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In RealTime posts, PIIE senior staff and colleagues discuss the fast-moving economic news, financial developments, and public policy choices confronting the United States and the world.
Just when the outsourcing debate seemed to reach bottom, it fell into the basement. Pandering started with Obama’s attack ads on Bain Capital, and by extension, Romney in his career as a maestro of private equity. The Washington Post contributed to the silliness with a long article dissecting Bain’s record in creating and eliminating jobs, [...]
Setting aside Syria, South Korea may be the only country in the world with politics more polarized than the United States. While in Seoul last week I was reminded of this when the leaders of the political opposition attempted to march on the US embassy to deliver letters addressed to President Obama and Vice President [...]
The mid-November meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum produced some welcome news for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a potential agreement that could clear the way for more trade and investment across the Pacific. Most important, three countries—Canada, Japan, and Mexico—announced that they would explore the possibility of joining the negotiations, which already [...]
By taking three steps to improve the United States’ trade imbalance and boost exports, President Obama and Congress can create three to four million jobs at no cost to the Federal Budget. First, the United States must, in effect, weaken the dollar by 10 to 20 percent—an action that would by itself produce one million [...]
A rancorous debate is taking place over whether to link reauthorization and reform of Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA)—which provides assistance to workers, farmers, fishermen, and firms adversely affected by increased import competition and offshore shifts in production—to other legislation moving through Congress. Given TAA’s small size, the issue isn’t whether to link it or not, [...]
This week marked (hopefully) the beginning of the end of one of the longest-running cases in NAFTA history. A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed by the United States Department of Transportation and Mexico’s Secretaries of Transportation and Communication, will bring the United States closer to completing its obligations under the North American Free Trade Agreement [...]
The office of the US Trade Representative has taken the little noticed but highly unfortunate step of blocking Jennifer Hillman’s second term on the WTO Appellate Body. This is a bad omen, both for the World Trade Organization and the United States. The Appellate Body (AB) decides appeals from panel decisions in trade disputes. Since [...]
As we discussed last week, there were rumblings from the House International Affairs Committee about the treatment of the Kaesong Industrial Complex in the context of the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement (KORUS) legislation, with Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Ca) likening it to a "slave labor camp" and Committee chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fl) and eight co-sponsors introducing [...]
President Obama’s trip to East Asia over the next two weeks comes at an important time in Asian regionalism. East Asian governments have been moving on several fronts toward regional cooperation and, while some skepticism might be justified, the rest of the world would be wrong to dismiss these developments as inconsequential. The United States, [...]
The need for a new equilibrium in global current account and trade imbalances has compelled American policymakers to urge Germany to change its model from that of an export-led economy to one based more on domestic consumption. This would be in keeping with the message delivered in July at the Peterson Institute for International Economics [...]