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
Why do so many countries have tariffs?
Over at the Center Square, Iain Murray and I ask an overlooked question: If tariffs are so bad, then why does nearly every country…
Center Square Opinion
Why do so many countries have tariffs?
If tariffs are so bad, then why does nearly every country have them? It’s a fair question, and many Trump tariff defenders are asking it.
Blog
That didn’t take long: Tariffs shrink economy in just two months
The US is halfway to a self-imposed recession, and tariffs are to blame. A healthy economy started shrinking even before President Trump’s Rose Garden…
Search Posts
Blog
Air Line Pilots Association Launches Super-Xenophobic Ad against Low-Cost Foreign Airline
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is currently considering whether or not it will honor its EU-U.S. open skies treaty in the case of Norwegian Air…
Blog
Federal Financial Aid Policies Punish Marriage
At the economics website E21, Jared Meyer describes the massive marriage penalties found in student financial aid programs, and how federal…
Blog
Kings, Contracts, and the Rule of Law: Republic of Argentina v. NML Capital
Co-authored with John Norton Moore and Robert F. Turner Last Monday, April 21, the Supreme Court heard argument in a major case involving issues at…
Forbes
Vietnam’s Road Back From Serfdom
We dropped bombs on their heads, defoliated their forests, and destroyed their villages “in order to save them.” We tore apart the fabric of…
Blog
CEI, Former State Department Officials Defend Freedom of Contract in Supreme Court Case against Argentina
[caption id="attachment_74355" align="alignright" width="300"] Argentina President Cristina Kirchner[/caption] Can a country seeking to welsh on its debts invoke sovereign immunity to evade not just court…
Blog
CEI Podcast for April 17, 2014: Brexit Strategy
Iain Murray, CEI's Vice President for Strategy, along with Freedom Association Director Rory Broomfield, won second place Institute for Economic Affairs' Brexit Competition. The goal…
Blog
First Ever Constitutional Ruling against Dodd-Frank Voids Destructive “Conflict Minerals” Section
Today’s ruling of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals that Dodd-Frank’s "conflict minerals" disclosure mandate violates the First Amendment is the first time ever a court has…
Forbes
Can Booming Dubai Remind America How To Grow Again?
If you despair for America, visit Dubai. If you fear our nation’s best days are behind us, visit Dubai. If you believe American entrepreneurship is…
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Hoover’s Deficits
Regarding the March 12 letter “It’s Time to Reject National Debt Fear-Mongering”: Nathaniel Brodsky claimed that President Herbert Hoover made “attempts to shrink” the national…
Blog
Schism among Democrats On “Fast Track” to Trade
The trade debate is heating up in the wake of President Obama’s nod to trade in his State of the Union address, the introduction this…
Forbes
The Antigua Forum: Exporting A Different Kind of Latin American Revolution
Call it the “Free Market Davos.” The Antigua Forum, sponsored by Universidad Francisco Marroquín, in Guatemala, finished its third annual conference last week. For three…
Blog
Trade Issues Heat Up — A New TPP Leak, “Fast-Track” Bill
WikiLeaks on January 15 leaked another chapter of the negotiation text of a major trade agreement – the environmental chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership…
Forbes
The Line To Get Into ‘Club Euro’ Is Growing
It’s 2014 and the euro is still in one piece. In fact, there’s a line outside to get into Club Euro. Latvia is the latest…
Blog
Congressional Research Service Misinterprets Monetary History
Last month, the Congressional Research Service released a report on Bitcoin analyzing the structure of the network and its implications, if any, on monetary policy. The…
Blog
The Great Italian Auto Bailout — Courtesy of U.S. Taxpayers
At the beginning of 2014, Detroit may be bankrupt, but they're cheering the five-year-old U.S. auto bailout in Italy. That's because after being the beneficiary…
Blog
Fast-Track Trade Authority Is in the Works
It sounds like fast-track authority for trade deals is getting some traction, according to an article today in the Financial Times. The FT says that…
Comment
Balance of Competences Review: Trade and Investment
