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Economy
Visite d’Etat de M. XI Jinping, Président de la République populaire de Chine, en France en presence de Ursula Von der Leyen
5: China lifted sanctions on five European Union lawmakers on Wednesday as Beijing seeks to balance the growing trade war with the United States by warming ties with Europe. The sanctions were originally imposed on members of the European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Human Rights in relation to European condemnations of human rights abuses against Uyghur minorities in Xinjiang.
500: Two Harvard University reports on anti-Muslim and antisemitic sentiment on campus released Monday stretched to over 500 pages cumulatively, noting that sizable minorities of Muslims (47%) and Jews (15%) did not feel physically safe. The reports, which were commissioned before the Trump administration took office, also showed that 92% of Muslims and 61% of Jews feared professional and academic repercussions for expressing political beliefs.
18: Turkish police have arrested 18 municipal employees in Istanbul as part of a growing crackdown against city Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu, who was imprisoned last month. Imamoğlu is widely considered the only opposition figure able to go toe-to-toe with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the next presidential election, but legal obstacles may effectively bar him from running. The municipal employees were among a group of 52 detained over the weekend, and are accused of taking bribes and participating in criminal conspiracy.
1 billion: Argentines deposited $1 billion in US dollars into their bank accounts over the last eight business after the government lifted restrictions on buying US currency following five years of strict controls. The dollar’s relative value has been sliding under the Trump administration and hit a three-year low last week after the president repeatedly criticized the chair of the Federal Reserve.
350,000: What stretchy inanimate thing killed 350,000 people in 2018? One word. Are you listening? Plastics. More specifically, chemicals that are added to the plastics that we encounter in everyday items like food packaging, lotions, and shampoos. A new study suggests that these “phthalates,” as they’re called, contributed to hundreds of thousands of deaths from heart disease, especially in emerging economies where middle-class consumption has grown rapidly in recent decades.
People bathe in the sun under parasols on a beach near the city of Larnaca, Cyprus, on August 11, 2024.
15,000: The United Arab Emirates is literally helping Cyprus navigate troubled waters by providing portable desalination plants to the Mediterranean island free of charge so it can supply enough water to the deluge of tourists set to visit this summer. The Emirati nation’s plants will reportedly produce 15,000 cubic meters of potable water per day. It’s unclear if the UAE is receiving anything in return – it seems happy to go with the flow.
$582 billion: China informed the United States that it must “completely cancel all unilateral tariff measures” if it hopes to begin talks over trade. Beijing had previously said that it was open to talks, without preconditions. However, on Friday, Reuters reported that Beijing would exempt some critical goods from its 125% and is asking its firms to identify imports they need to continue functioning --- though it stopped short of publicly making the first move in trade war de-escalation. Total trade between the two superpowers was $582 billion in 2024, but the sweeping new tariffs that each has slapped on the other is likely to force this number down.
2: In the latest clash between the Trump administration and the courts on immigration, the White House moved a Venezuelan man from Pennsylvania to Texas — possibly preparing to deport him — right after a judge ruled that the government couldn’t remove him from the commonwealth or the United States. The man, who wasn’t formally named, had been employed as a construction worker in Philadelphia for two months before his arrest in February on suspicion of being part of Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang.
77%: The price isn’t right: 77% of Americans expect President Donald Trump’s tariff plan to raise consumer prices, with 47% believing that consumer prices will “increase a lot,” according to an AP-NORC poll. Despite those numbers, 4 in 10 Americans still approve of Trump’s handling of the economy and trade negotiations.
0: In the wake of Trump’s tariffs, Germany announced on Thursday it was downgrading its predicted economic growth rate — the economy depends heavily on manufacturing exports — from 0.3% to 0.0%. If the prediction holds, 2025 will be the third straight year of stagnation for Europe’s largest economy.
217 million: Former South Korean President Moon Jae-in was indicted on Thursday on bribery charges, alleging that he received 217 million won ($151,705) from the founder of a low-cost airline. No, it wasn’t Turkish Airlines but Eastar Jet.
“When things are going fine, nobody really tests the skills and talents of their financial advisor, but this is a moment where really good advice can be extraordinarily powerful,” says Margaret Franklin, CFA Institute's CEO and President.
In conversation with GZERO’s Tony Maciulis, Franklin describes the current financial climate as “maximum uncertainty,” rating it a 10 out of 10 on the risk scale. Recent unpredictable US trade policies have sent market volatility soaring, leaving many people and investors uncertain about their financial and portfolio management decisions. The usual conditions of predictability and reliability have been upended, making it more important than ever to seek guidance from a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA), Franklin recommends. She warns that the most “common destructive behavior” for a portfolio is abandoning a sensible program just when you need to stay the course.
Franklin also highlights growing concerns about “finfluencers” on platforms like TikTok and Instagram, who often lack proper qualifications and required disclosures. To address this, the CFA Institute is working to provide the public with reliable financial education and resources, helping people better understand the complexities and risks of today’s unpredictable environment.
This conversation is presented by GZERO in partnership with Microsoft from the IMF-World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington, D.C. The Global Stage series convenes global leaders for critical discussions on the geopolitical and technological trends shaping our world.
Workers' Party (WP) supporters wave party flags as they cheer their candidates at the nomination center ahead of the general election in Singapore, on April 23, 2025.
Singapore kicked off a lightning-fast, nine-day campaign on Wednesday for its May 3 election. The vote promises to be the most contested since independence, as the ruling People’s Action Party sweats a strong challenge amid weak economic forecasts.
