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Simon Lester

Senator Calls for Unilateral Tariff Lowering

No, it's not a headline from The Onion. It actually happened: Sen. Charles Schumer said Sunday that rising demand for the corn-based fuel additive ethanol is contributing to a spike in milk prices and called for lifting the 54-cent-per-gallon tariff on ethanol imports. Schumer, D-N.Y., said rising

Upcoming WTO Scholars' Forum Events

The following two "WTO Scholars' Forum" events may be of interest to this blog's readers: 1. WTO Scholars' Forum Seminar: "Normative Integration as Authority Allocation: Two Models and their Application in the WTO" Dr Tomer Broude, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem 28th

"American Made" Cars Again

Via Dani Rodrik, Mitt Romney said the following while campaigning in Michigan: “Here in Michigan, the skies are cloudy all day, the trees are all the right height, people talk without an accent and most of the cars on the road are American made — as they ought to be,” he

Protectionism as Extortion

Economist Steven Landsburg argues: Bullying and protectionism have a lot in common. They both use force (either directly or through the power of the law) to enrich someone else at your involuntary expense. If you’re forced to pay $20 an hour to an American for goods you could have

Trade Versus The Environment: Biofuels PPMs

The NY Times reports: In a sign of growing concern about the impact of supposedly “green” policies, European Union officials will propose a ban on imports of certain biofuels, according to a draft law to be unveiled next week. If approved by European governments, the law would prohibit the importation

A Rising Yuan?

The Economist reports: IN 2005 two American senators introduced a bill into Congress that threatened to slap a tariff of 27.5% on all Chinese imports unless the yuan was revalued by the same amount (their estimate of how much the currency was undervalued). That legislation was dropped, but several

Trade in Everything: Doctors Without Borders

From Dani Rodrik (via the Center for Global Development ): Seventy-five percent of Mozambican physicians practice abroad, mostly in Portugal. The corresponding numbers for Ghana and Cameroon are 56% and 46% respectively.

Who Makes the Most "American" Cars?

According to Cars.com, two of the top 10 models are from Toyota. They explain: Cars.com's American-Made Index highlights the cars that are built here, have the highest amount of domestic parts, and are bought in the largest numbers by Americans.

Musings on Anti-Dumping and Zeroing

As I read through the recent U.S. - Stainless Steel from Mexico panel report, in which the Panel rejected prior Appellate Body rulings and found that certain types of zeroing are permissible, some questions occurred to me: -- Why is injurious dumping to be "condemned," as stated

"Why not a North American Union?"

Will Wilkinson of the Cato Institute asks this question and argues: There are some who believe a grave threat to American sovereignty looms over the horizon. A shadowy cabal, they say, is planning a massive "NAFTA superhighway," a new North American currency, and a common market in goods