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…
Search Posts
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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…
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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.”…
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One Down, Six to Go!
Oh the Worries of Our Modern Malthusians! In Washington this week, the Anarctica and Arctic Councils met for…
Newsletter
Green Tariffs, Foreign Aid and The End of Environmentalism
India warns the U.S. and EU not to enact “green” tariffs on products that create carbon dioxide emissions. President Obama’s foreign aid policy receives criticism…
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India calls carbon tariffs protectionist
At the Bonn, Germany, UN meetings on global warming issues, India urged rich countries not to use “green” protectionism by imposing carbon tariffs on…
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The Growing Chorus against Foreign Aid
In today’s Wall Street Journal, Mary Anastasia O’Grady takes on the Obama administration’s approach to foreign aid, which, she argues, amounts merely to maintaining…
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That G20 Communique
Yesterday’s communiqué from the leaders of the G20 – a motley collection of democracies and dictatorships – has some good points, but in general…
Newsletter
G20 Stimulus, A Plan for Carbon Dioxide and Mark-to-Market Reforms
World leaders pledge to spend an additional $1 trillion to stimulate the global economy. Global warming activists call for policies to lower the concentration of…
Newsletter
Cancer Drugs, Voting Rights and Cap and Trade Controversy
Author Virginia Postrel details her successful battle against breast cancer. The Justice Department re-considers whether the proposed D.C. voting rights bill is constitutional. States with…
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Obama Follows in Hoover’s Footsteps
During the Great Depression, Herbert Hoover damaged the economy, and impoverished the American people, with costly, artificial attempts to stimulate the economy through…
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Energy bill — “first shot” in carbon trade war?
In the wake of the release of the Waxman-Markey energy bill, many commenters have pointed to the drastic restrictions on domestic energy use to…
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“Robbery of the American People”
“Nobel Prize-winning liberal economist Joseph Stiglitz points out that the Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s plan to have the government subsidize investments in ‘toxic assets’ creates…
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Capitalist-David rally versus Goliath-protests for Socialism
During the G20 summit something like 40,000 plus protesters slated to descend upon London. Of that number, there is a small but growing and…
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Cap-and-trade and carbon tariffs — the economic downside
Today the lead editorial in the Wall Street Journal takes a hard look at some of the negative economic consequences of touted cap-and-trade programs…
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Torture Caused Bogus Orange Alerts
Many of those bogus orange alerts that inconvenienced and alarmed travelers since 9/11 had an unsavory source: torture. The Bush Administration, with the tacit…
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Policymakers’ letter asks tough questions re carbon tariffs
Yesterday Ranking Members of both two House committees and two subcommittees wrote to the new U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and asked him to…
Newsletter
A Reverse Tea Party, Geithner’s Insurance Plan and Trade War with Mexico
Environmental activists pour bottled water into Boston Harbor to protest “water privatization.” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner proposes a vast expansion of federal regulation of financial…
Op-Eds
Obama’s China Syndrome
It is looking less and less likely that President Obama will be able to institute his vaunted cap-and-trade scheme for greenhouse gas…
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Can he terminate protectionism?
It seemed like California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger didn’t have guts, despite his super-macho screen image. Yesterday, however, he wrote to members of the California…
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Losing talent in these perilous times
We’re beginning to see the talent exodus from TARP-funded financial institutions. Yesterday in an op-ed Jake DeSantis of AIG-Financial Products wrote his “resignation letter”…
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Obama’s Policies Are “A Road to Hell,” European Leader Says
“The president of the European Union on Wednesday slammed U.S. plans to spend its way out of recession as ‘a road to hell.’…
Newsletter
Carbon Tariffs, Union Organizing and Geithner’s Toxic Plan
The House Ways and Means Committee holds a hearing on the impact of global warming on international trade. Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) announces that he…
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Obama for global financial governance?
