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Grossman and Sykes on Reciprocity in U.S. Trade Relations

In a new paper entitled "Commandeering the Customs: An Economic and Legal Perspective on the President’s 'Emergency' Imposition of 'Reciprocal Tariffs'," professors Gene Grossman and Alan Sykes push back on the idea that there is a lack of reciprocity in U.S. trade
Simon Lester 24 Oct 2025 6 min read

How Should the U.S. Respond To China's Non-Market Practices?

In an interview last week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent talked about the Trump administration's response to China's non-market practices. Part of this response, as he presents it, has been for the U.S. to pursue a specific version of state-led industrial policy as a defensive measure.
Simon Lester 20 Oct 2025 5 min read

Checking In On the Trump Administration's Drug Price Control Plans

Following up on two previous posts I did on this issue, let's see how the Trump administration's plan to push drug prices in the U.S. down while pushing drug prices in other countries up is going. At the end of September, Trump announced "the
Simon Lester 16 Oct 2025 4 min read

New Model WTO Program at McGill

This is from some enterprising students at McGill University who are setting up a Model WTO program: My name is Sumayya Kheireddine, and together with my co-president Randa Omar, we are two law students at McGill University. Inspired by our experience at the Model World Trade Organization simulation in Switzerland,
Simon Lester 16 Oct 2025 1 min read

Guest Post: Too Big To Fail: The EU Steel Industry, Article XXVIII of the GATT 1994 and the EU’s Free Trade Agreements

This is a guest post by trade lawyer Victor Crochet and law professor Weihuan Zhou Steel has long been a contentious topic in international trade, in part because of the numerous jobs it creates and its relevance to downstream industries including those related to national defense. In the European Union
Simon Lester 13 Oct 2025 8 min read

Reclaiming the WTO’s Practical Mission: A Thought Experiment in WTO Reform

The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the predecessor of the World Trade Organization (WTO), emerged as a postwar response to economic nationalism. Like the United Nations, which sought to prevent another world war, the GATT aimed to avert the kind of trade wars unleashed by the Smoot-Hawley Tariff
Sungjoon Cho 12 Oct 2025 2 min read

Discussing Trade Policy on the Internet

Shifting the IELP blog to a new platform has led me to do a bit of reflection on the past, present, and future of discussing trade policy online. I am vaguely aware that there were Usenet forum discussions in the 1990s, and there may have been good trade policy conversations
Simon Lester 10 Oct 2025 4 min read

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

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Featured

The Section 301 Forced Labor Import Ban Report

On June 2, 2026, USTR released its report on its Section 301 investigation into acts, policies, and practices of various economies related to the failure to impose and effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor.
04 Jun 2026 11 min read

What To Expect from the USMCA Review?

The USMCA review is almost upon us. How exactly things will proceed is a bit unclear, as we've never done this sort of thing before, but July 1 is the six year anniversary of the USMCA's entry into force.
03 Jun 2026 15 min read

China in the World Trading System: A Response to Chad, and Some Comments on Froman-Greer

I'm going to use this post to (1) respond to Chad and (2) comment on an exchange between current U.S. Trade Rep. Jamieson Greer and former U.S. Trade Rep. Mike Froman at a recent CFR event.
01 Jun 2026 7 min read

My Response To Simon on China in the World Trading System

Here are two quick reactions to the super important question of what explains why countries did not use WTO dispute settlement to push China to change.
28 May 2026 2 min read

My Questions for Chad on China in the World Trading System

At the Peterson Institute event launching the "How To Win a Trade War" book, Chad said some things about trade relations with China that I found interesting.
26 May 2026 4 min read

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