USA Trade to Latin America Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

USA Trade to Latin America - Research Paper Example Trade between the United States and Latin America grew to approximately 82 % between 1998 and 2009, more than the 52% with the European Union, 72% with Asia, and 64 % for the rest of the world, according to the Congressional Research Service (Hornbeck, 2011). Last year’s growth elevated trade between the United States, and the region to a historic high of $772 million (Weintraub, Rugman &Boyd, 2004). Exports to the region have grown by 22%, while imports reached increased to 20 percent. Growth in trade between the United States and the Latin America has traditionally been high. This is because of the high population of Hispanics living in the United States and Latin America’s proximity to the U.S. There are approximately over 50 million Hispanics living in the United States. Latin American countries have made prominent advancement in trade liberalization over the past three decades, reducing tariffs significantly and entering into multiple subregional agreements of their own. Countries such as Chile, Peru, Brazil and Colombia helped through their efforts to liberalize trade and become more competitive. Recently, Colombia and the United States signed a free-trade agreement. Early Latin American trade agreements (1960s) were inward looking, defensive in nature, exclusive of industrialized countries, and so minimally successful in leading to lasting regional integration and facilitating development. Agreements struck more recently, under the rubric of the â€Å"New Regionalism,† have gone farther, cultivated by the desire to integrate more fully, and by the growing belief, that trade liberalization can be a cornerstone for promoting structural reform, development, and international competitiveness. Historically, growth in U.S. trade with Latin America has outpaced that of all other regions, and over the last 15 years, the United States has signed reciprocal free trade agreements (FTAs) with 11 Latin American countries and implemented with nine of them. These include the Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR), North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and bilateral FTAs with Peru and Chille. FTAs with Col ombia and Panama were signed but not implemented, as they awaited congressional action. Still, a number of large economies in South America are not part of U.S. FTAs. They have resisted a region wide agreement, the Free Trade Areas of the Americas (FTAA) because it represented an extension of the same trade model used by the United States in bilateral agreements. Many countries south of the Caribbean Basin have been hesitant in entering into such a deal because it does not meet their principal negotiation objectives. Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela do not rely on U.S. regional unilateral preferential arrangements (e.g., the Caribbean Basin Initiative or Andean Trade Preference Act), and would have to redefine their sub regional trade pacts). They are less compelled to capitulate to U.S. demands because they are far less dependent on the U.S. economy (Chauffor & Maur, 2011) On the other hand, Chile, which has long followed a policy differing from that of its neighbours, has signed t he Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership (P4) with Singapore, New Zealand and Brunei. The P4 came into force in May 2006. All party countries are members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum. The United States was to join the group as well, but has not yet done so. The US also

The Recent Referendum for Electoral Reform in the United Kingdom Essay

The Recent Referendum for Electoral Reform in the United Kingdom - Essay Example The differences get critically ionized out and explicated in this analysis. This research focuses on ideas and opinions of both the public and the political analysts. The research focuses on analyzing the ideas, opinions and facts that lead to the choosing of FPTP over AV. The research tries to expose the hassle between the anti-AV and the pro-AV. The anti-AV’s support the current referendum, First-Past-The-Post, a system that allows a small voters’ number to do the elections. They claim that the current referendum stabilizes the government and reflects the peoples will at all time. The anti-AV and the pro-AV seem to disagree on elections done by a small number of voters. The anti-AV also complains on the complexity of the Alternative Vote referendum. The origin of the problem is the peoples need to make the voting process more democratic by handing over the voting power to the whole citizens rather than to the small representative group. Their argument is that lots of votes get wasted under the current system. This system allows a small representative group of individuals to vote thus discouraging people from voting. The major weakness this first-past-the-post system, they say, is the fact that two out of three of the MPs get elected into the Westminster while having less than half of the voters’ votes and this challenges democracy and decreases the authenticity of MPs. They claim that this system forces citizens to work harder for their votes and access a larger electorate crosssection. Weaknesses of the approach Substantial information gets sought from the public. This is a weakness because the media receives an enormous power over information, which is likely to be distorted. Voters develop the notion that the candidate receiving the highest media attention is the ones likely to win the election. A candidate new to the politics game, lacking a track record, initially tends to got support from the majority voters, eventually ceases to be one of the two popular candidates; thus receiving fewer votes, portraying them as a lower poller for the future elections, perpetuating the situation. Strengths of the approach The approach exhausts all the possible information sources. This allows for quality analysis because the information acquired is from different sources enhancing reliability. It provides the public with reliable information because the information put forward after the research has been critically analyzed and evaluated. Importance of the research approach This research approach provides information to the public and other interested parties while it enlightens them on issues concerning the AV and FTPT. Analysis of the case study It can be argued that in FTPT it is impossible to determine why a certain vote got cast, compared to the AV system. This is because the system allows casting of votes for any person even those who have no chance of winning. In this case, the people feel votes casted for other insign ificant runners have no justification and no explanation. Another argument over the FTPT is that it promotes the statement, â€Å"all votes, not for the primary candidate or the secondary favorite candidate, are votes for the primary candidateâ€Å". It simply implies that when a vote is cast for a candidate other than the two principal contenders, the vote promotes the primary candidate. Since the primary candi