New America on Trade and Globalization

Jagdish Bhagwati is a humble man. He will tell you so himself. Describing the effect of his book In Defense of Globalization during a speech at the John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) last fall, the Columbia economist politely refused credit for single-handedly dampening growing concerns about the fallout from free trade. Fears of trade are "low-key," he said. "I won't say it's because of my book. I have colleagues who would say that. ... People believe I have a large claim to fame, so I… more

We are entering -- for those keeping track -- the new new, new new world order. President George Bush Snr's world order of multilateral cooperation was embarrassed by Somalia, Rwanda and Bosnia. Pax Americana, rebranded as globalisation under Bill Clinton, was shattered by 9/11. For the past seven years we've been living under the "war on terror" world order paradigm, creating more cleavages than it has healed.

But this time the conditions are very different. The world has stopped waiting for the US - and its next… more

During the Olympics, China showed the world that it can throw a heck of a coming out party. But traveling here afterward, one sees the many complexities and challenges facing this vast and ancient land. 

Especially in the rural areas--where most people still live--the impressive economic rise of China has penetrated only superficially. True, the Communist Party, which still runs nearly everything, brought electricity and other development here in the early 1980s. But while some appliances like television and telephones are increasingly common, indoor plumbing, electric ovens and… more

As food and grain prices rise around the world, causing hunger and political unrest from Egypt to Indonesia, I still find myself nearly every weekend walking around the corner for brunch to Brasserie Les Halles in Manhattan, where the steak frites is $17.50. Steak has been stable not just in its price, but also its gastric and emotional effect: Afterward I am both full and full of myself.

It first struck me in Shanghai at the tail end of two years of traveling the world… more

In 2003, administrators at Stanford University's Electrical Engineering Department were startled when a group of foreign students aced the notoriously difficult Ph.D. entrance exam, getting some of the highest scores ever. That the whiz kids weren't American wasn't odd; students from Asia and elsewhere excel in U.S. programs. The surprising thing, say Stanford administrators, is that the majority came from one country and one school: Sharif University of Science and Technology in Iran.

Stanford has become a favorite destination of Sharif grads. Bruce A. Wooley, a former chair of the… more

Under pressure from the U.S., Europe and the IMF, representatives of 25 sovereign wealth funds managing about $3 trillion in assets met last week in Singapore to discuss how to allay fears about their investments. These large pools of government-controlled wealth are investing in everything from Barclays and Citigroup to New York's Chrysler Building. As they transcend traditional boundaries between foreign policy, financial markets and national security, it is natural that Western capitals are worried.

However, shining the spotlight too brightly on sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) may… more

Angelo Rivero Santos, the deputy chief of mission of the Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, and Andrés Martinez, senior fellow at the New America Foundation, discuss recent political and economic trends in South America: Are Latin American nations moving toward neo-liberal free markets or a 21st century form of Bolivarian socialism? Why are relations between Venezuela and the U.S. perceived as being so bad?  How might U.S. relations with South and Central American nations change after Barack Obama or… more

This past week saw not only the Irish rejection of the Lisbon treaty, forcing a crisis summit this week to chart an alternative path to EU continuity, but also the annual EU-American summit in Slovenia, aiming to forge a common transatlantic agenda on Middle East peace, climate change and trade. The Irish vote is likely to fuel rumours of the EU's demise, yet it is the latter summit that will prove more revealing about its future. While mending transatlantic divides… more

In the 20th century, the color line was the primary challenge. In the 21st century, the problem is the border line. Today, there are more people living outside their countries of birth than at any time in history, and international migrants now make up the equivalent of the world's fifth most-populous country -- just after China, India, the United States and Indonesia.

As a result, migrant-receiving nations, particularly those in the First World, are scrambling to devise strategies to incorporate and… more

The most important long-term strategic challenge facing the Gulf Cooperation Council is not the threat of Islamic extremism or the rise of Iran -- it is the continuing economic decline of the United States.

