Opinion

France’s new leader won stunning support this spring and squandered it with stunning speed soon after. But he has what Napoleon said a general needs most: luck. President Emmanuel Macron has not yet begun serious reform of France’s sclerotic economy, such as a rewrite of France’s overweight labor regulations, which is sure to prompt protests. But in the meantime he ...

The biggest problem with US insider trading laws is that the US has no insider trading law. It’s true. The nation’s seminal securities statute, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, while broadly outlawing securities fraud, never even employs the phrase “insider trading.” And over the subsequent 83 years, while Congress has occasionally increased the penalty for insider trading, it has ...

The Trump administration is exploring new approaches for easing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that build on talks with a budding Sunni Arab coalition of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Jordan. Jared Kushner, the White House senior adviser and presidential son-in-law, visited the leaders of all four countries during his Middle East trip this week. He was accompanied by ...

Will Donald Trump’s new approach to South Asia work? Its success depends on whether India is convinced that Trump’s America is a partner to be trusted—and whether India itself is willing to step up its engagement with Afghanistan as the US president has suggested. Let’s be clear: the Afghanistan strategy Trump has laid out looks more sensible than what Barack ...

Two companies that make solar panels are asking the government to protect them from foreign competition. They want the government to put taxes and a price floor on imports. Other companies are warning that these policies would raise prices and shrink the market, eliminating jobs for solar-panel installers, manufacturers of mounting equipment, and other parts of the larger solar industry. ...

President Donald Trump’s announcement of a new strategy for the war in Afghanistan is a reminder that, for far too long, Congress has shirked its constitutional responsibility to declare war. With the US also involved in fighting in Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen, the legislative branch needs give the executive branch the legal authority it needs to conduct the ...

History was made in a Seoul court on Friday when Jay Y. Lee, scion of the family that founded the giant Samsung conglomerate, was convicted on bribery and embezzlement charges and sentenced to five years in prison. In theory, the verdict should send a stark signal to the country’s politicians and business leaders that the corrupt shenanigans that have so ...

The debt ceiling is attracting a lot more attention, especially after President Donald Trump labeled it a “mess” amid growing tensions within the Republican Party. We should expect the rhetoric to get even more heated in the days and weeks ahead. It is unlikely, however, that this will lead to a technical default by the US or a repeat of ...

We’ve had a long run on the current economic expansion, but eventually, another recession will come. A lot of people will lose their jobs, maybe including you. So ask yourself a question: When the time comes, would you rather take a guaranteed 10 percent wage cut, or have a 10 percent chance of becoming unemployed? While they are both just ...

Will President Trump’s new Afghanistan strategy alter the dynamics of America’s longest and most frustrating war? Do commanders really have any better chance of succeeding now than when this conflict began 16 years ago? I put those questions by phone to Gen. John “Mick” Nicholson Jr., who for more than 18 months has commanded US forces in Kabul. This is ...