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…

Speakers Deliver during R-CALF USA’s 16th Annual Convention R-CALF USA’s two-day convention in Denver, Colo. was jumpstarted by Angus Mc McIntosh, Ph.D., who has served as an expert witness in nationally renowned private property rights lawsuits. McIntosh provided a detailed analysis of the process the courts have used to confirm that western ranchers have acquired…

  It took less than a year for America’s factory output to rebound from the 1991 recession. It took 3½ years to bounce back from the 2001 recession. Now, six years clear of the Great Recession, manufacturing output still hasn’t returned to the pre-crisis levels it reached in 2007, according to revised economic data from the Federal…

  For Immediate Release August 21, 2015                 Contact: Josh Goldstein 202-637-5018 Vietnam’s Currency Devaluation Further Exposes Trade Policy Failures   Statement by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka on the devaluation of Vietnam’s currency: Vietnam’s currency devaluation is a predictable response to China’s action last week and further proof of the United States Trade Representative’s failure to negotiate trade…