The special protection that investors based in the United States have long enjoyed when they do business abroad seems to be on its way out, and it’s about time. Unlike other private parties, including workers and consumers, foreign investors have access to special arbitration arrangements to protect their businesses in partner countries that sign bilateral investment treaties or preferential trade agreements with the U.S. This mechanism, known as investor-state dispute settlement, or ISDS, has attracted increased scrutiny since the U.S. insisted on including an expanded version of it in the North American Free Trade Agreement in the 1990s. Now, both [...]
As the coronavirus pandemic takes a terrible toll across Latin America, with over 3.5 million cases and nearly 150,000 deaths, the region is increasingly facing a financial and humanitarian emergency. Across Latin America and the Caribbean, GDP is forecast to contract by 9.3 percent in 2020, according to the International Monetary Fund—the region’s largest economic contraction on record, and far worse than the outlook for African and Asian economies. The United Nations expects the value of South America’s exports to fall by nearly a fifth this year due to shrinking international demand and weaker commodity prices. Foreign investment has also [...]
Editor’s Note: Guest columnist Edward Alden is filling in for Kimberly Ann Elliott. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador went to Washington last week to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump and celebrate this month’s official launch of the updated and rebranded North American Free Trade Agreement, now the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA. Critics of Lopez Obrador, including former Mexican Ambassador to the U.S. Arturo Sarukhan, called the visit “a colossal error, electorally, diplomatically and strategically.” His supporters said Mexico has little choice but to curry favor with Trump despite the insults he has hurled at the country and [...]
