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The Treasury has released its proposed rule with the revisions to the CFIUS regulations. The proposed rule is here: Proposed Rule.
Here's an early news report: U.S. Treasury releases proposed foreign investment regulations UPDATE (Thomson Financial News, via Forbes, April 21).
The Pennsylvannia Fair Trade Coalition asked Clinton and Obama about their opinions on investor protection provisions in trade agreements. Simon Lester reports the responses: The Democratic Candidates on Investment Rules (International Economic Law and Policy Blog, April 18).
G. Christopher Griner, Farhad Jalinous, and Christopher Brewster of Kaye Scholer describe the changes in the way U.S. security reviews of foreign investments are done following passage of last year's Foreign Investment and National Security Act (FINSA) and this year's executive order on the process: Soapbox: Mitigating circumstances (The Deal.com, April 16, 2008):
Not through Canada's Northwest Passage, reports David Ljunggren for Reuters: Navigating the Northwest Passage (via Globe and Mail, October 4, 2007):
Continue reading "From Atlantic to Pacific, Will the Traffic Be Terrific?" »
Sallie James of the Cato Institute reviews the remaining candidates' positions on trade in a new Cato briefing paper: Race to the Bottom? The Presidential Candidates’ Positions on Trade. (April 15, 2008). James draws on records and rhetoric. Bottom line:
...Although trade votes are a necessarily imperfect yardstick with which to measure future policy—packaged as they often are with other, sometimes contradictory, legislation—they seem to be consistent with the campaign pledges of the candidates.
Voters could expect a President McCain to promote freer trade and cuts in market-distorting subsidies, and a President Clinton or a President Obama to view free trade between voluntary actors as something to be restrained, loaded with conditions, or counterbalanced by an expansion of the welfare state.
Canada's Conservative government has just blocked the sale of a division of the Canadian satellite firm MacDonald Dettwiler & Associates (MDA) to U.S. Alliant Techsystems. (Two Issues Combine to Scuttle an Aerospace Takeover,Ian Austen, New York Times, April 11).
The advanced satellite technology developed by MDA allows the Canadians to monitor their northern lands and waters, and shipping that may be entering those waters. The Canadian government is worried that the U.S. might gain control of the satellite system and use that control to compromise Canadian national security.
Mark, at the Canadian defense blog, The Torch, has done a nice series of posts on this. In Our new satellite surveillance capability... (January 12, 2008) he quotes from a Canadian National Defense backgrounder of January 10 to explain something about the satellite (Radarsat-2) and its associated information system (Polar Epsilon):
Stephanie Kirchgaessner reports that the Treasury may release draft rules governing national security reviews of foreign investments by the end of the month: US set to lower Cfius threshold (Financial Times, April 8).
She also reports that the draft will propose lower thresholds for the level of foreign ownership that may trigger review:
Congress is supposed to take action on a trade agreement negotiated under the trade promotion authority within 90 days of the date the president submits it. However the 90 day requirement just lies in the legislature's rules, and a legislature can change the rules it sets for itself.
Nancy Pelosi announced today that she is going to try and do that with respect to the Columbia trade agreement: Pelosi Statement on House Removing Timetable from Consideration of Colombia Free Trade Agreement (press release, April 9). Normally the president doesn't submit until he gets a "go-ahead" from Congressional leaders; in this case that hadn't come, and he got tired of waiting. Pelosi's statement reads:
The Bush Administration wants to take care of Congressional ratification of the trade agreements with Columbia and Panama before it turns to the agreement with Panama.
Today it sent the agreement with Columbia to Congress: Bush forces trade fight (Ian Swanson, The Hill, April 7, 2007). The problem is that normally these agreements aren't sent up until Congress signals its readiness to receive them. In this case, the Administration was concerned that time was running out.
Continue reading "Bush Sends the Columbia Agreement to Congress" »
Ships carry ballast water to manage their stability with different cargo configurations. When they pick up ballast water in one port and carry it to another, they also can carry along species that haven't previously been present in the destination port. These invasive species can cause a lot of problems.
Researchers at the University of Michigan are working on a "ballast-free" ship to discourage this sort of hitch-hiking ('Ballast-free Ship' Could Cut Costs While Blocking Aquatic Invaders, ScienceDaily, March 27, 2008). The system works by continually exchanging ballast water so that the water in the ship is always local:
