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Lessons from the First U.S. Win in a Trade and Labor Dispute: The USMCA RRM Atento Decision

For the first time, an arbitral panel has sided with the United States in a trade and labor dispute. On August 21, the United States and Mexico announced the publication of the second panel decision under the USMCA/T-MEC/CUSMA Facility-Specific Rapid Response Labor Mechanism (RRM).
Kathleen Claussen 03 Sep 2025 8 min read

IELP Blog Relocation

Just a quick note to readers that the platform on which the IELP blog is hosted is shutting down at the end of September. Bear with me over the next few weeks as I find a new platform. Blogging might be a bit light during this period.
Simon Lester 27 Aug 2025 1 min read

U.S. State Capitalism as a Response to Chinese State Capitalism

In an interview last week, David Faber of CNBC pressed Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on several Trump administration actions that could be characterized as "state capitalism": Faber: As somebody who's been around the capital markets for years, as you have been, I do wonder, how do
Simon Lester 26 Aug 2025 4 min read

A Few Thoughts on Antitrust and Big Tech

I'm no antitrust expert, but I do have some opinions on it, and I'm going to offer a few of them in this post. As an intro, I want to mention a speech by Notre Dame law professor Roger Alford -- whose Opinio Juris blog posts
Simon Lester 24 Aug 2025 3 min read

Wentong Zheng on Presidential Tariffs

University of Florida law professor Wentong Zheng has posted a new paper called "Presidential Tariffs," in which he argues that the IEEPA should not be interpreted to allow the President to proclaim tariff modifications for the purpose of entering into market-opening trade agreements, given that Congress allowed the
Simon Lester 22 Aug 2025 1 min read

Matthew Schaefer on Trump Administration Trade Policy: A Historical Perspective and Key Questions & Takeaways

The following is an excerpt from a new Yeutter Institute piece by University of Nebraska law professor Matthew Schaefer entitled "Trump Administration Trade Policy: A Historical Perspective and Key Questions & Takeaways," offering a good roundup of a lot of the biggest trade policy issues out there at
Simon Lester 22 Aug 2025 11 min read

Todd Tucker on Tariffs and the Role of Courts

In an op-ed in the FT entitled "Opponents of Trump’s tariffs should be wary of relying on the courts," Todd Tucker argues against U.S. courts striking down Trump's IEEPA tariffs. I have some questions and comments on his views of this issue, focusing on
Simon Lester 17 Aug 2025 7 min read

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

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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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