Contributing Editor

Bruce Stokes

Contributing Editor

BStokes@nationaljournal.com

Stokes is a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund.

Bruce Stokes's Latest Posts

European Central Bank—Euro Currency Symbol

BALANCE OF PAYMENTS

Europe’s Euro Problem—and Ours

By Bruce Stokes

At his summit this week with European Union leaders, President Obama acknowledged the economic stake the United States has in Europe’s unfolding sovereign-debt crisis. “If Europe is having difficulties, then it’s much more dif...

BALANCE OF PAYMENTS

How Obama Can Push a Progressive Agenda Without Congress

By Bruce Stokes

The political gods have not favored progressives in recent years. The 2008 election delivered an extremely popular Democratic president, 60 Democratic votes in the Senate, and a strong majority in the House of Representatives. But a...

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No Truce in Class Warfare

By Bruce Stokes

In the 1970s, there was a popular, tongue-in-cheek poster. It read: “Class Warfare: A Return to Traditional Values.” The point was clear. Issues of class are central to American politics, as abhorrent as they may be to Americans...

Anti-government protesters celebrate in Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo, Egypt , Egypt Friday, Feb. 11, 2011

NATIONAL SECURITY

Poll: Egyptians More Anti-American After Mubarak's Fall

By Bruce Stokes

Hopes for regional stability in a new Egypt are muted in the latest Pew research poll, which found just over half of Egyptians surveyed favor annulling the country's peace treaty with Israel. The White House also comes under critici...

NEXT ECONOMY

American Manufacturing's New Future Is Emerging -- But it May Need Help

By Bruce Stokes

A hoped-for revival in U.S. manufacturing reveals itself in a familiar place using unfamiliar techniques. Read More »

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Korea Time

By Bruce Stokes

U.S. and South Korean negotiators rushed this week to strike a deal on a revised Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS). Failure to get the deal done when President Obama visited Seoul in mid-November heightened skepticism about it...

Despite Stimulus Results, Public Relations Battle Largely Lost

By Bruce Stokes

With the austerity versus stimulus debate about to spill out of the halls of Congress onto the campaign trail, budget hawks clearly have the upper hand in the battle for voters' hearts and minds. The public clearly thinks that defic...

Corporations: Stop Hoarding!

By Bruce Stokes

Getting corporate leaders to invest rather than save is a pressing economic challenge. Read More »

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The Wrong Stuff

By Bruce Stokes

STOCKHOLM, Sweden. "There is only one thing we fear more than American unilateralism," admitted a European foreign policy expert here in a recent conversation on the sidelines of a dialogue between Europeans, Americans and Chinese o...

Health Care, Over There

By Bruce Stokes

As the Senate wrestles with healthcare reform over the next few weeks, it will leave tens of billions of dollars of potential savings on the table. By simply allowing Medicare recipients who wish to do so to buy their medical care a...

Crossing Over

By Bruce Stokes

Baroness Catherine Ashton, the European Union trade minister, was in Washington this week for a meeting of the Transatlantic Economic Council. The engaging British Labor Party veteran has struck up a close working relationship with ...

Service, Please

By Bruce Stokes

At the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh last month, the world's major economic powers promised "to adopt policies that promote balanced global demand." For the United States, that means producing more of what Americans consume, while forei...

The Angela Merkel Experience

By Bruce Stokes

BERLIN -- All politics might be local, but in the age of globalization, all politics also look strangely American. This is undoubtedly good news for American campaign consultants. But it suggests that the personality-driven, relativ...

Merkel's Re-Election Signals New Era In German Politics

By Bruce Stokes

BERLIN -- Germans went to the polls on Sunday and voted for continuity, stability and a more market-friendly coalition of conservatives and moderates, satisfied with the stolid leadership of Chancellor Angela Merkel , whom many Ger...

Trading Punches

By Bruce Stokes

If headlines are to be believed, the Obama administration's decision to impose tariffs on imports of Chinese tires was the opening salvo in a full-blown U.S.-China trade war. Beijing has threatened to take retaliatory action against...

Will Obama Get Rolled On Tires?

By Bruce Stokes

How long until President Obama articulates a trade policy for his administration? Read More »

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Adding Value

By Bruce Stokes

The U.S. current account deficit, the broadest measure of the nation's balance sheet with the world, was down 43 percent in the first quarter of this year compared with the same period in 2008, thanks to the Great Recession and the ...

