The European Union (EU) has announced plans to levy a tax on airline emissions for all planes landing and taking off from EU airports. This tax would be calculated not only based on mileage flown in EU airspace but also for the entire length of the flight (thus, Chinese and Japanese airlines would be taxed for an entire journey from Beijing or Tokyo).

The European Union-or at least its feisty climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard-seems determined to take on the whole world by demanding that all airlines pay a carbon tribute for the privilege of crossing EU airspace and landing at EU airports.  

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...

Over the past few months, there has been a marked intensification of the Eurozone debt crisis that could have major implications for the United States economy in 2012.

As part of a bid for renewed authority to streamline government, the White House wants to merge six agencies into one bureaucracy focused on trade and competitiveness. The plan has sparked substantial criticism from the U.S. business and trade policy communities. An expert panel will weigh in on the controversy and evaluate President Obama's reorganization proposal.

To combat the economic malaise, the Obama administration is bending over backward to encourage companies to create jobs in America. So why is the White House - and the Congress - challenging Huawei, a high-tech firm eager to invest and compete in the U.S. market? 

The trade policies that President Obama outlined in his State of the Union Address undermine the strength of America's economy, and are the wrong way to react to the changing nature of trade.

The European Union is planning to tax all airlines that travel to and from the 27 EU nations based on the amount of carbon emissions they produce.  The tax, to be collected beginning in 2013 for prior year emissions, will be calculated based on the length of each flight. The farther the airlines travel, the heftier the tax.