Free Republic

Senegalese Minister of Economy Amadou Hott has urged the global food industry not to boycott the trade of Russian and Ukrainian food products as the food crisis rages on in vulnerable countries. Hott said at the Group of 20 meeting of financial leaders in Bali last week that without immediate resolution, the crisis — which involves both a food shortage and high prices — would kill more people “than during Covid times.” The war has seen many countries such as the U.S. and those in the European Union sanction the use or trade of Russian goods. But while staples like...

International trade has always been in the news. Business reporters talk about a trade deficit, politicians wail about jobs being exported overseas, and every so often, the government signs a new free trade agreement or trade promotion agreement (they are different things) with one or two or a hundred faraway countries. But despite all this, international trade policy has not been at the forefront of the news cycle in a generation; not since the US-Canada Free Trade Agreement was voided 25 years ago, to be replaced by NAFTA, a three-party FTA between Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Thanks to...

The voters of the United Kingdom stood up for British national sovereignty with their recent decision to leave the European Union (EU), and now Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is suggesting that he might take the lead in the United States leaving the World Trade Organization (WTO).When NBC’s Chuck Todd asked Trump on Meet the Press if his punitive tariff plan for businesses that leave the United States could be nixed by the WTO, Trump responded strongly, “It doesn’t matter. Then we’re going to renegotiate or we’re going to pull out. These trade deals are a disaster, Chuck. World Trade...

Megan Cassella reports in Politico on the dread among the global trade elites of the possibility that Republican nominee Donald Trump could be president. From Politico: Donald Trump has officials in this world capital of trade running scared. Faced with the prospect of a U.S. president who pledges to rip up trade agreements, slap tariffs on allies and pull out of the World Trade Organization, top trade officials are in various states of denial and dread.

The voters of the United Kingdom stood up for British national sovereignty with their recent decision to leave the European Union (EU), and now Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is suggesting that he might take the lead in the United States leaving the World Trade Organization (WTO).When NBC’s Chuck Todd asked Trump on Meet the Press if his punitive tariff plan for businesses that leave the United States could be nixed by the WTO, Trump responded strongly, “It doesn’t matter. Then we’re going to renegotiate or we’re going to pull out. These trade deals are a disaster, Chuck. World Trade...

Coined by political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, the term Davos Man was meant to refer to members of the global elite who view themselves as completely international. They have no need for the term "nationality" and feel that governments are merely shadows of time past to be used as facilitators in their global operations. ~ Akash ArasuThe pundit and activist class can't seem to figure Donald Trump out, but as I have attempted to argue elsewhere, Trump's politics are not really as inscrutable as all that. Trump is that guy at the barbershop who says "We need to run the...

Retraining can’t keep up with flood of jobs lost overseas?Those who preach the gospel of free trade say it will lift the whole world’s economy, from rich nations to poor. And, they say, if American workers lose jobs to workers overseas or cheap imports, they can get retraining — courtesy of the federal Trade Act — to learn higher-skilled jobs for the 21st Century. Forty-year-old Daryl Payne lost a production technician job at Daimler Trucks on Swan Island when the German company shifted manufacturing to Mexico. Uncle Sam is now paying him to learn how to be a water-treatment technician....

World trade is down 20% or more. US railroad shipments are down more than 20% year-over-year. Europe's banks have been much more aggressive in funding emerging-market expansion than US or Japanese banks. Europe's banking system is in far worse shape than the US system. The losses may be bigger, and their capital to meet those losses is certainly less. Let's look at some charts. Remove sharp objects or pour another adult beverage. And Then There Was Leverage. Thirty times leverage means that if you lose 3.3%, you wipe out all your capital. Regulators in the UK allowed 20:1 leverage on...

Critics have long believed environmentalists were planning global domination. The problem with making a credible case against such an ambitious plan was simple: no environmental leader had published one. Yet conflicts over global warming, world trade, multinational corporations, population control, sustainable futures, and transnational government left little doubt that environmentalists in fact shared the unspoken aim of wielding supreme power over a green future. But there was no proof. For years, critics, lacking hard evidence, were reduced to piecing together a jigsaw puzzle of suspicious environmentalist actions - funding from huge charitable trusts, ties to the broader "progressive" community, and...

"India-Sweden trade hits $1.7bn NEW DELHI: Trade between Sweden and India has doubled between ’02 and ’06 to about $1.7bn per year. With Swedish exports to India increasing by 42.5% in ’06 alone, the country is optimistic that the future of bilateral trade relations between the two countries is bright. Launching the second edition of the Sweden-India Business Guide ’06-’07, Harald Falth of the Swedish embassy pointed out that trade had multiplied in both directions. “India is the third-largest export market for Sweden in Asia. And Indian export to Sweden is steadily increasing. The two-way future of Swedish-Indian trade sure...

