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
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Are Trump’s drone tariffs flying blind?
President Trump’s new Section 232 tariffs on drones and drone components are being justified as responses to national security vulnerabilities. In its…
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One lesson protectionists forgot: Trade interventions backfire
It’s not just tariffs that backfire in trade policy. The government has a long history of similar failures. Between 1934 and 1941, the Treasury…
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Section 338-tariff uncertainty highlights the knowledge problem
Last month, the Trump administration invoked Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 to impose new 50 percent tariffs against Canada. A…
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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.
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“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…
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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…
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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…
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“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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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“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…
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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,…
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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…
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¿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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
