WThe African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is a free trade area founded in 2018, with trade commencing as of 1 January 2021. It was created by the African Continental Free Trade Agreement among 54 of the 55 African Union nations. The free-trade area is the largest in the world in terms of the number of participating countries since the formation of the World Trade Organization. Accra, Ghana serves as the Secretariat of AfCFTA and was commissioned and handed over to the AU by the President of Ghana Nana Akufo-Addo on August 17, 2020 in Accra.
WAPEC Papua New Guinea 2018 was the year-long hosting of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meetings in Papua New Guinea.
WThe 2018 Argentine monetary crisis was a severe devaluation of the Argentine peso, caused by high inflation and steep fall in the perceived value of the currency at the local level as it continually lost purchasing power, along with other domestic and international factors. As a result of it, the presidency of Mauricio Macri requested a loan from the International Monetary Fund.
WCapitalism in America: A History is a 2018 book written by former chairman of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan and Adrian Wooldridge, political editor at The Economist. The book traces the economic history of the United States since its founding and the authors argue that America's embrace of capitalism and creative destruction has given the nation's economy a superior edge.
WThe China–United States trade war is an ongoing economic conflict between China and the United States. In January 2018, U.S. President Donald Trump began setting tariffs and other trade barriers on China with the goal of forcing it to make changes to what the U.S. says are "unfair trade practices" and intellectual property theft. The Trump administration stated that these practices may contribute to the U.S.–China trade deficit, and that the Chinese government requires transfer of American technology to China. In response to US trade measures, the Chinese government accused the Trump administration of engaging in nationalist protectionism and took retaliatory action. After the trade war escalated through 2019, on January 15, 2020, the two sides reached a phase one agreement, however tensions continued to persist. By the end of the Trump presidency, the trade war was widely characterized as a failure.
WThe Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief and Consumer Protection Act was signed into United States federal law by President Donald Trump on May 24, 2018. The bill eases regulations imposed by Dodd–Frank after the financial crisis of 2007–2008 by raising the threshold to $250 billion from $50 billion under which banks are deemed too important to the financial system to let fail. The bill also eliminated the Volcker Rule for small banks with less than $10 billion in assets.
WThe retail apocalypse is the closing of numerous brick-and-mortar retail stores, especially those of large chains worldwide, starting around 2010 and continuing onward. In 2019, retailers in the United States announced 9,302 store closings, a 59% jump from 2018, and the highest number since tracking the data began in 2012. Over 12,000 physical stores have closed due to factors including over-expansion of malls, rising rents, bankruptcies of leveraged buyouts, low quarterly profits outside holiday binge spending, delayed effects of the Great Recession, and changes in spending habits. American consumers have shifted their purchasing habits due to various factors, including experience-spending versus material goods and homes, casual fashion in relaxed dress codes, as well as the rise of e-commerce, mostly in the form of competition from juggernaut companies such as Amazon.com and Walmart. A 2017 Business Insider report dubbed this phenomenon the "Amazon effect," and calculated that Amazon.com was generating greater than 50% of the growth of retail sales.
WThe Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018 is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom applying to the United Kingdom.
WSovereign Currency Act of 2018 is a statute of the Legislature of the Marshall Islands which was passed on February 26, 2018. The Act creates and issues a digital decentralized currency (“cryptocurrency”) that will be used as a legal tender of the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI).
WThe Trump tariffs are a series of United States tariffs imposed during the presidency of Donald Trump as part of his "America First" economic policy to reduce the United States trade deficit by shifting American trade policy from multilateral free trade agreements to bilateral trade deals. In January 2018, Trump imposed tariffs on solar panels and washing machines of 30 to 50 percent. In March 2018, he imposed tariffs on steel (25%) and aluminum (10%) from most countries, which, according to Morgan Stanley, covered an estimated 4.1 percent of U.S. imports. In June 2018, this was extended to the European Union, Canada, and Mexico. The Trump administration separately set and escalated tariffs on goods imported from China, leading to a trade war.