Some trade disputes--like long Russian novels--never seem to end. The United States, Europe, and other trading nations have disputed the taxation of export earnings since the 1970s. To understand why the Foreign Sales Corporation (FSC) dispute is so hard to resolve, we must start with a...

The US Export-Import (Ex-Im) Bank is again at the center of controversy, as Congress debates the terms for its charter renewal. This policy brief critiques provisions of the House and Senate versions of the reauthorization bill and summarizes three justifications for Congress giving adequate...

One of the most bizarre bills making its way through Congress is the Visclosky steel quota bill (H.R. 975). H.R. 975 passed the House on 17 March, with 289 yeas and 141 nays. It is scheduled for a Senate vote on 22 June. If enacted, H.R. 975 would limit steel imports in a heavy-handed way that...

With the end of the Cold War, the focus of US foreign policy changed--and so did that of economic sanctions. Partly because of increased cooperation within the UN framework, economic sanctions were imposed so routinely in the early 1990s that scholars called that period the sanctions decade....

This year's biggest trade battle is the congressional vote over Permanent Normal Trading Relations (PNTR) with China. PNTR is the key US action required to ensure American access to China's market when China joins the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Everyone agrees that the US steel industry is distressed. The disagreement is over the role of imports: to what extent is foreign steel the culprit? Before turning to this critical issue, it is worth recounting the highlights of the steel industry's difficulties. In the past four years, 29 US...

Within a few weeks, the United States will make a pivotal decision--whether to prohibit foreign telecommunications firms that are partly owned by foreign governments from competing in the US market. The decisive case is Deutsche Telecom's bid to acquire the US mobile telephone operator...

Seattle leaves a huge question mark over the U.S. role in world trade policy. Faulty preparation and flawed tactics were abundant--both in the street and between the delegations. The Battle of Seattle may acquire the same instructive value for future diplomats as Pearl Harbor has for military...

Once again the steel industry is distressed. And once again Washington is looking for trade "solutions" when it should be searching elsewhere. There is nothing new about either story. But, can't we do something better this time?

On April 26, 2004, Senator John Kerry released his six-point trade program, "Trade Enforcement: Asleep at the Wheel," and conspicuously targeted China for violating worker rights, dumping, and supporting "illegal currency manipulation" (Kerry 2004). Five days earlier, senior Bush administration...