Terms of Trade Manipulation

At his confirmation hearing last week, Treasury Secretary-nominee Scott Bessent mentioned "optimal tariff theory," which is something that always triggers me (although as I'll say later, I'm not sure he meant what he seemed to): Senator Ron Wyden: On the tariffs, Donald Trump, with

In his latest Trade Talks podcast, my friend Chad Bown has covered a topic that he and I have discussed several times: What is the economic purpose of the GATT/WTO? I assume he knew his podcast would generate a reaction from me, and I don't want to

Here's an excerpt from a very interesting new paper by Doug Irwin and Anson Soderbery: What objective is a government trying to achieve in setting import tariffs? ... what factors would drive government behavior in the absence of such agreements when countries have complete autonomy in setting tariff rates?

A group of scholars (including Rob Howse of this blog) has a new proposal for how to manage U.S.-China trade relations better. I may comment on the broader proposal at some point (and Rob may blog about it himself), but in the meantime, as I sometimes like to

In the comments on that last post, Marc Benitah asked why I thought this was such an important debate. I had been planning to explain this anyway, so I'm glad he asked. I think the distinction between "protectionism" and "terms of trade manipulation," as

There's a great debate that has been going on slowly and sporadically, over a period of years, about the purpose of trade agreements.  On one side are Don Regan of Michigan Law School and economist Bill Ethier; on the other side are economists Kyle Bagwell and Rob Staiger,