Bloomberg Traders are growing increasingly pessimistic about Mexico’s ability to stave off a credit-rating downgrade. It costs 0.23 percentage point more to insure Mexico’s bonds against nonpayment than debt from lower-rated Panama, based on trading in credit-default swaps. That’s the most in six years. Mexico is also more costly to protect against default than Peru, which shares the same ...

  As President Vladimir Putin further tightens his grip on power after dubious elections that gave his party an absolute majority, Russia is sliding into protracted stagnation. The Economics Ministry has adjusted downward its forecast through 2019 and Russia is now expected to underperform the global economy even more than previously anticipated. That is the background against which Putin’s continued ...

  The U.S. is still fighting a war in Afghanistan and has troops in Iraq, the Iranian nuclear deal remains controversial, the Islamic State is weakened but continues to be threatening, North Korea is launching missiles, Russia flaunts international norms and China has expansionary designs. It’s a dangerous world. Yet in the U.S. presidential election the foreign policy debate chiefly ...