The United States, Canada and Mexico wrapped up their first round of talks on Sunday to revamp the NAFTA trade pact, vowing to keep up a blistering pace of negotiations that some involved in the process said may be too fast to bridge deep differences. In a joint statement issued …

Add next week’s total eclipse of the sun to the list of worker distractions that cost U.S. companies hundreds of millions of dollars in lost productivity. American employers will see at least $694 million in missing output for the roughly 20 minutes that outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas estimates …

Brexit minister David Davis called on the European Union on Sunday to relax its position that the two sides must first make progress on a divorce settlement before moving on to discussing future relations. After a slow start to negotiations to unravel more than 40 years of union, Britain is …

Sometimes, it just doesn’t pay to manufacture in the United States. Labor and land are expensive. It is why most consumer products sold here come from overseas. But a multinational electric guitar manufacturer still produces one-third of its instruments near where it started decades ago. Arash Arabasadi names that tune …

Danelle Johnson started designing her own clothes when she was a teenager. Not just because sewing was her hobby. She wanted to stand out among her classmates with a personal, distinctive look. Johnson’s vision of fashion motivated her to start her own design company … on wheels. As Faiza Elmasry …

Hansaben Rasid knows what it is like to live without a water tap or a toilet of her own, constantly fearful of being evicted by city officials keen on tearing down illegal settlements like hers in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad. The fear and lack of amenities are but …

Fitch Ratings has upgraded Greece’s credit rating from CCC to B-, a one-notch improvement that still leaves the bonds issued by the crisis-battered country well below investment grade. The ratings agency said Friday that the outlook of the Greek economy was positive and that it expected talks with the country’s …

More public backing for innovation, more idea exchanges to nurture global trade and more stability. That’s what two transnational entrepreneurs hope will result from U.S. Vice President Mike Pence’s travels this week to Latin America, where he has promoted prosperity, security and democracy for the Americas. Liliana “Lili” Gil Valletta, …

Like all North Korean adults, Song Un Pyol wears the faces of leader Kim Jong Un’s father and grandfather pinned neatly to her left lapel, above her heart. But on her right glitters a diamond-and-gold brooch.    Song is what a success story in Kim Jong Un’s North Korea is …

Steps away from this week’s NAFTA trade negotiations, business unified in hopes of sending a singular message: do no harm. Representatives from the United States, Canada and Mexico convened behind closed doors at a Washington hotel in an effort to strike a new North American Free Trade Agreement. And not …

Auto industry groups from Canada, Mexico and the United States are pushing back against the Trump administration’s demand for higher U.S. automotive content in a modernized North American Free Trade Agreement. At talks underway this week in Washington, automaker and parts groups from all three countries were urging negotiators against …

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said on Thursday that Washington wants more trade and investment with Latin America, pushing back against perceptions in the region that the Trump administration has an isolationist agenda. Speaking during a visit to the Panama Canal at the end of a Latin American tour, Pence …

As Congo’s government was soliciting urgent help from Western donors and the International Monetary Fund last month to contain an economic crisis, the chairman of the state mining company brought an unusual guest to the prime minister’s office. It was Raymond O’Leary, a vice president from Russia’s second-largest bank, state-owned …

Here’s how much hope and expectation has been built into the stock market: Big companies are healthy and making fatter profits than Wall Street expected, yet it’s barely enough to keep the market from falling. Consider Home Depot, which gave an earnings report on Tuesday that was seemingly fantastic. The …

Maribel Resendiz and her husband came to the U.S. from Mexico, sold cool drinks to workers in the tomato fields of South Florida and eventually opened a bustling shop in a strip mall offering fruit smoothies and tacos. Now she is preparing for the possibility she’ll have to leave it …

A rural county in Pennsylvania is facing the consequences of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigrants, as businesses in the agricultural-based economy experience labor shortages. Some orchard owners and local pro-immigrant activists are lobbying state and federal lawmakers to raise awareness of the contributions by immigrants in a county …

After many false starts, plans to resurrect a railway in Pakistan’s teeming metropolis of Karachi are moving ahead with the help of Chinese cash. Not everyone is happy. The Chinese-funded $2 billion project to revive Karachi Circular Railways (KRC), nearly two decades since it was shut down, has been touted …

Brazilian prosecutors plan to investigate last year’s controversial sale of the Argentine subsidiary of Petrobras, Brazil’s state-controlled oil company, a lawyer representing some Petrobras shareholders said on Wednesday. Petrobras, formally known as Petroleo Brasileiro SA , sold its 67.2 percent stake in Petrobras Argentina SA for $892 million to Pampa …

Scorched by a 10-month drought that has killed crops and reduced residents to buying trucked-in water, Adigama’s young people are voting with their feet. At least 150 youth have left this agricultural village 170 kilometers northwest of Sri Lanka’s capital since the drought began, looking for jobs in the country’s …

U.S. President Donald Trump continues to face a barrage of criticism for his contention that both white supremacists and counterprotesters were to blame for the deadly violence that erupted last weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia. On Wednesday, the president announced that he had dissolved two business advisory committees composed of top …

Canadian financial regulators have approved the public sale of a new digital currency in the country’s first official endorsement of money created independently of the government or central banks, company officials said on Wednesday. Produced with digital encryption techniques, cryptocurrencies like Montreal-based impak Coin allow users to create their own …

U.S. President Donald Trump’s top trade official laid down a hard negotiating line for revamping the North American Free Trade Agreement on Wednesday, saying that major changes were needed to slash U.S. trade deficits and boost U.S. content in autos. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said NAFTA had “failed many, …

President Donald Trump is renewing his attacks on e-commerce giant Amazon, and he says the company is “doing great damage to tax paying retailers.”   Trump tweets that “towns, cities and states throughout the U.S. are being hurt – many jobs being lost!” The president has often criticized the company …

The impact of the latest round of U.N. sanctions leveled against North Korea could be greater than the projected $1 billion cut in its export revenue if fully implemented, a high-profile North Korean defector told VOA’s Korean Service, and this would deal a significant financial blow to a regime intent …

The United States, Mexico and Canada opened negotiations Wednesday to reform the North American Free Trade Agreement, a 1994 trade deal that was a major target in U.S. President Donald Trump’s run for office. Trump has called NAFTA “the worst trade deal in history,” and one that has unfairly swollen …