#trade

In mid-January, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) announced that its foreign exchange reserves had grown by a breathtaking $157 billion in the fourth quarter of 2013. That influx of reserves brought annual growth for 2013 to $508 billion (the largest calendar-year increase ever) and pushed the total amount of China’s reserves toward the $4 […]

  Trade ministers for World Trade Organization (WTO) member nations reached agreement in Bali December 7, setting standards for customs, and addressing food and agricultural issues, among other matters.  The  measures in themselves are limited, but the Bali deal revives the WTO as a channel to approach trade policy. U.S. policy should reassess other approaches […]

The phrase “money laundering” conjures images of suitcases crammed with $100 bills being snuck across the border by a drug cartel courier, and funds being wired into and out of bank accounts in a dizzying series of globe-circling transactions. Those are apt examples of two of the three main methods of scrubbing clean illicit funds […]

  The European Union should provide Ukraine with the trade benefits it would have realized had Russian pressure not prompted the government of President Viktor Yanukovych to announce on November 21 that it would not sign a long-anticipated Association Agreement with the EU. That announcement set off not only pro-EU protests in the streets of […]

Canada and the European Union are working out the final details of their newly minted Free Trade Agreement. The first of these modern agreements will be completed with Canada in the midst of new agreements being discussed with Brazil as well as added access for Colombians and with Mercosur as a whole. The Canadian agreement […]

“It’s so far, but so very near to us now.” This is what Dr. Uttam Kumar Sinha observed during the opening of the AsiArctic conference at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis (IDSA) in New Delhi, India last week. India received observer status in the Arctic Council in May of this year, along with […]

Trying to say something upbeat about U.S.- Russian relations this week entails the same risks as going to a wake intent on offering words that will cheer up the deceased’s widow. The observation that, “At least you won’t have to put up with his snoring anymore” may be accurate enough, but in the grand scheme […]

  The struggle for positioning in the solar energy marketplace took another turn. On June 4 Karel de Gucht, the European Commissioner for Trade, announced a new 11.8 percent tariff to be applied to imported Chinese made solar panels, and photovoltaic cells and polysilicon wafers, two system components. To avoid an additional increase escalating to […]

Nawaz Sharif’s return to the helm in Islamabad is sparking optimism that a more stable and constructive India-Pakistan relationship is in the offing.  But South Asia is a rough-and-tumble neighborhood that regularly eviscerates the best of intentions.  Indeed, given the potent brew of pernicious forces acting on bilateral affairs – contiguous but bitterly contested territory, sharp historical […]

Asia really does matter for America, and the East-West Center initiative Asia Matters for America / America Matters for Asia has the empirical data showing it. However, this initiative goes beyond just data, it is designed to be a credible resource for information, graphics, analysis and news on U.S.-Asia Pacific relations at the national, state and […]

  “In particular, I strongly believe that Europe should join the United States in increasing and deepening our defense engagement with the Asia-Pacific region.” These words are from outgoing U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta in his final overseas address to an audience at King’s College, London, delivered on January 18. This raises the question: […]

The Singh-Zardari luncheon was more productive than many expected.  But the bonhomie will eventually run into stark political realities. Although the timing was coincidental and neither man professes the Christian faith, it was appropriately symbolic that Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari broke bread in New Delhi on Easter Sunday.  […]