All three of the WTO’s functions - administering multilateral trade rules, serving as a forum for trade negotiations, and providing a mechanism to settle trade disputes - are currently under...

According to Frank Lavin, former US Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade, ‘trade negotiations should focus on managing what’s good rather than managing what’s bad'. However, US...

After the United States imposed $250billion of tariffs on Chinese goods based on its determination, under U.S. Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, that China had violated trade agreements with the...

Last year was a difficult year for free trade and the international rules-based system. No doubt the US played an important role in this: It threatened old trade partners like Canada and the EU with...

Following the global financial crisis in 2008, the G-2 framework of a global strategic partnership was seen among observers as the way forward for US-China relations. Ten years later and the focus is...

Dear Mr President,    I have heard that you called the World Trade Organisation (WTO) “a disaster for America”, and would like to suggest with all due respect that you have been reading the...

Two weeks ago, the US Department of Commerce released its long-awaited Section 232 reports on steel and aluminum. The reports presented the US Department of Commerce’s findings that imports of...

Trump’s rhetoric on trade during his election campaign set a bad tone for US trade policy in general, but also for EU-US trade relations. However, his views – or at least his rhetoric – on many...

Dr Kenichi Kawasaki, Professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) in Tokyo and a leading expert on quantitative modelling of trade liberalisation, revisited ECIPE on March...

During last weekend’s summit meeting of Asia-Pacific leaders in Peru, President Obama made the case that failure to sign on to TPP would “undermine our position across the region”. It would...