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Guest Post: Trump, Trade and Coercion

This is a guest post from Boston College law professor Frank Garcia. (Cross-posted from the Cambridge University press blog) The first year of Trump’s second term has been a chaotic one for trade, as for so much else. Before inauguration, the President had already threatened tariffs against Denmark to
Simon Lester 13 Aug 2025 7 min read

What Trump's Trade Representative Got Wrong

Last week, USTR Jamieson Greer wrote an essay in The New York Times entitled, ‘Trump’s Trade Representative: Why We Remade the Global Order’. Simon has already done the heavy lifting by asking some necessary questions about this new order. Out of all the inaccuracies and “too early to tell”
Mona Paulsen 12 Aug 2025 3 min read

New Security Exception Language Establishes a Two-Tiered Approach

Via Mona Paulsen and Devon Whittle, I see that Chapter 28 of the UK-India trade agreement has some interesting new language on security exceptions. It starts off as expected, with the following: Article 28.2 Security Exceptions 1. Nothing in this Agreement shall be construed to: (a) require a Party
Simon Lester 11 Aug 2025 3 min read

Jamieson Greer on Remaking the Global Trade Order

U.S. Trade Rep. Jamieson Greer had a NY Times op-ed yesterday entitled "Why We Remade the Global Order." I have a few reactions to specific things he said. I'll quote some points from the op-ed and then give a brief response. Greer: Our current, nameless
Simon Lester 08 Aug 2025 5 min read

Trump Pushes Big Pharma on Controlling U.S. Prices

Following up on a previous post of mine, let's check in on the Trump administration's efforts to lower drug prices in the U.S. market. A White House fact sheet from last week explains that "Trump sent letters to leading pharmaceutical manufacturers outlining the steps
Simon Lester 05 Aug 2025 3 min read

Call for Submissions: “Into the Future of Global Trade: Tackling Fragmentation, Protectionism, Tariffs, and Beyond”

The Trade, Law and Development (TL&D) journal has issued a Call for Submissions for a special issue on  “Into the Future of Global Trade: Tackling Fragmentation, Protectionism, Tariffs, and Beyond.” The call is here. This is an excerpt: While the theme is broad enough to cover a wide
Simon Lester 05 Aug 2025 1 min read

Enforcing the Market Opening Commitments in the Trump Trade Deals

In an interview with Bloomberg last week, U.S. Trade Rep. Jamieson Greer was asked about enforcement of all the recently negotiated trade deals: Question: On implementing those deals ... you mentioned that you would be looking and monitoring them for any violations. How will this administration judge what is a
Simon Lester 03 Aug 2025 2 min read

Will Trump's Trade Deals Increase U.S. Exports?

One of the criticisms of the Biden administration on trade policy was that it didn't put enough effort into improving access for U.S. producers to foreign markets. The Trump administration, by contrast, has made this one of its priorities. But will its approach to market access work?
Simon Lester 31 Jul 2025 4 min read

To What Extent Are the Trade Negotiations about Security?

On the face of things, the trade negotiations triggered by President Trump's unilateral actions are focused on various trade-related objectives. Trump thinks higher U.S. tariffs are a good way to do some mix of the following: reshore domestic manufacturing, reduce the U.S. trade deficit, and increase
Simon Lester 27 Jul 2025 3 min read

Jamieson Greer on the Rise of Manufacturing Competition

At the Reindustrialize Summit held in Detroit last week, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the following about the decline of American industrial power: At the heyday of American industrialization, our country enjoyed a robust middle class, an unassailable national defense, and an innovation economy unprecedented in human history.
Simon Lester 23 Jul 2025 4 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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