Presbyterians in America aren't known for preaching fire and brimstone. "No frenzy, no fanaticism, no skirmishing," Mark Twain wrote of his mild-mannered denomination in 1866. "You never see any of us Presbyterians getting in a sweat about religion and trying to massacre the neighbors."

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Mexican President Vicente Fox has asked Congress to eliminate a 20 percent tax on corn syrup sweetened soft drinks to abide with a World Trade Organization ruling. In a presidential decree issued Tuesday, Fox urged legislators to act quickly to avoid U.S. trade reprisals against Mexico. The Mexican Congress Permanent Commission, which handles matters while the legislature as a whole is on break, turned the request over to the lower house for analysis. In March, a WTO panel rejected an appeal by Mexico and supported U.S. claims that Mexico was violating international law in imposing a...

U.S. repeals Byrd Amendment Thomas Russell -- Furniture Today, 2/14/2006 7:13:00 AM Import duties collected after September 2007 will go to government WASHINGTON — The U.S. government has repealed the Byrd Amendment, the controversial trade law that is allowing some U.S. furniture manufacturers to collect millions of dollars in import duties. Congress repealed the amendment as part of a budget bill, which President Bush signed into law on Feb. 8. The move will eliminate the payment of antidumping duties beyond Oct. 1, 2007, to U.S. manufacturers that petitioned for a federal investigation into the alleged dumping of Chinese-made wood bedroom...

The United States has said it had approved a World Trade Organisation deal to make generic medicines more widely available to poor countries. US Trade Representative Rob Portman (news, bio, voting record), in Hong Kong for a WTO conference, announced that Washington had formally accepted the accord, which was settled last week at the WTO's Geneva base. WTO members confirmed their support for a provisional 2003 amendment to intellectual property rules that enabled poor countries to import generic drugs to treat infectious diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS. "Our acceptance of this amendment is an important step in the...

The Bush years have seen an economic boom take place among the world's developing nations, according to my analysis of the CIA world fact book, and www.indexmundi.com, an internet site which keeps historical record of past CIA world fact books. This article is merely describing a positive trend that appears to be benefiting billions of the world’s poor. I make no inference as to why it is happening, apart from the title tease; I do find it ironic, however, that it is occurring at this time: Among those who most vocally profess concern for the world’s poor, their most hated...

...In April, the IFC designated nine universities to provide initial programs, with the goal of "[making] the Center a... 'Public Square' on hallowed ground." "The character of a university," the IFC intoned, "allows for this form of 'sacred space'... in which sensitive, controversial and provocative subjects can be candidly explored, yet in a manner that does not generate political distraction."... [NYU] President... [extolled] today's campuses "as 'modern sanctuaries [committed to] free, unbridled and ideologically unconstrained discourse.'" Hello. Campuses today are indeed "sanctuaries"— but almost exclusively for scholars of liberal-left-radical persuasion. Their "unconstrained discourse" is overwhelming that of rank ideologues— neo-Marxists,...

...The Twin Towers attack killed more than 2,800 innocents, including 343 New York City firefighters. But let us not forget that the day also brought the largest rescue operation of its kind, as the lives of 25,000 others were saved.... Proponents of the performing arts center at Ground Zero have sought to stifle the discussion of this issue by saying this is a matter of free speech and the placement of their proposed theaters at the World Trade Center site is fitting. We believe that public cultural art, dance, music and theater institutions are needed, but not on this sacred,...

ALMATY, Kazakhstan - When Sergei Pashevich looks at the map of Central Asia, he sees a chessboard on which a replay of the Great Game is unfolding, with oil, trade and the war on terrorism as the big global issues. The Great Game, a term invented to define the imperial rivalries and ambitions of 19th-century Russia and Britain, now applies, in Pashevich's view, to a new, post-9/11 struggle for influence that is pitting Russia and China against the United States. "Right now the whole Central Asian region is a field for geopolitical games," he says. [SNIP - see article for...

EU defeat in banana export battle "Banana wars" have been rumbling on since the 1990s A new European Union tariff on imported bananas has been declared illegal by the World Trade Organization (WTO).The WTO backed a claim brought by Latin American countries, who argued the EU tariff would have a "devastating effect" on their economies and exports. Under a EU system set for launch in January 2006, imports faced a tariff of 230 euros ($280.30; £158.50) a tonne. The new tariff had aimed to safeguard exports from countries in the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group. Most were former...

Less than three months after the World Trade Center collapsed, a Washington lawyer, Kenneth R. Feinberg, was handed a highly unusual job. In an effort to prop up the airline industry, Congress had passed the Air Transportation Safety and System Stabilization Act. Along with loan guarantees, the new law called for a special fund to compensate victims of the 9/11 attacks. The amount of the compensation, and who qualified for it, would be decided by an all-powerful official known in legal language as a special master. Mr. Feinberg, a mediator best known for resolving the Agent Orange class-action suit, got...