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Koreans have a saying that helps explain the recent upbeat exchanges between Washington, Seoul and Pyongyang: “Say pretty things to hear pretty things.” Beyond the Trump White House, there remains much skepticism that North Korea will ever give up its nuclear weapons. Recent leaks about North Korea’s continuing efforts to build its nuclear and missile arsenal underline this concern that ...

One of the chief criticisms of the Federal Reserve’s strategy of prolonged low interest rates was that it punished savers. But now that Fed is generally raising rates, the rewards don’t appear to be going to them. Instead, I calculate that as much as 83 percent of the gains are going to the banks, with the largest ones sucking up ...

Commodity investors are acting like it’s the last days of Rome. News that the Trump administration was planning to increase the tariff rate on $200 billion of Chinese imports to 25 percent from 10 percent sent markets into a tailspin, with a Bloomberg Intelligence index of mining companies falling 1.7 percent and every major industrial metal slumping in synchrony. Rio ...

UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s meeting on Friday with President Emmanuel Macron of France is part of a wider effort to sell her Chequers plan for Brexit to European Union heads of government – and to loosen the grip of Michel Barnier, the unyielding civil servant who’s conducting the negotiations on their behalf. Her campaign is failing. Europe doesn’t like ...

President Donald Trump recently suggested the removal of all tariffs and non-tariff barriers to global trade. Sounds intriguing, but free trade is rare and it’s certainly no utopia. Historically, it’s been largely confined to periods when a major global power promoted the free exchange of products in its own enlightened self-interest. That was true of Great Britain in the 19th ...

HSBC Holdings Plc investors should strap in for a bumpy ride. With costs rising in the first half, the London-based lender may find tamping down expenses a challenge as it moves ahead with its pivot to Asia and a focus on China’s Pearl River Delta. The brewing trade war that has swept across the bank’s largest markets in the region ...

It’s not particularly logical that, after years of permissiveness towards Chinese investors buying up German industrial jewels, Berlin has decided to ban the acquisition of Leifeld Metal Spinning — a technologically advanced but small firm from the town of Ahlen in North Rhine-Westphalia. While it sends a clear signal that the anything-goes era is over, it’s also a worrying consequence ...

Bloomberg House of Fraser Ltd. needs a new lifeline after a Chinese retailer pulled its plan to buy a majority stake, leaving the UK department-store chain on the brink of collapse and threatening about 17,000 jobs. Would-be rescuer C.banner International Holdings Ltd. shelved plans to raise funds for the purchase of a 51 percent stake in the British chain, citing ...

Bloomberg Taiwan is looking at ways to hit back at foreign airlines that recently caved in to pressure from Beijing to refer to the island as part of China. The transportation ministry is studying countermeasures, according to an official who asked not to be identified because they are not authorised to speak publicly. Taipei-based United Daily News reported earlier the ...

Bloomberg Danish tourists bound for Cyprus got more room than they’d bargained for as the first second-hand A380 superjumbo began its new life with a trip to the Mediterranean holiday island from Copenhagen. The Airbus SE plane, the world’s biggest passenger jet, was hired by Thomas Cook Group Plc for a four-hour flight to Larnaca, a comparatively short hop for ...