CEI believes that free and open trade is a cornerstone of economic freedom, international development, and peaceful cooperation between nations. It enhances consumer freedom and choice, allows nations to take advantage of their comparative advantages, and reduces potentially dangerous national rivalries. Free trade is responsible for lifting billions of people out of poverty over the past half century and has encouraged life-saving and -enhancing innovation over that time.

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.

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Op-Eds

A Windfall of Bad Ideas

In the third-quarter of 2005, the major U.S. oil companies—ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, BP America, and Shell Oil Company—collectively earned almost $26 billion in profits, an…

Antitrust

Op-Eds

UNESCO to U.S.: Drop Dead!

Last Thursday, the United States was sucker-punched by an international organization. A majority of countries belonging to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and…

Antitrust

Op-Eds

All Cost, No Benefit

Tomorrow, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing on Sen. Jeff Bingaman's (D-N.M.) Climate and Economy Insurance Act. Originally…

Antitrust

Newsletter

Cooler Heads

Politics   Kyoto Goes into Force On February 16, 2005, the Kyoto Protocol came into force internationally.  Thirty-four nations are now committed to reducing…

Climate

Op-Eds

Six Tsunamis

<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” />  Imagine that every year the world suffered from six or more tsunamis producing…

Health and Safety

Newsletter

Cooler Heads

 Politics COP-10 Opens in Buenos Aires with Attacks on US Intransigence As the tenth Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention…

Climate

Op-Eds

Down in the Dumps

When most people hear the words “illegal dumping,” they probably think of someone using somebody else's trash dumpster without permission.  However, in the…

Free Speech

Newsletter

Vol. VIII, No 7

Politics Connecticut Bill Aims at Slowing State Economy   The Connecticut state legislature is currently considering SB.595, which aims to reduce the…

Climate

Op-Eds

Culture Wars

<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> When Americans hear the word “outsourcing,” they typically imagine the movement of <?xml:namespace prefix =…

Free Speech

Op-Eds

Protecting our Exports

Auto parts, precious metals, lumber—Canadians have found many ways to export their way to success in the global economy.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns…

Free Speech

Staff & Scholars

Iain Murray

Vice President for Strategy and Senior Fellow

  • Banking and Finance
  • Trade and International

Ryan Young

Senior Economist

  • Antitrust
  • Business and Government
  • Regulatory Reform

Kent Lassman

President and CEO

  • Capitalism
  • Deregulation
  • Innovation