Breaking Waves
- It’s always good to be up to date on local happenings when you are doing business around the world. Knowing what’s happening when you get off the flight in a foreign market can be valuable to your business dealings, can help you get to know locals quickly, and can be vital to your personal security in some places. Knowing the local hot topics can’t be bad, but it can also be tough to find out before you are on the ground. Check out World-Newspapers.com, a site that provides links to local, English-language newspapers virtually everywhere in the world. Some are subscription, of course, but most offer considerable reporting for free. This way, you can check out the Brunei Times before your meeting with the Sultan!
- The European Union and the United States finally got around to signing the agreement they initialed back in December to end the Banana War trade dispute. You can find more about this slippery issue here.
- The United States is hosting the second round of talks next week to build the Trans Pacific Partnership. The talks will be in San Francisco and will include trade representatives from Singapore, Chile, Australia, Peru, New Zealand, Brunei and Vietnam. The Obama Administration says it wants TPP to be a “21st Century” trade agreement, which leaves one wondering what that phrase means. My buddy Frank Vargo, at the National Association of Manufacturers, wonders too, hoping that it means we will go for maximizing trade, but fearful that it is code for using trade to enforce labor and environmental objectives. Perhaps Obama is walking a fine line here, because Thea Lee of the AFL-CIO comments: “An odd thing about the Obama trade policy is that it seems to engender a lot of discomfort on both labor and the business side…”
This entry was posted
on Saturday, June 12th, 2010 at 7:31 am and is filed under European Union, Exporting, Trade Policy.
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