Audio Explainers
Spoken-word analysis — listen while you commute or multitask.
Carlos Lopes on AfCFTA — five years in, twenty to go
The former UN Economic Commission for Africa chief on what the African Continental Free Trade Area has actually moved since 2021. Tariff schedules, the Guided Trade Initiative, the binding infrastructure constraint, and why the project's measurable trade growth is structurally a second-decade phenomenon.
Shannon O'Neil on the USMCA 2026 review
The CFR vice president of studies on the six-year sunset clause that distinguishes USMCA structurally from NAFTA. Automotive rules of origin and IRA tensions, the Mexican energy-sector files, and the migration-trade linkage a second Trump administration has signaled. The 2025 political signaling that determines whether the agreement renews or begins its ten-year sunset.