Trade | featured news

The United States launched a blistering attack on fellow World Trade Organization member states on Thursday for failing to do more to cut global barriers to trade, criticizing India in particular for trying to introduce a "massive new loophole".

China surpassed the U.S. to become the world’s biggest trading nation last year as measured by the sum of exports and imports, a milestone in the Asian nation’s challenge to the U.S. dominance in global commerce that emerged after the end of World War II in 1945.

Indonesia may hold the key to a $1 trillion injection into the global economy. That's how much the World Trade Organization believes is riding on talks later this year in Bali, when trade ministers hope to cut through some of the red tape that slows global commerce.

The U.S. trade deficit expanded in November to its widest point in seven months, driven by a surge in imports that outpaced modest growth in exports.

Shin Cheol-soo no longer sees his future in the United States. The South Korean businessman supplied components to American automakers for a decade. But this year, he uprooted his family from Detroit and moved home to focus on selling to the new economic superpower: China.

China's trade surplus widened in October as export growth accelerated, the latest encouraging sign for the world's second-largest economy.

FedEx Corp. says the global economy is stalling, and it's going to get worse next year. A decline in global trade is shrinking earnings at the world's second-largest package delivery company. On Tuesday, FedEx said a continued slowdown in the developed world combined with high fuel prices will keep trade volumes at low levels.

In a move that escalates a trade row with the United States, China said it would ask the World Trade Organization (WTO) to adjudicate a dispute over U.S. punitive import duties on 22 Chinese exports, including solar panels and steel products.

After 18 years of negotiation, Russia on Wednesday entered the World Trade Organization, which restricts import duties and subsidies in an attempt to create a level playing field for international trade.

Signs that the Chinese economy is sputtering mounted Friday, in the form of dismally feeble trade data that fanned expectations that Beijing would soon step up its efforts to buttress growth before a key leadership transition this autumn.