Brazilian Finance Minister Nelson Barbosa said on Tuesday it is not the time for more tax breaks, disagreeing publicly with former president Lula da Silva's call for fiscal stimulus to revive a moribund economy.
Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said on Tuesday that the Fed still envisions a gradual pace of interest rate increases in light of global pressures that could weigh on the economy. Yellen did not specify a timetable for further hikes to follow the Fed's rate increase in December from record lows. She said the risks to the United States remain limited but cautions that assessment is subject to “considerable uncertainty.”
The World Trade Organization (WTO) ruled on Tuesday in favor of Argentina in a series of complaints the country filed with the international body, challenging punitive duties by the European Union on its biodiesel imports. The WTO, however, said the EU was not violating its rules.
Argentine extreme-south Tierra del Fuego province government unions blocking the main national highway to the capital Ushuaia decided to lift pickets, but agreed to continue with the several weeks occupation of the provincial government house in demand for the elimination of recently approved reforms to the pensions scheme.
A anticipated Brazil's largest party, the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, PMDB, announced on Tuesday it was leaving President Dilma Rousseff's governing coalition and pulling its members from her government, a departure that raises the odds she could be impeached in a matter of months.