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Binding Precedent and Precedential Value

The WTO panel report in India - Sugar and Sugarcane, circulated earlier this week, has a number of interesting passages about the role of precedent. They are a bit disconnected, and for some of them all I have is the panel's summary rather than the full statement from
Simon Lester 17 Dec 2021 4 min read

From Grievances to Guarantees: Getting to Yes in the Iran Nuclear Talks

(This post is co-authored with Ruti Teitel, Ernst C. Stiefel Professor of Comparative Law at New York Law School and a Life Member of the Council on Foreign Relations) After a long hiatus that followed a change in Iran’s political leadership (and something of a  rocky start in the
Rob Howse 15 Dec 2021 4 min read

Non-Discrimination and the EV Tax Credits in the Build Back Better Act

There has been a lot of Twitter discussion about the possibility that the electric vehicle (EV) tax credits in the Build Back Better Act violate USMCA or WTO obligations. There are actually three components to these tax credits, and I thought it was worth doing a quick analysis of each
Simon Lester 14 Dec 2021 3 min read

Countering the "Unfettered Liberalization" Narrative

At a U.S. Chamber of Commerce event today, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said the following: But I think that we have pursued a really unfettered liberalization policy for the past many years and decades. And it is part of what has brought us to this current reality
Simon Lester 09 Dec 2021 1 min read

(Untitled)

The draft agriculture text has nothing in it - What a laugh! I wonder if some of you have had a chance to look at the text produced by the Negotiating group on Agriculture for MC12 https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news21_e/agri_30nov21_e.htm The
Brett Williams 08 Dec 2021 1 min read

Angela Ellard on Misperceptions in the US/Capitol Hill about the WTO

At an AEI/Brookings event yesterday, WTO DDG Angela Ellard spoke and offered some interesting insights into how people in the U.S. (and elsewhere) misunderstand the WTO: Neena Shenai: I wanted to turn to your perspectives on the WTO, given your experience and your personal experience on Capitol Hill.
Simon Lester 07 Dec 2021 1 min read

Tweaking the MPIA Procedures

The Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement Pursuant To Article 25 of the DSU is here. Annex 1 contains a set of Agreed Procedures that can be used for these arbitrations. Interestingly, the procedures agreed to recently in specific WTO disputes are deviating from Annex 1 in one  specific area. Here&
Simon Lester 07 Dec 2021 2 min read

Guest Post: The Worst of Two Worlds: Why the US Blueprint for a Transatlantic Climate Club Authored by Todd Tucker & Tim Meyer Must Be Binned Immediately

This is a guest post by David Kleimann, PhD, writing in personal capacity. He wishes to thank Aaron Cosbey and Simon Lester for helpful comments on an early draft of this post. All errors remain the author’s alone. He would also like to thank Todd Tucker and Tim Meyer
Simon Lester 01 Dec 2021 24 min read

Three Forces of the World Trading System

On November 26, the World Trade Organization (WTO) General Council decided to indefinitely postpone the 12th Ministerial Meeting (MC12), which was scheduled to convene from November 30 to December 3 this year, due to “an outbreak of a particularly transmissible strain of the COVID-19 virus.”  The prospect of the MC12
Sungjoon Cho 29 Nov 2021 3 min read

More Hurdles for the "Green Steel Deal"

This is from a CFR blog post by Jennifer Hillman and Alex Tippett on the "green steel deal": For the proposed U.S.-EU agreement on green steel and aluminum be successful, however, it will have to avoid several potential pitfalls. First, the deal cannot devolve into a
Simon Lester 29 Nov 2021 2 min read

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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

Debunking the "Hyperglobalization" Trade Policy Myth

Policy is often shaped by narratives, and recently there has been a bipartisan effort to create a narrative that, starting in the early 1990s, globalization and free trade went too far.
03 Mar 2026 8 min read

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