In December, 2013, Iain Murray of the Competitive Enterprise Institute submitted evidence to the UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills in order to argue…
Blog
COOL Protectionism Still a Hot Issue
A protectionist meat labeling rule requires complicated labeling of beef, pork and poultry to indicate where the animals were born, raised, and slaughtered. Called country-of-origin…
Blog
Two More Strikes against the Export-Import Bank
Two common points made in defense of the Export-Import bank are its recent profitability and the number of jobs it supports. During the recent reauthorization debate,…
Blog
We Didn’t Regulate Credit Cards, We Regulated People
That was the upshot of a panel I spoke at yesterday in New York at the Atlas Liberty Forum. It looked at the impact of…
Blog
Wikileaks’ Latest — Draft IP Chapter in Major Trade Agreement
Wikileaks has made another big splash yesterday -- not about spying, but about a multinational trade agreement currently being negotiated. Wikileaks published a draft…
Forbes
China Builds World’s Largest Temple To Capitalist Materialism
Forget the Great Leap Forward. Forget the Cultural Revolution. Forget the Little Red Book, and the 100 million souls who perished transforming one of the…
Blog
Enflaming, Not Enlightening: George Monbiot on Investment Treaties
George Monbiot in The Guardian, in his usual hyperbolic and specious way, describes the proposed U.S.-EU trade agreement’s purpose as to attack national sovereignty…
News Release
Exit Plan For UK/EU Earns Finalist Spot in Competition
WASHINGTON, Oct. 31 – How might the United Kingdom best extract itself from the European Union? A plan focused on deregulation and put forward by…
Blog
The NSA: Upgrading from Privacy Destruction to Job Destruction
At a recent Cato Institute event on NSA spying activities, the ACLU’s Chris Soghoian stated that NSA activities were not only a threat to…
Blog
Selfishness Underlies the Shutdown, At Home and Abroad
Americans aren’t the only ones talking about government shutdown this week. Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi almost collapsed Italy’s government on Wednesday by threatening…
Forbes
Government Shutdown, Italian Style
Misery loves company, goes the old saying. And in the face of government shutdown, America is not entirely alone. Head to Italy and the average…
Forbes
Lessons from Italy: What happens when businesses are forced to move abroad
Co-written by Emilio Rocca THE 42 employees of Firem, an Italian heating systems maker, returned from their August holidays to find the plant where they…
National Review
Truly Global Free Trade
Co-written by research associate Alex McHugh As the U.S. and several Asian Pacific nations resume discussion this week over the the Trans-Pacific Partnership…
Blog
Before Net Neutrality Eats the World (Part 13): What FCC Should Do Now
(Note: On September 9, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will hear oral arguments in Verizon’s challenge of…
Fox News
The suspicious science behind ‘happiness’ surveys
Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs, perhaps the world’s leading “sustainability” guru, has a favorite country when talking about progress: the tiny mountain Kingdom of Bhutan. …
Fox News
Europe’s economy needs a real dose of pro-market reform
Recession has been eradicated in Europe. Hooray! Or at least, that’s what recent headlines and grandstanding from political leaders would have you believe. The…
Fox News
Happiness is overrated, says Competitive Enterprise Institute
Using happiness surveys for political purposes is flawed, according to a study from the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a libertarian thinktank CEI accuses happiness indices…
WorldMag
Signs and Wonders
Are you happy? One problem with surveys such as the one above is that they measure factors irrelevant to the outcome, and ignore factors vital…
WorldMag
Inside the Beltway: Regulating the Gun Relics
We’re touchy-feely on a global level. Several large scale “happiness” indexes have emerged in recent years from the United Nations and other sources, measuring the…
Blog
CEI Podcast for August 22, 2013: Germany Legalizes Bitcoin
Vice President for Strategy Iain Murray discusses Germany's decision to legalize Bitcoin, a controversial digital currency. With the euro's future up in the air, competing…
Blog
Germany Legalizes Bitcoin: Competing Currencies Are Here!
