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WTO Adverse Effects Complaints vs. Domestic CVD Cases

Subsidies have been in the news a lot recently, as China's subsidies continue to cause concerns, and the Biden administration and others are now increasing their own use of subsidies. In trade policy, the reaction to foreign subsidies tends to be an anti-subsidy (aka, countervailing duty) case carried
Simon Lester 27 Feb 2024 3 min read

The Role of Past Determinations in U.S. DOC Proceedings

In the U.S. - Ripe Olives from Spain, Article 21.5 panel report circulated last week, I was struck by the discussion of the role of previous Commerce Department determinations in deciding future cases, and the obvious parallels to how the ongoing DS reform negotiation are talking about the
Simon Lester 27 Feb 2024 2 min read

IELP Blog Emails

The technical problems on the blog just keep coming. After recently dealing with the RSS feed, I noticed that the emails with recent blog posts (for those of you who read the blog that way) weren't sending properly. I decided to give up on feedblitz as the sender
Simon Lester 26 Feb 2024 1 min read

The AfCFTA Digital Trade Protocol

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) governments have been working on the issue of international rules on digital trade. There was recently a leak of a draft Digital Trade Protocol to the AfCFTA Agreement (an earlier draft is here). In this post, I'm going to look at
Simon Lester 22 Feb 2024 4 min read

Guest Post: MC13: Is It the Last Chance To Save The WTO?

This is a guest post by several people from the Research Chair on New Challenges of Economic Globalization, Laval University, Quebec City, Canada: Antoine Comont, Ph.D. Researcher; Carla Gomez, Ph.D. Researcher; Van Anh Ly, Ph.D., Deputy Director of the Research Chair on New Challenges of Economic Globalization;
Simon Lester 21 Feb 2024 11 min read

Katherine Tai on Digital Trade

At a CFR event last week, U.S. Trade Rep. Katherine Tai said some things about digital trade. Normally for these things, I provide a quote and then react to it afterwards, but the quotes here are so long that I'm going to put my thoughts up front.
Simon Lester 20 Feb 2024 12 min read

WTO Dispute Settlement Reform Proposals on the Role of Precedent

The WTO has now posted a document with the DS reform text that will be discussed at the upcoming Ministerial Conference (see the Consolidated Text of a Ministerial Decision on Dispute Settlement in Annex 1 of the document). There's a lot in there, although nothing on appeal/review
Simon Lester 18 Feb 2024 3 min read

Two Reasons for a Two-Tier WTO Dispute Settlement System

As part of the WTO DS reform exercise, USTR officials have mentioned the importance of having WTO Members explain what they see as their interests in the system. In a recent communication to the WTO, Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Indonesia and South Africa have weighed in on their interest in a
Simon Lester 18 Feb 2024 2 min read

Katherine Tai on Tariffs (Again)

At a CFR event on Monday, U.S. Trade Rep. Katherine Tai said some things about tariffs. I know, I just did a blog post about Katherine Tai talking about tariffs! But she said some more things, and I have more to say in response. There were two sets of
Simon Lester 14 Feb 2024 8 min read

What Chinese Behavior is Outside the Scope of WTO Rules?

At a House Ways and Means Committee trade hearing last week, Congressman Adrian Smith (R-NE) said this: Many countries, especially China, ... engage in predatory, unfair, and anti-free market behavior outside the scope of the WTO rules. While the rules could of course be tightened, it's important to note
Simon Lester 14 Feb 2024 1 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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