In 2006, the Congressional General Accountability Office concluded that the global gag rule, coupled with abstinence promotion, was impeding the global fight against HIV. And in 2011, researchers from Stanford University published striking evidence that the global gag rule had, perversely, increased abortion rates. All the failures, bureaucratic nightmares and -- yes -- increases in abortion rates will now follow the gag rule reinstatement. Laurie Garrett is a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations and a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer. We have been here twice before -- under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush -- and we know that this order often backfires, leading to increased abortion rates.

Over the last two years, these trade deficits have taken an entire percentage point out of America`s sluggish economic growth. With its systematic half-a-trillion dollars of quasi structural trade deficits, the U.S. accounts for 40 percent of the world`s total (trade deficits) and bears the brunt of what some would call beggar-thy-neighbor trade policies. These countries account for 40 percent of world GDP, but their combined trade surpluses of $1 trillion represent about 80 percent of the world`s total. Germany is currently running the world`s largest trade surplus of $300 billion. In other words, nearly half of the world economy is a drag on the rest of the global demand, output and employment.