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
The forced labor fig leaf
The cardinal rule of President Trump’s trade policy is that he just likes tariffs. Any intellectual justification is just rationalizing his gut feelings.
Blog
Section 338: Trump’s latest tariff tool could send trade policy uncertainty soaring
Just when businesses thought they had enough tariff uncertainty to manage, another chapter emerges. By turning a nearly century-old provision of trade law into…
News Release
Trump pivot to Section 338 for tariffs poses problems for economy, separation of powers
Citing Section 338 of the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, President Donald Trump on July 20 announced steep 50 percent tariffs on Canadian goods,…
Search Posts
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“Take My Voice with You”
Thus tells an Iranian woman to a journalist passing through her town, in the new film, The Stoning of Soraya M., which opens…
Newsletter
EPA Censorship Exposed, the Trade War with China and Tracking Stimulus Spending
CEI releases the full global warming report that was suppressed by the Environmental Protection Agency. Climate change legislation in the House could lead to a…
Blog
“Leveling the playing field” with border taxes (read “bring down the economy”)
In Washington, beware any proposal that attempts to “level the playing field.” What is usually meant is hobbling competition with restrictive rules and regulations…
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Obama Administration’s Anti-Travel Policies Hit New Low
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the new passport requirements implemented at the U.S.-Canada border. As I noted at the time, most Americans–including…
Op-Eds
Ecuador’s Counterproductive Fight Against Illegal Immigration
Ecuador’s government has devised a new way to discourage illegal immigrants, mainly from Cuba and China, from entering into fake marriages with natives in…
Blog
Stimulus = Welfare + Quotas + Corruption
Obama’s $787 billion stimulus package is now being used to force states to adopt racial quotas in government contracts, even if their state constitution…
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Obama Administration Gives Miranda Warnings to Enemy Combatants in Afghanistan, Even Though They Are Not Legally Required
The Obama Administration is now requiring investigators to give Miranda warnings to some “captured foreign fighters” in Afghanistan, advising them that they…
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The Stoning of Soraya M.
The Stoning of Soraya M. is a difficult film to watch, but worth taking the time to do so. The film . . . depicts…
Op-Eds
Obama Stimulus Package Is Destroying Jobs
The Examiner was right to protest President Barack Obama’s firing of inspector general Gerald Walpin after he exposed wrongdoing by prominent Obama supporter Kevin…
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HHS Secretary: Health Insurance Industry Needs Competition… With Government
In an AP interview on Tuesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius called for competition in the health insurance market. No, not between…
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Tourism Bill to Be Combined With Anti-Civil-Liberties Hate Crimes Bill
If you were a tourist, would you like to come to a country where you could be tried twice for the same crime — even…
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Public Wants Wasteful Stimulus Package Canceled
By a margin of 45% to 36%, the American people want to cancel the $787 billion stimulus package, reports pollster Rasmussen Reports. Economist…
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Stimulus Package Kills Jobs, Drives Up Unemployment
Unemployment is now even higher than the Obama Administration said it would be if there were no stimulus package. At least 1.5 million…
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Twenty Years since Tiananmen Square
China is a very different place than it was twenty years ago. It was on this day in 1989 that one anonymous, brave soul halted…
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NYT: “Buy American” angers allies, loses jobs
The New York Times opined today that the so-called stimulus bill’s “Buy American” provisions are having some unintended consequences –…
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Stupid Border Tricks
Beginning today, American and Canadian citizens will now be required to carry new forms of government identification in order to cross the shared border. Former…
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Obama Panders to the UAW: $30 Billion More for Wasteful Auto Bailout
The federal government is giving another $30 billion in taxpayer money to General Motors to allow it to operate without having to cut…
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Stimulus Package Shrinks Economy, Destroys Private Sector Jobs
Most of the $800 billion stimulus package has yet to be spent, but it’s already harming the economy, both by triggering trade wars that have…
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Anti-GMO Zealots vs. Starving Zimbabweans
In Zimbabwe, the most food aid-dependent country in the world, officials and self-styled “consumer activists” have begun raiding shops suspected of selling genetically-modified food,…
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Retirees, Taxpayers Ripped Off to Subsidize UAW
Obama accused critics of his decision to give control of Chrysler to the United Auto Workers Union of being “speculators.” But it turns out…
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Calling All Liberty-Loving Writers
Our good friend and CEI alumna Kendra Okonski is looking for writers and journalists to enter the distinguished and lucrative Bastiat Prize Competition, presented…
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Victory for Capitalism in World’s Largest Democracy
India’s Congress Party was responsible for many mistakes when it turned India into a corrupt socialist state in the 1960s and 70s, but it changed…
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Stimulus Ignites Job-Killing Trade War With Canada
The $800 billion stimulus package pushed through by Obama has ignited a trade war with Canada, reports the Washington Post. In response to vague…
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Klaus vs. the Eurocrats
In The American Spectator, former CEI Bastiat Scholar Doug Bandow (now at the Cato Institute) describes how “[o]nly the Irish people and Czech President…
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Taxing Away American Jobs
Obama’s plan to raise taxes on the foreign operations of U.S. businesses may destroy management and professional jobs in the U.S., will put American business…
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The Road to Serfdom
On Hayek’s brithday, the following brief speech from internet megastar Daniel Hannan MEP should remind us that there are all too many paths leading to…
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Destabilizing Afghanistan: the Quagmire Expands
The anti-American Taliban extremists are resurgent not only in Afghanistan, where they once sheltered Osama Bin Laden, but also in neighboring Pakistan (which has nuclear…
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David, Goliath and Chevron
How is little Ecuador going to collect from big Chevron? In 2007, investigative reporter Greg Palast posed the question to Ecuador’s president Rafael Correa regarding…
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The Economics of Pirate Deterrence
How can we stop pirate attacks? By applying the law of demand. If something becomes more costly, people consume less of it. How to do…
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North Korea Adopts Floral Basket-Based Economy
Isolated from the rest of the world, Kim Jong Il’s bankrupt North Korean regime appears to have stumbled upon a new gimmick to stay afloat:…
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Torture Prosecutions for Thee, But Not for Me
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants Bush Administration officials prosecuted for facilitating torture. Fair enough. But if they get prosecuted, she should get prosecuted,…
Blog
Diamond in the rough?
