The Moscow Times has reported that Russia and Ukraine reached a new gas agreement under which Russia would effectively give a 30 percent discount for its gas exports to Ukraine, potentially costing cost Russia approximately $40 billion over the life of the agreement. (see Anatoly Medetsky, “Deal Struck on Gas,

Via Sallie James of Cato, I see that four members of Congress want real reform of U.S. cotton subsidies and are not happy with the proposed deal with Brazil: “This proposal takes our federal farm subsidy policy from the impractical to the absurd,” said Rep. Flake.  “We want to

Kindred Winecoff notes that anti-globalization protests have died down over the years, and wonders why: I can think of a few possibilities. First, the protests were loudest in the 1990s because of NAFTA (1994), the establishment of the WTO to supplant the GATT (1995), the fairly brutal "Big Bang&

Following-up on Henning's post, let me ask a very basic question:  Why is the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) referred to as a "trade agreement"?  I'm sure this has been discussed somewhere, but I have not come across it. As Henning points out, ACTA appears

A guest post from frequent commenter Dr. Henning Große Ruse-Khan ACTA – A Draft Trade Agreement with a Potential to Create Trade Barriers? After years of secrecy and forced by recent leaks (/content/files/files/201001_acta.pdf), the negotiating parties to an Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), currently the EU, the

In the comments to another post, two readers suggested a discussion of this memo by the law firm Lalive, written to Philip Morris, entitled "Why Plain Packaging is in Violation of WTO Members’ International Obligations under TRIPS and the Paris Convention." The memo defines "plain packaging"

I haven't yet gotten to the substantive discussion of the NAFTA Chapter 19 panel finding that zeroing violates U.S. law, but in the meantime let me ask this question:  Is there any chance this finding will lead to a constitutional challenge to NAFTA Chapter 19?  That'