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 Few Differences Exist on China Policy between Obama and McCainMonday, September 29, 2008 Recent position papers issued by the two US presidential candidates in Beijing on the American Chamber of Commerce website indicate no critical new thinking on China and very little difference between the Obama and McCain policy prescriptions. It appears as though neither the Beijing regime nor the US multinationals in its thrall have much to worry about from the next US administration. • Read more about William R. Hawkins • E-Mail William R. Hawkins |
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| Can the US Depend on an "International Defense Industrial Base?' Tuesday, September 16, 2008 The Europeans have long wanted the American taxpayer to bail out their shrinking defense industries. That's why they have wheedled their way into the DOD procurement process. But make no mistaks. These are competitors to American defense firms and do not have American national interests at heart. In short, we are risking the health and longevity of our defense industrial base by treating these so-called allies as equals to our own firms. |
| US Must Adopt New Approach to Deal with Chinese Economic and Strategic Challenge Saturday, August 16, 2008 The current Olympics are eerily reminiscent of the 1936 Berlin Olympics -- when another rising, authoritarian power sought to showcase for the world its capabilities. China is posing an increasing economic challenge to the United States and the global trading system. Unless the United States begins to recognize that fact and adapt its trade and economic policies to deal with the reality of Chinese cheating -- whether through currency manipulation, IP theft, illegal subsidies, etc. -- global imbalances will grow even greater and the entire world economy will be put at risk. |
| Half-Right Reich: Real Problems, Nitwit Solutions Tuesday, February 19, 2008 A loony academic strikes again -- this time in the person of Robert Reich, Bill Clinton's Secretary of Labor. His solution to the problem of stagnant wages that have plagued the American economy since the mid-1970s, when our trade posture began to spiral out of control, is to redistribute the wealth that remains. Great idea, Bob. Let's not solve the real problems at the bottom of the trade deficit like foreign currency manipulation and subsidies. Let's instead put a socialist scheme in place and expect better results than the Soviet Union or Maoist China got. |
| Stimulus Package: It's the Election, Stupid! Saturday, February 02, 2008 Stimulus packages don't work the way they used to. Neither do rate cuts by the Federal Reserve. Why? We don't make what gets bought with the money -- China does. (Or we create a housing bubble.) So instead of sending the Chinese more dollars to put into Sovereign Wealth Funds that return to buy up America, let's devise a plan to bring manufacturing and good-paying jobs back to the United States. When the money circulates in our own economy, it can actually do some good. But that's not the case under current circumstances. |
| The Bali "Roadmap" and Environmental Double Standards Monday, January 21, 2008 The recent environmental conference in Bali continued to set double standards for developed and developing countries. The less-developed are free to pollute, while the latter must curb drastically their emissions. The same jaundiced thinking that led to the Kyoto Protocol continues to infect the environmental movement, which would like nothing better than to see living standards fall in the West through deindustrialization, while allowing living standards to rise in the less-developed world through massive and ongoing pollution. |
| The U.S. Chamber’s Phony Rhetoric and False Claims on Trade and Competitiveness Thursday, January 17, 2008 U.S. Chamber of Commerce boss Tom Donohue is at it again. Dissembling like it is going out of style, Donohue and the Chamber's wordsmiths are trying to paint the Chamber as the champion of domestic businesses and their workers. Nothing could be further from the truth, as the Chamber represents the cream of "American" multinational outsourcers, and spends a ton of money to defeat pragmatic, pro-American candidates for public office. |
| Third Strategic Economic Dialogue with China a Dangerous Failure Sunday, December 16, 2007 The series of Strategic Economic Dialogues that the United States is conducting with China is designed by Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to dissipate efforts here at home to take strong action against Beijing's mercantilist practices -- rather than to change those practices. Paulson is a man of limited vision (limited to Wall Street and the financial services sector), whose concerns do not encompass the survival of domestic American manufacturing or the geopolitical threat to the United States posed by a rising China. |
| Has the U.S. Navy Become the Forgotten Service? Wednesday, December 05, 2007 Much more thought must be given to the future size, shape, and equiping of the U.S. Armed Forces. The Congress and the public are so preoccupied with getting out of Iraq that a healthy debate on the structure and cost of the nest-generation forces is found only fleetingly in professional publications. The Navy, in particular, is getting short shrift -- although it is the very foundation of America's ability to project power and defend herself in an increasingly dangerous world. |
| Will Congress Sell Out the American People at "U.S." multinational CEOs' Request? Tuesday, November 20, 2007 If there is any lingering doubt whose side so-called American multinational corporate leaders take in U.S.-China controversies, the letter they signed to the Congressional leadership last week erases all doubt. To dispel any suspense, it is not the American side. These corporate whores are taking full advantage of unfair Chinese trade practices -- including Chinese currency manipulation, the Chinese Value Added Tax rebates for their exports to the United States, labor completely controlled by the government, many other subsides and tax breaks, a complete lack of environmental, health, and safety regulations, etc. As Lincoln said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." Too bad he didn't predict how long it would take to fall. |
| Paulson's Treasury Trying to Undermine New National Security Act on Foreign Investment Sunday, November 11, 2007 The Foreign Investment and National Security Act of 2007 was signed into law last July by President Bush. It is Congress's response to several recent political firestorms surrounding attempted foreign acquisitions of prominent American assets, including the Dubai Ports and UNOCAL deals. No sooner than the law was put on the books, however, than the Treasury Department began trying to undo its intent by having Treasury remain as "the decider" -- cutting out critical Executive Branch agencies that have national security charters, such as Defense and Homeland Security. Treasury is backed in its efforts by the transnational business community, which does not want any restrictions on its deal-making anywhere in the world. In the new global economy, U.S. national security and national interests seem destined to take a back seat to the needs of so-called American multinational corporations. |
| The Patent Reform Act: Boon to Chinese Pirates Thursday, November 01, 2007 Big Tech companies like Microsoft, Intel, Apple, Dell, HP, Cisco and Oracle are attempting to push through Congress a patent "reform" bill that favors their particular business model. They are opposed by most other economic sectors, which use diferent business models -- including domestic manufacturing, high-tech and bio-tech firms, universities, non-profit research centers, pharmaceuticals, venture capitalists, and individual inventors. A pitched battle is raging for control of the 217-year-old American patent system, the world's best. However, far too little attention is being paid to the international implications of radically changing the system. The fact that Lenovo, the giant Chinese computer firm, is firmly on Big Tech's side speaks volumes about how the "reforms" will benefit China, already the source of 70 percent of the world's intellectual piracy. |
| A New Chapter in China's Commercial Warfare: China's Strategic Investment Campaign Targets Dual-Use American Technologies Friday, October 19, 2007 China is now running multifacted campaigns to undermine U.S. global leadership and emerge as the world's dominant military, scientific, manufacturing, and commercial power in the 21st century. The emergence of Strategic Investment Funds, backed by the $1.3 billion in hard currency that China has "earned" through its mercantilist, surplus-producing trade policies, is a frightening development. China is using these funds to gain "back-door" access to informationa and technologies that it could not acquire outright. As usual, the White House and Congress are asleep at the switch. |
| U.S. Senate Should Reject the Law of the Sea Treaty Wednesday, October 10, 2007 Like a bad penny, the abominable Law of the Sea Treaty continues to circulate in American political circles. Correctly rejected by President Reagan as a masive encroachment on U.S. sovereignty and freedom of action, the Treaty remains a favorite of those seeking to bind the US in nautical matters -- just as bad trade agreements like the WTO have bound us in economic matters. Please use the letter above to tell your Senator to reject the treaty. |
| 21st Century Warfare Will Outstrip the Capabilities of Our Declining Defense Industrial Base Monday, October 08, 2007 The United States has paid and continues to pay a terrible price for the large cuts in military forces that took place in the Clinton administration - partially on the basis of the post-Cold War euphoria. The Bush administration's "short-war strategy" -- promulgated by Defnse Secretary Rumsfeld and his neo-conservative cohort -- was an historic blunder that matched the errors of Robert McNamara and his whiz kids. Both administrations were seduced by ideological free trade theories that have stripped away much of the U.S. defense industrial base, a sine qua non of successful war fighting. The country now finds itself in a very questionable position to fight the types of conflicts likely to continue to come its way in the 21st century, regardless of the outcome in Iraq. |
| U.S. Senate Needs to Rethink Patent "Reform" Wednesday, September 26, 2007 The U.S. Congress is about to strangle the American patent system -- the envy of the world and the chief engine of innovation, and thus material progress, since the Constitution was written. Why? To please a few Big IT firms and Big Financial firms. Letting Microsoft rewrite patent law to suit its rapacious business model is a particularly bad idea. How can it be that a Democratic Congress, presumably elected to look out for the little guy, feels sorry for Bill Gates and his ilk? Their new patent "reform" law gives a green light to intellectual property thieves while stiffing domestic manufacturers and working Americans. |
| What Bin Laden, Chavez, and Chomsky Have in Common -- and Have Wrong Tuesday, September 18, 2007 Osame Bin Laden's newest diatribe against the United States sounds a lot like Hugo Chavez's rant against America at the UN last fall. They both copycat the perenial hard left criticisms of Noam Chomsky against American democracy and capitalism. However, all three are muddled thinkers -- simply because modern, so-called American multinational corporations are in fact not American at all, but deracinated entities whose only loyalties are to their own bottom lines. |
| New Propaganda from The Club for Growth (in China) Monday, August 20, 2007 The Club for Growth is a libertarian organization dedicated to electing public officials who parrot its free trade ideology. It serves as a globalization cheerleader for multinational corporations that engage in labor arbitrage, substituting cheap Chinese workers for more expensive American ones -- not to serve the Chinese market but to export back to the American market. The Club tried to make headlines recently by trumpeting a petition signed by one thousand "economists," all of whom apparently believe that it is fine for China to engage in protectionism, but are horrified at the thought that the U.S. Congress might takes steps to counter that protectionism. |
| Stopping the New Chinese "Hoard" From Dominating the World Saturday, August 04, 2007 China has acquired over $1 trillion in hard currency reserves, courtesy of employing its predatory trade practices against the United States and others. Those reserves will reach $2 trillion in the not too distant future. Rather than having them sit passively in U.S. Treasury bills, the Chinese have begun to deploy this economic power strategically, buying up natural resources around the world and technologically advanced companies here in the United States. American policymakers seem oblivious to the long-term consequences of the Chinese strategy. |
| U.S. Corruption and Cowardice Feed the Rise of Superpower China Monday, July 02, 2007 Francois Jullien, a French scholar of Chinese philosophy, has argued, “Chinese strategy aims to use every possible means to influence the potential inherent in the forces at play to its own advantage, even before the actual engagement.” Trade -- built on currency manipulation, subsidies, and intellectual property theft -- is thus not an alternative to conflict, it is part of Beijing’s constant struggle to “rise” and overthrow American preeminence. |
| Combat Lessons of Iraq, Not Rumsfeld's Theories, Will Shape Future U.S. Military Procurement Wednesday, June 06, 2007 Donald Rumsfeld. like his predecessor several times removed, Robert MacNamara, brought to the Pentagon abstract notions about the size and shape of U.S. forces, as well as a corporate CEO's notion about how the military establishment should be run. Both men proved abysmal failures as Secretary of Defense. The current House Armed Services Committee is in the process of re-shaping the military with the real-life lessons learned in combat in Iraq. |
| Strategic Economic Dialogue With China Ends in Failure Thursday, May 24, 2007 The Strategic Economic Dialogue between the United States and China is a hoax, pure and simple. It is designed ostensibly to solve disputes and points of contention between the two nations. It's real purpose is to lull Congress and the American people to sleep with the notion that critical issues are being addressed forthrightly. Nothing could be further from the truth. And we have seen these high-level dialogues fail before. Just look at the MOSS (Market Oriented Sector Specific) or SII (Strategic Impediments Initiative) talks with Japan. Years of yaking, no useful result. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson is leading the current chit-chat diplomacy so that his friends on Wall Street can get some small share of the Chinese financial market, while the much more important Amerian manufacturing center is going out of business waiting for its government to end Chinese subsidies and other unfair trade practices. With a government like ours, who needs foreign adversaries? |
| U.S. Policy Elites Supine in the Face of Chinese Trade Cheating Tuesday, May 15, 2007 US policy elites are asleep at the switch while domestic manufacturers and American workers continue to suffer the effects of the former's negligence. East Asian currency manipulation must be addressed immediately, while the United States still has some clout left. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson is doing a spectaclar job -- for the Chinese. Since he refuses to address the undervaluation of the yuan -- which is his job, he should resign and become China's Finance Minister or Central Banker, roles in which he would undoubtedly be much more comfortable. |
