As a result, CEI experts have encouraged and supported trade-enhancing policies and treaties over the years, including “fast-track” Trade Promotion Authority, specific trade deals, and multilateral efforts such as the Doha round of the World Trade Organization. We have opposed increased tariffs, attempts to increase regulation through trade deal language, and the trend toward bilateral rather than multilateral deals. CEI continues to make the case for free trade in the face of increased bipartisan hostility to the idea.
CEI’s experts also work with like-minded colleagues abroad to oppose harmful initiatives, such as working with British colleagues to stop that country’s competition agency from blocking mergers between American firms based on speculative reasoning.
Featured Posts
Blog
Steeling politics
Politics ruins everything. Right now, it is ruining America’s steel industry. The Biden administration, with plenty of bipartisan support, has announced it will block…
The American Institute for Economic Research
Did the Bank of England Set Britain on the Road to Ruin?
“The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street” is the affectionate nickname of the Bank of England, as respected an institution as Britain ever had. Calling something…
Blog
Price signals and virtue signals
It’s a divisive election year, but all of us still have some things in common. Since the pandemic began, inflation has devalued the dollar by…
Search Posts
Blog
Huge Questions Remain in Brexit Debate
It is now looking as if the June 23rd vote on whether Britain will leave or remain in the European Union is too close to…
Blog
Export-Import Bank Drama Continues
The Senate’s main business right now is the annual Defense Appropriations bill. The Export-Import Bank, or Ex-Im for short, might become part of that bill.
Blog
The Senate Must Confront the President on the Paris Climate Treaty
On Friday April 22, Earth Day, the White House will purport to commit the United States to the Paris Climate Agreement. The Obama administration claims…
Blog
The Truth about the Trade Deficit
This election cycle the issue of the trade deficit has been a topic of great debate, with front-running candidates suggesting that the deficit is an…
Blog
President Obama Promotes Myth of Excellent Health Care and Education in Cuba
In his recent remarks in Cuba, President Obama offered glowing praise to institutions in that communist country that did not deserve it. The president called Cuba’s…
Daily Caller
Trade With The Cuban People, Not Castro, Inc.
Libertarians have long argued that lifting the Cuban embargo, allowing free trade to flourish with the Cuban people, would do more to bring down the…
National Review
Obama Lectures Britons About Europe – Perhaps It Should Be the Other Way Around
When the President gets back from honoring communists and murderers in Cuba, he will begin planning for a trip to the…
Blog
Trade Is Good, Using Trade to Weaken Foreign Investment Is Not
Free traders have long promoted an expansion of the rights of the citizens of one nation to buy and sell to one another. The old…
Blog
Bashing Trade Is a Popular Election Year Target
Pundits are opining that Bernie Sanders’ significant win in the Democratic primaries in Michigan was primarily due to his vehement anti-trade stance. Donald Trump’s surge…
Washington Examiner
A Trump-Clinton race means the end of free-trading America
The Washington Examiner discusses the problems with the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement with Iain Murray. As Iain Murray of the Competitive Enterprise Institute…
Blog
Australian Bank Devalues Rewards Scheme in Anticipation of Interchange Fee Cap
I fear I am beginning to sound like a broken record on the subject of payments card interchange fees, with the needle stuck on “We…
CapX
Today’s Free Trade: Not Free and Not Trade
This Thursday, the US Senate Finance Committee will hold a hearing on “Lessons from the past” in implementing free trade deals. There’s a lot to…
Blog
The Speech Sen. McConnell Should Give about Supreme Court Vacancies
In a Washington Post op-ed, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) staked out an early position against…
Blog
IBL’s Trovato Presents Latest Index of Liberalization
The Cato Institute in Washington, D.C., recently hosted Massimiliano Trovato for a policy forum discussing whether the European Union is a friend or foe of economic…
Blog
Permanent Moratorium on Internet Taxation in Customs Bill
Today the Senate voted 75-20 in favor of the conference report accompanying H.R. 644, the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015, the so-called customs…
Blog
Trans-Pacific Partnership Signed, Provisions a Mixed Bag
U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman signed the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) in Auckland, New Zealand, yesterday, together with ministers from 11 other Pacific-rim…
Blog
Interchange Fee Warnings Coming True in EU
We have often warned about the negative effects of interchange fee regulation and specifically a cap on interchange fees. Last year we warned the European Parliament that…
Blog
The EU Faces Many Challenges in 2016
The EU is in a quiet crisis. For the first time it faces the prospect of a major economy leaving the EU voluntarily. Its internal…
Blog
Ex-Im Is Back from the Dead, Kind of
On Friday, President Obama signed into law a five-year, $305 billion highway bill. Marc Scribner, CEI’s resident transportation expert, has his thoughts on the…
Blog
COOL Ruling Puts U.S. in the Hot Seat
In a move intended to avoid harmful retaliatory tariffs from Canada and Mexico, five Democratic senators wrote to both majority and minority Senate leaders,…
Blog
Text of Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Pact Released
The office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) has released the complete text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) – a huge trade pact…
Blog
Ex-Im Revival Passes the House
The House has passed Rep. Stephen Fincher’s Ex-Im revival bill, by the margin of 313-118. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has publicly said the Senate…
Blog
Signs of Life for Ex-Im?
Last night the House of Representatives voted on a rare discharge petition, under which a controversial bill can skip the usual committee process and go…
Blog
Latest Ex-Im Revival Tactic: The Discharge Petition
One of the classic lines from the 1990 novel and 1993 movie Jurassic Park is that “life finds a way.” As with dinosaurs, so with government programs.
