Treaties and Agreements

As a new congressional vote looms this week that could decide whether the United States participates in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, advocates of the deal, both in the United States and in Asia, are arguing that the stakes could not be higher. During a visit to Washington last week, Singapore foreign minister K. Shanmugam was blunt, telling an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, "It’s absolutely vital to get it [TPP] done [in the U.S.] … If you don’t do this deal, what are your levers of power?" But would a failure to get TPP past Congress necessarily be a strategic disaster for the United States? (The TPP, remember, was conceived by Asian nations and could still be concluded even without America.) Failing to move TPP would be a major setback for U.S. economic leadership in Asia, and for free trade globally, to be sure. With the WTO round still stalled, regional trade agreements like the TPP have become the main engines of liberalization, at a time when forces of economic deglobalization are still strong, as they have been since the financial crisis of 2008-9. The TPP could be the largest of those regional engines. It also would be a particularly enormous boon for those nations in it, like Vietnam, that do not currently have trade deals with the United States. If the United States does not join the TPP, Vietnam would still benefit greatly from the deal---it would help Vietnamese reformers, who see TPP as a means to force change, to slash state enterprises and open the economy---but the benefits for Hanoi would be diminished without the United States. Certain sectors of the U.S. economy also would stand to lose from a failure to adopt TPP. U.S. agriculture, for example, stands to gain access to Japanese markets, which had been some of the hardest in the world for U.S. growers to penetrate. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stands in perhaps the best position to deliver that access than any prime minister in Japan’s modern history. The Congressional Research Service estimates that Japan “would absorb seventy percent of the $8.5 billion increase in agricultural trade among TPP countries in 2025.” The TPP also could be the United States’ chance to ensure that it plays a central role in dictating the trade rules for the Pacific Rim, the engine of the world economy, for the rest of the 21st century. Although it may not be necessarily true, as President Obama has asserted, that without the United States joining the TPP Asia’s trade rules will be made by China, failing to adopt the TPP certainly would threaten Washington’s ability to shape Asia’s future trade rules. It also could allow trade agreements to proliferate in Asia that did not have tough enforcement mechanisms or comprehensive scopes; TPP would allow the United States and other countries to set a standard of comprehensive and enforceable trade agreements as the norm in Asia. But a failure to adopt TPP would not necessarily doom the United States’ strategic relationships in Asia. Over the past five years, as China has become far more assertive in staking its claims to disputed Asian waters and in positioning itself to dominate regional security, many countries in Asia---and particularly in Southeast Asia---have sought closer defense relationships with the United States as a counterbalance. The United States and Vietnam are moving toward joint exercises and lethal arms sales, the Obama administration has launched a ten year enhanced defense partnership with the Philippines, and the White House has upgraded defense ties with Japan, Malaysia, and nearly every other Asian nation involved in the TPP as well. These enhanced defense relationships are part of the rebalance, but the desire for a greater U.S. presence in regional security comes from Asian nations themselves, worried about being dominated by China. This worry is clearly why nations like Vietnam are not only seeking closer strategic links with the United States but also modernizing their navies and pursuing strategic ties with other powerful partners, like India and Australia. That desire for a balance to China is not going to vanish, whether or not Congress approves the TPP. There is no evidence that Beijing plans to return to its less assertive “charm offensive” strategy of relations with Southeast Asia, a strategy it used throughout most of the 2000s; even if China did go back to the charm offensive, few Asian countries would believe the shift anyway. If the Obama administration and its successor follow through on the military promises of the rebalance, while altering the pivot to better reflect U.S. interests and values, America will remain a vital strategic actor in Asia, even if the TPP does not pass Congress.

The G7 leaders concluded their annual summit yesterday with a declaration that put climate change front and center. As with all G7 communiqués, most of the content reaffirms steps that the leaders have already promised to take and, in many cases, are already taking. But, as usual, there are some interesting wrinkles. I’m struck in particular the parts that seem to be the most important are different from those that have generated the most headlines. Here are a couple highlights in each category. Interesting and Overlooked   “[A Paris] agreement should enhance transparency and accountability including through binding rules at its core to track progress towards achieving targets…. This should enable all countries to follow a low-carbon and resilient development pathway….”   The United States has long pressed for a shift away from binding emissions reduction commitments and toward a mix of nationally grounded emission-cutting efforts and binding international commitments to transparency and verification. European countries have often taken the other side, emphasizing the importance of binding targets (or at least policies) for cutting emissions. Now it looks like the big developed countries are on the same page as the United States. The language above is all about binding countries to transparency – and there isn’t anything elsewhere in the communiqué about binding them to actual emissions goals. This doesn’t guarantee a smooth landing in Paris – China, India, and others will resist some of the binding transparency and accountability measures that the G7 leaders want – but at least the big developed countries appear to be forming a fairly united front.   “We will intensify our support particularly for vulnerable countries own efforts to manage climate change related disaster risk and to build resilience. We will aim to increase by up to 400 million the number of people in the most vulnerable developing countries who have access to direct or indirect insurance coverage against the negative impact of climate change related hazards by 2020 and support the development of early warning systems in the most vulnerable countries.”   This is the most substantive portion of the climate part of the communiqué. It reflects an increasing focus on adaptation in general and on insurance in particular. Existing institutions – notably the World Bank – are decently positioned to deliver on these goals (though meeting them by 2020 will be challenging). Indeed this part of the communiqué is unusually straightforward, and therefore well suited to clear follow-through. The mushiest bit is the undefined “climate change related hazards”. Ideally G7 countries would help vulnerable populations get access to insurance against extreme weather hazards of all origins – whether or not those are generated by climate change – and, in practice, that’s presumably what insurance would do. Headline Grabbing But Less Than Meets the Eye   “We emphasize the deep cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions are required with a decarbonization of the global economy over the source of this century…. As a common vision for a global goal of greenhouse gas emissions reductions we support sharing with all parties to the UNFCCC the upper end of the latest IPCC recommendation of 40 to 70% reductions by 2050 compared to 2010 recognizing that this challenge can only be met by a global response.”   This statement generated the biggest headlines (“G7 leaders agree to phase out fossil fuels”), but it’s also the least consequential. Most reactions ignore the fact that the G8 leaders already agreed to “the goal of achieving at least a 50% reduction of global emissions by 2050” in advance of the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009. (You judge the results.) And the idea that an 85-year goal will have much impact on present policy or investment is a bit ridiculous. (Had you told a physicist in 1905 that a fifth of U.S. electricity would be generated by nuclear fission within 85 years, they would have said, “What’s a nucleus or fission?”) News reports have experts debating whether Paris can assure the world of cuts this deep. The answer should be obvious: it can’t. No decisions made today will assure any particular outcome in 2050 or 2100. For all practical purposes, the two-degree target that diplomats have talked about for the last five or so years has always been understood by policymakers to correspond to roughly a halving of global emissions by midcentury. If the-two degree target didn’t motivate deep enough emissions cuts to actually meet it, recasting it in terms of global emissions won’t change that. Having a basic guide is useful, but beyond that, the details are pretty unimportant. Bottom line: Fiddling with distant targets is a great way to generate headlines, but doesn’t do much to affect policy and emissions themselves; at best it’s marginally irrelevant, at worst it lets people feel good without doing anything.   “We reaffirm our strong commitment to the Copenhagen Accord to mobilizing jointly USD 100 billion a year from a wide variety of sources, both public and private in the context of meaningful mitigation actions and transparency on implementation.”   This superficially sounds big: the United States and others pledged in 2009 to mobilize massive amounts of money for developing countries; observers have been skeptical that they would deliver; but now G7 leaders are emphasizing their “strong commitment” to follow through. In practice, this is mostly an exercise in redefining the original pledge so that more private financial flows get counted toward the $100 billion. This isn’t necessarily bad as a matter of policy, but the political reality is that leaders from many developing countries want (and, at Copenhagen, thought they were getting) something else. It will be up to them in Paris to decide whether they’re ok with this redefinition of the goalposts. If they are, the conference is far more likely to be successful. But what will ultimately matter politically is not whether G7 leaders claim that they’re meeting their financial pledges; it’s whether developing country leaders are willing to go along.

