Simon Lester

In a side letter to the U.S.-Mexico agreement that is part of the NAFTA renegotiation, it appears that the U.S. has agreed that if it imposes tariffs on auto imports pursuant to Section 232, a certain amount of Mexican auto imports will be exempt. (You could also

This is a guest post from Marcin Menkes, Assistant Professor in the Department of Business Law at Warsaw School of Economics: “So this is how liberty dies ... with thunderous applause.” ―Padmé Amidala A long time ago, in a hemisphere far, far away … War! The multilateral order and the democratic Rule

Mexican trade negotiator Kenneth Smith Ramos tweeted this: #Mexico stated from the beginning of the negotiation that the ideal scenario is for #NAFTA to remain trilateral. We hope the US and Canada will conclude their bilateral #negotiation shortly. If that is not possible we are ready to advance bilaterally with

This is from Inside US Trade: Public Citizen Global Trade Watch Director Lori Wallach told reporters during that call that while she thinks “public citizens” would prefer no ISDS language in the North American Free Trade Agreement at all, the U.S.-Mexico deal “can be widely supported, especially after

This is a guest post from Petros Mavroidis: This time it is different. It is difficult to say how serious it is, but it is different. President Trump’s trade policy is a decisive turn towards unilateralism followed by bilateral deals.  This combination is a blow to the multilateral edifice

As we have talked about on this blog, the Safeguards Agreement provides for compensation/suspension where safeguards measures are used. Here is Article 8.1: A Member proposing to apply a safeguard measure or seeking an extension of a safeguard measure shall endeavour to maintain a substantially equivalent level of

This is from Janyce McGregor of the CBC: The preliminary trade agreement the U.S. recently reached with Mexico may offer a glimpse of what could happen with NAFTA's Chapter 11. A U.S. official said the two countries wanted ISDS to be "limited" to cases

GATT Article XXIV:5 refers to the "formation" of a customs union or a free-trade area: the provisions of this Agreement shall not prevent, as between the territories of contracting parties, the formation of a customs union or of a free-trade area or the adoption of an interim

Sometimes I blog about the most important issues of the day. Other times, I look for obscure issues that will be of interest to, at most, 4 or 5 people. This is one of the latter. This is from the interim review section of the Russia - Railway Equipment panel

Canadian negotiators are meeting with U.S. negotiators today, to see if they can build on the U.S. - Mexico deal and finalize a new NAFTA. One key issue will be Chapter 19: The U.S. wants it out, while the Canadians want to keep it. Here's