Trade | featured news

The number of Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits fell last week while the trade deficit in June was the smallest in 1-1/2 years, hopeful signs for the struggling economy.

Li Guilian has built Dayang Trands into a $300-million company that tailors clothing for some of the world's most famous brands and powerful people... Dayang is also the manufacturer behind those snappy blue blazers and white slacks designed by Ralph Lauren for this year's U.S. Olympic team... The dust-up comes at a time when American unemployment remains stubbornly high, fueling tension over China's massive trade imbalance with the U.S.

The United States has filed a trade complaint against China for imposing duties on U.S.-made autos, the World Trade Organization (WTO) said on Thursday.

China will impose punitive duties of up to 22 percent on large cars and SUVs exported from the United States, China's Commerce Ministry said on Wednesday, the latest in a series of trade disputes between the world's two largest economies.

The U.S. trade deficit surged in May to the highest level in more than two and a half years, driven upward by a big increase in oil imports.

Oil prices tumbled nearly 5 percent on Wednesday, as easing supply concerns sent gasoline into a tailspin that briefly forced trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange to stop.

China on Tuesday pledged easier access for U.S. companies to key sectors of its economy by removing barriers to its huge market in government contracts and offering a foothold to U.S. mutual funds.

At an elaborate color-guard ceremony welcoming President Hu Jintao of China, President Obama on Wednesday spoke of “universal rights.”

The U.S. and South Korea have reached an agreement on a free trade deal to boost American exports and create tens of thousands of U.S. jobs in the largest trade pact in more than a decade.

Leaders of 20 major economies on Friday refused to back a U.S. push to make China boost its currency's value, keeping alive a dispute that raises fears of a global trade war amid criticism that cheap Chinese exports are costing American jobs.