Today is the official launch of Latin America Goes Global. Led by Christopher Sabatini, adjunct professor at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University and formerly editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly, the new site already has many talented and thoughtful Latin American policy experts on board. Kicking it off, Sabatini has a piece on “The Media’s Bipolar Disorder with Latin America,” arguing that the common tropes trotted out in discussing politics in the region not only miss the real story but also skew policy responses in unhelpful ways. Both Evan Ellis and Jerry Haar look at the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and what it means for the region. And Kirsten Cowal highlights the rising profile of LGBT issues in her piece “The Other History Making Moment at the Summit: LGBT Rights.” For those interested in the hemisphere and its future, this new site is worth putting on your daily reading list.

The P5+1 and Iran have announced a framework for negotiating a final agreement to limit the Iranian nuclear program by the end of June. Here are five quick thoughts on the nuclear and sanctions elements: The nuclear limits – particularly those on the Iranian supply chain – are surprisingly strong and significant. The rough scale of Iranian enrichment activities and low-enriched uranium stockpiling that the United States could tolerate has long been pretty clear. (I laid out the basic logic for the sorts of limits that would allow the United States to respond effectively to Iranian breakout in a technical paper a few years ago, and many others have made similar arguments.) The announced framework tracks those understandings. What I’m struck by, though, is the extent of the monitoring provisions, particularly as they apply to the Iranian supply chain. U.S. policymakers have long feared that so long as Iran could conduct some legal nuclear commerce, it would be easier to hide illegal activities, making a secret parallel nuclear program more feasible. The framework includes some pretty strong steps to address this, including a “dedicated procurement channel” for the nuclear program. These may seem like footnotes compared to the rule for centrifuges and uranium stocks, but they’re central. The time it takes Iran to comply with the agreement will depend on its final details. Take one example: Iran is required “to reduce its current stockpile of about 10,000 kg of low-enriched uranium (LEU) to 300 kg of 3.67 percent LEU”. How will this be done? Will Iran ship the material out of country? Will it blend it down to LEU that’s enriched to less than 3.67 percent? Will it convert the LEU into fuel? (Which of these will the final deal allow?) The path it takes will determine how long compliance takes, which will affect the pace of sanctions removal. Similar questions surround many other provisions. It is unclear how sanctions relief will be phased in. If compliance occurs gradually over an extended period, sanctions relief will presumably be drawn out too. Iran faces a host of sanctions on oil sales, financial transactions, travel by senior officials, and other activities. Which sanctions will be pared back first? What milestones will they be connected to? Much of this presumably remains to be negotiated, but the details will be critical to determining the pace with which sanctions are removed – and, in particular, the speed at which full-scale Iranian oil exports come back online. Removing sanctions won’t necessarily lead to a rush back into Iran. The framework notes that sanction could be “snapped back” on Iranian noncompliance. Energy (and other) companies will presumably be slow to invest in Iran given the risk that they could easily find themselves faced with sanctions once again. Financial players may decide that the complexity and risks of dealing with Iran outweigh the limited commercial benefits. Oil traders, though, are more short term in nature, and will presumably reengage quickly. This experience is going to make U.S. policymakers even more sanctions-happy than before. An easy lesson of the Iran experience (presuming that the framework actually leads to a final deal) will be that sanctions, when combined with diplomacy, can yield meaningful results. Political scientists and policy analysts will doubtless debate this until eternity: one can’t say definitively what role sanctions played in bringing about the agreement, nor is there an objective way to know whether the framework deal is better than whatever else might have happened. The reality, though, is that many policymakers will take today’s news as a straightforward affirmation that sanctions work.

