The rise of the new major powers in the global system has attracted considerable attention. This has focused on the emergence of Brazil, Indian Russia and, above all China, and the consequences for both the global balance of power and the nature of international relations. In addition to these national powers we are witnessing a proliferation and intensification of regionalism. The rise of regional blocs such as the EU, MERCOSUR and ASEAN is bringing a new component to the global system. As these regional groupings seek to establish relations with major powers and with each other, they not only become global actors in their own right, but also create a new level of interaction, that has been termed 'interregionalism'. This paper explores the nature, extent and implications of the emergence of this new form of international relations.

Regional and bilateral free trade agreements (FTAs) have taken on greater significance amidst an evolving international trading environment. Member countries in FTAs agree to eliminate trade barriers on all or most goods and services traded among them. Uncertainties associated with global negotiations under the World Trade Organization (WTO) Doha Development Agenda, along with other factors, have contributed to an upsurge in bilateral and regional trade agreements. This book examines the possible impacts on U.S. agricultural trade of two recently implemented FTAs in which the United States is not a partner; the FTAs between the ASEAN countries and China and between the ASEAN countries and Australia/New Zealand. Also discussed is the potential effects on U.S. agricultural exporters of pending bilateral TAs between the United States and Korea, Colombia, and Panama.

After more than half a century in which the United States led international trade liberalization, the country has been in a long stalemate over trade policy. It has been losing ground as other nations enter into market-opening arrangements that disadvantage U.S.-based production. In an increasingly competitive global economy, the policies of the past no longer offer a road map for the future. U.S. Trade Policy assesses current U.S. trade policy and analyzes issues of trade policy authority, trade negotiations, investment rules, competition policy, regulatory barriers, exchange rates, and export controls.

This report argues that closing the political divide on trade will require measures that respond to the American public's ambivalence and are more explicitly designed to maximize the economic benefits that come from trade openings by increasing exports and attracting job creating investment. It also offers recommendations for trade and investment policies the United States should adopt that will help to create jobs and raise incomes for more Americans while also advancing foreign policy interests.

Asia has entered the 21st century as an economic superpower and is inevitably also becoming a political superpower. This evolution is the subject of this continuing series which includes in its scope the entire spectrum of contemporary politics and economics of Asia. The coverage is intended to deal with Asia, its political dynamics, economic policies, institutions and its future. It discusses topics that include: U.S.-South Korea relations; trade promotion authority and the Korea Free Trade Agreement; China's military modernisation efforts; U.S.-Vietnam economic and trade relations; and, U.S.-China trade relations and China's currency policy.

This paper undertakes a comparative empirical assessment of economic reforms and exports in the rising Asian giants, China and India. It explores the past record and future challenges. In recent years, China has surged ahead of India to dominate world manufactured exports, but India has acquired competitive capabilities in skill-intensive services. Favorable initial conditions (e.g., large markets and low-cost productive labor) shaped the giants' success. While the gradual switch to market-oriented reforms in the late-1970s drove trade-led growth in the giants, China was swifter and more coordinated. It introduced an open door policy towards foreign direct investment (FDI), actively facilitated technological upgrading of FDI, steadily liberalized a controlled import regime, ensured a competitive exchange rate, and concluded more comprehensive free trade agreements (FTAs) with Asian developing economies. India has attempted to enact economic reforms since 1991, particularly to attract FDI and liberalize imports. Therefore, one might expect the gap in trade performance between China and India to narrow over time. However, both giants face an uncertain world economy after the global financial crisis, and future success will depend on evolving reforms. Critical areas are how the giants respond to integrating with production networks, promote technology development, manage real exchange rates, and mitigate the risk of protectionism.

Professor Booth provides an incisive analysis of the performance of the ASEAN economies since the 1997 financial crisis. The major economies, including Singapore, have failed fully to recover the growth momentum that they enjoyed before the crisis. The major explanations for this disappointing recovery are reviewed and it is argued that the key factors include deep seated structural problems that were already coming to the fore before the 1997 crisis. This is particularly the case for Indonesia and Thailand, where successive governments have found it extremely difficult effectively to address these problems. This inability, combined with changes in the regional and global economies, has left these countries vulnerable to adverse trading and financial conditions.

The U.S.-Singapore FTA has taken on new importance in trade policy because the United States is engaged in negotiations to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). In addition, the U.S.-Singapore FTA has provided greater access for U.S. companies, has been instrumental in increasing bilateral trade, and has provided reassurance to Singaporeans of U.S. interest in the country. As a city-state, Singapore operates as an entrepot with essentially free trade. Under the FTA, concessions dealt mainly with providing greater access for American service providers and with strengthening the business environment in areas such as the protection of intellectual property rights and access to government procurement. This book examines the U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Agreement in detail, as well as the documented effects after five years.

