In The News

Protectionism Threatens Emerging Engine of Growth

Fred Kempe March 24, 2006
Despite inflation, debt, energy prices and terrorism, global economic growth has flourished with the help of emerging markets. Consumers in developing nations like China are increasingly spending more, approaching the levels of US consumers, and contributing to keeping economies worldwide running smoothly. But protectionist forces in the US and EU could halt the new source of growth. Worried...

US Weighs Harder Line with China on Yuan

Andrew Browne February 22, 2006
With the appreciation of China’s currency moving at an unsatisfactory pace for the Bush administration, the US is signaling that it may press the issue more forcibly. Last year the US trade deficit with China rose to $202 billion, more than a quarter of the total US deficit. A week ago, US Trade Representative Rob Portman introduced a task force that will analyze Chinese trade practices. The...

Export-Led Growth: The Elephant in the Room

Thomas Palley January 17, 2006
Economic experts are professing themselves confounded by continued US prosperity despite trade deficits and rising interest rates. Thomas Palley explains that export-led growth, or the exchange of goods produced in Emerging Market (EM) countries for US dollars, has contributed much to the buoyant economy. Since EM countries have thus far chosen to use the dollars received for their goods to buy...

Asia’s Polite Reception To Bush Masks Declining US Influence

Daniel Sneider November 17, 2005
Following mass anti-American protests and blistering criticism at Mar del Plata, President Bush has found a bit of respite on his East Asian sojourn. But, as Daniel Sneider, columnist for the Mercury News, is quick to note, “beneath the polite appearance, however, there is no less a challenge to American leadership in Asia.” Plans are afoot, spearheaded by China, to forge an East Asian Community...

Greenspan Says Globalization Driving U.S. Current Account Gap

Craig Torres November 14, 2005
The US current account deficit has skyrocketed in recent years, reaching an unprecedented 6.3 percent of Gross Domestic Product. Outgoing Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan attempted to explain the widening of that gap yesterday, arguing that the gap reflects “a pronounced new phase of globalization.” Globalization, says Greenspan, has weakened “home bias”—the tendency to invest in one’s...

The Fate of ‘Made in the USA’

Robert J. Samuelson October 28, 2005
The specter of declining industry has loomed over the USA in recent years. As the imperatives of free trade and globalization send jobs and factories across borders and beyond oceans, the American worker and the American CEO both recognize they’re in a bind. American manufacturing, once the hallmark of the nation’s booming business, now faces a tenuous future. Robert J. Samuelson, writing for...

Chávez Moves Reserves Out of US Treasuries

Andy Webb-Vidal October 7, 2005
President Hugo Chávez has liquidated about half of Venezuela's US$30.4 billion holdings of US Treasuries, confirmed a director at the country's central bank. The bank director attributed the transfer to financial reasons: Venezuela's foreign reserves have benefited from high oil prices, and Chávez might have wanted to shift some of the winnings from securities to social programs....