In 1994, with trade fights raging over the North American Free Trade Agreement and the World Trade Organization, the White House faced an urgent problem: It was about to lose most of its power to block exports for national security reasons. The decades …
BEING tough on China was a constant theme of President Donald Trump’s election campaign. On August 14th he had another chance to wield his presidential pen to show that he is making good on his promises—in this case of a “zero-tolerance policy on intel …
By William Reinsch I had planned this week to write about something else, but the Trump administration’s action on China prompts me to return to what has long been one of my favorite topics. As those of you reading this know, the president on August 14 …
During the 1992 presidential campaign, independent candidate Ross Perot, a Texas billionaire with a gift for folksy phrases, put an obscure trade deal between the U.S., Canada and Mexico smack into the heat of the American political debate. Click here …
By William Reinsch The past few months I have spent most of my time in this column criticizing the Trump administration for various things it has done or said — and occasionally complimented it for not doing some of the things it said. Fair play, …
Morning Trade – A daily speed read on global trade news. -snip- There’s further concern that the Trump administration might feel “increasingly boxed in” and be driven to take extreme trade action “consequences be damned,” said Nate Olson, dir …
By William Reinsch Last week I wrote about the CED talks with the China and the implications of their apparent failure. I ended up rather blithely recommending that we needed a strategy rather than a succession of one-off transactional negotiations tha …
By William Reinsch Last week’s CED session with China was surprising because it avoided the standard outcome of these things — a long list of minor accomplishments which are hailed as significant breakthroughs. In other words, instead of putting lipsti …
Got rice? That’s what China, the world’s largest consumer of rice, is now asking the U.S. For the first time ever, Asia’s economic giant will allow imports of American rice, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Thursday. That comes as a welcome …
By William Reinsch Two weeks ago I talked in general terms about some of the forces at play in the looming NAFTA negotiation. This week let’s take a closer look at some of the likely issues. These seem to fall into four groups: new stuff, the stuff ind …
By William Reinsch Those of you who have followed what I have said and done over the years know that I have long been an opponent of unilateral sanctions. I learned that working for John Heinz in the Senate who thought they were almost always a lose-lo …
By William Reinsch I had planned to make some further comments on the NAFTA negotiations this week, but since it is so close to the date the administration must send Congress its detailed negotiating objectives, I decided to wait for that to occur befo …
Nate Olson was quoted on Minnesota Public Radio’s Marketplace segment on the global power shifts and economic harm that could result from Trump’s decision to leave the Paris climate agreement, and how the G20 summit presents challenges and opportunitie …
Nate Olson was interviewed on Voice of America’s View 360 Urdu television program regarding the upcoming G20 summit and the challenges and allies Trump may encounter there. View the interview here. (9:39-14:43)
On the eve of a G20 summit with Trump, the leaders of Europe and Japan signed a free trade agreement covering more than 600 million people, 30% of the global economy and 40% of total world trade. -snip- “The EU-Japan announcement on a trade deal framew …
By William Reinsch A few weeks ago someone asked me to opine, in 200 words or less, whether NAFTA had “worked.” I pointed out that that question has been debated for the past 23 years, and whole books have been written about it. But this is 2017, and d …
G20 leaders will discuss steel overcapacity at this week’s summit in Germany, European officials said, as tensions rise over U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to use a Cold War-era law to restrict steel imports for national security reasons. -snip- Wi …
President Trump was standing on the banks of the Ohio River, and as barges loaded with West Virginia coal floated by, he noted that half the United States’ steel is produced within 250 miles and told the crowd that soon “the steel folks are going to be …
By William Reinsch Several weeks ago I spent the good part of a day at the Seventh Annual Summit on the Economy, put on by the Economic Innovation Group and the Governor’s Woods Foundation (one of the joys of semi-retirement is time to do this sort of …
Workforce development is the archetype of vital-but-unsexy issues. The Trump administration deserves credit for highlighting the potential of expanded apprenticeships and other forms of vocational training. Are they drawing the right lessons for a succ …
Workforce development is the archetype of vital-but-unsexy issues. The Trump administration deserves credit for highlighting the potential of expanded apprenticeships and other forms of vocational training. Are they drawing the right lessons for a succ …
By William Reinsch In cranking out last week’s column about the steel section 232 investigation I left out two points that are important, largely because there was no room for them. Since the issue lingers on — and I continue to believe it will take lo …
Ten years ago an engineering professor at Georgia Tech started a company outside Atlanta with the hope of manufacturing solar panels in America. And for a while it worked. The company, Suniva, grew into one of the largest panel makers in the U.S., …
By William Reinsch The new hot issue in the trade world is the imminent arrival on the president’s desk of recommendations for action in the pending national security (section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962) investigation involving steel. While …
By William Reinsch Authors of novels sometimes say that the characters write themselves — they speak to the author and tell her what to say. The result is that the book often does not end up taking the path the author envisioned in the beginning. So it …
By William Reinsch This week brought unhappy reports that the president has decided to pull the U.S. out of the climate change agreement. If the reports prove accurate — the timing, I suppose, is appropriate since we’re heading into what will likely be …
By William Reinsch It now appears that after a good bit of drama, the NAFTA path is becoming clear, at least as far as process is concerned. The required notification letter has been sent, which means that formal negotiations can begin after August 16. …
By William Reinsch Two weeks ago Secretary of Commerce Ross announced the first deliverables of the 100 day action plan with China. Hopefully, they will not be the last, because they are pretty thin gruel, and — more important, they miss the point. Let …
By William Reinsch On May 8, the ever-resourceful Robert Samuelson produced another thoughtful column for the Washington Post. This one discussed an article by Ruchir Sharma of Morgan Stanley in the current issue of Foreign Affairs. In it, Sharma concl …