The North American Free Trade Agreement’s impact on the trinational environment remains controversial.
Issues / Environment
Sadly, though the overall number of nuclear weapons is down (from approximately 60,000 in 1990 to 35,000 today) and the antagonism of the cold war has faded, the risk of nuclear war is still real, and the threat of nuclear proliferation is greater than ever.
More than $60 billion spent on missile defense projects since 1983 has produced precious little beyond cost overruns and technical failures.
Environmentalists are increasingly demanding that international rules and corporate norms governing investment explicitly embrace environmental and social performance goals.
The Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), a wholly owned government corporation established in 1971, provides taxpayer-backed loans, loan guarantees, and insurance to U.S. businesses for investments in "politically risky" countries.
In the past three decades, protecting the global environment has emerged as one of the major challenges in international relations.
Sound population policies can brighten environmental prospects while improving life for women and children, enhancing economic development, and contributing to a more secure world.
For the past decade, through both Republican and Democratic administrations, the U.S. government has promoted a model of free-market global capitalism that it claimed would benefit the great majority of people both at home and abroad. This model has failed.
U.S. foreign policy and national security policies have significant domestic and international environmental impacts, and the increasingly precarious state of the global environment presents important new challenges to U.S. national interests.
One of the major challenges faced by the international community is how to address environmental problems that, although created locally, have global consequences.