The news and statistics from Guatemala are anything but reassuring. More than half the nation’s sixteen million citizens live in poverty. Worse, almost one in two children under five suffer from chronic malnutrition, which affects not just their immediate well-being but also limits their physical and intellectual potential for the rest of their lives. Violence is rampant. Guatemala City ranks among the most dangerous cities in the world and the national homicide rate, of 40 murders per 100,000 inhabitants, is bested by just four countries worldwide. Women especially are vulnerable, not just on the street but inside their homes, as domestic violence and femicide rates are also among the worst in the world. Few receive justice, with prosecution rates averaging just 2 percent of all crimes. Federal actions to take on these challenges have been largely absent or ineffective. And small islands of progress, such as the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), a UN-backed independent body that has prosecuted several serious criminal cases, have been undermined. Even if the political will existed, with tax collection at just 11 percent of GDP—the lowest in Latin America—the government lacks the resources to do much. Despite the dire national outlook, after a recent trip I left with some glimpses of optimism—mainly from both local and private sector efforts to break the vicious cycles of poverty and negative dynamics more generally. These organizations and business are changing the lives of at least some individuals, families, and communities. Trying to take on the debilitating effects of malnutrition is Asociación Puente. The non-profit works directly with pregnant women and young mothers to help ensure better food and nutrition at the vital early stages of life. They also help women start micro-enterprises, to generate the basic income needed to continue putting (nutritious) food on the table.  Founded by former Guatemalan first lady Wendy de Berger and Edna Lima de Morales, the organization has reached over 2,000 families so far. Another is Sheva.com. Started by Marisabel Ruiz, it works to remove at least one of the barriers to girls’ education—puberty. In so many villages Guatemala girls can’t afford sanitary pads. Once they start to menstruate, they miss one out of every four weeks of school, falling permanently behind their classmates and their potential. For each purchase at their U.S. based company, they donate products to girls in need, helping them stay in school. Also in the social entrepreneurship mode is Wakami, an organization started by Maria Pacheco. Originally visiting poor rural communities as a trained biologist, village women kept telling Pacheco what they needed most was jobs. And so Wakami began, harnessing the weaving skills so many women already had but differentiating their products through more modern designs (as opposed to the beautiful but endlessly repeated weavings sold in Guatemala’s local markets). Today, the for-profit business employs nearly five hundred artisans by selling its jewelry in twenty-four countries—including a collaboration with Ann Taylor Loft in the United States. On technology’s cutting edge is MILKnCOOKIES, an interactive communications agency founded by Karla Ruiz Cofiño. Working with clients worldwide to design and build websites, apps and social media strategies, the company leaps up the skill ladder. Competing with technology and app developers globally, it provides not only high paying jobs for those already skilled but also training, presenting at least a handful of fellow citizens a profitable alternative to migration. Each shared what their organizations have found matters to make a difference. One is focusing on women. Studies worldwide show that money given or earned by women is more likely to be spent on children’s food, health, and education. These organizations find similar patterns in their towns, with kids eating better, staying in school longer, and dreaming of a different future than that of their parents when their mothers’ income rises. Another lesson is incorporating men. By providing training and opportunities to everyone in a village, resistance to women’s financial gains lessen. In a society that often restricts a woman and wife’s physical realm to the home, Asociación Puente found that offering workshops and classes to the whole town literally opened the door for women’s involvement. And in a telling discussion with Matilde Garcia, a founder of one of Wakami’s workshops, she related how she employs her husband as her accountant to gain his buy in, though she was quick to share that she is the one that controls the business’ bank accounts. These efforts do help—mattering greatly to those involved by changing individual, family, and community lives. The question remains though can countries such as Guatemala scale these and dozens of other small businesses, non-profits, and non-governmental organizations to change the direction of the nation. Visiting and talking with these women makes you believe that it might in fact be possible.

During a seemingly successful trip to Asia last November, U.S. President Barack Obama announced several breakthroughs. Among them was a promise that the United States and Asian nations would proceed toward the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade deal. Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping also announced a new climate deal, the first between the two powers, which will commit both the United States and China to significant emissions cuts over the next two decades. The TPP would seem to be just one of many indicators of our growing interconnectedness with Asia, and indeed of the interconnectedness of the entire world. Today, riots in Missouri are immediately broadcast on Al Jazeera in the Middle East; Facebook boasts hundreds of millions of users in India; and a plane crash in Indonesia is tweeted about around the world within minutes. But many deeper trends point in a different direction. Since the late 2000s, despite the superficial connectivity of Facebook and Twitter, the world has entered a period of what you might call deglobalization. Global trade growth has slowed dramatically from its normal pace. Banks’ investments and lending outside their borders has plummeted, and investors have pulled out of stock markets across the developing world. Cross-border migration is down. A comprehensive index of globalization produced by the Zurich-based research organization KOF Swiss Economic Institute, which includes such variables as investment dollars, tourism figures, and information flows over the Internet, finds that “globalization has stalled since the outbreak of the [international] financial crisis in 2008.” You can see more of my analysis on the continued power of deglobalization in the Boston Globe.

For the twenty years since the start of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the United States failed to fulfill its treaty obligations to open its roads and permit safe cross-border services. As part of the original agreement, Mexican trucks were supposed to be able to operate in four U.S. states—Texas, California, New Mexico, and Arizona—by December 1995, and then throughout the continental United States by January 1, 2000. Almost fifteen years later, the vast majority of Mexican trucks are still not allowed on U.S. roads. Mexico retaliated in kind, blocking the movement of U.S. trucks within its borders. In 2009, Mexico also applied retaliatory tariffs on a yearly rotating basis to a variety of U.S. imports, permitted by a favorable 2001 NAFTA dispute settlement panel ruling. To try and comply with the treaty’s obligations while also addressing domestic concerns over road safety, the U.S. government developed a series of pilot programs. President George W. Bush launched the first in 2007, enabling a total of twenty-five Mexican carriers to operate roughly one hundred trucks within the continental United States. These pioneers crossed the border twelve-thousand times in the year-long pilot program (for comparison, some fourteen-thousand thousand trucks cross the U.S. southern border alone each day). Although the program was terminated early (precipitating the retaliatory Mexican tariffs), the U.S. Department of Transportation’s evaluation of the program concluded that the Mexican carriers had better safety records than U.S. carriers. The most recent pilot program began in 2011 and finished this past October. Thirteen Mexican carriers with fifty-five registered trucks crossed the border some twenty-five thousand times during the three year trial period. A joint evaluation by the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration found that Mexican trucks “had safety records equal to or better than the national average for U.S. and Canadian carriers operating in the United States.” Based on these findings, the U.S. Department of Transportation just announced that the pilot program trucks can continue to traverse U.S. roads, and that all Mexican carriers will soon be able to apply to operate in the United States. U.S. Department of Transportation, "North American TransBorder Freight Data: Indexed Data," 2014. This change benefits the United States (and Mexico) in many ways. First, it will end the $2 billion in retaliatory tariffs against U.S. goods sent to Mexico—second in importance only to Canada for U.S. exporters. When fully operational, it will also reduce costs in terms of money, time, fuel, and pollution for thousands of U.S. companies. Approximately two-thirds of U.S. annual trade with Mexico—roughly $335 billion a year—goes by road. More broadly, it is a small but important step toward recognizing the importance of North America for America’s future. Facilitating trade will strengthen the economic production platform that increasingly undergirds U.S. competitiveness and economic growth.

