Simon Lester

As of Monday, when Russia filed an appeal in the DS479 dispute, there were seven ongoing WTO appeals. That will end soon, as the Appellate Body is scheduled to circulate its report in the Russia - Pigs case by February 23, but I'm going to declare here on this

From the WSJ: The Trump administration is considering changing the way it calculates U.S. trade deficits, a shift that would make the country’s trade gap appear larger than it had in past years, according to people involved in the discussions. The leading idea under consideration would exclude from

From the NY Times: Cookies and sugary drinks served at government meetings are about to go away. So are imported noodles and canned fish served in tourist bungalows. Taking their place? Local coconuts, lobsters and lime juice. While many governments struggle to ban soda to curb obesity, the tiny Torba

Canadian heartthrob and panda-lover (and Prime Minister) Justin Trudeau was in DC yesterday to meet with President Trump, and there were some brief discussions of trade: PRESIDENT TRUMP:  ... We have a very outstanding trade relationship with Canada.  We’ll be tweaking it.  We’ll be doing certain things that

From the WSJ: The White House is exploring a new tactic to discourage China from undervaluing its currency to boost exports, part of an evolving Trump administration strategy to challenge the practices of the U.S.’s largest trading partner while stepping back from direct confrontation. Under the plan, the

We've heard many times now from Trump and his advisers that they will be pursuing bilateral trade agreements. For example, in withdrawing from the TPP, Trump said this: it is the intention of my Administration to deal directly with individual countries on a one-on-one (or bilateral)

Donald Trump tweeted the following on Friday: Countries charge U.S. companies taxes or tariffs while the U.S. charges them nothing or little.We should charge them SAME as they charge us! Under NAFTA, Canada, Mexico and the U.S. reduced all tariffs to zero (aside from trade remedies

From a White House press release: President Trump’s National Security Advisor Michael T. Flynn today announced the following additions to the National Security Council senior staff. ... Kenneth I. Juster will serve as Deputy Assistant to the President for International Economic Affairs.  He will coordinate the Administration’s international economic

Over at Opinio Juris, Julian Ku writes the following about a draft executive order on multilateral treaties being considered by the Trump administration: The draft executive order on multilateral treaties is potentially more significant because the President has broad powers to withdraw from treaties.  But the order itself simply creates

From a press briefing today: Q    If I could just -- MR. SPICER:  Hold on. Q    -- ask real quick on trade.  Now that notices have been given to the TPP countries, are you considering any changes in the roles of your three sort of official trade negotiators?  And what area of