Market News

OPEC and its allies have been since last year taking part in a pact to cut output by 1.8 million barrels per day. For the past 18 months the price of oil has increased from a level at $27 in 2016 to around $74 per barrel.

US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met in Singapore, pledging to work towards complete denuclearisation. The summit was the first between US president and North Korean leader following a number of North Korean nuclear and missile tests and angry exchanges between the two last year and concerns over fears of war.

Giuseppe Conte was sworn as Italy’s Prime minister on Friday 1st June. The government was formed after three months of political deadlock and an inconclusive election on 4th March. A last minute deal was reached on Thursday averting a fresh vote in summer amid growing market turmoil.

A political crisis started in Italy when the 5-Star Movement and the right-wing League abandoned their plan to form a coalition after the head of state Sergio Mattarella rejected their choice of 81 year old Eurosceptic economist Paolo Savona as finance minister.

A national security investigation has been launched by the Trump administration into car and truck imports that could lead to new US tariffs similar to those imposed in March on steel and aluminium.

The leaders of the League and the 5-Star Movement in Italy, which are the two parties that won the most parliamentary seats in the 4 March election agreed a governing accord. This will break a political deadlock that has dragged on since the election.

President Donald Trump said the US will withdraw from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and will impose the “highest level” of sanctions on the country. The Iran nuclear deal was an agreement reached in 2015 between Iran and the P5+1 group of world powers which are the US, UK, Russia, France and China plus Germany.

The leaders of the North and South Korea embraced after pledging to work for the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula in the first inter-korean summit in more than a decade. The two leaders announced they would work together with the United States …..

In a three day visit to the United States the French President Emmanuel Macron urged the United States to reject narrow nationalism and engage the world. He said to US law makers that modern economic and security challenges must be a shared responsibility.

On Saturday, the United States, France and Britain launched 105 missiles targeting three chemical weapons facilities in Syria in retaliation for a suspected poison gas attack in Douma on 7th April. The western countries are blaming Assad for the Douma.

For the past seven years there has been a civil war with different groups trying to seize control of the country. The fighting is happening between the Soldiers who support the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, the Rebels who are against Assad being in power and the Islamic State (IS).

Trump’s administration has pushed ahead with plans to put tariffs on about $50 billion of Chinese industrial and hi-tech products. The move is aimed at forcing Beijing to address an entrenched theft of US intellectual property and forced technology transfer from US companies to Chinese competitors.