While Thailand may have banned Bitcoin, the electronic currency — although some are not so sure — the economic powerhouse of Germany has…
Conservative Way Forward
The Eurocrisis Started in Basel
The popular wisdom about the Euro crisis is that it was all the greedy bankers' fault. Yet, we live in a political world, not a…
Blog
Tracking the Cultural Exception, Part Five: There Is Another Way
In the final entry to my series, the question I want to address is more difficult to answer: Why haven’t more countries woken up to…
Blog
Let in More Foreign Doctors to Fix Looming Shortage of Physicians Aggravated by Obamacare
“Bring on the foreign doctors,” writes Slate’s Brian Palmer: If President Obama’s health care reform plan is implemented in its current form, the United…
Comment
Balance of Competences Review: Trade and Investment
Full Document Available in PDF Iain Murray is a British citizen who is Vice President at CEI and heads the…
Blog
Europe’s Continued Stagnation Is Not Surprising, Given Lack of Reform
The Guardian reports that Italy’s record-long economic slump has continued for another quarter. This isn’t much of a surprise given Prime Minister Enrico Letta’s…
Blog
The Misleading Push for the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
Last year, the Senate did not ratify the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, with supporters falling just short of the two-thirds…
Blog
Tracking the Cultural Exception, Part Four: A Double-Edged Sword
Americans generally think of subsidies to audiovisual industries like film and television as a foreign phenomenon. Yet that is hardly the case. In fact, one…
Blog
New USTR Discusses Trade Agenda, How U.S. and EU Can Address Divergent Regulatory Regimes
At a forum this morning hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the new U.S. Trade Representative, Michael Froman, discussed the next steps…
Blog
Tracking the Cultural Exception, Part Three: For Your Grandad’s Audiovisual Industry
Protectionist audiovisual policies are not only inefficient, they’re outdated. Protectionist policies don’t translate into profits because they are built for an audio-visual industry that…
Blog
The HuffPo’s Sloppy Austerity Analysis
Mark Gongloff, a writer for the Huffington Post, claims to show “The Complete Failure of Austerity, In 1 Chart.” Wow! Either he has found…
Blog
Are Markets Rational When It Comes to Economic Fundamentals?
We hear frequently that financial markets thrive on irrational fears. That they are wrong to be wary of unreformed economies and that central banks are…
Daily Caller
A culture of freedom: the first casualty of the U.S.-EU trade deal
Co-written by Research Associate Alex McHugh The proposed trade agreement between the United States and the European Union, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment…
Blog
Gallup: Record Opposition to Closed Borders
A record number of Americans favor allowing more foreigners to enter and live in the United States each year. Nearly a quarter of Americans (23…
Letters
Letter to the U.S. House of Representatives on HR 2642, The FARRM Act
Dear Representative, The House is slated to vote on H.R. 2642, the Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act (FARRM Act). This bloated…
News Release
House Votes to Permanently Extend Taxpayer Fleecing in Farm Bill
Washington, D.C., July 11, 2013 – Today, the House of Representatives approved the 2013 Farm Bill on a mostly partisan vote of 216-208. No Democrats…
Blog
European Court Invalidates “Whole-Life” Sentences: Fuzzy International Norms Erode Sovereignty, Freedoms, and Safety
It's common to see supporters of U.S. ratification of international treaties claim that they will not radically uproot existing U.S. practices or freedoms, because their…
Blog
Austerity Means Cuts, Not More Spending
Despite its frequent use through the media and in political debate, few journalists and politicians actually use the term “austerity” correctly. But Cypriot Finance Minister…
Daily Caller
Beware the Myth of European Austerity
Beware the Myth of European Austerity “France’s Austerity Drive Pushes Country into Recession.” “How Austerity Has Failed.” Thus proclaim two recent, typical…
Daily Caller
Europe’s lessons on austerity success
With the U.S. national debt about to pass the $17 trillion mark – more than America’s total economic activity in 2012 – and federal interest…
Blog
Tracking the Cultural Exception, Part Two: Exempt from Success
Arguments for cultural exemptions in free trade agreements seem simple -- allow for continued protection for domestic movie/entertainment industries to bolster their viability. But do…
Blog
CEI Podcast for July 2, 2013: The True Story of European Austerity
A new study by Warren Brookes Fellow Matthew Melchiorre finds that only 4 European countries out of 27 have actually cut taxes and spending.
