The economy was one of the biggest issues for voters in this year’s U.S. presidential election. As they await Donald Trump’s return to power, many Americans say they expect improving the economy will be one of his first priorities. VOA Correspondent Scott Stearns has our story.
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PARIS — Credit ratings agency Moody’s unexpectedly downgraded France’s rating on Friday, adding pressure on the country’s new prime minister to corral divided lawmakers into backing his efforts to rein in the strained public finances.

The downgrade, which came outside of Moody’s regular review schedule for France, brings its rating to “Aa3” from “Aa2” with a stable outlook for future moves and puts it in line with those from rival agencies Standard & Poor’s and Fitch.

It comes hours after President Emmanuel Macron named on Friday veteran centrist politician and early ally Francois Bayrou as his fourth prime minister this year.

His predecessor, Michel Barnier, failed to pass a 2025 budget and was toppled earlier this month by left-wing and far-right lawmakers opposed to his $63 billion (60 billion euro) belt-tightening push that he had hoped would rein in France’s spiraling fiscal deficit.

The political crisis forced the outgoing government to propose emergency legislation this week to temporarily roll over 2024 spending limits and tax thresholds into next year until a more permanent 2025 budget can be passed.

“Looking ahead, there is now very low probability that the next government will sustainably reduce the size of fiscal deficits beyond next year,” Moody’s said in a statement.

“As a result, we forecast that France’s public finances will be materially weaker over the next three years compared to our October 2024 baseline scenario,” it added.

Barnier had intended to cut the budget deficit next year to 5% of economic output from 6.1% this year with a $63 billion (60 billion euro) package of spending cuts and tax hikes.

But left-wing and far-right lawmakers were opposed to much of the belt-tightening drive and voted a no confidence measure against Barnier’s government, bringing it down.

Bayrou, who has long warned about France’s weak public finances, said on Friday shortly after taking office that he faced a “Himalaya” of a challenge reining in the deficit.

Outgoing Finance Minister Antoine Armand said he took note of Moody’s decision, adding there was a will to reduce the deficit as indicated by the nomination of Bayrou.

The political crisis put French stocks and debt under pressure, pushing the risk premium on French government bonds at one point to their highest level over 12 years.
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Rovaniemi, Finland — Shuffling across icy ground on a cold December afternoon, lots of tourist groups poured into Santa Claus Village, a winter-themed amusement park perched on the edge of the Arctic Circle.

They frolic in the snow, take a reindeer sleigh ride, sip a cocktail in an ice bar or even meet Saint Nick himself in the capital of Finnish Lapland, Rovaniemi, which happily calls itself the “official hometown of Santa Claus.”

The Santa Claus Village theme park, which attracts more than 600,000 people annually, is especially popular during the holiday season.

“This is like my dream came true,” beamed Polish visitor Elzbieta Nazaruk. “I’m really excited to be here.”

Tourism is booming in Rovaniemi — which has hotel and restaurant owners, as well as city officials, excited as it brings lots of money to the town. However, not everyone is happy about the onslaught of visitors, 10 times the town’s population, each year at Christmas time.

“We are worried about the overgrowth of tourism. Tourism has grown so rapidly, it’s not anymore in control,” said 43-year-old Antti Pakkanen, a photographer and member of a housing network that in September organized a rally through the city’s streets.

It’s a feeling that has been echoed in other popular European travel destinations, including Barcelona, Amsterdam, Malaga and Florence.

Across the continent, locals have protested against “over-tourism” — which generally describes the tipping point at which visitors and their cash stop benefiting residents and instead cause harm by degrading historic sites, overwhelming infrastructure and making life markedly more difficult for those who live there.

Now, it seems to have spread north, all the way to the edges of the Arctic Circle.

Rovaniemi counted a record 1.2 million overnight visitors in 2023, almost 30 percent growth on 2022, after rebounding from pandemic travel disruptions.