Below is a guest post by Naomi Egel, research associate in the International Institutions and Global Governance program. Though armed conflict endures, 2014 closes with a bit of good news: the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) entered into force on December 24. Much of today’s global violent conflict is fueled by illicit weapons, which are easily diverted to conflict zones thanks to a vacuum of oversight. Shockingly, the international banana trade is more strictly regulated than the international arms trade. The ATT is an enormous step toward limiting the suffering caused by these illegal weapons transfers. Ratified by sixty-one countries, including five of the top ten arms exporters, this treaty regulates international arms sales from one state to another, in order to prevent small arms and light weapons from being used “irresponsibly” to perpetrate human rights abuses. The ATT merely regulates the legal arms trade: it recognizes that there are legitimate uses for guns and does not seek to ban them. Though the ATT has its shortcomings, it is an important contribution to a growing body of international humanitarian law that limits how humans can kill and maim. The first major call for an ATT came from a group of Nobel laureates, led by Oscar Arias in 1995, which advocated an International Code of Conduct on Arms Transfers. The laureates, joined by many civil society organizations under the banner of the Control Arms campaign, drew explicit causal links between the irresponsible arms trade and human rights violations, demonstrating how the legal arms trade between countries often fueled violence and hindered development. In particular, they emphasized how human insecurity caused by irresponsible small arms transfers hindered efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), tying the issue to states’ existing obligations to alleviate poverty and meet basic needs. Article Six of the ATT explicitly prohibits arms transfers in certain situations—including if the exporter knows they would be used for genocide, crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, attacks directed against civilian objects or civilians, or other war crimes. Where arms transfers are permitted, states must undertake a comprehensive risk assessment and examine the probability that the arms might be diverted. The ATT is also the first treaty to ever include a specific provision on gender-based violence: when deciding to authorize a transfer, a state is required to consider the risk that the arms would be used to commit gender-based violence such as mass rape. By requiring states to track arms exports, it creates a dual responsibility for both arms exporters and importers to prevent diversion or illicit trafficking of arms. The ATT has several shortcomings, however. It does not specifically outlaw any arms transfers or sales. States are only required to conduct an assessment and conclude that the transfer would be responsible. The ATT does not establish any sort of arbitration body to resolve disputes over such self-assessments. Furthermore, it regulates ammunition, parts, and components under export licensing obligations but not under most of the treaty’s other provisions, including those relating to imports, transit and trans-shipment, brokering, and diversion. The treaty also does not cover gifts and loans; only direct arms sales from one state to another. In addition, some argue that since the ATT only covers existing weapons, it is ill-equipped to address new types of weapons or future weapons that may fall outside the stipulated categories. Ultimately, the ATT’s ability to safeguard human life depends on its implementation and ability to adapt. The United States has signed, but not ratified the treaty (to sign a treaty is to declare support for it, but to ratify a treaty is to implement it as domestic law). The country is unlikely to ratify the ATT in the near future, particularly under the new Congress. The National Rifle Association (NRA) and other gun advocates have actively opposed the treaty since the start of negotiations. Painting the UN as a “global nanny,” they claim that the ATT would regulate domestic gun sales and would require a national registry of gun owners. Although the ATT regulates only the international arms trade between countries (not domestic transactions between people) and is silent on individual arms ownership, these arguments have convinced many members of Congress to oppose the ATT. Much of the rhetoric in the U.S. debate over the ATT concerns not the substance of the treaty text, but the symbolism of gun ownership, interpretations of Second Amendment rights, and U.S. sovereignty. Failure to ratify the treaty undermines U.S. credibility in advancing human rights globally. Given that the United States already has in place strict requirements for international arms sales that exceed the standard set by the treaty, perhaps one day the Senate can push past these exaggerated concerns and ratify the treaty. In the meantime, the United States could still further the goals of the treaty by using its diplomatic leverage to pressure other arms exporters to stop funneling arms to states and nonstate groups that commit human rights abuses. Even without ratification by the United States—the world’s largest arms exporter—the ATT can effectively make the international small arms trade more responsible. It can achieve this even without the participation of Russia and China, two of the other top five arms exporters. Much of the ATT’s value stems from its normative role in establishing categories of “responsible” and “irresponsible” arms transfers. In an unprecedented step, the ATT extends culpability for human rights abuses to states that knowingly facilitate human rights abuses by providing the weapons used for such atrocities. The ATT also builds on treaties such as the ban on anti-personnel mines that have emphasized humanitarian effects to limit the use of certain weapons. Though the United States never ratified the Mine Ban Treaty, it has brought itself into compliance with the treaty—except for in the Korean Peninsula—and has made significant contributions to clearing mines globally. Thus, it can mimic this “implementation without ratification” strategy for the ATT, and cite this commitment when pressuring others to follow suit. For their part, even if Russia and China do not ratify or otherwise comply with the treaty, they may find that some of their customers, that themselves have ratified the ATT, prefer to not buy arms—even if for legitimate purposes—from countries that facilitate human rights abuses through irresponsible arms sales. Finally, regardless of the participation of top arms exporters, if a high number of states ratify the treaty, criminal arms traffickers will find fewer countries to use as bases or havens from which to traffic arms illegally. Because states assess their own transfers, however, the treaty is only as strong as states make it. As the largest arms exporters that have ratified the treaty, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom can send a strong signal by reporting comprehensive data on their arms transfers. This will encourage transparency in reporting. Additionally, parties to the Arms Trade Treaty must ensure that its secretariat, not yet in place, obtains the robust mandate and sufficient financial resources it needs to assist states in implementing the treaty. While the ATT is not a panacea to prevent human rights abuses involving small arms violence, it is a starting point. While its potential should not be overemphasized, it should be recognized for what it is: a step forward for international human rights.

