The U.S. Supreme Court is currently reviewing a case to determine whether President Donald Trump’s global tariffs are legal. Until recently, tariffs rarely made headlines. Yet today, they play a major role in U.S. economic policy, affecting the prices of everything from groceries to autos to holiday gifts, as well as the outlook for unemployment, inflation and even recession. I’m an economist who studies trade policy, and I’ve found that many people have questions about tariffs. This primer explains what they are, what effects they have, and why governments impose…
Posts published in “Home”
When Donald Trump pulled back on his plan to impose eye-watering tariffs on trading partners across the world, there was one key exception: China. While the rest of the world would be given a 90-day reprieve on additional duties beyond the new 10% tariffs on all U.S. trade partners, China would feel the squeeze even more. On April 9, 2025, Trump raised the tariff on Chinese goods to 125% – bringing the total U.S. tariff on some Chinese imports to 145%. The move, in Trump’s telling, was prompted by Beijing’s…
Several annual international climate reports released Tuesday indicate that relentless human-caused warming continued in 2025, especially in the oceans and at the poles. For the third year in a row, Earth’s average temperature ran close to 1.5 degrees Celsius hotter than the climate that sustained human civilizations as the 20th century began, before fossil-fuel pollution started damaging the atmosphere. Avoiding more than that level of warming is also the key long-term temperature goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement. Research shows that warming by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above the…
The worldwide banking ecosystem is undergoing continuous transformation driven by technology. Today, banking services are no longer limited to physical branches, as clients increasingly rely on remote solutions.One of the most visible changes is the rise of digital banking, which allows users to manage accounts, transfers, and financial products without visiting a branch. Closely related to this trend is mobile banking, enabling customers to access financial tools directly from their smartphones, regardless of location.Technological progress has also led to the expansion of FinTech solutions, reshaping how financial institutions operate and…
When the internet goes dark in Iran, the Iranian diaspora knows what often follows: Arrests, violence, massacres and silence. As of this report, Iran has been under a nationwide digital blackout, and protests calling for the end of the Islamic Republic have entered their third week. For many Iranians, the shutdown recalls November 2019, when authorities cut internet access during mass protests, and at least 1,500 people were killed in a government crackdown. CBS reports that over a 48-hour period between Jan. 8 and Jan. 10, at least 12,000 people…
The ongoing Dutch restrictions against Chinese-owned chipmaker Nexperia risk causing “multi-layered and irreversible” real-world damage to the stability of semiconductor supply chains in Europe and globally, deputy chief of a chip industry association has warned in an exclusive interview with the Global Times. The comments from Wei Shaojun, vice chairman of the China Semiconductor Industry Association (CSIA), came in response to the Netherlands placing Nexperia under special administrative measures over so-called security concerns. The Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs revealed on October 12, 2025 that it had invoked the 1952…
The announcement, jointly issued by the Ministry of Finance and the State Taxation Administration, said that export tax rebates for the value added tax of photovoltaic products will be canceled starting from April 1, 2026. Meanwhile, the export tax rebate rate for the value added tax of battery products will be reduced from 9 percent to 6 percent starting from April 1, 2026, and will be eliminated starting from Jan. 1, 2027, according to the announcement. The move is welcomed by China’s domestic industry, with the China Photovoltaic Industry Association…
“Avatar: Fire and Ash” has continued the franchise’s unbeatable winning streak. James Cameron’s latest “Avatar” film has grossed over $1 billion at the global box office, making the franchise the highest-grossing trilogy in history, and is one of only four films in 2025 to cross the worldwide billion-dollar mark. It will likely not break the records of the first or second film. But even so, you cannot argue that the series is anything short of a colossal success. One of the things few people discuss about the “Avatar” films is…
Biggest Global Economies According to our Consensus Forecast, of the top 10 largest economies in 2026, five will be in Europe, three in Asia and two in the Americas. Most of these economies—concretely the G7 members—are already wealthy in USD GDP per capita terms. However, there are also a few emerging markets on the list that are still relatively poor in per-person terms and whose large economic size is linked instead to their huge domestic populations. Likewise, while most of the economies in the top 10 have potential growth rates below…
The maritime industry moves more than 80% of global trade. The sector is as vast as the oceans but jurisdiction — and therefore accountability — is often murky, with some vessels registered under “flag of convenience” states that obscure ownership and responsibility. That leaves workers vulnerable to exploitation, human trafficking, and forced labor, but the evidence to prove wrongdoing scattered across seas, corporate registries, and satellite data. Trafficking at sea thrives on this invisibility. Ships slip into remote waters as “dark fleets,” workers become trapped for months, and records are…