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Dani Rodrik: Chinese Currency Polices are Bad for Poor Countries

Dani Rodrik says: ... China’s currency policies not only undercut the competitiveness of African and other poor regions’ industries; they also undermine those regions’ fundamental growth engines. What poor nations get out of Chinese mercantilism is, at best, temporary growth of the wrong kind. So Chinese mercantilism is, on balance,
Simon Lester 10 Sep 2010 1 min read

"Best Treatment," "Individual" Claims and the "Class of One"

I've mentioned before (most recently, here) that I'm skeptical of applying a "best treatment" / "individual comparison" standard to non-discrimination in the IEL context (I'm more concerned with WTO rules than with investment treaties, but my views apply to the latter
Simon Lester 07 Sep 2010 7 min read

UNCTAD World Investment Forum

Streaming live from China: UNCTAD is having a day specifically focusing on International Investment Agreements (IIAs) - http://unctad-worldinvestmentforum.org/page/about_wif.  Starting 10am Bejing time on Tuesday morning (10pm DC time on Monday evening), UNCTAD will be doing a live stream of the IIA conference as well as
Simon Lester 07 Sep 2010 1 min read

Price Controls and GATT Article III

From Reuters: Kenya's President Mwai Kibaki has refused to pass into law a bill that would have returned the country to fixing essential food and fuel prices, a policy abandoned in the 1990s in favour of economic liberalisation. In June, Kenya's parliament passed a bill with
Simon Lester 03 Sep 2010 1 min read

Concerns about Overseas Land Investment

Recall the concern about companies buying up land in developing countries for agricultural purposes (see here and here).  Apparently, it's not just developing countries who are worried.  This is from some discussion in the New Zealand government: Overseas Investment Rules—New Zealand - China Free Trade Agreement 2.
Simon Lester 03 Sep 2010 3 min read

The Future of the WTO

Some big names will weigh in on this weighty issue at a conference in DC, on Sep. 23: The Future of the WTO A conference presented by American University Washington College of Law, the Emerging Dynamic Global Economies (EDGE) Network, and the German Marshall Fund (GMF) Is the WTO ready
Simon Lester 02 Sep 2010 1 min read

USTR Job

In the Office of the General Counsel: The Office of the General Counsel at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), Executive Office of the President, is seeking an attorney with experience in international trade law, trade litigation and negotiation. Incumbent provides legal support for USTR personnel in
Simon Lester 02 Sep 2010 1 min read

Call for Papers: 2011 ILA Asia-Pacific Regional Conference

The Chinese (Taiwan) Society of International Law is pleased to hold the International Law Association (ILA) Asia-Pacific Regional Conference from May 29 to June 1, 2011 in Taipei, Taiwan. The theme of the conference will be Contemporary International Law Issues in the Asia Pacific: Opportunities and Challenges. Paper and panel
Simon Lester 02 Sep 2010 1 min read

Export Subsidies and Currency Undervaluation

Speaking of export subsidies, the U.S. Department of Commerce has rejected an argument that China's currency undervaluation should be considered an export subsidy under U.S. countervailing duty law: Regarding Petitioners’ allegation that China’s currency regime confers a de jure specific export subsidy, the cited foreign
Simon Lester 31 Aug 2010 1 min read

More on Export Contingency

In this post, I'm going to explain what I meant in the last post.  No doubt a few people saw what I was getting at.  But I know that, with the beginning of the academic year, a lot of new students are reading this blog, and there'
Simon Lester 30 Aug 2010 2 min read

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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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