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Nancy Pelosi appeared determined to press ahead with a make-or-break vote on Joe Biden’s $1.2tn bipartisan infrastructure bill in the US House of Representatives on Thursday, even as progressive lawmakers threatened to sink the flagship piece of the president’s legislative agenda. “We are proceeding in a very positive way to bring up the bill . . . in a

Joe Biden and congressional Democrats were locked in tense negotiations on Wednesday evening at what the White House called a “precarious and important time” for the US president’s sweeping legislative agenda. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Chuck Schumer, the Senate’s top Democrat, met Biden at the White House for

Wall Street and European stock markets dropped sharply as fears of interest rate increases and stagflation upended a narrative of economic recovery and easy monetary policy that has supported asset prices for months. The blue-chip S&P 500 share index fell nearly 1.7 per cent while the technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite dropped 2.5 per cent. Europe’s Stoxx

Two top Fed officials on Monday warned that failing to raise the US debt ceiling would have catastrophic consequences, hours before Republicans in the Senate were set to block a bill that would increase the borrowing limit and stave off a government shutdown. John Williams, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said

Germany’s two main parties are neck and neck after Sunday’s election, according to first exit polls from voting to determine who will succeed Angela Merkel as leader of Europe’s largest economy. An exit poll from public broadcaster ARD put both the left-of-centre Social Democrats and the centre-right CDU/CSU on 25 per cent, with the Greens

US president Joe Biden and congressional Democrats are gearing up for a frantic dash to pass their multitrillion dollar economic agenda, avert a debt default, and salvage their worsening prospects in the 2022 midterm elections. Eight months after he entered the White House, Biden must overcome a series of hurdles in the coming weeks if

US prosecutors have reached an agreement with Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei and daughter of the Chinese tech giant’s founder, to resolve fraud charges against her. The details of the agreement are set to be announced in a court hearing in Brooklyn at 1pm, Eastern time, according to a letter from Nicole

Deepening worries over Evergrande have ignited selling in a $428bn corner of the Asian debt market, underscoring how the crisis at the Chinese property developer is spreading to other assets as traders and investors brace for a crucial payment deadline on Thursday. Yields on US dollar-denominated bonds issued by riskier Asian borrowers have soared to

A growing number of Federal Reserve officials expect an interest rate increase next year as the central bank prepares to withdraw its enormous stimulus programme as early as November. At the end of the two-day meeting on Wednesday, the Federal Open Market Committee kept its main interest rate on hold at the rock-bottom range of

The International Energy Agency has called on Russia to send more gas to Europe to help alleviate the energy crisis, becoming the first major international body to address claims by traders and foreign officials that Moscow has restricted supplies. The Paris-based body said that while Russia was fulfilling its long-term contracts to European customers it

Shares in Chinese and Hong Kong property groups fell to their lowest levels in half a decade as an escalating liquidity crisis at developer Evergrande showed signs of spreading beyond the sector. Evergrande, the world’s most indebted property developer, faces obligations of more than $300bn to creditors and other businesses and a crucial interest payment

The world’s largest technology companies have snapped up smaller rivals at a record pace this year in a buying spree that comes as US politicians and regulators prepare to crack down on “under the radar” deals. Data from Refinitiv analysed by the Financial Times show that tech companies have spent at least $264bn buying up

Australia has been thrust into the limelight after signing a trilateral defence partnership with the US and the UK that is set to provide its navy with nuclear-propelled submarines. But the intention behind Aukus goes far beyond those submarines and Australia. The new pact is an essential building block in Washington’s attempts to prevent China

France has recalled its ambassadors from Washington and Canberra for consultations, in a diplomatic protest against a new security pact under which Australia will buy nuclear-powered submarines from the US and cancel its existing contract with Paris.  Jean-Yves Le Drian, French foreign minister, issued a statement on Friday night saying he had been told to

Taiwan and Japan have hailed the potential for a new security pact between Australia, the UK and US to offset an increasingly assertive China, even as France reacted with fury to Canberra’s cancellation of a $90bn submarine programme to agree the deal. The US allies said the new AUKUS partnership, under which Canberra will procure

Washington has launched a new trilateral security partnership with London and Canberra which will support Australia’s plan to build a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines, a move that will strengthen the allies’ ability to counter China. The move is US president Joe Biden’s latest effort to bolster alliances amid increasing tensions with China over disputes ranging

US government bonds rallied while bank shares weighed on major stock markets on Tuesday, as moderating US inflation warmed investors to the view that the Federal Reserve would have more time to remove crisis-era stimulus. Data released on Tuesday showed headline US consumer prices rose 5.3 per cent in the year to August, a slight

Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, gave an unapologetic defence of the American military’s chaotic and bloody withdrawal from Afghanistan as he appeared before lawmakers on Capitol Hill. In prepared remarks released ahead of a hearing before the House foreign affairs committee on Monday, Blinken said “even the most pessimistic assessments did not predict

The failure by the US to bring Covid-19 cases under control is scrambling business expectations of a rapid economic revival, forcing companies to reset plans and revise forecasts as they also grapple with a new federal vaccine mandate.  Revenues have fallen at a quarter of US small businesses in each of the past three weeks

US president Joe Biden is to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks on Saturday by visiting all three US sites that were targeted by al-Qaeda. Biden called on Americans to mark a moment of silence beginning at 8.46am, the time the first of four hijacked planes ploughed into the North Tower of

Apple’s iron grip on its App Store has been loosened by a US federal judge, who ordered the iPhone maker on Friday to stop interfering with apps that wished to take payments outside of its store. Until now, Apple has forbidden apps from including links, or even informing their customers, that they can subscribe or