WASHINGTON — When U.S. President Joe Biden visits Angola in early December, he will put into focus his legacy infrastructure project aimed at securing crucial supply chains on the African continent. Called the Lobito Corridor, the project is the centerpiece of his administration’s strategy to counter China’s clout in global development.

The Lobito Corridor is a $5 billion investment across multiple sectors that is intended to revitalize and extend the 1,300-kilometer Benguela railway line. It will connect the 120-year-old Angolan port of Lobito on the Atlantic Ocean to the Democratic Republic of Congo, and in its second phase, to Zambia.

Announced in September 2023, much of the corridor’s financing comes from the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment. The PGI is a Biden-led 2022 initiative from the Group of Seven wealthiest economies that evolved from his Build Back Better World plan launched in 2021 as a counter to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

Once operational, it will boost access to critical minerals for the United States and its partners, including cobalt and copper, that are essential in electric vehicle manufacturing. According to a U.S. congressional report, 80% of the DRC’s copper mines are Chinese owned. China is responsible for mining 85% of the DRC’s rare earth minerals, including 76% of its cobalt.

The Lobito Corridor is expected to cut transportation costs, open access to arable agricultural land and drive climate-resilient economic growth, Helaina Matza, acting special coordinator for the PGI at the U.S. Department of State, said Tuesday in a briefing to reporters.

The PGI’s investments will “amplify the impact of that infrastructure” with projects such as developing solar energy, local electricity networks and desalination efforts, she said.

The project is championed by Angolan President Joao Lourenco. Angola owes about $17 billion to China, more than a third of its total debt. The debt is mostly in the form of infrastructure development loans, backed by oil, that funded the country’s economic recovery following three decades of civil war that ended in 2002.

PGI to counter BRI

Since launching the Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI, in 2013, China has become the main backer of global development financing. In Africa, Beijing has signed loan commitments with 49 African governments and seven regional institutions.

From 2013 to 2021, China provided $679 billion for infrastructure projects around the world, according to a U.S. government analysis, while the U.S. provided $76 billion.

The U.S., alongside G7 partners, announced in 2022 that the PGI aims to mobilize $600 billion by 2027 as an alternative to infrastructure financing models that are “often opaque, fail to uphold environmental and social standards, exploit workers and leave the recipient countries worse off.”

That’s a lot of financing to catch up to in a few years, and Lobito is “the first and the most developed” project in that effort, said Witney Schneidman, a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

“That’s the A+ project, but I don’t see a whole lot of other projects,” Schneidman told VOA.

The PGI’s other project, the Luzon Corridor, was launched in April to support connectivity between Subic Bay, Clark, Manila and Batangas in the Philippines.

In Lobito, the U.S. works mostly with European partners. In Luzon, the U.S. is teaming up with Japan to secure critical industries such as semiconductors.

The White House pushed back against the notion that Biden has scaled back his global infrastructure ambitions to the two corridors.

“We’ve mobilized more than $60 billion, just the U.S., and that’s a part of the larger G7,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan told VOA in a briefing earlier this month.

“And that’s not just been for two corridors,” he said. “That’s been for investments across Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America.”

US-Africa strategy

In August 2022, the Biden administration launched an Africa strategy that “reframes the region’s importance to U.S. national security interests,” the strategy says.

Later that year, Biden hosted the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, where he pledged the U.S. to invest $55 billion in Africa over three years.

“We are overdelivering on that thus far,” Frances Brown, senior director for African affairs at the National Security Council, said in a briefing Tuesday. “We’ve invested more than 80% of that commitment.”

But much of that $55 billion was allocated under existing programs and does not bring the kind of megaproject that is “visible to the average African that says the United States financed that in the way that the Chinese do,” said Mvemba Phezo Dizolele, director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Which is why the Lobito Corridor stands out, Dizolele told VOA. It is the “one palpable project that people can look at and say, ‘If this is implemented, then maybe it would move things forward.’”

On a continent where the presence of Chinese financing, businesses and migrants are so prevalent that many African countries teach Mandarin in schools and incorporate Chinese characters in public signage, that’s a start.

Moving forward, activists hope the U.S. will not set aside social and environmental concerns that have besieged projects under Chinese financing.

“We have to ensure that we can hear all stakeholders engaging in the process,” said Sergio Calundungo, founder of the Social Observatory of Angola.

So far, civil society groups have not been invited to the table, but they are ready to ensure that local communities can “share as much as possible the prosperity through this important infrastructure,” he told VOA.

Will it continue?

President-elect Donald Trump will enter office in January. While some are concerned that the U.S. commitment to Africa might falter under his America First doctrine, analysts point to initiatives taken under his first administration.

In 2018, the Trump administration launched Prosper Africa, an initiative that brings together U.S. government services to help investors do business on the continent. In 2019, it launched the Blue Dot Network, an international certification mechanism to ensure infrastructure projects meet environmental and social standards.

They were aware that infrastructure investments needed “to foster economic growth, to foster stability, but also for U.S. interests globally when competing with China,” said Joseph Lemoine, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Center. “I’m hopeful that they will continue those efforts,” he told VOA.

