The Yale Journal of International Law is hosting an online symposium on "International Trade in the Trump Era," featuring an introduction by Kathleen Claussen (University of Miami School of Law) and David Singh Grewal (Yale Law School) and essays by Rachel Brewster, Tim Meyer, Joel Trachtman, Greg Shaffer, and Andrew Lang already posted. Forthcoming are essays by David Singh Grewal, Padideh Ala'i, Chantal Thomas, and Kathleen Claussen, and an epilogue by Harold Koh.
This is how they describe it:
The international trade order is in crisis. Since the election of President Donald J. Trump, the United States has initiated—and escalated—a trade war with China, forced the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and threatened to upend the World Trade Organization (WTO) by blocking appointments (and re-appointments) to its Appellate Body. Protectionism is on the rise: reversing a longstanding political consensus, tariffs have once again emerged as a central issue in U.S. international trade policy.
What does this all mean? Where does it lead? Is the established order of international trade—underpinned by the WTO and multilateral trade agreements—on the verge of collapse? Or is it, as John Gerard Ruggie said of the “new protectionism” that arose in the 1970s, simply an indication that the existing order is adapting to new circumstances?
The authors in this Features Symposium grapple with these difficult, and consequential, questions. Since the Symposium essays are extremely timely, YJIL Online will be publishing them on a staggered schedule. We will continue to make new pieces available as they are completed in the coming weeks.
Check out all the papers available so far here: http://www.yjil.yale.edu/features-symposium-international-trade-in-the-trump-era/
For what it's worth, I'm in the "adapting to new circumstances" camp.
