Tariffs tariffs everywhere! We’re being flooded with tariff proposals. This post is about last week’s tariff merry-go-round with Canada and Mexico. A lot of the messaging criticizing the proposed tariffs has focused on price increases. This communications strategy is apparently meant to appeal to people’s concerns about inflation. Let’s start with a basic point. Arbitrary,…

Trade agreements are supposed to be permanent because certainty promotes stability. Or so the thinking has been for the past few decades. The reaction when a sunset clause was included in the new NAFTA was almost uniformly one of horror: the instability of such a thing! The effects on investment! Trade flows! Peace! Prosperity! It’s…

COVID-19 has revealed something many of us already knew: our supply chains reflect a precarious dependence on the People’s Republic of China.  We don’t have enough testing kits; we don’t have enough masks; we don’t have enough ventilators. And as Congress is well aware, we are dependent on the PRC for all sorts of essential…

The express shippers responded to the last blog, on the de minimis loophole.  Out of respect for the time and effort they put into responding, the comments are, with the shippers’ permission, set out below.  In addition, the National Council of Textile Organizations sent this letter to Customs in regards to de minimis. The shippers’…

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…

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…

Much has been made of the TPP and NAFTA chapters on state-owned enterprises (SOEs).  They are supposed to be forward-looking provisions that will put a dent in state capitalism.  But the premise is wrong, and so the response is wrong. The premise of the argument is that state capitalism is executed through SOEs.  In some…

For many Americans, the 1950s were the golden age of American history. When asked when America was great, Donald Trump pointed to the post-war era of the 1940s and 1950s.  America was the world’s unquestioned economic, political, and military power. The business of America was business. The American economy was humming as never before. The…