Trump also launched the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation in 2020. The DFC is an agency that functions as America’s development bank, with $60 billion in lending capacity.

DFC’s first CEO, Adam Boehler, a college roommate of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, spoke openly of linking development aid to foreign policy goals. In a 2020 interview, he admitted promising $2 billion for Indonesia should the country agree to join the Trump administration’s Abraham Accords and recognize Israel.

“If you listen to all the Trump people, they want a foreign policy that’s transactional,” Schneidman at Brookings said.

Trump has promised to take a confrontational approach to China. Analysts say aligning infrastructure financing needs with Trump’s foreign policy goals may be an element in the U.S.-China rivalry that developing nations can leverage.
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Fuel is rapidly becoming one of Bolivia’s scarcest commodities.

Long lines of vehicles snake for several kilometers outside gas stations all over Bolivia, once South America’s second-largest producer of natural gas. Some of the queues don’t budge for days.

While frustration builds, drivers like Victor García now eat, sleep and socialize around their stationary trucks, waiting to buy just a few liters of diesel — unless the station runs dry.

“We don’t know what’s going to happen, but we’re going to be worse off,” said García, 66, who inched closer to the pump Tuesday as the hours ticked by in El Alto, a bare-bones sprawl beside Bolivia’s capital in the Andean altiplano.

Bolivia’s monthslong fuel crunch comes as the nation’s foreign currency reserves plummet, leaving Bolivians unable to find U.S. dollars at banks and exchange houses. Imported goods that were once commonplace have become scarce.

The fuel crisis has created a sense that the country is coming undone, disrupting economic activity and everyday life for millions of people, hurting commerce and farm production and sending food prices soaring.

Mounting public anger has driven crowds into the streets in recent weeks, piling pressure on leftist President Luis Arce to ease the suffering ahead of a tense election next year.

“We want effective solutions to the shortage of fuel, dollars and the increase in food prices,” said Reinerio Vargas, the vice rector of Gabriel René Moreno Autonomous University in the eastern province of Santa Cruz, where hundreds of desperate truckers and residents flooded main squares Tuesday to vent their anger at Arce’s inaction and demand early elections.

In a similar eruption of discontent, protesters shouting, “Everything is expensive!” marched through the streets of the capital, La Paz, last week.

Bolivians say Arce’s image has suffered not only because of the crisis but also because his government insists that it doesn’t exist.

“Diesel sales are in the process of returning to normal,” Economy Minister Marcelo Montenegro said Tuesday.

Arce has repeatedly vowed that his government will end the fuel shortages and lower the prices of basic goods by arbitrary deadlines. On November 10, he again promised he would “resolve this issue” in 10 days.

As the deadlines come and go, the black market currency exchange rate has risen to nearly 40% more than the official rate.

Arce’s office did not respond to interview requests.

“The queues are getting longer and longer,” said 38-year-old driver Ramiro Morales, who needed a bathroom after four hours in line Tuesday but feared losing his place if he went searching for one. “People are exhausted.”

It’s a shocking turnaround for the landlocked nation of 12 million people that was a South American economic success story in the 2000s, when the commodities bonanza generated tens of billions of dollars under the nation’s first Indigenous president, former President Evo Morales.

Morales, Arce’s onetime mentor, is his present-day rival in the fight to be the ruling party’s candidate next year.

But when the commodities boom ended, prices slumped and gas production dwindled. Now, Bolivia spends an estimated $56 million a week to import most of its gasoline and diesel from Argentina, Paraguay and Russia.

Economy Minister Montenegro on Tuesday pledged that the government would continue providing fuel subsidies that critics say it can’t afford.

Banners from two years ago boasting that Bolivia’s inflation is the lowest in South America still greet tourists arriving at El Alto International Airport. Now, inflation is among the highest in the region.

Fuel shortages prevent farmers from getting their produce to distribution centers and markets, triggering a sharp price hike for food staples.

Last week in La Paz and neighboring El Alto, hungry Bolivians jostled in long lines to buy rice after much-delayed shipments finally arrived from Santa Cruz, the country’s economic engine some 850 kilometers away.

With the diesel shortage affecting everything from the operation of tractors to the sourcing of machinery parts, the shortage is also hurting farmers during the crucial planting season.

“Without diesel, there is no food for 2025,” said Klaus Frerking, the vice president of the Eastern Agricultural Chamber of Bolivia.

The prices of potatoes, onions and milk have doubled in El Alto’s main wholesale food market in the past month, vendors said, overshooting the country’s nearly 8% inflation rate.

Nervous Bolivians are cutting back on their consumption.

“You have to search a lot to find the cheapest food,” said 67-year-old Angela Mamani, struggling to pull together meals for her six grandchildren at El Alto’s open-air market Tuesday. She planned to buy vegetables but didn’t have enough cash and went home empty-handed.

This week, Arce’s government presented a 2025 budget — with a 12% increase in spending — that drew backlash from lawmakers and business leaders who said it would lead to more debt and more inflation.

