In The News

Sushi Rice, California's New Gold Rush

Kay Rentschler October 8, 2003
California is joining the ranks of world class rice producers. Though southern growers have long monopolized the U.S.’s domestic rice industry, California has become second only to Thailand in exports of premium rice. Sacramento Valley is one of only three microclimates in the world, including Japan and Australia, where the high-quality, small grain japonica rice flourishes. This rice...

Asians Fear Rising US Protectionism

Michael Richardson October 3, 2003
On the eve of the annual summit of Asia-Pacific nations, many Asian countries are expressing worry over US trade policy, says Michael Richardson, a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of South East Asian Studies in Singapore. US President George W. Bush will be welcomed at the APEC (Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation) conference later this month in the midst of what will likely be...

Globalization Hurts USA

John Sweeney October 2, 2003
With the US economy in a slump, American labor leaders are calling for a change in US trade policy. John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, the largest union in America, argues that globalization, at least as it relates to trade policy, has failed both working Americans and poor workers in developing countries. Because world trade agreements encourage American manufacturing companies to take...

U.S. Business Leaders Demand Won's Rise, Screen Quota Cut

Kim Sung-mi September 25, 2003
Several major obstacles to a bilateral trade agreement between South Korea and the United States were challenged during a meeting this week in Washington. US and Korean business leaders called on Korea to grant greater access to foreign films by lowering its quota of domestic films from 40% to 20%, an issue which some called the "principal obstacle" to a bilateral trade deal....

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...

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....