Coauthored with Alexandra Kerr, assistant director of the International Institutions and Global Governance program at the Council on Foreign Relations. Extreme fluctuations in the global environment are becoming more apparent and quantifiable, forcing nations to accept that climate change is no longer a theory, but a threat. Mitigating its worst effects is no longer a choice, but a lifeline. Over the past two weeks, delegates from 196 countries have sought to lay a foundation for a comprehensive agreement to alleviate climate change’s worst effects, which unless mitigated will imperil the world’s oceans. Gathering under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the negotiators have tried to hammer out the details of a monumental emissions control and reduction treaty. If all goes well, the world will adopt the treaty next year at the 2015 UNFCCC conference in Paris. The past fortnight offers a glimmer of hope that humankind, confronting impending climate-related disasters, may finally be ready to mend its ways. Perhaps, as Samuel Butler observed, we will see that, “seamen, in a storm, turn pious converts, and reform.” In particular, climate change is already beginning to harm marine ecosystems—threatening the health of the entire planet. Oceans comprise fully 70 percent of our planet—and provide some of the most vital mechanisms for mitigating climate change. Yet, the oceans are dying a slow death, thanks to massive poisoning by anthropogenic CO2 emissions, largely from land-based sources As Earth’s largest carbon sink, the oceans remove some 30-40 percent of anthropogenic (caused by human activity) carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. But as emissions continue to rise, the oceans are being forced to absorb ever-larger quantities of CO2, generating devastating acidification. The UNFCCC enshrines as one of its objectives the promotion of sustainable management and protection of the oceans, as well as coastal and marine ecosystems (Article 4, paragraph 1(d)). Reviving the health of the world’s oceans will require a breakthrough agreement in Paris, as well as a strong “oceans” pillar in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Reversing or slowing climate change is in the national interest of every country. Over the past year, multiple reports have warned that predicted temperature increases, rising sea levels, and changing weather patterns will have dire economic and security implications. Last week, the UN Secretary-General’s report, The Road to Dignity by 2030, underscored that sustainable development depends on arresting climate change. Among other things, it calls for all future infrastructure development must ensure “planet-friendly” development moving forward. The existential, borderless nature of the climate change challenge means that no single state or even select group of states can tackle climate change alone. It will require global collaboration with coordinated domestic efforts, and it will depend on real commitments from developing, not just developed countries states. Thus, unlike the Kyoto Protocol, the Paris agreement should apply to all countries, not just developed states. It will also be grounded in bottom-up, realistic goals, attuned to each country’s varying capacities. And it will include monitoring and enforcement mechanisms to ensure tangible progress—and mid-course corrections when countries get off track. Real progress in Paris is essential to saving the world’s oceans, which have borne the brunt of climate change. This May, the scientific report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that without significant curbs on greenhouse gas emissions, sea levels could rise between by up to 38.2 inches and global average temperature by 8.1°F by the end of the century. In October, the Convention on Biological Diversity’s fourth Global Outlook report cautioned that rising global temperatures will lead to increased ocean acidification, elevated sea levels, changes in precipitation patterns, and substantial loss of Arctic sea ice. Without a change in course, the outlook is bleak. But somewhat remarkably, 2014 has also seen oceans governance rise in prominence on the international agenda, despite the press of international crises from Ukraine to Syria. In June, building on President Obama’s National Ocean Policy, Secretary of State John Kerry hosted the “Our Ocean” conference, convening delegates from eighty countries to discuss innovative ways to counter acidification, end marine pollution, and ensure sustainable fisheries. This followed a “World Oceans Summit”in February, hosted by the Economist magazine, which enlisted private sector leaders in improving oceans governance through sustainable business practices. These recent developments—and other multilateral initiatives—are documented in CFR’s new Global Governance Monitor: Oceans, relaunched last week. This comprehensive multimedia guide uses technology to track and analyze the major successes and failures in oceans governance. One of the underlying themes of the Monitor is that the fate of the planet rests in large part with the health of the world’s oceans. As the famed oceanographer Sylvia Earle reminds us, “No blue, no green.” With competing priorities, the recent international spotlight on oceans governance could fade quickly. So what should policymakers focus on in 2015? The most important objective remains a meaningful, binding agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that UNFCCC parties will sign in Paris. This agreement must include concrete commitments from the world’s major emerging economies countries, including not only China but also India, Brazil, Indonesia, and others. Beyond this ambitious goal, there is much more to be done to save the world’s oceans from their current deterioration. Drawing from the recommendations of the Oceans Global Governance Monitor and from the final report of the Global Ocean Commission (GOC), the following three steps would be a start: Improve sustainable fishing practices, both on the High Seas and in countries’ exclusive economic zones (EEZs): Nearly half of global fish stocks have been fully exploited and roughly one-third have been overexploited due to unsustainable fishing practices and widespread illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing. To this end the Global Ocean Commission has three suggestions: First, eliminate harmful fishing subsidies. Second, enact domestic policies that will reduce IUU fishing by preventing illegal catches from reaching the legal market—thereby reducing incentives for this illicit [over] fishing. Third, focus on providing more support to existing regional fisheries management organizations (RMFOs). Extend Marine Protected Areas: Currently, marine protected areas only cover around 2.8 percent of the oceans globally. Increasing the number and size of reserves around the world will give the ocean and the creatures and flora a place to recover from the harmful effects of human activity. The Global Ocean Commission goes as far as to suggest that governments should agree to designate the High Seas as a “regeneration zone,” prohibiting all industrial fishing practices out with EEZs and RFMO areas.  Toughen restrictions on plastics: Our reliance on plastic has increased exponentially in the past century, with a report released Wednesday suggesting that the oceans may contain around 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic, or 269,000 tons. Domestic policy should be implemented that enforces new, stronger restrictions on plastics production and disposal. Additionally, the Global Ocean Commission suggests that countries should restrict the production of single-use plastics, much like California did earlier this year when it passed a ban on single-use plastic bags in grocery stores. These reforms, if agreed and implemented by UN member states, would help to restore threatened species, preserve marine biodiversity, and reduce the flood of pollution that now fouls once pristine seas. Important goals, all. But unless humanity finally takes the dramatic steps needed to stem the massive flow of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, both the blue and the green will fade to black.

