In The News

Financial Post: Tariffs Set Dangerous Precedent

Joe Chidley March 6, 2018
The Trump administration announced a plan to impose tariffs: 25 percent for steel imports and 10 percent for aluminum. There are many unknowns including exemptions for allies and close trading partners or certain products. The plan relies on Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 and World Trade Organization rules which allow blocking imports for national security purposes: “The World...

Bloomberg: Trump on Trade Wars – “Easy to Win”

Joe Deaux, Andrew Mayeda, Toluse Olorunnipa and Jeff Black March 2, 2018
US President Donald Trump roiled US and global stock markets, sparking fears of trade retaliation in one day, with a plan for adding tariffs on steel and aluminum that was postponed and scheduled for later announcement. The plan would add 25 percent tariffs on steel and 10 percent on aluminum for an indefinite period with no details on exempted countries. Steel and aluminum are an intricate part...

Brookings: Globalization, Technology, Inequality

Zia Qureshi February 22, 2018
People even in the world’s most advanced and wealthiest economies are unhappy and politically fractured – this despite a full recovery from the 2008 financial crisis and growing economies. “The increasingly unequal sharing of the economic pie lies at the heart of the rising social discontent,” explains Zia Qureshi for Brookings. “Income and wealth inequalities have risen practically in all major...

The Daily Beast: Inside Twitter’s Bot Purge

Taylor Lorenz February 22, 2018
In a crackdown on mass automatic posts, Twitter has deleted thousands of accounts. “The pulldown took place quite literally in the middle of the night, without warning or explanation from the company,” explains Taylor Lorenz for the Daily Beast. “Leading right-wing trolls and conspiracy theorists, many of whom woke up this morning to discover that their follower numbers had plunged by the...

Reuters: Final Version of Trans-Pacific Trade Deal

Charlotte Greenfield and Colin Packham February 21, 2018
Economies in the Asia Pacific region are among the fastest growing in the world. The United States walked away from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal for reducing tariffs, but the other 11 countries – Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam – persevered and finalized the terms of what is now called the Comprehensive and...

CNN: US Tariffs on Steel Would Hit China and Entire Global Trading System

Julia Horowitz February 19, 2018
The Trump administration, after complaining about China’s low prices for steel, has a deadline of April 11 for deciding on new steel tariffs. “However, China is not the top country from which the United States imports steel,” explains Julia Horowitz for CNN. “The United States imports most of its steel – 16% – from Canada. It imports 13% from Brazil, 10% from South Korea, 9% from Mexico and 9%...

New Statesman: The New Age of Great Power Politics

John Bew February 14, 2018
Political scientist Samuel Huntington and others have theorized that elites as beneficiaries of globalization demonstrate less loyalty for nations. Many anticipated great power rivalries to subside after the Cold War, but resentment emerged about global endeavors as revealed by Brexit and Donald Trump’s election: “Two of the nations that had evangelised most about the liberal international order...