| Chinese Counter-Attack After US Files WTO Cases on IP Theft and Ilegal Subsidies Tuesday, May 08, 2007 The Chinese have been cheating on trade in violation of their WTO obligations since the minute they joined that ineffective organization. After years of chit-chat diplomacy, the United States has filed cases with the WTO to try to halt the Chinese transgressions. Let's see if the U.S. paper tiger actually has teeth, carries through the cases, and imposes sanctions on Chinese products -- that is assuming that the feckless WTO knows cheating when it sees it. |
| Bush Administration Takes Halting Steps on Unfair Chinese Trade Practices Tuesday, April 24, 2007 The Bush Adminisrtation believes wholeheartedly in free trade -- except when it comes to China. China is allowed to restrict trade in its currency to control its value, or more accurately to undervalue the yuan. It is allowed to steal as much American intellectual property as it wants. It is allowed to subsidize its manufacturers with low or no cost loans. Etc. Yet for six years the Bushies have done nothing, believing apparently that it is written somewhere in free trade annals that manufacturers in Ohio, for example, must go out of business in order for China to "develop." Now for the first time the Bush Administration has filed some trade cases with the almost worthless WTO -- in spite of the fact that China has violated its WTO obligations from the moment it joined seven years ago. The Bush actions are likely to be too little, too late -- given the current state of domestic manufacturing. Because China continues to cheat, many domestic American manufacturers have their backs to the wall. They cannot compete with the Chinese on price given the masive Chinese subsidies, but must rely on just-in-time techniques and superior knowledge of the U.S. market. But China is not far behind on this power curve either. More drastic actions are necessary, but the Bush Administration is unwilling to address the China problem comprehensively. . |
| China Apologist : U.S. Must Decline as China Returns to Former Greatness Friday, April 06, 2007 According to one prominent China apologist, Chas Freeman, the United States must inevitably decline as China rises to its former glory. Democratic liberalization of China doesn't factor into this rise as economic progress is what counts the most - not democracy, human rights, or religious rights. Further, according to Freeman, the United States has lost its way in the world, while China is just beginning to hit its stride. This point of view is strongly reminiscent of the school of thought that trumpeted the decline of the United States and the rise of Japan in the late 1980s. It didn't prove to be true in that case, but Japan, at least a nominal U.S. treaty ally, wasn't pouring billions into its military forces either. |
| Defense Offsets are Spreading Protectionism Across Commercial Sectors Saturday, March 31, 2007 Offsets have long distorted free trade and destroyed American comparative advantage in the defense industry. But as is the case with currency manipulation, the free traders in the Bush Administration and elsewhere won't hear of free trade in defense systems and allow offsets to continue to impact negatively U.S. trade flows. |
| Treasury Secretary Paulson Still Sees His Mission as Building Up China's Economy Wednesday, March 14, 2007 Hank Paulson, former CEO of Goldman Sachs and current Treasury Secretary, was at it again this week, trying to rationalize China's economic development as somehow in the interest of the United States and the rest of the world. His goal is apparently to secure greater access to the Chinese banking system for his former Wall Street colleagues. Unfortunately, even if allowed to purchase controlling interests in Chinese banks, Wall Stret firms will not be able to control China's rapidly increasing military build-up or the potential use of its forces against the United States in future years. Paulson, investment banker that he is, appears oblivious to the larger strategic picture, i.e., that the People's Liberation Army is one of the chief beneficiaries of China unbriddled economic growth -- much of which comes through unfair trade practices such as currency manipulation, intellectual property theft, outright subsidies, and the use of a Value Added Tax system to provide producers in China with a competitive edge. |
| GAO Report:: Uncoordinated Federal Technology Policies Put Nation At Risk Sunday, March 04, 2007 The end of the Cold War brought with it the mistaken belief that major challenges to the security of the United States had vanished. What actually occured was the fragmentation of the security arena into multiple, worldwide challenges. According to the latest Government Accountability Office report, the Executive Branch is doing a poor job of addressing those challenges, especially in the area of technology critical to national security. |
| A New Approach to Budget and Trade Deficts Wednesday, February 21, 2007 Our national competitiveness would be given a big boost if Congress would eliminate the unfair advantage created by the different treatment of direct (i.e., income taxes) and indirect (i.e., value added taxes) taxation in the world trading system. Over 130 of our trading partners use a Value Added Tax, which is rebated at the border for exports or imposed at the border for imports. We have no such rebate or border tax. That means our domestically made products take two hits -- one in our home market against products carrying no income or VAT taxes and another in foreign markets, where they carry both our income tax and the foreign country's VAT. We could take a large step toward bringing down both our budget and trade deficits by imposing a border equalization tax to eliminate the disparity and unfairness caused by the VAT. |
| Sen. Dodd Seeks to Strengthen the Defense Production Act Friday, February 02, 2007 As the U.S. defense industrial base continues to wither away and European defense contractors replace their American competitors as Pentagon contractors, the Bush administration remains asleep at the switch, oblivious to the national security implications. One good development to come out of the change in the Senate's leadership is the emphasis being placed on the renewal and updating of the critical Defense Production Act by Sen. Chris Dodd, new Chair of the Banking Committee. |
| China Tests an Anti-satellite Missile and America's Mettle Friday, January 26, 2007 President Eisenhower's farewell speech, in which he warned of the dangers of the "military-industrial complex" was prescient for about thirty years, but is now dated. Ike, of course, could not have forseen the military industrial-financial-multinational corporate complex that would emerge after the rise of trade-agreement globalization and the resultant collapse of domestic American manufacturing. Nor would he probably have believed that a Republican administration, dominated by globalist cheerleaders, would contribute so heavily to rise of China as America's main rival and the 21st century's superstate. |
| A New Security Arc in East Asia Monday, January 15, 2007 Does the U.S.-India nuclear deal make strategic sense? The argument presented here it that it does, given the necessity for the United States to counter China adventurism and proliferation activities, and also to create a bulwark against radical Islamist states. The United States, Japan, and India can form a de facto alliance of stability and security in the Pacific and Indian Oceans if the appropriate political and economic structures are put into place. The nuclear deal is just one piece in a larger framework. The only fly in the ointment: Toshiba of Japan now owns the once mighty U.S. Westinghouse, and is seeking a corner on nuclear power generation. |
| U.S. Defense Industry Succumbs to Outsourcing National Security Wednesday, December 27, 2006 If there is any industry that ought to resist pressures to outsource its work, it is the defense industry. The only reason for its existence is to protect the American homeland. How can this mission be accomplished if the defense industry is dependent on foreign sources for its weapons systems. Defense outsourcing is non sequitur, but unfortunately it is not a non-starter, as it ought to be. |
| U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission Highlights Beijing's Unfair Trade Practices and Military Build-up Friday, December 01, 2006 There are only a few outfits in Washington that actually understand the full ramifications of what the ruthless regime in Beijing is up to with its unfair, mercantilist trade practices and its resulting military build-up. Both are intended to replace the United States as the world's commercial and military leader. Most of Beijing's trade and industrial policies are in clear violation of its obligations as a member of the World Trade Organization. Yet, the Bush administration, multinational corporations, their hired guns -- both in DC and in academia, and the general run of free traders and globalization cheerleaders in the media and elsewhere blithely ignore what the Chinese are up to, blinded as they are by either their free trade ideology or their corporate and personal greed. Thanks to the China Commission for continuing to set the record straight. |
| Voters Aware that GOP is Losing the Trade War Too Tuesday, November 21, 2006 Exit polling shows that Iraq and corruption in Washington were not the only issues on voters' minds. The state of the economy and trade were also uppermost among the electorate's concerns and played a decisive role in many contests. |
| Panama as a Bellweather of U.S. Fortunes: the Storm Gathers Saturday, November 04, 2006 As much of Latin America slips from the U.S. orbit and too much of its population slips across our southern border, the selection of Panama as the compromise candidate for a UN Security Council seat is not a harbinger of good things to come for the United States. Neither is the current plan to widen the Canal to allow more Chinese goods to flood the American market. Teddy Roosevelt's decision to build an American Canal in order to fulfill his vision of America as a Pacific power has been completely subverted by poor strategic and economic decisions. |
| Massive US Trade Deficits Have Not Made China Cooperative Tuesday, October 24, 2006 In spite of the fact that our trade deficits with China keep breaking all-time records, the Beijing regime sees them as a sign of American weakness and decline. Thus Beijing is not inclined to cooperate with the United States on any issues of concern because it beleives it has the upper hand. It public statements in the wake of the North Korea nuclear test bear this out. China still supports Kim's rogue regime, taking only those actions necessary to prevent harm to China itself -- like a flood of North Korea refugees acrosss the border. Short of a China-impacting event, Beijing is content to let Kim give the United States and its allies fits. |
| The "Goldman Sachs Effect" Transfers the Strategic Advantage to China Thursday, September 28, 2006 The various news headlines tell a scandalous story: The People's Liberation Army fires anti-satellite lasers at U.S. military satellites; The new Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson, returns home from China empty handed; Iran and North Korea continue their nuclear programs; Goldman Sachs, Paulson's former firm, continues to make a ton of money in China. Can you connect the dots and spot the conflicts of interest that the Bush Administraiton can't? |
| Why is Hank Paulson acting as though China is still his Client? Wednesday, September 20, 2006 Just whose side is Hank Paulson on? Is it ethical for a Treasury Secretary to maintain his former clients once he takes office? USBIC opposed the Paulson nomination because we believed that he was too compromised to serve a Treasury Secretary because of his close relationships with the Chinese political and economic elite. His public remarks and actions since he took the helm at Treasury have unfortunately borne out our worst fears. Don't look for any meaningful action on China while the Bush administration holds office. |
| Is Rumsfeld's "Revolution in Military Affaris" Finally Over? Tuesday, September 12, 2006 Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld came to the Pentagon with plans to transform the U.S. military into a 21st century fighting force -- a much lighter, more mobile, and more easily deployable force. His 10-30-30 plan -- 10 days to deploy, 30 days to fight, and 30 more days to secure the peace and return home ready for the next battle -- is a major casulaty of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Additionally, rational observers learned that longer wars require a healthy, domestic defense industrial base to supply the troops and sustain their efforts -- a truism that has been known for centuries, but forgotten in this one. The burning question is whether Rumsfeld and the Bush Administration have learned any lessons about the type of military we need and the type of wars it may have to fight in the 21st century. More importantly, have they any inkling that the defense industrial base, which undergirds any successful war effort, continues to slip away to China and other trading partners? So far, the clues are not promising. |
| The U.S. Senate's Kow-Tow Caucus Monday, August 28, 2006 The recent visit to China of a U.S. Senate delegation and the public statements of the Senators show clearly why nothing is being done in Washington to curb unfair Chinese trade pracitces -- whether currency manipulation, intellectual property theft, subsidies to manufacturers, etc. It also explains why the United States remains supine in the face of the Chinese military build-up, aided by American-supplied capital and technology. Perhaps there ought to be a new verb in the English language: Instead of being shanghaied, American politicans and government officials are now being beijinged, i.e., turned into parrots who squawk that China's rise is totally benign and somehow in America's national interest. Polly want a fortune cookie? |
| U.S. Business Should Treat Castro Like the Enemy He Is Saturday, August 12, 2006 The sell-anything-to-anybody multinational business crowd is at it again, trying to break down barriers to doing business with Cuba's aging tyrant. Castro's current illness should suggest to rational and patriotic people here that there is an upcoming struggle for power in Cuba and that American business should be on the right side of it, i.e., by witholding financial assistance and technology from the communist thugs who run the island and by betting on a free and democratic Cuba in the long term. Unfortunately, multinational waterboys like Kirby Jones of the U.S.-Cuba Trade Association and Bill Reinsch of the National Foreign Trade Council insist on putting the interests of tyrants and their multinational corporate members ahead of the interests and aspirations of the Cuban and American peoples. |