While the governing Movement Toward Socialism party tears itself apart in the power struggle between Arce and Morales, both politicians have seen the economic morass as a way to strengthen their positions ahead of 2025 elections.

“They deny there are problems. They blame external contexts and conflicts,” said Bolivian economic analyst Gonzalo Chávez.

Morales’ supporters last month launched 24-day protest partly targeting Arce’s handling of the economy that blocked main roads and stranded commercial shipments, costing the government billions of dollars.

Security forces broke up the rallies almost a month ago. But on Tuesday, Arce’s government continued to blame Morales’ blockades for spawning the ubiquitous fuel lines.

“We need change,” said Geanina García, a 31-year-old architect scouring the grocery hub of El Alto for cheap deals — a once-routine errand that she said had turned into a nightmare.

“People don’t live off politics, they live day to day, off of what they produce and what they earn.” 
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New data released Wednesday from a Chinese government-affiliated research firm showed sales of foreign-branded smartphones, including Apple’s iPhone, fell 44.25% year-on-year in China in October, while overall phone sales in China have increased 1.8%, Reuters reported.

The data released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology revealed sales of foreign-branded phones in China decreased to 6.22 million units last month, down from 11.149 million units a year earlier.

The decrease of foreign phone sales comes in the wake of Chinese tech conglomerate Huawei’s rise to the top of the phone market in China.

Huawei was widely popular in China’s smartphone market last year when it released the Mate 60 Pro, a phone with a tiny computer chip more advanced than any other chip previously made by a Chinese company.

Chinese consumers have eagerly embraced Huawei’s smartphones, drawn to the appeal of locally made technology — an option that has swayed many who might have previously chosen iPhones.

On Tuesday, the Chinese phone maker launched the next generation of the Mate 60 Pro, the Mate 70 series. The smartphone was described by Huawei’s consumer group chairman Richard Yu as the “smartest” Mate phone, The New York Times reported.

The Mate 70 series features hardware and software that are the most independent from Western influence to date. Highlights of Huawei’s newest phone include artificial intelligence-enabled functions and improved photography. The phone uses an operating system of HarmonyOS, which allows the smartphones to connect with smart devices.

Huawei’s ability to self-supply the chips required for its hardware and software represents a notable development, following previous U.S. measures to restrict the company’s access to key partners and suppliers.

AI technology relies on advanced semiconductor chips, a critical resource that has received attention amid tensions between Beijing and Washington, as both countries compete to dominate the advanced technology industry.

Apple’s iPhone 16 features AI capabilities, but these features have yet to be implemented in iPhones in China.

Apple, which considers China its second-most important market, has seen its market share decrease substantially. Apple CEO Tim Cook is traveling to China this week for the third time this year to attend an industry conference.
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NYANGAMBE, ZIMBABWE — At first, the suggestion to try farming maggots spooked Mari Choumumba and other farmers in Nyangambe, a region in southeastern Zimbabwe where drought wiped out the staple crop of corn.

After multiple cholera outbreaks in the southern African nation resulting from extreme weather and poor sanitation, flies were largely seen as something to exterminate, not breed.

“We were alarmed,” Choumumba said, recalling a community meeting where experts from the government and the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, broached the idea.

People had flocked to the gathering in hope of news about food aid. But many stepped back when told it was about training on farming maggots for animal feed and garden manure.

“People were like, ‘What? These are flies. Flies bring cholera,’” Choumumba said.

A year later, the 54-year-old walks with a smile to a smelly cement pit covered by wire mesh where she feeds rotting waste to maggots — her new meal ticket.

After harvesting the insects about once a month, Choumumba turns them into protein-rich feed for her free-range chickens that she eats and sells.

Up to 80% of chicken production costs were gobbled up by feed for rural farmers before they took up maggot farming. Many couldn’t afford the $35 charged by stores for a 50-kilogram (110-pound) bag of poultry feed, said Francis Makura, a specialist with a USAID program aimed at broadening revenue streams for farmers affected by climate change.

But maggot farming reduces production costs by about 40%, he said.

Black soldier fly

The maggots are offspring of the black soldier fly, which originates in tropical South America. Unlike the house fly, it is not known to spread disease.

Their life cycle lasts just weeks, and they lay between 500 and 900 eggs. The larvae devour decaying organic items — from rotting fruit and vegetables to kitchen scraps and animal manure — and turn them into a rich protein source for livestock.

“It is even better than the crude protein we get from soya,” said Robert Musundire, a professor specializing in agricultural science and entomology at Chinhoyi University of Technology in Zimbabwe, which breeds the insects and helps farmers with breeding skills.

Donors and governments have pushed for more black soldier fly maggot farming in Africa because of its low labor and production costs and huge benefits to agriculture, the continent’s mainstay that is under pressure from climate change and Russia’s war in Ukraine.

In Uganda, the maggots helped plug a fertilizer crisis caused by the war in Ukraine. In Nigeria and Kenya, they are becoming a commercial success.

