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Passing of Steve Charnovitz

I was saddened to hear of the passing this week of the great trade law scholar Steve Charnovitz, a professor at GW law school. The full list of his scholarly works can be found at his personal website. Steve was also one of the founding bloggers here at the IELP
Simon Lester 26 Mar 2025 1 min read

Questions about Trump's Reciprocal Tariffs

President Trump and his trade team have been pointing to April 2 as the big day for his reciprocal tariffs. At this point, I have lots of questions, but few answers, about what to expect from all this. Here are some of my questions: - Which statutes will they use
Simon Lester 23 Mar 2025 3 min read

WTO Dispute Settlement and Certainty

At the always excellent Georgetown Law International Trade Update last week, there was a "Fireside Chat" between Demetrios Marantis (former Deputy U.S. Trade Rep. and acting U.S. Trade Rep.) and Biden administration Ambassador to the WTO Maria Pagan. They covered a lot of ground, and on
Simon Lester 19 Mar 2025 2 min read

Politicized AD/CVD vs. Neutral WTO Adjudication As a Way To Address Unfair/Non-Market/Protectionist Practices

In this post, I'm going to talk about an assumption that I think is held by many people (in the U.S. and elsewhere): AD/CVDs are a good way to respond to unfair/non-market/protectionist practices in other countries. I'm going to call that assumption
Simon Lester 16 Mar 2025 4 min read

The USMCA Review (If the USMCA Survives!) Needs To Address the National Security Loophole

I don't know if the USMCA is going to survive all the U.S. tariffs on Canada and Mexico, along with the Canadian and Mexican retaliation. Will the agreement make it to the USMCA review next year? We'll see. If we do make it though, I
Simon Lester 13 Mar 2025 2 min read

Will a "Zombie USMCA" Survive the Tariff Onslaught?

With all the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on Canada and Mexico (under IEEPA already, under Section 232 soon, maybe under Section 301, and various other possibilities as well), and with the Canadian and Mexican tariff retaliation, how much is left of the USMCA? In economic terms, the creation
Simon Lester 09 Mar 2025 2 min read

Trump on Reciprocal Tariffs

In last night's address to Congress, Trump said the following about reciprocal tariffs: Other countries have used tariffs against us for decades, and now it's our turn to start using them against those other countries. On average, the European Union, China, Brazil, India, Mexico and Canada
Simon Lester 05 Mar 2025 3 min read

Free Speech and Trade Policy

In my last post, I briefly mentioned this point about free speech from Trump's recent memo on "Defending American Companies and Innovators From Overseas Extortion and Unfair Fines and Penalties": The Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Commerce, and the United States Trade Representative shall
Simon Lester 25 Feb 2025 2 min read

How the US Reciprocal Tariff Plan Could Save the WTO

The US plan to impose reciprocal tariffs is a game changer. If you ask The Economist, Trump’s tariffs “really mean chaos for global trade”. We submit that, if managed well, the opposite could be true: a new balance in global trade and the revival of the World Trade Organization
Joost Pauwelyn 24 Feb 2025 6 min read

The Trump Administration's New Push on Foreign Digital Taxes and Regulations

I have done a number of posts over the years on what U.S. trade officials mean when they talk about foreign digital taxes and regulations "discriminating" against U.S. companies. Are they talking about the intent of the measure or just its effect? On the latter, is
Simon Lester 22 Feb 2025 4 min read

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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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