In The News

The Free-Trade Paradox

James Surowiecki May 22, 2008
Large blocks of voters, including unions and some professions, often choose a president based on a clear-cut stance on one issue like trade. The positions of unions and blue-collar workers “reflect a widespread belief that free trade with developing countries, and with China in particular, is a kind of scam perpetrated by the wealthy, who reap the benefits while ordinary Americans bear the cost...

Ethiopia Puts Logo on Its Hottest Export

Aaron O. Patrick May 21, 2008
Legend has it that centuries ago a young Ethiopian shepherd first discovered the taste and energy-boosting powers associated with the coffee plant. Globalization was not a word then, but the drink made from the plant’s beans quickly gained popularity the world over. The government of Ethiopia – setting out to highlight the special quality of its coffee and pursue licensing agreements with...

Is Larry Summers the Canary in the Mine?

Devesh Kapur May 14, 2008
One-time champions of free trade, economic liberalization and globalization – like Larry Summers, former treasury secretary with the Clinton administration – now unveil their doubts. Globalization presents competition, and perhaps potential threat for the US is how a trio of analysts summarizes Summers’ argument in an opinion essay for the Financial Times. His “apparently nationalist argument is...

In Hungry World, Japan's Farmers Are Stuck With High-Priced Rice

Blaine Harden May 13, 2008
Japan’s rice market is subjected to intense manipulation. Even as rice consumption is on the decline, farms remain small and protected, the country grows more than it needs and prices are high. Shortages of rice and other foods abound in poor countries, but Japanese rice is unaffordable, with prices more than double those in international markets. Per-capita annual consumption of rice has been...

Africa Plays the Rice Card

G. Pascal Zachary May 12, 2008
With food prices jumping, governments no longer taking their agriculture sectors for granted. In recent years, African governments eliminated duties on imported rice and assumed that wealthy countries would also curtail agricultural subsidies, explains G. Pascal Zachary for Foreign Policy. Many nations in Africa must import rice, but Uganda recognized that many countries subsidize their...

Designing Asia

Ellen L. Frost May 12, 2008
Growing Chinese economic clout combined with a sympathetic diplomatic posture has helped reorient the power structure of Southeast Asia toward China. A China-led Pacific trade network of port cities, stretching from Australia to India, echoes “pre-colonial 'Maritime Asia,'” explains author Ellen Frost. The re-emergence of maritime Asia is not without challenges – for example, such a...

The Russians Are Coming: Moscow Investors Go on Shopping Spree for German Companies

Alexander Jung May 1, 2008
Russia – the world’s largest exporter of natural gas and the second largest exporter of oil – is collecting big profits as importing nations scramble for supplies. As a result Russians have the money to invest in foreign markets. “Russian investors have been traveling through Germany for months, buying up companies, eyeing almost every industry,” reports a team of writers with Spiegel Online. “...