International Economic Law and Policy Blog (Page 48)

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“Nice” Trade Lawmaking: How Congress Talks With The USTR

Readers will likely recall the exchange between Ambassador Tai and Rep. Greg Murphy during the annual trade policy agenda hearing a few weeks back in which Rep. Murphy said he thought Ambassador Tai was "too nice" to be effective as the USTR. You remember it because it went

Opt Outs, NVNI, or Automatic Rebalancing for National Security Disputes

Veteran U.S. trade lawyers Warren Maruyama and Alan Wolff have a new paper out on "Saving the WTO from the national security exception". In their conclusion, they set out three solutions to the "impasse over justiciability of national security claims": (1) allowing Members to "

Protectionism, Competition, and Corporate Power

Here's something U.S. Trade Rep. Katherine Tai said in a recent interview with PBS: In trade policy, it's something very interesting, and I've seen this happen in competition policy, where the anti-monopoly folks, antitrust people are working. We see in both of

Battle of the Gruyeres

Back in January 2022, I wrote about a U.S. federal court ruling that Gruyere is a generic cheese term, which meant that, despite the protests of the Swiss cheese industry, U.S. producers could make Gruyere cheese and put the word "Gruyere" on the product label in

The Transatlantic Alignment on a Transnational Subsidy

The U.S. Department of Commerce has proposed a new agential interpretation on the countervailability of the so-called “transnational subsidy.” What is a transnational subsidy? Wentong Zheng and I have recently discussed this issue in an article. Here are some relevant excerpts: Suppose that a foreign company (A) from

Warren, Doggett, et al. Letter on Removing ISDS from Existing Agreements

Thirty-three Democratic members of Congress, led by Senator Elizabeth Warren and Congressman Lloyd Doggett, recently sent a letter to U.S. Trade Rep. Katherine Tai and Secretary of State Antony Blinken about ISDS. One point they made in the letter is that ISDS should be removed from existing investment

Pigs and World Trade

Pigs and World Trade 11 May 2023 The decision by the US Supreme Court today in National Pork Producers Council v. Ross has profound implications for international trade. By validating the constitutionality of PPM-based domestic trade restrictions on what belongs in California stores, the Court has prioritized local government

Negotiating After a Loss – ADR and the US Steel Tariff Cases

How can the WTO facilitate negotiation between disputing WTO Members? DSU Article 5 offers all disputing WTO Members flexible dispute processes via good offices, conciliation, or mediation. Such proceedings may begin at any time (see fn 59), end at any time, precede formal dispute proceedings, and continue while a panel

Does Ro Khanna Want To Get Rid of the Specificity Requirement in WTO Subsidies Rules?

In a recent post, I quoted a speech by Congressman Ro Khanna, in which he said: The US needs to work with our allies to pursue a broad WTO dispute case against the PRC. One hurdle is that the current Dispute Settlement process cannot litigate in key China-related areas

Jake Sullivan on International Economics and Industrial Policy

White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan gave a speech last week on the Biden Administration's international economic agenda, with follow-up questions from a Brookings senior fellow and the audience. The video and transcript of the whole event are here (a transcript of the opening remarks is