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Simon Lester

Trade in Everything: Electronic Waste

From CBS News: Up to 1.2 million second-hand TVs, refrigerators, washing machines, and air conditioners were estimated to have entered the Philippines between 2001 and 2005, and according to a study by Japan International Cooperation Agency and the Philippine Board of Investment, 60-70 percent of it all came from

Google Paper on Free Trade and the Internet

Last week, Google posted a paper entitled "Enabling Trade in the Era of Information Technologies: Breaking Down Barriers to the Free Flow of Information." There's a Technical Appendix (p. 17 of the document) called "Applicability of the WTO rules to restrictions on free flow of

Do Kids Smoke Clove Cigarettes?

This may be a key issue in the U.S. - Clove Cigarettes case (DS406). (See this link for some past posts on the case). Briefly, the case is about whether the U.S. ban on clove cigarettes (produced mainly in Indonesia), but not menthol cigarettes (produced mainly in the

New Zealand, the TPP and Investor-State

From Eyes on Trade: Today's edition of Inside U.S. Trade (subscription only) reports that the Prime Minister of New Zealand, one of the negotiating parties of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), stated that a NAFTA-style investor-state lawsuit provision will likely be excluded from the TPP: In a Nov.

The Korea - U.S. FTA: Negotiating with Congress

From Reuters: U.S. President Barack Obama told congressional critics of a free trade deal with South Korea he would consider asking Seoul for changes to labor, investment and financial provisions of the pact to help win approval of the deal in Congress, a lawmaker said on Thursday. "He

Sarah Palin on Free Trade

I don't know if Sarah Palin is officially part of any tea party group, but she is certainly identified closely with tea partiers. So, recalling the earlier post about the tea party view of free trade, I thought these Sarah Palin comments on free trade and free trade

Sallie James on GSP

Sallie James of Cato has a good piece on the U.S. GSP program. Here are some snippets. The opening salvo: To the extent that preference recipients jealously guard their special access and resist global efforts to liberalize trade on a nondiscriminatory basis, unilateral preference programs can be counterproductive to

Matt Yglesias on Trade Negotiations

I'm always curious to read what the mainstream press says about trade. They may be a little light on the details, but they have the ability to influence "the masses," which despite our respectable readership here at this blog, we probably don't. Here'

Free Trade and Public Opinion

The other day, I mentioned the polling questions related to the free trade views of the Tea Party. Looking a little more closely at these questions, I noticed something else of interest. One of the questions (see p. 11 of the document) asked was: Do free trade agreements make the

Not Accepting an Amicus Brief at the WTO

A couple months ago, I noted how the Australia - Apples panel "accepted" an amicus brief: "the Panel notified the Parties that it had decided to accept the unsolicited communication received from APAL, and would inform that entity accordingly." However, today's Thailand - Cigarettes