Category Archives: Trade Policy
Future of the World Trade Organization
Some thoughts of mine in a commentary published by the Financial Post on May 19, 2020, suggesting a new post-pandemic agenda for the WTO, giving it a new item to tackle and helping to get it out of its current political torpor, made more difficult by the Trump administration’s attacks on the Organization. https://bit.ly/2Zlhg9h
CUSMA – One Last Hurdle Remains
This was a commentary published in the Report on Business (Globe and Mail) on 8 April 2020. In the piece, I wonder why the Trump administration hasn’t provided the official notice needed to get the CUSMA into effect. I suspect much of it is related to the auto rules of orgin, something Mexico has also… Read More »
COVID-19 Crisis & Trump’s Export Controls
Submission to House of Commons Trade Committee
This is a copy of my submission to the Canadian House of Commons Trade Committee in advance of my testimony on February 20. 2020. I say that the task before the Committee in to bring Canadian laws into line with CUSMA. It is an implementing bill, not a treaty re-negotiating exercise. If the Bill and… Read More »
New US China Trade Deal-Betrayal of WTO Rules?
This is a commentary in the Report on Business on the recently-announced US-China trade deal, a short-term arrangement that, in my view, is contrary to the non-discrimination (MFN) rules in the WTO Agreement. It’s a purely two-way deal that favours US businesses to the prejudice of other WTO members. US China Trade Deal Comment 23 January… Read More »
Sanctions & Embargoes Update
Assessing Trade-Related Risks
This article appeared as an op-ed commentary in the Toronto Globe & Mail Report on Business, 26 November 2019. It notes the shattering of the established global trade order and recommends more attention to corporate reporting of trade-related risks in light of these developments. Climate-change risks are increasingly being reported by public issuers. I suggest standards… Read More »
Canada Alone in a Chaotic World
NAFTA SCENARIOS UNDER MR. TRUMP
Here are some comments on the various possibilities for Canada-US trade relations as we move into 2018, overlain with the threat of Mr. Trump terminating US adherence to the NAFTA. Regarding the resurrection of the 1988 Canada-US Free Trade Agreement (FTA), it’s true it remains suspended but not terminated as a bilateral treaty. It could… Read More »