This is a guest post from Ines Willemyns, Teaching Fellow and Lecturer in Law at Stanford Law School Earlier this week, the draft chairs text of the WTO e-commerce negotiations was leaked to the public. The text, dated 15 January 2024, puts forward a “commercially meaningful and inclusive package”, reflecting broadly the views and feedback of all participants with a view to reaching a consensus agreement (which I will refer to as the ‘E-commerce Agreement’) by the upcoming Ministerial Conference. Many observations can be made on the consolidated draft chairs text. It does not contain provision ..read more

At a House Ways and Means Committee trade hearing yesterday, Congressman Don Beyer asked a good question of former USTR official Bruce Hirsh about possible abuse of the national security exception in trade agreements: Mr. Hirsh, you mentioned that, you talked about the dispute over whether WTO panels can second guess a Member's decision to take a measure for national security purposes. Clearly this happened in President Trump's administration. This administration has held fast to the position that national security concerns remain sacrosanct and out of bounds for multilateral bodies to consid ..read more

Just a quick blog housekeeping note: For those of you who follow the blog via an RSS feed, one version of the feed wasn't working, and if you notice any problems it is probably better to use this one instead: https://worldtradelaw.typepad.com/ielpblog/rss.xml ..read more

Following up on my last post, here's another quote from U.S. Trade Rep. Katherine Tai speaking at the University of Chicago yesterday, this one in response to a question on the GE Corn USMCA dispute: Q: Your office is bringing an international trade complaint against Mexico under the USMCA for regulating the sale of genetically engineered corn. My question is, don't your actions interfere with Mexico's right to regulate? And as long as Mexico isn't discriminating against US corn, why can't it regulate how it wants? Tai: This is another good trade basics question. So, your question demons ..read more

U.S. Trade Rep. Katherine Tai spoke at the University of Chicago yesterday. I'll do a couple posts about her comments there, but to kick things off, here's something she said in response to a question involving Milton Friedman: Q: We're at the University of Chicago, I'm going to bring up Milton Friedman. In his essay on the case for free trade, he brings up that exports are the price we pay for imports. And you've discussed how you've advocated for steel workers and American workers in your role as trade Ambassador. But when you're talking about tariffs, and you're talking about your relation ..read more

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai spoke today at a conference on "Antitrust, Regulation and the Next World Order." She had the following to say about the connection between trade policy and antitrust policy: A lot of the change vectors that we are grappling with in trade are actually also things that you are grappling with ... in antitrust, so I'll just highlight a couple of them. One of them is ... the fact that the trade paradigm for the last many, many decades, this globalization free trade paradigm, was built on a kind of an idolization, certainly a fixation, on maximizing efficienc ..read more

This is from an article by Chris Horseman of Borderlex on the progress (or lack thereof) on WTO dispute settlement reform: “No US trade representative is going to go before Congress and say, ‘I’ve agreed to binding dispute settlement between China and the US’. It is simply not politically possible,” the source said. Believe me, I am fully aware of how people in Congress see the geopolitical situation with China these days, and I agree that anything related to China is extremely sensitive. However, on the specific issue of trade dispute settlement, I wouldn't rule out that there is a way forw ..read more

Back in June 2019, when the Appellate Body was hanging on for dear life, I offered this argument for allowing the Appellate Body to decline to offer any reasoning in situations where it was just upholding a panel's finding: I recently read something about the U.S. Judiciary Act of 1925 (the "Judges' Bill"). Here's an explanation: The so-called Judges' Bill of 1925 fundamentally redefined the Supreme Court's role within the federal judiciary by repealing much of the mandatory jurisdiction of the Court. The act preserved an automatic right of appeal to the Supreme Court in a few types of c ..read more

Peter Harrell has a piece in Foreign Affairs entitled "How to China-Proof the Global Economy: America Needs a More Targeted Strategy." Harrell was the Senior Director for International Economics and Competitiveness on the White House National Security Council in the Biden administration, and I think of him as a moderate, mainstream Democrat who occupies a position somewhere in between the progressives and the (few remaining) traditional pro-trade Democrats. He is the kind of person Biden could be listening to in a second term, and that means it's helpful to understand how he sees international ..read more

Logan Castellanos is a student at Georgetown University and an intern with WorldTradeLaw.net/International Economic Law and Policy Blog   The United States is escalating its GE corn dispute with Mexico amid calls to action from members of Congress from corn-producing states. In response to changes in Mexico’s GE protocols stemming from President López Obrador’s 2020 and 2023 Corn Decrees, the United States has begun legal proceedings against Mexico under the USMCA on the grounds that Mexico’s ban has no scientific basis.  "The U.S. believes in and adheres to a science-based, rules-ba ..read more