Research Library

A growing number of Brazilian companies are expanding internationally. These companies are part of the transformation reshaping the global investment environment. They have shifted their international strategy from being based exclusively on exports to becoming foreign investors in countries such as Peru, Chile, Colombia and Mexico.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement offers an opportunity to deepen U.S.-Mexico economic ties without reopening the still contentious North American Free Trade Agreement for negotiation. It may also serve as a vehicle for advancing the current Mexican government’s economic reform agenda. The leaders of the U.S. and Mexico believe that the TPP will bolster domestic economic growth.

This issue brief explores China’s deepening relationship with Costa Rica, which severed diplomatic relations with Taiwan in 2007 to strengthen its economic ties with the PRC. China’s relationship with Costa Rica has opened the possibility for the PRC to reach out to other countries in the region.

Academic mobility is critical for robust collaborations in education, research and innovation between the U.S. and Mexico. Governments in both countries, in cooperation with nongovernmental actors, should provide a framework to develop mechanisms that generate and sustain a meaningful exchange of students, faculty, and staff from educational institutions at all levels of post-secondary education.

The BRICS clearly want something tangible to demonstrate their global prominence and the power of non-Western values. Russell Green examines the critical issues that must be resolved before the BRICS bank can open its doors.

The violent struggle between rival Mexican drug cartels and other criminal groups has left tens of thousands dead and towns across Mexico paralyzed with fear. With overwhelmed police forces relatively powerless to control drug-related murders and kidnappings, a growing number of vigilante organizations, or self-defense groups, aim to restore order — but now even they are fighting, and killing, among themselves.