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Simon Lester

Global Trade Watch on the Buy America Controversy

Global Trade Watch says: The hysteria coming from European Union (EU) and Canadian officials about the Buy America and Buy American domestic preferences in the U.S. stimulus bill is particularly odd, given that both the EU and Canada have wisely excluded considerably broader swaths of their procurement activity from

Buy America in the White House Press Briefing

Not that this really clarifies anything (press briefings rarely do), but I thought it worth noting anyway: Q Robert, in some of the interviews last night, the President seemed to back off -- pardon me -- earlier commitments to "Buy American" provisions. Is he in favor of "

Jeffrey Frankel on Trade and Climate Change

From the conclusions of a paper entitled "Environmental Effects of International Trade" by Jeffrey Frankel of the Kennedy School: Concluding recommendations regarding trade penalties in climate legislation The central message of this section of the report is that border measures to address leakage need not necessarily violate the

Top 50 Foreign Policy Blogs

"Masters in Criminal Justice" offers the Top 50 Foreign Policy Blogs, and they were kind of enough to include this blog.

"Protectionist Power Balance"

From an FT article: Fredrik Erixon, of the European Centre for International Political Economy, a free-market think-tank in Brussels, says: “WTO rules are effective where you have one country behaving badly. Where there is a protectionist power balance between all the big countries, they aren’t of much use.” I

The End of the Zeroing Debate?

Well, the end of the debate in the WTO's judicial organs anyway (the political battle will surely continue). From a concurring opinion in today's AB decision in U.S. - Continued Zeroing (DS350): 304. One Member of the Division wishes to make the following statement in

"I think we need to make sure that any provisions that are in there are not going to trigger a trade war"

That's Barack Obama, talking about the Buy America controversy. He also said: "I think it would be a mistake though, at a time when worldwide trade is declining, for us to start sending a message that somehow we're just looking after ourselves and not concerned

CEPMLP, Dundee: Chair in International Law

From the CEPMLP: Dear Friends, We are now formally launching the search to seek a Professor of International Law to replace the late Professor Thomas Walde. Those of you who read The Economist or the UK’s Times Higher Education will have seen the notices. We are deliberately keeping the

A More Subtle "Buy America" Approach

Richard Posner proposes the following alternative to the current Buy America provisions (which require the use of American inputs in certain projects): An appropriate solution to this dilemma is to focus the stimulus package on goods and services that are made in the United States. That is one more reason

More on Trade News

A while back, I mentioned that we (that is, WorldTradeLaw.net) were working on a trade news feature. Some of you may have already noticed this, but in case you have not, here is the news page we set up: http://www.worldtradelaw.net/wtlnews.htm We're still