Conservative supermarket tycoon Ricardo Martinelli resoundingly won Panama’s presidential election Sunday with more than 60% of the vote. Already Martinelli is pushing for a free trade deal with the United States. Heritage fellow Ray Walser puts the victory in context: The Martinelli victory breaks the Latin Left’s 2009 electoral winning …
Throughout last year’s campaign, President Barack Obama expressed skepticism about the value of free trade, sending signals that America’s commitment to free markets would die with his administration. These fears were only worsened when the Obama administration passed an Omnibus spending bill that has already caused a job killing trade …
Heritage Fellow James E. Roberts has been one of the earliest and most vocal trade experts urging the reinstatement and expansion of the Mexico Trucking program. The pilot program, intended to ensure American compliance with the North American Free Trade Agreement, was recently ended by Congress and President Obama because …
The Washington Post editorializes today: As President Obama and many of his supporters articulated it during the 2008 campaign, the case against President George W. Bush’s foreign policy emphasized his highhanded treatment of countries with which we disagree. Too often going it alone in pursuit of asserted national interests, the …
Protectionism is always bad policy. But protectionism during an economic downturn, after taxes have already risen, and in addition to a massive $2 trillion tax on energy consumption is, well, not good. Yet that is exactly what Energy Secretary David Chu seems to be edging towards. In response to the …
Last week, with the signing of his pen on the Omnibus Spending Bill, President Barack Obama ended a pilot program designed to allow Mexican trucking companies to ship goods deep inside the United States. While controversial with some quarters of the American public, the program was necessary to ensure U.S. …
Catering to a Congress that is largely hostile to international trade, USTR nominee Ron Kirk used his confirmation hearing testimony to assure the Senate Finance Committee that the administration plans to take a tougher stance on trade this year. Instead of focusing the trade agenda on looking for new opportunities …
Heritage analysts Jena Baker McNeill and Diem Nguyen report: On January 15, the United States Northern Command Joint Task Force-North accidentally released to the public a briefing that expressed concerns over terrorists entering the U.S. from Canada. While the report was taken offline and out of public view shortly thereafter, …
Dangerous currents advocating protectionism are alive and well on both sides of the Atlantic. A “Buy American” clause in the latest U.S. stimulus package may have been eased to avoid violation of bilateral trade agreements, but its protectionist intentions remain. But the European Union is in no position to lecture …
