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
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…
Newsweek
US Industrial Output To Be Worst Hit Globally by Trump Tariffs
Newsweek cited CEI’s expert on tariffs Ryan Young, senior economist at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, previously told Newsweek: “Tariff-related shipping slowdowns will cause a regional cascade…
News Release
Economy shrinks following Trump tariffs: CEI analysis
America’s GDP shrank during the first quarter of 2025 following President Trump’s spate of trade tariffs imposed on various countries in his first 100…
Search Posts
News Release
Trade Liberalization Again Threatened by Agricultural Special Interests
<?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />Washington, D.C., October 20, 2005— The world's best hope for eliminating poverty – the continued liberalization…
Newsletter
The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
Issues in the News 1. TRADE The United Nation’s cultural agency is expected to approve a treaty authorizing countries to…
News Release
New Study Provides Outline for Telecom Reform
<?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />Washington, D.C., October 18, 2005—The rules that govern the telecommunications industry in the United States have…
Op-Eds
Politics Kills the Thriller
The Constant Gardener, Focus Features' new thriller, plays like the grim, dour counterpart to this year's earlier globetrotting adventure film,…
Op-Eds
REACH and Risk
One of the key reasons the European Union’s proposed constitution was rejected by French and Dutch voters is that they dislike having their lives…
Newsletter
The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
Issues in the News 1. TRADE The U.S. House of Representatives approves the Central American Free Trade Agreement. CEI Expert…
News Release
Moment of Truth Approaches for Free Trade
Contact for Interviews: Richard Morrison, 202.331.2273<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> …
Op-Eds
CAFTA, beneficios y despropósitos (Spanish), by Frances B. Smith
Washington (AIPE)- El Senado de Estados Unidos aprobó el acuerdo de libre comercio con Centroamérica y República Dominicana (CAFTA) el 30 de junio y…
Op-Eds
Unraveling CAFTA: Lobbyists vs. free trade, by Frances Smith
<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> The Bush administration is taking a risky tack to garner House support for…
Newsletter
The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
Issues in the News 1. TRADE Washington Post columnist Sebastian Mallaby makes the case for passage of the Central American Free…
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…
Newsletter
The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
Issues in the News 1. CIVIL LIBERTIES Members of Congress move to restrict some of the most controversial elements…
Op-Eds
One-on-One with Barun Mitra
Full interview available in pdf format<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” E: You were recent awarded the Julian L. Simon Award by…
Newsletter
The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
Issues in the News 1. INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT The G8 nations propose a new aid package for Africa. CEI Expert Available…
Op-Eds
Chirac vs. the Anglosphere: At the G8 Summit, Chirac will again beat a dead horse, by Iain Murray
When French voters rejected the draft European Union constitution drawn up by former French president Valery Giscard d'Estaing, his successor Jacques Chirac reverted…
Op-Eds
The UN at 60, by Henry Miller and Gregory Conko
The United Nations, now celebrating the sixtieth anniversary of the signing of its charter, is not aging well. Its officials are being accused…
Newsletter
The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
Issues in the News 1. INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT Politicians and economic experts from around the world gather in Scotland this week for…
Newsletter
The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
Issues in the News 1. TECHNOLOGY The recording industry launches another round of lawsuits against users of peer-to-peer file…
Op-Eds
Spice Up G8 with No Regrets, by Iain Murray
The suggestion that the Spice Girls are about to re-form may not seem like major international development news, but the upcoming Live 8…
Op-Eds
Rock Stars’ Activism Could Be Put to Better Use, by Steven J. Milloy
Bob Geldof’s Live 8 (search) concerts scheduled for July 2 will spotlight the problem of global poverty ahead of the July 6-8 G8 summit…
Newsletter
The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
Issues in the News 1. HEALTH & SAFETY Food and Drug Administration officials are urging drug safety reviewers to…
