Congressional Research Service Reports - 23 Matching Results
Search Results
- Key Foreign and Defense Policy Issues in the 104th Congress
- The new post-Cold War world and the role of the United States will be shaped by action on a wide variety of foreign policy and defense issues. The 104th Congress will debate many of these issues and help determine the outcome as it considers the National Security Act proposed by House Republicans in the Contract with America and takes up bills on foreign policy and defense agencies, programs, and budgets.
- The United States and the Use of Force in the Post-Cold War World: Toward Self-Deterrence?
- Early in the post-Cold War era, the willingness of the United States to use military force was tested by Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. U.S. actions and those of allied nations suggested that the international community had the will and ability to respond to serious aggressions and some other threats to international order. The United States appeared to be showing the way toward a post-Cold War international system whose demonstrated ability to respond to such threats was expected to deter at least some of them.
- Cuba-U.S. Relations: Should the United States Reexamine Its Policy?
- This report first outlines the current U.S. policy approach toward Cuba and then discusses the option of moderating policy and what this strategy might entail. It then examines the arguments in favor of such a policy approach and the arguments opposed to changing U.S. Policy.
- Japan-U.S. Relations: Issues for Congress in the 1990s
- No Description Available.
- Japan-U.S. Relations: Issues for Congress in the 1990s
- No Description Available.
- Japan-U.S. Relations: Issues for Congress in the 1990s
- Japan-U.S. relations are more uncertain and subject to greater strain today than at any time since World War II. Longstanding military allies and increasingly interdependent economic partners, Japan and the United States have worked closely together to build a strong, multifaceted relationship based on democratic values and interests in world stability and development. But Japan today is our foremost economic and technological competitor. It consistently runs the largest annual international trade surplus with the U.S. ($59 billion in 1993). The end of the Cold War, lackluster international economic conditions, and the focus on economic issues in U.S. politics have raised new questions about the appropriate U.S. policy toward this Asian ally.
- Japan-U.S. Relations: Issues for Congress in the 1990s
- Japan-U.S. relations are more uncertain and subject to greater strain today than at any time since World War II. Longstanding military allies and increasingly interdependent economic partners, Japan and the United States have worked closely together to build a strong, multifaceted relationship based on democratic values and interests in world stability and development. But Japan today is our foremost economic and technological competitor.
- Theater Missile Defenses: Possible Chinese Reactions; U.S. Implications and Options
- There is a wide range of arguments regarding the Clinton Administration's proposal to spend about $2 billion in FY 1995 on developing an advanced theater missile defense (TMD) system. Arguments also center on whether or not interpretations of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty allow for development and deployment of Advanced Antimissile Systems.
- China: Current U.S. Sanctions
- In the months following China,s 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, both the President and the Congress took a number of initiatives protesting Beijing's actions. These initiatives centered around U.S. concerns related to trade, human rights, and non-proliferation. In intervening years, the United States has periodically imposed, lifted, or waived other sanctions and concluded several trade- related agreements with China relating to these concerns. Those measures that remain in place in 1994 are detailed in the accompanying tables.
- Radio and Television Broadcasting to Cuba: Background and Current Issues
- This report provides a legislative history and funding levels for Cuba Broadcasting. It discusses specific concerns some lawmakers have had with Radio and TV Marti over the years, and presents the Panel's recommendations and the USIA Director's response and determinations, as required by the FYI994 appropriations act.
- Japan's Keiretsu: Industrial Groups as Trade Barriers
- A prominent feature of Japan's capitalism consists of families of companies called keiretsu that are linked by crossholdings of stock shares, intra-group financing, and certain coordinating mechanisms. Two types of keiretsu exist: large horizontally organized industrial conglomerates, such as Mitsubishi, Mitsui, and Sumitomo, and vertically integrated manufacturers, such as Toyota, Nippon Steel, and Matsushita Electric. They have become a contentious issue in U.S. trade negotiations with Japan for several reasons.
- China-U.S. Trade Issues
- The growing U.S. trade imbalance with China, and alleged Chinese unfair trade practices, have become of major concern to many U.S. policymakers. Over the past few years, the U.S. trade deficit with China has grown at a faster rate than that of any other major U.S. trading partner. In 1993, the U.S. trade deficit with China totalled $22.8 billion, the second largest U.S. bilateral trade imbalance after Japan. Many trade analysts have attributed the growing U.S.-China trade deficit to a variety of Chinese restrictive trade practices. Other areas of concern to the United States have included China's alleged violation of U.S. intellectual property rights, transshipments of textiles to the United States in violation of U.S. textile quotas, and China's alleged use of forced labor for products exported to the United States.
- China in Transition: Changing Conditions and Implications for U.S. Interests
- Americans disagree as to whether or not China poses a serious security concern for U.S. interests in peace and security in Asia and the Pacific. Many point to rising Chinese defense capabilities and assertive rhetoric to warn of Chinese military- backed expansion. Others judge that the main danger comes from China's weakness. They argue that the possibility of an emerging breakdown in government authority in China could prompt regional disorder and refugee flows seriously undermining Asian stability. Still others see the Chinese "threat" as grossly exaggerated. They stress that Beijing leaders are in control of the country and see their interests best served by accommodation to their richer and generally better armed neighbors.
