The U.S. is more active on trade policy than it has been in years.  President Obama is meeting with Canada and Mexico about new agreements, Congress will hold hearings on changing decades-old trade law, and the federal government will more broadly be bringing several cases before the WTO.

Yet, in constructing...

For the WTO to seize the mantle of global trade promotion, it must actually commit itself to promoting free trade.

In the latest International Economics Outlook, AEI trade expert Claude Barfield assesses the progress of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) and the substantive and structural issues that have emerged during the negotiations.

Attempts at austerity and deleveraging in Europe have converted an economic problem into a political dilemma, with leftist governments rising against Germany's austerity-laced rescue packages. Germany now faces a tough economic decision that will involve choosing between a breakup of the current euro system and a movement toward a common fiscal policy in Europe.

Congress is set to pass three bilateral trade agreements that would generate substantial job and export growth in an economy that sorely needs both. And while boosting exports by an estimated $13 billion and jobs by 380,000 won't by themselves turn the economy around, their passage could set the stage for much larger gains in years to come.

In 2011, the United States’s sleepy free trade agenda finally got a shot of caffeine, but if the U.S. wants to seriously bolster its economy in 2012, policymakers ought to anchor their boats to the quay of an aggressive free trade agenda.

Americans are being played for fools by Iran—and fooling themselves. There is no case to be made that Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapons capability.

The president's trip to meet with leaders and revive the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) closely resembles a trip he took two years ago. We've been down this road before. Past experience cautions against reading too much into Obama's embrace of the TPP.