International Economic Law and Policy Blog

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Trade and Security

30 posts

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!

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

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

Thanks to Simon for kickstarting a debate on the prospect of bringing economic security provisions into trade agreements, and for allowing me to respond here.

Trump's Cambodia Trade Deal, Arms Exports, and the Role of Non-Trade Concessions

In this post, I'm going to talk about some aspects of the recent U.S. trade deal with Cambodia that I haven't heard raised yet, including the following questions: (1) Is the decision to allow U.S. arms exports to Cambodia pursuant to this deal designed to boost U.S. manufacturing?

Economic and National Security Provisions in U.S. Trade Agreements

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post cautioning everyone to "Beware the 'Securitization' of Trade Policy." So far, however, it looks like my post has been a big failure, as many people seem to be throwing caution to the wind, and instead of being wary

International law aspects of the U.S.-Australia critical mineral and rare earth deal

Upon reading the US-AUS framework concerning the financing of rare earth mining. While there is very little to go on, I wanted to share some thoughts that connect current assessments with what we know about international investment law and existing institutional development. The Framework commits $1 billion in financing projects

Beware the "Securitization" of Trade Policy

In recent years, U.S. trade policy has seen a creeping takeover by "security" concerns. The precise scope of these concerns is unclear, but they appear to cover both the traditional aspects of military-related security as well as the vague and amorphous concept of "economic security."

Have the Japanese turned investment lemons into investment project lemonade?

Last week, the governments of the United States and Japan completed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to flesh out the details of a $550 billion pledge to invest in the United States made as part of the bargain to ‘buy down’ the tariffs imposed on Japanese traded products. For months,

EU Security Concerns and the U.S.-EU Trade Deal

A little while back, I asked the question "To What Extent Are the Trade Negotiations about Security?" At that time, we were starting to get hints about the relevance of the Ukraine war to the U.S.-EU trade negotiations. In the last week or two, we've been getting more clarity on this.

To What Extent Are the Trade Negotiations about Security?

On the face of things, the trade negotiations triggered by President Trump's unilateral actions are focused on various trade-related objectives. Trump thinks higher U.S. tariffs are a good way to do some mix of the following: reshore domestic manufacturing, reduce the U.S. trade deficit, and increase