International Economic Law and Policy Blog

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Simon Lester

What Would Biden Do About China's Trade Practices?

This is from a CNN Town Hall last week: GARRY HARTMAN, BUSINESSMAN: Vice President Biden, Cheetah Chassis is located in Berwick, Pennsylvania, where we produce intermodal container chassis. We're a small family-owned business that is facing unfair trade container chassis imports from, we'll call, a massive

Webinar — Investment Protection under the New NAFTA: Problems and Prospects

If you are not webinar'd out at this point, and if you can remember the USMCA, which seems like ages ago, here are the details on a Webinar I'll be participating in this Thursday with the Baker Institute at Rice University: At this webinar — the second

Panel Report on Section 301 Tariffs Against China (DS543)

The panel report in United States - Tariff Measures on Certain Goods from China (DS543) was circulated today. There are some big picture issues related to the dispute (e.g., will the U.S. appeal it into the void?), but I want to focus on an obscure interpretive point related

If Everything Is Industrial Policy, Is Anything Industrial Policy?

Law professor Ganesh Sitaraman has a piece arguing in favor of an industrial policy for the United States. He laments that "[o]ver time, industrial policy ultimately became the Lord Voldemort of economics, so evil and dangerous that it must not be named," and he wants to make

Joe Biden on NAFTA/China/Trade in General

This is from an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper that aired yesterday: TAPPER: Don't you think that one of the reasons why President Trump has been able to appeal to the blue-collar workers that you talk about is because of his message on trade? And that

Rethinking ISDS: Australia vs. UNCITRAL

Back in May, UNCITRAL published a Note by the Secretariat on "Resources to implement the work programme with respect to investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS) reform." I was surprised to read this part: 24. Under the current pattern of meetings, Working Group III meets twice a year for a

Is Lighthizer a Protectionist?

Someone asked him that question at a recent event and here's what he said (starts around 45:30) Q: “Are you a protectionist?” A: “Well, you see, that’s interesting. So, what actually does that mean? That’s why when I started out I sort of said, and

Questions About the MPIA and Article 25 Appeal Arbitration

I have a short Cato paper out today on the Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement (MPIA). I am excited about the prospects for the MPIA, but I do have some questions, including the following: What approach will the MPIA take regarding the interpretation of core WTO principles such as the

Unilateralism vs. Multilateralism on Carbon Taxes / Carbon Tariffs

In my view, carbon taxes are the best way to address climate change, and the best approach to carbon taxes is to apply them in a non-discriminatory manner to products from all countries. How exactly do you make them non-discriminatory? Ideally, you would do this on a multilateral basis, with

New Book from David Gantz on the USMCA

An Introduction to the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement: Understanding the New NAFTA (Edward Elgar Publishers, 2020), by David A. Gantz, has been published. The description follows: The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), a modified and modernized version of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), will continue to govern most economic relationships