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The Clove Cigarette Case and GATT Article III:4

As mentioned the other day, Indonesia is moving ahead with a WTO complaint against the U.S. clove cigarette ban, having now filed a consultations request.  I thought I'd do a short post on the GATT Article III:4 claim. Here's the Article III:4 part
Simon Lester 20 Apr 2010 4 min read

WTO Consistency of China's Currency Policy: Views of Some Experts

As mentioned here, a number of experts recently weighed in on the consistency of China's currency policy with WTO rules.  Here are some highlights: Staiger / Sykes GATT XV:4/SCM ... we question whether China’s trading partners can readily make a convincing case that China has violated its
Simon Lester 20 Apr 2010 5 min read

Eventual Implementation in the WTO Cotton Subsidies Case

Sallie James of Cato sees signs of hope that the WTO U.S. - Cotton Subsidies ruling will eventually be implemented: I’ve written before about Rep. Collin Peterson’s (D, MN) disdain for the World Trade Organization, and its rulings against U.S. farm programs. However, in launching his
Simon Lester 20 Apr 2010 1 min read

Plain Packaging of Tobacco Products under TRIPS

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"
Simon Lester 17 Apr 2010 5 min read

NAFTA Chapter 19 and the Constitution

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'
Simon Lester 17 Apr 2010 1 min read

More on Is the U.S. Manipulating its Currency?

In response to this post, a reader points me to the Annex of a 2007 IMF Decision: ANNEX Article IV, Section 1(iii) and Principle A 1. Article IV, Section 1 (iii) of the Fund's Articles provides that members shall "avoid manipulating exchange rates or the international
Simon Lester 16 Apr 2010 2 min read

Industrial Policy Versus Protectionism

Dani Rodrik argues: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown promotes it as a vehicle for creating high-skill jobs. French President Nicolas Sarkozy talks about using it to keep industrial jobs in France. The World Bank’s chief economist, Justin Lin, openly supports it to speed up structural change in developing nations.
Simon Lester 16 Apr 2010 2 min read

ICTSD: The Impact of the Cotton Dispute on Africa

A new report from ICTSD: African farmers could have gained from a 3.5 percent average increase in world cotton prices, if the US had moved quickly to implement the recommendations of an international trade panel, a new study finds. The study, commissioned ICTSD and conducted by Mario Jales of
Simon Lester 16 Apr 2010 2 min read

Is the U.S. Manipulating its Currency?

Scott Lincicome writes: the Canadians ... announced an amazingly sane response to rapid currency devaluation by... wait for it... the United States.  Here's BNA (subscription) with the embarrassing details: The government will not intervene in the Canadian dollar's continued increase in value compared to the United States
Simon Lester 15 Apr 2010 2 min read

WTO Rules and the Chinese Currency Issue

VoxEU has a new e-book entitled The US-Sino Currency Dispute: New Insights from Economics, Politics, and Law.  Here's the abstract: Thanks to deft diplomatic footwork, a US-China confrontation over the renminbi has been avoided. But the US Treasury has merely postponed the publication of its report on foreign
Simon Lester 15 Apr 2010 1 min read

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International Economic Law and Policy Blog

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Is There No Going Back on Trade? What Is the Path Forward? A Response to Lighthizer

Former U.S. Trade Rep. Bob Lighthizer has a new essay in Foreign Affairs, and I have some thoughts. I'm going to start with his brief big picture points on the direction of U.S. trade policy, and then go through a couple of the specific concepts he emphasizes.
27 Apr 2026 6 min read

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

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