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Summaries of Analyses in 2008 of Biofuels Policies by International and European Technical Agencies
Tim Searchinger
November 18, 2008
Since January 2008, international institutions, national technical agencies, and major international scientific organizations have released ten major reviews of biofuel policies. This brief summarizes their conclusions.

The Shape of the Future: The Transatlantic Economy by 2025
Joseph Quinlan
October 2008
The foundation of the world economy has rested squarely on the shoulders of the transatlantic economy for the past 60 years. It is the largest, most powerful, and most productive economy in the world. And while the first decade and a half of globalization was largely driven and shaped by the United States and Europe, the world of tomorrow will be different. It will be less U.S.-centric and more crowded as new players, like China, Russia, India, and Brazil, from the developing nations reshape the global landscape.

Principles in the pipeline: Managing transatlantic values and interests in Central Asia
October 2008
After 9/11 the Central Asian states hosted coalition military bases and became important security partners for operations in Afghanistan. The rising price of oil and gas, coupled with a renewed western concern about its energy security, made the development and export of Central Asian production a much more pressing commercial and strategic priority for Brussels and Washington than it was in the 1990s. A region that was effectively ignored for over a decade has now become a vital area of transatlantic interest.

Promoting Innovation to Solve Global Challenges: Opportunities for R&D in Agriculture, Climate Change, and Health
10/2/2008
Technological innovations arguably have an important role to play in addressing global challenges such as poverty, climate change, and the current food crisis. A variety of public policies exist that aim to increase incentives for innovation. Such policies can be broadly classified into two categories: “push” programs and “pull” programs. This paper discusses various aspects of alternative reward mechanisms that can promote R&D but restrict access to less than “traditional” Intellectual Property Rights systems.

The U.S. Climate Policy Debate: How Climate Politics are Moving Forward on Capitol Hill and in the White House
Cathleen Kelly
9/23/2008
The Bush administration’s waning days in office herald a likely new approach in U.S. climate policy. Both major candidates in the upcoming presidential election—Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain—have publically embraced approaches to the issue which dramatically differ from the resistance to greenhouse gas regulation that has been espoused by President Bush over the last eight years. Accordingly, while no major climate legislation will likely emerge from Congress before next year at the earliest, the climate debate in the United States is changing. This paper provides an overview of the current status of the U.S. climate change policy debate.

Development as a Strategy: A U.S.-European Business Dialogue
Jonathan White
September 3, 2008
Based on a symposium convened in Chicago on May 15-16, 2008 and organized by GMF, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, the Initiative for Global Development, and Business Action for Africa, this policy brief seeks to inform the wider business and development communities about the challenges and opportunities of pursuing long-term development objectives in business strategies. It aims to contribute to greater knowledge in this field through a robust transatlantic dialogue.

If Not Now, Then When?
Joe Guinan
July 2008
As ministers gather around the WTO negotiating table the week of July 21 in Geneva, there are troubling questions about whether the deal that is at hand is really worth doing and whether it is even possible to conclude an agreement at present, given the political constraints-especially those associated with a U.S. presidential election year.

The U.S. Presidential Election and the Prospects for Transatlantic Trade and Investment
Joseph Quinlan
July 2008
The transatlantic partnership over the past eight years has been under constant strain, creating an atmosphere of disappointment and distrust on both sides of the Atlantic. This brief examines the transatlantic economic partnership on trade and investment and the prospects of whether or not that relationship will continue to flourish under a new U.S. administration in 2009 or whether there will be a new tide of protectionism.

America must correct course: a conversation with Helmut Schmidt
Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff
July 1, 2008
Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, the senior director for policy programs at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, recently met with former German Finance Minister and Chancellor Helmut Schmidt in his Hamburg office on behalf of The American Interest to discuss the United States and the world economy.

Walking a Tightrope: World Trade in Manufacturing and the Benefits of Binding
June 2008
Negotiators in Geneva are still struggling to conclude the Doha Round of multilateral trade talks at the World Trade Organization (WTO). Doubts have been fueled by the modesty of recent estimates of the gains on the table in the negotiations on Non-Agricultural Market Access (NAMA). This policy brief argues that a completed Doha Round has more to offer to the U.S. and European private sector than cuts to already low applied industrial tariffs. The real gold mine in the Doha negotiations is the increased certainty that would flow from large cuts to bound tariff rates.

What We Can Learn From Sweden
Bruce Stokes
June 21, 2008
In the early 1990s, Sweden experienced the worst financial crisis suffered by any industrial country since the Depression. The Swedish banking collapse wiped out fortunes, cost taxpayers a staggering amount of money, and may have permanently reduced the country’s standard of living. Thus, as Washington watches Wall Street’s slow-motion meltdown, Stockholm may have much to teach the next president about weathering banking tsunamis.

Narrowing the Transatlantic Climate Divide: A Roadmap to Progress
June 2008
Most climate change opinion leaders on both sides of the Atlantic have modest expectations for the July Summit in Hokkaido, Japan—the location of both the G-8 leaders’ meeting and the Major Economies Meeting (MEM), an initiative launched by President Bush last year that involves the world’s 16 major economic powers and emitters, plus the EU. Transatlantic allies seem to be an ocean apart over how quickly Europe, the United States, and other major economies should reduce emissions over the next decade, but downplaying Hokkaido could be a serious mistake.

