Aides to U.S. President Donald Trump had planned to use the trade war to rebalance the relationship between America and China, something most U.S. politicians and businesses agreed needed to be done. By building leverage for negotiations, the White House aimed to force wholesale changes in China’s economic architecture while limiting the pain to U.S. consumers. Then Trump got involved, and everything went off the rails. Now, as Bloomberg Businessweek reports, America’s economic expansion may hang in the balance. —David E. Rovella

Here are today’s top stories

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi accused Trump of bribery, citing testimony that he sought to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in Congressionally authorized aid that would allow Ukraine to defend itself against Russian aggression. A second day of public impeachment hearings are scheduled for Friday, when former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch will testify. A witness on Wednesday said Yovanovitch was the victim of a smear campaign orchestrated by Trump’s lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani.

Global debt rose above $250 trillion in the first half of 2019, hitting a fresh record. China and the U.S. account for more than 60% of new borrowing.

Boomers have been riding a 10-year bull market into retirement, steadily upping their bets on equities. Fidelity says they better lay off the stocks.

The hacker behind a cyberattack that’s crippled Petroleos Mexicanos’s computer systems is hoping to squeeze almost $5 million out of the company by Nov. 30.

Motorola is rebooting the iconic Razr flip phone as a smartphone with a foldable display, giving the Lenovo-owned brand a weapon against Apple and Samsung.

Apple is considering bundling its paid internet services, including News+, Apple TV+ and Apple Music, as soon as 2020.

What’s Joe Weisenthal thinking about?The Bloomberg news director isn’t so sure he believes Fed Chair Jerome Powell when he said the central bank would only raise interest rates if it sees a “really significant move up in inflation that’s persistent.” Based on Wednesday’s latest CPI reading, Joe says we appear to be far from anything like that. But still, Powell’s promise looks like a departure from recent history, which saw multiple hikes to offset fairly mild consumer-price growth. 

What you’ll need to know tomorrow

• The U.S. Senate is getting involved in the Hong Kong protests.
• Meanwhile, events across Hong Kong are being cancelled.
• A Citigroup banker got swept up by the police there, too.
• Bloomberg Opinion: How the French wealth tax went sideways.
• Saudi youth are ask: Where have all the Wahhabis gone?
• Billionaires are circling distressed assets in the U.S. energy patch.
• Venezuela is secretly exporting oil.

What you’ll want to read tonight in Checkout

Where the Retail Apocalypse Could Hit Next

When oil dived five years ago, there was one Middle East city in particular that took it in the teeth. Dubai, the shiny desert metropolis with the world’s tallest building and swarms of wealthy foreigners, quickly hit a wall. Unfinished towers, slowing growth and an uncertain future still prevail there today. So you might wonder why the emirate is planning to boost its retail mall footprint by 40%, the equivalent of three Mall of Americas. 

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