Category Archives: Sanctions and Embargos

Chinese Electric Vehicles – An emerging threat? This is an article of mine published by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute (https://macdonaldlaurier.ca) about trade actions by Western governments to combat the influx of subsidized Chinese vehicles.

A trade war over Chinese electric vehicles looms large

Historic Shifts in Global Trade

Friend-Shoring & the Twilight of Multilateralism

Sanctions – Embedded in the Structure of Global Trade

The Ukraine war has resulted in a huge array of Western sanctions, extraordinarily coordinated, that will be a lasting element in the global trading order. This opinion piece in the Globe in May 2022 explains their impact and the political difficulties of winding these down, even if and when this war ends. Russian Sanctions Will… Read More »

Sanctions in International Trade

This is my comment in the 27 September 2021 Globe & Mail (Toronto) about the growing use of unilateral trade & economic sanctions, a major feature of global commerce in the 21st centuty. Sanction & Embargoes Are Here to Stay

Sanctions & Embargoes Update

Memo-Sanctions Update 2020

Dealing with Dictators

Canada doesn’t need a US-style Magnitsky Act to deal with putative dictators like Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela, Vladimir Putin of Russia, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe or others. We could easily deal with Maduro or any situation involving the trampling of basic human rights and democratic principles with a few tweaks to the Special Economic Measures… Read More »

Export Controls & Economic Sanctions – 2016

Together with the 2016 Trade Remedies Primer, we’ve prepared a basic outline of Canada’s Export Controls and Economic Sanctions, to explain in clear and, hopefully, in non-legalistic terms how the system works. Like the trade remedies companion piece, it’s boiled down to the main ingredients. To get the primer, just click on the link below.… Read More »

Keeping Up With Sanctions – a Challenge

The Problem In concert with its western allies, Canada has instituted a series of trade and economic sanctions against Iran, Syria, Russia, plus about twenty other countries and failed states. These can be tricky seas to navigate for Canadians, doubly treacherous because of the criminal penalties involved when sanctions are transgressed. The challenges are compounded… Read More »

Sanctions Against Iran – A Short Update

The July 2015 agreement between Iran and the so-called P5+1 group (the 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) is a complex deal that provides that once Iran ends its nuclear-weapons program, western sanctions against that country- though not all – will be lifted. Clients have asked about the effect of this… Read More »

Russian Trade Roulette

The current cavalcade of sanctions and counter-sanctions in the Russian-Ukraine crisis ultimately involves issues of trade rules under the WTO Agreement. I commented on this in an op-ed piece in the Globe and Mail today (August 8, 2014), my view being that, contrary to the Russian threat, it’s Russian trade retaliation against the West, including… Read More »