Ever since 1980, when Jimmy Carter, then president, first publicly committed the United States to use military force to defend the free flow of oil from the Middle East, the United States has been the region’s unquestioned hegemon. And ever since the GCC was formed in 1981,… more

Hillary Rodham Clinton is right. She has the broader and whiter political coalition, so she should, by all rights, be the Democratic presidential nominee.

After all, in other realms of the political process, we routinely refer to "black districts" or "Latino districts" and speak of the necessity of those jurisdictions to be represented by black or Latino elected officials. Well, then, because the American population is 66% white, maybe the United States is a de facto white district that should be… more

Half of the world’s population now lives in cities, a number that will climb to 75% by the middle of the century. This development marks a radical break in human history, for humanity has until recently been overwhelmingly rural, concerned first and foremost with brute survival.

In “The Communist Manifesto,” Karl Marx referred to “the idiocy of rural life” -- or so the mistranslation goes -- as an enduring problem. In fact, Marx wasn’t talking about “idiocy” at all. Rather, he… more

This article is adapted from Parag Khanna's book The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order.

The term "second world" has fallen out of use. It used to mean countries of the socialist world; today I use the phrase to refer to those countries in eastern Europe and central Asia, Latin America, the middle east and southeast Asia which are both rich and poor, developed and underdeveloped, postmodern and pre-modern, cosmopolitan and tribal -- all at… more

I remember one particularly bad factory in China. It produced outdoor tables, parasols, and gazebos, and the place was a mess. Work floors were so crowded with production materials that I could barely make my way from one end to the other. In one area, where metals were being chemically treated, workers squatted at the edge of steaming pools as if contemplating a sudden, final swim. The dormitories were filthy: the hallways were strewn with garbage -- orange peels, tea… more

From the outside, Effat College doesn't seem like a bellwether of change. The all-girls school in Jeddah, a port city on the coast of the Red Sea, is rimmed by unscalable high walls and an empty parking lot, resembling the scene of a freshly departed circus in Middle America. In many ways, the college's exterior illustrates conventional misperceptions -- closed, drab, and unwelcoming -- of modern Saudi Arabia. Perhaps the only thing less inviting is the bold, red lettering at… more

When the adjectives most often used to describe you are "secretive," "opaque" and "mysterious," you've got an image problem. Such is the predicament of sovereign wealth funds, the government-controlled investment vehicles, often in authoritarian states, that have become the bane of Western politicians. Yesterday, the European Commission became the latest body to propose transparency guidelines for these funds.

But the good news for sovereign wealth funds is that increased disclosure and transparency may actually be a win-win for everyone. A little… more

Free trade's benefit to the country as a whole may be open to debate, but there is no doubt that California stands to gain from it. So why are the state's political leaders so squeamish about standing up for free trade in Washington?

California has twin engines of ingenuity -- Hollywood and the Silicon Valley -- and continued trade liberalization is crucial to keep both running. These industries face more daunting market barriers -- the absurdly low number of foreign films… more

Turn on the TV today, and you could be forgiven for thinking it's 1999. Democrats and Republicans are bickering about where and how to intervene, whether to do it alone or with allies and what kind of world America should lead. Democrats believe they can hit a reset button, and Republicans believe muscular moralism is the way to go. It's as if the first decade of the 21st century didn't happen -- and almost as if history itself doesn't happen.… more

Democrats and Republicans are alike in one respect, according to the libertarian writer Brink Lindsey: their shared nostalgia for the 1950s. Except, he says, "Republicans want to go home to the United States of the 1950s, while Democrats want to work there."

Indeed, from television (where Mad Men has faithfully recreated the furnishings, boozy smell, and chronic sexual dishonesty of the New York executive suite circa 1960), to the celebrated 50th anniversary of Jack Kerouac's On the Road, to the current… more

Whether a Democrat or a Republican is inaugurated in January 2009, the centre of political gravity in the US is well to the left of where it was a decade ago. President George W. Bush's own contribution to the shift has been negligible. It is the result of long-term, tectonic shifts in political and economic ideology that are affecting all developed countries.

In hindsight, despite the re-election of a conservative president, 2004 was the hinge between eras. The definitions of right,… more