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Senator Whitehouse and Ambassador Tai Talk About Getting Rid of ISDS

Here's an exchange between Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and U.S. Trade Rep. Katherine Tai at a Senate Finance Committee hearing today (2:32:00): Whitehouse: The other thing I wanted to talk with you about is the loathsome ISDS process. We are not putting ISDS provisions into
Simon Lester 17 Apr 2024 2 min read

Subsidies, Overcapacity, and Domestic Demand/Savings

There has been a lot of discussion recently about how Chinese subsidies and other government support has led to industrial overcapacity, which can have a negative impact on the manufacturing sector of other economies. If domestic supply exceeds domestic demand, the Chinese-made products that won't be sold in
Simon Lester 14 Apr 2024 5 min read

Free Trade and Peace Sells ... but Who's Buying?

I remain puzzled by some recent statements questioning whether free trade promotes peace. When I read another one in the Boston Review, I thought I was going to have to go through all my old rebuttals again. The article starts off this way: To many today, the idea that free
Simon Lester 07 Apr 2024 4 min read

The Role of the WTO in Planetary Sustainability

The Role of the WTO in Planetary Sustainability Steve Charnovitz 6 April 2024 Promoting planetary sustainability is within the legal competence of all multilateral organizations.  As a result, no international organization is likely to have an exclusive competence to effectuate any major sustainability goal.  A recognition of such overlapping legal
Charnovitz 06 Apr 2024 4 min read

USTR's New Vision for Foreign Trade Barriers

Last week, in the press release for its 2024 National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers, USTR said that over the years, the identification of trade barriers in this annual report has strayed from the original purpose of the statute, and that in the 2024 report it was going
Simon Lester 01 Apr 2024 4 min read

Digital Trade Fights: The Case of Korea

In recent years, the U.S. has expressed concerns about digital trade regulation in a number of other countries, with the focus tending to be on the the EU due to its large market and active regulatory efforts (although it sounds like USTR and the European Commission are getting along
Simon Lester 31 Mar 2024 3 min read

Data Flows Obligations and Exceptions in the EU - New Zealand FTA

There's a new FTA digital chapter to analyze, with the EU-New Zealand FTA coming into force soon. Let's take a look at the data flows provisions, with the EU-Japan text in the back of our minds as a comparison. The EU-NZ digital trade chapter is here.
Simon Lester 26 Mar 2024 7 min read

New U.S. AD/CVD Regulations Will Take Into Account Weak Property, IP, Human Rights, Labor, Environmental Protections

In a Proposed Rule issued last year, the U.S. Commerce Department said it would take into account "nonexistent, weak, or ineffective property (including intellectual property), human rights, labor, and environmental protections" in various ways as part of its anti-dumping/countervailing duty calculations (surrogate value selection, § 351.408;
Simon Lester 25 Mar 2024 5 min read

Guest Post: EFTA-India TEPA: Breaking New Ground

This is a guest post by Rohan, a PhD student at the Graduate Institute India and the EFTA countries (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland) signed a comprehensive Trade and Economic Partnership Agreement (TEPA) on 10th March, 2024 after a long process of negotiations that started in 2008. Notably, two disciplines
Simon Lester 24 Mar 2024 6 min read

Is Section 301 the Right Remedy for Chinese Shipbuilding Subsidies?

In the Section 301 petition recently filed by a group of unions, the petitioners argued that "Section 301 provides an appropriate mechanism for addressing China’s policies in the maritime, logistics, and shipbuilding sector." They offer three reasons for this: First, traditional trade remedies are not available to
Simon Lester 19 Mar 2024 2 min read

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Jamieson Greer on the 30 Year Aberration in U.S. Trade Policy

When he was in Davos last week for the World Economic Forum, U.S. Trade Rep. Jamieson Greer talked a bit about U.S. trade policy history and described a recent period during which, in his view, U.S. trade policy shifted away from tariffs/protectionism and towards free trade.
29 Jan 2026 6 min read

Is this the end of MFN as we know it? The EU submission on WTO reform and the meaning of development

With the release of the EU submission on WTO reform, it has become clear that the MFN principle’s central role within the WTO architecture is under challenge. As a keystone, it risks the entire bridge falling. Even if the foundations are retained but deemed outdated or unusable, and a
23 Jan 2026 3 min read

Can "Geopolitical" Tariffs Be Dealt With through Trade Deals?

Last Friday, U.S. Trade Rep. Jamieson Greer was asked about Trump's initial suggestion of tariffs related to the goal of taking over Greenland
20 Jan 2026 4 min read

Is Foreign Antitrust Enforcement "Discriminatory" and "Anti-American"?

The House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform, and Antitrust held a hearing in December on "Anti-American Antitrust: How Foreign Governments Target U.S. Businesses." There was a lot of talk at the hearing about how foreign regulations and regulators "discriminate" against American companies.
05 Jan 2026 5 min read

Pennsylvania Court Finds Mexican Government Guilty of "Discrimination" Due To Its Subsidies

I'm always interested in how courts apply the concept of "discrimination" in the context of international trade, so I've been eagerly awaiting a Pennsylvania court decision in a case against Mexico.
12 Dec 2025 8 min read

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