In The News

Connect the Dots

Thomas Friedman September 25, 2003
The US has refused to cut agricultural subsidies to its farmers for years, and it refused again at the recent WTO meeting in Cancún. Thomas Friedman laments that fact, arguing that a real connection exists between US hypocrisy on world trade issues and the roots of anti-American terrorism. Countries like Pakistan, mired in poverty, would produce fewer angry fundamentalists willing to bomb the...

China May Widen Yuan Trading Band Next Year, Report Says

September 25, 2003
Economists speculate that China will revalue the yuan by the time the Olympic torch is lit for the 2008 games. Under growing pressure from US business interests and other trade partners, China is likely to revalue its currency by making significant changes next year and possibly even floating the currency as early as 2008. "China wants to be a respectable global player," one senior...

U.N. Official Plans to Urge U.S. to Reconsider Farm Subsidies

Elizabeth Becker September 24, 2003
The director of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) may find his message to Washington falls on deaf ears. With the 2004 presidential election on the line (and agribusiness's lucrative campaign donations very much in every politician's mind), congressmen and White House officials alike hesitate to believe that the $22 billion in subsidies offered to American farmers is a cause...

No Good Reason to Dance

Ernesto Zedillo September 22, 2003
In the latest round of WTO talks, the chasm between 'developed' and 'developing' nations over agricultural subsidies proved too large to cross in only one week. The Cancun meeting has thus been largely declared a failure. Ernesto Zedillo, Director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization and former president of Mexico, says that this difficulty should be taken as a...

Bold Action Can Still Save Doha Round

Clyde Prestowitz September 19, 2003
With the collapse of the WTO trade talks last week, things do not bode well for the Doha Round – planned specifically to help developing countries – or for the global trading system in general. Former Reagan administration trade negotiator Clyde Prestowitz says, however, that in one simple unilateral move the US could earn enormous global goodwill and save the floundering world trading system....

Rich-Poor Rift Triggers Collapse of Trade Talks

Kevin Sullivan September 15, 2003
Representatives from developing countries walked out of WTO trade talks this weekend in Cancun, claiming that the United States and European Union (EU) countries were unwilling to negotiate the reduction of agricultural subsidies. Many states from Latin America and Africa consider the $3 billion of subsidies provided by wealthier countries to their farmers to be a de facto "dumping"...

China Joins the Global Economy - Part One

David Zweig September 15, 2003
Just over two decades ago, China was a vast, poor country whose centrally-planned economy offered its citizenry little hope for an improved standard of living. After a series of market-oriented reforms, however, many Chinese now regularly enjoy luxuries that were once reserved for the elite. In part one of a 2-part series on China's entry into the world economy, China expert David Zweig...