scholarly journals Forgotten Statutes: Trade Law's Domestic (Re)turn

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 113 ◽  
pp. 40-44
Author(s):  
Kathleen Claussen

Since the first half of the twentieth century, the U.S. Congress has increasingly delegated its authority over tariffs to the U.S. president. Some of these statutes permit private actors to petition for tariff relief. Some also permit the president to initiate an investigation and subsequently to take trade-related or other action when certain criteria are met. Since the 1990s, however, a robust multilateral trading system has required the United States and others to resolve disputes over trade measures in Geneva, rather than through unilateral policy steps under these tariff authorities. In a stark departure from this movement away from unilateral action, the Trump Administration has returned to relying heavily on domestic statutes to impose tariffs on goods imported from U.S. trading partners and on those from one country in particular: China.

2018 ◽  
Vol 112 ◽  
pp. 271-274
Author(s):  
Elizbeth Baltzan

The Trump administration has made no secret about its frustration with the World Trade Organization (WTO). 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 deals. An administration that touts enforcement has largely eschewed filing WTO complaints. The president's imposition of duties pursuant to Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 (Section 232) is a manifestation of deeper concerns with the asymmetry that was built into the global trading system—asymmetry the United States encouraged at the time. That asymmetry contributed to the U.S. status as the market of last resort: the destination of choice for excess production, with adverse consequences for domestic producers of similar goods.


2009 ◽  
pp. 1289-1308
Author(s):  
Motoaki Tazawa

In order to improve convenience for investors through competition among stock exchanges, operation of Proprietary Trading Systems (PTS) was authorized as a form of securities business under the Securities and Exchange Act. The Japanese PTS is equivalent to ATS (Alternative Trading System), ECN (Electronic Communications Network) in the United States and MTF (Multilateral Trading Facilities) under MiFID in the EU. In 1998, ATS and ECN had already started in the United States and Japan’s PTS followed the U.S. model. Telecommunication and information technologies and computer technologies made PTS possible, and PTS makes the border between the market and brokers ambiguous. Traditional regulations on broker-dealers and stock exchanges will inevitably be reviewed and regulations on securities markets will have to be reformed.


Worldview ◽  
1982 ◽  
Vol 25 (12) ◽  
pp. 8-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lester R. Brown

Each day two 20,000-ton freighters loaded with grain leave the United States for the Soviet Union. This flow of grain between two major adversaries is influenced by economic considerations such as the size of the Soviet grain deficit, the U.S. capacity to supply, and the Soviet ability to pay. Political considerations include the risk to both trading partners of such a heavy interdependence, whether as supplier or market.Never before has a country dominated the world grain trade as the United States does today. Its 55 per cent share of world grain exports in 1981 easily overshadows Saudi Arabia's 24 per cent share of world oil exports in 1978. And while the amount of oil traded internationally has been falling since 1979, grain shipments are continuing to grow.


2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 1850070 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kozo Kiyota ◽  
Robert M Stern

The Michigan Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) Model of World Production and Trade is used to calculate the aggregate welfare and sectoral employment effects of the menu of U.S. trade policies. The menu of policies encompasses the various preferential U.S. bilateral and regional free trade agreements (FTAs) negotiated and in process, unilateral removal of existing trade barriers, and global (multilateral) free trade. The welfare impacts of the FTAs on the United States are shown to be rather small in absolute and relative terms. The sectoral employment effects are also generally small but vary across the individual sectors depending on the patterns of the bilateral liberalization. The welfare effects on the FTA partner countries are mostly positive though generally small, but there are some indications of potentially disruptive employment shifts in some partner countries. There are indications of trade diversion and detrimental welfare effects on nonmember countries for some of the FTAs analyzed. In comparison to the welfare gains from the U.S. FTAs, the gains from both unilateral trade liberalization by the United States and the FTA partners and from global (multilateral) free trade are shown to be rather substantial and more uniformly positive for all countries in the global trading system. The U.S. FTAs are based on “hub” and “spoke” arrangements. It is shown that the spokes emanate out in different and often overlapping directions, suggesting that the complex of bilateral FTAs may create distortions of the global trading system, which could be avoided if multilateral liberalization in the context of the Doha Round were to be carried out. Kozo Kiyota is Associate Professor of International Economics in the Faculty of Business Administration, Yokohama National University. He is also a Research Fellow at the Manufacturing Management Research Center (MMRC), the University of Tokyo and a Faculty Fellow at the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI). He received his Ph.D. from Keio University, Tokyo, Japan. His research focuses on empirical microeconomics. He has published articles in the International Journal of Industrial Organization, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, and The World Economy. Robert M. Stern is Professor of Economics and Public Policy (Emeritus) in the Department of Economics and Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan.


