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
National Review
Trump Transition at FTC Is No Reagan Revolution
Don’t call it a “comeback.” Those hoping for a Reagan-era-like return to economic sanity or regulatory humility in antitrust at the Federal Trade Commission…
The New York Times
Trump Doubles Metal Tariffs as He Presses Canada to Become Part of U.S.
The New York Times cited CEI’s experts on tariffs “Ryan Young, a senior economist at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said that putting tariffs on foreign…
Blog
Russia tariffs won’t bring peace
President Trump seems to think that tariffs can accomplish almost anything. My colleague Iain Murray recently pointed out that Trump believes tariffs can raise…
Search Posts
Blog
Proof of the PROVE IT Act’s carbon tax agenda
A recent post explains how S. 1863, the PROVE IT Act, could empower narrow partisan majorities to enact carbon tariffs and taxes in…
Blog
Trump proposes 60 percent China tariff
Donald Trump recently pledged to enact a 60 percent tariff against China if he becomes president again. His latest comments indicate, “Maybe it’s going…
News Release
Report: A US-Switzerland Trade Agreement could be Swift, Beneficial, and Influential
The US and Switzerland could swiftly forge a trade agreement to greatly benefit the people of both countries and, equally as important, lead the way…
Study
Toward a US-Swiss Trade Agreement
This paper examines the benefits and challenges of a potential free trade agreement (FTA) between the United States and Switzerland. Such an agreement would do…
Blog
The good and bad of Nippon Steel deal
There is good and bad in everything. This includes Nippon Steel’s planned buyup of US Steel, which politicians from both parties are criticizing. The good…
Blog
A steel sumo that might wrestle China to the mat
There are ironies a-plenty in the news that Japan’s Nippon Steel Corp. plans to buy U.S. Steel. The fact that a foreign company would own…
Blog
Defense bill amendment could help undo China’s unfair advantage in environmental treaties
Congress is currently considering the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024 (NDAA), including a long list of amendments added to the bill.
Washington Examiner
Europe strikes back with chip subsidies to counter US and China
CEI’s Ryan Young is cited on Washington Examiner about chip subsidies: “I don’t think the U.S. has much to worry about involving [the European Chips…
The Washington Examiner
10% tariff, 100% bad idea
Former President Donald Trump recently pledged to enact a universal 10% tariff on all imports if he regains the presidency. His…
Blog
Carbon tariffs are all pain, no gain
Europe recently introduced a carbon tax. The proposed PROVE IT Act would lay the groundwork for one in the United States. Over in the…
The Economic Standard
Adam Smith on how trade makes us better people
Economists love efficiency. That is why most of them love free trade. Countries with relatively free trade also tend to be …
National Review
Protectionism without Sugarcoating
National Review cites CEI’s Iain Murray about protectionism: Iain Murray of the Competitive Enterprise Institute describes the U.S. sugar quotas as the “platonic form of…
Blog
Why Trump and Biden are wrong to sweat a trade deficit
Do trade deficits make American workers worse off? Trade deficits occur when a country imports more goods than it exports, which the U.S. has done…
Blog
Free the Economy podcast: Immense economic costs with Scott Lincicome
In this week’s episode we talk about central bank digital currencies, bankers backing off of ESG claims, avoiding the mistakes of…
Blog
Rep. Duncan Leads Letter Expressing Concern over Foreign Regulatory Overreach
I’ve written before about the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority, its main antitrust regulator. It has already blocked one US company from taking over another…
Blog
Bad Trade Policy Still Bottling up Baby Formula
Scott Lincicome and Gabriella Beaumont-Smith brought us an update last week on the infant formula pipeline problems we’ve been seeing for the last…
News Release
CEI Launches “Eye on FTC” Campaign to Raise Awareness of Agency Overreach and Lack of Transparency
WASHINGTON—The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) launched a new “Eye on FTC” educational campaign today to raise awareness about overreach and a lack of…
News Release
CEI Releases Pro-Growth Regulatory Reform Agenda for the 118th Congress
Today the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) offered a set of important policy reforms for the 118th Congress to consider when it convenes in…
Products
Free to Prosper: Trade
Trade policy took a turn for the worse during the Trump administration, and the Biden administration has committed largely to the same course. Tariffs have…
Blog
Does Artificial Intelligence Have a Statist Bias?
I recently asked the ChatGPT AI to “write an essay critiquing the Biden administration’s trade policy.” This is what I got:…
News Release
Amid Hurricane Power Outages, Biden Administration Waives Senseless Jones Act Shipping Restrictions: CEI Statement
Competitive Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Ryan Young praised the Biden administration for temporarily waiving shipping restrictions imposed by the 1920s era Jones Act. “The…
Blog
The Jones Act vs. Puerto Rico, Again
Puerto Rico is almost entirely without power after Hurricane Fiona. Right now, there is a ship just offshore, ready to help. It has…
Blog
The Founding Fathers and Free Trade
There is an ongoing small cottage industry of historical revisionism aimed at showing that America since its founding was friendly to protectionism and that this…
Blog
The European Union’s Crypto Protectionism Threatens Financial Freedom
Stablecoins, digital assets pegged to a financial asset like the U.S. dollar, are becoming increasingly popular around the globe. Some people use them as…
News Release
Senate-Passed Corporate Welfare “CHIPS” Bill Won’t Help U.S. Companies Out-Compete China
The Senate today passed the CHIPS+ Act, a bill that would hand over tens of billions of tax dollars to domestic production of semiconductors. CEI…
Blog
Former Trade Official Opposes Minor Tariff Relief
Now that former President Trump’s China tariffs are four years old, a mandatory review process is underway. President Biden has indicated he might lift…
Blog
China Tariffs: Will Inertia Win?