In Zimbabwe

The Zimbabwean government and partners piloted it among farmers struggling with securing soya meal for their animals. A World Bank-led project later used it as a recovery effort for communities affected by a devastating 2019 cyclone.

Now it is becoming a lifesaver for some communities in the country of 15 million people where repeated droughts make it difficult to grow corn. It’s not clear how many people across the country are involved in maggot-farming projects.

At first, “a mere 5%” of farmers that Musundire, the professor, approached agreed to venture into maggot farming. Now that’s up to “about 50%,” he said, after people understood the protein benefits and the lack of disease transmission.

The “yuck factor” was an issue. But necessity triumphed, he said.

With the drought decimating crops and big livestock such as cattle — a traditional symbol of wealth and status and a source of labor — small livestock such as chickens are helping communities recover more quickly.

“They can fairly raise a decent livelihood out of the resources they have within a short period of time,” Musundire said.

Reduces waste, too

It also helps the environment. Zimbabwe produces about 1.6 million tons of waste annually, 90% of which can be recycled or composted, according to the country’s Environmental Management Agency. Experts say feeding it to maggots can help reduce greenhouse emissions in a country where garbage collection is erratic.

At a plot near the university, Musundire and his students run a maggot breeding center in the city of 100,000 people. The project collects over 35 metric tons a month in food waste from the university’s canteens as well as vegetable markets, supermarkets, abattoirs, food processing companies and beer brewers.

“Food waste is living, it respires and it contributes to the generation of greenhouse gases,” Musundire said.

According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, food loss — which occurs in the stages before reaching the consumer — and food waste after sale account for 8% to 10% of greenhouse gas emissions globally, or about five times that of the aviation sector.

The university project converts about 20 to 30 metric tons of the waste into livestock protein or garden manure in about two weeks.

Choumambo said people often sneer as she goes around her own community collecting banana peels and other waste that people toss out at the market and bus station.

“I tell them we have good use for it, it is food for our maggots,” she said. She still has to contend with “ignorant” people who accuse maggot farmers of “breeding cholera.”

But she cares little about that as her farm begins to thrive.

‘Sweet smell of food’

From bare survival, it is becoming a profitable venture. She can harvest up to 15 kilograms (about 33 pounds) of maggots in 21 days, turning out 375 kilograms (826.7 pounds) of chicken feed after mixing it with drought-tolerant crops such as millets, cowpeas and sunflower and a bit of salt.

Choumambo sells some of the feed to fellow villagers at a fraction of the cost charged by stores for traditional animal feed. She also sells eggs and free-range chickens, a delicacy in Zimbabwe, to restaurants. She’s one of 14 women in her village taking up the project.

“I never imagined keeping and surviving on maggots,” she said, taking turns with a neighbor to mix rotting vegetables, corn meal and other waste in a tank using a shovel.

“Many people would puke at the sight and the stench. But this is the sweet smell of food for the maggots, and for us, the farmers.”
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NEW YORK — The holiday shopping season is about to reach full speed with Black Friday, which kicks off the post-Thanksgiving retail rush this week.

The annual sales event no longer creates the midnight mall crowds or doorbuster mayhem of recent decades, in large part due to the ease of online shopping and habits forged during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hoping to entice equivocating consumers, retailers already have spent weeks bombarding customers with ads and early offers. Still, whether visiting stores or clicking on countless emails promising huge savings, tens of millions of U.S. shoppers are expected to spend money on Black Friday itself this year.

Industry forecasts estimate that 183.4 million people will shop in U.S. stores and online between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, according to the National Retail Federation and consumer research firm Prosper Insights & Analytics. Of that number, 131.7 million are expected to shop on Black Friday.

At the same time, earlier and earlier Black Friday-like promotions, as well as the growing strength of other shopping events (hello, Cyber Monday), continue to change the holiday spending landscape.

Here’s what you need to know about Black Friday’s history and where things stand in 2024.

When is Black Friday in 2024?

Black Friday falls on the Friday after Thanksgiving each year, which is November 29 this year.

How old is Black Friday? Where does its name come from?

The term “Black Friday” is several generations old, but it wasn’t always associated with the holiday retail frenzy that we know today. The gold market crash of September 1869, for example, was notably dubbed Black Friday.

The phrase’s use in relation to shopping the day after Thanksgiving, however, is most often traced to Philadelphia in the mid-20th century — when police and other city workers had to deal with large crowds that congregated before the annual Army-Navy football game and to take advantage of seasonal sales.

“That’s why the bus drivers and cab drivers call today ‘Black Friday.’ They think in terms of headaches it gives them,” a Gimbels department store sales manager told The Associated Press in 1975 while watching a police officer try to control jaywalkers the day after Thanksgiving.

Earlier references date back to the 1950s and 1960s.

Jie Zhang, a professor of marketing at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, points to a 1951 mention of “Black Friday” in a New York-based trade publication — which noted that many workers simply called in sick the day after Thanksgiving in hopes of having a long holiday weekend.