2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-235
Author(s):  
Sang-Chul Park ◽  

Growth in trade has slowed since the global financial crisis in 2008. It seemed to recover in 2017 but declined again after the Trump administration in the U.S. imposed protectionist measures in 2018 which led to conflicts with its major trading partners, including Canada, China, Japan, Mexico, Korea and the EU. Among these partners, the U.S. negotiated amendments to its FTAs with Canada, Mexico and Korea. It is still negotiating with Japan. However, the U.S. government took a different, hard line approach to China in terms of trade based on setting high tariffs on Chinese imports to which China responded by placing high tariffs on U.S. imports. The trade conflict began with criticisms directed at each other, with the U.S. putting its national interest first and China touting a global system of free trade as a key issue. The trade conflict has negatively impacted not only the U.S. and Chinese economies but also the global economy, given that the two economies together as the G2 account for nearly 40% of global output. Therefore, one of the most important challenges for global economic growth is how the conflict might further affect the global economy. This paper analyzes why the trade conflict emerged and how to resolve it. It also focuses on the economic impacts of the trade conflict on the global economy in general, and the Chinese economy in particular. Further, it analyzes how the Chinese government strategically deals with trade negotiations with the United States.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denise Gilman

What years of deterrence efforts and restrictions on asylum did not achieve to block the U.S. southern border to asylum seekers, the Trump Administration has now accomplished using the COVID-19 pandemic as justification. New measures exclude asylum seekers from U.S. territory, thereby effectively obliterating the U.S. asylum program, which had promised refugee protection in the form of asylum to eligible migrants who reach the United States. In some cases, the policies adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic harden impediments to asylum already in place or implement restrictions that had been proposed but could only now be adopted. In others, the policies could never have been imagined before the pandemic. Overall, the force of these measures in dismantling the asylum system cannot be overemphasized. Once adopted, using an emergency rationale based on the pandemic, these policies are likely to become extremely difficult to reverse. This is particularly true where the restrictions exclude asylum seekers from the physical space of the United States. This article will thus explore two modes of physical exclusion taking place at the U.S. southern border during the COVID-19 pandemic: (1) indefinitely trapping in Mexico those asylum seekers who are subject to the so-called Migrant Protection Protocols; and (2) immediate expulsions of asylum seekers arriving at the southern border pursuant to purported public health guidance issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.


2017 ◽  
Vol 111 ◽  
pp. 278-284
Author(s):  
Carl Bruch

Thank you. It's wonderful to be here. I'd like to start with a few general observations. First, it appears that the Trump administration might be responsive to some of the business cases for staying engaged on international environmental issues. The administration includes many leaders from industry. This is the culture that they come from, including the new Secretary of State. Many of the global companies that are based in the United States, or have substantial actions in the United States, don't want to lose U.S. leadership or engagement, and even institutions that are not known as environmental champions have talked about keeping a seat at the table, to make sure that their interests are represented. Part of this is a desire for a level playing field. Part of it is just business opportunities. We've seen, in the past that when the U.S. government has been particularly unpopular, businesses can have trouble competing in procurement overseas.