“Nordic is a trend,” Visit Rovaniemi CEO Sanna Karkkainen, said as she stood in an ice restaurant, where snow carvers were working nearby.

“People want to travel to cool countries to see the snow, to see the Northern Lights, and, of course, to see Santa Claus,” she added.

Thirteen new flight routes to Rovaniemi Airport opened this year, bringing passengers from Geneva, Berlin, Bordeaux and more. Most tourists come from European countries like France, Germany and the UK, but Rovaniemi’s appeal has also spread further.

Hotel availability is scarce this winter, and Tiina Maatta, general manager of the 159-room Original Sokos Hotel, expects 2024 to break more records.

Local critics of mass tourism say many apartment buildings in Rovaniemi’s city center are also used for accommodation services during peak season and are thus no longer available for residential use. They say the proliferation of short-term rentals has driven up prices, squeezed out long-term residents, and turned its city center into a “transient space for tourists.”

Finnish law prohibits professional accommodation services in buildings intended for residential use, so campaigners are calling on authorities to act.

“The rules must be enforced better,” said Pakkanen.

Not everyone agrees. Mayor Ulla-Kirsikka Vainio notes some make “good money” on short-term rentals.

Either way, stricter regulations likely won’t be in place to impact this winter season, and despite the unease expressed by locals, mass tourism to Rovaniemi is probably only going to grow in 2025 — as visitors want to experience the unique atmosphere up north, especially during the holiday season.

“It’s Christmas time and we would love to see the Northern Lights,” says Joy, a visitor from Bangkok. “Rovaniemi seems to be a good place.”
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SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — From plastic surgery clinics to tour firms and hotel chains, South Korea’s hospitality sector is wary of the potential impact of a protracted political crisis, as some overseas travelers cancel trips following last week’s brief bout of martial law.

South Korea’s travel and tourism industry, which generated $59.1 billion in 2023, around 3.8% of GDP, has held up through previous bumps in the road, including a 2016 presidential impeachment and periodic tensions with North Korea.

But more than a dozen hospitality and administrative sources said the army’s involvement in the latest political crisis was a serious development that could deter leisure and business travel, when the sector is approaching a full recovery in visitor numbers, which stood at 97% of pre-COVID levels as of October.

“There are concerns that safety issues in Seoul would throw cold water on the tourism industry,” Seoul mayor Oh Se-hoon said on Wednesday while meeting tourism industry officials to discuss a fall in travel demand.

“There is a growing number of examples of foreign tourists canceling visits to Seoul and shortening their stays,” Oh said, before declaring “Seoul is safe,” in English, Chinese and Japanese to the media.

Daily life and tourist activities have continued as usual, despite ongoing large protests, since President Yoon Suk Yeol rescinded his six hours of martial law on December 4 after parliament voted it down, with analysts noting that South Korea’s institutional checks and balances seem to be holding up.

Some tourists have since canceled bookings, albeit not in great numbers, while others are enquiring whether they could pull out should the situation change, travel and hospitality sources said.

Accor hotel group, which includes the Fairmont and Sofitel brands, said it noted a “slight increase” in cancellation rates since December 3, around 5% higher than in November.

The Korea Tourism Start-up Association said on Friday bookings for the first half of 2025 already had seen a sharp decline.

Rooms in previously fully booked hotels in the capital, Seoul, have become available due to cancellations with some hotels “even lowering their rates and offering special deals to attract more bookings,” said an inbound travel agency that asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.

A plastic surgery clinic in Seoul’s upmarket Gangnam neighborhood also said some foreign patients had canceled visits since the martial law incident.

“We are not worried now, but if this situation continues, that would have an impact on foreign visitors,” a clinic representative said, declining to be named.

South Korea is a top global destination for medical and plastic surgery tourism.

Soft power

The latest political crisis also threatens to deal a major blow to the country’s brand, which has been improving thanks to Korean culture and economic success, said Kim Wou-kyung, head of a government brand promotion agency.

