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Beware the "Securitization" of Trade Policy

In recent years, U.S. trade policy has seen a creeping takeover by "security" concerns. The precise scope of these concerns is unclear, but they appear to cover both the traditional aspects of military-related security as well as the vague and amorphous concept of "economic security."
Simon Lester 06 Oct 2025 4 min read

Call for Candidates (Co-)Editor(s)-in-Chief Journal of International Economic Law (JIEL)

This is from the JIEL: The 5-year term of the current Co-Editors-in-Chief of JIEL is ending. We have been charged to facilitate the process of electing the next Editor or Co-Editors-in-Chief.  JIEL is the pre-eminent journal in the field of international economic law, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). We
Simon Lester 03 Oct 2025 1 min read

CPTPP Roster of Panel Chairs

Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is looking for candidates for the roster of CPTPP panel chairs: Expressions of Interest: Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) Roster of Panel Chairs The Australian Government is seeking expressions of interest from suitably qualified individuals to be considered
Simon Lester 02 Oct 2025 1 min read

Guest Post: Putting the “harm” in Pharmaceuticals – evaluating President Trump’s proposal of 100% tariffs

This is a guest post from Simon Schropp (BRG and George Washington University) On Friday, September 25, 2025, President Trump – characteristically in a post on Truth Social – announced his intention to impose a 100% tariff on any branded/patented pharmaceutical products imported into the United States, unless the manufacturer “is
Simon Lester 01 Oct 2025 6 min read

Stephen Miran on Tariffs and National Savings

In a speech earlier this week, Stephen Miran, who had been the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers and is now a member of the Federal Reserve Board, made his case for a looser monetary policy. One aspect of his argument was that he thinks national savings will be
Simon Lester 24 Sep 2025 4 min read

A GOP Tariff Working Group and Post-Trump U.S. Trade Politics

The Hill reported last week that a handful of pro-trade Republicans in Congress used some leverage during a vote about voting on tariffs – it's complicated, check out the details at the link for more! – to get a Republican working group on tariffs established: And [Tom] McClintock [R-CA] said
Simon Lester 21 Sep 2025 4 min read

Guest Post: China – Enforcement of IP Rights: Navigating Different Conceptions of Territoriality in International Intellectual Property Law

This is a guest post from Emmanuel Kolawole Oke, Senior Lecturer at Edinburgh Law School What does it mean to ‘give effect to’ the provisions of the TRIPS Agreement? That is the key question at the centre of the dispute between the EU and China at the WTO regarding anti-suit
Simon Lester 18 Sep 2025 9 min read

Some MPIA Updates

This post is a brief one just to provide a few updates on disputes in which an appeal has been or might be heard by the MPIA arbitrators.
Simon Lester 17 Sep 2025 1 min read

The Japan-U.S. Investment MOU: Centrally Planned Foreign Investment?

In the last post, Mona set out the basics of the Japan-U.S. MOU on "Strategic Investments" in the U.S. – or at least, a version of the MOU that was posted by the Japanese government online, although we don't know for sure if this is
Simon Lester 14 Sep 2025 3 min read

Have the Japanese turned investment lemons into investment project lemonade?

Last week, the governments of the United States and Japan completed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to flesh out the details of a $550 billion pledge to invest in the United States made as part of the bargain to ‘buy down’ the tariffs imposed on Japanese traded products.  For months,
Mona Paulsen 11 Sep 2025 8 min read

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International Economic Law and Policy Blog

International Economic Law and Policy Blog

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Could Congress Extend the USMCA for Another Term?

People have been assuming that the decision on whether to extend the USMCA for another term is up to President Trump, but based on the language of the USMCA related to the upcoming joint review, could Congress actually have the power to make this decision on its own?
04 May 2026 4 min read

Is There No Going Back on Trade? What Is the Path Forward? A Response to Lighthizer

Former U.S. Trade Rep. Bob Lighthizer has a new essay in Foreign Affairs, and I have some thoughts. I'm going to start with his brief big picture points on the direction of U.S. trade policy, and then go through a couple of the specific concepts he emphasizes.
27 Apr 2026 6 min read

The Section 301 Excess Capacity Investigation Needs Less Madness, More Method

Shortly after the Supreme Court ruled President Trump’s emergency tariffs under IEEPA  unconstitutional, the administration scrambled to rebuild its tariff wall. While the announcement of Section 122 tariffs immediately following the ruling will provide a temporary patch, the U.S. Trade Representative’s office quickly began to utilize another
24 Apr 2026 6 min read

War Tariffs

This is a co-authored post by Kathleen Claussen and Tim Meyer. Last week, President Trump announced that the United States would be imposing new tariffs of 50 percent of the value of any product coming from any country that sells weapons or provides military aid to Iran. Some commentators questioned
14 Apr 2026 5 min read

USMCA Review and Extension Predictions

When the idea of an expiration clause was suggested during the NAFTA renegotiation, I was against it from the start, and Inu and I wrote a pretty critical piece about it at the time. A review is great, we said, let's definitely have reviews, and there are plenty of ways to do that.
08 Apr 2026 5 min read

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