The 112th Congress begins its term amid renewed optimism about prospects for U.S. trade liberalization. Big labor’s stranglehold over the congressional trade agenda was broken with the election in November. The U.S. government finally appears willing to end its disgraceful ban on Mexican...

Over its first two years, the Trump administration has aggressively reshaped U.S. trade policy. One of its most controversial initiatives is the expansive use of national security to justify imposing tariffs and quotas. Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 gives the president authority...

The Trump administration has argued that the World Trade Organization (WTO) has failed to address China's "unfair" trade practices. While it is true that China's economic rise poses a unique challenge to the world trading system, WTO dispute settlement has more potential to address China's...

The world is awash in trade-distorting subsidies. Since the financial crisis of 2008, governments have adopted massive “stimulus” packages that have included taxpayer subsidies for industries, such as agriculture, alternative energy, and automobiles, which have distorted global markets, bred...

The current 20 year patent term set out in international trade agreements does not have a firm evidentiary basis, but rather is a mostly arbitrary product of history. At one point there was experimentation among different countries, but that has been eliminated through the uniform rules of the...

Both the American left and right often use “national security” to justify sweeping proposals for new U.S. protectionism and industrial policy. “Free markets” and a lack of government support for the manufacturing sector are alleged to have crippled the U.S. defense industrial base’s...

President Biden took office at the height of modern American protectionism. The trade policy legacy he inherited from the Trump administration puts the United States at a crossroads. Will Biden go down the problematic path of executive overreach like his predecessor, or will he forge a new path?...

After nearly six years of negotiations, a Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement was reached in October 2015. The deal was subsequently signed by the governments of the United States and 11 other parties in Wellington, New Zealand in February 2016. In terms of the value of trade and share of global...

There is an emerging consensus among American politicians and many citizens that trade and globalization have undermined America's working class, resulting in a rise in U.S. populism. This view frequently targets the 2000 U.S. law that granted China “permanent normal trade relations” (PNTR)...