The explosion to global prominence of South Korean drama, music and beauty, known as the “Korean Wave,” plus a reputation for safety, and global brands such as Samsung, are key forms of soft power that the government leverages to grow tourist numbers.

South Korea hopes to almost double the number of annual tourists by 2027 from 2019 levels, to 30 million.

Part of the strategy also is to focus on group business travel for events including conferences and exhibitions, a sector known as MICE tourism, which could be impacted if the political crisis continues into early next year, said Ha Hong-kook, secretary-general at Korea MICE Association.

The parliament plans to vote on a motion to impeach Yoon on Saturday, a week after its first impeachment vote was defeated.

“If we get through this immediate, unprecedented period … into a clear route to new elections, then I think actually the impact won’t be that bad,” said Andrew Gilholm, director at risk consultancy Control Risks Group.

He said the country’s reputation “might even be improved” long-term by displaying how it comes through the problems.

Su Shu, founder of Chinese firm Moment Travel in Chengdu, is also sanguine about travel demand for South Korea.

“No matter where there is chaos, there will be people who dare not go,” Su said.

China is the largest source of foreign visitors to South Korea, followed by Japan and the U.S.  
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Yaounde, Cameroon — Officials in Sub-Saharan Africa countries have agreed it is important to reduce over-dependence on imported fish and seafood from North Africa and the European Union and instead they should strive to cultivate fish-farming, which will create jobs for unemployed youth. The officials, meeting in Cameroon, said their goal is to invest some of what they collectively spend on importing fish each year, and put that funding into developing local fish farms. They hope to re-direct to local fish farmers a large amount of the $7 billion spent annually on importing seafood.

Fish farmer Tanyi Hubert demonstrates how every day he catches and sells at least 10 kilograms of fresh fish from his pond in Nkolbisson, a neighborhood in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde.

He told government officials from 12 African countries, who were in Cameroon on Monday, that he makes at least $40 each day since he started selling fish one year ago from his riverside fish pond, in which he farms fish.

Hubert said he is one of several hundred youths the government of Cameroon trained, and provided financial assistance of about $4,000 each, to begin a fish farming business.

Eta Collins Ayuk is the director of the Limbe National Institute of Fisheries and Aquaculture created by the government of Cameroon to train fish farmers. He said several hundred unemployed Cameroonians who have received training in fish farming are today supplying fish to local markets and raising enough money to take care of their families.

“The catch we get from the wild is rapidly declining and the only way to ensure fish and fish products availability for local consumption should be through the farming of fish, which is aquaculture. We train people to create jobs. We don’t train people to go and search for employment,” said Collins.

Eta said efficient local fish farming will reduce the large amounts of money Cameroon spends each year on importing fish from North Africa and Europe.

The government of this central African country says it has spent about $200 million in 2024, to import 60% of the 550,000 tons of fish and seafood it needs this year to feed its 30 million civilians.

Officials and fish farmers from Sub-Saharan African countries meeting in Yaounde on Monday said Africa alone accounts for close to 13% of the world’s total fish imports.

The continent spends close to $7 billion to import fish and seafood from Europe and North African countries, including Morocco, Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia, officials said.

Olodayo Ganiyu, chief executive officer of Aquapet Ventures, a Nigerian company that promotes local fish farming, said it is unfortunate that, despite its huge potential of abundant natural resources including oceans, rivers, lakes, waterways and coasts, Africa still spends huge sums of money to import fish.

“We [Nigeria] import thousands of tons of fish every year, that cost us $1.2 billion. Now the government of my country is encouraging so many people to come into fish farming. A time will come in Nigeria when you will not see any imported fish again. Many people are now encouraged to invest more in aquaculture so that the scarce dollars used in importation of frozen fish into the country will be channeled into health, education and other infrastructure,” he said.

Olodayo said participants at the Yaounde meeting this week agreed to try to guide their countries to soon invest about 60% of the money they normally use to import fish, to instead pursue local fish farming development and production. The plan aims to create jobs for African youths who, due to widespread poverty and joblessness, are leaving their countries to seek work in Europe.

