China says its Silk Road initiative is helping create "a new era of globalization" open to all, according to a draft communique for a summit next month on the project, as Beijing burnishes its free trade credentials amid protectionist forces elsewhere.
Europe's claim to be the global champion of open trade and a counterweight to the threatened protectionism of U.S. President Donald Trump risks ringing hollow if it cannot sign a new Pacific free trade deal by the end of 2017.
Twenty-nine Chinese steel firms have had their licenses revoked as Beijing kept up its campaign to tackle overcapacity in the sector and days after U.S. President Donald Trump said he would open a probe into cheap steel exports from China and elsewhere.
World finance leaders are gathering on U.S. President Donald Trump's home turf on Thursday to try to nudge his still-evolving policies away from protectionism and show broad support for open trade and global integration.
Global trade has brought benefits from increased productivity to lower prices but governments have not adequately helped workers and communities hit hard by imports, the world's top multilateral economic institutions said on Monday.
German business morale hit its highest level in nearly six years in March, suggesting company executives in Europe's largest economy are brushing off concerns about the threat of rising protectionism and Germany's own election issues.
World markets balked on Monday at the G20's decision to drop a decade-old pledge to resist trade protectionism, with stocks, the dollar, oil and the price of many major sovereign bonds all sliding into the red.
The world's financial leaders will renounce competitive devaluations and warn against exchange rate volatility, but they have not yet found a common stance on trade and protectionism, a draft statement of their meeting in Germany showed on Friday.