Former President Trump’s China tariffs came with a safeguard: They expire after four years unless an internal review finds them worth keeping. On trade issues,…
Blog
Yellen Proposes Capping Oil Prices? Not Quite
Cable news and Twitter are aflame with outrage today that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen proposed price caps for oil. Fortunately, the rumors are false.
Blog
Restating the Case for Free Trade
The case for free trade needs to be restated frequently. Politicians keep pushing the same protectionist policies, as though maybe this time the results will…
Blog
Trade, Mission Creep, and the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework
President Biden announced this week a major economic agreement with a dozen countries in the Indo-Pacific region, to be called the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework…
Blog
Baby Formula and Regulatory Failure
A lot of people are blaming free markets for the baby formula shortage. As the economist Jagdish Bhagwati might say, the problem with this is…
News Release
Inflation Still 4x Higher than Target Rate, New Government Numbers Show
The inflation rate isn’t much changed from last month’s high figure, 8.3 percent compared to 8.5 percent, new government data shows. CEI Senior Fellow Ryan…
Blog
U.S. to Lift Tariffs against Ukraine for One Year: China Next?
In 2018, President Trump enacted a 25 percent tariff on Ukrainian steel, on what he claimed were national security grounds. They remained in place throughout…
Blog
Sorting Out Some Confusion on Trade and GDP
While inflation is the biggest economic problem right now, trade policy is another reason why GDP shrank last quarter. It is also a common…
Blog
The Updated Case for Free Trade
Trade is a core value of civilization. The very act of trade implies respect for people’s rights. Suppose you have something I want. I could…
Blog
Stablecoins Come of Age in Ukraine-Russia Conflict
Across the globe, people living under oppressive regimes are already familiar with stablecoins—digital assets pegged to a stable monetary value, usually the U.S. dollar. Now,…
News Release
CEI Experts React to President Biden’s State of the Union Address
President Joe Biden delivered his first State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress tonight. CEI policy experts weighed in on his…
Letters
Coalition Letter Urging Congress to Reject Efforts to Impose Protectionist Barriers on Agricultural Imports
U.S. Senate Washington, DC, 20510 U.S. House of Representatives Washington, DC, 20515 Dear Senators and Representatives, We, the undersigned organizations representing millions of taxpayers and…
Blog
Steel Tariffs against Japan Lifted, Kind of
President Biden is taking a small step toward tariff relief. Japan’s first 1.25 million metric tons per year of steel exports to the U.S.
Inside Sources
The America COMPETES Act Seeks to Counter China by Imitating It
Public approval of Congress stands at 18 percent. If you wonder why, just look at the America COMPETES Act, which passed the House of Representatives…
News Release
House Democrats’ China Bill Would Make the U.S Less Competitive and Harm Consumers
The House of Representatives is considering the America COMPETES Act this week, a bill described by sponsors as a “China competition bill.” The wide-ranging legislation…
Blog
The America COMPETES Act’s Outbound Investment Review Framework Threatens U.S. Global Economic Competitiveness
Earlier this week, the House of Representatives introduced a bill, the America COMPETES” Act (H.R. 4521; the backronym is for ‘‘America Creating Opportunities for…
Blog
The COMPETES Act Is a Bad Idea. Here’s What Congress Should Do Instead
The 2,912-page America COMPETES Act (H.R. 4521; the backronym is for ‘‘America Creating Opportunities for Manufacturing, Pre-Eminence in Technology, and Economic Strength’’) is the…
The Australian Institute of International Affairs
Why Westminster Must Reconsider the UK’s New Foreign Investment Review Framework
In early January, the National Security and Investment (NSI) Act became law, expanding the United Kingdom government’s power to block foreign investments for perceived security risks.
Forbes
What To Do Instead of the America COMPETES Act
As if $30 trillion in national debt isn’t isn’t plenty stimulus, here we go again with the spending, on science and technology this…
Voice of America
US Congress Considers Bills to Boost Competition with China
Voice of America cites Senior Fellow Ryan Young on how Congress is addressing China: Ryan Young, a senior fellow with the Competitive…
Blog
Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority Is Becoming a Global Problem
When British supporters of Brexit talked of “global Britain,” they probably didn’t have in mind British bureaucrats dictating to the world how businesses should be…
Blog
Senate Shelves Build Back Better Spending Bill, For Now
The Senate will not vote on the Build Back Better (BBB) spending bill this year, though they might take it up again next year.
Blog
Can Regional Trade Agreements Replace the WTO?
Trade policy is in a bad place right now, with two consecutive protectionist administrations in the U.S. and the World Trade Organization (WTO) possibly damaged…
The Washington Times
Biden Administration Probe of Supply Chain Woes Slammed as ‘Demagoguery’
The Washington Times cites Research Fellow Sean Higgins and Senior Fellow Marlo Lewis on the current supply chain crisis: But researchers at…
