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Dani Rodrik Wants to Restrict Policy Space

Well, for the most part he doesn't.  He says: When international cooperation does “succeed,” it spawns rules that are either toothless or reflect the preferences of only the more powerful states. The Basle rules on capital requirements and the World Trade Organization’s rules on subsidies, intellectual property,
Simon Lester 13 Jan 2011 1 min read

Tuna-Dolphin: The NAFTA-WTO Dispute Settlement Conflict

I've mentioned the NAFTA-WTO dispute settlement conflict aspect of the U.S. - Tuna II (DS381) case before (see here and here).  Unfortunately, I'm in a little over my head on that issue.  I prefer to focus on the substantive aspects (DSC subscribers only) of the
Simon Lester 13 Jan 2011 1 min read

Trade in Everything: Replicas of the Royal Engagement Rings

From Reuters: Britain may be on the other side of the world, but Chinese manufacturers are cashing in on the British royal wedding as they churn out tens of thousands of replica royal engagement rings. Last November, Prince William and his beaming fiancee Kate Middleton showed off the blue sapphire
Simon Lester 13 Jan 2011 2 min read

Current Account Imbalances: Part 2 (Martin Feldstein)

Here's post #2 on the current account imbalances issue.  Martin Feldstein thinks these imbalances will, for the most part, take care of themselves, without any grand international plan to fix them.  He leads off his paper this way: The high level of current account imbalances has been a
Simon Lester 11 Jan 2011 8 min read

Current Account Imbalances: Part 1 (John Williamson)

There is lots of talk about trade imbalances these days, with surplus countries pitted against deficit countries.  There is the U.S. versus China, of course, but there is also Germany versus Greece.  The U.S.-China issue gets more press attention (at least here in the U.S.), and
Simon Lester 11 Jan 2011 5 min read

Inter-National versus Intra-National Protectionism

Here's an excerpt from an old post by economist Don Boudreaux (via recent posts from Mark Perry and Scott Lincicome): Ifintra Indeed, such an objective scholar should be open also to the possibility that residents of Nashville can be made wealthier if their leaders restrict their ability to
Simon Lester 11 Jan 2011 1 min read

Making GSP More "Rule-Oriented"

Lorand Bartels and Christian Haeberli have an interesting article on GSP in the latest edition of the JIEL, in which they propose two ways "to increase the security and predictability of these preferential schemes, permitting decisions by investors and traders to be taken without fear of an arbitrary withdrawal
Simon Lester 09 Jan 2011 3 min read

The China wind power WTO complaint - failure to translate

The US complaint (DS419) also includes a new claim under the China Accession Protocol: China has not made available a translation of the measures at issue into one or more official languages of the WTO. As part of its accession commitments on transparency, China agreed to make such translations available
Julia Qin 06 Jan 2011 1 min read

The China Wind Power WTO Complaint

Speaking of U.S. - China economic law, as Sungjoon was in the last post, here's the key part of the U.S. WTO complaint related to alleged Chinese subsidies to the wind power industry (DS419): My authorities have instructed me to request consultations with the Government of
Simon Lester 06 Jan 2011 1 min read

The U.S.-China Economic Law Conference

The University of Michigan Law School, the University of Michigan Center for Chinese Studies and Wayne State University Law School are pleased to sponsor the U.S.-China Economic Law Conference on Friday, February 11 at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. Academic experts and government officials from North America,
Sungjoon Cho 06 Jan 2011 1 min read

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International Economic Law and Policy Blog

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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

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

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