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum is just around the corner, and Beijing is pulling out all the stops. Elegant Chinese limousines will ferry the region’s leaders to and fro. The Gods—or maybe just the Communist Party, in this case—have preordained clear skies (since all factories within polluting distance will be shut down and each day half of all cars will be banned from the road). And Beijing is working hard to patch up political rifts with neighbors such as Vietnam and Japan to ensure that a spirit of collaboration rather than confrontation prevails. On substance, the APEC agenda is tailor-made for China. The forum reflects all of Beijing’s top domestic priorities, including an antigraft initiative that will be signed at the meeting. And the main themes for the forum read like Chinese President Xi Jinping’s China dream: “advancing regional economic integration,” “promoting innovative development,” and “strengthening comprehensive connectivity and infrastructure development.” China’s vision for the region—connected through railroads, ports, highways, and pipelines—will be well served by the forum’s focus on just these issues. It will also be an opportune time for Beijing to try to win over a few of the major economies of the region—namely Australia, Indonesia, South Korea, and perhaps Japan—and persuade them to join the Asian Investment Infrastructure Bank. While some of these countries may have been pressured by the United States not to join, most have indicated that they have some serious concerns of their own about the bank and don’t need warnings from the United States to adopt a cautious approach. They are worried about the governance issues surrounding the bank and would prefer to have these settled before signing on rather than negotiated on the back end, when it may be too late. Of course, there are some things that China won’t get. Likely on President Xi’s wish list for his meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama is a serious discussion of Chinese participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). After a few years of decrying the TPP as a plot to contain China, Beijing has apparently decided that it wants in—now. In the words of one Chinese official, Washington is being “selfish” by not sharing details with Beijing about the trade negotiations. Never mind that China is likely at least a decade away from being able to meet the standards set by the other major economies already engaged in the TPP negotiations, Beijing has apparently decided that given the slow pace of the negotiations, it may well be ready by the time the deal is done. More realistic is a step or two forward on a bilateral investment treaty between China and the United States, whose timeline is one or two years until completion rather than a decade or more. The APEC forum in Beijing offers China the opportunity for a reset—to reclaim the mantle of a positive force as a driver of growth in the Asia Pacific and to recapture a time a decade ago when China’s rise really was perceived as peaceful. This may be too tall an order for a three-day meeting. Nonetheless, Beijing can at least breathe a sigh of relief—if not of clean air—that it moved the location from Hong Kong to Beijing. Better to risk polluted air than polluted ideas.

Last week, ministerial negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) between Japan and the United States ended abruptly after the two sides failed to reach an agreement on key sticking points, including the removal of tariffs on sensitive Japanese farm products. The failure of the talks disappointed both sides, including Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has long upheld TPP as a fundamental component of his structural reform agenda. Few, however, were surprised. Japan after all, has always had trouble cracking open its farm sector thanks to opposition from its powerful farm lobby. While it is tempting to assume that this is yet another case of Japanese leaders succumbing to the demands of vested interests, it is important to note that more is going on behind the scenes than meets the eye. Japan’s farm lobby is still a potent force in Japanese politics, but its influence is decreasing, and in ways that should bode well for agricultural liberalization. Until recently, Japanese agricultural politics were dominated by a web of interconnected institutions. At the center of that web was the partnership between the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and Japan Agricultural Cooperatives (JA). The latter delivered votes and campaign workers to conservative politicians in return for a protected agricultural market. JA also nurtured a close relationship with the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF), functioning as the ministry’s semi-official arm in the implementation of farm-related policies, including the infamous rice acreage reduction (gentan) program. All the while, JA exercised a near monopoly over the provision of agricultural inputs to farmers and even controlled their access to financial services through its powerful banking and insurance arms. Although by no means omnipotent, this agricultural regime was notoriously unresponsive to demands for policy reform. But Japan’s agricultural regime is now well past its prime. JA’s economic dominance is slipping amid mounting competition from private-sector providers of farm inputs and credit. Its capacity to gather the vote has shrunk in the wake of electoral reform and a declining farm population. Rural politicians, for their own part, are facing strong electoral incentives to diversify their base of support beyond agricultural interests and to champion market-oriented reform. Meanwhile, the MAFF’s jurisdiction has shrunk as a result of the post-Uruguay Round dismantling of the postwar rice pricing system, and its ties to JA are weakening now that it no longer fields its retired bureaucrats to run as the association’s official candidates in upper house elections. Even ordinary consumers are contributing to the regime’s decline; whereas a concern for food safety and security once incentivized consumers to support market protectionism and high prices, consumers in today’s sluggish economy have grown critical of the gross inefficiencies of Japanese farming and of the policies and cozy political relationships that perpetuate them. Perhaps most importantly, Japanese farming itself is changing. As we observed for ourselves during recent fieldwork in the Japanese countryside, more and more full-time farmers are developing new forms of farm ownership and management. Despite lingering barriers to innovation, the rates of farm corporatization and farmland consolidation are slowly increasing. Some farmers are pursuing these changes outside of JA networks, while others are partnering with innovative local coops; in both instances, these farmers are responding more directly to market signals and in ways that benefit consumers. Clearly mindful of the agricultural regime’s waning power, the Abe government is taking steps to accelerate market-oriented trends among local farmers and coops. It has loosened regulations governing the establishment of new coops, farmland consolidation, the corporatization of family farms, and the entry of private-sector firms into farming, and has devoted two of the country’s “national strategic special zones” to agriculture. More dramatically, in late 2013 it announced that gentan would be phased out within five years. This is not to suggest that the tug-of-war between Abe and the agricultural regime is over. Far from it, as the fate of a recent reform initiative illustrates. In May 2014, the government’s Council on Regulatory Reform (CRR) issued a report that among other things recommended the withdrawal of coop status for Zennō, the JA organization that oversees the provision of non-financial services to farmers, and the virtual abolition of Zenchū, JA’s  “control tower.”  Anti-reformist LDP politicians led by Hiroshi Moriyama pushed back, however, and the government softened its stance, postponing JA reform to this fall.  The LDP later appointed Moriyama—a vocal critic of TPP, as chairman of its working group on TPP. Chalk one up for the forces of resistance? Not so fast. The Abe government may have lost ground in the battle over JA reform, but it has made significant progress in its war against the agricultural regime. As agricultural economist Kazuhito Yamashita has observed, for example, the subject of JA reform is no longer taboo. Moriyama, moreover, is not the die-hard anti-reformer that some observers think he is. As the Asahi Shimbun reported on August 13, Moriyama has been deeply mindful of Abe’s popularity among voters and loath to take a position on reform that might alienate his party at the polls.  Moreover, he has some experience with overdoing opposition to a sitting prime minister since he was banned from the LDP in 2005 after opposing then Prime Minister Koizumi’s postal reform initiative. Perhaps unwilling to risk another stint in the political wilderness, Moriyama helped craft a response to the CRR report that while critical, acknowledged the need for JA reform. Moriyama may very well strike a similar chord as head of the TPP working group. Finally, it is important to note that for every LDP politician who opposes agricultural reform, there is at least one who supports it, including such prominent members of the Abe cabinet as Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, Minister of Agriculture Koya Nishikawa, and Shigeru Ishiba, the minister in charge of those national strategic special zones. Japanese agricultural politics has turned a corner; today, the focus of debate is no longer whether to reform agriculture but rather when and how to do it. What then, is Abe likely to do in the months ahead? Do expect him to keep pushing his TPP agenda; as he stated so unequivocally on numerous occasions during his recent visit to the United States, Abe firmly believes that the pact is key to the long-term health and prosperity of the Japanese economy. But do not expect him to take a page from Koizumi’s playbook and stake his government’s future on the success of agricultural reform and/or TPP. He has far more on his reform plate than Koizumi ever did and is not about to risk it all for these two issues, important though they may be to his personal legacy. Instead, Abe will continue his careful tug-of-war with those “forces of resistance,” pulling a little here, conceding a little there, so that more and more farmers and local coops can free themselves from JA’s stifling embrace and are eased, not thrown, into freer markets. U.S. trade officials may be tempted to throw in the towel after the collapse of talks last week, but it is important to remember that the potential for change in Japanese agricultural politics is now greater than ever. The U.S. can help strengthen Abe’s hand as domestic battles play out by stepping up pressure on Japan to reach an agreement on TPP—an agreement that grants Abe the time and flexibility he will need to open domestic agricultural markets without inciting a debilitating backlash from his opponents. Patricia L. Maclachlan is an associate professor of government and Asian studies and the Mitsubishi Heavy Industry Professor of Japanese Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Kay Shimizu is an assistant professor in the department of political science at Columbia University.

