The Group of Seven serves as a forum to coordinate global policy, but the Trump administration has provoked questions about the group’s cohesion and relevance.
-
-
Test your knowledge of the Cold War, from the Iron Curtain to the Cuban missile crisis.
-
Audio snippets subject to human review; Huawei employees help African governments’ spying; major vulnerabilities revealed in U.S. fighter jets; China’s central bank close to releasing digital currency; and a new ransomware used to attack companies.
-
Manufacturing exports are about three times more important to the euro area than to the U.S. economy. That's largely because the U.S. now exports very few manuactures. And China's imports of manufactures, once you net out imports for re-export (processing) really are quite small.
-
The integration of the internet and cyberspace into democratic politics has contributed to a crisis in Anglo-American democracy, with an intensely polarized population, constantly distracted political debate, a deliberately misinformed body politic, and dysfunctional political institutions. The United States and UK have few options to prevent cyber-facilitated disruption.
Experts in this Region
-
Tax is often the biggest factor in the balance of payments. U.S. firms operating in Bermuda paid $229 billion in dividends back to their U.S. parents in 2018. That’s more than the United States earned from exporting to China before the trade war, and more than Boeing and GE generated by exporting aircraft and their engines even before the new 737 was grounded.
-
For many policymakers, economic sanctions have become the tool of choice to respond to major geopolitical challenges such as terrorism and conflict.
-
Russian hackers compromise IoT devices; 8chan knocked offline following El Paso tragedy; North Korea has stolen over $2 billion in cyberattacks; cyber espionage group pilfers files from Venezuelan military; and China’s UNISOC accelerates 5G chip launch.
-
The “law of one price” holds that identical goods should trade for the same price in an efficient market. But how well does it actually hold internationally? The Economist magazine’s Big Mac Index uses the price of McDonald’s Big Macs around the world, expressed in a common currency (U.S. dollars), to measure the extent to which various currencies are over- or under-valued. The Big Mac is a global product, identical across borders, which makes it an interesting one for this purpose.
-
Nonproliferation, Arms Control, and Disarmament
The collapse of the Cold War–era nuclear arms treaty signals trouble for U.S.-Russia relations, European security, and nonproliferation efforts. -
The United States should stop treating the region as secondary to the rest of the Middle East.
-
The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty nears its end, tensions escalate in Northeast Asia, and the Democratic Party holds its second presidential debate.
-
The IMF's country-level fiscal advice has an adding up problem. The IMF (over time) wants most countries to match the euro zone and head toward fiscal balance. That though would leave the world short of demand. (Wonkish)