This global forum of ideas has been quiet in recent days, so I can inject a dozen of my recent tweets on the global ecolonomy. @SteveCharnovitz
"#Globalsecurity" should be the new lens for analyzing global threats such as lab-created viruses and cyberterrorism. A "national security" lens has been ineffective. 9:34 AM · Jun 7, 2021
It's not often that the EU is on the correct side of a politically fraught international economic issue. But here they are, and so I commend them for standing up to the anti-IP foolishness in US trade policy. 9:30 PM · Jun 3, 2021
Tariffs are a lot like carbon emissions. A minimal goal is net zero. But for tariffs, a better goal is gross zero. And for climate, perhaps the goal should be Net Negative rather than Net Zero. 5:09 PM · Jun 1, 2021
The US emerges from Covid-19 with enhanced power relative to other countries, yet with diluted moral authority for its lack of commitment to the global community. 9:01 AM · May 30, 2021
Paying any ransom in the #ecolonomy has negative externalities and therefore international regulation is needed. The optimal approach would be a uniform national law applying to any means of financial payment including Improved US law could be a model. 8:13 AM · May 29, 2021
The draft Trade Act of 2021 (housed in a Senate vehicle?!) features a mix of market opening and market closing measures. The most important element needed — extending fast track — was omitted. 12:37 PM · May 28, 2021·
Although Trump pushed the envelope in deploying US foreign policy to suppress free trade, contemporary US trade policy is dependably protectionist in a bipartisan way. 6:50 PM · May 27, 2021
The WHO has bungled Covid-19 efforts from Dec. 2019 forward. Internal reform seems unlikely. As part of International Pandemic Law (#IPaL), governments should set up a new transnational agency focused on pandemic prevention and mitigation. 7:48 AM · May 27, 2021
A government that is hyper-printing fiat currency (like the US) should be the last to violate world trade rules that do not recognize current depreciation as a subsidy. https://insidetrade.com/daily-news/commerce-finalizes-first-ever-currency-cvds-vietnamese-tire-case… 4:09 PM · May 26, 2021
To improve US competitiveness, Congress should eliminate all sector-specific industrial policy such as steel tariffs. Also Congress should not initiate WTO-illegal subsidies for semiconductors. 5:26 PM · May 25, 2021·
If patents on Covid-19 vaccines are restricting output, then the Biden Administration should buy up the worldwide patent rights for those drugs and then grant a universal vaccine production license. Of course, the government should pay “just compensation” to the innovators. 8:33 AM · May 25, 2021
#Blockchain may be increasingly used to document the provenance of goods and services, that is how and where they are produced. This will improve the tracking of labor and environmental conditions for products in international (or domestic) trade. Perhaps PPM NFTs. 6:20 PM · May 24, 2021·
