Molycorp to mothball rare earths mine in California Molycorp Inc., the only U.S. producer of rare earths, on Wednesday said it would mothball its mine in California, laying off almost 500 workers and suspending the country’s sole source of the 15 elements used in magnets, batteries and other high-tech products. [ by John…
China is increasingly using recycled steel, pressuring iron-ore prices and global miners. The world’s biggest producers of iron ore have a problem, and it lies in the steel that has already gone into China’s cars, bridges and skyscrapers. [ by John W. Miller and Rhiannon Hoyle | August 25, 2015 | WSJ ] Over…
Billings, Mont. – Detractors of the United States’ country of origin labeling (COOL) law are reenergized as a result of a recent World Trade Organization (WTO) ruling that determined that COOL violates international trade laws because it results in foreign livestock being treated differently than U.S. livestock. Despite polls indicating overwhelming support for COOL, and…
The unpopular drive by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to reinterpret the country’s pacifist constitution is sapping his government’s political power, a development that could ultimately make it harder for him to conclude a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal, according to an Asia expert at Stanford University. [Reposted from Inside US Trade | August 25, 2015]…
The San Diego Inventor’s Forum held its 9th annual invention contest on Saturday, August 15th at Coleman College’s Kearny Mesa campus to see which product would come out on top as the best technology or consumer product invention of 2015. San Diego is no stranger to innovation. In 2013, the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and…
Growing trade deficits and the collapse of manufacturing output following the Great Recession are directly responsible for the loss of 5 million U.S. manufacturing jobs that occurred between 2000 and 2014. [Reposted from the EPI blog | Will Kimball and Susan Balding | August 19, 2015] As the figure below shows, manufacturing started rapidly declining…
Since the late July negotiating round that failed to reach a final deal for the corporate-leaning Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal, a lot has been written about the merits of a purported ISDS carve-out and whether it played a role in the failed effort to complete a deal by July 31. (Don’t know much about the TPP? Learn more.)…
Imagine that you are a party to a case in a US court. Imagine that your adversary is a company. Imagine that the judge used to work as an attorney for that company. That’s what happens in WTO courts. The US recently lost a WTO case on our country of origin labeling (COOL) law for…
China must wait until at least next year for the renminbi to join an exclusive club of the world’s top currencies, the International Monetary Fund said on Wednesday. [Reposted from The New York Times | AP | August 19, 2015] The fund’s board voted to leave unchanged until Sept. 30, 2016, a basket of currencies…
If the US and Japan have their way in TPP negotiations, non-TPP countries’ auto parts makers can access the US and other TPP countries’ markets with favorable tariff treatment. But those countries will not have to live up to TPP standards or concede anything in negotiations. They will be “free riders”. Canadian, Mexican auto parts…