- Japan's Ongoing Political Instability: Implications for U.S. Interests
- The surprise election of Socialist Party leader Tomiichi Murayama as Prime Minister on June 29, 1994, reflects an ongoing process of change and realignment in Japanese politics that, in the short term, has made the management of U.S.-Japan relations significantly more difficult and impeded the resolution of important issues. Although Murayama has pledged continuity in U.S.-Japan relations, and key cabinet posts have been given to senior LDP leaders with experience in dealing with Washington, his election could have a number of negative implications for U.S. interests. Among other possibilities, the change could temporarily set back the cause of political reform in Japan, further delay the recovery of the Japanese economy from a three-year long slump, pose new obstacles to trade negotiations aimed at more fully opening Japanese markets to U.S. goods and services, and bring into question Tokyo's cooperation under certain scenarios on the issue of North Korea's nuclear weapons program. The likely hiatus in major decisionmaking may continue at least until the next general election.
- Current U.S. Sanctions Against China
- In the months following China's 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, both the President and the Congress took a number of initiatives protesting Beijing's actions. These initiatives centered around U.S. concerns related to trade, human rights, and non-proliferation. In intervening years, the United States has periodically imposed, lifted, or waived other sanctions and concluded several trade-related agreements with China relating to these concerns. Those measures that remain in place in 1994 are detailed in the accompanying tables.
- The U.S. Occupation of Haiti, 1915-1934
- In 1915, the United States undertook a military occupation of Haiti to preempt any European intervention, to establish order out of civil strife, and to stabilize Haitian finances. During the nineteen-year occupation, U.S. military and civilian officials, numbering less than 2500 for the most part, supervised the collection of taxes and the disbursement of revenues, maintained public order, and initiated a program of public works. The Haitian government remained in place, but was subject to U.S. guidance. The Haitian people benefitted from the end of endemic political violence and from the construction of roads, bridges, and ports as well as from improved access to health care. The U.S. occupation was, nonetheless, deeply resented throughout Haitian society, and many of its accomplishments did not long endure its termination in 1934.
- A "Managed Trade" Policy Toward Japan?
- This report examines: (1) the definition(s) of managed trade, (2) the underlying economic arguments for and against such policies, (3) past U.S. experiences with managed trade, (4) perceptions that Japan is somehow "different" from other trading nations and warrants a distinctive approach to resolving trade disputes, (5) the implications of the Administration's current results oriented approach to U.S.-Japan trade issues, and (6) alternative proposals offered in Congress to resolve trade disputes with Japan.
- Dispute Settlement Under the WTO and Trade Problems with Japan
- Under the World Trade Organization (WTO), the United States may use the dispute settlement mechanism to resolve certain trade problems with Japan. As compared with the mechanism under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the WTO offers expanded coverage and nearly automatic approval for panel requests and reports.
- Dispute Settlement Under the WTO and Trade Problems with Japan
- Under the World Trade Organization (WTO), the United States may use the dispute settlement mechanism to resolve certain trade problems with Japan. As compared with the mechanism under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the WTO offers expanded coverage and nearly automatic approval for panel requests and reports.
- North Korea: U.S. Policy and Negotiations to Halt Its Nuclear Weapons Program: An Annotated Chronology and Analysis
- On October 21, 1994, the United States and North Korea signed an accord that, if fully implemented on a step-by-step basis, could resolve a prolonged confrontation over Pyongyang's suspected nuclear weapons program. The accord came after 17 months of volatile talks, marked periodically by American threats to seek United Nations economic sanctions and various dire warnings and implied military threats from Pyongyang. Although the Clinton Administration maintains that the agreement fulfills its long-standing basic negotiating objectives, the accord differs significantly from earlier U.S. negotiating positions in regard to the timing and sequencing of actions by both parties, and includes some new elements.
- China's Most-Favored-Nation Status: U.S. Wheat Exports
- By June 3, 1994, President Clinton must determine whether or not to recommend to Congress a one-year extension of his Jackson-Vanik waiver authority, in effect extending most-favored-nation (MFN)[1] trading status to China for anothe year. The media are reporting that the President has not yet decided whether he will ask for an extension, and that he may also be deliberating over whether or not to attach conditions to a recommendation for approval.
- U.S.-Japan Trade Confrontation: Economic Perspective and Policy
- The United States and Japan are at odds over economic policy, particularly trade policy. There is a wide perception in the United States that Japanese trade restrictions contribute to the U.S. trade deficit and cost the United States high-wage jobs.
- East Asia: The New Triangular Relationship, Implications for U.S. Influence, and Options for U.S. Policy
- Recent criticism of the Clinton Administration's policies toward China, Japan and other East Asian countries has contended that the United States is exerting much less influence and is becoming marginal in determining developments in this economically vibrant and strategically important area. Although there are important costs to U.S. influence associated with disputes with Beijing, Tokyo and others, an assessment of the U.S.-Japanese-Chinese triangular relationship that currently dominates trends in the region shows that the United States is likely to continue its influential position in post Cold War East Asia.