Global Development: Views from the Center

Last week Secretary of State Clinton, U.S. Trade Representative Kirk, Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack, and other U.S. government officials were in Nairobi at the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) Forum, making new and improved promises about the commitment of the United States to African development. I was in Nairobi last week too to moderate our fifth consultation meeting for the CGD Global Trade Preference Reform Working Group.

Based on the testimony of USTR-designate Ron Kirk this week before the Senate Finance Committee - brief though it was - the Obama Administration is moving in an entirely different direction than we have seen over the last eight years. The concept of a "progressive trade agenda for America," though as yet undefined, certainly suggests that the administration will be looking at the global economy from a very different perspective.

Almost seven years have passed since the Trade Act of 2002 was enacted, and finally we have a truly bi-partisan agreement on Trade Adjustment Assistance that reflects the changing conditions of the global economy. The provisions contained within the package, as reported by Reuters last Friday, were inconceivable from a political point of view just a few years ago.

In an Op-Ed today's Washington Post (free registration required), our neighbor Fred Bergsten, the director of the Peterson Institute, argues that "globalization is paying off for the United States just when we need it" and that we should be pursuing more trade agreements to open markets. He writes that while the U.S. presidential candidates