Hmm. A Papua New Guinea tribesman is suing the The New Yorker magazine over an article penned by MacArthur “Genius” and Pulitzer…
Blog
¿Can We Be Amigos?
The Fifth Summit of the Americas held in Trinidad and Tobago on April 17th shed light on America’s new role in the Western Hemisphere. The…
Op-Eds
The war on mining: Fighting back
Gold has become a safe haven as jittery investors move away from weakened stock markets, and currencies are threatened by inflation. But the allure of…
Blog
Americas Summit: Two Views
Abajo! (“Down!”) was the response given by the friendly, bronzed-skinned middle-aged Cuban man who chatted with my husband and me over Cuban coffee on Calle…
Blog
Between the Headlines:”Sustainability” Means Sustainably Poor
“Mars Sets Goal for Sustainable Cocoa Sources” Another Washington Post story suggests that “sustainability” –whatever it may mean — still can…
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Between the Headlines: “Russian Voting Tinged with Green”
“Russian Voting Tinged with Green” This Washington Post headline from earlier this month illustrates one of worrisome side-effects of authoritarian rule. …
Newsletter
Hemispheric Diplomacy, Greenhouse Gases and Anti-Tax Protests
President Obama attends the Summit of the Americas with other leaders from North and South America. The Environmental Protection Agency declares greenhouse gases to be…
Op-Eds
Treaty Supported by State Nominee Coddles Pirates
Quin Hillyer is right to criticize Obama’s nomination of Harold Koh to be chief counsel for the State Department. Koh’s appointment would make…
Blog
Whither Hemispheric Trade?
In his post-Summit of the Americas remarks in Trinidad and Tobago today, President Obama stated his administration’s commitment to improving relations with countries around the…
Blog
Tech is Key in Ideas Battle
Earlier today, Competitive Enterprise Institute President Fred Smith delivered an informative but lively, entertaining speech about the role of NGOs. The speech was delivered at…
Blog
The Liberal War on Science
Christina Hoff Sommers writes about a looming liberal war on science. Based on a campaign promise Obama made to feminist groups in October…
Blog
We Wouldn’t Have Teaparties If It Wasn’t For Rentseeking
Those who say we tried the free market and it failed should research the history of the Boston Tea Party a little. We didn’t even…
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Federalism and Opposition to Illegal Immigration Are Signs of Subversion, Obama Administration Claims
The Obama Administration’s Department of Homeland Security has developed new profiles of potential terrorists. Its definition of “right-wing extremism” is so ridiculously broad that…
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Sacrificing Safety and Freedom for “International Law”
Piracy has flourished in the crucial shipping lanes off the coast of Somalia partly due to a treaty that the U.S. has not…
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Supreme Inconsistency on Foreign Law
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg says that American courts should look more to foreign court rulings in interpreting our Constitution. But she herself does so…
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Liability Gone Haywire Down Under
An 82-year-old Australian grandmother says she is prepared to go to jail rather than pay a A$1-million (US$731,000) bill to clean up toxic chemicals…
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LOST to Pirates
The celebrations and congratulations over the U.S. Navy’s rescue of Capt. Richard Phillips are well deserved and proper all around. Yet even after the…
Blog
Liberal Bootlicking
Members of the Congressional Black Caucus recently visited Cuba and licked Casto’s boots, calling him an “inspiring” visionary and an “amazing human being.”…
Blog
One Down, Six to Go!
Oh the Worries of Our Modern Malthusians! In Washington this week, the Anarctica and Arctic Councils met for…
