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Simon Lester

Rep. Don Beyer and Bruce Hirsh on Trade Agreements and National Security

At a House Ways and Means Committee trade hearing yesterday, Congressman Don Beyer asked a good question of former USTR official Bruce Hirsh about possible abuse of the national security exception in trade agreements: Mr. Hirsh, you mentioned that, you talked about the dispute over whether WTO panels can second

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Just a quick blog housekeeping note: For those of you who follow the blog via an RSS feed, one version of the feed wasn't working, and if you notice any problems it is probably better to use this one instead: https://worldtradelaw.typepad.com/ielpblog/rss.xml

Katherine Tai on the GE Corn USMCA Dispute

Following up on my last post, here's another quote from U.S. Trade Rep. Katherine Tai speaking at the University of Chicago yesterday, this one in response to a question on the GE Corn USMCA dispute: Q: Your office is bringing an international trade complaint against Mexico under

Katherine Tai on Free Trade Enthusiasts

U.S. Trade Rep. Katherine Tai spoke at the University of Chicago yesterday. I'll do a couple posts about her comments there, but to kick things off, here's something she said in response to a question involving Milton Friedman: Q: We're at the University

Katherine Tai on Trade and Antitrust

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai spoke today at a conference on "Antitrust, Regulation and the Next World Order." She had the following to say about the connection between trade policy and antitrust policy: A lot of the change vectors that we are grappling with in trade are

The U.S. Domestic Politics of International Trade Dispute Mechanisms Involving China

This is from an article by Chris Horseman of Borderlex on the progress (or lack thereof) on WTO dispute settlement reform: “No US trade representative is going to go before Congress and say, ‘I’ve agreed to binding dispute settlement between China and the US’. It is simply not politically

Should a WTO Appeals Body Be Able To Uphold an Appealed Issue Without Any Reasoning?

Back in June 2019, when the Appellate Body was hanging on for dear life, I offered this argument for allowing the Appellate Body to decline to offer any reasoning in situations where it was just upholding a panel's finding: I recently read something about the U.S. Judiciary

Peter Harrell on a More "Targeted" Trade Strategy

Peter Harrell has a piece in Foreign Affairs entitled "How to China-Proof the Global Economy: America Needs a More Targeted Strategy." Harrell was the Senior Director for International Economics and Competitiveness on the White House National Security Council in the Biden administration, and I think of him as

Why Is Dumping "Condemned" in the GATT?

GATT Article VI:1 states the following about dumping: The contracting parties recognize that dumping, by which products of one country are introduced into the commerce of another country at less than the normal value of the products, is to be condemned if it causes or threatens material injury to

A Very Old Semiconductors and National Security Trade Dispute

Through some searches I don't recall the details of, I stumbled on this paper, which makes reference to an old U.S. national security dispute over imports of semiconductor products: ... The very first trade dispute in semiconductors was in 1959. American transistor producers sought protection from Japanese exports