Want to master the art of negotiation? You need emotional intelligence December 13, 2018 With so much focus on the detail – or lack thereof – in the UK’s proposed agreement for leaving the EU, you could be forgiven for thinking that deal-making is a technocrat’s art. For the negotiation teams here in the UK and Europe, technical expertise and competences about the issues at stake are, of course, [...]
Bank of England slammed over secret Venezuelan gold summit December 6, 2018 The Bank of England (BoE) has come under fire following reports of a clandestine meeting with senior representatives of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro. The BoE is due to meet high-ranking Venezuelan officials in London tomorrow to discuss the return of gold worth $550m stored in the bank’s vaults, according to sources. Today it emerged MP [...]
Rigged and ready: After recent gains, are oil prices set to recover? December 4, 2018 The oil market has had a tough time this year, with prices sliding since October. And yet, there’s been a radical turn of events over recent days, with the picture looking drastically different as the markets opened for trading this week. In fact, one of yesterday’s biggest market movements was oil, with brent crude surging [...]
The G20 was a temporary truce, not the end of Trump’s trade war December 4, 2018 It would be easy to see last weekend’s G20 meeting as heralding a thaw in the US-China trade war. But sadly, it hasn’t. There are some positives. It looks increasingly likely that the US will not put in place a fresh 10-25 per cent tariff hike in January on $250bn of Chinese exports, as most had [...]
Trump tweets after Xi Jinping meeting give global stock markets boost December 3, 2018 Donald Trump and Xi Jinping have agreed a 90-day respite from from the two countries’ spat over trade tariffs, causing Wall Street to jump as it opened and giving global stock markets a shot in the arm overnight. In customary fashion, Trump took to Twitter after a two-and-a-half hour dinner between the Chinese and US [...]
Oil prices soar as US and China agree to hold fire in trade war December 3, 2018 Oil prices soared overnight after a ceasefire in the US-China trade war was announced yesterday. International standard Brent crude was up 4.7 per cent to $62.42 a barrel this morning UK time. At the G20 meeting in Argentina over the weekend the US and China, the world’s two largest economies, agreed not to impose new [...]
Trump says China has agreed to cut tariffs on US cars as trade thaw continues December 3, 2018 US President Donald Trump said early this morning that China has agreed to lift its tariffs on US cars. Trump tweeted: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1069441198157455360 Trump said current Chinese tariffs on US cars were 40 per cent, but he did not say how much he expected them to fall. There has been no confirmation from China at this [...]
Trump cancels new tariffs as China pledges to reduce trade gap December 2, 2018 US president Donald Trump has scrapped plans to increase tariffs on Chinese goods, in an announcement that sees the year-long US-China trade war cool considerably. The White House announced it would hold fire on raising tariffs on $200bn (£156bn) worth of goods from China. They had been scheduled to increase to 25 per cent from 1 [...]
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe urges Theresa May to avoid no-deal Brexit December 1, 2018 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has today asked Prime Minister Theresa May to do what she can to avoid a no-deal Brexit. Speaking at a bi-lateral meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Argentina, Abe praised May for striking a deal with the EU. “I would like to once again ask for your [...]
G20 members agree to reform World Trade Organisation, says EU official December 1, 2018 G20 nations have agreed to reform the World Trade Organisation (WTO) according to European officials, with a preliminary draft of the announcement expected to be released at the end of the two-day meeting today. An EU official has claimed that leaders have acknowledged the need to improve the WTO and are in support of doing so. An agreement [...]