Second session of a forum on Latin American influence on U.S. policies and politics with an emphasis on trade.

First session of a forum on Latin American influence on U.S. policies and politics with an emphasis on trade.

A senior economic adviser to Sen. John McCain calls free trade an essential element in reviving U.S. economic fortunes.

A top economic adviser to Sen. Barack Obama describes his views on how to harness globalization and energy diversification to improve U.S. fortunes.

In this New York Sun op-ed, Jagdish Bhagwati and Arvind Panagariya make the case for optimism on the Doha Round. A compromise is possible if the U.S. agrees to cap trade-distorting subsidies at a minimum of the current payouts and India agrees to a downscaling of the Special Safeguard Mechanism.

As in the 1980s, the United States is once again a fearful giant.  In this Financial Times op-ed, Jagdish Bhagwati writes that only an agenda for institutional change that addresses the fragility of jobs and enables workers to face new uncertainties has a chance of returning trade policy to sanity.

The failure of the Doha Round does not call for despair, but turning talks into agreements will require leadership that can endure a long, lurching process, without instant success. In this Wall Street Journal op-ed, Douglas Irwin and Amity Shlaes point to Cordell Hull, Secretary of State from 1933 to 1944, as a model for leadership on trade.

The news that the Doha Round of the World Trade Organization has broken down in Geneva has made many Americans pessimistic about the future of multilateral trade agreements. In this Center for Geoeconomic Studies Working Paper, Douglas A. Irwin makes the case for optimism and argues that the key to advancing the free-trade cause is political leadership of the sort demonstrated by a heroic but near-forgotten figure, the late secretary of state Cordell Hull of Tennessee. Irwin traces Hull’s path through the decades and shows how his legacy lights the way for leaders of both political parties.

Roy Blunt, U.S. Representative from Missouri (R) talks about trade and foreign policy.

Iraq says it wants to sell oil contracts to foreign energy firms. The potential impact on energy markets could be large, but practical and political obstacles still prevent rapid production increases.

Because of their discriminatory effect and the preferential treatment they give to member nations, Free Trade Agreements must be placed on moratorium, writes Jagdish Bhagwati.

Don Oberdorfer, an expert on the two Koreas, says the recent street protests ostensibly against the import of U.S. beef are much more political protests against the new conservative government in Seoul.

Paul Collier, an economist and author of The Bottom Billion, discusses five steps to sustainable resource management in Africa.

With the Doha trade round in danger of slipping from our grasp, it has become commonplace to assert that the food crisis, while a tragedy, is a shot in the arm for the talks. In this Financial Times op-ed, Jagdish Bhagwati and Arvind Panagariya find that only one such argument passes muster—the fact that high food prices should soften U.S. opposition to lower agricultural subsidies, thereby relaxing key constraints on the final compromises necessary to reach an agreement on agricultural liberalisation.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain gave this speech to the Economic Club of Toronto in Ottawa, Canada on June 20, 2008.

Seoul's conservative government is struggling to reconcile its foreign policy goals with the popular sentiments of its people.

Trade between China and the Gulf Cooperation Council has spiked in recent years, with potentially broad economic and geopolitical consequences.

Robert Driskill, economics professor at Vanderbilt University, says economists need to do a better job of explaining the benefits of free trade.

EU policymakers debate cutting farm subsidies as legislators on both sides of the Atlantic consider how trade distortions fit into the global food crisis.