
Asian shares stepped back on Tuesday after China cut its economic growth target and pledged measures to support the economy amid growing challenges from rising debt and a dispute over trade and technology with the United States. Australian shares dropped 0.6% while South Korea's Kospi lost 0.5%. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan dipped 0.2% and Japan's Nikkei dropped 0.3%.

The Trump administration announced Monday that it is tightening the six-decade trade embargo on Cuba by allowing lawsuits against Cuban companies using properties confiscated after its 1959 revolution.

The UK will not lower food standards to secure a post-Brexit trade deal with the US, the government says. It comes after Washington published its objectives for a US-UK trade pact. The US wants comprehensive market access for its farmers' products that would see more US-made food on British supermarket shelves.

The United States on Friday welcomed the blocking of a proposal to add a group of countries, including four American territories, to the EU money-laundering blacklist after almost all member states opposed it. The US ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, hit out at the dogmatic posturing of the European Commission, the bloc's executive arm.

The United States and Russia clashed on Friday over how to assist ailing Venezuela, with Moscow pledging new relief channelled through President Nicolas Maduro and Washington slapping sanctions over the blocking of US aid it tried to force through the border.

Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez announced at a press conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that the central office of state oil company PDVSA in Europe, located in Lisbon, will move to Moscow to guarantee the security of the country's assets abroad, which were delivered to the Venezuelan Parliament in other countries.

Donald Trump's former personal lawyer Michael Cohen called the US president a conman, a cheat and a racist in explosive congressional testimony on Wednesday, saying he was ashamed of a decade of working for the real estate billionaire.

President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un abruptly cut short their two-day summit on Thursday after the two leaders failed to reach an agreement to dismantle that country’s nuclear weapons. Although Kim said he was ready in principle to denuclearize, he and Trump ended their meetings without sitting for a planned lunch and without participating in a joint signing ceremony.

The US trade deficit widened sharply in December as slowing global demand and a strong dollar weighed on exports, another sign that economic growth slowed in the fourth quarter. Other data from the Commerce Department on Wednesday showed new orders for US-made goods barely rose in December and business spending on equipment was much weaker than previously thought, pointing to a softening in manufacturing activity.

US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un meet this Wednesday for their second summit, betting their personal relationship can break a stalemate over the North's nuclear weapons and end more than 70 years of hostility.