It’s going to be a big week for: Emerging markets. The pundits doing a rain dance in the hope that skies get cloudier for EM will get more to chew over this week if Reuters’ Take five: World market themes for the week ahead is anything to go by. Those clouds range from a trade war to further flattening of the yield curve, “the signal that recession is coming.”

Let’s unpack some of that, shall we?

A global trade war kicked off on Friday: US tariffs on USD 34 bn of Chinese goods came into effect on Friday, unleashing the global trade war everyone was afraid would come, the New York Times reports. China retaliated by imposing a similar 25% tariff on 545 US products, including cars and soybeans worth a combined USD 34 bn. Russia also announced that it will introduce tariffs on a range of US products including on road-building equipment, products for the oil and gas industry, and tools used in mining, the BBC reports. “The US tariffs imposed so far would affect the equivalent of 0.6% of global trade and account for 0.1% of global GDP,” said Morgan Stanley. The WSJ argues the US can absorb China’s retaliatory tariffs for now, while the NYT says Chinese consumers are possibly the losers in the first round.

Last week marked the eleventh consecutive weeks of heavy outflows from emerging markets, the “longest such streak since 2016,”the Financial Times writes. “Net outflows from EM bond funds clocked in at USD 1.52 bn in the week to July 4,” data from Jefferies showed. “Over the 11-week period, investors have pulled nearly USD 16 bn from the asset class, representing 3.4% of assets under management.” EM and European markets have been weighed down by rising US interest rates and a strengthening USD. That made June the “quietest month in the [EM] bond market for nearly three years” the salmon-colored paper notes elsewhere.

You can practically feel the FT aching for the EM Zombie Apocalypse to get worse, even in its choice of guest opinion columns: Financial crisis warning sign is flashing red.

Elsewhere this morning: The global business press is openly questioning whether the Aramco IPO will ever happen. Summer Said leads a Wall Street Journal team in a solid take on the transaction’s prospects. Bloomberg goes even further, musing about “Saudi Aramco’s USD 2 tn zombie IPO.”

A record USD 2.5 tn in mergers were announced in the first half of 2018. The New York Times has an awesome drill-down for the M&A geeks among you. It’s the “most rewarding time in history to be a global M&A banker” but the Financial Times wonders “what exactly do they do for the money? When asked this question, [bankers] turn sheepish and talk vaguely about the art of persuasion rather than the science of valuation.”

Closer to home: Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry is in China today for a two-day visit, according to a ministry statement. Shoukry is scheduled to meet with Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, as well as participate in the eighth Arab-Chinese Cooperation forum.

And in miscellany this morning:

It’s also a big week for: Football fans, as the 2018 World Cup draws to a close:

• Tuesday: The first semifinal match sees France play Belgium at 8:00pm CLT.
• Wednesday: The second semi sees Croatia face England at 8:00pm CLT
• Saturday: Third-place match, kickoff at 4:00pm CLT
• Sunday: Final, kickoff at 5:00pm CLT

Want to lose weight? Don’t give yourself the opportunity to succumb to temptation. In other words: Don’t buy that cheesecake to make the resident 10-year-old happy and presume you’ll have the willpower to resist. That’s the message from the New York Times’ Smarter Living column, which zeroes in on a new study that found those with the best self-control aren’t “more strong-willed or dedicated: They simply [make certain they] experience temptation less [frequently].”

Required reading for any exec who, like us, is planning holidaytime: “Taking a holiday? Here’s how to disconnect,” courtesy the Financial Times.