| "Rich country, strong army" Friday, July 28, 2006 The United States, due to the decline of its industrial base and the advanced technology and national wealth that it generated, faces a stark choice in a world of terrorist organizations and rogue nations: Either find a way to preserve the industrial base, create national wealth, and field a military of superior size and capability -- or withdraw from its role as world superpower and policeman. Through ill-advised trade, international economic, and defense policies, that choice is being made daily for U.S. policymakers -- in Tehran, Damascus, Pyongyang, Beijing, Moscow, and in various caves and safe houses around the world. Ironically, it is also being made for us in the capitals of alleged American allies, whose adversarial trade policies are hollowing out our economy. The real problem is that U.S. policymakers, politicians, and pundits don't see the connections and don't have a clue what is happening. We are barreling down a road to oblivion as we ignore the wisdom of the Japanese Meiji era proverb: "Rich Country, strong army." |
| NAFTA "Superhighway" Spells the End of NAFTA Countries Manufacturing Alliance Tuesday, July 18, 2006 The creation of a NAFTA "Superhighway" -- with new rail and road links from Mexican Pacific coast ports to the Midwest -- spells the end of the US-Mexican economic alliance and its replacement by the Chinese juggernaut. The Superhighway has nothing to do with NAFTA as conceived at all, but rather is designed to facilitate the flow of Chinese-made goods into the American heartland. The Superhighway's roadkill is more Mexican and American manufacturing plants and their workers. |
| Competing House and Senate Bills to Reform Process of Foreign Acquisitions of US Defense Firms Leave Much to Be Desired -- Yet Multinational Lobbyists Seek to Weaken Them Monday, July 17, 2006 Remember the political firestorm over the Dubai Ports deal? (By the way, we still don't know whether the proposed divestment by Dubai Ports World has been resolved satisfactorily.) Well, it spawned separate House and Senate bills, both of which leave much to be desired. Yet the multinational business lobby is working hard to see that the weakest possible bill emerges in this Congressional session -- proving once more that the nation's security is too important to be left in the hands of internationalist CEOs and their henchmen. |
| "Banking" on China: Stephen Roach's Panda-nomics Saturday, June 17, 2006 The pronouncements of Stephen Roach, the Morgan Stanley economic commentator, are widely followed on the subject of globalization. However, he is badly mistaken on the cause of our massive and growing trade deficits, which he blames on our low savings rate. It is rather the thirty-year hollowing out of manufacturing base -- with its high-paying jobs, R&D, and wealth creation -- that is at the heart of the problem. Americans need to produce more here at home and keep the money used to buy the products circulating in our own economy -- rather than sending it overseas to be used by foreigners to buy up still more of our productive assets. This truth may be upsetting to Morgan Stanley and it clients in China, but it is the only way out of the current, unsustainable situation in which we find ourselves. |
| Treasury Nominee Paulson Has Supported China's Rise to Power Wednesday, May 31, 2006 President Bush has nominated Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson to be the next Secretary of the Treasury, replacing the inept John Snow. While Snow was outwitted and publicly insulted by his Chinese counterpart at every possible turn, Paulson has been actively involved in raising capital and investment funds for the Chinese government and all manner of Chinese firms, including state-owned enterprises. Given his involvement with China and the fact that his job at Treasury should require him to stand up for domestic American firms and attack Chinese mercantilism, currency manipulation, intellectual property theft, and other unfair, anti-competitive Chinese practices, one wonders how Bush could have ignored the obvious conflicts of interest. It is almost impossible to imagine a worse selection. |
| Immigration and Outsourcing: How to Pit Cheap Labor Against the American Middle Class Wednesday, May 24, 2006 The broad middle class, one of America's singular accomplishments, is under a two-pronged attack -- from illegal immigration and outsourcing. Cheap labor is imported, driving down wages and displacing workers here, and jobs are outsourced, creating additional surplus workers and again surpressing the wages of remaining workers, who fear their jobs too will soon be sent overseas. |
| Multinational Corporate Lobbyists Seek to Improve Private Profits at the Expense of U.S. National Security Friday, May 12, 2006 Lobbyists from multinational and defense corporations are trying to limit the scope of U.S. government controls on the export of military and dual-use items to China. The dictatorial Chinese government is all for it. Their ongoing military build-up is aimed at expelling the "hegemon," i.e., the United States, from East Asia. To increase their firms' profits, the corporate lobbyists do the bidding of the Chinese government, without considering the larger consequences -- which is what a real government is supposed to do. This drama will play out over the next several months. Will the lobbyists be successful and leave the American taxpayer to foot the bill of increased military costs needed to defeat the technologies newly gained by the Chinese? |
| Bush vs. Hu: Free Trade, China, and the Road to Ruin Wednesday, April 26, 2006 Blind adherence to free trade ideology led England to continue to follow policies that allowed her to be surpassed by Germany and the United States. In fact, but for American assistance, England would have been destroyed by Germany in the early 1940s. Today American leaders wear the same ideological blinders, which are allowing China to rise as an unchallenged economic, political, and military power. Unfortunately for America, there is no other world power standing in the wings ready to replicate her role in assisting England. |
| China Seeks to Perpetuate Advantages, Not Solve Problems Thursday, April 20, 2006 China is attempting to assure the outside world that its surging economic growth and global influence do not pose a threat to anyone, particularly to the United States. This has been the aim of Beijing’s statements leading up to the Hu-Bush summit. Unfortunately, Beijing cannot be believed. |
| Foreign Governments Attempt to Obtain Key U.S. Defense Technologies Thursday, April 13, 2006 Americans are told by their political leaders and other assorted free trade cheerleaders that they must accept a loss in competitiveness in a number of consumer goods categories, from electronics to automobiles, and should concentrate their efforts in their areas of comparative strength. Yet, when the United States has a clearly demonstrated competitive advantage in a major sector, such as armaments, its customers demand offsets to prevent the American economy from fully realizing the gains from trade – and the free trade ideologues say and do nothing. As the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security has reported, “Almost 80 percent of offset transactions reported for the 1993-2004 period fell in the manufacturing sectors of the U.S. economy, eroding U.S. production and workforce capabilities and the balance of payments benefits of the export.” |
| French Takeover of Lucent (including technology gem Bell Labs) should Come Under Close Scrutiny by CFIUS Tuesday, April 04, 2006 Many financial industry organization have signed on to a letter to Sen. Richard Shelby, Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, asking him not to reform in any substantial way the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. In effect, they are requesting that he retain the status quo, i.e. that CFIUS remain a rubber stamp operation for foreign takeovers of U.S. defense- related firms. CFIUS was set up in 1975 to review inward bound investment in the wake of the 1970s oil crisis and expanded in 1988 to look at buy-ups of American defense firms. It has one turn-down to its credit out of 1500 plus cases over the years. (In addition, a few foreign firms have withdrawn their takeover bids when it was obvious they would be turned down.) Shelby needs to ignore the bankers, strengthen the operation of CFIUS to include economic security as well as national security in its mission statement, and to set it loose to investigate the proposed takeover of Lucent, with its technology gem Bell Labs, by the French (government-owned) firm Alcatel. Such a takeover would be banned in Paris and that model should be good enough for Washington. |
| Dubai Ports Issue has Opened the Legislative Door for More Positive Change Thursday, March 16, 2006 The United States has lost control of its critical infrastructure, as the Dubai Ports deal shows. Rep. Duncan Hunter has put forward a bill that will begin to reverse the trend. The proof of just how good a concept and bill this is can be convincingly demonstrated by the fulminations against the bill from that knee-jerk bastion of free trade orthodoxy, the Washington Post editorial board. Go Congressman Hunter! |
| Why The American Public Rejects the Bush Economic "Plan" (Part 2) Friday, February 24, 2006 The President's reaction to the furor generated by the Dubai Ports deal is first bafflement, then aggressiveness. He has threatened to veto any legislation blocking the deal -- or even calling for a more thorough review. Bush is puzzled and combatitive because (a) he is a dyed-in-the-wool free trader and can't understand how anyone would not believe in free trade, and (b) Congress for years has passed that trade deals that lead to the current situation. If Congress doesn't care about the massive trade deficits that have sent trillions of dollars overseas in the past decade, on what grounds do they object when foreigners use those dollars to buy up American assets, even strategic ones? The American public knows intuitively that the ports deal is only the tip of a massive iceberg -- one that will soon sink the entire American economy unless Congress makes an immediate mid-course correction. |
| Why the American Public Rejects the Bush Economic "Plan" Wednesday, February 15, 2006 The current polling numbers on the economic performance of the Bush presidency reflect a high degree of dissatisfaction among the public. The reason is relatively straightforward. Unlike an incumbent administration, the American people actually have to pay their bills each month and cannot "spin" their creditors until they leave office and turn the problem over to someone else. |
| JCS Chairman Pace Engages in Wishful Thinking About Beijing's Military Ambitions Saturday, February 11, 2006 Marine General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has expressed his opinion that China is a diminishing rather than growing military threat to the United States on a number of occcasions. His wishful thinking contradicts other in-depth Pentagon studies of China's rising military capabilities. |
| Building An American Future Means Rejecting the "Davos Culture" Wednesday, February 01, 2006 Davos Culture is the creed of a self-imagined, cosmopolitan, jet-set elite. What many of these business and political elites do not want to acknowledge is that the current trade and commercial battles have wider consequences for the national societies within which most people live. According to UNESCO, only about three percent of people worldwide live outside the country in which they were born. Thus a prosperous, secure, and growing national economy provides more opportunities for the citizens of a specific country than an economy that is being beaten down by foreign rivals. This common sense notion applies even to "superpower" America, but it is one that the President and most of our political leaders do not grasp. |
| China Business Cheerleaders Ignore National Security Threats Thursday, January 19, 2006 American business leaders who have placed their bets and their companies' futures on outsourcing strategies and business development models involving China are exactly the wrong people to discuss the national security threat posed to the UNited States by this totalitarian government and rising military power. They ignore the obvious security threats as inconvenient to their business models and are attempting to unilateral disarm both U.S. government policy and American public opinion. |
| Russia Cuts Off Ukraine's Gas: Great Power Politics As Usual Thursday, January 12, 2006 Russia's recent decision to cut off the flow of natural gas to former Soviet province Ukraine was allegedly a squabble about price. In fact, Russian President Putin is quite serious about returning his country to great power status and assembling allies (including China) and vassal states on Russia's periphery. The gas play was much more about political leverage than market pricing. It's time U.S. officials begin to think strategically about America's position in the world nistead of blindly following free trade theory, which is depleting the country of its manufacturing, technology, and agriculture bases - and with them our ability to create wealth and chart an independent course in world affairs. |
| Hong Kong Trade Ministerial: U.S. Plays "Stakeholder" and Again Gets the Short End of the Stick Thursday, January 05, 2006 Any rational analysis of the decisions made at the recent trade meeting in Hong Kong would conclude that the United States is being played for a fool -- by the "developing world (which includes China and India), as well as by the developed world (the Europeans and Japanese). While every other WTO member country is trying to gain competitive advantage and advance its national interests, the United States is looking out for the "good of the international trading system" -- a house of cards built on exporting as much as you can to the American market. Trees don't grow to the sky, and American wealth is not unlimited. The system will eventually collapse, bringing untold misery, unless some reality and sanity intervene. However, don't expect current U.S. trade officials to be the source of that sanity, compulsively wedded as they are to the abstract theory of free trade. |
| American Farmers to Join Manufacturers in Trade Victim Ranks Wednesday, December 14, 2005 The American farmer is next in line to be sacrificed on the altar of free trade and globalization. The entire focus of the current Doha Round of WTO trade negotiations is on granting preferential treatment to third-world producers at the expense of first-world producers. The trade-off is supposed to be increased access to developing country markets for U.S. financial services. Hopefully those U.S. farmers who remain are getting their MBAs at night. |
| "Detente" with China Proves Illusory Monday, November 21, 2005 If President Bush's trip to Beijing demonstrates any single proposition, it is that Beijing not only is not a reliable partner, but rather a strategic rival that operates contrary to American national interests. |
| U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission Urges Strong and Immediate Action on China Friday, November 11, 2005 The new annual report of the U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission recommends an immediate shift in the Bush Administration's inconsistent approach to China. The USCC and USBIC are about the only two organizations in Washington that are able to see clearly the economic and national security challenges posed by China. Too bad no one seems to be listening. |
| Federal Budget Mess Threatens National Security Monday, October 31, 2005 The Bush tax cuts have diminished federal revenues to dangerously low levels -- far below those needed to field an effective fighting force in the War on Terror and to meet our other national security obligations. There is a happy medium to taxation -- both too little and too much produce undesirable results. At base, the critical responsibilities of government, including national defense, must be met. A tax system that does not raise sufficient revenue to do so must be reexamined. |
