Apple’s patent protectionism

The GATT Panel recommended that Member governments ask the USA to amend it's legislation to bring it back into conformity with the GATT. But this was the middle of the Uruguay Round of negotiations, focussing on the TRIPS negotiations on intellectual property. The USA took no action as recommended by the Panel. Finally, in 2000 the…

China worries about U.S. carbon tariffs

Tung, the former Chief Executive of Hong Kong, was talking about the Waxman-Markey bill that provides for 'border adjustments' should cap-and-trade costs for energy-intensive industries not be fully offset by U.S. government subsidies. China has been campaigning against this draft legislation since it's introduction.

Shadow U.S. Trade Committee

Dani Rodrik argues plausibly that agriculture and the movement of skilled labor should be two priorities for trade liberalization in the USA.

Let’s hope this means more clarity

Lamy did not mean—as this news report suggests—that the 'second track' would be series of bilateral deals. That's a long-standing U.S. fallback position (from the days of GATT), but I doubt Kirk had that in mind either. Here's the official account of what he said.

Good idea or insidious threat?

But who, other than China, would loose if this idea worked and the Renminbi was revalued? Most of the rest of the world. Especially economies with a comparative advantage in agricultural production (Australia, New Zealand, Latin America) for whom imported Chinese deflation of manufactures prices offsets the EU's depression of agricultural prices (and inflation of manufactures…