trade diplomacy

Many investors have been stampeding out of emerging-market bonds, but they’re falling in love with Colombia. Investors have poured $622.5 million into Colombia’s bond market since the start of the year, the biggest inflow into any emerging-market country so far in 2014, according to fund flow tracker EPFR Global.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper departed Sunday for South Korea, where he is widely expected to complete another long round of free-trade negotiations that his critics were denouncing as secretive and potentially bad for Canadian workers. It wasn’t known whether Harper planned to sign the final text of a free-trade deal with South Korea — a laborious, decade-long, on-again, off-again process — or was simply going to announce an agreement-in-principle in a staged photo-op.

L.A. is a global city and so is our city's economy, which is why I'm in Mexico City right now on my first trade mission as Mayor. I am joined here by representatives of our Port, Airport, and Tourism & Convention Board as well as a business delegation organized by the L.A. Area Chamber of Commerce.

February 17, 2014

On Feb. 19, President Obama heads to Mexico to meet with President Enrique Peña Nieto and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper at the North American Leaders' Summit. The three leaders will undoubtedly look back at the last 20 years, recognizing the mostly positive changes that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and other cross-border ties have brought to the three nations.

Today, American and French diplomats are preparing for talks with Iran that build on the agreement that has halted progress on and rolled back key elements of the Iranian nuclear program. French and American officials share information daily to combat terrorism around the world. Our development experts are helping farmers across Africa and on other continents boost their yields and escape poverty.

The past two decades have been all about the BRICS: a group of five countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) that soared to economic superstardom and gradually won geopolitical influence. But now, with their economies slowing down, those days seem to be over. What’s more, by some measures, the BRICS have squandered their years of plenty.

Non-governmental organizations, together with government institutions have been major stakeholders in Turkey’s African initiative. Humanitarian assistance, development aid, humanitarian diplomacy, and exchange diplomacy are central to Turkey’s existing involvement in Africa. Turkey, as the natural heir of the Ottoman Empire, has inherited both a historical baggage and a legacy in North and Sub-Saharan Africa.

January 14, 2014

In 2010, I sat across the table from Assistant US Trade Representative Barbara Weisel, who was responsible for negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the mega-regional free-trade treaty among Vietnam, Malaysia, and ten other Pacific Rim countries that President Barack Obama’s administration wants to conclude in the coming weeks.

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