Seven Questions: Battling for Control of the Internet
Foreign Policy Nov 2005
Should the United States give up control of the Internet? That’s the subject of a heated debate taking place this week at the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis. The European Union is pressing for a U.N. role in governing the Internet, which is currently in the hands of a U.S. nonprofit. Lawrence Lessig breaks down the debate and argues the Internet is already in good hands.
Can more aid really make poverty history as aid campaigners have argued?
Finance and Development Sep/Nov 2005
This issue examines aid effectiveness and how to build momentum toward the Millennium Development Goals after the G8 vowed to double aid to Africa. Includes assessments of use of aid in Ethiopia, Ghana, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Uganda, as well as viewpoints from Burkina Faso, Tanzania, and the UK. Other articles look at next steps for reform in China, and how trading partners can help each other's growth. Profile of Jagdish Bhagwati and IMF Economic Counsellor Raghuram Rajan examines global financial risk. Also a look at governance and measures to combat corruption.
Don't blame trade for US job losses
Martin Neil Baily and Robert Z. Lawrence (McKinsey Quarterly) Nov 2005
The US trade deficit jumped to a new high in October, as did China's trade surplus. This article from the archive explains why recurrent calls for protectionist legislation are shortsighted.
Fate of the Farmers in Balance
Edward Gresser (YaleGlobal) Nov 1, 2005
The next round of trade talks must remove subsidies that are crushing poor farmers.
EU Offer Of Deeper Farm Tariff Cuts Fails To Restart Talks
BRIDGES Weekly Trade News Digest - Vol. 9, Number 37 Nov 2, 2005
In response to heavy pressure from many of its major trading partners, the EU came forward on 28 October with a deeper proposal to cut its farm tariffs -- in return for specific, far-reaching concessions in virtually every area of the Doha Round negotiations.
EU's Price For Ag Market Access Too Steep, Say Developing Countries
BRIDGES Weekly Trade News Digest - Vol. 9, Number 37 Nov 2, 2005
The price that the EU has placed on its offer of deeper Doha Round farm tariff cuts -- far-reaching demands on industrial tariffs, services, and systemic issues -- has raised the ire of many WTO Members.
WTO Arbitrators Once Again Reject EU's Proposed Banana Import Tariff
BRIDGES Weekly Trade News Digest - Vol. 9, Number 37 Nov 2, 2005
WTO arbitrators have rejected the EU's revised reform package for its banana import regime, determining that it would fail to maintain market access for Latin American producers.
Summit Rhetoric Soars While Economy Sinks
Jeffrey E. Garten (YaleGlobal) Nov 3, 2005
Why leaders should stay home from regional summits - and truly address the world's economic ills.
Bad Farm Form
Peter Mandelson Nov 3, 2005
Everyone tries to make sure the talks are good to the last drop.
Kickbacks aren't just for the poor nations
IHT Nov 4, 2005
The lesson of Iraq's oil for food scandal is that the rich nations are just as susceptible to temptation as the poor.
Free Trade Begins at Home
NYT Nov 5, 2005
After the last few years of putting Iraq and the Middle East above all else, President Bush is finally paying a small bit of attention to America's own hemisphere.
3 paths to blended Europe - all flawed
IHT Nov 5, 2005
So far, while the damage to French property has been extensive and the violence has spread to troubled neighborhoods in many towns, there is no evidence that the unrest is coalescing into a broader political movement.
The U.N. Isn't a Threat to the Net
Kofi A. Annan (WP) Nov 5, 2005
The main objective of the World Summit on the Information Society to be held this month in Tunisia is to ensure that poor countries get the full benefits that new information and communication technologies -- including the Internet -- can bring to economic and social development. But as the meeting draws nearer, there is a growing chorus of misinformation about it.
No trade deal at Americas summit
BBC Nov 6, 2005
Heads of 34 American states fail to reach a deal on a free trade zone, as their Argentina meeting wraps up.
Officials bear down on breaking trade impasse
IHT/NYT Nov 6, 2005
Trade ministers from around the world have agreed to hold a series of meetings in an effort to rescue plans for a new global trade pact from an impasse over agriculture.
In Brazil, Bush Continues Trade Push
WP Nov 7, 2005
Competing Vision for Americas Would 'Roll Back' Democracy, President Says.
World Bank to offer bird-flu loans
IHT Nov 8, 2005
It also warned that a global human pandemic, should it occur, could cause $800 billion in global economic losses.
West fights for access to markets
IHT Nov 8, 2005
With just weeks to go before a summit meeting on global trade, European and U.S. officials on Monday called for improved access to developing markets.
