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Katherine Tai on Digital Trade Rules

Here's something U.S. Trade Rep. Katherine Tai said, at an Atlantic Council event yesterday, about pulling back on the formulation of international digital trade rules: Isn't it time for us to hit pause on this, come back, reconnect with all of the other policy silos,
Simon Lester 04 Jun 2024 2 min read

Katherine Tai on Bob Lighthizer

This is from an exchange with U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai at an Atlantic Council event today (starts around 48:30): Q: Ambassador, I wondered if you could tell us where your views overlap with those of Bob Lighthizer and where your views differ. Tai: ... Where our views are
Simon Lester 03 Jun 2024 1 min read

Cross-Border Subsidies and Non-Violation Complaints

Weihuan Zhou and Victor Crochet have a new working paper called "Attribution to the State: A Critique of Cross-Border Subsidies," which combines two of my favorite issues: Cross-border subsidies and non-violation complaints. Here's the abstract: While industrial policy and subsidies proliferate worldwide, the emergence of cross-border
Simon Lester 02 Jun 2024 6 min read

Changing China's Trade Practices: Hope vs. Unilateral Tariffs vs. WTO Complaints

Former Biden administration official Peter Harrell recently argued that with regard to reform of China's economic practices (and political system), the original plan was to hope that economic ties would be enough, but when that didn't work the Trump administration imposed tariffs for this purpose: For
Simon Lester 31 May 2024 2 min read

SIEL Call for Papers: Navigating New Horizons: International Economic Law in a Changing World

This is from SIEL: The Ninth Biennial Global Conference of the Society of International Economic Law (SIEL) will take place on 9-11 July 2025 in Taipei (Taiwan), in collaboration with National Taiwan University (NTU). SIEL’s Ninth Biennial Global Conference will be in person and address the pressures of escalating
Simon Lester 31 May 2024 1 min read

Still Puzzling over Privacy Exceptions in Digital Trade Chapters/Agreements

There seems to be a lot of experimentation going on these days with exceptions for the protection of personal data/privacy in digital trade agreements/chapters. I've talked about the some of these exceptions in prior posts, but to be honest I think I missed some nuances as
Simon Lester 28 May 2024 8 min read

Guest Post: IMO Carbon Pricing Mechanism, the Equitable Transition of International Shipping, and WTO Law

This is a guest post from Goran Dominioni, Assistant Professor, School of Law and Government, Dublin City University  International maritime transport is the lifeblood of the global economy, accounting for about 80 percent of international trade (by volume). In July 2023, the International Maritime Organization (IMO)—the UN agency that
Simon Lester 23 May 2024 6 min read

Alan Sykes on Making WTO Appeals Discretionary

Stanford law prof Alan Sykes has posted a new paper entitled "The Utility of Appellate Review at the WTO and Its Optimal Structure." One part of the paper that I found particularly interesting was his call for any appeals body to have discretion over what appeals to hear:
Simon Lester 20 May 2024 4 min read

Guest Post: Time to regulate cross-border subsidies? Who decides?

This is a guest post from Luca Rubini, Senior Research Fellow in International Law, University of Turin This brief post has been triggered by yesterday’s delivery of the Opinion of Advocate General Capeta in the Fiberglass case currently pending before the European Court of Justice. The key legal issue
Simon Lester 17 May 2024 3 min read

U.S. Subsidies vs. Chinese Subsidies / Good vs. Bad Subsidies

At a press briefing with Ambassador Tai on the announcement that the Biden administration would maintain the Section 301 tariffs on China and add tariffs on a few additional products, a reporter asked the following question regarding U.S. vs. Chinese electric vehicle subsidies: The U.S. government is subsidizing
Simon Lester 16 May 2024 2 min read

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International Economic Law and Policy Blog

International Economic Law and Policy Blog

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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

The Section 301 Surge Continues: Investigating the Adoption/Enforcement/Administration of Forced Labor Import Bans

This Section 301 investigation intends to pressure all sixty named trade partners (even, inexplicably, including Canada and Mexico) to adopt similar enforcement procedures. This announcement is highly problematic for the four reasons I address below.
16 Mar 2026 4 min read

The Section 301 Surge Is Upon Us: Investigating Excess Capacity and Production

The first of a large batch of expected Section 301 investigations has arrived, as USTR announced yesterday that it was initiating investigations on acts, policies, and practices of various countries/economies "relating to structural excess capacity and production in manufacturing sectors."
12 Mar 2026 3 min read

Debunking the "Hyperglobalization" Trade Policy Myth

Policy is often shaped by narratives, and recently there has been a bipartisan effort to create a narrative that, starting in the early 1990s, globalization and free trade went too far.
03 Mar 2026 8 min read

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