After years of secret negotiations and silence in the media, the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) has risen to headline news. Now that Congress has voted to give President Obama “fast-track” trade promotion authority to push the deal through the House and Senate with...
This spring, investigators discovered mass graves of human trafficking victims in Malaysia. How did the U.S. State Department respond? By upgrading its assessment of Malaysia's human rights efforts. According to Reuters, trafficking experts in the department had given...
In 1952, Abner Green — leader of a civil rights group called the American Committee for the Protection of the Foreign Born — served six months in prison for refusing to cooperate with federal investigators who were spying on progressive civil rights organizations. A...
One of the most controversial aspects of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is the fact that the Obama administration has tried to impose a public blockade on the text of the draft agreement. When Congress votes on whether to grant the president "fast-track...
In a move that elicited a collective groan from virtually all of progressive America, the Obama administration and congressional Republicans reached a deal on April 16 on so-called “fast track” trade authority. This is the legislation needed to ram new trade...
The Obama administration has never been one for grand State of the Union addresses. And once the commentariat has had its fun picking apart the subtle jabs, the applause lines, the body language, and whatever else, there's often not a whole lot of oxygen left to dig...
When global justice groups wanted to halt expansion of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1999, they organized massive demonstrations in Seattle, where the official ministerial conference was being held. Tens of thousands of people filled the streets. Groups held...
This article is a joint publication of Foreign Policy In Focus and TheNation.com. With Republicans winning big in the midterm elections, the debate over so-called "free-trade" agreements could again take center stage in Washington. President Barack Obama has been...
The United States is not really a democracy. That’s the (simplified) conclusion of a recent study from Princeton University. Instead, economic elites and special interest groups enjoy tremendous sway in Washington, while “the preferences of the average American appear...
President Barack Obama’s failure to win congressional support for “fast track” trade authority has weakened the hands of U.S. trade officials as they attempt to finalize the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The other 11 governments involved in these negotiations should see...