The Boys in Brazil
WSJ Nov 8, 2005
An ideological odd couple makes a breakthrough on trade.
Members Scale Back Expectations For Hong Kong
BRIDGES Weekly Trade News Digest - Vol. 9, Number 38 Nov 9, 2005
Trade ministers from the US, the EU, and Brazil said on 9 November that it was highly unlikely that WTO Members would be able to agree on a detailed framework for concluding the Doha Round in time for the Hong Kong Ministerial Conference in December. They had originally been hoping to agree there on 'full modalities' for the negotiations -- including specific numerical values and formulae for reducing tariffs on farm products and industrial goods. The ministers emphasised, however, that their ambition for the round as a whole had not changed.
NAMA Chair: State Of Affairs Is Bad
BRIDGES Weekly Trade News Digest - Vol. 9, Number 38 Nov 9, 2005
WTO negotiations on industrial tariffs are "becoming more confused" and "in dire need of political input," Chair Ambassador Stefan Johannesson of Iceland told Members at an informal 8 November meeting of the Negotiating Group on Non-Agricultural Market Access (NAMA). Reporting on his recent consultations with delegates, he said that there was little convergence on the coefficients to be associated with the tariff reduction formula or the flexibilities to be accorded to developing countries when making tariff cuts. He said that Members had even been unable to agree on the products to be covered by NAMA disciplines -- fish products, for instance, are currently counted as farm products.
WTO talks break up in failure on blueprint
IHT Nov 10, 2005
The European Union trade representative, Peter Mandelson, said developing countries, including Brazil, had undermined efforts in two days of talks at the World Trade Organization.
The Future of Free Trade
Susan Esserman and Paula Murphy (New Republic) Nov 10, 2005
Everybody knows that free trade is a big and controversial issue now that it’s no longer a theory but we’ve had quite a bit of experience with it.
The Enemy Within
Pierre Boulanger & Patrick A. Messerlin (WSJ) Nov 10, 2005
France's tirades over Europe's agricultural subsidies have shown past WTO reforms to be largely a shell game.
Lamy calls for new "negotiating spirit" to advance trade talks
WTO Nov 10, 2005
Director-General Pascal Lamy, in his report to heads of delegations on 10 November 2005, said that informal meetings of a number of ministers during the past few days have not been able to bridge differences, which would now require members to "recalibrate" their expectations for the Hong Kong Ministerial Conference. He stressed the need to maintain the ambition of the Round, and for Hong Kong to mark a step forward in successfully completing the talks next year.
Memo to Poor Countries: Stand Fast
NYT Nov 11, 2005
If the European Union is truly going to refuse to make right a half-century of trade-distorting farm subsidies, then the trade talks should just not move.
Globalization and the dollar
Axel Merk (AT) Nov 12, 2005
The odds are high that the US Federal Reserve will raise rates enough to bring on recession, but not enough to rein in inflation. The sound reaction for Asian countries would be to slow down growth by letting their currencies rise. But they are unlikely to do this.
The History of Trade, Part 2
NYT Nov 12, 2005
It is frustrating that politicians refuse to recognize that protections created in the last 40 years to shield American textile jobs from foreign competition have failed.
Faith and Conscience
WP Nov 14, 2005
President Bush's promises to double foreign aid to Africa and send more money to poor countries with effective governments aren't on track. Let's hope the president hasn't forgotten he made them.
Old Age Tsunami
Nicholas Eberstadt (WSJ) Nov 15, 2005
Asia's graying populations could roil the global economy.
The FTA Fetish
Bernard Gordon (WSJ) Nov 17, 2005
Behind the new romanticism of regionalism in Asia lie very real worries.
There is a Chance to Correct the Defects of Basel II
Harald Benink and Jon Danielsson (FT) Nov 17, 2005
Paul Sarbanes, the senior Democrat on the US Senate’s banking committee, warned last week that Congress could still stop the Basel II accord on banking regulation from being implemented in the US. He was questioning the necessity of the accord in the US following problems encountered with the testing of the rules on US banks and a consequent decision to delay the accord’s implementation for one year. The International Institute for Finance, the primary lobbying group for the world’s largest banks, expressed its displeasure at the delay.
Bush's Asia Strategy
WSJ Nov 19, 2005
Engaging China economically, containing it with democracies.
Fuzzy Trade Math
Arvind Panagariya (WSJ) Nov 21, 2005
Get the numbers right; compromise will follow.
