The biggest short-term threat to the US economy comes from President Donald Trump’s dangerous maneuvers on trade, not the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy. But knowing this doesn’t much help the Fed do its job, which is getting more complicated for reasons closer to home: The outlook for inflation is shifting, and Fed officials are wondering how to respond. At their ...

European Union bureaucrats have come up with an ingenious mechanism for getting maverick governments, mostly in Eastern Europe, into line. The EU wants the power to cut off funding to countries it sees as weakening the rule of law. At the same time, if the bureaucrats get their way, the affected governments would be forced to provide financing for the ...

After a two-day ‘informal summit’ between Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi, China and India agreed to avoid military disputes on their contested Himalayan border. Left unresolved was a much bigger issue: what China is doing in Pakistan. Fifty years ago, Pakistan’s foreign minister gave a box of mangoes to Mao Zedong, little realizing that this gesture would secure a special ...