| Reform CFIUS to Stop Foreign Raiders from Dismantling the Defense Industrial Base Friday, October 21, 2005 The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States is supposed to be the watchdog arm of the Executive Branch, preventing foreign companies from acquiring critical defense companies and technologies. Instead, since 1988, it has acted as the lapdog of foreign corporations and US multinationals, allowing the dismantling of the defense industrial base one company and one technology at a time. |
| Neither Katrina Nor Terrorism Will Bring Down America, But "Free Trade" Will Tuesday, September 20, 2005 The trade policy levees which protected the American economy from the toxic flood of foreign imports have not just broken, they have been torn down by a succession of free trade administrations. Acolytes of free trade see the flood as a cleansing process that only a few transnational corporations deserve to survive by outsourcing. Luddite Americans, those who still cling to a middle class, patriotic ideal of a vibrant national economy, are left to drown, with no recovery effort in the offering. |
| Importing Poverty: The Cheap Labor Trap Monday, September 05, 2005 Increasing the productivity of current workers through technological innovation is the proper way of increasing competiveness and raising living standards throughout American society. Instead we are investing in capital-intensive processes overseas and achieving competitive savings at home by replacing more highly paid American labor with low cost illegal immigrant labor. |
| Chinese Prove Marx Right: Deracinated US Business Elite Lobbies for Chinese Interests Thursday, August 18, 2005 The Chinese government has Washington pegged. Their new lobbying strategy demonstrates that fact convincingly. |
| Pentagon Report Details China's Rise and Lack of U.S. Strategy Wednesday, August 10, 2005 The annual Defense Department report on China's military power is disturbing for two reasons: It details China's continuing rise to be the dominant regional power, and eventually a superpower. And it demonstrates that the United States lacks a coherent strategy to deal with China. |
| CAFTA Heralds End of Dominance of Free Trade Theory Thursday, August 04, 2005 Ironically, the passage of CAFTA had little to do with the previous dominence of free trade theory on Capitol Hill. While the theory still holds sway in academia, certain powerful editorial boards, and among many business reporters, most Congressman, being ever pragmatic, have lost interest -- especially in light of the damage to the American manufacturing base after the last decade of NAFTA, the WTO, CBI, AGOA, PNTR for China, and the rest of the alphabet soup of so-called free trade agreements. No, CAFTA did not carry because of adherence to free trade, but to the opposition's arguments against free trade, i.e. considering national security first, trading in the national interests, forming regional trading blocks, obtaining trade advantage against China for textile and apparel makers, etc. Free trade is dead. The challenge now becomes for the fair-trade, geopolitical strategists to ensure that the former free traders do not just pay lip serivce to our concerns, but actualy embody them fully in future trade bills. |
| English Bill Provides Little in the Way of Direct Action on China Tuesday, July 26, 2005 The new English bill, H.R. 3283, is nothing more than a watered-down attempt to buy the votes needed to pass CAFTA. But Congress must not take the bait and lose the energy needed to take stronger, more dynamic action to correct the current failed U.S. policies that have made Beijing the rising economic, political, and military power that it is. |
| The Wreck of the Free Trade Model Engenders Myths and Falsehoods Monday, July 11, 2005 As the data reflecting the real world of international commercial rivalry continues to show an expanding U.S. trade deficit that will likely hit $700 billion this year (up from $617 billion last year), a great wailing is heard from the Defenders of Free Trade. Their libertarian economic faith is immune to facts, either from present observation or historical experience. So they readily resort to falsehoods to defend their precious (to them) dogma. |
| China: Why Won't the GOP Defend U.S. National Security? Saturday, July 02, 2005 CIA Director Porter Goss has warned that Beijing is tilting the balance of power against the United States across Asia. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has made the same case in Congressional testimony and at an international conference in Singapore, June 4. Yet, the Bush Administration has no coherent policy to deal with this alarming situation. |
| Desperate Deception: CAFTA as Antidote to the China Trade Juggernaut Friday, June 10, 2005 CAFTA proponents, in their desperation to save a sinking (and ill-advised) trade agreement, are claiming that CAFTA will help U.S. manufacturers compete better with China. That is not a policy but rather a fiction substituting for serious and sustained look at our current outsourcing-based, deficit-expanding trade situation. Hooking up with 44 million impoverished people and outsourcing more American jobs to them will not stop the 1.5 billion person economic juggernaut of China. |
| Don't Cry for the European Union -- Nor Emulate Its Mistakes Friday, June 03, 2005 The popular rejection of the EU constitution by French and Dutch voters is the result of the failure of the “European model” on many levels. The negative votes and the disturbing economic trends that motivated them should serve as a warning to the United States -- both policy makers and individual citizens alike. |
| Renowned Strategist Warns of Dire Threat from China Friday, May 27, 2005 U.S. trade policy is helping to give Beijing the resources needed to challenge American security interests around the world. In a new, posthumously published book, the late national security scholar Constantine Menges advocates an immediate end to trade deficits with China to bolster American industry and to aid democratic allies whose economies are also being ravaged in competition with Chinese exports. |
| Defense Offsets: Why Play Fair with "Allies" Who Don't Friday, May 20, 2005 U.S. military contractors and their Pentagon customers think that defense offsets are just a fact of life, necessary to win sales of defense items overseas. Yet the United States itself doesn't require offsets. As a result, our so-called allies take us to the cleaners time after time. The Pentagon inability to think long-term and strategically about the health of our declining defense industrial base is a national scandal. |
| Jack Kemp, Economic Historian -- NOT! Wednesday, April 27, 2005 Kemp's recent "globalization cheerleader" op-ed on the subject of CAFTA displays an incredible ignorance of economic history. |
| The Bush Administration Wants a Strong China??? Wednesday, April 20, 2005 China turns part of each year's trade surplus with the United States into modern weapons, many designed to defeat U.S. forces. The Bush administration, in its pursuit of free trade above all else, seems blind to that stark fact. The Chinese have said repeatedly that their goal is to expel the hegemon (i.e., the United States) from Asia. Why can't the Bushies take the Chinese at their word and adjust our trade policies accordingly? |
| Treasury and USTR Continue to Dodge China Currency Issue Tuesday, April 12, 2005 In recent reports, both the Treasury Department and the US Trade Representative's Office refuse to treat China's blatant currency manipulation as a trade issue. Yet the 40 percent advantage that China achieves for made-in-China products through its currency peg is an almost insurmountable obstacle for American manufacturers. China's currency manipulation is today the single greatest threat to the survival of American manufacturing. |
| Is America Too Poor To Remain A Military Superpower ? Wednesday, March 30, 2005 In real terms, the American economy has nearly doubled in the twenty year period 1986-2006, while the defense budget has, as a percentage of GDP, been cut nearly in half -- from 6.2 percent to 3.5 percent. One of the defense programs most impacted has been the size of our fleet, which, at current build rates, is headed down to the 180 ship range from a high of 594 ships in the Reagan years. The Bush administration, while displaying imperial tendencies, does not think that the country can afford the 375 ship Navy that the Chief of Naval Operations says we need to maintain current security commitments. Misguided free trade policies continue to strip the United States of its wealth-creation ability and military power, but that basic fact is ignored in today's uninformed debate over how many ships we can afford in the future. |
| The Menace of CAFTA: Loopholes and Hidden Agendas Wednesday, March 23, 2005 CAFTA must be defeated if the United States is to make any headway in restoring sanity to its trade and international economic policies. It is a poorly drafted "outsourcing" agreement that will further harm American national interests. |
| Greenspan's Concerns About Over-Consumption Apply to the Trade Deficit Also Wednesday, March 09, 2005 Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan recently challenged Congress to determine whether the nation was living beyond its means and suggested that higher taxes were preferable to continued federal budget deficits. He noted that many economists favored a consumption tax to decrease spending and increase savings. Why not apply the same principle to the trade defict and impose a consumption tax on foreign-made goods entering the country? There would be many beneficial results. |
| Will Europe Bring Chaos to the World Order by Dethroning America? Wednesday, March 02, 2005 The Europeans have long sought to deprive the United States of its superpower status, and may ultimately succeed -- if American leaders don't wake up soon to the economic warfare both the Europeans and the Asians are waging against us. But, as much as they dislike America's ability to act unilaterally and project military power, the Europeans are not militarily, politically, economically, or socially capable of acting as a superpower. If they succeed in dethroning America, the likely result will be a power vacuum and a much more chaotic world. |
| Record US Trade Deficits Spell Impending Economic Defeat Thursday, February 17, 2005 The expanding outflow of America's hard-earned wealth (aka record trade deficits)to purchase foreign-made manufactured goods is a political and economic scandal of historic proportions. Yet the political class is generally oblivious to the extent of the damage or the corrective steps necessary. We will pay dearly, sooner or later, for the outsourcing of our manufacturing base -- which created our vast wealth, unmatched standard of living, and unrivaled power. |
| China Pursues 'Manifest Destiny' Through Mercantilism and Imperialism Thursday, February 03, 2005 China is emerging as a global power through a combination of mercantilist policies at home and neo-colonial ventures abroad. This combination should force an immediate re-evaluation of American policies toward China but doesn't because of the power of the multinational fifth column operating in Washington. Held captive by their investments in China, the multinationals plead its case in the corridors of power. |
| Europeans Ready to Break with US on Arms Sales to China Thursday, January 27, 2005 The European Union is stepping up the tempo in its efforts to do away with the ban on arms sales to China. Any break in policy with the United States should lead to swift sanctions by Washington on European "merchants of death" doing business with the People's Liberation Army. |
| The Limits of International Aid: Transfer Funds and Supplies, Not Productive Capacity Thursday, January 13, 2005 The United States already runs significant trade deficits with the tsunami-ravaged countries. Transferring food, supplies, and cash to help them in their hour of need is both campassionate and rational. Transferring additional U.S. productive capacity to them is not. |
| Poor Leadership Will Produce A Poor Nation Monday, January 10, 2005 The U.S. trade deficit in 2004 exceed $630 billion. The fall of the dollar shows that the foreigners who benefit from our trade deficits with their countries are increasingly nervous about our ability to continue the current Ponzi scheme. The ability of the United States to project its power and influence on a global scale is also sinking with the dollar. When will our politicians wake up and realize that a poor economy is the result of poor leadership? |
| White House Economic Conference Misreads Current Economic Conditions Monday, December 20, 2004 The recent White House Conference on the economy was a myopic celebration of the president's first term, re-election, and plans for the 109th Congress. Absent were any insights about or even recognition of such huge problems as the rapidly accelerating trade deficit and the sharply declining dollar. |
| Intelligence Reform Should be Done Right or Postponed Until Next Session Sunday, December 05, 2004 If a good intelligence reform bill – i.e., one that includes the Sensenbrenner and Hunter provisions – cannot be written this week, Congress should return to the issue next year when it can consider the provisions without the emotional pressure to “reform” for the sake of reform. All too often, Congress rushes through bad legislation so that Members can claim to their constituents that they have “fixed the problem.” This bill does not fully achieve that objective, and should be set aside until next year unless the Sensenbrenner and Hunter concerns are met. |
| China Is Willing to Narrow Trade Gap With U.S. -- But By Buying America's Best Weapons and Military Technology Tuesday, November 30, 2004 The Chinese government is willing to put billions into purchases of American-made weapons and defense technology, and in doing so, narrow the largest single U.S. trade deficit. Apparently the Chinese are not interested in revaluing their currency or in doing away with the various generous government subsidies to exporters or even in eliminating the many other unfair trades practices they use to boost exports and gain market share here. So the scenario is clear in their minds: Maintain their current mercantilist policies until the only way the Americans can address their unsustainable trade deficit is to arm their only real strategic rival. |
| The Rising Threat from China: Seeing is Believing Monday, November 22, 2004 The first challenge China poses is not military but economic. In that area the threat goes beyond the lop-sided trade imbalance that is menacing American domestic industry and the value of the dollar as the international medium of exchange. The real and longer-term threat is from the vast new wealth and array of modern capabilities that will be available to a dictatorial regime whose strategic ambitions clash with those of the United States. |
| Saving the U.S. Defense Industrial Base Wednesday, November 10, 2004 The health of our defense industrial base has a direction relation to our national security and freedom of action in the world. Allowing European defense firms to survive by participating in our weapons projects, sucking up tax dollars that their own citizens will not provide, is the height of free trade foolishness. |
