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
AGOA renewal should hold South Africa accountable
Free traders scored a victory in Congress this week when the House Ways and Means Committee passed the AGOA Extension Act. The legislation, sponsored…
The Washington Examiner
Coconut, citrus, and tea: Here’s what got tariff relief quietly over the weekend
The Washington Examiner cited CEI’s expert on tariffs Ryan Young, a senior economist at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said the list of tariff rollbacks is…
The National News Desk
Rollbacks on tariffs for food could bring shoppers some relief on prices
The National News Desk cited CEI’S expert on tariffs raising prices “The positive experience that consumers will see with price reductions on their food…
Search Posts
Op-Eds
What About Trade
RE: “Obama and Medvedev pledge to scale back nuclear arsenals" (Page A1, July 7). It has been almost 20 years since the end…
Blog
Church Leaders, Senators Oppose Forcing Honduras to Reinstate Ousted President and Would-Be Dictator
Honduran church leaders, and 17 U.S. Senators, are now opposing outside pressure on Honduras to reinstate the corrupt president that it ousted…
Blog
Forza Italia!
Italy’s Senate has overturned a 1987 ban on nuclear power, passed in panic after Chernobyl. This is good news for Italians, as they face…
Blog
CEI Weekly: Firsthand At the Tea Party
CEI Weekly is a compilation of articles and blog posts from CEI's fellows and associates sent out via e-mail every Friday. Also included in the…
Blog
Leading trade lawyer: real problems with carbon tariffs
Leading trade lawyer Gary Horlick testified yesterday on carbon tariffs before the Senate Finance Committee. As the Senate prepares an energy suppression/global warming bill,…
Blog
Obama Nominee: Corrupt Foreign Rulers Have Right to Remain in Office Until They Receive “Judicial Process”
Arturo Valenzuela, Obama’s nominee to be Assistant Secretary of State, falsely claims it was an illegal “coup” for Honduras to remove its corrupt would-be…
Blog
Igniting Agricultural Innovation
"Biotechnology applied to agriculture has enormous potential to enhance our ability to develop seeds for improved crops and for enhanced livestock to enable us to…
Blog
Antitrust Irony
Microsoft is having a tense antitrust discussion with the EU. Meanwhile, Google is readying an operating system to directly compete with Windows. Compare and contrast.
Blog
Blight Hits East Coast, Capitalism Saves the Day
There are many reasons for free-market advocates to be unhappy about current affairs. With numerous pieces of legislation being proposed to put shackles on our…
Blog
Obama: “Universal Principle” Gives Presidents the Right to Keep Ruling Even If They Violate the Law
Honduras removed its would-be dictator, President Mel Zelaya, for violating his country’s constitution by seeking to extend his term in office, and replaced him with…
Blog
Killing Bill
In today’s Washington Examiner, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ran an ad where its President and CEO Thomas J. Donohue warns that the Waxman-Markey climate…
Blog
Regulation of the Day: The Price of Shrimp
The ITA has been upset for some time that a Thai shrimp exporter is selling shrimp cheaply; hungry consumers have had no complaints.
Blog
Will Obama Blackmail Honduras Into Installing Would-Be Dictator?
Obama is quite wrong to claim that the removal of Zelaya was "illegal." The Honduran president forfeited his right to rule under the Honduran Constitution.
Blog
“Obama stands with tyrants,” “Sides with Chavez, Castro against Honduran Democracy,” Newspapers Say
“Obama stands with tyrants,” writes the Washington Times. “When thousands of Iranians flooded the streets of Tehran protesting a rigged election and were…
Blog
Alexis Arguello, RIP
Three-time champion and Boxing Hall of Famer Alexis Arguello was found dead of a gunshot would this morning, at his home in Managua, Nicaragua, of…
Blog
Obama Backs Dictatorship in Honduras
Honduras removed its bullying, autocratic President after he began behaving as a dictator, and its Congress replaced him with a less power-hungry member of…
Blog
“Saving the world?”
So many people declare that they want to “save the world!” A candidate for Miss Universe declared that to be the main purpose of her…
Blog
Obama Blunders in Honduras and Afghanistan
The U.S. is meddling in Honduras to prop up an anti-American ruler backed by Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. After Honduran president Manuel Zelaya attempted…
Blog
Companies to China: Don’t profit-block us bro
An article in this morning’s wall street journal commends a coalition of business associations and councils that sent a letter to China’s Premier…
Blog
WTO-UNEP report gives the nod — sort of — to carbon border taxes
Today, the World Trade Organization, together with the UN Environment Programme posted a report on trade and climate change that outlines…
Blog
“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…
Blog
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…
Blog
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…
Blog
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…
Blog
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…
Blog
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…
Blog
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…
Blog
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…
Blog
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…
Blog
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 –…
Blog
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…
Blog
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…
Blog
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…
Blog
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,…
Blog
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…
Blog
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…
Blog
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…
Blog
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…
Blog
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…
Blog
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…
Blog
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…
Blog
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…
Blog
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…
Blog
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…
Blog
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:…
