Geopolitical strife? Let’s do a trade agreement! The latest version of this strategy involves Taiwan. China is a geopolitical concern; Taiwan is an ally; ergo, the United States should do a trade agreement with Taiwan, because it will reinforce economic relations between the two. Which two, though, is the question. Taiwan and the United States? Nope.…
Mr. Lewis was a civil rights icon. But he was also a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, and he had strong views on trade. Indeed, it is because of his views on civil rights that he had such strong views on trade. As he said in 2015: In a very few weeks,…
On June 30, 2020, the Senate Finance Trade Subcommittee held a hearing on Censorship as a Non-Tariff Barrier. It was a pleasure to testify. The hearing can be seen here, and my written testimony can be found here. My opening statement: My name is Beth Baltzan, and I am a fellow at the Open Markets…
Vice President Biden announced his intention to be one of the most progressive Presidents since FDR. What was FDR’s approach in the aftermath of the Depression? As the eponymous Roosevelt Institute has explained, “to restore the nation’s economic health FDR understood that he must do two things. First, re-establish the bond between the American people…
COVID-19 is exposing what many of us have known for a long time: our fealty to efficiency has left us dependent on a hostile authoritarian power for the supply of essentials, like medicines and medical equipment. TPP has been marketed for years as the antidote to the Chinese Communist Party’s mercantilist view of the world…
The trade establishment is looking for comfort as supply chain shocks upend confidence in the rules of the global trading system. They’re turning to the same playbook they used in the 1990s, arguing that tariffs, regulations, and export bans are the problem. The supply chain shocks aren’t due to tariffs or regulations or export…
The question seems almost facile in a day and age when so many countries have so many trade agreements. But COVID-19 is leading to us to focus on aspects of globalization that have long been ignored. So let’s reevaluate the basics – like the purpose of these agreements. The Foreign Policy View The foreign policy…
We remember the Tariff Act of 1930 because it included the infamous Smoot-Hawley tariffs. But we should remember it for something much more important: it prohibited imports made with forced labor. Back in the day, slave labor was seen principally as unfair competition, rather than as a matter of human rights. So the law included a “consumptive…
Trade agreements are supposed to be permanent because certainty promotes stability. Or so the thinking has been for the past few decades. The reaction when a sunset clause was included in the new NAFTA was almost uniformly one of horror: the instability of such a thing! The effects on investment! Trade flows! Peace! Prosperity! It’s…
COVID-19 has revealed something many of us already knew: our supply chains reflect a precarious dependence on the People’s Republic of China. We don’t have enough testing kits; we don’t have enough masks; we don’t have enough ventilators. And as Congress is well aware, we are dependent on the PRC for all sorts of essential…