Simon Lester

This is from Politico: President Barack Obama's signature trade deal - the Trans-Pacific Partnership - may not get taken up by the GOP-run Congress until after the 2016 elections, senior Republican and Democratic aides said Wednesday. Mike Sommers, chief of staff for Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), said

From Bloomberg: Hillary Clinton says Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact doesn’t meet her criteria for dealing with currency manipulation, “one of the main reasons for job loss going back several decades.” * NOTE: Democratic presidential candidate makes comments in Henderson, Nev., after event where she was endorsed by International Union

In my last post, I worried that any trade and TPP questions for Hillary Clinton in the Democratic debate would not be very productive.  And voila: ANDERSON COOPER: You were against same-sex marriage. Now you're for it. You defended President Obama's immigration policies. Now you

Last Wednesday, we all heard Hillary Clinton announce her opposition to -- or at least her deep skepticism about -- the TPP.  That triggered many accusations of flip-flopping, as she had previously supported it.  Now this Tuesday, CNN will be hosting the first Democratic debate, where she will no doubt be

The 10th Annual Academy of WTO Law & Policy will be held at Georgetown Law Center, November 16-20, 2015. Here's an overview: The Academy is an intensive professional development program on the law and policy of the World Trade Organization (WTO).  It examines the legal obligations and

At least based on what she has heard about it so far.  From Vox: In a major blow to President Obama's trade agenda, Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton has come out against the Trans-Pacific Partnership. In an interview with PBS's Judy Woodruff, Clinton stressed that

When it became clear there would be a tobacco carveout from TPP ISDS, I rushed out this critique: I'd be happy to carve ISDS out of trade agreements (or just apply the tobacco carveout proposal to all measures!), but I can't understand why tobacco would be

The tobacco carveout for TPP ISDS leads me to another question that has been bothering me: What happens to NAFTA Chapter 11 after TPP?  (Same question applies to other U.S. FTAs that have investment chapters with ISDS.)  Does TPP ISDS supersede NAFTA Chapter 11 entirely, so that any future

In the last post, I wondered why the TPP tobacco carveout from ISDS would let e-cigarettes off the hook.  But maybe it won't.  Somebody pointed out to me that nicotine is usually extracted from tobacco, and that the language of the carveout may actually be broad enough

Here's another paragraph from the Inside US Trade article on the tobacco ISDS carveout that I mentioned the other day: The U.S. has proposed to define a tobacco control measure as one relating to the production or consumption of manufactured tobacco products, their distribution, labeling, packaging, wrapping,