The economic sanctions imposed on Iraq from 1990 to 2003 were the most comprehensive and devastating of any established in the name of international governance. The sanctions, coupled with the bombing campaign of 1991, brought about the near collapse of Iraq's infrastructure and profoundly compromised basic conditions necessary to sustain life. In a sharp indictment of U.S. policy, Joy Gordon examines the key role the nation played in shaping the sanctions, whose harsh strictures resulted in part from U.S. definitions of "dual use" and "weapons of mass destruction," and claims that everything from water pipes to laundry detergent to child vaccines could produce weapons. Drawing on internal UN documents, confidential minutes of closed meetings, and interviews with foreign diplomats and U.S. officials, Gordon details how the United States not only prevented critical humanitarian goods from entering Iraq but also undermined attempts at reform; unilaterally overrode the UN weapons inspectors; and manipulated votes in the Security Council. In every political, legal, and bureaucratic domain, the deliberate policies of the United States ensured the continuation of Iraq's catastrophic condition. Provocative and sure to stir debate, this book lays bare the damage that can be done by unchecked power in our institutions of international governance.

Henderson surveys the amount of foreign business in Japan, points out the special characteristics of these businesses, describes the products and nationality of the foreign subsidiaries and branches, and explores the management practices as they compare with those indigenous with most Japanese business. After a general treatment of the Japanese legal system, the author points out the contracting, incorporating, and dispute resolution devices useful to foreign enterprise.
Originally published in 1973.
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This monograph reviews the efficacy of economic statecraft vis- -vis North Korea, with a particular focus on the use of sanctions and inducements on the part of the United States in seeking to achieve nonproliferation and wider foreign policy objectives. Two structural constraints operate: North Korea's particularly repressive state, with a narrowing governing coalition; and the country's changing economic relations. As an empirical matter, there is little evidence that sanctions had effect, or did so only in conjunction with inducements. However, inducements did not yield significant results either, in part because of severe credibility and sequencing problems in the negotiations.

In recent years, Africa has emerged as a dominant region in China 's foreign policy. As an emerging center of economic growth in the world economy, China is striving towards establishing a stronger footprint in Africa than ever before. The need to understand this rapprochement has been exacerbated by the current financial crisis. With focus on agricultural trade, this book uses empirical data spanning up to year end 2007 to explain the potential benefits of China growing trade in Africa on South Africa 's economy. The studies cover both China and South Africa 's positions as importer and exporter of agricultural products in each other 's markets. In doing so, they have carefully analyzed data from Chinese and South African sources. In order to give a fresh perspective to the analyses, a section of the work has been devoted to the nature of non-tariff barriers that face South Africa 's exporters into the Chinese market.

Economists have repeatedly warned against them, NGOs have fought them, and some governments have begrudgingly (at least in appearance) signed them. Yet, in the last twenty years the growth in number of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) has been unabated. Even more strikingly, their scope has broadened while their number was increasing. Deep integration provisions in PTAs have now become ubiquitous. Gaining market access or preserving existing preferences has remained an important motivation for acceding to PTAs. But with the liberalization of trade around the world and the related diminishing size of preferential rents, the growing success of PTAs cannot be only explained by traditional market access motives (even factoring for the possible substitution of tariff for other less transparent forms of protection). Countries are looking beyond market access in PTAs. They are interested in a host of objectives, including importing higher policy standards, strengthening regional policy coordination, locking-in domestic reforms, and even addressing foreign policy issues. This handbook on PTA policies for development offers an introduction into the world of modern preferential trade agreements. It goes beyond the traditional paradigm of trade creation versus trade diversion to address the economic and legal aspects of the regulatory policies that are contained in today s PTAs. The book maps the landscape of PTAs, summarizes the theoretical arguments, political economy, and development dimensions of PTAs, and presents the current practice in the main policy areas typically covered in PTAs (from agriculture policy, rules of origin, customs unions, trade remedies, product standards, technical barriers, to behind the border issues related to investment, trade facilitation, competition, government procurement, intellectual property, labor rights, human rights, environment, migration, and dispute resolution). These are also usually the policies driven by powerful trading blocs as they strive to influence the evolution of the global trading system."

From the former First Lady of Egypt, New York Times best-selling author, crusader for women's rights, and widow of the slain Nobel Peace Prize winner Anwar Sadat, comes a timely, clear-eyed examination of the defining issues of the Middle East.

The legendary overland silk road was not the only way to reach Asia for ancient travelers from the Mediterranean. During the Roman Empire's heyday, equally important maritime routes reached from the Egyptian Red Sea across the Indian Ocean. The ancient city of Berenike, located approximately 500 miles south of today's Suez Canal, was a significant port among these conduits. In this book, Steven E. Sidebotham, the archaeologist who excavated Berenike, uncovers the role the city played in the regional, local, and "global" economies during the eight centuries of its existence. Sidebotham analyzes many of the artifacts, botanical and faunal remains, and hundreds of the texts he and his team found in excavations, providing a profoundly intimate glimpse of the people who lived, worked, and died in this emporium between the classical Mediterranean world and Asia.

