A decade after the last financial crisis, the Federal Reserve has returned to its emergency footing to boost markets in the face of the pandemic. This Backgrounder explains the central bank’s role.
Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images
The U.S. Federal Reserve is using creative means to counter the economic shock caused by the global coronavirus pandemic, but those measures must be matched by aggressive fiscal action.
Brazil
Adriano Machado/Reuters
Local officials are taking measures to stop the spread of the coronavirus, as President Jair Bolsonaro downplays the crisis.
Global Governance
Public Health Threats and Pandemics
In the absence of U.S. leadership, multilateral responses to COVID-19 have been inadequate to date.
Links between COVID-19 and other global challenges underscore the importance of multilateral cooperation across a broad array of issue areas.
Coronavirus
Public Health Threats and Pandemics
For more than a century, countries have wrestled with how to improve international cooperation in the face of major outbreaks of infectious diseases. A pandemic of a new coronavirus that originated in China in 2019 underscores the urgency.
A new coronavirus that originated in China has spread worldwide, sickening hundreds of thousands and halting economic activity. Many countries have imposed unprecedented measures to stop local outbreaks.
From podcasts to position trackers, CFR has a wealth of resources to help you understand foreign policy and the presidential campaign.
Expert Spotlight
Douglas Dillon Senior Fellow and Director of the Women and Foreign Policy Program
Women and Women's Rights Development Maternal and Child Health
Explainers
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Public Health Threats and Pandemics
The Coronavirus Pandemic, With Tom Bollyky
Thomas J. Bollyky, director of CFR’s Global Health program and senior fellow for global health, sits down with James M. Lindsay to discuss the World Health Organization’s newly declared pandemic, COVID-19.
Yemen
Yemen in Crisis
Yemen’s mounting internal divisions and a Saudi-led military intervention have spawned an escalating political, military, and humanitarian crisis.
Human Trafficking
Modern Slavery: Its Root Causes and the Human Toll
Slavery, long banned and universally condemned, persists in many corners of the world, victimizing tens of millions of people.
Syria
Syria's War and the Descent Into Chaos
In the nine years since protesters in Syria first demonstrated against the four-decade rule of the Assad family, hundreds of thousands of Syrians have been killed and some twelve million people have been displaced.
Global
Women’s Power Index
Find out where women around the world wield political power—and why it matters.
Experts in the News
Featured Publications
Public Health Threats and Pandemics
Global health expert Thomas J. Bollyky explores the paradox in our fight against infectious disease: the world is getting healthier in ways that should make us worry.
The Trump administration recognizes the China challenge, but it needs a grand strategy. Blackwill recommends decisive action, sustained diplomacy, collaboration among branches of the U.S. government, and working with allies in Asia and Europe, among other approaches.
Uncertainty in the U.S.-South Korea economic partnership could hinder security cooperation if left unchecked. The two countries should explore collaboration in AI technologies, policy coordination in the Indo-Pacific, and economic cooperation with North Korea.