Cross Laminated Timber is the basis of the “tall wood” buildings movement. CLT construction is a growing global market. Cross-laminated timber provides many possible benefits, including reduced costs, rural employment, strength, fire-resistance, beauty and a sense of being closer to nature.
Covid-19 panic shopping and the 2020 toilet paper shortage has made it clear: Americans love their toilet paper. The U.S. is a top producer and consumer of TP. Learn about trade in bathroom tissue – and why toilet paper shortages are truly a first-world worry.
The UK released its public negotiating objectives for a post-Brexit free trade agreement with the United States, but Invest Northern Ireland isn’t waiting on a deal to start taking advantage of stronger trade and investment relations for Belfast and Northern Ireland.
Suffolk is the most caffeinated city east of the Mississippi thanks to booming coffee trade through the nearby Port of Virginia. Here’s a look at how trade drives economic development in this flourishing coffee cluster.
The question of where and how pencils are made has resurfaced in the current debate over American trade policy. Policymakers often try to revive trade-impacted low-tech sectors through trade protection. The pencil industry’s experience highlights the difficulties of this approach.
We long ago stopped having to make everything we need: forging tools, handcrafting shoes from hides and weaving textiles for clothing. The expansion of global trade is affording us the opportunity to rediscover and reinvent the art of “making” itself, which could in turn profoundly impact what we make and what we trade.
Many industry observers are sounding alarms about the looming impact of automation, robots and 3D printing, which they fear will destroy jobs, disrupt value chains and maybe even reduce the need for international trade. But data and evidence don’t support the hype.
The next generation of smarter and more powerful machines will rely on even more sophisticated semiconductors to achieve new capabilities. Pressure is on to “win” in the global chip race, which is why efforts to protect innovations in chipmaking are front and center in the current trade war – for better and for worse.
U.S. footwear production dates as far back as 1750, but today 98 percent of shoes are manufactured abroad. Historically, footwear tariffs have been out of step with the United States’ general approach to free trade. High tariffs on products like shoes hit low-income families the hardest – particularly those with children – as these families spend the highest share of their incomes on home goods that tend to be imported.
Manufacturers of labor-intensive products like apparel have already been looking elsewhere in Asia as labor costs continue to rise in China. China has not substantially increased market access for foreign investors in many sectors, causing foreign investment to slow or flatline in recent years. With lingering doubts about the worsening investment climate in China, the trade war is hastening decision-making that had already been underway.