For more than 50 years the United States has attempted to destabilize and isolate the Castro regime in Cuba with the use of trade and financial sanctions, a policy that has fallen short of its objective. In this Policy Analysis, Gary Clyde Hufbauer and Barbara Kotschwar suggest that the sands of...

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...

In 2005, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi pushed his landmark bill through the Japanese Diet, aimed at reforming Japan Post, the giant state-owned enterprise that provides postal services and houses two huge financial arms, Japan Post Bank and Japan Post Insurance. The bill envisaged substantial...

Prohibitions or restrictions on US exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) are a bad idea. LNG exports will deliver economic benefits to the US economy. The US Department of Energy should approve pending LNG export applications for projects at an advanced planning stage, in conjunction with...

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a big deal in the making. With the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations at an impasse, the TPP negotiations have taken center stage as the most significant trade initiative of the 21st century. As of December 2012, negotiators have made extensive...

Trade and investment in services are difficult to measure, and the regulatory barriers that inhibit the free flow of services are hard to quantify. As a result, very little attention has been paid to dismantling barriers to services trade and investment in free trade negotiations. This paper...

The United States and China are among the world's largest trading nations. They serve as the destination and source of the world's largest flows of foreign direct investment, and they participate in regional economic arrangements on trade and investment in the Asia-Pacific region and other parts...

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...