| Weapons Proliferation to China: Who is More to Blame, the EU or the US? Saturday, October 09, 2004 China is pushing hard for the European Union to lift a 15-year-old arms sales embargo. France and Germany, with their miniscule budgets for defense procurement, are leading the charge to capture a new market for their defense contractors in order to keep them alive. The United States is opposed to the arms sales for strategic reasons, but does it have a leg to stand on as so-called American multinational corporations keep dual-use technology and knowhow flowing to major Chinese defense corporations? |
| China -- Not America -- Is 'Center Stage' for the Fortune 500 Wednesday, October 06, 2004 The inability of U.S. officials to interpret the developments leading up to 9/11 and take corrective actions represents a failure of American intelligence and policymaking. But that regrettable situation pales in comparison to the challenges that likely will face the United States as a result of today’s failure of U.S. strategic thinking about China. |
| New Labor Department Report Reflects Bush Administration's Lack of Seriousness in Addressing Problems Facing U.S. Economy Monday, September 20, 2004 The American economy and the American worker are facing numerous challenges as the result of the "globalization" brought on by the free trade policies of the last three decades. Real wages have been largely stagnant for 25 years. Productivity gains have not been passed on to workers. And American firms are losing market share not only abroad, but also at home. But reading "America's Dynamic Workforce," one would never know there was the slightest problem. |
| Bush Economic Polices Threaten National Security Thursday, September 09, 2004 Economic desperation is the hallmark of the Bush economic policy. With $600 billion pouring into foreign hands through this year's trade deficit, stimulating the economy moves production and creates jobs overseas. Mr. Bush's policies do not take into account the fact that his father and Bill Clinton globalized the American economy, and thus new policies are needed to take into account this new reality. The additional tax cuts that the President has called for will only worsen the situation and postpone the inevitable. Like his CEO buddies, Bush is only worried about the next couple of years' bottom lines and making sure that the crash doesn't come on his watch. But he is gambling the future of the American economy for his putative place in history. |
| Restoring Economic Health: Reduce Budget and Trade Deficits Thursday, August 26, 2004 Money spent on imports does not stimulate the American economy, while the shift of production (and jobs) overseas undermines U.S. income. The current large trade deficits thus slow the American economy considerably. |
| New Strategic Partners China and Brazil Hail Recent WTO Agreement Monday, August 16, 2004 The framework agreement that emerged from trade talks in Geneva, and the reaction of leading states to it, should give Americans pause. There is time, before the next ministerial in Hong Kong in December 2005, to get things right, but free trade philosophy still rules American trade policy. |
| Will an Immigrant Electorate Change American Politics? Sunday, August 01, 2004 As the number of workers in the shrinking industrial sector has declined, so has that sector’s influence in the labor movement. Service and government-sector unions have recruited members of growing sectors in the economy – service workers and government employees, whose interests and ideologies are much further to the left than those of the industrial unions. |
| Castro's Trade Policy: Sex Slaves, Illegal Drugs, and Trademark Theft Sunday, August 01, 2004 Like other communist revolutionaries, when Fidel Castro seized power, he engaged in the wholesale expropriation of private property in Cuba, including intangible property, such as trademarks. American law prevents Castro from benefitting here from his trademark piracy, but the European Union, the World Trade Organization, and the American multinational members of the National Foreign Trade Council don't like that law one bit. Congress should make sure that it renews and extends the law rather than cave in to the craven interests opposed to it. |
| The Dismal Science: Avoiding Ricardo's Trap Sunday, July 18, 2004 Libertarians and other globalization cheerleaders would have us believe that we as a nation can become increasingly prosperous by consuming ever increasing quantities of cheap goods produced abroad. Nations progress by improving their own means of production and boosting the incomes of their citizens, not by the consumption of cheap imported goods, which boosts production and incomes in some other country. |
| Lessons of the British Empire Appear to be Lost on the United States Monday, July 12, 2004 The United States cannot be successful in Iraq, Afghanistan, the War on Terror and other geostrategic involvements if the economic underpinnings of the country are destroyed by continued slavish devotion to free trade in theory and practice. |
| "Normal Trade Relationship" With Abnormal Pathet Lao Communists Not in the National Interest Friday, June 25, 2004 Why would Rep. Phil Crane, once a leader among conservative Republicans, want to aid the Pathet Lao? The answer is that Crane has embraced the narrow free trade 'philosophical' position that trade should be run on its own account, by business and for business, without regard to geopolitical or moral consequences. That view is flat wrong in terms of the U.S. national interest and should be morally repugnent to all thinking, principled Americans. |
| China Commission Report Raises Grave National Security Concerns Saturday, June 19, 2004 The importance of the U.S. China Commission's new report lies in its critical study of the strategic consequences of economic shifts. Globalization cheerleaders are content to assume that whatever economic change occurs is "good" because the invisible hand of the market is a kind of Prime Mover. It is as if commerce has no larger consequences beyond satisfying individual demands. But few forces have as direct an impact on the balance of power in the world as shifts in wealth, industrial capacity, and technological achievement. |
| Reagan, Bush and the National Interest in Trade Policy Monday, June 14, 2004 President Bush, our number one free trade and globalization cheerleader, should take a look at something Reagan said in his 1987 State of the Union address, "We are always willing to be trade partners but never trade patsies." |
| The U.S. Defense Industrial Base: Will We Follow the Policies of Rising or Failing States? Wednesday, June 02, 2004 France, which continues to cut defense spending, is at the heart of a European model that embraces diplomatic appeasement as a substitute for national action and defaults to institutions like the United Nations for the formulation of national security policy. Will the United States eventually have to follow suit? |
| Defense Procurement: Emergency Measures Versus Long-Term Policy Friday, May 21, 2004 The United States cannot allow its defense industry and supply network either to wither away or to become the prey of foreign rivals. American enterprise has provided the country with superior weapons, a defense trade surplus, and diplomatic leverage, all while preserving America’s ability to act independently when the nation’s interests require it. There is no sensible reason to give up any of those advantages. |
| The Wall Street Journal's Credibility Sinks to A New Low Thursday, May 06, 2004 The WSJ’s extreme rhetoric and misstatements of fact reveal an alarming globalist worldview among its editorial writers devoid of any sense of the American national interest. |
| No Troops, No CAFTA Thursday, April 22, 2004 The Central American Free Trade Agreement is a bad idea for many reasons. Now several countries have added an extra reason: They are pulling their troops out of Iraq. They should not be granted access to the American market while working against American interests and values in the Middle East. |
| "Losing China" Again Thursday, April 15, 2004 A series of visits by American leaders to Beijing has produced little but embarrassment for the Bush administration -- which apparently does not know it should be embarrassed. There is no reason to be surprised that China wants to flex its muscles as America's free trade policy gives Beijing the means to shift the balance of power in Asia. An unholy mix of naive liberalism and corporate greed has been allowed to run rampant over the last fifteen years and dominate American thinking about China, as well as shape policy. The long-term results will be disastrous. |
| Spanish Lessons Wednesday, April 07, 2004 Spain, in the news lately because of terrorist activities there, was the first global superpower. The demands of its empire required a strong and growing economy. However, Spain went on a consumption binge, with its imports eventually exceeding exports by almost double. The emphasis on consumption instead of production eventually led to the rise of rival powers, economic collapse, and the loss of empire. The military class disdained the domestic merchant class, not understanding that the economic base it created was necessary to keep Spain supplied with armies and fleets. Does any of this sound familiar? |
| How to Think About the Current Trade Crisis Wednesday, March 31, 2004 In a world where, unfortunately, there is no silver-bullet solution to the basic economic problems of scarcity and inequality, all nations are competing for the lion’s share of what is currently available. U.S. trade policy continues to ignore this basic fact at the nation's and American people's peril. |
| Re-thinking Clinton's Compete or Retreat Five Years Later Wednesday, March 24, 2004 The sad truth of the last five years is that America has been retreating. President Bush is in serious political trouble because, despite changing many domestic policies, he has continued the international trade policy of President Clinton. Thus the economy continues a sluggish recovery from the recession that started under Clinton, as the manufacturing sector continues to lose jobs under the impact of unrestricted imports. |
| Spinning Employment Data Is No Substitute for Policies to Create New Jobs Wednesday, March 17, 2004 Bush I didn't "get it" on the economy and jobs. Remember the "solution:" Secretary of State James Baker was going to be appointed the "economic czar" after the first President Bush won reelection? Now we have plans for a "manufacturing czar," a position yet to be filled after six months of promises. In addition, the President and his allies are trying to spin unemployment data to show that the jobs situation is not really all that bad. James Carville's 1992 catch phrase again rings true. The problem now is: "It's the globalized American economy, stupid" that year after year is hemorrhaging factories, jobs, technology, and capital. |
| The Bush Administration’s Jobs Problem: Large Stimulus Produces Slow Growth in a Globalized U.S. Economy Saturday, March 13, 2004 Speaking to the National Association of State Treasurers on March 8, U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow admitted that the lack of job growth in the U.S. economy was a “mystery” to him. Only six months ago, Snow told The Times of London. “Everything we know about economics indicates that the sort of economic growth expected for next year, 3.8 to 4 percent, will translate into 2 million new jobs from the third quarter of this year to the third quarter of next year.” |
| Comparative Advantage and Competition Thursday, March 04, 2004 Gregory Mankiw, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, triggered a political firestorm when he told the Joint Economic Committee of Congress (JEC) on February 10 that outsourcing jobs is “just a new way of doing international trade.” Yet, he was correct in his assessment. It was his total lack of concern about the consequences that provoked even the Republican Speaker of the U.S. House, Dennis Hastert of Illinois, to respond, “I understand that Mr. Mankiw is a brilliant economic theorist, but his theory fails a basic test of real economics.” |
| Intellectual Deception Reveals Weakness of Free Trade Ideology Monday, March 01, 2004 Alan Reynolds is a Senior Fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute. Before that he was director of economic research at the Hudson Institute and vice president and chief economist at both Polyconomics and the First National Bank of Chicago. His career in political economy goes back to working with Alan Greenspan on President Ronald Reagan's transition team in 1981. He became known as one of the early "supply-siders," who believe tax cuts can solve virtually any problem, even if they produce large budget deficits. |
| A Nation of Shopkeepers Thursday, February 19, 2004 The unemployment rate fell a tenth of a percentage point to 5.6% in January, the lowest rate since the 5.4% recorded in October 2001. President George W. Bush was quick to claim that this was a sign that the economy was back on a path of economic growth, making it the topic of his February 7 radio address. But he apparently was not briefed on the composition of the new employment figures, because he went on to say, “There's more evidence of a strengthening economy. Manufacturers report new orders.” But they did not report new jobs. |
| Intellectual Deception Reveals Weakness of Free Trade Ideology Sunday, February 01, 2004 Alan Reynolds is a Senior Fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute. Before that he was director of economic research at the Hudson Institute and vice president and chief economist at both Polyconomics and the First National Bank of Chicago. His career in political economy goes back to working with Alan Greenspan on President Ronald Reagan's transition team in 1981. He became known as one of the early "supply-siders," who believe tax cuts can solve virtually any problem, even if they produce large budget deficits. |
| Economic Rivals Given “Go-Ahead” to Destroy Rest of Domestic of US Manufacturing by Bush’s Equivocation on Trade in State of the Union Thursday, January 29, 2004 In his State of the Union message, President George W. Bush devoted only a single sentence to international trade: “My administration is promoting free and fair trade to open up new markets for America's entrepreneurs and manufacturers and farmers -- to create jobs for American workers.” With the country facing another record trade deficit around $500 billion, the dollar losing between 20 percent and 40 percent of its value against other major currencies in the past two years, and some 3 million jobs being lost in the manufacturing sector since 1997, the trade issue deserved much greater attention. Indeed, the Bush Administration had unveiled a new Manufacturing Strategy only days earlier. But failure to call for Congressional action to implement the new strategy enhanced perceptions that the White House was not really taking the issue seriously. |
| Chamber of Commerce Explains how to Eliminate the Middle Class Tuesday, January 20, 2004 Lou Dobbs, host of the popular CNN Moneyline show, has been doing a great job covering the decline of American manufacturing and the perils such a decline poses for both the country’s prosperity and national security in our tumultuous world. He interviewed the always acerbic Thomas Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on the January 8 program on President Bush’s proposal to give some form of legal “guest worker” status to millions of illegal aliens. |