The participants said Africa has over 30,000 kilometers of untapped coastline to gradually expand the fishing industry, which has the potential to drive economic growth, ensuring food security and creating jobs.

Cameroon’s livestock minister, who goes by only one name, Taiga, said the African Continental Free Trade Area, alongside global initiatives, has prepared a blueprint for Africa to use its vast fishing resources to fight hunger and propel development. 

Taiga said Cameroon and Sub-Saharan countries will succeed to stop the importation of fish and seafood from North Africa and Europe, just as they succeeded to stop the importation of frozen chicken and pork from developed countries. He said the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development is presently assisting African countries to produce fish locally and reduce dependence on imports.

Taiga spoke on Cameroon state TV. He said African nations are fighting to stop illegal fishing on their coastal waters but did not say how.

The United Nations reports that Africa this year accounted for 13.1 million tons of fisheries and aquaculture production, which is six percent of the world’s annual total. At the conference Monday, officials said they hope that by 2026, some 60% of money they use to import fish will be invested in local production. 
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TikTok asked a federal appeals court on Monday to bar the Biden administration from enforcing a law that could lead to a ban on the popular platform until the Supreme Court reviews its challenge to the statue. 

The legal filing was made after a panel of three judges on the same court sided with the government last week and ruled that the law, which requires TikTok to divest from its China-based parent company or face a ban as soon as next month, was constitutional. 

If the law is not overturned, both TikTok and its parent ByteDance, which is also a plaintiff in the case, have claimed that the popular app will shut down by Jan. 19, 2025. TikTok has more than 170 million American users. 

“Before that happens, the Supreme Court should have an opportunity, as the only court with appellate jurisdiction over this action, to decide whether to review this exceptionally important case,” attorneys for the two companies wrote in the legal filing on Monday. 

It’s not clear if the Supreme Court will take up the case. 

President-elect Donald Trump, who tried to ban TikTok the last time he was in the White House, has said he is now against such action. 

In their legal filing, the two companies pointed to the political realities, saying that an injunction would provide a “modest delay” that would give “the incoming Administration time to determine its position — which could moot both the impending harms and the need for Supreme Court review.” 
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BEIJING — China on Monday said it has launched an investigation into U.S. chip maker Nvidia over suspected violations of the country’s anti-monopoly law, in a move that will likely be seen as a retaliatory move against Washington’s recent chip curbs.  

The State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) said Nvidia is also suspected of violating commitments it made during its acquisition of Mellanox Technologies Ltd, according to terms outlined in the regulator’s 2020 conditional approval of that deal. 

It did not elaborate on how Nvidia might have violated China’s anti-monopoly laws.  

Nvidia did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The company’s shares fell 2.2% in premarket trading after the Chinese regulator’s announcement.  

The investigation comes after the U.S. last week launched its third crackdown in three years on China’s semiconductor industry, which saw Washington curb exports to 140 companies, including chip equipment makers. 

Nvidia has enjoyed booming demand from China, though this has been dented over the past year by U.S. efforts to stop China from acquiring the world’s most advanced chips. 

Before the U.S. curbs, Nvidia dominated China’s AI chip market with more than 90 per cent share. However, it currently faces increasing competition from domestic rivals, chief among them being Huawei. 

When the U.S. firm made a $6.9 billion bid to acquire Israeli chip designer Mellanox Technologies in 2019 there were concerns that China could block the deal due to U.S.-China trade frictions.  

Beijing however later approved the deal in 2020 with multiple conditions for Nvidia and the merged entity’s China operations, including prohibitions on forced product bundling, unreasonable trading terms, purchase restrictions, and discriminatory treatment of customers who buy products separately. 
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NEW DELHI — India is not pursuing the creation of a shared BRICS currency, an idea that has met with a strong verbal pushback from incoming U.S. President Donald Trump, but the South Asian giant is making efforts to promote trade in its local currency, according to analysts in New Delhi.

