Listen to Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez discuss U.S. trade policy toward the Western hemisphere, economic improvements in Latin America, and Cuban-American relations.

Watch Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez discuss U.S. trade policy toward the Western hemisphere, economic improvements in Latin America, and Cuban-American relations.

Among developed economies, the United States has performed uniquely well in the past decade. The key characteristic of this outstanding growth has been a post-1995 acceleration in U.S. productivity—that summary measure indicates the ability of an economy to produce the same goods more cheaply, generate a greater standard of living than in the past from the same people, factories, and equipment, and to use innovation to produce different and higher-quality goods than in the past. In short, productivity is the single-best summary measure of the overall long-term performance of an economy and the United States stands out in recent years.

ISN Security Watch documents China's growing commercial interests in Africa.

U.S. politicians are scrambling to deal with the impact of $3-per-gallon gasoline, but some of the main causes for the recent spikes lay beyond U.S. shores—or control.

Despite widespread fears about China's growing economic clout and political stature, Beijing remains committed to a "peaceful rise": bringing its people out of poverty by embracing economic globalization and improving relations with the rest of the world. As it emerges as a great power, China knows that its continued development depends on world peace -- a peace that its development will in turn reinforce.