Trade wars, encouraged by President Trump, are inching closer. The White House has rejected the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), an agreement involving 12 Asian-Pacific countries, including the United States, Japan, Malaysia and Vietnam. It is threatening to do the same with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) by slapping a 20 percent duty on Mexican exports to the United ...

  It’s hard to quibble with the continued success of Google’s advertising business. Already the dominant company in the $200 billion annual market for web and mobile commercials, Google parent company Alphabet Inc. padded its advertising revenue by about $12 billion from 2015 to 2016. That means in a single year, Google found new business that was equivalent to half ...

  The European Union is grappling with Uber and its peers, asking how best to regulate businesses that connect buyers and sellers in the so-called sharing economy. EU policy is shaping up to be much too heavy-handed. A big question for these new enterprises is whether the people supplying the services are deemed to be employees (with rights protected by ...

  US President Donald Trump held phone calls with five world leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Trump and Angela Merkel discussed issues ranging from NATO to Russia to the situation in the Middle East. The conversation affirmed the importance of close German-American cooperation to each country’s security. Trump accepted Merkel’s invitation to attend the ...

  One of the least enviable jobs in the world at the moment has to be that of Indian finance minister. Arun Jaitley will present his fourth annual budget to India’s Parliament on Wednesday amid terrible headwinds — mostly caused by his government’s bewildering and disruptive decision to invalidate 86 percent of India’s currency last November. If he’s to revive ...

  Tough times lie ahead for Portuguese bonds. They were a euro area laggard last year, and 2017’s looking pretty poor. European Stability Mechanism Managing Director Klaus Regling said last week markets are “nervous” about Portugal’s debt level, financial sector and competitiveness. Portuguese yields had got low enough to suggest we were a long way from the bailout days of ...

  Kara Alaimo Earlier this month, US prosecutors announced charges against three former executives of the Japanese auto-parts maker Takata for allegedly falsifying data to cover up a deadly air-bag defect. The company has admitted to a 15-year cover-up, agreed to plead guilty to wire fraud, and will pay a $1 billion fine. Meanwhile, the faulty air bags have been ...

  SAN FRANCISCO / AP The Pixel phone, Google’s answer to Apple’s iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy, is off to a promising start — but might have done even better had Google managed consumer demand as smartly as the device’s sleek design. Although Google hasn’t released sales figures, industry researchers say the Pixel has been a hot item since its October ...

  Dubai /Emirates Business GCC doctors will be able to review patient medical records in 3 seconds or less, if healthcare providers adopt the latest technology in the next three years. In the face of rising healthcare costs, GCC national transformation plans such as UAE Vision 2021 and Saudi Vision 2030 call for investment in the latest medical technology solutions ...

  Bloomberg Most consumers have yet to figure out how to pay for their daily lattes using their smartphones. But that hasn’t stopped automakers from adding digital wallets to cars, too. In-car payments, long just a pipe dream on the research floors at big automakers, are finally ready to make their real-world debut. Honda Motor Co. showed off a prototype ...