Investments and Business

Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said on Wednesday that the Israel-Gaza war was a potential concern for the global economy and signaled that additional U.S. sanctions could be coming in response to the attack on Israel by Hamas.Questions about the economic impact of the war were growing as Ms. Yellen offered a forceful defense of Israel and pushed back on the notion that U.S. sanctions against Iran — a key backer of Hamas — have become too lenient. Ms. Yellen said the Treasury Department continued to review its sanctions on Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group that is…

Exxon Mobil announced on Wednesday that it was acquiring Pioneer Natural Resources for $59.5 billion, deepening its reliance on fossil fuel production even as many global policymakers grow increasingly concerned about climate change and the oil industry’s reluctance to shift to cleaner energy.Exxon has spent decades investing in projects around the world, but the deal would squarely lodge its future close to its Houston base, with most of its oil production in Texas and along the coast of Guyana.By concentrating its operations close to home, Exxon is effectively betting that U.S. energy policy will not move against fossil fuels in…

For the past two years, the United States and the European Union have been working toward a deal that would encourage trade in steel and aluminum made in more environmentally friendly ways to combat climate change.But longstanding differences on the way governments should treat trade and regulation have cropped up, preventing the allies from coming to a compromise. With an Oct. 31 deadline to reach a deal approaching, the United States has significantly narrowed its ambition for the pact, at least in its initial iteration.The outcome has been deeply disappointing for American negotiators, including Katherine Tai, the United States trade…

Charlotte Banks lives in a house that just about anyone would envy. Hempnalls Hall, a pink structure dating to the 16th century, rises above an even older moat, dug to keep marauders away in ancient times.Now, a different type of threat looms. National Grid, Britain’s electricity system operator, proposes building a 110-mile transmission line through the countryside of eastern England where Ms. Banks lives.The overhead wires would bring clean electricity generated by nearby offshore wind farms and a new nuclear plant to London and other population centers in the southeast of the country.That means a 160-foot-tall, high-voltage pylon would stand…

Nearly 4,300 Canadian autoworkers have gone on strike against General Motors, leaving the automaker facing work stoppages in two North American countries.Workers walked off the job at midnight on Tuesday at three locations in Ontario: a vehicle assembly plant and stamping site in Oshawa that makes the company’s popular Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck; a plant in St. Catharines that supplies engines and transmissions to other G.M. factories around the world; and a parts distribution center in Woodstock.The strike comes as G.M. and the Canadian union, Unifor, remain deadlocked in negotiation over a new three-year labor contract. Unifor reached agreement with…

The International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday that the pace of the global economic recovery is slowing, a warning that came as a new war in the Middle East threatened to upend a world economy already reeling from several years of overlapping crises.The eruption of fighting between Israel and Hamas over the weekend, which could sow disruption across the region, reflects how challenging it has become to shield economies from increasingly frequent and unpredictable global shocks. The conflict has cast a cloud over a gathering of top economic policymakers in Morocco for the annual meetings of the I.M.F. and the…

As Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen arrives in Morocco this week to meet with her international counterparts, she will be representing a nation that has led the world’s post-pandemic economic recovery but is now struggling with potentially destabilizing political dysfunction.America came perilously close to defaulting on its debt over the summer and tiptoed toward a government shutdown last month as Republicans fought over the proper levels of federal spending and whether to bankroll more aid to Ukraine. Those events culminated in last week’s ouster of Representative Kevin McCarthy as House speaker, a development that is raising questions about whether the…

After a surge this summer when oil prices approached $100 a barrel, the cost of crude was tumbling again. Now a Middle East war has sent it right back up.Traders drove up the price of oil as much as 5 percent as fighting escalated between Israel and Hamas after the terrorist group attacked the Jewish state from Gaza over the weekend. Prices stabilized on Monday morning, but the global Brent oil benchmark appeared to be grinding back up toward $90 a barrel in the afternoon.No oil is produced in the Gaza area, and Israel produces only a small amount of…

“Everything needed for the front,” Russia’s finance minister declared, echoing a Soviet slogan from World War II as he talked about the government’s latest spending plans.The government still calls its invasion of Ukraine a “special military operation,” but the new budget figures make clear that the economy is increasingly being restructured around war.Nearly a third of the country’s spending next year — roughly $109 billion — will be devoted to “national defense,” the government announced late last month, redirecting money that might otherwise have flowed to health care, education, roads and other sectors. More tellingly, 6 percent of the nation’s…