International Economic Law and Policy Blog

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Simon Lester

Is There a Non-Violation Claim Against Trump's Tariff Threats?

Donald Trump has suggested he would impose tariffs on car imports from specific companies who produce in Mexico and export to the United States. Ford, GM, and Toyota have all been mentioned. Here is his Toyota tweet: Toyota Motor said will build a new plant in Baja, Mexico, to build

Can a Foreign Investor Bring a NAFTA Chapter 11 Lawsuit Against a Non-Host Country Government?

According to this Reuters article, some foreign investors in Mexico are having financial difficulties as a result of Ford's decision -- partly in response to statements by Donald Trump -- not to build a planned factory there: Ford Motor Co's (F.N) abrupt move to scrap

How are Foreign and Domestic Firms Treated by Governments?

This is from a new paper by Emma Aisbett and Lauge Poulsen, called "Relative Treatment of Aliens: Firm-level Evidence from Developing Countries": Foreign firms are subject to a wide range of political risks when operating in developing countries that lack strong property rights institutions. Important insights about the

Global Trade Watch on the Lighthizer Nomination

From the Global Trade Watch blog: The nomination of Robert Lighthizer to be U.S. Trade Representative signals President-elect Donald Trump’s interest in altering the trade policy approach that has prevailed through Republican and Democratic administrations for the past two decades. Lighthizer has consistently noted that historically Republicans favored

Robert Lighthizer as U.S. Trade Rep

From the WSJ: Donald Trump is expected to name Robert Lighthizer, a former trade official under President Ronald Reagan, to head the U.S. Trade Representative office, the first in a final push of appointments anticipated this week as Mr. Trump fills the remaining senior government vacancies in the run-up

Prospects for a NZ-US FTA

I'm not a fan of letting foreign policy influence trade policy (which is one of the reasons I prefer multilateral trade liberalization to bilateral or regional trade deals, which are particularly susceptible), but there is no question that it sometimes does. In this regard, I often come across

The Hormones Dispute May Be Back On

From a USTR press release today: The Obama Administration announced today that the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) is taking action against the European Union’s (EU) unfair trade practices that discriminate against U.S. beef imports. Acting on the request of the U.S. beef industry,

US Presidential Power To Undermine Trade Agreements

Last week, Joel had a post entitled "US Presidential Power to Terminate Trade Agreements," in which he discussed the difficulties that a U.S. President would have in ending U.S. participation in existing trade agreements, without Congressional consent. His post may have been reassuring to some people

Do GATT Article II:2(a) and Article III Allow Tax Adjustments for Value Added Taxes?

In light of all of the recent talk about the U.S. adopting a VAT-ish tax reform, I thought it was worth revisiting a fundamental question. Everyone seems to be operating under the assumption that a VAT is covered by GATT Article II:2(a) and Article III, and therefore

China's WTO Complaint Against U.S. NME Treatment

China's WTO complaint related to certain anti-dumping methodologies used by the US Department of Commerce is here (the parallel complaint against the EU is here). For now, I'm not going to get into the specific methodologies or AD Agreement legal obligations, but instead will focus on