New Era, New Foreign Policies

By Bruce Stokes

Washington's need for a more sustainable international balance sheet will dictate a greater emphasis on reciprocity. Read More »

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The Public Trust

By Bruce Stokes

As Congress heads into a long healthcare debate this summer, members face a stark choice. Restructure the existing private health insurance system by setting minimum national standards and creating an insurance exchange that would i...

Regulatory Order

By Bruce Stokes

The Obama administration's unveiling Wednesday of its plans for financial regulation opened another round in what promises to be a bitter and prolonged battle over the costs and benefits of new rules for the financial sector. Read More »

ISSUES & IDEAS

Europe Must Jointly Tax And Spend

By Bruce Stokes

The absence of a common European fiscal policy has hobbled international efforts to ease the downturn. Read More »

ISSUES & IDEAS

China Must Do More On Climate Change

By Bruce Stokes

China is trying to convince outside observers that it is taking global warming seriously. Read More »

ISSUES & IDEAS

Food Safety Offers A Trade Policy Opportunity

By Bruce Stokes

So far, the president's trade stance is largely defined by what he is against. Read More »

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What's Old Is New

By Bruce Stokes

Like vintage wine, some old ideas look even better with age. As the Obama administration begins to formulate a coherent trade strategy, it should take a hard look at two concepts that dominated trade policy debates in the 1980s: a b...

What, Exactly, Is A Feed-In Tariff?

By Bruce Stokes

If you charge consumers a bit more for electricity but also pay them to produce it at home, they will start installing solar panels. Read More »

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A G-20 Grand Bargain

By Bruce Stokes

The U.S. trade deficit was down $3.9 billion in January, or 9.7 percent, as exports fell, but imports declined even more. The narrowing of America's imbalance with the world is good news. But beware: This could be a sucker's rally. Read More »

ISSUES & IDEAS

WTO's Task: Getting Obama To Say Yes To Doha

By Bruce Stokes

Director-General Pascal Lamy's challenge is to help the president put enough of an imprint on a final accord to be able to call it his own. Read More »

AUDIO SLIDESHOW

One Of Obama's Greatest Foreign Policy Opportunities

By Bruce Stokes, produced by Michelle Williams

Pump-Priming in Europe

By Bruce Stokes

Details on the planned stimulus packages for the 13 E.U. member states that account for 90 percent of the E.U. market. Read More »

ISSUES & IDEAS

Europe: Go Ahead And Spend, Please

By Bruce Stokes

The Obama administration needs to press its European counterparts to do more, in a more concerted fashion, to boost their economies. Read More »

CHINA

China's Problems Will Outlast Olympic Games

By Bruce Stokes

The Olympics are serving to divert attention from four major challenges facing China: its changing role in the world; a slowing economy; a corrupt political system; and profound energy and environmental constraints. Read More »

TRADE

Obama on Trade

By Bruce Stokes

The campaign recently brought on economist and former Clinton aide Jason Furman , who once headed the centrist Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution, as director of economic policy. He supplants University of Chicago profes...

Lean On Me

By Bruce Stokes

What do Sens. John McCain , R-Ariz., and Barack Obama , D-Ill., their parties' presumptive nominees for president, have to learn from a factory that produces a million toothbrushes a day? A lot, and it has nothing to do with teeth...

What We Can Learn From Sweden

By Bruce Stokes

Sweden's handling of a financial crisis in the 1990s offers some lessons for the United States. Read More »

FOOD CRISIS

Food Is Different

By Bruce Stokes

In the midst of the food crisis, the immediate challenge is to feed the hungry. But the suddenness and breadth of the emergency have raised fundamental questions about the future of agriculture policy that will drive debates in Washi...

FROM THE ARCHIVE

China's Cyber-Militia Has Penetrated U.S. Computer Networks

By Shane Harris

A May 2008 report in National Journal detailed allegations of Chinese government involvement in hacking of U.S. private and government computer networks, allegations that received more backing in a Sunday New York Times...

Doha Deflation

By Bruce Stokes

Prospects for a successful conclusion of the Doha Round of multilateral trade talks continue to dwindle. New negotiating texts in agriculture and manufacturing have just been released, but are far from being agreed upon. As a result...

What A Bash

By Bruce Stokes

Japan-bashing was a major theme of the 1988 presidential primaries and an important subtext of the 1992 presidential contest, with its backdrop of tough economic times. Yet China-bashing has not emerged as a dominant issue in the 20...

The Rules Of The Game

By Bruce Stokes

Fast track — the expedited procedure that Congress has long used to consider trade legislation — might prove the principal casualty of the confrontation between the White House and Capitol Hill over the Colombia Free Trade Agreement. Read More »