In The News

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"...

Protesters Swarm the Streets at W.T.O. Forum in Cancún

Ginger Thompson September 14, 2003
Developing nations lost the trade battle this weekend in the WTO talks, as richer countries pushed through a proposal that kept most of the 3 billion dollars worth of agricultural subsidies intact. Defending the subsidies, which nations in Africa and Latin America consider akin to "dumping practices" and which the US and EU states call necessary, wealthier nations called on groups such...

Lonely at the Top

Clyde Prestowitz September 13, 2003
Although the US experienced an outpouring of sympathy from much of the world after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, over the past two years it has encountered much resistance to its leadership on issues from Iraq to free trade. The US has lost any goodwill it received after the attacks, says former Reagan administration official and author Clyde Prestowitz, because Washington has pursued a...

African Nations Press for an End to Cotton Subsidies in the West

Elizabeth Becker September 12, 2003
Agricultural subsidies continue to be the keyword for the current round of WTO talks in Cancun. Cotton has become the symbol of the debate, with four African nations who depend on the crop for 10% of their gross domestic products claim the combined 4 billion dollars worth of subsidies provided by the EU and the US to their cotton farmers keep prices below cost. Unsubsidized farmers can not...

Foreign Views of US Darken Since Sept. 11

Richard Bernstein September 11, 2003
The world largely reacted with sympathy after the terrorist attacks on the US two years ago. Nonetheless, this feeling of solidarity and cooperation shifted to anger and resentment, especially after the US war in Iraq, which was conducted without large global support. As these brief interviews in the New York Times reveal, people around the world believe the Bush administration’s decision to go...

Two Years Later, a Thousand Years Ago

Robert Wright September 11, 2003
Until September 11, some viewed the globalization of American values in terms of a manifest destiny. However, on 9/11 nineteen hijackers "turned the tools of globalization against the system" and blew that view to pieces. Two years later, skepticism about globalization's benefits still persists. For evidence, one need only notice that anti-American terror networks still abound,...