Attractions

Next stop: Geneva? Now that President Trump's tariffs on steel and aluminum are official, America's trading partners are threatening to take their grievances to the World Trade Organization. You might wonder why a distant international body has a say in US decisions on imports and exports. Here's a primer on the WTO, and how it's linked to the current trade fight. What is the WTO? The WTO is the center of the global trading system. Made up of and governed by member nations, the WTO administers the network of international trade rules currently in place. It serves as a place to negotiate changes to existing agreements and, when issues come up, for member countries to mediate any disputes. Who's in the WTO? About 160 countries belong to the WTO, including the United States, the UK, Germany, Brazil, South Korea, Japan, Canada and Mexico. China joined the WTO in 2001. This was a major moment in China's journey to becoming a global trade powerhouse...

It's starting to look like President Trump will name CNBC commentator Larry Kudlow to replace Gary Cohn as the head of his National Economic Council. Trump even said Tuesday there was a "very good chance" Kudlow would get the job. It's a pick that Wall Street will probably like, but it's also one that might be at odds with the increasingly protectionist economic stance that Trump has taken lately. Kudlow was a former Reagan administration economist, who became the chief economist for now-defunct Wall Street investment bank Bear Stearns.   He is staunchly pro-free trade. In fact, Kudlow co-wrote an editorial for CNBC and theNational Review earlier this month with prominent economists Arthur Laffer and Stephen Moore, a CNN contributor, urging Trump to consider that tariffs will wind up as taxes on American consumers. They added that the tariffs could also lead to massive job losses. Kudlow says tariffs put 5 million US jobs 'at risk' Kudlow, L...

Two top free trade advocates have left the Trump administration in one week — just as fear of a trade war ramps up. The departures of Gary Cohn as chief economic adviser and Rex Tillerson as secretary of state come as the president prepares to impose sweeping tariffs on steel and aluminum next week. Cohn, a former Wall Street executive at Goldman Sachs, resigned last week because he was opposed to the tariffs. Tillerson was a moderate voice on NAFTA, the trade pact with Canada and Mexico that has been under renegotiation since August. NAFTA talks are at a critical point: Trump says if progress isn't made, he will withdraw from NAFTA or extend the tariffs to Mexico and Canada, which have so far been excluded. "Tillerson was a steady hand. ... He seemed to be a voice of reason," says Chris Gaffney, president of world markets at Everbank, a firm based in Florida. "That's what is scaring the markets a bit — if we get protectionist people." Trump...

In a rare move, GE says that its top leaders will not get bonuses after the company's terrible year. No past or present CEO, CFO, vice chair, general counsel or HR director will receive a bonus in 2017, GE said in a corporate filing on Monday, which cited the company's "poor performance." There was one exception made for the head of GE's aviation unit, the company said, which "performed very strongly in 2017." "The last year has been a difficult one for GE's shareowners, and no one is more disappointed in our results than your Board of Directors,"  GE   ( GE )  said in the filing, which provides information to shareholders ahead of the company's annual meeting in April. The change is a big one for a company that has always richly compensated its C-suite. Still, the company reported that compensation for CEO John Flannery is 157 times that of the company's "median employee," a healthcare worker in Germany. Je...

The White House has taken an extraordinary action to block a major corporate deal that could give China more influence in global technology. In an order Monday, President Donald Trump blocked Broadcom's $117 billion bid for Qualcomm due to national security concerns. He wrote that there is "credible evidence" that Broadcom and its affiliates "might take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States." He said the two companies must "immediately and permanently abandon the proposed takeover." Broadcom said in a statement late Monday that it is reviewing the order and that it "strongly disagrees that its proposed acquisition of Qualcomm raises any national security concerns." Broadcom's hostile takeover of  Qualcomm   ( QCOM )  — the latter company rejected the bid — would have combined two computer chip makers. It had been under investigation by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States...

After the massive data breach at Equifax, consumer advocates called on Congress to make credit freezes free. Now, six months later, the Senate is set to pass legislation that would do just that. The provision is tucked into a broader bill that would roll back regulations on banks created by Dodd-Frank. After the major hack exposed the personal information of millions of consumers, experts recommended credit freezes as a way to prevent identity theft. While   a credit freeze won't prevent your personal information from being stolen in another data breach, it can protect you from thieves who try to open a line of credit in your name by blocking access to your credit reports. The catch is that under current state laws, there's often a fee to freeze. Plus you have to temporarily lift the freeze if you want to get a loan or open a credit card yourself. That may come with another fee. States currently set the fees for placing and/or lifting the freeze. Most se...