For apparently irreconcilable domestic political reasons, the United States is an outlier amongst economically advanced countries as the only one that does not have a value added tax (VAT), which is the conventional and WTO-sanctioned approach to applying an economically efficient and...

The Trump administration's swift exit from the TPP has clearly not killed the deal as the remaining signatories consider whether to move ahead without the United States. While the overall impact of the deal would be lower without the U.S., the 11 remaining countries are better off with a TPP11...

We assess the outcomes for the negotiating parties in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) if the TPP11 go ahead with the agreement as negotiated without the United States, as compared to the outcomes under the TPP12 agreement as signed in October 2016. Both the TPP11 and TPP12 are assessed on...

The Trump Administration has pursued a sharply different – and for its trade partners unsettling – trade policy from that followed by the United States in the postwar period. While much attention has been focussed on the oftentimes contradictory, oftentimes theoretically unfounded, and...

The new “U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement” (USMCA) signed on 1 October 2018 sets out important markers concerning the future direction of Trump Administration trade policy. As consideration turns to the path to success in implementing this agreement, I will focus in my remarks today on what...

Canada and the United States are highly similar economies, as would be expected given the many common historical influences on economic policy and regulation, the shared geography and the high degree of economic interaction, amplified powerfully in recent decades by the 1989 Canada-US Free Trade...

The long trade peace that took hold with the signing of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) on 30 October 1947 is over. As of mid-2018, the world is embroiled in a trade war of global dimensions. This note charts the path to trade war, discusses U.S.policy aims and its trading...