1987 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 63-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Garth Coffin

Canada and the United States are the world's largest trading partners. The total volume of two-way merchandise trade in 1985 was $165 billion Canadian ($124 billion U.S.). Canadian dependence on U.S. markets has grown to the point that nearly 80% of our exports are destined for our southern neighbor. By the same token, more than 70% of Canada's imports originate in the U.S. That volume represents 20% of total exports from the U.S., the largest proportion going to any individual country. Obviously, trade relations between Canada and the U.S. are very important to both countries. Indeed, given their combined role in total world trade, the importance of trade relations between them goes beyond whatever it might be to those two countries alone.


2001 ◽  
Vol 04 (04) ◽  
pp. 379-401 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tsangyao Chang ◽  
Chien-Chung Nieh

This study uses a cointegration analysis and vector autoregressive models to investigate the transmission of stock price movements among Taiwan and its major trading partners, Hong Kong, Japan and the United States. The results of Johansen cointegration test indicate that four stock markets considered are cointegrated with one cointegrating vector, which violates the semi-strong form of the market efficiency hypothesis. The results from Granger-causality test based on error-correction models suggest the relative leading roles of the U.S. and Japanese markets in driving fluctuations in the other two markets. In order to capture the impacts of the economic shocks, two dummy variables are incorporated into the models taking into account the U.S. stock crash of October 1997 (D97) and the previous spreading Asian finance crises (Dac). The results indicate that D97 significantly affects the U.S. stock market, but shows no significant impact on the others. The Dac, however, shows significant impacts on both the Japanese and the U.S. markets. The robustness of the relative leading roles of the U.S. and Japanese markets are further supported by the variance decompositions and impulsive response functions indicators. The Taiwan and Hong Kong markets are somewhat affected more by regional countries such as Japan than by the U.S.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 131-170
Author(s):  
V. I. Bartenev

This paper identifi es and explains key changes in the U.S. aid policies towards Arab countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) under Donald Trump. It seeks to validate two widespread arguments — the one about the current administration’s revision of pivotal principles of providing foreign assistance, and the other one — about an accelerated disengagement of the United States from the MENA region since 2017. The paper consists of four sections. The fi rst section explores the transformation of the U.S. strategic thinking and regional context under the Trump administration and then posits fi ve hypotheses about possible changes in the volume and composition of the U.S. assistance to the MENA region (in comparison with the fi nal two years of the Obama administration), as well as the diff erences in the executive branch and the Congress’s positions. The second section explains particularities of the statistical data and the methods of its exploration, the third section presents the results of hypothesis testing using aggregated data on aid fl ows to the region, and the fi nal section explains these results, sometimes unexpected, using the data disaggregated by country. Three of fi ve hypotheses proved wrong based on the aggregate data. First, the Trump administration did not cut assistance to the MENA more substantially than to other regions of the globe. Second, it did not ringfence aid accounts which helped yield direct dividends to the U.S. businesses. Third, the Republican Congress was clearly less willing to support the executive’s aid chocies under a new Republican President than during the last years of a Democrat Barack Obama’s second term. Only two hypotheses proved correct — one about a prioritization of security and military assistance under Donald Trump and the other one — about disproportionate cuts of democracy promotion assistance. Such an unexpected result calls for refi ning both aforementioned arguments and taking into account the dissimilarities in the dynamics of assistance to diff erent countries. The United States tends to practice a diff erentiated approach in dealing with two largest Arab aid recipients (Egypt and Jordan) and with other Arab countries. The assistance to Cairo and Amman is ringfenced and protected, while aid to other recipients, including security assistance and FMF grants, is prone to quite drastic cuts. This diff erentiation is explained by the fact that cooperation with Egypt and Jordan rests not only on more solid strategic foundations but also on a strong support within the United States — both from the defense contractors interested in large export contracts and from an infl uential pro-Israel lobby. The U.S. will not abandon this highly diff erentiated approach after the 2020 elections but the structure of assistance to the MENA region might undergo quite a dramatic transformation.


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