| U.S. Contracting in Iraq Should Serve as Model for American Trade Policy Saturday, December 20, 2003 The "American and Coalition partners only" contracting policy that the Bush administration has imposed in Iraq should serve as the model for U.S. trade policy overall. It is ironic that the Bush administration can see clearly the harsh and conflicting realities of geopolitics in the military sphere but not in economic and trade affairs. The need to protect American business interests, bolster American firms, and deny benefits to adversarial states seems second nature in the wake of Iraq combat. Why can't the Bush administration apply the same lessons and leverage to the economic combat that occurs daily in international trade? |
| U.S. Manufacturing's Decline Is Business as Usual for Bush Administration Friday, December 12, 2003 The massive crisis facing American manufacturing is not being addressed by the Bush administration, which indeed sees no crisis at all. |
| Bush Gives European Union and WTO Victory on Steel Saturday, December 06, 2003 George Bush may "stand tall" against terrorism, but he bends easily in the face of the economic warfare being conducted by the European Union, Japan, Russia, Brazil, and South Korea. These nations have been dumping steel in the United States for years and have refused to close their excess capacity, preferring instead to subsidize it and dump its production here. Their plan is to trim excess world capacity by putting the U.S. steel industry out of business. Since most of these nations run significant trade surpluses with the U.S., they would have had much more to lose in a trade war than the U.S. Bush was apparently oblivious to this fact as he caved in to the threat of WTO-approved sanctions against U.S. products and removed the steel tariffs 15 months before they were due to expire. |
| The National Interest versus Corporate Interest Thursday, November 13, 2003 The defeat of the new "Buy American" provisions that House Armed Services Chairman Duncan Hunter tried to make law this year was the handiwork of Boeing and other multinational defense-related corporations. It is apparent to even the casual observer that these corporations have no loyalty to the United States whatsoever. Their bottom lines trump national security ever time. So why does Congress pay these renegade corporations any attention? |
| Congress Must Acelerate Pressure on China Trade Wednesday, November 05, 2003 U.S. trade negotiators returned from Beijing many times in the 1990s claiming to have reached agreement with the Chinese government on a host of trade-related problems. One of the big successes was on intellectually property. We were so successful in fact that three successive agreements were necessary -- and the amount of Amerian software in China that is pirated continues above 95 percent today. Why do Bush, Snow, and Evans think that they are going to have any more success than their predecessors -- especially when they are doing nothing different? Most domestic American manufacutrers do not have ten years to wait before they find out that today's Chinese promises are just as illusory and that a new administration must begin the process over again. There will be very little manufacutring left in this country by that time. |
| China Stiffs Bush as Its Global Ambitions Rise to New Heights Monday, October 27, 2003 Chinese President Hu declined to take President Bush's suggestion at the APEC summit that China re-value its currency and open its markets to American products. And why not? Japan, South Korea, and China have stiffed the United States for years, and there have been no consequences but additional trade negotiations in which they once more best the Americans. Meanwhile China is forging ahead on all fronts including defense, science and technology -- as evidenced by its manned space launch last week. |
| U.S, Asia Policy Needs to Address Both Security and Economic Concerns Sunday, October 19, 2003 How many recent U.S. presidents have lectured the various Asian heads of state about playing fair in trade and economics? (All.) How many have been successful? (None.) So why does George Bush think that his reinvention of the wheel will roll any smoother? |
| Presidential Technology Panel Warns of Impending Disaster Friday, October 10, 2003 The BIG NEWS this week is that high-tech icon Andy Grove, Chairman of Intel, and the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology both independently warned of the imminent collapse of U.S. IT manufacturing, R&D, and high-end tech services industries. But, since no one in Washington is listening, it is unlikely that any appropriate corrective action will be taken. |
| U.S. Manufacturing Crisis: White House Talks, but Defense Industry Walks (Overseas) Wednesday, October 08, 2003 The critical defense industry is being hallowed as so many other American industries have been. The President talks big about preserving jobs, but whenever he can take concrete action, he backs away, responding instead to the siren call of free trade. If the Bush administration doesn't "get it" in the area of national security manufacturing, how can we expect them to respond to the overall crisis in domestic manufacturing? Answer: They won't respond with anything other than meaningless rhetoric. |
| The Cancun Trade Negotiations and the Global Economic Struggle Friday, September 26, 2003 The "state of nature" in international trade is one of fierce competition for economic advantage, not peace, harmony, and win-win. The collapse of the international trade negotiations in Cancun demonstrated convincingly the fact that the 140 WTO members, the United States excepted, approach trade as a zero-sum game, and rightly so. |
| Three Proposals Target China's Unfair Trade Practices Friday, September 26, 2003 China is an unfair trading partner. There are currently three proposals circulating that deal with countering Chinese practices. The surest way to get Chinese attention is for the President to act directly and invoke the so-called safeguard mechanisms (protecting American industry and workers) that were incorporated in the agreement allowing China to enter the World Trade Organization. To date the President has shown no stomach for getting tough with China or other unfair trading partners. |
| US Manufacturing's Steep Decline Calls for New Trade Policies Thursday, September 11, 2003 The Bush Administration's belief that the usual stimulatory tax cuts and tort reform will reverse the steep decline in American manufacturing are premised on the notion that the problems are cyclical. In fact, they are structural, caused by such factors as the outsourcing of production and jobs to foreign countries. Consequently, the Bush polices, which do not address the structural displacements of globalization, are brain-dead-on-arrival. |
| U.S. Officials Misread Economic Warfare Tuesday, September 02, 2003 Osama Bin Laden and his buddies understand that a frontal military assualt on the United States is a futile venture, at least at this point. So they attack economic targets, the foundation of America's wealth, power, and leading place in the world. While U.S. government officials appear to understand this aproach, they ignore the same tactics -- albiet less dramatic -- by other nations intended just as surely to subvert the American economy. |
| China Trade: High Time for a Change in US Policy Friday, August 15, 2003 China's manipulation of its currency for trade advantage is an old trick in the mercantilist book -- and it only one of many unfair advantages that the Chinese government creates for its manufacturers. Rather than initiating trade lawsuits on currency revaluation, as the National Association of Manufacturers and other want to do, the US government must adopt comprehesive changes to its trade policy with China. |
| Inherent Risks in Multi-Country Defense Programs Far Outweigh Benefits Friday, July 25, 2003 It is critical for many reasons that the United States remain the world leader in manufacturing, technology, and defense. Allowing foreign participation in defense programs is an especially insidious and dangerous trend, which will ultimately compromise America's freedom of action in the world. |
| Trade Deficit Provides China With More Than Economic Advantages Friday, July 18, 2003 As American policy makers do nothing and U.S. manufacturers twist in the wind, China is rapidly increasing not just its market share in the United States at the latter's expense, but also its strategic position vis-a-vis America in the Pacific and elsewhere. |
| Does Robert Zoellick Deserve a Place in History? Thursday, July 10, 2003 US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick talks about big notions and big ambitions, but they are curiously detached from the cutthroat competition that marks everyday commercial reality. |
| House Must Prevail in Conference on Defense Bill Friday, June 20, 2003 The U.S. defense industrial base, upon which America's superpower status rests, is in a state of serious decline. The House Armed Services Committtee is trying to do something about the situation, but risks being frustrated by the Senate. |
| Hawks Battle Over Fate of US Defense Industry Wednesday, June 11, 2003 The future of the U.S. defense industrial base is on the line as conferees from the House and Senate Armed Services Committees meet to hammer out their differences. |
| "Inverse Engagement" with Iraq and American Vulnerability Thursday, May 29, 2003 U.S. multinational corporations are only too happy to lobby Washington to go softly on dictators. The case of American companies with plants in China doing the bidding of the tyrants in Bejing springs immediately to mind. But before China ever adopted the market reforms that let foreign companies in, Saddam Hussein was manipulating Washington through American companies with interests in the Middle East. |
| Business Week Finally Sees the Light, But Dimly Monday, May 26, 2003 The gargantuan size and stubborn persistence of the U.S. trade deficit is forcing one of America's premier business magazines to try to come to terms with the damage being done to the U.S. economy in general and the manufacturing sector in particular. |
| EU Threatens Trade War Over US Tax Provisions Wednesday, May 14, 2003 Unless the Europeans back down from their threat to impose $4 billion in sanctions against American exports, they are likely to set off a trade war between the US and the EU. Their actions should remind American policymakers again that nations have no friends, only interests and that America's interests are being harmed as we pretend that the Europeans are our friends. |
| DoD's Transformation Plan: How to Dismember the Winning Team Friday, May 09, 2003 The "reformers" at the US Department of Defense want to save a few bucks by opening up bidding on defense contracts to foreign firms. With the defense industrial base already in significant decline, this reform is a particularly bad idea. Today's procurement officer's dream of lower prices could easily become tomorrow's policymaker's nightmare -- when a foreign supplier cuts DoD off because its government disagrees with American policy on say a future Iraq. |
| Defense and Trade Policies Should Advance US Industries, Not Just Punish the French Wednesday, April 30, 2003 In the wake of the Iraq War, Washington needs to coordinate its defense procurement and trade policies to see that America's industrial base and technological capabilities are enhanced for the long term -- and not just mete out short term punishments to the French, Germans, and other nations opposed to US policy. In other words, a comprehensive plan is required. |
| Successfully Rebuilding Iraq Requires Rejection of 'Globalization' Wednesday, April 23, 2003 If the intellectual bankruptcy of "globalization" was not fully apparent before the recent political gamesmanship in the UN Security Council, it should be now. Self-interest, not "global" interest, is still the motivating force in international politics. So globalization should play no role in the rebuilding of Iraq. The United States must protect its investment of blood and treasure, and tell the French and others to be on their way. |
| China Surges Economically While America Falters Friday, April 18, 2003 The war in Iraq is in many ways a side show and a distraction from the major problem facing America today: its rapidly declining industrial base and the sell-off of its assets to finance the purchase of goods no longer manufactured here. The War on Terror is likely to be viewed by history as America's last gasp as a superpower followed by its economic implosion. |
| What Not To Learn From Baghdad Monday, April 14, 2003 The last time Baghdad fell to a foreign army was in March, 1917 when the forces of the British Empire drove out those of the Ottoman Empire. That campaign, like the current one, was considered a masterpiece of maneuver. Unlike the current campaign, this earlier capture of Baghdad was only a small part of a larger conflict, World War I. |
| Free Trade Proponents in Disarray As Agricultural Talks Stall Friday, April 04, 2003 With the Doha round of trade talks stalled over agricultural issues, the case for free trade is increasingly hard to make. Many nations are moving to protect industries they consider vital as opposed to leaving their national fates to the "invisible hand" of the market. |
| Peacetime Budgets in Wartime: The Coming Decline of the U.S. Military Friday, March 14, 2003 Even as it prepares to employ the most sophisticated military equipment and weaponry ever seen, the United States is badly neglecting the defense technology and industrial base that created them. |
| Top U.S. Officials Pledge Allegiance to the World Trade Organization Thursday, March 06, 2003 The American economy is under attack on multiple fronts. One of the most significant is the "trade court" at the World Trade Organization, which at the urging of our "friends" in the European Union, has ruled important American laws inconsistent with WTO principles. Key U.S. officials, ideological free traders all, have jumped to confrom our law to the WTO's wishes. |
| Neoliberal Globalist Agenda Won't Ensure U.S. National Security Friday, February 28, 2003 If the United States is to triumph in the War on Terrorism and be able to defend its national security interests, it must reverse its trade policies, which are causing the massive transfer overseas of its wealth, technology, manufacturing and service jobs, factories, R&D centers, etc. |
| 'Food Security' Threatens to Collapse Doha TradeTalks Friday, February 21, 2003 Unlike the Bush administration and its ideologically driven trade ambassador Bob Zoellick, the rest of the world has deep and legitimate concerns about a totally open trading system in agricultural goods. At the center of those concerns is the displacement of millions of farm workers around the world with no alternative employment in sight. |
| Out Of Africa: Increased US Job Losses and Trade Deficits Wednesday, February 12, 2003 Further trade agreements with African countries are only likely to displace more American textile and apparel workers and increase the U.S. trade deficit. |
| Losing the Race -- In Space and On Earth Wednesday, February 05, 2003 The Columbia disaster has much wider significance than the American space program. It reveals the indifference of our political leaders to this nation's fast waning technological and industrial preeminence. Like the 20 year old Columbia, our country is coasting perilously on the technological achievements of previous generations, without a clear vision for the future. |
| State of the Union: Tax Cuts Won't Get the Nation Where the President Wants it Wednesday, January 29, 2003 The President put forth many worthwhile goals, but it not possible for his proposed tax cuts and trade policies to take the nation where he wants to lead it. Eliminating the trade defict would do more to revive the economy and strengthen our military and defense industrial base than all the tax cuts combined. |
