#201. Top 10 Global Economic Challenges

1. Restoring Financial Stability – With U.S. financial troubles at the center of the current global vortex, the U.S. has important obligations to strengthen the global financial system, including by enhancing financial regulation and diminishing reliance on foreign credit.

2. Setting the Right Green Agenda – For the U.S., it is time to muster the political will to act on climate change at the national level while also working to forge international agreement so that markets and regulatory policy will provide a consistent set of incentives to wean the economy from carbon foundations.

3. Exercising Smart Power – Investing in the education, health, livelihoods, and the security of the world’s poorest not only makes Americans feel good about themselves but also makes the world feel good about America. It is critical to increase not only resources but also the impact of each dollar spent.

4. Reimagining Global Trade – Americans feel most secure about global engagement when they are well equipped to compete and have insurance against economic risks. This requires vigorously enforcing the trade rules and investing in economic competitiveness.

5. Navigating China’s Rise – On issues such as climate change, enforcement of trade rules and exchange rate adjustment, where the stakes are simply too high to ignore, America should look for cooperative mechanisms to advance its goals where possible but continue to press bilaterally with China and better deploy regional and international mechanisms where necessary.

6. Deciphering “Russia, Inc.” – Difficult as it may be to accomplish, America nonetheless has significant interests in alternately coaxing and goading a resurgent, resource nationalist Russia toward international norms and cooperation on energy, trade, financial integration and security more broadly.

7. Engaging an Emerging India – America has enormous interests in India’s successful integration into the global economy as the world’s most populous democracy engages in the task of lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty. America must look for areas of cooperation where possible and deepen bilateral engagement broadly in order to make progress on its agenda.

8. Revitalizing Ties to Latin America – America must become a stronger partner to its neighbors and engage on issues of mutual concern, including on energy, environmental protection, economic competitiveness and social policies.

9. Supporting Africa’s Growth Turnaround – America can become a stronger and steadier partner to Africa as it navigates economic challenges by supporting global standards for natural resource management, opening markets to African products, supporting vibrant private enterprises, supporting African efforts to enhance regional security and build resilience to climate change, and both increasing and improving the quality of development assistance.

10. Pursuing a Positive Agenda for the Middle East – America can build partnerships in the Middle East based on trust and mutual respect if it aligns its agenda on economic and political reform with the aspirations of the majority of the region’s people: the young who are striving for opportunity and global integration.

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