In The News

Talks Collapse on U.S. Efforts to Open Europe to Biotech Food

David Leonhardt June 20, 2003
While the US thinks it is perfectly acceptable for the American people to consume genetically modified (GM) food, Europe remains adamant, unwilling to compromise consumer safety for consumer choice since the long term effects on human health of GM food are still unknown. The US has lodged formal complaints against the European Union with the World Trade Organization (WTO) alleging protectionism...

Carmakers Around World Are Turning to India for Parts

Saritha Rai June 20, 2003
India’s auto parts industry is finding new success as global carmakers struggle to find low-cost, high-quality parts. It is these two qualifications that give India, with its cheap skilled workers and locally produced raw materials, an edge over other developing economies. But although the industry is growing rapidly within the country, problems remain. Competition from other South Asian...

Deja-vu All Over Again

Tobias Buck June 16, 2003
At Doha-level trade meetings, the EU’s policies on agriculture are seen as hampering world trade liberalization. To ensure that Europe might have some influence at the next world trade talks, the EU farm commissioner has been pushing to reform widely its position on agriculture. But after yet another round of EU talks, this article argues, it can be expected that it will be an “uphill struggle”...

Contraband Is Big Business in Paraguay

Tony Smith June 10, 2003
Many are skeptical of Paraguay’s president-elect Nicanor Duarte Frutos’ promise to crackdown on the illegal production and trade of counterfeit products. Approximately one-fifth of the Paraguayan economy is fueled by unlawful cross-border trade with neighboring Argentina, Brazil, and Bolivia, from where the 'knock offs' – anything from fake Marlboro cigarettes to computer parts - are...

Senators Demand Ban on Imports from Burma

Anwar Iqbal June 5, 2003
In the wake of the detainment of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and other leaders of the opposition party in Myanmar, two US senators are proposing a legislation to ban all imports from the country until it improves its record on human rights and democracy. If the bill passes, the US will join business and labor groups that have already united in support of sanctions. Already, many major...

Global Prosperity at Risk

Ernesto Zedillo May 27, 2003
The upcoming meeting of the Group of Eight must help resolve the contentious trade disputes that threaten to ruin the free trade regime, says Ernesto Zedillo, Director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization and former President of Mexico. Without intervention by the leaders of the developed world at their June gathering in France, the Doha Round of WTO negotiations will continue to be...

US Imposes New Sanctions on China

May 23, 2003
Even though the new US embargo is not the first of its kind against China, it is the biggest in scope and it comes only a week before the two countries’ leaders meet in Russia. China sold weapons to Iran during its conflict with Iraq in the 80’s, but the US says a more recent arms sale breaks a weapons proliferation agreement reached between the US and China in 2000. The trade sanctions are...