The Internet at Risk
WP Nov 21, 2005
Some 12,000 people convened last week in Tunisia for a United Nations conference about the Internet. Many delegates want an end to the U.S. Commerce Department's control over the assignment of Web site addresses and e-mail accounts. The delegates' argument is that unilateral U.S. control over these domain names reflects no more than the historical accident of the Internet's origins. Why should the United States continue to control the registration of French and Chinese Internet addresses? It doesn't control the registration of French and Chinese cars, whatever Henry Ford's historic role in democratizing travel was.
US and IMF spat over China's yuan could backfire
Reuters Nov 21, 2005
Growing pressure from the U.S. Treasury for the International Monetary Fund to play "bad cop" with China over Beijing's rigid currency regime may well backfire by exaggerating global imbalances it seeks to cut.
China, Chile sign FTA
AT Nov 22, 2005
China and Chile have signed a free trade agreement, to be launched in July next year. The accord is China's first with a South American country. Apart from sweeping tariff reductions, the agreement includes cooperation in investment and economic promotion.
Byrd Droppings
WSJ Nov 22, 2005
George Allen lines up with GOP protectionists.
The end of constructive ambiguity, Mr Trichet?
Economist Nov 22, 2005
Bond markets barely reacted to the European Central Bank’s recent signal on sovereign debt ratings. Odd, that.
Protecting the world's economic arteries
IHT Nov 23, 2005
The cooperation of local governments and capable navies is the only way to safeguard the world's vital ports and passageways from a terrorist strike.
Five Ministers Aiming For Doha Round Road Map In Hong Kong
BRIDGES Weekly Trade News Digest - Vol. 9, Number 40 Nov 23, 2005
Ministers from five influential trading nations came away from a 22 November meeting in Geneva with the impression that a high-level summit in the first months of 2006 would be necessary in order for WTO Members to strike a far-reaching, detailed framework agreement for the Doha Round trade talks in time to conclude the negotiations by the end of next year. Representatives from the EU, the US, Brazil, India, and Japan agreed that December's Hong Kong Ministerial Conference should establish a "road map" for the completion of the negotiations, though they remain divided on the issue of farm trade liberalisation.
Agriculture: Chair Reports On Status Quo With A View To Hong Kong
BRIDGES Weekly Trade News Digest - Vol. 9, Number 40 Nov 23, 2005
Ambassador Crawford Falconer of New Zealand, the Chair of the WTO agriculture negotiations, presented Members with his draft report on the state of the agriculture negotiations on 22 November. In a brief meeting the same day, delegates provided their first reactions -- generally positive -- to the report.
CTD-SS: Members Ask "Has Progress Been Made?"
BRIDGES Weekly Trade News Digest - Vol. 9, Number 40 Nov 23, 2005
At a 21 November informal meeting of the WTO Committee on Trade and Development Special Session (CTD-SS), Members agreed on draft Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration text concerning special and differential treatment (S&D) to send to the General Council. However, Members did differ in their opinions on how to reflect the progress, or lack thereof, on five proposed amendments to specific WTO agreements.
The Bretton Woods System: Are We Experiencing a Revival?
Glick, R. & M. Spiegel Nov 25, 2005
This Economic Letter summarizes the papers presented at the symposium "Revived Bretton Woods System: A New Paradigm for Asian Development?" held at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco on February 4, 2005, under the joint sponsorship of the Bank's Center for Pacific Basin Studies and the University of California at Berkeley's Clausen Center for International Economics.
The Go-Go Greenback
WSJ Nov 28, 2005
Why the dollar is strong despite the U.S. current-account deficit.
Free Trade Frontier
Douglas A. Irwin (WSJ) Nov 28, 2005
Failure in Hong Kong would be tragic for rich and poor.
Vietnam and the WTO
Fred Burke (WSJ) Nov 28, 2005
Everyone must stick to the fundamental principles that made the WTO a good idea to begin with.
Steelmakers on a roll, until the next glut
Economist Nov 28, 2005
China’s appetite for steel has provided the rest of the world’s big producers with a rare period of boom and helped to finance a buying spree, of which the past week's bids for Dofasco are just the latest example. But burgeoning Chinese steel production threatens to flood the market and test whether sheer size will offer any protection to the world’s steel giants.
Dollars, deficits and destiny
IHT/NYT Nov 28, 2005
The United States' gap in trade and other international transactions is on track to reach an unprecedented $788 billion in 2005. The federal budget deficit, meanwhile, remains intractable.
A major face-lift for OECD?
IHT Nov 30, 2005
José Angel Gurría said he was 'not going to make the OECD a movie star or a rock star'
No Currency High Jinks Here
WSJ Nov 30, 2005
American politicians (well, some of them) resist the protectionist urge.
Debunking Myths About Asia's Service Industries
Diana Farrell (WSJ) Nov 30, 2005
Domestic services can create more jobs in Asia than service exports.