Why is the Trump Administration So Mad at the WTO?
The Trump Administration has made no secret about its frustration with the World Trade Organization. Campaign rhetoric is being channeled into policy. The United States is single-handedly strangling the Appellate Body by blocking appointment of new members and complaining about those who are holding over past their terms. The latest WTO ministerial resulted in no…
Is the Trump Administration Looking at Rules of Origin in KORUS?
Earlier this month Politico reminded us that, in the talks with the Koreans about KORUS, the Trump Administration is not following the procedures set out under Trade Promotion Authority. The theory is that the Administration doesn’t plan to change U.S. law, no Congressional vote is required, and thus TPA isn’t applicable. So far so good. …
How to Think About Trade with China (Hint: It's not Just Trade)
The last blog pierced the China meme – the premise that we need to do trade deals with countries in order to keep China at bay. But if trade deals with other countries aren’t the way to deal with competitive threats from China, what is? Part of the problem is that trade people look at…
The China Meme
The go-to talking point when a trade agreement is in trouble in the United States is to invoke the specter of China. When TPP began to falter, the rallying cry for passage was that if we failed to seal the deal, China would score a win, not just commercially, but geopolitically as well. At the…
Is the Administration's Ban on Imports of Peruvian Wood a Big Deal? Yes.
On October 19, 2017, USTR announced that imports of Peruvian wood from the exporter Inversiones Oroza would be banned. Notably, the ban isn’t being executed pursuant to environmental laws such as the Lacey Act – it’s being executed pursuant to an annex to the U.S.-Peru Trade Partnership Agreement. That agreement gives the United States the…
What the Demise of Short-Termism Could Mean for Trade Policy
Is short-termism on its way out? Steven Pearlstein of the Washington Post has posited as much, in the wake of the departure of one CEO after another from White House advisory councils after the Charlottesville protests. He argues that this event is likely to be looked back upon as a turning point in the evolution…
The NAFTA Renegotiation: Seven Ways to Modernize Trade Policy
The House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee invited submissions in connection with its hearing on modernizing NAFTA. This is the Executive Summary of American Phoenix’s comments. The full comments can be found here. In the past year, the backlash against globalization has expressed itself through Brexit, the withdrawal of the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership,…
Getting Past the Polarized Debate over Trade
The debate over trade policy seems to lead to only two possible views: on one side, trade is responsible for the decline of the American middle class; on the other, trade is always beneficial, regardless of the rules. Each side has a pejorative label for the other, so that we live in a world where…