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Simon Lester

Obama's Import Ban

In response to the recent safety scares related to toys imported from China, Barack Obama says: "I would stop the import of all toys from China." Does he really mean that? First off, this sounds like campaign rhetoric more than a policy proposal. In addition to that, it

The Gambling Ban Hits Microsoft

No doubt Microsoft is concerned about the prospect of Antigua getting authorization to sell pirated copies of its products, but we're not quite there yet. However, it is already feeling some pain from the U.S. online gambling ban: Internet giants Google, Microsoft and Yahoo agreed to pay

What the Horse-Racing Folks Think of the Recent Gambling Settlement

Not surprisingly, given that the status quo is very good for them, they are quite happy with it: “The U.S. withdrawal of its WTO commitments in gambling services was the only approach that could meet U.S. treaty obligations, remove the gambling issue from the WTO agenda and restore

Fuel Efficiency Standards and Trade Rules

New U.S. fuel efficiency standards were signed into law today. Will we see a repeat of the early 1990s U.S. - Autos case? A National Foreign Trade Council report thinks it is possible, but probably unlikely: Unlike other bills, which continue the 1994 CAFE standards' distinction between foreign

The Economist on Carbon Border Measures

In reaction to the proposal for carbon border measures noted here the other day, the Economist's Free Exchange blog expresses skepticism: There are good reasons to react cautiously toward this idea, however. In the first place, developed nation carbon pricing is likely to be helpful to the fight

State of Play of U.S. FTAs

I found this table from Washington Trade Daily to be a useful summary of the state of play of U.S. FTAs: 1985 US-Israel FTA Implemented 1989 US-Canada FTA Implemented; combined with NAFTA in 1994 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement Implemented 2001 US-Jordan FTA Implemented 2004

Zeroing: Artificially Higher Margins or Artificially Lower Margins?

From the U.S. statement to the Rules Negotiating Group last week: I’d like to address the issue that has been the focus of so many delegations here today – that is the issue of mandatory offsets or “zeroing.” Dumping margins occur when export prices are less than normal value,

Some Gambling Updates: Compensation and Arbitration

In the Gambling compensation negotiations, the U.S. and EU have apparently reached a deal: The United States agreed on Monday to widen access to some of its services in compensation to the European Union for preventing betting businesses from offering on-line gambling in the US, the EU said

Note to Feedblitz Subscribers

For those of you who read this blog via the Feedblitz email updates, I made a couple tweaks which you might notice. The sender will now be "IELP Blog," not "Feedblitz." And the reply email address will be mine (administrator@worldtradelaw.net). Also, the name of

Trade Talk from the Final Republican Debate

The final Republican primary debate was held last week in Iowa. There were a few references to trade issues, many of which were vague and difficult to characterize (e.g., the usual references to "free and fair trade"). But this statement from John McCain jumped out at me: