The Opec+ organisation’s decision this week to cut oil production despite stiff US opposition has further strained already tense relations between President Joe Biden’s White House and Saudi Arabia’s royal family, once one of Washington’s staunchest Middle East allies, according to interviews with about a dozen government officials and experts in Washington and the Gulf.

US employers hired more workers than expected in September, while the unemployment rate dropped to 3.5 per cent, pointing to a tight labour market which keeps the Federal Reserve on its aggressive monetary policy tightening campaign for a while.

President Biden on Thursday will tout IBM Corp’s plans to invest $20 billion in New York over the next decade in development and manufacturing of semiconductors, mainframe technology, artificial intelligence and quantum computing.

The dazzling rise of the US dollar, which has hit one record after another, is raising fears of a currency crash of a severity not seen since the 1997 Asian financial crisis reverberated around the world.

The US will have a commercial attaché posted in its embassy in Dhaka by this year as trade between Bangladesh and the US is fast rising, said Peter D Haas, US ambassador to Bangladesh, yesterday. 

The American Apparel and Footwear Association (AAFA) along with 270 other trade bodies has urged the US Congress to reinstate the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) for the convenience of American traders.

The US Energy Department on Friday issued a plan detailing a government-wide strategy for ramping up production and use of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF).

The  “enormous scale” of Chinese lending to developing nations makes it critical Beijing do more to participate in restructurings to avoid a new international debt crisis, a senior US Treasury official said Tuesday.

US central bankers opened their two-day policy meeting on Tuesday with another steep interest rate hike seen as a near certainty amid stubbornly high inflation.

Apple Inc said on Tuesday it will raise prices of apps and in-app purchases on its App Store from next month in all of the euro zone and some countries in Asia and South America.

A tough year in markets is leading some investors to seek refuge in cash, as they capitalise on higher interest rates and await chances to buy stocks and bonds at cheaper prices.

The Federal Reserve is poised to unleash another massive interest rate increase this week after the latest data showed a worrying US inflation picture, which confirmed the need for the central bank to continue to act aggressively.

The International Monetary Fund is looking for ways to provide emergency funding to countries facing war-induced food price shocks and will discuss measures at an executive board meeting on Monday, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The United States faces  “a risk” of recession as its battle against inflation could slow the nation’s economy, but a serious downturn can still be avoided, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Sunday.

Federal Reserve officials on Friday ended their public comment period ahead of the US central bank’s September 20-21 policy meeting with strong calls for another oversized interest rate increase to battle high inflation.

The United States and a group of Asian allies on Friday agreed on a set of negotiating targets, notably on trade and supply chains, as Washington looks to offer an alternative to the economic might of China in the region.

Oil prices rose on Friday on expectations that Opec+ will discuss output cuts at a meeting on September 5, though concern over China’s Covid-19 curbs and weakness in the global economy loomed over the market.

American employers slowed the pace of hiring in August after the surprising surge in the prior month and the jobless rate edged up, according to government data released Friday, which could offer the central bank some relief that its inflation-fighting efforts are working.

A US order to ban exports of some advanced chips to China is likely to hit almost any major tech company running public clouds or advanced artificial intelligence training modules in the country, experts said.

US new home sales fell sharply in July to their lowest rate since early 2016, the government reported Tuesday, as rising lending rates cool demand.