The 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…
The 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…
Typically, trade agreement marketers rely on gains to GDP to explain why the agreements are worth doing. (Of course, in 2016 the U.S. International Trade Commission concluded that all these bilateral and regional trade agreements combined added a mere .2% per year to GDP.) Herein lies the conundrum: the existing NAFTA already provides duty-free treatment among…
On June 6, Inside Cybersecurity had a webinar of government and American industry voices to discuss Huawei, 5G, and cybersecurity. The panelists’ main concern is the myriad ways hostile actors, including state actors, can exploit supply chains to engage in nefarious activities. Huawei, which has a prominent position in the race to 5G thanks to Chinese government…
Who said the following: many . . . have focused in particular on enforcement of labor and environmental provisions . . . . I am pleased that we obtained strong provisions in those areas, and I agree that they should be fully and effectively enforced so that our companies can compete based on…
According to Politico, a “coalition of free-market advocacy, business and nonprofit groups is urging the leaders of the Senate Finance Committee to press forward on new legislation curbing the president’s tariff authority.” Ah, the siren song of the free market. But does anyone really think the global trading system is characterized by “free” markets? A…
Donald Trump campaigned in part on the flaws in the auto rules of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Much of his renegotiation of NAFTA has focused on tightening up those rules. As this paper explains, he can rightly claim some credit for strengthening them. But there are nevertheless questions about whether those rules will work the way…
According to a recent poll, a novice politician, J.D. Scholten, is giving long-standing incumbent Steve King a run for his money in Iowa, trailing King by one percentage point. How is he doing it? One of the issues Scholten is raising is the effect of corporate concentration on farmers. Senator Cory Booker joined Scholten at an…
To situate the ongoing debate over trade, let’s take a look at some of the key takeaways from Judith Stein’s book Pivotal Decade: How the United States Traded Factories for Finance in the Seventies. Stein traces the evolution of American trade policy from Nixon to Clinton, and in particular she identifies choices that were made, across successive…
The Op-Ed can be found here.