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Simon Lester

Inaugurating a New U.S. Trade Policy

There will be no avoiding trade issues for long, even if President-Elect Obama wanted to, as they will apparently play a role in the inauguration: Barack Obama has a pungent and politically charged inauguration gift coming his way from France. The head of a region in the Pyrenees known for

The GATT/GATS Overlap

In a piece about Rolls-Royce, the Economist notes: In practice, there is no clear line between what counts as a service and what has been made. Look closer and those burger-flippers work on a small assembly line. Rolls-Royce’s designers, salesforce, analysts and financial-support staff are hardly different from their

The U.S., Korea and Trade in Cars

Somehow this seems like a disconnect to me. U.S. and Korean companies working together and trading: General Motors Corp. on Monday named LG Chem Ltd. of South Korea as the lithium-ion battery supplier for its Chevrolet Volt electric car, and the automaker also announced the seeds of what could

Trade Talk in the Clinton Confirmation

From a question for Hillary Clinton during her Secretary of State confirmation hearings: SHAHEEN: Thank you. The second question is related somewhat, and it deals with trade. We have a company in New Hampshire -- and forgive me for being parochial -- called Goss International that makes large printing presses.

Article XXIV vs Enabling Clause

Frequent commenter Jalal Alavi sends the following: There has been a request submitted by GCC Customs Union ( Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar and Kuwait) to the WTO Committee on Trade and Development to change the status of its notification under article XXIV GATT to a notification

Discrimination Against Domestic Producers

In a comment posted here, Susan Aaronson says: Does the WTO require that member states not discriminate among foreign and domestic producers in instances where foreign producers could be treated better than domestic producers? While the WTO requires that member states provide national treatment to foreign producers, it raises the

Sallie James on U.S. Trade Policy

On reason.tv, Sallie James of the Cato Institute talks about the past Bush trade policy and the future Obama trade policy. It starts at about :50 of the video.

More on Chinese Internet Censorship as a Trade Barrier

At the Huffington Post, Michael Santoro and Wendy Goldberg make the case to the incoming Obama team for Chinese internet censorship to be treated as a trade barrier: Almost all discussion of the harm done by China's strict censorship of the Internet focuses around its human rights implications.

More on Carbon Emissions and Trade

As a result of my post the other day on the carbon tax proposal by Congressman Inglis and Arthur Laffer, I received a call from Congressman Inglis' office, inviting the media, which to my surprise apparently includes me, to join a conference call hosted by Inglis and Laffer, where

Carolyn Deere on the WTO DG Non-Race

It is being reported that Pascal Lamy is the only candidate for DG. Carolyn Deere comments: This year, with only one nominee at hand, WTO Members must nonetheless ensure that there is vigorous debate on the challenges facing the organization and the changes that the Director-General should pursue. They must