The G8 initiated formal negotiations on a U.S.-EU Free Trade Agreement, but there are reasons to be skeptical about its future. Of greater importance to the United States is the successful conclusion of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

The TPP is the best way for Japan to prove that it is back.

You may have heard that the European Union is effectively banning olive-oil cruets and dipping bowls at restaurants.A look closer shows you something else about the nature of regulatory Leviathans. One EU official noted to the Telegraph, “It will seem bonkers that olive oil jugs must go while vinegar bottles or refillable wine jugs can stay.”

After a keynote address by Japanese Ambassador Kenichiro Sasae, a panel of trade experts will discuss Japan’s participation in the TPP, the politics of the agreement in Congress, and the likelihood that negotiations will end successfully. This event comes just one day before the next round of TPP negotiations begin in Lima, Peru.

As negotiators look for agreement in Trans-Pacific Partnership talks, success would be the most important symbol of America's economic "pivot" to Asia while its failure would have major implications on global growth.

This event will explore the policy arguments from opposing perspectives on gas exports and feature a luncheon address by Indian Ambassador Nirupama Rao, who has been an advocate for US natural gas exports.

There is great lamentation these days about the state of the multilateral trading system and its institutional symbol, the World Trade Organization (WTO). The Doha Round of multilateral negotiations has now dragged on for 12 years, with no end in sight on major issues. Now, attention is focused on salvaging a "mini" outcome when WTO trade ministers meet in Bali in December.

Since 2010, there have been 16 negotiating sessions for the TPP. Talks this year represent the beginning of the 'endgame' for creating this crucial trans-Pacific economic architecture. Should the upcoming bargaining reach a stalemate during the fall, it is likely that the whole project will begin to unravel in 2014.

Smugglers are adept at taking advantage of the myriad tariffs and tax rates between jurisdictions. With increasingly cheap globalized transport and tax free zones cropping up all over the globe, smugglers, terrorist financiers and organized crime have found boundless illicit opportunities.

The administration is misguided in bowing to the EU’s frantic plea for a crash, two-year timetable for free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations. Such a course will fail — and of much greater significance, it may well imperil a successful conclusion of the strategically and economically vital TPP negotiations.