Claude E. Barfield

Politics of Trade in the USA and in the Obama Administration: Implications for Asian Regionalism

Over the next four years, the Obama administration will face a series of strategic choices in forging policies to respond to a growing momentum for advances in Asian regional structures. Though faced with domestic political challenges; not least from within his own Democratic party – President Obama and his advisers will need to set a course for the reassertion of US leadership in constructing a trans-Pacific vision, through new US-based free trade agreements, signing on to existing agreements such as the P-4 (Singapore, New Zealand, Brunei, the Philippines), or consolidating existing free trade agreements among Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) nations. In pursuing this vision, the US should take advantage of the fact that the next three APEC leaders meetings are in Singapore (2009), Japan (2010), and the USA (2011); a sequence ripe for synergistic teamwork.

Tiger by the tail : China and the World Trade Organization

In this work, the authors examine the problems that are likely to delay Chinas accession to the World Trade Organization. They propose guidelines for how the WTO should address the accession of not only China, but of other non-market economies as well.

The deceptive allure of a Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement: A US perspective

The idea of a Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement enjoys strong support in both the United States and Europe. Our author takes a critical view of such an agreement in the light both of his overall assessment of the implications of regional trading pacts for the larger multilateral trading system and of issues raised by the particular details of a US-EU agreement.