Trade Archive

By the late 1990s, an HIV diagnosis was no longer considered a death sentence in the wealthy countries of the Global North. Advances in medical technology had brought new drugs onto the market that could reverse the disease’s progression. However, those life-saving drugs were priced out of the reach of most patients across the Global South, where millions of people continued to die unnecessarily. There are echoes now of that earlier era, as those same regions are largely going without COVID-19 vaccines—even as wealthier countries move on to administer booster shots for their populations. In response to the disparity in […]

On Oct. 3, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists released 11.9 million confidential files, known as the Pandora Papers, that documented how world leaders, oligarchs and business elites park their wealth in offshore jurisdictions. Like the Panama Papers of 2016, this new leak brought shell companies and offshore jurisdictions under intense public scrutiny for their role in helping the rich and powerful evade taxes and ignore the transparency requirements by which their fellow citizens and competitors must abide. What was perhaps most damning was the inclusion of five U.S. states—South Dakota, Florida, Delaware, Texas and Nevada—among the list of favored offshore […]

After two to three decades during which Beijing supported the marketization of the Chinese economy and the growing role of the private sector, many analysts now worry that the Chinese Communist Party has turned its back on its earlier commitment to market-oriented reforms. For example, Stephen Roach, an economist at Yale University and former chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia, worries in a recent essay that the Chinese government’s current focus on re-regulation and income redistribution is undermining “the heart of the market-based ‘reform and opening up’ that have underpinned China’s growth miracle.”  Indeed, in recent years Beijing has implemented a series […]

Editor’s Note: WPR editor-in-chief Judah Grunstein is filling in today for Stewart Patrick, who will be back next week. U.S. President Joe Biden will hold a video summit Monday with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, their first face-to-face encounter since Biden took office in January. The meeting, which is reportedly the culmination of background exploratory talks over the past month, follows several high-profile encounters between top-level officials that veered toward the explosive. Sparks flew in Anchorage, Alaska, when both sides’ senior diplomats met for the first time in March. More recently, Wendy Sherman, deputy secretary of state, faced an acrimonious […]

Africa’s leaders and policymakers have long identified connectivity, tourism and, more broadly, mobility—human, capital and otherwise—as key to the continent’s economic structural transformation. For example, the African Union’s Agenda 2063, through seven key aspirations, has identified several programs and initiatives promoting connectivity and mobility as central to accelerating shared growth and development in Africa, as well as to forging a common identity.  Among its flagship projects intended to realize this ambition, the bloc has identified the need for an integrated high-speed train network connecting the continent’s capitals and commercial centers; a continent-wide free trade area, known today as the African […]

The 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP26, currently taking place in Glasgow, Scotland, has brought together a wide array of African leaders, policy specialists, businesspeople and activists focused on one goal: how to square the goal of reaching net zero carbon dioxide emissions globally with the continent’s industrialization needs and financial realities. During the first two days of the summit, more than 25 African leaders representing nearly half of the continent’s 54 countries took center stage to make the case for a justice-oriented approach to solving the climate crisis. Speaking Tuesday at an Africa-focused event at the conference, Congolese […]

Editor’s Note: This is the web version of our subscriber-only weekly newsletter, Europe Decoder, which includes a look at the week’s top stories from and about Europe. Subscribe to receive it by email every Thursday. If you’re already a subscriber, adjust your newsletter settings to receive it directly to your inbox. Brexit-watchers had their eyes fixed on Paris today for a meeting between French European Affairs Minister Clement Beaune and U.K. Brexit Minister David Frost to discuss the two countries’ dispute over fishing licenses. It doesn’t appear any solution has yet been found, though France isn’t yet following through on its threat to ban British […]

In the aftermath of the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, a great deal of attention has been given to the causes and consequences of the failed intra-Afghan peace process, the factors leading to the collapse of the Afghan military and the role played by pervasive corruption at the highest levels of the country’s internationally backed government. Far less discussion has focused on the ways that economic factors, especially the illicit opium economy, strengthened the Taliban in their years as an insurgency, and how they will limit the Taliban’s options now that they are in power.  Shortly after the fall of Kabul, […]

On Oct. 14, just two weeks before the start of the United Nations’ Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, an unusual organization commemorated its fifth anniversary: Stay Grounded. The group, founded in 2016, is an international activist network of more than 170 smaller protest movements from across the globe. Through “mutual support and exchange of experiences,” it hopes to inspire and guide collaboration around the shared goal that brings its members together—namely, reducing “aviation and its negative impacts.” In the years since Stay Grounded started work, it has made a case for seeing anti-airport social movements as a truly global phenomenon. […]

In late September, the leader of Vietnam’s ruling Communist Party, Nguyen Phu Trong, invited his Cambodian and Laotian counterparts—Hun Sen, who is also Cambodia’s prime minister, and Thongloun Sisoulith, who is also Laos’ president—to Hanoi for a meeting. According to Vietnam’s official media, the three leaders talked about cooperation past and future, and the necessity of effective and close-knit relations among the ruling parties and governments of the three countries.  Such a banal readout for a rare in-person meeting raised some eyebrows and fueled speculation. Writing for Asia Times, David Hutt reported that “analysts and observers saw the Hanoi-hosted talks as a significant […]