoking the specter of hordes of lowlife immigrants storming across the border and threatening US security …

While much of the world’s attention is fixated on North Korea and its nuclear ambitions, something with the potential to be equally globe-rattling is taking place, generally unnoticed, in South Korea. There, new President Moon Jae-in is charting an entirely contrary course in economic policy than much of the rest of the developed world. If successful, the experiment could alter …