Transatlantic Regulatory Cooperation in Services: Can it Help the Developing World?
May 2008
The European Union and the United States have dynamic services markets highly integrated through deep trade and investment ties. Differences in regulatory approaches and philosophies occasionally cause transatlantic disagreement regarding how each should respond to specific challenges or market needs. This is particularly true in services, which tend to be more highly regulated than manufacturing industries.

As Farm Bill Nears Vote, Bush Presses for Fewer Subsidies
Dan Morgan
May 4, 2008
President Bush's decision in 2002 to sign a farm bill loaded with billions of dollars of new agricultural subsidies triggered considerable criticism from GOP conservatives true to the party's anti-spending philosophy.

Emptying the Breadbasket
Dan Morgan
April 29, 2008
At Stephen Fleishman's busy Bethesda shop, the era of the 95-cent bagel is coming to an end. Breaking the dollar barrier "scares me," said the Bronx-born owner of Bethesda Bagels. Fleishman and his customers are hardly alone. Across America, turmoil in the world wheat markets has sent prices of bread, pasta, noodles, pizza, pastry and bagels skittering upward, bringing protests from consumers.

China's African Aid
April 24, 2008
The rise of China as a very visible actor in Africa is one of the most striking features of the first decade of the new millennium. Trade between the two regions is projected to reach $100 billion before 2010, ten times the 2000 figure. At the same time, the rise of China has been greeted with fear and apprehension by many in the United States, Europe, and Africa who see this strong interest more as a threat than an opportunity.

Jim Kolbe testifies before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs
Jim Kolbe
April 23, 2008
Senior Transatlantic Fellow Jim Kolbe, a former Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, testified April 23 before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs about foreign assistance reform in the next administration.

Supping at the WTO's Last Chance Saloon
Joe Guinan
March 27, 2008
The global credit squeeze has made the world's economics ministers understandably jittery. But the crisis unfolding over world trade is far more serious. With the Doha Round of talks at the WTO at a standstill, now the unthinkable could happen. The global trading system may be abandoned.

Time to Rethink the WTO System:The United States, the European Union, and World Trade
Joe Guinan
March 2008
This paper argues that there is a need for reflection on the purpose of the WTO system. Putting the rapid integration of the world economy in perspective, this paper dwells on American and European leadership, or lack thereof, and on the major threats to the WTO system over agricultural protectionism and the proliferation of trade agreements. The authors conclude with alternative broad approaches to the further liberalization of trade.

Guardians of the Global System: What the Transatlantic Economic Partnership Should Give the World — and Why it Might Not Deliver
Richard Salt
March 2008
This paper is an effort to illustrate a number of factors shaping the global political economy, in the hope of generating a long-term foundation for transatlantic cooperation. The first part describes the scale of the challenge by reminding us why globalization generates particular challenges that require international solutions, and why it is so difficult to secure the necessary international cooperation. The second part argues that transatlantic cooperation is likely to be essential, and that the European Union and the United States have a particular responsibility conferred on them by their size and power; noting, however, that significant political obstacles seem, at present, likely to block progress.

Balancing National Security and Commerce
March 2008
Following several years of tension between Europe and the United States, policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic have rediscovered pragmatism. Apparently irreconcilable differences of values are giving way to new forms of practical cooperation. However, the new transatlantic relationship differs from the old one in some very important ways. New issues that involve access to various forms of security-sensitive economic information are becoming increasingly prominent. These issues, however, do not fit neatly into the traditional boxes of the transatlantic relationship. On the one hand, they touch directly on important and sensitive matters of national security. On the other hand, they involve a much wider variety of actors than traditional security issues ever did. The European Union and the United States have sought to resolve their differences over these issues in new ways, opting for decentralized and often ad-hoc forms of cooperation that build upon existing relationships in the security realm.

Senate Testimony: The Foreign Aid Lessons for Domestic Economic Assistance Act of 2007
February 27, 2008
Paul Applegarth, former GMF Senior Transatlantic Fellow, testified before a Senate committee on how foreign economic aid and development lessons can impact domestic economic aid.

2007 Annual Report
February 2008
Highlights GMF convening events, networking programs, research, and grantmaking initiatives in 2007. Also, includes a letter from GMF President Craig Kennedy along with financial and partner information. Downloadable as a large PDF file.

The Impacts of Biofuels on Greenhouse Gases: How Land Use Change Alters the Equation
Tim Searchinger
February 7, 2008
Most prior studies have found that substituting biofuels for gasoline will reduce greenhouse gases because biofuels sequester carbon through the growth of feedstock. These analyses have failed to count the carbon emissions that occur as farmers worldwide respond to higher prices and convert forest and grassland to new cropland to replace the grain (or cropland) diverted to biofuels.

ACPs and EPAs: where’s the beef?
Joe Guinan, Susan Sechler
January 3, 2008
Now that the Doha round appears to be stirring back to life, some of the world's poorest countries should be looking to multilateralism to protect their interests with a renewed sense of urgency. The perils of bilateralism and unequal negotiations have been brought into sharp focus by the year-end expiration of the WTO waiver for the Cotonou regime of trade preferences, by which the European Union offered special access to its markets for the African, Carribean, and Pacific (ACP) group of former European colonies.

Is our aid making us safer?
Jim Kolbe
January 2, 2008
While images of Africa are effective in raising awareness of the issue, little attention has been paid to the problems in our current efforts to alleviate poverty. It is increasingly apparent that our aid - and trade - policies are not really supporting economic growth in impoverished countries. Nor are they enhancing our own security.