If one had to choose the biggest loser in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, globalized free trade would be as good a place as any to start. Among Republican and Democratic candidates, free trade deals have become the red-headed stepchildren of the 2016 campaign. For the presidential bids of presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders, they are the biggest proverbial punching bags. Even Hillary Clinton, a long-time free trader and the presumptive Democratic nominee, has been forced to back away from her support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal. But much of the criticism of liberalized [...]
German Chancellor Angela Merkel was in China earlier this month, her ninth trip there since taking office, to discuss trade relations, rule of law concerns and the South China Sea disputes. In an email interview, Klaus Larres, a professor at the University of North Carolina, discussed Germany’s ties with China. WPR: How have Germany’s economic and political ties with China evolved since Merkel came to office, and in what areas are both sides looking to expand ties? Klaus Larres: Since the 1980s, under Chancellors Helmut Kohl and Gerhard Schroeder, ties between China and Germany have become increasingly close. Schroeder traveled [...]
At the foundations of the major crises that have rocked Europe over the past three years can be found questions of geo-economics. Whether in the Russian intervention in Ukraine in 2014, the migration crisis that began in earnest in 2015, or last week’s decision of British voters to approve an exit from the European Union, governments and peoples are making choices as to what sources of human capital, raw material and manufacturing potential, as well as which larger economic groupings, they wish to be associated with. The neat division of the world into largely self-sufficient Westphalian states defined by clear [...]
