Bloomberg President Donald Trump said he doesn’t think he’ll have to impose tariffs on imported oil to blunt the impact of a price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia, but held out the option to protect US oil producers. “I would use tariffs if I have to,” he said at a White House news conference, restating his position from an ...

Bloomberg When the coronavirus hit China late last year, America’s solar industry immediately started worrying about manufacturing. Asia is the main source of panels and other equipment, and with residential installers anticipating a bumper year, a bottleneck in the supply chain could be a major hindrance. Turns out the industry’s biggest 2020 quandary is very different: dwindling demand. Many homeowners ...

Bloomberg Prime minister Boris Johnson was taken to the hospital for tests as he struggles to recover from coronavirus, dealing a serious blow to the UK as the country prepares for the worst of the crisis. Almost 5,000 people have died from Covid-19 in the UK so far and, according to government advisers and scientists, the peak of the outbreak ...

Bloomberg Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe said he will propose declaring a month-long state of emergency in seven prefectures including Tokyo and Osaka, after a renewed surge of coronavirus cases in some of the nation’s biggest cities. He also announced a much larger-than-expected stimulus package of 108 trillion yen ($988 billion) to support households and businesses struggling from the impact ...

The story of how the Covid-19 virus emerged in Wuhan, China, has produced a nasty propaganda battle between the United States and China. The two sides have traded some of the sharpest charges made since the Soviet Union in 1985 falsely accused the CIA of manufacturing AIDS. US intelligence officials don’t believe the pandemic was caused by deliberate wrongdoing. The ...

Here’s one more issue to add to the bonfire of tensions with China brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. The country is reportedly reopening its wet markets, the fresh produce stalls associated with Covid-19’s early spread in Wuhan. It’s understandable that countries now in the grip of the first wave of infection might be outraged. Many blame wet markets for ...

As the Black Death scythed through Europe in 1348 and 1349, workers across the continent discovered that they had power for the first time in their lives. Textile workers in St. Omer in northern France asked for and received three successive wage rises within a year of the Great Plague’s passing. Many workers’ guilds struck for higher pay and shorter ...

It’s still early, but I think we can already say that Donald Trump is totally failing when it comes to economic leadership during the coronavirus recession. The thing about the 10 million — 10 million! — people who have filed for unemployment in the last two weeks is that everyone has seen this coming for some time. Indeed, it is ...

The coronavirus has already dealt a vicious blow to key sectors of the US economy. If the pandemic drags on into the fall, though, it’s likely to devastate yet another area that has so far escaped with minimal damage: higher education. The problems confronting the nation’s colleges and universities long predate today’s crisis. But if current trends continue, the pandemic ...

The photo stopped me in my tracks: Californians jogging, walking and cycling along a crowded bike path. Surely it must have been snapped weeks ago, before “social distancing” became a phrase on everyone’s lips? No: The photo was dated March 28, almost 10 days after Governor Gavin Newsom issued a “stay at home” order to combat the coronavirus pandemic in ...