protectionism

The "Buy American" clause stuck onto the stimulus bill wending its way through Congress is a pernicious piece of legislation because it has engendered a ferocious response from trading partners, not the least of which is Canada. Below is a…

Everyone should be concerned about the increasing tone of trade friction in the global economy. While Chinese Premier Wen and U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown are setting a positive tone in London today regarding bilateral trade…

Politicians in Washington D.c. have cooked up a nice way to re-create the mistakes of the Great Depression by attaching a 'Buy American' provision onto the stimulus bill making its way through Congress. Apparently the Canadians and…

You heard the quotes (China slams U.S. profligacy). Here's the video. After some brief introductory remarks Chinese Premier Wen gets down to ripping into the United States. If you want to get right to his most quotable remarks, they begin…

Smarting from Tim Geithner's comments about China manipulating, its currency, the Chinese have retaliated with a condemnation of U.S. economic policy in the harshest of terms. At the World Economic Forum, Chinese Premier Wen went on the…

There seems to be a blame game making the rounds in policy circles these days in which Asia is at fault for the credit crisis and economic downturn. The meme goes like this: Everything was fine until the Asians started manipulating their…

In an FT opinion piece, Jagdish Bhagwati, a famous name in economic circles on the issue of free trade, issued a blistering attack on president-elect Barack Obama's commitment to free trade in the face of a deteriorating U.S. job market.…

The punderati has been especially kind to China. As the global recession takes hold, the conventional wisdom has moved from the largely debunked de-coupling of China to a story where China slows, but much less so than the west. But is…

Below is an article that has been syndicated on a number of sites in the Indian press (hat tip Ravin) which challenges the common wisdom that Asia, and particularly China, will weather the downturn better than the U.S. While the articles…