Opinion

  Silicon Valley tech companies have good reason to be concerned about President Donald Trump’s plans to review the H-1B visa program, which has been crucial in providing them access to foreign labour. It wouldn’t be such a big deal, though, if they didn’t put their offices in such expensive places. The valley’s biggest employers each host thousands of workers ...

  With the exception perhaps of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., first-quarter earnings at US banks are booming, powered by gains in fixed-income trading. But if you think that’s cause for celebration among job seekers in Asia, you’d be wrong. Beyond digital banking, the region’s hiring thermometer is set to deep freeze. It’s a reflection of the broader slowdown in investment ...

  Everyone ‘knows’ that Americans have soured on free trade and globalization, as President Trump keeps saying. But don’t tell the folks at Gallup. They’ve asked the same survey question since 1993: Do people see trade as an ‘opportunity’ or as a ‘threat’? The latest poll, conducted in February, found that 72 percent see trade as an “opportunity” and only ...

  Donald Trump talks a good game on infrastructure but so far there’s been precious little action. Not so in supposedly sclerotic Europe, where Italian toll-road operator Atlantia SpA is mulling a multi-billion euro deal with Spanish rival Abertis Infraestructuras SA, Bloomberg reports. Sure, toll roads won’t win any prizes for sexiness. But it’s a good time to be in ...

  With her decision to call an election in June, Theresa May becomes the second consecutive UK prime minister to take a gamble with Brexit. Her decision need not prove as disastrous as David Cameron’s, however — especially if she runs the right kind of campaign. May has reason to ask voters for her own mandate as leader of the ...

  North Korea’s unbridled move to develop nuclear weapons capable of striking the US and its allies in the region is pushing the Korean peninsula towards its most severe crisis in years. According to an estimate North Korean regime possesses between 10 and 25 nuclear weapons and launch vehicles together with ballistic missiles that could strike South Korea and Japan, ...

  Having long been considered one of the most stable democracies in the world, Britain will hold a new general election on June 8 — barely two years after the last. However, with the Conservative Party on course for securing a comfortable majority, political uncertainty may not be the biggest risk facing the UK. A weakening economy could well pose ...

  The traffic jams were worse than normal in Paris on Tuesday morning, and Uber Technologies Inc. was to blame. No, it wasn’t because too many of its black sedans were on the road, nor even that French taxi drivers were protesting again about the American interloper. Rather, it was a result of the fear the ride-hailing app casts over ...

  Three important messages for the global economy emerged from the latest ‘World Economic Outlook’ released by the International Monetary Fund this week: The baseline for economic growth is essentially the same over the medium term, with slightly better shorter-term prospects; the risks are getting bigger and are tilted to the downside; and better national policy making and improved cross-border ...

  The only modern president who rivaled Donald Trump in his lack of preparation for global leadership was Harry Truman. Both men took office with little knowledge of the international problems they were about to face, and with worries at home and abroad that they weren’t up to the job. “I pray god I can measure up to the task,” ...