The secession of a region without constitutional authority is a big deal, as referendums in Catalonia and Kurdistan have shown in the last week. To get a sense of the possible consequences, think of the US Civil War, which started precisely because Southern states insisted they could secede while Northern states pointed out that such a right was nowhere in …

Puerto Rico’s debt has been a major problem for years. On Tuesday, President Donald Trump supported a solution: We have to look at their whole debt structure…we’re going to have to wipe that out. You can say goodbye to that. I don’t know if it’s Goldman Sachs, but whoever it is, you can wave goodbye to that. It only took …

Not so long ago, Brazil seemed to be near a turning point. Latin America’s largest nation wasn’t just growing and generating jobs; it was finally poised, it seemed, to close one of the world’s most notorious gaps between rich and poor. Out went the old trope of “Belindia”—Brazil as a wealthy Belgium ringed by a vast and desperate India—and in …