| The European Challenge to America Friday, January 17, 2003 The Europeans have long chafed under the yoke of American leadership and looked for a way to bring the United States down to the level of "just another country." With institutional help from the World Trade Organization and the European Union, the creation of the Euro, and dim-witted American free trade policies, the Europeans now have a good shot at their long-cherished goal. |
| A Misguided Stimulus Package Wednesday, January 08, 2003 Given its blind adherence to free trade theory, it is not surprising that the Bush Administration overlooked the effects of globalization policies on the American economy and chose instead to concentrate on a stimulus package that is actually a tax reform package. The latter will likely have little effect on investment and job creation in the United States, as foreign firms race to fill whatever consumer needs are created by the extra cash and investors continue their headlong rush into China. |
| NAFTA: A Decade of Failure Thursday, January 02, 2003 Too bad that there's no accountability in Washington. If there were, many free traders who predicted that NAFTA would be the savior of the American economy would be looking for other lines of work. NAFTA has resulted in large trade deficits with Canada and Mexico, as well as a significant net loss of American jobs. In addition, Mexico has not served as an 'export platform' to the rest of the world for American companies, only an export platform to the United States. Finally, NAFTA has not solved the problems of illegal drugs and illegal immigration. In sum, almost all of the promised benefits have not materialized. |
| US Trade Representative Celebrates 40 Years of Failure Wednesday, December 18, 2002 After mounting trade deficits in every year since 1975, one would think that the Untied States Trade Representative's Office would reevaluate its policies. But no. At a recent celebration, even attended by President Bush, the office celebrated 40 years of failure and vowed to move ahead with more of the same job- and income-destroying trade agreements in pursuit of their perfect theoretical free trade model. |
| Lindsey's Purge Won't Cure the Dutch Disease Wednesday, December 11, 2002 Larry Lindsey was fired by President Bush in an attempt by the latter to show that he was determined to "do something" about the faltering American economy. Lindsey was apparently perceived as not "selling" the Bush economic program, in which he no doubt fully believed. The President's problem is not Lindsey (or Treasury Secretary O'Neill who was purged with him) but the free trade component of his economic program, which is sending thousands of factories and millions of manufacturing jobs overseas. Putting more money in the pockets of American consumers through tax cuts only stimulates the foreign economies that make the goods that US consumers buy. No wonder the Bush program isn't working as planned. |
| Losing Command of the Sea (Part 2) Thursday, December 05, 2002 Does the Mexican truck decision contain the seeds of a policy that could be applied to shipping as well, thus helping to resurrect a commercial US fleet? |
| Losing Command of the Sea (Part I) Tuesday, December 03, 2002 A key element of America's greatness has been its maritime power. That power is almost at the point of disappearing. When it goes, so will the greatness, even if the latter appears to linger for a while. |
| Should We Trust the French to Build Our Weapons Systems? Wednesday, November 13, 2002 Not content with conquering the commercial U.S. market, European firms are angling to enter the U.S. defense market. Letting them in would be the gravest possible error that the globalization-at-any-cost crowd could make. Foreigners have acquired over 1,400 American defense-related firms in the last 15 years, recycling the surplus dollars that we send them courtesy of our trade deficit. Now the foreigners want to come in the front door with the right to bid on defense contracts. As ususal, they will underbid American firms to put them out of business and their governments will make up the difference with subsidies to keep their 'national champions' alive. Any further erosion of our defense industrial base will spell the end of our superpower status, and with it our freedom of action in the world. |
| Trade Talks Bog Down, but Zoellick Doesn't Notice Wednesday, November 06, 2002 USTR Bob Zoellick continues his quixotic quest to nail down free trade agreements around the globe. He seems oblivious to the way so called free trade works to America's disadvantage in reality, generating massive, growth-destroying trade deficits for this country. |
| Americans Will Pay for APEC's Mexican Vacation Sunday, November 03, 2002 The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum held its 14th ministerial meeting recently at a Mexican resort. But competition not cooperation is the operative condition among the members of APEC. The fact that the Pacific Ocean touches the shores of all APEC countries is about the flimsiest basis for an organizational grouping that can be imagined.The only thing that all APEC members (except the US) have in common is the desire to invade the US market and win market share at all costs- whether against US companies or one another. |
| Another Losing Season for America's Economic Team Friday, October 25, 2002 In international trade, as in sports, coaching and strategy make all the difference -- no matter how talented the individual players. Other nations understand this truism. Why don't our leaders in Washington get it? |
| Former Clinton Official Urges CEOs to Embrace Globalism, Reject Nationalism Monday, October 14, 2002 Jeffrey Garten, a former high-ranking Clinton Administration official, has written a new book urging Big Business CEOs to become more active politically on behalf of globalism. He fears that the Bush Administration is in the grip of "hard-line nationalists" who will slow down the pace of globalization with the War on Terrorism and who thus must be countered. Essentially, he is confirming that American multinational CEOs have no patriotism and are not loyal to this country, only to their corporations and their bottom lines. |
| Bush's Security Strategy Threatened by Economic Folly Tuesday, September 24, 2002 The national security of the United States rests not on our founding principles, not on our current superpower status, not on the 'fact' that "God is on our side," but on our industrial and technology base - which is suffering mightily under attacks from foreign commercial rivals. The free trade agreements of the past decade especially have brought unprecedented trade deficits, the closure of many manufacturing companies, the movement of many factories and R&D facilities overseas, and the number of manufacturing workers to the lowest level since the early 1960s. We will not long remain a superpower without a healthy and vibrant domestic manufacturing base. The new Bush National Security Strategy is oblivious to this fundamental point. |
| Neither the UN nor the WTO Should Hinder US Policy Wednesday, September 18, 2002 Many Americans correctly see the United Nations as an ineffectual and often anti-American body. It should have no veto over the United States' ability to defend itself in the case of Iraq or any other terrorist-supporting state. The World Trade Organization ought to be in an analogus position, but it is not. In spite of the assurances of its advocates almost a decade ago, the WTO does make substantial inroads on American sovereignty, declaring U.S. laws "WTO illegal," and requiring that they be stricken down. The United Staes must comply or face punitive sanctions. Neither the UN nor the WTO should be permitted to hinder America's freedom of action in the world. |
| Will A Green Defeat Allow Us to See the World More Clearly? Thursday, September 12, 2002 The good news from the United Nations Sustainable Development summit is that the radical environmentalists did not hijack the proceedings. Thousands of Green activists from non-government organizations (NGOs), mainly from the "rich" Northern tier states (North America-Europe-Northeast Asia), descended on Johannesburg, South Africa. |
| Trade as a Means of Wealth Redistribution to the Third World Wednesday, September 04, 2002 The third world views trade as a one way street, one on which the first world will transfer its good jobs and incomes to the 'deserving poor' in less developed countries. Unfortunately, even if this was a good idea, which it emphatically is not, there is not enough wealth in the first world to make everyone in the third world middle class. Such income transfer schemes will ultimately make everyone worse off. |
| Globalists Now Threaten U.S. War Planning Friday, August 23, 2002 When it comes to waging war on Iraq, or any other enemy state for that matter, Free Trade theory is much like a computer virus -- it infects the hard drive and makes every other operation more difficult if not impossible. Since multinational corporations have no national loyalty, they just want to be left alone to make money. They do not want be bothered with national clashes or international ethical problems such as terrorism, and they oppose any sort of conflict since it inhibits their field of action. Thus the Big Business wing of the Republican Party wants the President to pretend that we are not at war with terrorists and rogue states. Its mindless "pundits" trot out all sorts of reasons why free trade and commercial engagement are the way to ultimate peace. They are as wrong as about Saddam as Chamberlain was about Hitler. The only question is whether President Bush will play Chamberlain or Churchill in this drama. So far he's correctly chosen Churchill. |
| Will Bush Repeat Clinton's Economic Mistakes Thursday, August 15, 2002 Bush's and Cheney's sad performances at the "photo-op" Economic Summit in Waco only serve to highlight how clueless this administration is to what is really going on in the American economy -- thanks to the cumulative effect of years of trade deficits. The destruction of our manufacturing, technology, and R&D capabilities continues apace while Cheney hides and Bush struggles to appear 'presidential.' |
| Fast Track: Leaving America Naked to the World Wednesday, August 07, 2002 Fast track and its progeny - the Doha round of international trade negotiations and the Free Trade Area of the Americas - will strip away the last remaining vestige of protections afforded by democratically passed American laws. Once US Trade Rep. Bob Zoellick works his preemptive capitulation in the name of efficient international markets, US businesses will have absolutely no redress against the subsidies and other unfair trade practices of foreign companies and their governments. |
| US Trade Policy: Real World Challenges Met by Fantasy World Solutions Wednesday, July 24, 2002 If only wishing made things so, then US trade policy might make sense. In the real world, there is always an intense competition for wealth and power. Today the United States is losing that competition -- along with the industrial and technological base that gave this country superpower status -- to foreign rivals, who are "attacking" the US commercially. US trade policy is oblivious to this situation as it quixotically tries to get the entire world to play by a set of rules that we think are fair. |
| Congressional Commission Finds Dangerous US-China Economic Trends Wednesday, July 17, 2002 Two reports issued this week -- one by the Pentagon and one by the U.S.-China Security Review Commission -- highlight the growing challenge to U.S. interests, both at home and in East Asia, represented by China. But the greater problem is that no one in Washington is listening. Our policy toward China remains the captive of multinational corporations, which close plants and R&D facilities here and move them to China. By doing so they increase individual corporate profits but endanger the security of the nation as a whole -- exactly the opposite of what should be driving American policy. |
| Who Will Bail Out America? Thursday, July 11, 2002 While a dollar crisis looms and the stock market tanks, the Bush administration diddles with accounting fixes. A broad re-thinking of America's trade and international economic strategies is in order, but such a plan is nowhere to be seen as the War on Terrorism and free-trade blinders prevent the Bush administration from undertaking a thorough re-examination. Fasten your seat belts; it's going to be a long, bumpy ride. |
| To Bolster the Dollar, Cut the Trade Deficit Monday, July 08, 2002 A strong dollar can be in the US national interest, especially if the country is not running the massive trade deficits that it has the last few years. Simply 'talking down' the dollar to try to boost exports slightly is not the answer. Cutting imports and manufacturing most of our needs here in the USA is. |
| Manufacturing, Wealth, and National Power Friday, June 28, 2002 The Bush Administration wrongly believes that the United States can remain a military superpower while allowing failed trade policies to continue to hollow out the Aemrican industrial base. This notion is sheer lunacy. Manufacturing and technology are the basic wealth creation engines of our society. Without them, there can be no indefinite domination of the world by a US military superpower. The old Japanese adage says it all: Rich country, strong army -- in that order. |
| Free Traders: Left, Right, or Off the Chart? Wednesday, June 19, 2002 Beware of libertarians cloaked in conservatives' clothing. They often attempt to seduce audiences to their radically self-centered point of view, which is anything but conservative. They care nothing for the American nation state, our political system, or American values. |
| The Growing US Economic Integration with China Thursday, June 13, 2002 Globalists would have us believe that free trade will bring US consumers good stuff from all over the world. The reality, however, is that China, with its endless supply of cheap labor, is beginning to emerge as the dominant power in global manufacturing. Within the next decade or two, global is likely to mean Made in China, Distributed to the World. The reprecussions for American security, sovereignty, and freedom of action in the world are immense. |
| Free Trade "Imperialism" or Self-Defeating Globalism? Tuesday, June 11, 2002 The United States and Great Britain have often been compared as the preeminent great powers of their respective days. Admirers see both powers as progressive influences with their systems of democratic capitalism and free trade. But there are key differences, especially in manufacturing, trade, and the approach to 'superpower' status. The US could learn a lot from a clear understanding of the British system. |
| Trade War Against US Escalates Wednesday, May 29, 2002 While the US wages the War on Terror with precious little help from its nominal allies, those same allies are banding together with other, even unfriendlier states to attack the US economy - through both anti-competitive trade practices and legal challenges at the World Trade Organization. The Bush administration, totally taken with the etherial notions of free trade theory, doesn't have a clue that America is being taken to the cleaners. |
| U.S. Needs New Declaration of Independence from Europe Friday, May 24, 2002 Europeans seem increasingly bent on pursuing a trade war with the United States. European leaders believe they can win this war against American 'protectionism' -- in spite of strong protectionist programs of their own -- by appealing to U.S. political, economic, and media elites, who are spellbound by free trade theory, and thus willing to sacrifice American manufacturing and agriculture to the goal of 'efficiency' through free trade. |