Blog
New Study Dispels Myths of European Austerity
Cries throughout the media of “savage austerity” notwithstanding, only a handful of European countries have actually implemented austerity in the true sense of the term:…
Daily Caller
Who Made Government Big? We Did
After U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke announced recently that the Fed would reduce its asset purchases through mid-2014, financial industry players and the journalists…
Blog
French Cheese Ban: An Attack on “Scientific Principles” in Violation of Treaties Protecting International Trade?
Earlier, we wrote about the U.S. government's de facto ban on the commonplace, perfectly healthy, normal-smelling French cheese mimolette (which I once confused with…
Cato
Banning Fancy French Cheese
I’m no cheese connoisseur. . .But I understand that some people have more refined tastes, and they feel very strongly about the issue. And they…
News Release
European Austerity That Isn’t – What’s Worked, What Hasn’t
Washington, D.C., June 28, 2013 – Most European countries have cut neither spending nor taxes. But European governments that have cut both spending and taxes…
Cato
In Europe Cutting Taxes and Spending Leads to the Best Results
Matthew Melchiorre, the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Warren Brookes Journalism Fellow, has written a report on so-called austerity in Europe showing that many…
Blog
Border Security Doesn’t Require “Invading” the Border
When President Bush left office in January 2009, there were about 30,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. If the Senate immigration bill (S. 744) passes, this…
Study
The True Story of European Austerity
European governments that have cut spending and taxes have higher rates of economic growth than their neighbors. Then why do we hear lamentations from the…
Blog
Tracking the Cultural Exception, Part One: How Does One Exempt a Culture?
On June 14, the European Union’s Council of Foreign Affairs adopted a mandate for negotiation on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). It…
Blog
E-Verify: A Boon for Lawyers, Bad for Employers
I have written extensively about the threats to Americans’ civil liberties from E-Verify, the employment verification system contained within the Senate’s comprehensive immigration reform (CIR)…
Blog
E-Verify National ID System Threatens Americans’ Privacy
“I’m not a criminal, so there’s really no reason for me to be in a criminal database.” That was James Shepherd, a Kentucky native…
Blog
France Wants Culture Out of U.S.-EU Trade Agreement
A New York Times article yesterday points out some of the potential difficulties already evident in early talks on a trade agreement between the…
Blog
Obama Should Learn from Germany about Cape Wind
I have an op-ed online in USA Today today entitled “America should learn from Europe on wind power.” In it, I outline how Europe…
Blog
France’s Taxing Culture
France has long feared foreign competition as a threat to its domestic producers. The nation has some of the most punitive taxes and labor regulations…
Blog
France Needs a “Power-Up” When It Comes to Labor Reform
In its annual country report released on Monday, the IMF turned up the heat on France for labor reform. The Washington-based lender called for…
Blog
U.S.-EU Trade Talks — The Precautionary Principle Rears its Ugly Head
Even before substantive negotiations have begun, a major problem has surfaced in talks on a U.S.-EU trade agreement. Last month, the European Parliament passed…
Blog
Graph: More Visas, Less Illegal Immigration
The graph below comes from University of Pennsylvania economist Douglas Massey. It depicts the three ways Mexican migrants have come to the United States–guest…
Blog
Senate Bill: Better for Legal Immigration
Free market immigration advocates recognize that freeing up America’s legal immigration system creates economic benefits for Americans while simultaneously expanding their rights of…
Blog
European Skepticism of Minimum Wage Falls on Deaf Ears in America
Spain’s central bank—operating within the European country with the highest rate of unemployment—just recommended to the government in Madrid a suspension of the minimum…
Blog
Senate Bill Won’t Stop Illegal Immigration Without More Work Visas
When the Senate “Gang of 8” released their immigration reform principles earlier this year, they made an important admission: that drastic restrictions on low-skilled…
Blog
Canada Not Happy with New Country of Origin Labeling Rules
Protectionism through non-tariff trade barriers is alive and well in the trade arena, even with the U.S.’s largest trading partner, Canada. New U.S. Department…
Blog
Entrepreneurship Visas in Senate Immigration Bill Are Critical
This week, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved the Gang of 8 immigration bill. One provision of this bill will be welcome news to potential…
Blog
Anti-Business and Anti-Freedom: The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
In the American Spectator, CEI Vice President for Strategy Iain Murray and Geoffrey McLatchey explain why the Senate should be skeptical of the United Nations Convention…
Blog
Does Austerity Really “Kill”?