Starting in the 1980s, national retailers began claiming that Black Friday represented when they went from operating in the red to in the black thanks to holiday demand. But since many retail companies now operate in the black at various times of the year, this interpretation should be taken with a grain of salt, experts say.

How has Black Friday evolved?

In recent decades, Black Friday became infamous for floods of people in jam-packed stores. Endless lines of shoppers camped out at midnight in hopes of scoring deep discounts.

But online shopping has made it possible to make most, if not all, holiday purchases without ever stepping foot inside a store. And while foot traffic at malls and other shopping areas has bounced back since the start of the pandemic, e-commerce isn’t going away.

November sales at brick-and-mortar stores peaked more than 20 years ago. In 2003, for example, e-commerce accounted for 1.7% of total retail sales in the fourth quarter, according to Commerce Department data.

Unsurprisingly, online sales make up a much bigger slice of the pie today. For last year’s holiday season, e-commerce accounted for about 17.1% of all nonadjusted retail sales in the fourth quarter, Commerce Department data show. That’s up from 12.7% seen at the end of 2019.

Beyond the rise of online shopping, some big-ticket items that used to get shoppers in the door on the Black Friday — like a new TV — are significantly cheaper than they were decades ago, notes Jay Zagorsky, a clinical associate professor at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business.

“There is less need to stand in line at midnight when the items typically associated with doorbuster sales are now much cheaper,” Zagorsky told The Associated Press via email. He pointed to Bureau of Labor Statistics data that show the average price for a TV has fallen 75% since 2014.

While plenty of people will do most of their Black Friday shopping online, projections from the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights indicated that most Black Friday shoppers (65%) still planned to shop in stores this year.

Black Friday ‘month’ and the rise of Cyber Monday

It’s no secret that Black Friday sales don’t last just 24 hours anymore. Emails promising holiday deals now start arriving before Halloween.

“Black Friday is no longer the start of the holiday shopping season. It has become the crescendo of the holiday shopping season” during what now feels like “Black Friday month,” Zhang said. Some retailers have updated their official marketing to refer to “Black Friday week.”

Retailers trying to get a head start on the competition and to manage shipping logistics helps explain the rush, Zhang said. Offering early holiday deals spreads out purchases, giving shippers more breathing room to complete orders. Zhang therefore doesn’t expect the five fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year to cause significant strain because retailers would have taken them into account.

Linking pre-Thanksgiving sales with Black Friday is also a marketing technique since it’s a name consumers recognize and associate with big, limited-time bargains, Zhang said.

Multiple post-Thanksgiving sales events keep shoppers enticed after Black Friday, including Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday, which the National Retail Federation’s online arm designated in 2005.

U.S. consumers spent a record $12.4 billion on Cyber Monday in 2023, and $15.7 million per minute during the day’s peak sales hour, according to Adobe Analytics. On Black Friday, they spent $9.8 billion online, Adobe Analytics said.

Enough people still enjoy shopping in person after Thanksgiving that the activity is unlikely to become extinct, Boston University’s Zagorsky said.

While Black Friday’s significance “is being slightly diminished” over time, the shopping event is still “a way to connect with others,” he said. “This social aspect is important and will not disappear, ensuring that Black Friday is still an important day for retailers.”
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Middle East analysts are welcoming a series of agreements concluded during the recent summit in Brazil of the 20 biggest economies, saying they open new avenues for Gulf Cooperation Council states to strengthen economic relations with emerging markets across Latin America.

Among other developments, Crown Prince Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed of the United Arab Emirates signed a memorandum of agreement with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. It is designed to establish a joint mechanism “aimed at promoting UAE investments in strategic sectors in Brazil,” according to the Abu Dhabi news site Gulf News.

A second memorandum of agreement between the foreign ministries of the two countries called for unspecified cooperation in Africa, Gulf News said.

Saudi Arabia, for its part, concluded a memorandum of agreement establishing a Saudi-Brazilian Coordination Council that is intended to foster cooperation across sectors that include economic, diplomatic and strategic, according to the Saudi Press Agency.

The agreements build on well-established ties between the Gulf Cooperation Council states and Brazil, a major agricultural exporter whose efforts to address global food insecurity align with the GCC’s need to secure vital agricultural imports, including meat, cereals and coffee.

The Gulf countries, for their part, are well positioned to provide Brazil with phosphate, aluminum and oil.

Brazil is already the GCC’s largest trading partner in Latin America, followed by Mexico and Argentina. In 2022, more than 70% of Brazil’s exports to Arab countries consisted of agricultural products such as meat and grains.

Zubair Iqbal, a nonresident scholar at the Middle East Institute and former International Monetary Fund official, told VOA that Brazil offers the GCC states promising opportunities for trade and investment.

But he noted that tangible progress toward enhanced GCC-Latin American cooperation remains largely reliant on bilateral agreements rather than multination initiatives, limiting their impact.

“While there have been general exhortations for furthering trade relations, specific responses will be a function of bilateral agreements,” he said. “Prospects for more trade and increased investment remain strong, especially with Brazil. However, it will depend upon national interests and alternative options.”

