Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Trade Notes

A couple of interesting items on the trade front...

The Chinese tire safeguard tariff case moves forward. President Obama has until Sept. 17 to act on the International Trade Commission recommendation, and the Washington Post has the view from Albany, GA, home of a Cooper Tire plant. (See also this earlier post).

Meanwhile, regional trade agreements continue to proliferate. The Economist makes the case that such "free trade" agreements do not promote free trade:
Some regional trade deals in the right circumstances have indeed added to economic well-being. But the sorts of deals that are now being signed in Asia, just when multilateral trade desperately needs supporting, are likely to do less for their countries’ economies than for the egos of the politicians who sponsor them. Taken as a trend, they amount to a dangerous erosion of the system of multilateral trade on which global prosperity depends.

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