In an article for Viewpoints Americas, AS/COA President Susan Segal writes that, while free trade and NAFTA have taken the blame for manufacturing job losses in the U.S. Midwest, trade accounts for a substantial portion of U.S. growth that supports Midwestern manufacturing and agriculture.

FedEx Express' Juan Cento warns that the while Latin America has experience its highest economic growth rates since the late 1970s, poor transportation infrastructure and regulatory barriers "undermine the region's competitive strengths." He suggests the development of public and private sector partnerships to boost regional infrastructure.

Pablo Reyes, Director of the Center for Latin American Strategic Studies in Bogota, calls for careful policy planning for biofuels. He writes that governments and industry. "International cooperation is essential for the biofuels industry to move forward," he writes.

The hemisphere-wide commodity-led boom is unlikely to improve competitiveness without sweeping reforms in the areas of infrastructure, institutions, and human capital, according to Jerry Haar of Florida International University. His new book, Can Latin America Compete? Confronting the Challenges of Globalization, will be launched at AS/COA.

Cristina Rodriguez, a law professor at New York University, analyzes state-level immigration legislation and cautions that lawmakers may reconsider reforms once costs of heightened enforcement set in. The challenge of integrating immigrants requires cooperation from all levels of the U.S. government. 

Like the United States, for at least the past decade, half of the graduating attorneys from law schools in Argentina and Peru have been women. However, female attorneys in these countries and across the hemisphere face challenges for career advancement.

Mauricio Ardila of George Washington University looks at the evolution of Facebook and how users organically mobilized millions of people to march against the FARC in Colombia.