Nicaragua on Monday announced the start of work on a $50 billion shipping canal, an infrastructure project backed by China that aims to rival Panama’s waterway and revitalize the economy of the second-poorest country in the Americas. [by Gabriel Stargardter | December 22, 2014 | Reuters] The groundbreaking was largely symbolic, as work began…
Success could be squandered if TPP concerns are not addressed. President Obama begins his pre-State of the Union swing today by highlighting a key success during his presidency – the auto sector recovery. The Obama administration touts its success in Detroit, but has failed to bring the Big Three’s concerns to trade negotiations. [Reposted from the blog…
It was one thing to get elected but it will be another for the Republican Congress to work with a president best known for his imperious style and a hard left agenda. Still in the most recent round of budget negotiations, President Obama did accept modifications to the bank regulations imposed by Dodd-Frank, and other…
On December 3, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced the initiation of antidumping and countervailing duty investigations on melamine from the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. [Reposted from the King & Spalding blog | Erienne Kilgore & Joshua Snead | January 6, 2015] The petitions were filed on November…
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) issued its first “AD/CVD Update” in December 2014. The AD/CVD Update provides information regarding CBP’s activities to collect antidumping (AD) and countervailing duties (CVD) from U.S. importers that attempt to evade their payment. [Reposted from the King & Spalding blog | P. Lee Smith | January 6, 2015] CBP’s…
The Trans-Pacific Partnership is a disastrous trade agreement designed to protect the interests of the largest multi-national corporations at the expense of workers, consumers, the environment and the foundations of American democracy. It will also negatively impact some of the poorest people in the world. [An Update from Senator Bernie Sanders | January 5, 2014]…
The Revitalize American Manufacturing and Innovation (RAMI) Act was included in the $1.1 trillion omnibus FY 2015 spending bill signed into law by President Obama last month. [Reposted from the King & Spalding blog | Lauren M. Donoghue | January 6, 2015] The RAMI Act passed the House in September, but had been held up…
http://www.wsj.com/articles/dollar-surges-to-11-year-against-biggest-rivals-1420221525 The dollar kicked off 2015 by rallying against other major currencies, underscoring heightened expectations for robust U.S. growth in the new year relative to the rest of the world…..or trouble for the economy……. [Reposted from the blog of Dan DiMicco | Dan DiMicco | Jan 6, 2015] The article correctly points out the negative…
The United States failed to achieve a doubling of exports between 2009 and 2014, as promised in President Obama’s National Export Initiative (NEI). It wasn’t even close. Total U.S. goods and services exports increased by less than 50 percent ($766 billion, or 48.4 percent) between 2009 and 2014 (estimated), as shown in the figure below.…
Many of the same leaders who complain about Chinese censorship quietly accept the censorship themselves. Ten years ago I wrote a book called “That’s China.” It told the story of how the magazine publishing business that I built in China, fighting all the way, mostly with the government bureaus that controlled media, was taken…
