United States

At a moment of widespread acknowledgement that the short-lived Islamic State is no longer a reality, and as ISIS is about to be defeated by the Syrian Army in its last urban holdout of Abu Kamal City in eastern Syria, the US is signalling an open-ended military presence in Syria. On Monday Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon that the US is preparing for a long term military commitment in Syria to fight ISIS "as long as they want to fight."

Authored by Daniel McAdams via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

Hypocrisy may be the only consistent guiding principle of US foreign policy.

As online retailers in the United States prepare for Cyber Monday, i.e. the biggest online shopping day of the year, China’s largest e-commerce company just recorded the biggest day in its history.

As Statista's Felix Richter notes, on November 11, Chinese Singles’ Day, online shoppers bought merchandise worth more than $25 billion across Alibaba’s platforms (mainly Tmall and Taobao), shattering last year’s sales record in the process.

In his speech (see here) at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit (APEC) on Friday, Trump slammed China, the WTO and his predecessor’s Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement as issues holding back his America-first “Indo-Pacific dream”. Without referencing it specifically, Trump criticised the TPP which he said would “tie our hands, surrender our sovereignty and make meaningful enforcement (of WTO rules) practically impossible”. Trump stated that the US would conduct trade with Asian nations based on bilateral agreements.

Authored by Chris Hamilton via Econimica blog,

I hope this article brings forward important questions about the Federal Reserves role in the US and I openly admit this is by no means a comprehensive article...it simply attempts to begin a broader dialogue about the financial and economic impacts of allowing the Federal Reserve to direct America's economy.