Global stocks sank Wednesday after US President Donald Trump said he was not satisfied with talks that are aimed at averting a trade war with China. Equities were also dented by poor eurozone economic data, and as Trump cast doubt on a planned summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. “Trump (is) continuing to drive uncertainty over global trade,” said analyst Joshua Mahony at trading firm IG. “European markets are following their Asian counterparts lower, as a pessimistic tone from Trump is compounded by downbeat economic data,” he added. Markets had surged Monday after US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He said they had agreed to pull back from imposing threatened tariffs on billions of dollars of goods, and continue talks on a variety of trade issues. However, Trump has declared that he was “not satisfied” with the status of the talks, fuelling worries that the world’s top two economies could still slug out an economically pain
Mark Zuckerberg agreed to appear before a congressional panel next week, putting a spotlight on the Facebook chief executive and social networking giant pressured by a massive breach of private data and misinformation on the platform. The House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce Committee announced Wednesday what appeared to be the first congressional appearance by Zuckerberg since the scandal broke on the hijacking of data on tens of millions of users. The April 11 hearing will “be an important opportunity to shed light on critical consumer data privacy issues and help all Americans better understand what happens to their personal information online,” said the committee’s Republican chairman Greg Walden and ranking Democrat Frank Pallone in a statement. “We appreciate Mr. Zuckerberg’s willingness to testify before the committee, and we look forward to him answering our questions.” Zuckerberg will likely face multiple congressional hearings as his social media giant