Does austerity kill? In a recent New York Times op-ed, David Stuckler and Sanjay Basu claim that fiscal austerity leads to a worsening of health…
Blog
Five Reasons Immigration Creates Economic Benefits
First, if each new immigrant lowers living standards, new people also lower living standards. But without new people, America’s economy would lack the workers it…
The American Spectator
Disabling American Sovereignty
Coauthored with Geoffrey McClatchey. The United States Senate will likely soon consider ratification the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD),…
News Release
Another Sweet Deal for “Big Sugar” in Senate Vote
WASHINGTON, D.C., May 22, 2013 — In a loss for consumers and taxpayers, Congress once again voted to continue the outdated, wasteful sugar program. The…
Blog
What Happened to U.S. Wages During Mass Immigration?
America’s immigration debate often focuses on how immigrants affect the welfare state, even though many immigration restrictionists would oppose immigration even if we did…
Blog
Regulation of the Day 231: Serving Olive Oil
Starting January 1, 2014, any olive oil served at EU restaurants “must be in pre-packaged, factory bottles with a tamper-proof dispensing nozzle and labelling in…
Letters
Coalition Letter on the “Terrible Twelve” of Farm Policy
Full Document Available in PDF Washington’s Farm Policy is a nearly trillion dollar tangle of agriculture subsidies, welfare payments and environmental patronage.
Blog
Sorry, Daily Beast: E-Verify Will Be National ID
Daily Beast blogger Justin Green, who blogs on columnist David Frum’s Daily Beast blog, has responded to Wired’s recent article “Biometric Database of All…
Blog
Milton Friedman, Immigration, and Birth Control
Milton Friedman, perhaps the most important free market economist and libertarian activist of the 20th century, is also the favorite of immigration restrictionists for comments he…
Blog
Coalition Urges Reform of Sugar Program
The Hill picked up our coalition’s release on reforming the U.S. sugar program. The letter, sent to all Senate and House offices, was…
Comment
Comments on Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership
Full Document Available in PDF In what would be the largest trade pact ever, the United States and the European Union early…
Blog
Heritage Immigration Report Implies 70% of Americans “Increase Poverty”
The Heritage Foundation’s new report on the fiscal costs of legalization for unauthorized immigrants concluded that it will cost taxpayers $6.3 trillion. Yesterday, I…
News Release
CEI Files Comments on Transatlantic Trade Agreement
WASHINGTON, D.C., May 10, 2013—The Competitive Enterprise Institute filed comments today on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. The United States and European…
Blog
Seven Ways Heritage Concluded Immigration Reform Will Cost $6.3 Trillion
The Heritage Foundation’s report this week that suggests legalization for unauthorized immigrants will result in a $6.3 billion fiscal deficit is an important conversation…
Blog
CEI Podcast for May 8, 2013: The Debate over Undocumented Immigration
CEI Immigration Policy Analyst David Bier is critical of a new Heritage Foundation study that estimates that giving legal status to America's undocumented immigrants would…
Blog
Europe’s “Green Energy” Initiatives Don’t Want Your Help
As European renewable energy initiatives seek to radically reform their means of energy production, it would make sense that it be done in the most…
Blog
John Locke’s Response to Heritage: Don’t Blame Immigrants for Fiscal Problems
Washington's largest conservative think tank, The Heritage Foundation, has released a study that suggests legalization for illegal immigrants will cost taxpayers trillions of dollars over the next…
Blog
Conservatives Must Reject the “Poor Are Parasites” Narrative
When Mitt Romney made his comments about the 47 percent of Americans who don’t pay taxes and were supposedly “dependent on government,” many conservatives rightly…
Blog
The Doctor Is In, America: Get With the Estonian Program
Don’t let the optimism surrounding last month’s job numbers fool you. The unemployment rate’s decline from 7.6 percent in March to 7.5 percent in…
