The Custom-House

Limited recourse for U.S. Yukos shareholders

In 2003 and 2004 the Russian government deliberately and systematically trashed the Yukos oil company so that the government-owned company Rosneft could acquire its assets at a fraction of their real value.  U.S. citizens may have lost $6 to $7 billion in investments in Yukos because of this.  How did the U.S. government respond when its citizens' assets were expropriated? 

Fecklessly.  Anders Aslund of the Peterson Institute explains what happened (US-Russia Economic Relationship: Implications of the Yukos Affair):

Liberalizing tariffs on capital goods accelerates growth

Antoni Estevadeordal and Alan M. Taylor find that liberalizing tariffs on capital and intermediate goods is associated with faster growth: Is The Washington Consensus Dead? Growth, Openness, and The Great Liberalization, 1970s-2000s. From the abstract:

Biden's Trade Votes: Congress by Congress

Obama has picked Joe Biden, a senator from Delaware, as his Vice-Presidential running mate.  Biden has been a Senator since 1972.  The Cato Institute trade votes web site summarizes his record on trade and subsidies from 1998 to date: Biden's Record.

There's an interesting progression away from a pro-trade stance in the last years of the Clinton administration.  Here's the record, Congress by Congress (trade votes are evaluated along the horizontal axis, subsidy votes on the vertical axis):

The Arctic Bridge

Here's a YouTube Video of a November 2007 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) story on the proposed "Arctic Bridge" shipping route between Murmansk and Churchill Manitoba (on Canada's Hudson Bay):

Support the Columbian Agreement to Advance Human Rights...

...argues Susan Aaronson of George Washington University: Free Trade Improves Human Rights:

Critics need to rethink how we can help Colombia continue its positive momentum. The agreement has provisions to bolster both the supply and demand for good governance. Here's how: First, the free trade agreement encourages public participation in trade policymaking. Citizens in both countries gain the right to challenge trade rules. Second, the agreement gives Colombian workers the right to petition the U.S. government to take action. If the Colombian government is found to have violated labor provisions, it may lose trade benefits. In this regard, the agreement is both a carrot and a stick.

Finally, empirical studies link expanded trade with improvements in particular human rights such as freedom from arbitrary imprisonment and extrajudicial killing. Thus, the agreement could help advance the very human rights that need reinforcement in Colombia.

It's important to encourage democracies such as Colombia to maintain human rights progress and the best way to do that is to provide them with real incentives. The free trade agreement does that.