Who’s Footing the Tariff Bill?
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.
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Lapham’s Quarterly on Trade
If you haven’t been in a bookstore lately, now is the time to close up your laptop and seek out the Spring 2019 edition of Lapham’s Quarterly dedicated to the topic of trade. The journal takes you through time through the eyes of those who trade, from an Assyrian king to an American mink maker testifying last year on the impact of a tariff war with China.
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Do Steel Tariffs Undermine Safe Energy Infrastructure?
U.S. energy infrastructure company Kinder Morgan, Inc. (KM) started construction on the Gulf Coast Express Pipeline Project in May 2018. Estimated to cost $1.75 billion, the pipeline will span 514 miles in Texas and aims to increase the United States’ ability to export liquefied natural gas to Mexico. The administration's steep tariffs on imported steel could throw a major wrench into the pipeline project.
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China’s Industrial Policies and Trade Rules – If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Join ‘Em?
Discussions are now underway as to whether EU antitrust policies need to be relaxed in order to allow greater latitude to meet the challenge posed by Chinese mega-firms.
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When a Rose Isn’t Just a Rose: How Trade Policy Was Used to Fight Drugs from Colombia
Americans will give each other 200 million roses over the Valentine season. The majority were grown in Colombia. How did this come to be? For decades, U.S. Government trade, development, and drug eradication policies were designed to move South American growers away from cultivating the coca plant used to make cocaine by substituting commercially profitable production of cut flowers.
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Is Public Opinion Turning Against Tariffs?
New public opinion research shows that the majority of Americans worry the tariffs will do more harm than good for the economy.
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A High Wire Act: The Trump Administration and Section 232
The current administration's use of Section 232 to impose trade-restrictive measures on imports of steel and aluminum has become the source of increasing domestic discontent among steel-using industries, farmers who are the target of retaliatory tariffs, and Members of Congress who are reconsidering having delegated powers over trade to the President. It has also put WTO dispute settlement to an unwelcome test.
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Feeding China’s State-Owned Enterprises With Government Cash
China went from a net importer of critical intermediary goods such as glass, paper, steel, and auto parts, to becoming the leading producer and dominant global exporter of these products. How could this seismic shift occur in industries where China does not maintain a particular advantage in labor, technology, or natural resources? The answer in large part is subsidization of Chinese production in the form of state-directed capital flows.
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Is the Trade War Causing Manufacturers to Leave China? Yes and No.
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.
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Trump-Xi Meeting on US-China Trade War: Five Possible Outcomes
The meeting between President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping in Argentina in late November may prove to be a turning point for not only for the US-China relationship, but for global trade. Both leaders enter these discussions knowing the far more important question is whether there can be a sustainable co-existence between a Western market-driven economy with democratic ideals and a centrally-managed Chinese economy led by the Communist Party of China.
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