With the G-20 meeting looming in the midst of a worldwide recession, President Barack Obama sent an essay published today in about 30 newspapers…
News Release
Global Warming Laws Could Sabotage Free Trade
Today members of the House Ways and Means Committee gathered for a hearing on how future legislation on global warming could end up affecting…
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Human Achievement Hour
This week CEI announced the creation of Human Achievement Hour (HAH) to be celebrated at 8:30pm on March 28th 2009 (the same time and…
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Alarmists turn blind eye to global warming benefits–again
Tomorrow, the House Foreign Affairs Committee will hold a hearing on the national security threats from melting Arctic ice. Greenwire (subscription required), the Online environmental news…
Citation
Herbert Obama: Obama’s protectionism and tax increases compared to Herbert Hoover’s
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Will talent flee to the City?
A different take on possible effects of lawmakers’ rabble-rousing on TARP bonuses. Jeffrey Goldfarb at breakingviews.com says that driving out talented financial…
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NYT soft-balls trade protectionism
A New York Times editorial today urges the Obama Administration to take a stronger role in supporting open trade, more specifically, to reinstate the…
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A Global Green New Deal – What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Showing that he believes Al Gore’s typical misunderstanding that the Chinese word for crisis is made up of the characters for threat and opportunity (…
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Show Your Work!
Fiona Harvey of the FT is one of the better journalists covering the environmental beat, but I’m afraid that is a bit like saying that…
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Ron Kirk confirmed as USTR — vowed trade “enforcement”
The U.S. has a new U.S. Trade Representative — former Dallas mayor Ron Kirk. Kirk was confirmed by the Senate today in a 92-5…
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Tit-for-tat: Tariffs and trucks
It’s no empty threat — Mexico will be slapping high tariffs on almost one hundred U.S. products beginning tomorrow, according to its economy minister. …
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More on carbon tariffs
For more on the insanity of carbon tariffs, there’s an excellent 2008 article by the National Post’s Terence Corcoran appropriately titled “Blowing up the…
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Carbon tariffs quid pro quo?
Just as the World Bank put out a report on increased trade protectionism in the world, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu…
Newsletter
Beach House Bailout, Voting Rights and Trade War with Mexico
Congress to likely consider a controversial plan for taxpayers to subsidize disaster insurance in risk-prone states. Attorney General Eric Holder keeps quiet about the recent…
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Mexico wants to keep on trucking
Mexico said it would impose tariffs on about 90 U.S. exports in retaliation for a recent bill that violates the North America Free Trade…
Op-Eds
Silvia’s Ecuador Trip Diary: Entry Two
The conference began with remarks from Gustavo Pinto, president of the Geologists Association, who commented on the need to develop mining in mineral-rich Ecuador,…
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Trade and special interests
A National Review Online editorial today takes President Obama to task for catering to Democratic special interests opposed to free trade. The…
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Obama Insults America’s Allies, Endangers Economy
Not content with endangering the economy by pushing through $8 trillion in bailouts and welfare, Obama has now insulted the…
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Remaining ‘Swiss’ No Longer An Option
In a running theme, I again cover the topic of the U.S. government’s heavy-handed dealings with swiss…
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Obama Administration’s trade agenda released
According to President Obama’s 2009 Trade Policy Agenda, trade policy in his Administration will be used to promote “social accountability” and make…
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Dambisa Moyo: Zambian Author Takes on Foreign Aid
The celebrity parade calling for more foreign aid to poor countries has become so ubiquitous — and accepted — these days that critiques of it…
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More on Environmental Policies and Protectionism
Marlo made three interesting arguments yesterday contending that cap-and-trade would generate protectionist outcomes. I want to add another, pervasive, yet oft-neglected reason.
Blog
Is cap-and-trade inherently protectionist?
Yes, for three reasons. (1) Companies in carbon-constrained countries will demand carbon tariffs to “level the playing field” vis-a-vis firms in non-carbon constrained countries. (2)…
