Trade Archive

The $5.25 billion expansion of the Panama Canal, which officially opened in late June, tripling the size of vessels the canal can accommodate, is about more than just bigger ships. Unlike in 1914 when the opening of the canal made unimaginable trade routes possible, boosting the economies of the United States and many others, the expanded canal may have the biggest impact on Panama’s own economy. But the potential rewards also come with major risks. The canal’s ability to handle much larger ships will greatly facilitate shipping between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Among other things, U.S. grain exports from […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series inviting authors to identify the biggest priority—whether a threat, risk, opportunity or challenge—facing the international order and U.S. foreign policy today. For the past decade, globalization and anti-globalization perplexingly fell out of favor in the analytical narratives of most commentators on international affairs. The winners and losers of globalization, which defined the major debates about economic policies during the 1990s and early 2000s, simply ceased to be discussed. Perhaps it was because this particular framing was closely tied to debates about the World Trade Organization, protests against it, and […]

JAKARTA, Indonesia—Although political violence there is limited, Southeast Asia has become one of the tensest regions of the world, with a number of governments moving in authoritarian directions. In Thailand, the death of King Bhumibol, who unified the nation while backing the military junta, raises questions about whether anyone can replace him. The Philippines recently elected a populist authoritarian in Rodrigo Duterte, who is apparently determined to sabotage the country’s longstanding alliance with the United States and whose paramilitaries are executing Filipino citizens in the streets in a vigilante drug war. In Myanmar, power is hopelessly divided between longtime democracy […]

September revealed the limits of U.S. President Barack Obama’s engagement in Asia. There was some good news, of course. On his last trip to the region, he became the first sitting U.S. president to visit Laos, where he acknowledged “the suffering and sacrifices on all sides” of America’s secret war in the 1960s and 1970s and pledged to mend ties between the two countries. Later in the month, he met with Myanmar’s de-facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, at the White House. There he announced that all remaining sanctions on Myanmar would be lifted, a reward for the country’s democratic […]

Editor’s note: This article is part of an ongoing WPR series inviting authors to identify the biggest priority—whether a threat, risk, opportunity or challenge—facing the international order and U.S. foreign policy today. Anti-trade sentiment in the United States, embodied in Republican candidate Donald Trump’s campaign for the presidency, has risen dramatically over the past two years. The conventional wisdom says that protectionism is on the rise due to the economic impact of globalization. Free trade agreements have cost U.S. jobs and driven down wages in many regions of the country, which has fueled the backlash and aided Trump’s rise. The […]

Russia’s deepening role in the Syrian conflict continues to damage its relations with the West, as the brutal Moscow-backed Syrian offensive on Aleppo shows no signs of abating. On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin canceled a planned visit to Paris after his French counterpart Francois Hollande called Russian airstrikes in Syria “war crimes.” That followed Moscow’s veto of a French-backed U.N. Security Council draft resolution condemning the violence in Aleppo. Putin, whose visit was initially planned to inaugurate the opening of a Russian cultural center in Paris, reacted to Hollande’s comments that the trip would be downgraded to “a working […]

Recent visits to Cuba by a bevy of European and Asian leaders highlight a key element of Raul Castro’s foreign policy that he has pursued alongside normalization with the United States: Don’t put all of Cuba’s eggs in one international basket. Cuba learned this lesson the hard way. Pre-revolutionary dependence on the United States, followed by post-revolutionary dependence on the Soviet Union, twice plunged Cuba into economic crisis when those ties were severed. Although less drastic, the current austerity triggered by the decline in oil shipments from Venezuela underscores the danger of relying on a single foreign partner. Cuba’s leaders […]

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was in Vietnam this week, the first stop of a three-nation tour of Southeast Asia. During his visit, Rouhani and Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang agreed to work toward the goal of boosting trade to $2 billion. In an email interview, John Calabrese, an assistant professor at American University, discusses Iran’s diplomatic outreach in Southeast Asia. WPR: What is the state of diplomatic and economic ties between Iran and Southeast Asia, particularly Vietnam, and what areas and sectors present the best opportunities to deepen relations? John Calabrese: Iran’s interactions with Southeast Asia are not new. Iranian […]