Shipping companies said on Monday that President Trump’s offer to provide them safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz fell short of the sort of arrangements that would persuade them to make the trip, the New York Times reported. Mr. Trump said on Sunday that the United States would “guide” commercial vessels through the strait, which Iran has effectively closed since the war in the Persian Gulf started two months ago. But the president provided few details on how the program, Project Freedom, would work.
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The United Arab Emirates is discussing a currency swap line with the United States, its ‌trade minister said on Monday, Reuters reported. "We have this discussion and conversation ‌with many, it's part of an elite group that the U.S. is having this swap policy ​with. They are only having it with five countries," Thani Al Zeyoudi said at a conference in Abu Dhabi. "Being part of that group means that transactions... trade, investments between both nations reach a level where that swap is highly ‌needed ... so it is ⁠an elite matter, (it) is not about bailing out," he said.
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The United Arab Emirates signed a new trade agreement with South Korea the day after it left OPEC, cutting tariffs on most traded goods, seeking an increase in trade exchanges and cementing economic ties between the two countries, as part of a wider push by the Gulf states towards Asia, EuroNews.com reported. The agreement marks South Korea’s first trade pact with a country in the Gulf Cooperation Council and the wider Middle East and North Africa region, at a time when supply chains and wider geopolitical dynamics are reshaping global trade.

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After spending recent weeks on life support, LIV Golf has lost the funding of its Saudi backers, the Wall Street Journal reported. LIV plans to tell players and staff by Thursday that Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund will no longer bankroll the circuit after this season, according to people familiar with the matter. The move sounds the death knell for the upstart that sowed chaos in professional golf by plowing billions into the sport and poaching A-list players. The writing had been on the wall for nearly a month.
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The United Arab Emirates’ decision to withdraw from OPEC did more than deliver a shock to the cartel that has long ruled the global oil market. It also rang the opening bell for the new geopolitical order that the war with Iran is ushering in across the Middle East, the Wall Street Journal reported. The new alignment is redrawing political fault lines between the Arab world and Israel that defined the region for decades.
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