According to the latest available data for 2022, GCC countries, particularly the UAE and Saudi Arabia, have increasingly expanded their investment footprint in Latin America, totaling $4 billion between 2016 and 2021.

The UAE’s sovereign wealth fund, Mubadala, has been a key player, with investments exceeding $5 billion in Brazil since the early 2010s. Notable projects include an oil refinery, a toll road and collaborations with Brazil’s largest biofuel producer. Mubadala has plans to invest an additional $1 billion annually in Brazil.

UAE-based JFR Investments, owned by an Angolan businessman, has meanwhile signed significant mining agreements since 2022 with companies in Brazil and Peru. And Dubai-based DP World manages port infrastructure across Latin America.

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund is also deepening its ties in Latin America. In June 2024, PIF hosted a conference in Rio de Janeiro, where it announced $15 billion in planned projects for Brazil.

In August 2023, Saudi Investment Minister Khalid Al-Falih toured seven Latin American nations to explore opportunities in sectors such as mining, food processing, agriculture, transport, health care, entertainment, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology.

Prior Saudi investments in the region include the acquisition by Saudi Aramco of Chilean fuel retailer Esmax and a $500 million investment by the Saudi Fund for Development in an Argentine gas pipeline.

Kevin Funk, a political economist specializing in Latin America, told VOA that Brazilian companies are meanwhile showing greater interest in investing in the Gulf as the region diversifies its economy away from dependence on oil.

There is now an array of large and small Brazilian businesses operating in the Gulf countries, and in numerous sectors, including food, clothing and cosmetics, Funk said. Among them is Sao Paulo-based JBS, the world’s largest meat processor, which has established a significant presence in the Gulf.

“Yet the fundamentals of the interregional commercial relationship remain largely constant, with Brazil and certain other Latin American countries mostly exporting primary products such as agricultural goods and minerals to the region, while mainly importing fossil fuels and fertilizers,” he said.

Brazil’s reliance on Gulf fertilizers has grown, partly due to supply chain disruptions caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

However, domestic challenges in Latin America — such as slow economic growth, political instability and inequality — have limited the region’s ability to prioritize interregional ties, Funk said.
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Cryptocurrency investors have big hopes for the approaching presidency of Donald Trump, who campaigned this year as a champion of digital currencies. VOA Correspondent Scott Stearns has our story.
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MEXICO CITY — Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Wednesday that Mexico would retaliate if U.S. President-elect Donald Trump followed through with his proposed 25% across-the-board tariff, a move her government warned could kill 400,000 U.S. jobs and drive up prices for U.S. consumers.

“If there are U.S. tariffs, Mexico would also raise tariffs,” Sheinbaum said during a news conference, in her clearest statement yet that the country was preparing possible retaliatory trade measures against its top trade partner.

Mexican Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard, speaking alongside Sheinbaum, called for more regional cooperation and integration instead of a war of retaliatory import taxes.

“It’s a shot in the foot,” Ebrard said of Trump’s proposed tariffs, which appear to violate the USMCA trade deal between Mexico, Canada and the U.S.

Ebrard warned the tariffs would lead to massive U.S. job losses, lower growth, and hit U.S. companies producing in Mexico by effectively doubling the taxes they paid. “The impact on companies is huge,” he said.

The proposed tariffs would hit the automotive sector’s top cross-border exporters especially hard, Ebrard added, namely Ford, General Motors and Stellantis.

Mexico’s automotive industry is the country’s most important manufacturing sector, exporting predominantly to the United States. It represents nearly 25% of all North American vehicle production.

Analysts at Barclays said they estimate the proposed tariffs “could wipe out effectively all profits” from the Detroit Three automakers.

Gas prices

Canada is also looking at a coordinated response with the federal government and the premiers of the 10 provinces agreeing to work in a united way against a threat by Trump, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said Wednesday.

One area affected by the proposed tariffs is Canada’s oil sector.

Even as record oil output has made the U.S. the world’s largest producer in recent years, more than a fifth of the oil processed by U.S. refiners is imported from Canada.

In the landlocked U.S. Midwest, where refineries process 70% of the more than 4 million barrels per day of Canadian crude imports, consumers could see pump prices jump by 30 cents per gallon or more, or about 10%, based on current prices, GasBuddy analyst Patrick De Haan said.

Migration and the border

Sheinbaum and Trump spoke by phone later on Wednesday, the Mexican president said on social media platform X, adding the two discussed “strengthening collaboration on security issues” and that the conversation was “excellent.”

In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said Sheinbaum “agreed to stop migration through Mexico, and into the United States, effectively closing our Southern Border.” He described the conversation as “very productive.”

Sheinbaum’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.

Trump has previously said the tariffs would remain in effect until the flow of drugs — particularly fentanyl — and migrants into the U.S. was controlled.

Sheinbaum added migrant caravans are no longer arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border “because they are attended to” in Mexico.