Ask someone to identify a big geopolitical consequence of the ongoing U.S. oil production boom and odds are high that they’ll invoke Iran. (Every one of the links in that last sentence is an example.) Without surging U.S. oil production, they’ll argue, sanctions on Iranian oil exports would have led to a massive oil price spike. Here is a concrete case of the oil boom yielding greater U.S. freedom of action in the world, and a harbinger, it would seem, of things to come. The historical account seems right, but it’s tough to see how the Iran experience might be repeated. The upshot is that the lessons for  future U.S. freedom of action – and for geopolitics more generally – are being badly over-read. To understand how the U.S. oil supply boom helped make room for Iran sanctions, think about the impact of the supply boom first, and the sanctions second. How would the oil boom have affected the market around 2012 – the year that the oil export sanctions started to really hit Iran – had there been no curtailment of Iranian exports? In principle, rising U.S. output might have deterred others’ investment in oil production. But the gap between the emergence of the U.S. oil boom and the imposition of Iran sanctions was too short to allow any such shifts to meaningfully affect actual production. (Remember this for later.) Only two responses to accommodating rising U.S. supplies would have existed. First, prices could have fallen, encouraging greater oil demand and (at some point) shutting in some other supplies. Second, some oil producers (notably Saudi Arabia) could have voluntarily curtailed their production, bolstering prices but increasing spare capacity in the market. The actual outcome would certainly have been a mix. Now bring the Iran sanctions back in. To the extent that higher U.S. production would have otherwise encouraged greater spare capacity, this spare capacity could in turn have been used to blunt the impact of lower Iranian exports. To the extent that U.S. production would have otherwise encouraged lower prices, any actual price impact of the Iran sanctions (due to inability to fully offset lower exports through others’ spare capacity) would have happen against a lower base price, yielding a lower absolute price. And, to the extent that other commercial projects had been shut in, some would have come back online in the face of falling Iranian exports, partly offsetting the reduced supplies. Indeed this is basically what happened – except instead of occurring in a 1-2 sequence, so that analysts could easily disentangle the two dynamics, everything happened at the same time. New spare capacity didn’t emerge because it was being used up to cover Iranian shortfalls just as it was, in effect, being created. Lower prices didn’t emerge because, just as U.S. production was pushing prices down, lower Iranian exports were offsetting that impact. This is why, when people say that the U.S. oil boom created room for Iran sanctions, they’re basically correct. This same logic, though, can help us understand why this experience doesn’t tell us much about the future. Recall from a few paragraphs back: “In principle, rising U.S. output might have deterred others’ investment in oil production. But the gap between the emergence of the U.S. oil boom and the imposition of Iran sanctions was too short to allow any such shifts to meaningfully affect actual production.” The upshot was that adjustments had to occur through spare capacity or large price shifts instead. But this constraint vanishes when you look out over the longer term. At this point, higher U.S. production ought to be affecting investment decisions around the world, and more important, before long that in turn ought to be affecting actual production. Much of the impact of higher U.S. production on world prices might be neutralized by reduced oil supply investment, and hence production, elsewhere. This means that net downward pressure on prices should be greatly reduced. To be certain, there should be some net addition to supplies, and hence somewhat lower prices, which would help accommodate future sanctions. But, over the medium to long run, the effect on prices should much more muted than it is in the short term. Even more important, the boom shouldn’t boost spare capacity in the system over the long haul. Imagine, for example, that Saudi Arabia expects U.S. production to be so high that it anticipates having to curtail its own production in order to maintain high prices. In the short run, the only way it can do that is by boosting spare capacity. In the longer run, though, it can reduce investment in production. Doing that would yield the same oil revenues at lower cost and with the same amount of spare capacity that Saudi Arabia originally desired. (Since spare capacity is ultimately a political tool, the amount of it Saudi Arabia actually wants shouldn’t change with rising U.S. oil production.) The one thing that doesn’t leave the world with, though, is an increased ability to deal with new shocks – and, as a corollary, it doesn’t leave the United States with new freedom of action. The only way around this is if U.S. supply growth continues to surprise to the upside. In that case, the world will generally be oversupplied, resulting in lower prices, higher spare capacity, and greater U.S. freedom of action to do things like Iran sanctions. It’s essential to be clear, though, that this requires more than merely high and rising U.S. production – it requires high and rising U.S. production well beyond what market participants currently anticipate. Given the frenzy over U.S. oil production, that’s a high bar to meet. Indeed it seems at least as plausible, given all the current excitement, that surprises will be on the downside. In that case, we should expect the opposite of what happened around the Iran sanctions – higher prices, less spare capacity, and reduced U.S. freedom of action. You won’t see me betting either way – including on the idea that a new world of easier-to-use energy sanctions is upon us.  