Elections in Singapore are usually dull affairs: The PAP has utterly dominated all contests since 1965, with members of the founding Lee family serving as PM for 45 years combined, and as recently as 2024. During one of its worst performances in 2020, the PAP won 89% of seats in parliament – even though it won just 61% of the vote. Such disproportionate electoral results, along with systematic repression of opposition figures, have led to accusations that Singapore is ade facto one-party state.
What’s different this time? First off, the Lion City is facing grim economic prospects. Growth projections have been revised to 0-2% for the year, down from 1-3%, and the heavily trade-dependent economy is reeling from global 10% tariffs imposed by the United States.
Secondly, the PAP’s long time in office contrasts sharply with a slate of newer candidates from the opposition Worker’s Party. PM Lawrence Wong has introduced 32 new candidates in an effort to shed the old guard image, casting off many long-serving stalwarts. A YouGov survey showed that only about 40% of voters would support the PAP if the election were held today, while a 43% plurality either don’t know or wouldn’t say who they will support.
The WP is still fighting uphill. Its leaders hope to take a third of seats in parliament, far from a majority – but perhaps enough to change the political dynamic permanently.Bleached corals are seen in a reef in Koh Mak, Trat province, Thailand, May 8, 2024.
84: A harmful mass “bleaching” event has struck 84% of the world’s coral reefs, in the largest incident of its kind on record, the International Coral Reef Initiative announced Wednesday. Bleaching occurs when warmer seas cause the colorful algae that live inside corals to emit toxic compounds. The corals, which feed on those algae, then expel them, leaving behind a colorless “bleached” coral that is at greater risk of starvation. Coral reefs are critical for ocean biodiversity, fisheries, shoreline protection, and tourism. Last year was the hottest on record.
1 trillion: The rich get richer, they say, and the poor get poorer. In the US, the first half of that is true for sure, as a new study shows $1 trillion in additional wealth was created for the country’s 19 richest families in 2024 alone. As a result, the top 0.00001% richest Americans now control 1.8% of US household wealth, the highest share ever for the stratospherically wealthy.
6: Donald Trump’s approval rating on the economy has fallen six points since he was elected, to 37%, according to a new Reuters/IPSOS poll. Most of the drop preceded Trump’s April 2 announcement of global “reciprocal tariffs.” His approval rating on immigration fell five points since early March, to 45%. Trump’s overall approval rating is at 42%. That’s the same level he showed at this point in his first term, and 13 points below where Joe Biden was in his.
1 billion: Brazilian police said Wednesday that they have arrested the head of the country’s social security agency and seized assets worth 1 billion reais ($175 million) as part of a sprawling corruption investigation. Five other officials of the agency were also jailed, and more than 200 search warrants have been executed in multiple states. The probe’s focus is the possibly fraudulent deduction of certain fees from social security benefits.
700 million: The European Commission on Wednesday fined US tech giants Apple and Meta a total of €700 million for breaching the EU’s Digital Markets Act, an antitrust law. Apple must pay €500 million ($572 million) for discriminating against developers and platforms that sell apps outside of the company’s own App Store. Meta, meanwhile, got a €200 million fine for forcing users to pay for enhanced privacy protections. Apple said it would appeal, while Meta blasted EU tech regulations, saying they will “handicap American business” while helping Chinese and European competitors.
“We’re heading toward a substantial U.S. recession,” said Robert Kahn, Eurasia Group’s Managing Director, Global Macro. “We may even be in one now.”
That notion challenges the official economic outlook released this week by the International Monetary Fund, which was more cautious in its assessment. However, it more closely mirrors what experts are saying in the halls at the IMF-World Bank Spring Meetings currently underway in Washington, D.C.
In a conversation with GZERO’s Tony Maciulis, Kahn explained the state of the global economy before President Donald Trump’s April 2 “Liberation Day” and where things stand now. Unlike past crises triggered by external shocks, this one, he argues, is driven by the U.S. administration’s abrupt and sweeping trade policy changes, alongside tension between the White House and the Federal Reserve. These factors make the downturn both unpredictable and unprecedented.
“We don’t have a model for this,” Kahn said. “There’s no course I took in school that’s directly relevant to what we’re living with.”
This conversation is presented by GZERO in partnership with Microsoft from the IMF-World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington, D.C. The Global Stage series convenes global leaders for critical discussions on the geopolitical and technological trends shaping our world.
Containers on a cargo ship are seen at an industrial port in Tokyo, Japan April 3, 2025.
Chinese Premiere Li Qiang sent Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba a letter asking that they “fight protectionism together,” according to local reports Tuesday, as both countries face potentially disastrous US tariffs.
“I don’t know what the equivalent in Japanese for ‘chutzpah’* is, but I think the Japanese bureaucrats will snicker a bit to themselves,” says David Boling, Eurasia Group’s director for Japan and Asian trade. “China has a tendency when relations with the US are not going well to suddenly become much more positive in their approach to Japan.”
China is Japan’s largest trading partner but a highly distrusted neighbor from a national security perspective. Japan launched trade talks with the United States last week, and Boling says Tokyo is determined to strike a deal.
“The United States is just too important as an ally and trading partner, and even if talks break down, they’re not going to look to China first,” he says.
What’s more, Ishiba faces a crucial election in the upper house of the Diet, Japan's legislature, in July, right around when the US tariff pause is due to expire. With his political life on the line, we’re watching for an agreement in principle to be sealed with the US soon.
*Chutzpah is 厚かましさ (astukamashi-sa), if you were curious.