Showing posts with the label
Economic Diplomacy
You have been warned: Singaporean PM Lee puts Obama on notice regarding US TPP non-ratification. The Trans-Pacific Partnership is in imminent danger of becoming a non-entity in a manner all too famil…
Never again: nobody will be meeting to discuss Doha anymore. During the last WTO meeting, its members decided to discontinue reaffirming the Doha Development Agenda's mandate, effectively killing…
Indonesia and S Korea apparently seek a seat at this table now. It appears as though the United States is gaining the upper hand in signing FTAs in the Asia-Pacific after the TPP enlargement. With Ch…
Get ready to see lots more of these sorts of plants in Vietnam (read why below). Bloomberg has an initial rundown of countries expected to win and lose from the conclusion of the Trans-Pacific Partn…
The international trade deal is signed; individual nations ratifying it remains. This comes as a bit of a surprise to me: the Trans-Pacific Partnership has, at long last, been completed. I had expect…
Coming soon to your country: duty-free PlayStations. OK, so it isn't the completion of the Doha Round (in progress from 2001 to, well, never evermore it seems). I suppose that it's still an a…
It's deja vu all over again. I hate to say it, but it's patently obvious that so many aspects of global governance are held hostage by the political processes of just one country--the United …
European activists believe stopping Canada precedes stopping America. It appears that the EU-Canada FTA, a.k.a. the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), may soon be a done deal with Ger…
Put 'er there, pal, put 'er there (which is precisely nowhere). This is a quick interjection since I've already made a lengthier post on the unlikely resurrection of an APEC-based Free T…
APEC, where Pacific Rim leaders play fancy dress...and that's about it. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) is rightly regarded as a " talk shop " that does not really have muc…
There's interesting commentary over at The Diplomat concerning the ongoing Boao Forum , formerly China's World Economic Forum wannabe/knock-off featuring the movers and shakers in politics …
While the Trans-Pacific Partnership is on hold partly due to Japanese intransigence--more on this later--two TPP negotiators have nevertheless concluded a bilateral deal. The Japanese get improved m…
Reid Floors Obama with Lethal 1-2 Combination The traditional constituency of the United States' Democratic Party has always included organized labor. Despite union membership continuing to fall …
You say "TPP," I say "TTIP"; let's call both things off One of the many reasons why the Doha Round of WTO trade negotiations has been put on indefinite pause is due to America…
Yemen, there's no need to feel down I said Yemen, pick yourself off the ground... A little neglected in the hullabaloo surrounding the conclusion of the " Bali package " at WTO negotiat…
I just wanted to share the ICTSD's useful primer on the upcoming WTO meetings in Bali, Indonesia where the organization's fate as a credible negotiating forum hangs in the balance. The full r…
When we last talked about Ukraine, it had elected a pro-Russian leader in Viktor Yanukovych--the same Russia-aligned "bad guy" the so-called Orange Revolution supposedly got rid of. Hard e…
For obvious reasons--nothing much happening in Geneva--I have devoted very little attention to the conclusion of the WTO Doha Round, having given it up for lost. For all intents and purposes, the Doh…
There is a debate surrounding the pending Trans-Pacific Partnership expansion about whether participants' policies aimed at curbing tobacco use will be dismantled in the name of free trade. Large…
I have already dubbed the proposed " Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership" AKA the US-EU FTA a non-event on the grounds that (a) the counterparties are slow-growing economies (b) …
