Following the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, President Bush prepared the country for a "war on terrorism". As outlined in his speech before the joint session of Congress on September 20, the war on terrorism will be fought on many fronts: diplomatic, intelligence,...

The House and Senate will soon meet in conference to decide whether to enact unprecedented sanctions that would deny access to US capital markets to foreign companies that do business with a sanctioned nation. The narrow objective of the Sudan Peace Act--the House version of which includes these...

With the end of the Cold War, the focus of US foreign policy changed--and so did that of economic sanctions. Partly because of increased cooperation within the UN framework, economic sanctions were imposed so routinely in the early 1990s that scholars called that period the sanctions decade....

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the United States, Mexico, and Canada, which took effect 20 years ago, continues to face divided public opinion. Opponents of free trade agreements (FTAs) cite NAFTA as a job-killing precedent, while proponents argue that the economic gains...

The global economic crisis in 2008 produced pledges from countries around the world to avoid new barriers to trade and investment. These commitments were largely honored when it came to tariffs and quotas, but not when it came to nontraditional forms of protection, including behind-the-border,...

Horizontal drilling and fracking are transforming global energy production, consumption, and trade leading to a surge of domestic production in the United States. Free exports of liquefied natural gas, crude oil, and other energy products are an essential complement of US international economic...

Enactment of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) among the United States, Mexico, and Canada 20 years ago advanced economic integration and started a public debate running to today about the merits of trade agreements in the era of globalization. As the first major trade accord...

The Doha Round is not the first multilateral negotiation to collapse under the weight of substantive disputes and tactical blunders, but revival this time requires a greater miracle than in the darkest days of the Tokyo or Uruguay Rounds. After near-death moments, those talks concluded with a...

Trade finance will play a crucial role in President Barack Obama's goal of doubling US exports by 2015. Almost 90 percent of exports depend on trade finance in some form—direct credit, credit insurance, or loan guarantees. Even though official export credit agencies (ECAs), including the US...

Services trade continues to be the most dynamic part of world trade, and service sectors have long been the largest destination of foreign direct investment flows. Countries can reap huge potential gains through greater liberalization of services trade and investment, including increased job...