USA

The escalating trade war and growing tariff threats from US President Donald Trump are prompting the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom (UK) to fast-track the long-delayed free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations with India. Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal is scheduled to meet UK Secretary of State for Business and Trade Jonathan Reynolds on Monday to reignite India-UK FTA discussions. Goyal will then engage with EU Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic on Friday, ahead of the 10th round of India-EU FTA talks set to take place from March 10 to 14 in Brussels.

The commerce ministry will hold meetings with three-to-four ministries next week to sensitise them to various aspects of the proposed trade agreement with the US and President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariff announcements, officials said on Thursday. Negotiations on the nature of the India-US bilateral trade agreement (BTA), announced during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Washington, is expected to start soon. “Any agreement that the ministry of commerce will do will involve other ministries too. The consultation with the industry and other stakeholders on the aspects of the BTA, reciprocal tariffs and other announcements on product-specific tariffs will be done by the administrative ministries,” a senior official said. The commerce ministry will also seek inputs...

Chinese officials are mapping out plans for tapping the nation’s huge customer base, as US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent prepares to refresh calls for Beijing to decrease its dependence on exports. Premier Li Qiang led the charge Thursday, urging China’s cabinet to “vigorously” improve the supply of services in industries spanning education, health care, culture and sports, without elaborating. The world’s No. 2 economy will rely more on lifting consumption to drive growth, he added, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. “Large economies have an unique advantage of promoting an internal circulation and a dominating role of domestic demand,” Li said at the State Council meeting, adding that promoting consumption was a “major move” for the economy’s longer-term transition. E...

It’s hard to keep up with all the tariff announcements coming out of Washington. On February 1, the US president, Donald Trump, announced the introduction of 25% tariffs on most imported goods from Canada and Mexico, and an additional 10% levy on goods from China. The tariffs against Canada and Mexico were soon postponed by a month following some token gestures. A week after that, Trump signed an executive order imposing 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminium imports. These tariffs are set to take effect on March 12, a few days after the broad tariffs against Canada and Mexico supposedly come to pass. Trump has now vowed “reciprocal” duties on countries that target products made in the US. This may all sound very familiar. Trump imposed tariffs during his first presidency – for exam...

Egypt’s Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA), chaired by Dr Mohamed Farid (pictured), has introduced new investment regulations for private insurance funds, expanding permissible asset classes and adjusting reporting requirements. The changes, issued under Decree No. 269 of 2024, are part of ongoing efforts to enhance oversight and align with the Unified Insurance Law. Enacted in July 2024, the law consolidates Egypt’s insurance regulations into a single framework, aiming to modernise the sector and promote broader insurance coverage. Investment rules for private insurance fundsUnder the new framework, defined benefit (DB) funds can now invest in mineral-backed financial instruments, venture capital funds, and direct equity holdings for the first time. Additionally, all private i...

There is no mistaking the fact that the United States is in intense economic competition with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The shape this competition takes depends critically on the policies pursued by the second Trump administration over the next four years, with plenty of scope for valuable lessons from the last four years. Like the first Trump administration before it, the Biden administration imposed large tariffs on China, and both administrations did so in no small part to support domestic manufacturing. And in the first two weeks of the second Trump administration, even more tariffs have been placed on goods imported from the PRC. While, in his first term, President Trump lamented the bilateral trade deficit and touted the Phase One agreement that was supposed to rec...

The government will assess any positive or negative implications for India from the tariffs that have been imposed by the US on China, a senior official said on Thursday. Though the duties on China are prima facie expected to boost exports from India to the US due to the duty arbitrage, the chances of dumping of goods from the neighbouring country has to be taken into consideration as it has excess capacity in almost every sector, the official added. On February 1 the US imposed 10% tariffs on Chinese goods. China has retaliated to the additional duties by the US and has also filed a complaint at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) calling the recent tariff action discriminatory. “We are trying to analyse the announcements made by the US on increasing tariffs. We will take the dec...

Indonesia is attracting foreign investors with its growing middle class, young demographics, and abundant resources. The newly-admitted member of the BRICS bloc of developing economies presents companies with a stable alternative to China, low tariffs to the 677 million people of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and a 25-year history of democratic transition. At the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru last November, Indonesia’s new President Prabowo Subianto, who began his term in October, emphasized that foreign investments would be protected by a solid legal framework, and highlighted incentives and a commitment to liberalizing ownership laws. Several global financial institutions—including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), an...

The trade war between the world's two biggest economies has escalated after China hit back against the introduction of tariffs by the US with measures of its own. Beijing has set out to target specific American goods with retaliatory taxes, among other measures, following the blanket 10% tariff introduced by President Donald Trump on all Chinese imports to the US. In some ways, this latest tit-for-tat is nothing new and builds on the long-running trade dispute between the nations, with tariffs having already been imposed and threatened on various goods since 2018. Trump has said he plans to speak to Chinese President Xi Jinping, so a deal could yet be struck. But if China proceeds with its response on 10 February as planned, what could the impact be? Part of China's countermea...

China has reacted swiftly to the imposition of 10 percent tariffs on Chinese goods by United States President Donald Trump. They went into effect at 05:01 GMT on Tuesday, and moments later, China’s Ministry of Finance announced it would impose 15 percent tariffs on imports of US liquid natural gas (LNG) and coal and 10 percent levies on oil, farm equipment and some automobiles. In addition, China’s Ministry of Commerce and its General Administration of Customs said Beijing will begin imposing export controls on some rare earth minerals and metals central to the booming US tech industry and its green energy industry. China also announced measures against some US businesses. China set Monday as the start date for its economic countermeasures even though it has already been hit by U...