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What Would a Kamala Harris Trade Policy Look Like?

There was a lot of speculation last week about what Kamala Harris would do on trade policy (and various other policies). I thought this piece by Alan Beattie of the FT offered a very thoughtful and objective evaluation of where things might go on trade and industrial policy in a
Simon Lester 28 Jul 2024 5 min read

WTO Member Statements on Appeal/Review in the DS Reform Process

The WTO Dispute Settlement Reform Process is underway. The WTO website provides brief overviews of the meetings as they happen, but for those of us who want more than just a short summary, we can follow it a few weeks behind the actual current developments as meeting minutes are derestricted.
Simon Lester 24 Jul 2024 10 min read

More from the Biden Administration on Chinese Overcapacity

A couple months ago, I did a post on "Subsidies, Overcapacity, and Domestic Demand/Savings," in which I argued that, in the context of concerns about Chinese overcapacity, it would be better to focus on Chinese subsidies than on differences in U.S./China domestic demand and savings
Simon Lester 21 Jul 2024 5 min read

Safeguards Without Compensation -- A New Normal?

Mexico’s push for exclusion from the United States’ solar safeguard measure, which jumped into the news this week, raises a point of potential interest for the IELP Blog audience. The escape clause / efficient breach theory of safeguards holds that a WTO Member can temporarily retract a trade concession, hiking
John Magnus 17 Jul 2024 2 min read

The Trade Section of the GOP 2024 Platform

I'm not sure how important party platforms are, but they probably have at least some relevance. Here's the section of the Republicans' 2024 platform on trade policy, which has been shaped by Trump's protectionist views on trade: CHAPTER FIVE: PROTECT AMERICAN WORKERS AND
Simon Lester 15 Jul 2024 4 min read

The Passing of Frederick Ikenson

My friend and former colleague Dan Ikenson informs me of the sad news of the passing of his father, Frederick Ikenson, who was a long-time Washington, DC-based trade and customs lawyer. Fred practiced in this field for over five decades, so many of this blog's readers probably got
Simon Lester 09 Jul 2024 1 min read

Multiple Permissible Interpretations under Chevron and AD Agreement Article 17.6(ii)

Here's an excerpt from the majority opinion in the recent Loper Bright U.S. Supreme Court decision that puts an end to Chevron deference, in which the majority says that it does not make sense to talk about "permissible" interpretations because there is always a "
Simon Lester 07 Jul 2024 5 min read

The Anti-Neoliberal View of Where Things Went Wrong on China Trade

Farah Stockman of the New York Times recently had a piece about former Biden administration official Jennifer Harris. If I understand their views correctly, Stockman and Harris are part of a group of people who are skeptical of past "neoliberal" policies, whereas I -- as I mention here
Simon Lester 26 Jun 2024 3 min read

What Would a Second Trump Administration Mean for Tariffs and Trade?

In case you hadn't heard, there is a U.S. presidential debate coming up this week. I'm not expecting an in-depth and wonky policy discussion in general, and trade policy sometimes doesn't even get a mention at these things. Nevertheless, I've been
Simon Lester 23 Jun 2024 18 min read

Situating Labor in a Trade Agreement: Questions from the First RRM Panel

This is the second of two posts that take a look at the submissions and recount some of what was said at the hearing in the first USMCA Rapid Response Labor Mechanism (RRM) dispute between the United States and Mexico.  If you’re new to the discussion, check out the
Kathleen Claussen 20 Jun 2024 7 min read

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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."
06 Oct 2025 4 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
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
21 Sep 2025 4 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
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,
11 Sep 2025 8 min read

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