Bloomberg Traders who lived through the 1980s US farm crisis have a good reason to be skeptical of President Donald Trump’s new plan to help growers. That’s because they question whether the US would really be able to ship all of the $15 billion in potential federal farm-good purchases as humanitarian aid to poor countries. Instead, they suspect the government ...

Bloomberg A key measure of US consumer prices rose by less than expected in April on lower used-car and apparel costs, testing the Federal Reserve’s message that muted inflation will prove transitory while giving President Donald Trump more ammunition to argue for an interest-rate cut. The core consumer price index, which excludes food and energy, rose 0.1% from the prior ...

Bloomberg Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido told an emissary to meet with US military officials in a bid to establish “direct” cooperation, a signal he’s warming to the idea of intervention by force after months of failed attempts to topple President Nicolas Maduro. Guaido told supporters during a rally in Caracas that he’s sending his envoy in Washington, Carlos Vecchio, ...

Bloomberg PM Mahathir Mohamad’s ruling coalition retained a parliamentary seat in a by-election in Borneo, providing him a reprieve amid sliding approval ratings. Pakatan Harapan’s candidate won the Sandakan seat in the state of Sabah by 11,521 votes, according to the Election Commission. The special poll was called after the incumbent, father of Saturday’s victor Vivian Wong, died in March. ...

Bloomberg Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte says he hasn’t lost an election in his three-decade political career. He’s hoping his candidates for the midterm vote on Monday will continue that winning streak as voters assess his three years in office. Even with slowing economic growth and controversial policies including a deadly drug war, the firebrand leader is poised for a majority ...

Bloomberg France’s Yellow Vest demonstrations drew a lower turnout and drifted away from Paris to smaller cities, suggesting the movement is weakening as it hits the six-month mark. Police estimated 18,600 people took to the streets around France, including 1,200 in the capital, on the movement’s 26th Saturday of protests, AFP reported, citing the interior ministry. Police counted fewer than ...

Bloomberg The Brexit Party has more support in the UK ahead of this month’s EU elections than the Conservatives and Labour combined, according to an Opinium survey for the Observer newspaper. The party, fronted by Nigel Farage and founded only last month, would take 34 percent of the vote in the May 23 election, compared with 21 percent for Labour ...

Have US and Chinese trade negotiators been meeting with each other in recent months, or with bands of convincing impostors? You almost have to ask the question, because media reports about who “broke the deal” over the past week seem to have been filed from two different universes. In a Reuters report and attributed principally to three US government sources, ...

Singaporeans may be in line for some good news. The central bank’s decision to transfer S$45 billion ($33 billion) to the island’s sovereign wealth fund could push back an increase in the consumption tax. The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said in a statement that foreign-exchange reserves of S$404 billion are more than it needs to manage the local dollar ...

Unlike some of his peers, UniCredit SpA Chief Executive Officer Jean Pierre Mustier can’t be faulted for wavering. In his three years on the job, he has sold assets and cut costs to put Italy’s largest bank on a more solid footing. He now faces a much harder task: finding growth. While the headline first-quarter results the lender were the ...