Trump has threatened a 100% tariff on products from BRICS nations if they develop their own currency to replace the U.S. dollar.

The BRICS bloc, which began with China, Russia, India, Brazil and South Africa, expanded this year to include Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia and Egypt.

“We require a commitment from these countries that they will neither create a new BRICS currency nor back any other currency to replace the mighty U.S. dollar,” Trump said in a post on the Truth Social media platform.

Talk of a BRICS currency gained some momentum following U.S.-led sanctions on Russia in 2022 and since, in recent years, economic and political tensions have grown between the West and China. Russia and China have publicly expressed a desire to explore diversification of international trade away from the dollar.

Ajai Sahai, director general of the Federation of Indian Export Organizations, though, said New Delhi does not plan to move away from the American currency.

“Trump’s post is like a forewarning to tread carefully down this road. But at the moment, this is just an idea, and a common BRICS currency is simply not on India’s agenda,” Sahai said.

The creation of such a currency is unlikely to gain traction due to mistrust and internal differences within major countries in the alliance such as India and China, according to analysts working in the Indian capital.

“India is not supportive of this particular initiative. Any common currency is not going to help anyone; only the dominant countries like China ultimately will dictate. So, it is very difficult to develop a consensus to have a common currency,” according to Chintamani Mahapatra, founder of the Kalinga Institute of Indo Pacific Studies.

The emerging countries group is also too diverse to make it economically viable to forge a competing currency, according to Mahapatra.

“Unlike the European Union, we [BRICS countries] don’t have a common market. We don’t have a common trade policy. We have nothing in common,” Mahapatra said.

At the same time, several BRICS members have accelerated efforts to explore ways to reduce dependence on the U.S. dollar, which has been the world’s dominant currency since the end of World War II. BRICS countries account for about 40% of the world’s population and an estimated one-third of global gross domestic product.

At a summit held in the Russian city of Kazan in October, BRICS nations agreed to boost efforts to trade in local currencies rather than in U.S. dollars and said they would strengthen banking networks within the group to facilitate settlements in their currencies.

“Trade in local currencies and smooth cross-border payments will strengthen our economic cooperation,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said.

India, which adopted a new foreign trade policy last year to support using the rupee more frequently for trade, has identified 17 countries with which it wants to use rupees or the other country’s currency, according to Biswajit Dhar, a senior professor at the Council for Social Development in New Delhi.

Those countries include Russia. New Delhi, which did not join U.S. sanctions against Russia, is paying for its crude oil imports from Moscow in rupees. As trade with Russia increases exponentially, though, that also presents problems.

“India runs a huge trade deficit vis-a-vis Russia, which means that when India is buying a lot of oil and is paying in rupees, Russia does not know what to do with the stock of rupees it is holding now,” Dhar said.

“Indian businesses are wary of selling to Russia because of the sanctions.” he said.

Aside from Russia, other countries such as Malaysia, Kenya, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh also have agreed to facilitate trade in rupees. Such efforts however are modest, and India’s international trade is still dominated by the dollar.

Indian External Affairs Minister Jaishankar Subramanian has said that moving away from the U.S. currency is not part of New Delhi’s economic policy.

“We have never actively targeted the dollar. That’s not part of either our economic policy or our political or strategic policy,” he said responding to a question on dedollarization at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington in October.

But in an indirect reference to Russia, he said that India had to look for “workarounds” when trade in dollars with some partners became difficult.

“It was the U.S. actions targeting Russia that made countries search for mechanisms and options to the dollar. It was not to dislodge the dollar’s position,” according to Ajay Srivastava, of the Global Trade Research Initiative.

However, he said Trump’s threat to impose 100% tariffs on products coming from countries adopting a BRICS currency makes the idea of such a potential new currency “unrealistic and more symbolic than practical.”
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