international trade

Rethinking the Sandwich: the Globalization of Wheat Rust

Ignored orphan crops from the developing world may be the White Knight that rescues the Green Revolution from the Red Queen. Read more read

Big Food’s expansion into the developing world

Has Big Food already run out of customers in cities and other locales that are more readily accessible by land? Nestle Stoops to New Low, Launches Barge to Peddle Junk Food on the Amazon River to Brazil’s Poor. Read more read

How Goldman gambled on starvation

By now, you probably think your opinion of Goldman Sachs and its swarm of Wall Street allies has rock-bottomed at raw loathing. You’re wrong. There’s more. It turns out that the most destructive of all their recent acts has barely been discussed at all. Here’s the rest. This is the story of how some of the richest people in the world – Goldman, Deutsche Bank, the traders at Merrill Lynch, and more – have caused the starvation of some of the poorest people in the world. Read (...) read

South-South cooperation offers new opportunities for transforming African economies

A new study warns that trade and investment flows with the South are reinforcing a longstanding trend in which African countries export farm produce, minerals, ores, and crude oil, and import manufactured goods. It says this situation should be reversed while the South-South trend is still in its early stages. A repeat of the traditional pattern will not help African countries to reduce their traditional dependence on exports of commodities and low-value-added goods. This AfricaFocus (...) read

Financialisation and Financial Actors in Agriculture Commodity Markets

Financing Food focuses on how derivative markets work and on speculation in food and agricultural products. This study demonstrates how the futures market for agricultural products, in particular, has changed and is being disrupted by new speculators, growing index funds and commodities funds. Read more read

How the volcano took out our fruit salad: UK dependence on air transport

The Icelandic ash that stopped air freight gave a hint of what a plane-free world would mean for the UK. On the outskirts of Heathrow there is a multistorey warehouse that plays a remarkable role in the eating habits of millions of people. The British Airways perishables handling centre is the arrival point for 90,000 tonnes of airfreighted fresh produce a year: everything from chopped melon and pineapple fruit salads to baby sweetcorn and asparagus. Every day these once exotic items (...) read

US: With 2.4 Million Jobs Lost to China, New Trade Agreement Battle Begins

Concern about massive jobs losses due to unfair Chinese trade practices is reshaping the American political battle lines over trade, with labor winning new and sometimes unlikely supporters in its fight for stronger policies to protect American workers. Read more read

China Lassoes its Neighbors Through CAFTA Trade Agreement

It might be the world’s largest free trade area, writes columnist Walden Bello, but Southeast Asia is still getting a raw trade deal from China. Read read

Globalization on the rocks

Corporate globalization in the ‘real’ world economy lay behind what appeared at first to be a strictly financial crisis. It was hooked on debt, a deadly vice which eventually crushes everything in its grip, to the point where no-one knows the value of anything. So it could be that, in August 2007, seemingly marginal ‘sub-prime’ people who started posting their house keys through the letterboxes of loan sharks across the US signalled the shipwreck of a misbegotten ‘global’ enterprise. Read (...) read

UN study reveals environmental cost of world trade and environmental damage caused by world’s top firms

Report for the UN into the activities of the world’s 3,000 biggest companies estimates one-third of profits would be lost if firms were forced to pay for use, loss and damage of environment. Political pressure is growing to make big businesses pay for the damage they cause to the environment. Read: Time to clean up: UN study reveals environmental cost of world trade World’s top firms cause $2.2tn of environmental damage, report estimates Andrew Simms (new economic foundation), The (...) read

Hidden Scale of BAT’s Deathly Cigarette Lobby in EU

Corporate Europe Observatory Press Release One of the world’s largest cigarette companies spent more than €700,000 lobbying the EU last year, up to four times as much as the company declared on the EU’s register of interest representatives, new research by Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) has revealed [1]. The revelations come as the tobacco industry fights to retain its influence within the EU after a World Health Organisation agreement on preventing the influence of vested interests from (...) read

Seized: The 2008 landgrab for food and financial security

Today’s food and financial crises have, in tandem, triggered a new global land grab. On the one hand, “food insecure” governments that rely on imports to feed their people are snatching up vast areas of farmland abroad for their own offshore food production. On the other hand, food corporations and private investors, hungry for profits in the midst of the deepening financial crisis, see investment in foreign farmland as an important new source of revenue. As a result, fertile agricultural land (...) read

Paraguay’s Lugo: A Genuine South American Hero and a Worthy Challenge to Brazil

As many Latin American policy analysts have suggested, the election of moderate-left Fernando Lugo and his Alianza Patriotica para el Cambio coalition is yet another manifestation of a South American referendum in favor of a socialist-tinged democracy. Undoubtedly, Lugo’s inauguration marked a transformative moment in the government’s position towards Paraguay’s longstanding agribusiness-export model. This is an issue dominated by socioeconomic political tensions, which are likely to break out (...) read

Take action to control the arms trade

Every year, millions of people suffer as a result of the irresponsible and reckless arms trade. Over 1,000 people are killed by arms every day. Countless more are injured, bereaved, abused and displaced by state security forces, armed groups, criminal gangs and other armed individuals. Two years ago, 153 governments voted at the United Nations to start work on developing an international Arms Trade Treaty. We want as many people as possible to take action to control the arms trade. Tell (...) read

Latin America’s Free Trade Agreements with the European Union - An agenda for domination

The European Union (EU) is negotiating a veritable epidemic of “Association Agreements” or “Cooperation Agreements” throughout the world. In addition to the almost 30 agreements already signed, the EU is currently negotiating, or about to begin negotiating, further agreements with more than 40 countries.[1] The agreements are notable for their broad scope and their “open” and “ongoing” nature; in other words, they oblige the signatory countries in years to come periodically to extend the agreement (...) read

Yearning for a fair deal: EPAs and their effect Eastern and Southern African countries

> Pambazuka, 6 Jan 2006

http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?i (...)

This article presents a summary of recent research by the Trades and Development Studies Centre Trust in Zimbabwe examining the implications of current Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) for Eastern and Southern Africa. The article asks whether it is wise for these countries to continue with the the EPA negotiations considers what are the alternatives.

• See also "Economic Partnership Agreements: territorial conquest by economic means?"

The Derailer’s Guide to the WTO

> Focus on Global South, Nov 2005

http://www.focusweb.org/pdf/Derailer (...)

An introductory guide in pdf to some of the major issues which will be battled out during the WTO meetings in Hong Kong this December, including a glossary of some of the jargon used. Not only suggesting ways disrupting the meetings and explaining why it feels this action is necessary, the guide also presents an idea of what the alternatives to the current make-up might be.

• see also "Some critical issues in the Hong Kong Ministerial" by Third World Network

The EU Corporate Trade Agenda

> November 2005, S2B, 40pp

http://www.s2bnetwork.org/EU_corpora (...)

The role and the interests of corporations and their lobby groups in Trade Policy-Making in the European Union, that is: how EU trade policy is being driven by the demands of European businesses for new markets rather than by the needs of developing countries, European citizens or the environment. The article details the extraordinary access of corporate lobby groups and business bodies to the European Commission. Furthermore, it aims to show how the trade policy that emerges from this hidden and unregulated relationship overwhelmingly reflects the demands of European multinational companies in current negotiations on agriculture, trade in services and non-agricultural market access.

• Explore the Brussels lobby paradise, read : “Lobby Planet”, by the Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO)