UNCONSTITUTIONAL


Our Founding Fathers Rejected
FREE TRADE And So Should We


Chapter Samples Buy the Book

Why ‘Confrontation’ with China Cannot Be Avoided

The Biden administration has since updated this term to “strategic competition,” promising to prioritize the most strategic, or important, areas of competition. But competition is not the best word in either case. Competition implies that participants play, and are bound by, the same, agreed-upon rules. Read the article.

U.S. hikes duty on Canadian softwood lumber to 17.9% — twice the old rate

The U.S. says Canadian lumber producers dump their product into the U.S. at a lower price than American lumber companies can because they are subsidized. So the U.S. puts a tariff on all softwood lumber from Canada to raise its price at the retail level, which encourages consumers to buy American wood. Read the article.

Every Step of the Global Supply Chain Is Going Wrong — All at Once

The time it takes for goods originating in Shanghai to reach their destinations through the San Pedro Bay ports has more than doubled to 62 days since January 2020, according to freight forwarder Flexport Inc. Meanwhile, it currently costs $10,000 to $15,000 in the spot market to ship each 40-foot container from China to the … Read More

The Strange Career of Paul Krugman

Krugman’s prestige and skill as a polemicist helped persuade elite media outlets, think tanks, government agencies, and business institutions that they could ignore the experts from varied backgrounds who were raising alarms about the consequences that offshoring U.S. manufacturing would have for supply chain fragility, domestic jobs, and U.S. military power. By the time Krugman … Read More

U.S. Trade Policy: Over Half a Century of Unreciprocated Tariff Cuts

The US held high tariff rates from 1816 until the middle of the 20th century. The US then cut tariffs more than most countries, often unilaterally, without also requiring tariff reductions by others. Today, the US has one of the lowest tariff rates among WTO members, and by far the lowest among large importing countries. … Read More

WTO declares US tariffs on Spanish olives illegal

The United States did not comply with international trade rules when it imposed rates between 30% and 44% on imports of Spanish black olives, the World Trade Organization ruled on Friday. Donald Trump’s administration argued that tariffs should be imposed on Spanish producers, and that the money was transferred directly to companies that exported. Read … Read More

U.S. Court Reopens Solar-Tariff Loophole That Trump Killed

A U.S. trade court has reinstated a tariff exemption on some imported solar panels, a decision that benefits domestic clean-energy developers. As a result of the court’s ruling, all of the companies that paid tariffs under the Trump era proclamation will receive refunds, according to the industry trade group Solar Energy Industries Association. Read the … Read More

Asia Solar Manufacturers Soar After U.S. Says No to Tariff Probe

Chinese solar manufacturers are surging after the U.S. rejected a request to investigate whether they were circumventing existing tariffs, a move that critics warned would drive up costs for clean power and escalate tensions with China. Read the article.

The rise of populism in advanced economies: blame it on globalisation?

Protectionism and isolationism have been growing throughout the world, in what became known as the backlash against globalisation. Iinternational trade is not the only factor causing the upheaval. Society must manage the distributional consequences of structural change in a more inclusive way. Read the article.

The new age of managed trade?

So, does this deal represent a break from the Trumpian approach? The Hinrich Foundation’s Stephen Olson sees continuity. He points out that the deal gives the E.U. “3.3 million metric tons of annual duty-free entry [which] is well below the 4.8 million metric tons of steel the U.S. imported from the E.U. before the Trump … Read More