Trade Archive

A quarter of a century after labor standards first became a bone of contention in trade talks to conclude the North American Free Trade Agreement, weak enforcement of labor standards in Mexico is one of the key issues holding up a vote on President Donald Trump’s renegotiation of NAFTA, now rebranded the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Every U.S. trade agreement since NAFTA has included language nominally aimed at protecting workers. Yet despite significant strengthening over the years, the labor provisions in those trade agreements remain controversial and largely ineffective for foreign and American workers alike. NAFTA was only the third free trade […]

The eventual victor in the chaotic and crowded contest for the Democratic presidential nomination remains to be seen. But one thing seems clear: The political energy in this election cycle is on the left. Elizabeth Warren, the senator from Massachusetts and would-be trust buster, has displaced faltering former Vice President Joe Biden as putative frontrunner. If any evidence of her rise were required, her competitors for the nomination provided it when they trained fire on her in the most recent presidential debate. But meanwhile, Bernie Sanders, Vermont’s independent socialist senator, is still a fundraising juggernaut, hauling in more than $25 […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Russian President Vladimir Putin had a message for African leaders this week: Moscow is ready to make some deals. Putin’s government brought 43 African heads of state or government to the Black Sea resort town of Sochi for the first-ever Russia-Africa Summit. The Russians simultaneously sent a pair of nuclear-capable bombers to South Africa, apparently the first time the Soviet-era aircraft had ever landed on the continent, reinforcing both Russia’s strategic capabilities and what it might be able to offer African governments. […]

At their second informal summit in as many years, China’s Xi Jinping and India’s Narendra Modi, arguably the two most powerful leaders in Asia, eschewed confrontation for the sake of plodding along. While they hobnobbed in the seaside town of Mamallapuram in southern India earlier this month, they did little to resolve underlying border tensions and other contentious issues. Instead, Modi and Xi agreed on a few maxims—to be “factors for stability in the current international landscape” and to prevent “differences on any issue to become disputes.” While there was an emphasis on optics over substance, it is still encouraging […]

Despite saying that he would “rather be dead in a ditch” than delay Brexit, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was forced to do just that late Saturday night, sending a letter to the European Commission requesting another extension for the United Kingdom’s long-awaited departure from the European Union. As with two earlier delays, the core challenges to resolving Brexit remain avoiding a highly disruptive, “no-deal” exit; keeping the Irish land border open; and defining trade relationships with the EU and the rest of the world that mitigate the costs of leaving the world’s largest customs union. The British Parliament refused […]

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. On Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump hailed a preliminary trade agreement reached in principle with China, calling it “the greatest and biggest deal ever.” But there was no public mention of the deal in Beijing over the weekend, and Chinese state media warned against being “overly optimistic” about trade talks, leading to speculation that the deal would fall apart before even being signed. On Tuesday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang finally confirmed the tentative deal and said China was […]

Politics was always going to play an outsized role in congressional deliberations on the revised NAFTA deal—now known as the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA—as it does with most trade agreements. Assuming that President Donald Trump addresses their concerns about labor standards in Mexico and other issues, House Democrats will have to decide whether to give the president a “big win” that he can trumpet in next year’s election. Trump will have to decide whether he’d rather have that or, by refusing to accommodate their demands, a stick with which to beat up the Democrats as do-nothing partisans. The impeachment inquiry […]

Recent signs of increased economic cooperation in the Levant, especially among Jordan, Egypt and Iraq, are sparking hope that past failed efforts to establish a regional free trade agreement may soon be revived. A bilateral trade deal between Jordan and Iraq signed in February, as well as a trilateral leaders’ summit held in Egypt earlier this year, suggest that these countries are looking to diversify their economic portfolios, deepen regional cooperation and get a leg up on post-ISIS reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Syria. However, a number of obstacles remain before these recent developments could conceivably catalyze the resurrection of […]

The U.S. announced last week that it will begin imposing new tariffs on $7.5 billion in imports from the European Union on Oct. 18. Unless there is a quick settlement to an underlying dispute over plane-manufacturing subsidies, which seems unlikely given that it has dragged on for 15 years, American lovers of single-malt scotch, French wine and cheese, Spanish olive oil and English wool sweaters had better stock up on these and other items imported from Europe. Yet these tariffs aren’t like the others imposed so far under President Donald Trump, and it is premature to assume they signal the […]

Venezuela’s economic collapse and Washington’s new sanctions on companies shipping Venezuelan oil to Cuba have plunged the island nation into its most severe energy crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. In response, Havana is looking to its old ally Russia to plug the hole in energy supplies left by the decline in Venezuelan shipments. But the crisis is hampering plans to implement economic reforms that Havana hopes will respond to popular demands for economic liberalization while retaining the Communist Party’s political dominance. Visiting Cuba last week, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev promised that Russia would […]

It’s easy to take for granted, in this globalized era, that all peoples and nations use a common standard to tell the time. But it wasn’t always this way. Not until the late 19th century did the world finally synchronize its watches. This milestone in multilateral cooperation occurred at a pivotal if unsung gathering, the International Meridian Conference, which convened in Washington, D.C., in October 1884, 135 years ago this month. President Chester A. Arthur had invited the world’s 26 “civilized”—that is, independent—nations to resolve a dilemma that increasingly bedeviled international commerce and communication: namely, the absence of any agreed […]

A momentous week in which the House of Representatives opened an impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump overshadowed the announcement in New York that the United States and Japan had reached agreement on a mini trade deal. While its economic impact will be limited, the deal’s implications for the global trading system could be more significant—and not in a good way. The Trump White House is trumpeting the new U.S.-Japan deal as “phenomenal” and a big win for American farmers, but how big is it really? And is it enough for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to sell at home? […]