Will Obama Bring Back Protectionism? | Newsweek The Council on Foreign Relations

Between Delhi and D.C.
Sumit Ganguly 5/30/2009 12:00:00 AM
Since the Congress Party's huge win in India's elections was announced on May 16, pundits across the country and in the United States have predicted that the warming relations between Delhi and D.C. are now sure to grow even closer. After all, Congress has finally rid itself of the troublesome coalition partners that were holding it back; surely now it will press forward on the issues that matter most to Washington, such as strengthening the two countries' budding security partnership.
Barack Versus Business
Michael Freedman 5/16/2009 12:00:00 AM
Barack Obama may turn out to be the most anti-big-business president in decades. His gentle bank bailouts are obscuring a get-tough stand on corporations, particularly abroad. Obama's choice for U.S. trade representative was the mayor of Dallas, with scant trade experience, suggesting the administration has little real interest in pushing the corporate case for free trade. The Justice Department has vowed to aggressively prosecute companies for bribing foreign officials, even though global money flows are falling and few other nations go after foreign bribery with anywhere near the zeal of the United States. Obama trumpets his ability to prioritize, but personally announced a crackdown on corporate abuse of overseas tax havens like the Cayman Islands. In doing so, he was making good on a campaign promise to rein in what he called "the biggest tax scam on record," but it is hardly a key to the global crisis. And last week his administration signaled plans to go out and break up monopolies, the way the Europeans do. In laying out the Justice Department's strategy, its new antitrust top cop, Christine A. Varney, said Americans were led to believe that markets should be allowed to "self-police" and that they will correct themselves, but that has not happened. Government, she said, "cannot sit on the sidelines any longer." It may be that Obama needs to show a tough side to Americans worried about the trillions he's spent to save the banks. Or it may be that America has not seen a president this skeptical of big business since Teddy Roosevelt first started busting trusts.
BUSINESS
The Coming Trade Wars
Jeffrey E. Garten 1/31/2009 12:00:00 AM
It's hard to find a top economic official, economist or global business leader who doesn't recognize today's heightened dangers of protectionism. U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown recently called protectionism the "road to ruin," HSBC chairman Stephen Green has urged governments to "avoid the protectionist errors of the 1930s" and WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy never misses a chance to warn against new tariffs. But it is equally difficult to identify any high-powered efforts to actively ward off the prospect of higher tariffs, quotas or trade-blocking regulations. It is as if talking about the threat is seen as enough to deter a gigantic rollback of global commerce. But rhetoric will not prevent a trade war, which is now, I believe, more likely than it has been at any time since the early 1970s, when currencies were no longer fixed to the value of gold and began to float against one another.
EXPERT OPINION
Advice for Obama
7/19/2008 12:00:00 AM
Sometime near the beginning of what many here hope will be the first of Obama's two terms, and at the latest in 2010, the British government will most probably change from Labour to Conservative, from Gordon Brown to David Cameron. But Washington needn't worry: the next lot will be even more pro-American than the last. The Tories adore Obama, NATO, New York and American ways of doing almost everything. A Conservative government will, like the Blair and Brown ones, share Obama's insistence on taking a long-term, multifaceted approach to combating terrorism and his emphasis on the importance of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Britain's armed forces are overstretched and underfunded, but they will still help America as best they can, especially in Afghanistan. London is the place to have a conversation about a joint political, military and economic strategy toward Pakistan and Afghanistan. We have been in those places before. And we're there in several ways now—not just militarily but through our many new Brits of Pakistani origin who live mentally, if not physically, in both countries.
CAMPAIGN 2008
Obama's Brain Trust
6/3/2008 12:00:00 AM
"This is a team that's very reflective of Obama, who has made it pretty clear in his speeches and statements during the campaign that he believes that diplomacy has been undervalued over the past few years and that the United States shouldn't fear to negotiate," says Derek Chollet, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security who advised John Edwards' presidential campaign.
What the World Is Hearing
Fareed Zakaria
Despite their spirited squabbling, the two Democratic candidates are united in the view that one of the big benefits of electing either of them would be an improvement in America's reputation and relations with the world. Hillary Clinton promises to send special envoys to foreign capitals the day after she's elected. Barack Obama offers to reach out to America's foes as well as friends. Unfortunately none of this will matter if they continue to spout dangerous and ill-informed rhetoric about trade.