A caravan of several thousand migrants had been heading through southern Mexico but numbers have dwindled in recent days. 
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Protests by French and other European farmers are threatening a long-expected trade deal between the European Union and South American trading bloc Mercosur, comprising Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. The EU hopes to clinch it next month — but individual EU countries would still need to ratify the agreement. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s return to power also factors into the equation — sparking a bigger debate about whether Europe’s economy should look inward or outward for answers. Lisa Bryant reports from Paris.
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Washington — Consumer price increases accelerated last month, the latest sign that inflation’s steady decline over the past two years has stalled.

According to the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge, consumer prices rose 2.3% in October from a year earlier, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. That is up from just 2.1% in September, though it is still only modestly above the Fed’s 2% target.

Yet excluding the volatile food and energy categories, so-called “core” prices also picked up, climbing 2.8% last month from a year earlier, up from 2.7% in September. Economists closely watch core prices because they typically provide a better read on where inflation is headed.  

Inflation has fallen sharply since it peaked at 7% in mid-2022, according to the Fed’s preferred measure. Yet yearly core inflation has been stuck at 2.8% since February. Price increases have remained elevated in services, including apartment rents, restaurant meals, and car and home insurance.

Wednesday’s report also underscored that Americans’ incomes and spending remained healthy, a key reason the economy has kept growing this year despite widespread fears of a slowdown. Incomes grew 0.6% from September to October, faster than economists had expected, while consumer spending rose by a solid 0.4% last month. 
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New Delhi — Nearly two years after one of India’s biggest conglomerates was hit by allegations of wrongdoing by a U.S. investment firm, it is again in the eye of a storm as it faces charges of fraud, which analysts say are far more serious.

The latest allegations by the United States could dampen investor confidence in Asia’s third largest economy at a time when the country is wooing foreign investment. They have also triggered a political storm in India with opposition parties demanding a probe into the allegations against an influential business tycoon whose $135 billion empire — spanning seaports, airports and energy – has a massive imprint on the Indian economy.

An indictment filed in New York last week charged Gautam Adani, the founder of Adani Group, with duping investors by concealing that a huge solar energy project was being facilitated by an alleged $250 million scheme that involved bribing Indian officials to obtain lucrative contracts.

The company in question, Adani Energy Green, is building a massive solar energy plant in the western state of Gujarat and plans to generate enough energy to light up millions of homes.

Adani Group has strongly denied allegations made by U.S. authorities against Gautam Adani and other top officials.

The charges came after the conglomerate endured accusations of engaging in stock market manipulation and fraud. The allegations were made last year by a U.S. investment firm, Hindenburg Research. Indian regulators, who investigated the charges, said they found no wrongdoing.

Analysts say the new indictment in the U.S. poses a far bigger challenge.

“It’s one thing for allegations to come from a short seller firm or from media outlets,” according to Michael Kugelman, director of the Wilson Center’s South Asia Institute in Washington. “But this is a case of the U.S. government coming out with a long and detailed indictment. It’s a whole other order of magnitude.”

Gautam Adani, 62, is a college dropout from a middle-class family who has led a dizzying rise in his conglomerate’s fortunes, especially since he began in the 1990s expanding into infrastructure. He has built power plants, airports, roads and renewable energy projects in India as the country pushes to bridge an infrastructure deficit for its growing economy.

Besides Adani’s huge presence in India, his global ambitions have taken his companies to other countries, including Australia, Indonesia and Israel. After Donald Trump’s recent U.S. presidential election victory, in a post on X, Adani congratulated Trump and announced plans to invest $10 billion in energy and infrastructure projects in the U.S.

The U.S. indictment already is impacting the conglomerate’s push to expand his energy and infrastructure business overseas. A day after the charges became public, Kenya announced it is scrapping airport expansion and electricity deals worth about $2.5 billion with Adani Group.

The indictment also has cast a cloud over planned projects in Sri Lanka, as government officials on Tuesday said the finance and foreign ministries will review infrastructure projects awarded to the Indian conglomerate. Adani has a contract to develop a deep seaport terminal in Colombo.

The controversy will affect the reputation of Adani Group, say analysts.

“Definitely the charges will trigger mistrust in the Adani Group. There will also be an increase in borrowing cost for them, so they will need to work that much harder,” according to Shriram Subramanian, founder of corporate governance advisory firm InGovern Research Services. “But it won’t be debilitating in the long run because they have a good track record in executing projects.”

The U.S. charges will raise questions about business practices and norms in India and could hurt the country’s effort to woo businesses looking to set up factories and facilities in countries outside China.

“In the immediate term, it could give some investors cold feet, as they may not want to risk their reputations investing in a country where Adani’s clout and reach is so expansive across the economy,” according to Kugelman. “This would be especially bad timing for New Delhi, which wants to capitalize on many foreign investors’ desire to relocate production and other business out of China.”

Kugelman pointed out that the setback to the investment climate in India is likely to be temporary because “the key drivers impacting foreign investment in India — multiple growth sectors, large consumer markets, a fast-growing major economy will remain in place.”

