When the heaviest rain of tropical storm Harvey had passed, Kathryn Clark’s west Houston neighborhood had escaped the worst. Then the dams were opened — a decision by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to prevent upstream flooding and potential dam failures by releasing water into Buffalo Bayou, just a …

Pro-trade Republicans in the U.S. Congress are growing worried that U.S. President Donald Trump may try to quit the NAFTA free trade deal entirely rather than negotiate a compromise that preserves its core benefits. As a fifth round of talks to modernize the North American Free Trade Agreement kicked off …

The head of Canada’s biggest private-sector union headed to Mexico’s Senate on Friday, promising to fight at the NAFTA trade pact talks for improved Mexican wages and free collective bargaining as a way of benefiting workers across North America. The issue of tougher labor standards has emerged as a key …

The Trump administration on Friday revised its negotiating objectives for revamping the North American Free Trade Agreement, largely to reflect the demands it has made in NAFTA talks on agriculture, intellectual property and investment. The revised objectives are now in line with U.S. proposals to eliminate Canada’s import tariffs on …

From $7 for a Rohingya refugee to $750 for a North Korean “slave wife,” human rights activists have voiced concerns that it is becoming increasingly easy to enslave another human being as the cost plummets. The average modern-day slave is sold for $90-100 compared to the equivalent of $40,000 some …

Puerto Rico could face more than a decade of further economic stagnation and a steep drop in population as a result of Hurricane Maria, experts say. The stark estimates were presented this wee to members of a federal control board overseeing finances of a U.S. territory that is already in …

Radioactive waste continues to pour from Exelon’s Illinois nuclear power plants more than a decade after the discovery of chronic leaks led to national outrage, a $1.2 million government settlement and a company vow to guard against future accidents, an investigation by a government watchdog group found. Since 2007, there …

It’s been more than two months since Hurricane Harvey destroyed or damaged tens of thousands of homes across Houston and east Texas, and cleanup is expected to last 20 months, overtaking Hurricane Katrina as the most expensive rebuilding effort in U.S. history. Undocumented workers are part of the daunting task …

Access to education is key to ending child labor, but many countries are not investing enough to rescue 150 million children globally from often hazardous work, experts said. When schools offer meals, transport and occupational training, children can often stop working, experts said Thursday at the fourth annual Global Conference …

Mexico shot down a proposal by the United States to include provisions in the North America Free Trade Agreement that would benefit AT&T, Mexico’s Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said Wednesday. “AT&T, which is North American, asked its government to reflect its interests in the negotiation,” Guajardo said in an interview …

In Mongolia’s Gobi desert, thousands of heavy-duty trucks laden with coal inch along a cluttered highway toward the Chinese border in a journey that can take more than a week. Truckers cook, eat and sleep in vehicles covered in coal dust, many subsisting on the same meat soup that fueled …

German sportswear giant Adidas led the pack as four companies won a global award on Wednesday for shining a light on their own supply chains to eradicate modern slavery from their operations. Adidas was revealed as the overall winner of the second Thomson Reuters Foundation Stop Slavery Award, which celebrates …

Mexico’s threats to weaken U.S. narcotics and migration co-operation if NAFTA dies are pure bluster, Mexican and U.S. officials say, with next year’s election posing a far greater challenge to future collaboration. Mexican officials have threatened to strike back if U.S. President Donald Trump kills the North American Free Trade …

Mexico will respond to U.S. demands for changes in content rules for autos and an automatic expiration clause in the NAFTA trade deal when negotiations on reworking the accord begin again this week, a top government official said on Tuesday. A fifth round of talks to overhaul the North American …

Germany on Tuesday pledged $125 million to boost the work of an international insurance partnership that aims to cover 400 million more poor and vulnerable people against disaster risks by 2020. That goal was first set in 2015 by the G7 group of wealthy nations, but the effort has now …

Japan is stepping up aid and investment in Southeast Asia to help its multinationals do business across the continent while vying with political rival China for long-term influence over smaller neighboring countries. The wealthy Asian nation is helping build a train line near Manila, a seaport in Cambodia and new …

General Electric’s new Chief Executive John Flannery on Monday outlined steps that will turn the biggest U.S. industrial conglomerate into a smaller, more focused company, surprising some investors who sold the company’s shares to a five-year low. Flannery’s plan to shrink GE’s multi-industry array of businesses was a reversal of …

Mexico’s government is preparing a macroeconomic response in case U.S. President Donald Trump makes good on threats to quit the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), an event which could wreak havoc on the Mexican economy and hurt the peso. Mexico’s Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray said on Monday the government …

Promoted as needed relief for the middle class, the Senate Republican tax overhaul would increase taxes for some 13.8 million moderate-income American households, a bipartisan analysis showed Monday. The assessment by Congress’ nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation emerged as the Senate’s tax-writing committee began wading through the measure, working toward …

Venezuela’s socialist government welcomed scores of creditors on Monday for talks intended to renegotiate a crippling foreign debt and avert a default that could compound the once-prosperous OPEC nation’s economic crisis. About 100 investors — including some bondholders from New York, and lawyers and representatives for others — gathered at …

The federal government began its new budget year with an October deficit of $63.2 billion, up sharply from a year ago. The Treasury Department reported Monday that the October deficit was 37.9 percent higher than the $45.8 billion deficit recorded in October 2016. Both government receipts and spending were up …

Mobile chipmaker Qualcomm on Monday rejected rival Broadcom Ltd.’s $103-billion takeover bid, saying the offer undervalued the company and would face regulatory hurdles. Shares of Qualcomm rose as much as 2.5 percent to $66.17, while those of Broadcom fell as much as 1.3 percent to $261.55. “The Board has concluded …

South African President Jacob Zuma reiterated a call on Monday for radical reforms to shift the balance of “monopoly” economic power away from whites who dominated under apartheid, saying without such change blacks would stay poor for a long time. He made the remarks, reiterating a staple criticism leveled by …

The European Union and Chile will launch talks this week to update their existing free trade agreement after EU foreign ministers gave their backing on Monday to the start of negotiations. The EU and Chile signed a deal on political and economic cooperation in 2002, but have decided it needs …

President Donald Trump is wrapping up 12-day, five-nation tour of Asia dominated by talks on the North Korea nuclear threat and bolstering trade. After talks in Manila on Monday with the prime ministers of Australia and Japan, Trump promised to make a “major statement” on North Korea and trade when …