| A Day When Realism Intruded on U.S. Trade Policy Wednesday, May 15, 2002 Free trade ideologues, an anti-democratic bunch if there ever was one, don't much like reality since it generally punctures their perfect theoretical models. And they don't much like the US Congress involving itself in trade negotiations -- in spite of the fact that the Constitution put Congress in charge of regualting foreign commerce. So May 14, a day when the President signed the very un-free trade farm bill and the Senate passed the Dayton-Craig amendment protecting U.S. trade laws was a bad day for free traders, but a good day for domestic companies and American workers and farmers. |
| Bob Zoellick Misreads History Wednesday, May 08, 2002 In a recent speech, US Trade Ambassador Robert Zoellick was so intent on making history justify his almost fanatical obsession with free trade policies that he misses the key lesson: countries which suffer economic decline lose their political and military power as well, and wind up on the ashheap of history. The current US loss of manufacturing capability (1.3 million manufacturing jobs lost in the last year alone), and the flight overseas of factories and R&D facilities at an unprecedented rate, spell ultimate disaster for this nation. |
| 'Buy America' Provisions Are Critical to U.S. Defense Wednesday, May 01, 2002 'Buy America' provisions are critical components of a procurement strategy that provides U.S. fighting forces with the weapons and supplies they need on a timely basis. Current attempts in Congress to weaken them are a particularly bad idea. |
| The Anti-Globalists Go Anti-American Wednesday, April 24, 2002 The anti-globalization movement has turned its attention from its legitimate and interesting critiques focusing on the negative effects of globalization on all peoples and cultures. Instead it is now holding forth on the plight of third world countries, which are allegedly suffering because of a de facto conspiracy by 'rich' countries. In doing so, their usefulness has been lost and they have become instead just another group of left wing shills. |
| Back to the Trade Future: A Dead End Friday, April 19, 2002 Free trade proponent Amity Shales prefers the beauty of free trade theory as opposed to the messiness of dealing with economic and political realities. Her recent piece in the Financial Times is a nonsensical fantasy about a better world through free trade devoid of any hint of political realism. |
| Throwing Japan to the Wolves Wednesday, April 10, 2002 Japanese author and consultant Kenichi Ohmae is at it again, touting globalization as the solution to Japan's and the world's problems. As Ohmae demonstrates convincingly -- and as any NFL fan knows instinctively, cheerleaders, no matter how attractive, rarely show promise as strategic thinkers. |
| Steel: The Empire Strikes Back Friday, April 05, 2002 On March 27, the European Union imposed its own safeguard tariffs on steel imports in reaction to those imposed earlier in the month by President George W. Bush. The EU duties range from 14.9 to 26 percent on 15 categories of imports compared with U.S. duties ranging from 15 to 30 percent. The EU can thus claim to have imposed lower tariffs while still achieving the same effect. Both EU and U.S. steel tariffs are designed to block import surges from troubled steel exporters in Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe rather than from each other. |
| Sanctions "Reform" Hits a Dead End Thursday, March 21, 2002 The American sanctions'reform' movement -- mainly a tool of multinational businesses -- wanted to take sanctions of such countries as Iraq and Iran, states which support terrorism. Sept. 11 has shamed even the multinationals into silence on the subject of sanctions reform. |
| Bush Adopts Half Measurers on Steel Trade, but Fails to Appease Critics Monday, March 11, 2002 Bush tries half-heartedly to help the US steel industry, but doesn't get any credit for holding back on even higher tariffs from our trading partners, who are incensed that the US would protect a strategic industry. |
| A Dangerous Dance with China Wednesday, February 27, 2002 Although President Bush has called China a "strategic competitor," he has not fashioned policies which will prevent China from achieving its stated goal of expelling the "US hegemon" from East Asia. In fact, most of his approaches to China are having the opposite effect, i.e. boosting its power, wealth, capabilities, and influence. |
| Rebuilding the Military and the Economy Wednesday, February 20, 2002 An alternative approach to stimulating the U.S. economy is to engage in a much-needed military buildup. Not only do we need to compenate for the "procurement holiday" of the Clinton years, we also need to address the possibility of future wars against hostile powers better armed than the Taliban. Increasing funding for R&D and procurement would have the addditional benefit of restoring the defense industrial base, which has undergone serious erosion over the last decade. |
| Liberterian Myths: Learning from the "Dead Hand" Tuesday, February 12, 2002 The CATO Institute has published a lot of nonsense on trade over the years. Not to be outdone by past misinformation, its new book on trade among European powers from the mid-19th century to the early 20th century totally misinterprets that era and thus draws a host of 'lessons' that are comforting to free traders but completely false. |
| With the World's Strongest Economy, the US Should Be Negotiating From a Position of Strength on Trade Issues Wednesday, January 30, 2002 Threats of foreign retaliation -- if Pres. Bush places tariffs on foreign steel -- should be ignored. With the world's most powerful economy, the US can win any trade war. However, our ideological fixation with free trade may prevent US action. |
| U.S. Economic Recovery Can Only Begin At Home Wednesday, January 23, 2002 With the American economy in recession, the Bush administration is betting on new trade agreements and tax cuts. New trade deals are years away, and tax cut money that buys imported goods stimulates foreign economies not ours. |
| Bush Unwittingly Makes the Case for a New Trade and Industrial Policy Wednesday, January 16, 2002 Bush praises American self-sufficiency in agriculture, presses for the same in energy, but disregards his own standard when it comes to manufacturing, which is a greater source of national strength and security. |
| Argentina's Collapse Undermines Theoretical Basis of U.S. Trade Policy Wednesday, January 09, 2002 Since Bush I, our trade policy has been based on the erroneous notion that the U.S. economy has reached the limits of growth, and can only expand by tapping into the growth of Big Emerging Markets overseas. Argentina puts the lie to this theory. |
| The Chinese Economic Challenge and Its Geo-political Implications Wednesday, January 02, 2002 China's rising economic power is likely to eclipse that of the rest of its Asian rivals shortly, with profound political and geo-strategic consequences. |
| Bush Should Help Steel and Textile Industries Wednesday, December 19, 2001 US government assistance to basic manufacturing industries is entirely appropriate. |
| Congressional Debate on Fast Track Misrepresented the Nature of Globalization Thursday, December 13, 2001 'Globalization'is driven by the profit needs of multinationals. Ironically, the President won fast track by appealing to the patriotism of 20 Republicans who oppose globalization. Too bad he couldn't get the multinationals to be loyal. |
| Zoellick's Ignorance of Trade History Will Lead to Bad Policy Wednesday, December 05, 2001 USTR Bob Zoellick doesn't know his history -- or is simply misinterpreting it to serve his extreme free trade ideological ends. In either case, the result is a policy disaster for this country. |
| Reshuffling Deficits Will Not Revive the Economy Wednesday, November 28, 2001 Congress and the Executive need to return to policies that will revive the economy and cause it to grow long term on a healthy foundation -- not record consumer debt and cheap imported goods, which displace domestic manufacturing. |
| The War on Terrorism Precludes Free Trade As Practiced Today Tuesday, November 20, 2001 The implications of the War on Terrorism are clear: The United States must defend and expand its industrial base in order to protect itself. The practice of free trade and the interdependence its produces was designed for a world at peace, not this one. |
| Losing the Economic Battle of Doha Monday, November 19, 2001 US Trade Rep. Bob Zoellick ignored Congress's instructions and caved in to foreign demands on several key points at the WTO ministerial at Doha. The US will not long remain a superpower at the rate our industrial base is disappearing. |
| Defense Mergers May Make Economic But Not Military Sense Friday, November 02, 2001 The US government's refusal to allow GD, owner of the only other nuclear shipyard - Electric Boat, to buy its rival Newport News, makes military sense. The USG should follow its own policy in the Joint Strike Fighter decision as well. |
| National Economies and Patriotism Are Not 'Societal Indulgences' Thursday, October 25, 2001 Free trade bosters are afraid terrorism will slow globalization. In their uni-dimensional thinking, nation states are obsolescent hinderances to markets, which they glorify. But the 'invisible hand' can't bring justice to Bin Laden. |
| New Trade Negotiations Not Like to Serve America Monday, October 22, 2001 Political boosters of free trade have neither their history nor their facts straight. If the President is given fast track authority, the most likely outcome is greater US loss of jobs and productive capacity. |
| Before Passing Fast Track, Congress Must See Outcome of WTO Meeting Friday, October 12, 2001 There's no need to pass fast track trade negotiating legislation before the WTO meets in Qatar in November. The meeting may fall apart as did Seattle, or our trading partners may gang up to roll the US. |
| Economic Slowdown Should Prompt President to Reform Trade Policy Tuesday, October 02, 2001 President Bush must address the manufacturing recession, now in its 14th month, if he is to win the war on terrorism and keep the country united. Changes in trade policy are paramount to preserve our industrial base. |
| Bob Zoellick: Cynic, Zealot, and Opportunist Thursday, September 27, 2001 Our top trade negotiator is such a zealot that he will stop at nothing to secure Fast Track authority, even if it means capitalizing on the disasters of September 11. He should be ashamed. |
| How China Plans to Dominate the Shipbuilding Industry Friday, August 17, 2001 Industrial policy at work: China is making a concerted effort to be the leading shipbuilder, displacing Japan and Korea, which long ago surplanted us. |
| U.S. Trade Policy: Serving the 'World Community' or the American People? Wednesday, August 08, 2001 Bob Zoellick has the fatal notion that a new round of WTO trade talks will automatically advance US interests. But the world is an economic jungle, with foreign countries out to maximize their advantages at our expense. Earth to Zoellick: Wake up! |
| November's WTO Ministerial Meeting Not on a 'Fast Track' Wednesday, August 01, 2001 The WTO's November meeting will try to jump start a new round of global trade talks. George Bush wants to open foreign markets to American agricultural products. He'll fail, but is he prepared to walk away from the talks? |
| The Real Challenge of Globalization: Securing the Lion's Share Wednesday, July 25, 2001 Globalization -- or trade between and among a wide array of nations -- is not a new phenomenon, but an old one. The correct and critical response is not naive wonder but figuring out how to manage it for America's benefit. |
| The WTO, Bob Zoellick, and the Surrender of America's National Interest Wednesday, July 18, 2001 U.S. Trade Rep Bob Zoellick is only too happy to compromise critical American national interests in his quest for new trade agreements and new friends around the world. His recent op-ed, co-authored with Europe's trade czar Lamy, is a case in point. |
| New China Commission Tilts Toward Beijing Thursday, July 12, 2001 The new Congressional-Executive Commission on the PRC is stacked with see-no-evil politicians. Not only is it unlikely to examine critically Beijing's unseemly behavior, it may actually obscure that behavior with free trade boosterism. |
| NAM Betrays Its Members' Interests With Its Free Trade Policy Tuesday, July 03, 2001 The NAM says it wants to help "people who make things in America." But its free trade policies are ensuring that there are fewer companies and fewer people who make things here. Manufacturing jobs have now dropped to their lowest level since March 1965. |
| Bad Trade Agreements -- not a Lack of Agreements --Discredits Bush Administration's Case Thursday, June 28, 2001 Bush officials are trying to make the case for "Fast Track" authority by saying that the U.S. is a party to only 2 out of 130 trade agreements. But the provisions of agreements, not their numbers, are the real test. |
| Selling Farmers Short In Trade Negotiations Tuesday, June 19, 2001 U.S. farmers have been sold a bill of goods on the "opportunites" provided by the global marketplace. The trouble is that marketplace is nothing more than a series of sovereign nations which have no interest in free trade theory or practice. |
| Japan Sees China as Economic Threat; Is the U.S. Blind? Wednesday, June 13, 2001 Japan's powerful Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry sees the emergence of China as a manufacturing center as a threat to its economy. Why doesn't the U.S.? |
| Failed Talks Reveal Global "Jungle" Tuesday, March 27, 2001 The collapse of the latest U.N. Conference of Parties (COP) on implementing the 1997 Kyoto "clean air" treaty occurred only about a week before the first anniversary of the raucous collapse of the WTO ministerial conference in Seattle |
| 2000 Trade Deficit Shows Continuing Decline in U.S. Global Position Sunday, March 11, 2001 Despite the constant use of the term "globalization," few people really look at the globe when discussing international trade and investment patterns. |
| Bush Uses Newspeak to Hide Embrace Friday, March 02, 2001 President George W. Bush talked about "free trade" in ways that provided little hope that the new Republican administration would rethink the failed policies of the outgoing Democratic administration of Bill Clinton. |
| China Aims to Perpetuate U.S. Trade Deficit Sunday, February 11, 2001 In 2000, the People's Republic of China passed Japan as the country with which the U.S. suffered the largest trade deficit. |
| China Trade Prospects Grow Dimmer Friday, February 09, 2001 More than five months after the US Congress granted "permanent normal trade relations" to the People's Republic of China, the prospect of concluding the WTO accession negotiations in Geneva appears ever more distant. |
| Britain's Industrial Decline: Adding Insult to Injury Tuesday, January 30, 2001 The British Royal Navy is planning to build two new aircraft carriers to be delivered in 2012 and 2015, at a cost of $3.3 billion. This has been a controversial decision. |
| Other Columns: | Alan Tonelson | Kevin L. Kearns | Macy Block and Julie McCarville | Michael Retzer | Kevin L. Kearns and Alan Tonelson | Alan Tonelson and Peter Kim | Opinion Archive | |
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