Newsletter
The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
Issues in the News 1. GLOBAL WARMING Former Vice President Al Gore is urging an assembly of mayors to…
Newsletter
The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
1. AUTOMOBILITY Many states are attempting to encourage ownership of hybrid powered vehicles by allowing owners driving alone to use carpool commuter…
Newsletter
The Competitive Enterprise Institute Daily Update
Issues in the News 1. SPAM E-MAIL Spam “zombies”—computers that are hijacked to send out a spammer’s unwanted email messages—get…
News Release
PhRMA President Billy Tauzin To Keynote CEI Annual Dinner
Washington, D.C., May 9, 2005—In his first address to a non-healthcare industry audience since taking the top drug industry post in January, Pharmaceutical Research and…
Products
One, Two, Many Broken Windows
Full Document Available in PDF Albert Einstein is often attributed with defining…
CEI Planet
April Issue of CEI’s Monthly Planet
Full Document Available in PDF Environmentalism, RIP? Not So Fast, by Angela…
Op-Eds
California’s Extreme Makeover
If <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />California truly is the bellwether for the rest of the country, get ready for more…
Op-Eds
The Mercantilist Fallacy
The Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) is in trouble. It is so because Congress and the public have forgotten that imports are a…
Products
COP 10: The Green Litigation Tango
Full Document Available in PDF The greens are coming—they’re lawyered up…
Products
COP-10: Green Gimmicks, Lawsuits, and “Climate Witnesses”
Full Document Available in PDF The 10th Conference of the Parties…
Products
Improving Capitalism: The Respective Roles of Business and Government
Full Document Available in PDF This is an excerpt…
Products
The Drug Reimportation Controversy
As policy battles go, the drug reimportation debate is an unusual one. On its face, the federal ban on reimporting pharmaceuticals appears to violate the…
Op-Eds
Law of the Sea Treaty Debated
David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey are correct that most reasons prompting President Reagan to reject the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST)…
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…
Op-Eds
Global Tax; or Global Tax Reform?
Am I the only one who noticed that the Kyoto Protocol (imposing artificial constraints on energy use to regulate atmospheric carbon dioxide to…
Op-Eds
Travesties of Regulation: Harmful U.N. policies.
Former Federal Reserve Board chairman Paul Volcker, who heads the inquiry into corruption in the United Nations' defunct oil-for-food program, has just issued…
Op-Eds
One, Two, Many Broken Windows
<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> Albert Einstein is often attributed with defining insanity as doing the same over…
Op-Eds
Ideology vs. Health
<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> You are correct about the heartbreaking disgrace of the purge of DDT…
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…
Study
The Environmental Source
NOTE: A new edition of The Environmental Source has been published. The new version of this essential reference book on environmental policy is available in…
News Release
Disrupting Unscientific Chemical Speculation
Contact for Interviews: <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> Richard Morrison, 202.331.2273 …
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…
News Release
Time to End “Mad Cow” Madness
Washington, D.C., December 1, 2004—The Competitive Enterprise Institute joins President Bush in calling for an end to the unnecessary and harmful ban on importation of…
Op-Eds
A Green Push to Keep Projects Safe for Vermin
The next time you see rats roaming around public housing units in New York City, think of Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. He and a handful…
CEI Planet
CEI Planet: September 2004
Full Document Available in PDF Tech Regulation Done Right, by Braden Cox…
Study
Ratification without Representation?
Full Document Available in PDF In 2001, the Bush Administration signed the United Nations Environment…
Op-Eds
Ratification Without Representation: Making a Joke out of the Constitution
“Why don't we just give them ours?” Jay Leno asked last summer as the Bush administration was helping <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns =…
Op-Eds
For Unions, Protecting Jobs Means Protectionism
On June 7, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Mexican trucks can enter the U.S. without a government agency review of their impact on…
Products
CEI Planet: July 2004
Full Document Available in PDF “Who’s Afraid of RFID?” by Jim Harper…
