"Open regionalism" represents an effort to resolve one of the central problems of contemporary trade policy: how to achieve compatibility between the explosion of regional trading arrangements around the world and the global trading system as embodied in the World Trade Organization. The concept...

Five major lessons for successful global trade management emerge from the first fifty years of the GATT/WTO system. They need to be applied to the present situation to set the stage for another half century of successful multilateral trade cooperation. I will summarize the key headings at the...

The succession of severe financial and exchange rate crises in recent years has given a new sense of urgency to the debate on the "international financial architecture." Given the severity of these events, it is hard to justify the claim made by some that what is really at issue is a coincidence...

1999 is likely to be a watershed year for the world trading system. The Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization in Seattle in November/December hopes to chart a course for global trade policy in the early part of the twenty-first century. The European Union, Japan, the United...

A large part of the world has eliminated all barriers to trade or is in the process of doing so. The fifteen members of the European Union have created a "single internal market." Australia and New Zealand have completed their free trade area. Several large groupings are en route to a similar...

An essential pillar of a US strategy toward East Asian integration is acceptance of the legitimacy and desirability of that process. US acceptance of the economic integration of Europe is the model. Further, the United States--as well as Canada and Mexico--should seek to nest any new...

C. Fred Bergsten The decision by the House of Representatives on April 10 to change the rules for Congressional action on trade agreements drives a gaping hole in US trade policy and poses the gravest threat to the global trading system in decades. By rejecting long-settled procedures that...

The mission of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC)--created in 1969 through an amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act--is "to mobilize and facilitate the participation of United States private capital and skills in the economic and social development of less developed countries...

At their latest annual summit in Vietnam in November 2006, the leaders of the 21 members of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum agreed to "seriously consider" negotiating a Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP). The FTAAP initiative may well turn out to be the best, or...

The dollar rose by about 35 percent in real terms from 1995 through the end of 2001, supporting the booming US economy of the late 1990s but pushing the current account deficit to a record high of almost 5 percent of GDP. This special report provides alternative views of how large a dollar...