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Scheduling Is the Ace in the Hole

by Carlo M. Cantore[1] & Petros C. Mavroidis[2]  1. Consensus as Insurance Against the Waning of MFN The WTO membership has been mulling over the legal status of completed JSIs (Joint Statement Initiatives). JSIs are not multilateral agreements. They could become plurilateral agreements, if the membership (including those
Petros Mavroidis, Carlo M. Cantore 29 Dec 2025 8 min read

The U.S. Argument for Limiting MFN

In the communication to the WTO that I mentioned in the last post, the U.S. put forward a critique of the MFN principle: Most Favored Nation (MFN) Principle 3.1. The MFN principle, which seeks to prevent discriminatory trade practices and promote equal treatment among trade partners, was designed
Simon Lester 18 Dec 2025 3 min read

Some Thoughts on Addressing Non-Market Policies and Practices through WTO Disputes

Earlier this week, the U.S. submitted a communication to the WTO entitled "On WTO Reform." There are a number of issues worth talking about in the document, but I want to highlight the sub-section on "Overcapacity and Overconcentration of Production."
Simon Lester 17 Dec 2025 4 min read

Pennsylvania Court Finds Mexican Government Guilty of "Discrimination" Due To Its Subsidies

I'm always interested in how courts apply the concept of "discrimination" in the context of international trade, so I've been eagerly awaiting a Pennsylvania court decision in a case against Mexico.
Simon Lester 12 Dec 2025 8 min read

Jamieson Greer on the Rules-Based International Order

At an Atlantic Council event yesterday, Greg Ip of the WSJ asked U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer about how he sees the "rules-based international order" in the trading system these days
Simon Lester 11 Dec 2025 3 min read

Who Will be the MC (Master of Ceremony) of MC14?

1. The 2026 Version of the Bicycle Theory for Trade A few decades back, in separate publications, Fred C. Bergsten, and Jagdish Bhagwati referred to the “bicycle” theory of trade. In short, the idea was that steady (continuous) progress towards freer trade is essential. If not, political forces favoring protectionism
Petros Mavroidis 09 Dec 2025 6 min read

A New Central Organizing Principle for U.S. Trade

In the US Trade Regime class I teach with Matt Nicely, our unit on the regime’s import side has traditionally begun with a review of how the United States classifies trading partners … the “ordinary,” “preferred” and “rogue” categories associated with columns 1a, 1b and 2 (respectively) of the Harmonized
John Magnus 08 Dec 2025 2 min read

Three Explanations for the Foreign Investment Pledges

In recent months, President Trump and the Trump administration have been touting a $20 trillion or so figure that they say foreign companies/governments have pledged to invest in the U.S. I've had trouble figuring out what to make of all this, but I have three theories
Simon Lester 08 Dec 2025 4 min read

Economic Security in Trade Agreements: My Response to Geoff Gertz

Thanks to Geoff for laying out his vision of why economic security should be in trade agreements and how to bring it in. It won't surprise anyone to hear I have some additional comments and questions in response!
Simon Lester 04 Dec 2025 10 min read

Guest Post: The Case for Bringing Economic Security Priorities into U.S. Trade Agreements, Part II

This is a guest post from Geoffrey Gertz of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), responding to my post on Economic and National Security Provisions in U.S. Trade Agreements An earlier post made the case for why the United States should bring economic security commitments into trade
Simon Lester 01 Dec 2025 3 min read

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International Economic Law and Policy Blog

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Guest Post: Are President Trump’s New Section 122 Tariffs Legal?

This is a guest post from Bryan Riley and Joe Bishop-Henchman. Bryan is Director of the Free Trade Initiative at the National Taxpayers Union; Joe is Executive Vice President at the National Taxpayers Union Foundation President Trump has issued new 10% tariffs, shortly after raised to 15%, based on Section
24 Feb 2026 6 min read

Section 122 as a (Partial) Replacement for the IEEPA Tariffs

Apparently, this is the era of dusting off old international economic policy statutes and figuring out what they mean and how they work. After the Supreme Court's ruling today in Learning Resources, holding that "IEEPA does not authorize the President to impose tariffs," we are now
20 Feb 2026 5 min read

Comparing the Forced Labor Provisions in the New U.S. Trade Deals

Continuing my multi-part blog posting series on comparing provisions in the Trump administration trade agreements, let's look now at the provisions that try to induce U.S. trading partners to take action against imports made with forced labor.
20 Feb 2026 4 min read

AOC on Foreign Policy and Trade Policy

AOC spoke on a couple panels last week at the Munich Security Conference and also spoke at the Technische Universität Berlin, and this European trip was widely seen as a move to establish some foreign policy credentials for a presidential run.
17 Feb 2026 12 min read

Comparing the Enforcement Provisions in the New U.S. Trade Deals

Building on the comparison of trade agreement provisions in my last post, let's take a look at the "enforcement" provisions of the six agreements for which the legal texts have been published.
11 Feb 2026 4 min read

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