Blog
Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement Covers a Lot of Ground
Trade ministers of 12 Asia-Pacific countries announced October 5, 2015, that they had completed negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP). The TPP links…
Blog
World Bank Increases Number of Poor
The World Bank is considering changing its definition of what constitutes extreme poverty, raising the level below which someone is treated as extremely poor from $1.25…
Blog
New CEI Paper: The Case for Closing OPIC
OPIC is the Overseas Private Investment Corporation. It is a federal agency that offers financing for international projects by U.S. companies. Intended mainly as an…
Blog
GE’s Ex-Im Scare Story Further Debunked
Earlier this week, I wrote that GE is moving 500 jobs overseas as a direct result of the Export-Import Bank’s expiration. A correction is in…
Blog
GE’s Outsized Reaction to Ex-Im Expiration
General Electric recently announced it would not move its headquarters to Cincinnati. The reason for this earth-shattering news is that some members of Ohio’s congressional…
Blog
Australian Reserve Bank Gets the Economics Wrong on Interchange Fees
A new report commissioned by the International Alliance for Electronic Payments, of which CEI is a member, finds that the Reserve Bank of Australia…
Blog
Thorny Issues in Trans-Pacific Partnership Negotiations
Trade negotiators from 12 countries left Maui at the end of July 2015 without reaching a final agreement on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a massive trade…
Blog
CEI and Allies Submit Evidence to Australian Senate Inquiry on Credit Cards
Today, CEI and other members of the International Alliance for Electronic Payments joined the Australian Taxpayers Alliance in submitting evidence to an Australian Senate inquiry into credit…
Comment
IAEP Submission to Australian Senate on Credit Card Interest Payments
Full Document Available in PDF Credit card interest rates and other features are only partly driven by factors such as the Reserve…
The Heartlander
Heartland Institute Joins Coalition Opposing Internet Sales Tax Bill
The Heartlander cites CEI`s Jessica Melugin on the internet sales tax: Jessica Melugin, an adjunct fellow with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, says RTPA…
Blog
Ten Weak Reasons to Support Ex-Im
Rep. Carolyn Maloney supports reauthorizing the Export-Import Bank, whose charter lapsed on June 30. She recently took to the Huffington Post to give 10 reasons to…
Blog
Ex-Im Expired: Now What?
Two weeks ago, the Export-Import Bank’s authorization lapsed. The agency remains open, but is not allowed to consider new loans or other projects. It may…
Blog
Advocating Free Trade, Not Foreign Aid for the World’s Poverty
A Review of the Poverty Cure Documentary Series Poverty Cure is a six part documentary series directed and hosted by Michael Matheson Miller, produced by…
Blog
5 Reasons Why It’s Time to Close the Ex-Im Bank
The clock is ticking on the Export-Import Bank’s upcoming reauthorization. Here are the top 5 reasons why it’s time to finally close the Ex-Im for…
Blog
Reasons to Oppose the Ex-Im Bank, Part 8: Back Door Bank Subsidies
The Export-Import Bank’s charter expires on June 30. This series of posts makes the case for closing Ex-Im, one argument at a time. See also…
Blog
Reasons to Oppose the Ex-Im Bank, Part 7: Mercantilism
The Export-Import Bank’s charter expires on June 30. This series of posts makes the case for closing Ex-Im, one argument at a time. See also…
National Review
There Is No ‘Deal’ to Reauthorize Ex-Im
I am bemused by Senator Cruz’s volte-face on trade-promotion authority. There is no deal to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank (which CEI, like…
Blog
Reasons to Oppose the Ex-Im Bank, Part 6: Ex-Im’s Strange Dual Mandate
The Export-Import Bank’s charter expires on June 30. This series of posts makes the case for closing Ex-Im, one argument at a time. See also…
Blog
Reasons to Oppose the Ex-Im Bank, Part 5: Corruption
The Export-Import Bank’s charter expires on June 30. This series of posts makes the case for closing Ex-Im, one argument at a time. See also…
Blog
Dodd-Frank Conflict Minerals Rules Cause Smuggling, Starvation, and Harm to U.S. Businesses
The 2010 Dodd-Frank Act effectively restricted U.S. business’s ability to obtain minerals from the war-torn nation of the Congo and surrounding countries. That caused massive …
Blog
Negotiators Leave Empty Handed, Greek Bank Withdrawal Begins
Greece’s neglected payment to the International Monetary Fund on Friday, June 5, has caused escalated tensions in the negotiation process between creditors and Greek Prime…
Blog
Reasons to Oppose the Ex-Im Bank, Part 4: False Economic Catastrophism
The Export-Import Bank’s charter expires on June 30. This series of posts makes the case for closing Ex-Im, one argument at a time. See also…
Sourcing Journal
House Introduces Internet Sales Tax Bill
Sourcing Journal quotes CEI`s Jessica Melugin on the Internet Sales Tax Bill: Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and Rep. Steve Womack (R-AR) on Monday…
Blog
Reasons to Oppose the Ex-Im Bank, Part 3: It Favors Big Business
The Export-Import Bank’s charter expires on June 30. This series of posts makes the case for closing Ex-Im, one argument at a time. See also…
Blog
Trade Supporters Opt for More Breathing Room
House leadership will delay reconsideration of Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA)—up to a July 30 deadline they set—to give more time for President Obama to…
Blog
Reasons to Oppose the Ex-Im Bank, Part 2: Its Favors for Some Businesses Hurt Other Businesses
Reasons to Oppose the Ex-Im Bank, Part 2: Its Favors for Some Businesses Hurt Other Businesses The Export-Import Bank’s charter expires on June 30. Unless…