The U.S. indictment has also turned the spotlight on accusations made for several years by India’s main opposition Congress Party and by other critics — that the tycoon’s dramatic business expansion has coincided with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rule.

Parliament was disrupted for a second day on Wednesday as opposition parties demanded a discussion on the indictment. “He should be in jail and the government is protecting him,” Congress Party leader Rahul Gandhi told reporters outside parliament.

At a protest on Monday, Congress Party activists held placards reading, “Modi and Adani are one” and “Modi’s friendship is costing the nation.”

The government has not commented on the charges. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has pointed out that the charges involved bribing officials in four states that were not governed by them, but by opposition parties.

Political analysts say the latest controversy over Adani is not likely to hurt Modi.

“This issue has been raised for a long time, but it has not impacted the prime minister in any way. The opposition has not been able to convince the people about their case,” according to political analyst Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay. “At the moment, people simply look at it as a case of one group being favored over another by the government, which many people feel is not unusual in India.”
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New York — U.S. stocks rose Monday, with those benefiting the most from lower interest rates and a stronger economy leading the way. 

The S&P 500 climbed 0.3% to pull closer to its all-time high set two weeks ago. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 440 points, or 1%, to its own record set on Friday, while the Nasdaq composite rose 0.3%. 

Treasury yields also eased in the bond market amid what some analysts called a “Bessent bounce” after President-elect Donald Trump said he wants Scott Bessent, a hedge fund manager, to be his treasury secretary. 

Bessent has argued for reducing the U.S. government’s deficit, which is how much more it spends than it takes in through taxes and other revenue. Such an approach could soothe worries on Wall Street that Trump’s policies may lead to a much bigger deficit, which in turn would put upward pressure on Treasury yields. 

After climbing above 4.44% immediately after Trump’s election, the yield on the 10-year Treasury fell back to 4.26% Monday, down from 4.41% late Friday. That’s a notable move, and lower yields make it cheaper for all kinds of companies and households to borrow money. They also give a boost to prices for stocks and other investments. 

That helped stocks of smaller companies lead the way, and the Russell 2000 index of smaller stocks jumped 1.5%. It finished just shy of its all-time high, which was set three years ago. Smaller companies can feel bigger boosts from lower borrowing costs because of the need for many to borrow to grow. 

The two-year Treasury yield, which more closely tracks the market’s expectations for what the Federal Reserve will do with overnight interest rates, also eased sharply. 

The Fed began cutting its main interest rate just a couple months ago from a two-decade high, hoping to keep the job market humming after bringing inflation nearly all the way down to its 2% target. But immediately after Trump’s victory, traders had reduced bets for how many cuts the Fed may deliver next year. They were worried Trump’s preference for lower tax rates and higher spending on the border would balloon the national debt. 

A report coming on Wednesday could influence how much the Fed may cut rates. Economists expect it to show that an underlying inflation trend the Fed prefers to use accelerated to 2.8% last month from 2.7% in September. Higher inflation would make the Fed more reluctant to cut rates as deeply or as quickly as it would otherwise. 

Goldman Sachs economist David Mericle expects that to slow by the end of next year to 2.4%, but he said inflation would be even lower if not for expected tariff increases on imports from China and autos favored by Trump. 

In the stock market, Bath & Body Works jumped 16.5% after delivering stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. The seller of personal care products and home fragrances also raised its financial forecasts for the full year, even though it still sees a “volatile retail environment” and a shorter holiday shopping season this year. 

Much focus has been on how resilient U.S. shoppers can remain, given high prices across the economy and still-high interest rates. Last week, two major retailers sent mixed messages. Target tumbled after giving a dour forecast for the holiday shopping season. It followed Walmart, which gave a much more encouraging outlook. 

Another big retailer, Macy’s, said Monday that its sales for the latest quarter were in line with its expectations, but that it would delay the release of its full financial results. It found a single employee had intentionally hidden up to $154 million in delivery expenses, and it needs more time to complete its investigation. 

Macy’s stock fell 2.2%. 

Among the market’s leaders were several companies related to the housing industry. Monday’s drop in Treasury yields could translate into easier mortgage rates, which could spur activity for housing. Builders FirstSource, a supplier of building materials, rose 5.9%. Homebuilders, D.R. Horton, PulteGroup and Lennar all rose at least 5.6%. 

All told, the S&P 500 rose 18.03 points to 5,987.37. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 440.06 to 44,736.57, and the Nasdaq composite gained 51.18 to 19,054.84. 

In stock markets abroad, indexes moved modestly across much of Europe after finishing mixed in Asia. 

In the crypto market, bitcoin was trading below $95,000 after threatening to hit $100,000 late last week for the first time.
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Countries around the world are bracing for economic upheaval as incoming U.S. President Donald Trump threatens massive tariffs, especially on China. The uncertainty has left governments and businesses struggling with how to respond, as VOA’s Bill Gallo reports from Seoul, South Korea. (Contributors: Paul Ndiho and Supakit Pattaratearanon)
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