The House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing last Tuesday with two trade topics: the WTO Appellate Body and NAFTA 2.0. The first half of the hearing was devoted to the Appellate Body, including both support for the U.S. government’s longstanding concerns over the flaws with the dispute settlement system, as well as a…
DetailsAs of today, the WTO Appellate Body will be, at least temporarily, no more. The Trump Administration has strangled it by refusing to agree to appoint new members. This can be seen as an extension, albeit an extreme one, of positions taken in prior Administrations, including the Obama Administration. This blog explains various ways the…
DetailsThe World Trade Organization’s dispute system was once lauded as an important advancement in trade law enforcement. Now it appears that the system’s legal backbone has been broken. If the dispute system cannot be salvaged from the current crisis, it’s worth asking: what do we lose? Answering that question means putting politics aside an taking…
DetailsIf you are struggling to understand the rise of economic populism in the United States, and the resulting chasm between populists and elites, then Matt Stoller’s new book Goliath will enlighten you. Goliath is focused on antitrust, but it tells a much broader story of the way the intelligentsia has been led, through a combination…
DetailsThe hang-up over the new NAFTA comes down to labor enforcement. This should be of no surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention. The United States has, for years, expressed concern over the historical alliance between Mexican government officials and business – including U.S. business – to frustrate labor rights. To be clear, suppressing labor…
DetailsThe conventional wisdom on trade, which typically emanates from K Street, is generally long on being conventional, and short on being wise. Today’s version is the meme that Democratic demands on NAFTA 2.0 are just politickin’ to deny Trump a victory. How about a few facts, and then we can reevaluate that line of thinking.…
DetailsThe express shippers responded to the last blog, on the de minimis loophole. Out of respect for the time and effort they put into responding, the comments are, with the shippers’ permission, set out below. In addition, the National Council of Textile Organizations sent this letter to Customs in regards to de minimis. The shippers’…
DetailsWe’ve talked about one loophole in NAFTA called “de minimis.” In addition to rules of origin that already allow a certain amount of content originating from outside the region, the original NAFTA contains a loophole that allows an extra 7% on top of it. The Trump Administration, in a position completely at odds with its China…
DetailsThe recent furor over the NBA, South Park, and the long arm of the Chinese Communist Party is giving the average American a much better understanding of Chinese government authoritarianism in action. Until now, the discussion about the relationship between China and the United States had been dominated by pearl-clutching over how much more dog…
DetailsThe following is an executive summary of a paper submitted to the Institute for Corporate Governance and Finance Conference A New Deal for a New Century: Making Our Economy Work for All. Papers for the conference, including the full version of the summary below, can be found here. Too often, the debate over trade devolves into tribalist…
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