In a widely expected move, the ratings agency Standard and Poor’s (S&P) downgraded Brazil’s long term debt from a credit ranking of BBB to BBB- on March 24, bringing the country’s sovereign bonds a step closer to losing their “investment grade status” (defined as BBB- or above) and becoming "speculative" or “junk bonds.” The rating stems from a combination of indicators—including GDP growth, inflation, and external debt—that S&P uses to measure a country’s creditworthiness and its fiscal, regulatory, and political risks. Since the turn of the twenty-first century, Latin America’s overall credit ratings have trended upward. By Fitch’s rating system, twelve out of fourteen Latin American countries have higher ratings today than a decade ago, one stayed put, and only one fell in the credit ranks. Chile sits at the top, reaching S&P’s AA- status (AAA status is the highest possible) in late 2012, on par with Japan and just above Israel. Mexico ranks next with a BBB+ rating (bumped up after its ambitious reforms passed); Peru too rates BBB+. At the bottom is Argentina with a CCC+ rating, improved from DDD after its 2001 default. Before the recent S&P downgrade, Brazil’s sovereign credit rating ranked roughly in the middle of the region, on par with Colombia and Panama. S&P justified the downgrade based on the country’s “fiscal slippage”, its controversial accounting mechanisms, and the low likelihood that it will tighten spending before the October presidential election. Does it matter? Many have questioned the importance of these scales, as well as the ratings agencies analytical independence. For Brazil, the downward shift had already been largely priced into domestic markets, and it seems to have had little effect in other nations. Further, the two other major agencies, Moody’s and Fitch, have yet to join their skeptical colleagues at S&P. But before the government waves away the opposition critiques, they should reflect on the costs. Where it can and may matter is for Brazil’s companies, as corporate credit costs often follow sovereign rankings (known as the “sovereign ceiling”). In the twenty-four hours after Brazil was downgraded, S&P also lowered the ratings for two-dozen banks including Banco Santander Brasil and Itaú Unibanco. And studies show that highly-rated companies reduce investment after sovereign credit rating downgrades (though it affects lower-ranked companies less). Dilma Rousseff may easily brush off any criticism and win a second term. Still, the downgrade could hinder her economic recovery plans. With Brazil turning increasingly to the private sector to fund much needed investments in ports, roads, and airports, a higher cost of capital for private domestic companies would give multinational firms a leg up over their Brazilian counterparts. And unlike in the recent past, Brazil’s public and development banks (BNDES and Caixa Econômica Federal) are unlikely to step in with abundant cheap loans, as they are already pulling back. The downgrade also gives fodder to those talking about the divide happening in Latin America, characterized alternatively as between East and West, between a politicized Mercosur and the new Pacific Alliance, or generally between countries embracing world markets versus those pursuing a larger state role in the economy. S&P’s analysis reflects where they believe Brazil is leaning.

After canceling a trip to Southeast Asia last fall because of the U.S. government shutdown, President Obama is now planning to travel to the region in late April. (He will travel to Northeast Asia as well.) The president plans to visit Malaysia, where last year he had to skip a summit of entrepreneurs where he had promised to speak. The Washington Post recently had a piece summarizing the upcoming trip and noting that Obama will be the first sitting president to visit Malaysia in about fifty years. This is supposed to be a celebratory occasion. The Post piece does a fine job of explaining one reason why Obama’s trip is not going to be the smooth celebration of Malaysia-U.S. ties that the administration probably thought it would be. The presumed crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 exposed major weaknesses in Malaysian governance and angered many American officials after the Malaysian government seemed to refuse cooperation in the initial search. One senior U.S. official told the Post, “The overriding and dominant image and narrative of this trip is embracing Malaysia at a time in which it is stepping up and modernizing.” Really? But it’s not just the Flight 370 debacle that shows the fallacy of the Obama administration’s touting of the current Malaysian government. For one, there is the problem of the Malaysian government’s growing crackdown on dissent, highlighted by the recent sentencing of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim to jail for sodomy and fining of Karpal Singh, another prominent opposition figure, for sedition. Anwar has many friends in Washington – he spent time as a fellow at Johns Hopkins and is respected on Capitol Hill as a democrat – and the administration should expect those friends to push Obama to meet Anwar during his Malaysia visit and to highlight Anwar’s unjust trial and sentence. The Anwar and Singh cases are part of a broader pattern. Since winning–essentially, stealing–national elections last year, the government of Prime Minister Najib tun Razak has become more and more indebted to the hardest-line and most conservative elements in the ruling BN coalition. As a result, it has jettisoned many of the proposed economic reforms that Najib once promised and that won him plaudits from investors and the White House, among others. Instead, Najib has announced a new slate of policies designed to benefit primarily ethnic Malays, and which are likely to further entrench graft, self-dealing, and a lack of transparency in Malaysian companies. And Najib, engaged in a fight within his party with former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and his acolytes, has upped the intense ethnic rhetoric, belying the claim – a claim repeated by Obama – that Najib is a moderate and tolerant figure. Meanwhile, the economic good news that Obama wanted to highlight in Malaysia is not apparent either. Besides scrapping plans to reform the system of benefits for Malays, Najib has basically halted efforts to reform Malaysia’s government-linked companies (i.e, state companies), since control of those companies proved important to getting out the vote for the ruling coalition in last year’s election. The system of benefits for ethnic Malays, the state companies, and the entrenched cronyism, make Malaysia still a very difficult environment for entrepreneurs, which is ironic since Obama previously wanted to come to Malaysia to tout entrepreneurship in the country. And then there is the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, of which Najib previously was a major supporter. The TPP is not particularly popular among Malaysians, and is not popular among the more conservative parts of Najib’s ruling coalition; Mahathir is publicly calling for the Malaysian government to drop TPP entirely. Najib himself has been backtracking on his previous pro-TPP rhetoric. TPP is still far from being wrapped up, and has many outstanding issues unrelated to Malaysia, including a lack of support for TPP in the U.S. Congress as well. But the changing political climate in Malaysia, and the increasingly tepid support for the agreement in the ruling coalition, is not helping pass the deal. Obama will not be able to tout TPP in Kuala Lumpur either. So, what exactly is Obama going to say in Malaysia about this government that is supposedly “stepping up and modernizing,” at least according to the White House? That it has yet to throw all of the political opposition in jail? That it has not completely crushed the idea of real economic reform? That it is trying to keep Malaysia’s notorious outflow of young talent from leaving as quickly for Australia and Singapore? That it can handle a major international crisis? Hmmm…I do not envy Obama’s foreign policy speechwriter.

Yesterday I spoke with A Martínez from KPCC’s “Take Two” about Secretary Pritzker’s trip to Mexico and the country’s outlook more broadly. You can listen in here. I look forward to your hearing your thoughts on Twitter, Facebook, or in the comments section.