This report addresses carbon labeling schemes, a high-profile issue and one that has important economic implications for developing countries. Carbon accounting and labeling instruments are designed to present information on greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from supply chains. These instruments have become an important awareness-raising channel for governments, producers, retailers and consumers to bring about the reduction of GHGs. At the same time, they have emerged as a crucial element of supply chain management, trade logistics and, potentially, trade regulations between countries. But the underlying science of GHG emissions is only partially developed. Many of these schemes are based on rudimentary knowledge of GHG emissions and have mainly been designed by industrialized countries. There is a concern that these systems do not accurately reflect production processes in developing countries, and that they may even shift consumer preferences away from developing country exports. The report includes an analysis of current and emerging carbon labeling schemes and an assessment of available data, emissions factors and knowledge gaps of carbon footprinting methodologies. The report also analyzes carbon accounting methodologies for sugar and pineapple products from Zambia and Mauritius according to PAS 2050 guidelines, to illustrate whether these schemes accurately represent the production systems in developing countries. The report concludes with a series of recommendations on how carbon footprint labeling can be made more development-friendly

This book is about how the WTO functions as a public organization. It analyzes and evaluates the WTO from a public administration perspective which is absent from the current debate on WTO reforms dominated by the traditional view that only nation states matter, not international organizations.

This study examines U.S.-Mexico sugar trade with special attention given to the impact of changes in trade and market environments caused by implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the introduction of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). These two factors contributed to shaping sugar markets in the United States and Mexico as well as sugar trade between the two countries. The study includes two sections: (1) a description of the sugar markets from an historic point of view and (2) an empirical study forecasting the market and trade outlook.In section one, characteristics of the sugar industry and transition of the sugar markets brought by the two factors (NAFTA and HFCS) are presented. Adoption of HFCS shaped the U.S. sweetener market in the 1980s and a similar phenomenon appears to be beginning in Mexico. This is explained by not only income growth but also the provisions of NAFTA that facilitate U.S. HFCS to enter the Mexican market and restrict Mexican sugar to the U.S. market. Although Mexico is promised favorable access to the U.S. market under NAFTA, it has not been successful in exporting sugar; rather, the focus has been to suppress HFCS adoption in the domestic market.Next, an empirical study comprised of three analyses is presented. Regression results from the market analysis showed that the estimated price elasticities for both sugar demand and supply are significant and inelastic. These estimates are built into the second model that examines bilateral trade. Results from simulations of the trade analysis indicate Mexico's HFCS adoption rate will determine the magnitude of Mexico's sugar export, which consequently poses a significant influence on U.S. markets. Also the way the U.S. government allocates quotas among exporters will have a significant impact, particularly on the costs of the U.S. sugar program. Game theory analysis is then used to assess what strategies the involved participants will prefer. The results suggest that there will be a conflict of interests and that the U.S. HFCS industry may play an influential role in forming a sugar policy.

This book fills a large gap in the literature on trade in services. It focuses on the dynamics of trade and investment liberalization in a sector of considerable technical and regulatory complexity financial services. This volume chronicles the recent experiences of governments in Latin America that have successfully completed financial services negotiations through preferential trade agreements. One of the unique features of this book is the three in-depth country case studies Chile, Colombia, and Costa Rica all written by trade experts who led the negotiations of their respective countries in financial services. The authors offer analytical insights into the substantive content of the legal provisions governing financial market opening and the way such provisions have evolved over time and across negotiating settings. The studies describe how each of the three governments organized the conduct of negotiations in the sector, the extent of preparatory work undertaken before and during negotiations, and the negotiating road maps that were put in place to guide negotiators. Additional chapters complement the case studies by examining the evolving architecture of trade and investment disciplines in financial services and how best to prepare for negotiations in this sector. 'Financial Services and Preferential Trade Agreements' aims to provide practical lessons for policy makers, trade experts, and negotiators in developing countries who are involved in negotiating trade in financial services in the context of regional trade agreements. Academics and development practitioners interested in trade negotiations will also find the information valuable."

This paper proposes improving anti-dumping 's (AD) procedural institutions by enhancing the quality of public governance in the formulation of AD decisions by national authorities. It further examines the AD practices and laws of China and South Africa, arguing that poor governance in emerging economies contributes to their prolific use of AD, usually disproportionate to their small share of world imports. These economies already maintain higher tariff barriers than industrial countries, so that without effective steps to ensure better governance to restrain the arbitrary and proliferating use of AD, they may lose out significantly on the gains from the trade liberalization for which they have been striving for decades.