As the Washington, DC area recovers from effects of Hurricane Isabel, President George W. Bush keeps trying to divert the potential “perfect storm” forming from the combination of the constant stream of bad news coming out of the Middle East and growing domestic discontent over the war and occupation in Iraq.
According to a recent report by the Council on Foreign Relations, “[T]he average American believes we spend 18% of the federal budget on foreign affairs, while thinking we should spend only 6%. In reality, foreign affairs spending, the bully pulpit of America’s strength overseas, is now only 1% of the federal budget–a little more than one penny of every federal tax dollar.” 1
Key Points
Key Points
International competition for investment keeps environmental standards
"stuck in the mud."
With the right set of global rules, foreign direct investment could
be a channel for ecologically sustainable economic development.
In the coming decade, U.S. policy will be decisive in shaping International
investment rules.
The governance of international capital flows will be one of the key
environmental policy issues of the next decade. Along with labor, human
rights, and other social advocates, environmentalists are increasingly
demanding that international rules and corporate norms governing investment
explicitly embrace environmental and social performance goals.
In a December 1998 Wall Street Journal/ NBC News survey, 58 percent of Americans polled indicated that “foreign trade has been bad for the U.S. economy.1” Similar U.S. public opinion surveys in recent years register growing public apprehension over the current course of corporate-led economic globalization. Yet, expanding trade and overseas investment has been the Clinton administration’s central strategy both for job growth and for addressing a rapidly changing global economy. This fundamental divide between U.S. government policy and U.S. public opinion represents a monumental challenge for the crafters of U.S. foreign policy at the onset of a new century.
Key Points
Key Points
Components of the package outlined below have been circulating as separate reform proposals—some on the IMF and/or G-7 reform agendas, others struggling against Washington and IMF resistance. Combined they are an updating of the Bretton Woods architecture commensurate with today’s changed economic and political environment. They would help restore some of the stable, equitable, economic growth of yesteryear, while supplying institutional building blocks for erecting a genuinely integrated global economy in the future. The components are: