Ben Muse

Trade posts will be going elsewhere

I didn't plan to post on trade or related topics when I started this blog, but I do so quite a bit.

I've decided the best way to handle trade and related posts is to create a new blog for them, taking advantage of the one additional blog that Typepad offers me on my current subscription plan.  This will provide a weblog with more focus and better organization - particularly a more meaningful and useful set of categories for archiving.  Here's the new location: The Custom-House.

All the existing trade related posts from this blog have been moved there.  From now on I'll send trade and related posts there, reserving this blog for other topics.  I am not deleting the old posts from this blog so existing links will still work.  However I will gradually revise the categories here so that they will be clearer and more focused.

All posts on the Korea-U.S. trade agreement will continue to be placed on the Korea-U.S. FTA weblog.

Down to the Sea in Dirty Ships

The ships that carry 90% of world trade (by volume) are a major source of air pollution:

Ships release more sulfur dioxide, a sooty pollutant associated with acid rain, than all of the world's cars, trucks and buses combined, according to a March study by the International Council on Clean Transportation. That study also found that ships produced an estimated 27% of the world's smog-causing nitrogen-oxide emissions in 2005. Only six countries in the world emitted more greenhouse gases -- which trap heat in the atmosphere, warming the globe -- than was produced collectively in 2001 by all ships larger than 100 tons, according to the study and United Nations statistics....

At current rates of growth, oceangoing ships will generate 53% of the particulates, 46% of the nitrogen oxides and more than 94% of the sulfur oxides emitted by all forms of transportation in the U.S. by 2030, the Environmental Protection Agency estimates. That compares with levels for the same pollutants in 2001 of 17%, 12% and 49%, respectively, according to the EPA.

Bruce Stanley reports on the issue in tomorrow's Wall Street Journal: Danger at Sea.  Ships Draw Fire for Rising Role in Air Pollution (Nov 27).

Why Are Trade Agreements So Important to Smaller Firms?

Leon Trammel of Witchita-based Tramco (a conveyor-belt manufacturer) explains (Smaller Companies Grab Bigger Share of Surging U.S. Exports , Courtney Schlisserman, Bloomberg, Nov 23):

How the Presidential Candidates Are Addressing Trade-Angst in Iowa

Wednesday's Wall Street Journal has an article on Iowa voter unease about foreign competition and the different ways the Presidential candidates are responding: A Globalization Winner Joins in Trade Backlash (Deborah Solomon and Gregg Hitt, November 21).  The title refers to the irony of trade-angst in a state that's done relatively well by globalization.  No new poll results.

Here's the discussion of candidate positions (note the commentary by Robert Reich, Clinton's Secretary of Labor):

Not as many hunters as there were a while ago

The Economist reports that fewer people are hunting in the U.S.:  The declining Nimrod (Nov 8)

Environmentalists Petition EPA to Reduce Air Pollution from Shipping

Oceana, the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth, and EarthJustice have petitioned the EPA to regulate marine shipping so as to reduce emissions.  Here's the petition: Petition for Rulemaking Under the Clean Air Act to Reduce the Emission of Air Pollutants from Marine Shipping Vessels that Contribute to Global Climate Change (October 3, 2007). 

Here's the Oceana website on the petition: No More Free Ride: Global Warming Pollution from Ships Must be Regulated.  Oceana notes:

• This fleet releases between 600 and 900 million metric tons of carbon dioxide each year, an amount equivalent to emissions from at least 130 million cars -- about the number of cars operated in the United States.
• A single container ship emits more global warming pollution than 2,000 diesel trucks.
• By 2020, these emissions could double 2002 levels, and they could be triple those levels by 2030.
• Ships also are major releasers of nitrogen oxides – contributing nearly 30% of the world’s releases. This amount too is expected to triple by 2030.

Pollution from marine shipping

The November Bridges Trade BioRes reports on a new study documenting adverse health effects of marine shipping:

U.S. FTAs and the WTO Declaration on Access to Medicines

When Congress passed the Trade Act of 2002 it gave the United States Trade Representative (USTR) potentially conflicting instructions for negotiating agreements governing drug patents. 

The USTR was to negotiate strong drug patent rules and facilitate access to foreign markets for firms that depended on patent protection (to be done for intellectual property in general, but my interest here is in medical drugs).

But the USTR was also supposed to respect the objectives of the WTO's 2001 Declaration on Access to Medicines, which recognized problems drug patents could sometimes pose when cheap drugs were needed in a public health emergency.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has just taken a look at how the USTR responded to the potential conflict: Intellectual Property: U.S. Trade Policy Guidance on WTO Declaration on Access to Medicines May Need Clarification (September 2007)

William Gleadell goes to war

 

William Gleadell was born in 1864.  He did well in business, and in 1907 he married a wealthy woman.  He had a son and a step-daughter.   When World War I started he joined the army.  The notes below were written by his son:

Mitt Romney's Trade Views

Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, the former Governor of Massachusetts, believes that America must aggressively pursue trade agreements with other countries.

He recently traveled to South Carolina to outline his trade program: Romney Agenda: A New Vision To Open Markets And Help U.S. Workers To Succeed.  Key points:

Clinton on Trade

Simon Lester continues his useful series on the trade positions of the U.S. Presidential candidates: Hillary Clinton's Trade Vision (International Economic Law and Policy Blog, November 9).

See also What Clinton Said About Trade on Monday (Ben Muse, October 11).

FDR's 1941 Armistice Day Speech

Brad DeLong has posted FDR's November 11, 1941 Armistice Day speech in full: Armistice Day 1941: "The Czechs too Know the Answer. The Poles. The Danes. The Dutch. The Serbs. The Belgians. The Norwegians. The Greeks." (November 10).

Less than a month before Pearl Harbor:

How do Americans think they should respond to globalization?

Which candidate's approach to globalization would you support? 

• Candidate A is more defensive, focusing on responsive actions to protect the middle class.  "A" doesn't really say anything that precludes Candidate B's more proactive focus. 
• "B" proposes to protect workers (without going into specifics, and the proposals don't preclude any of the more detailed actions suggested by "A") but suggests that the primary focus should be on vauge proposals to encourage innovation, and unspecified health, energy, and education reforms to create new jobs. 

(see the more detailed descriptions of A and B in the slide below - I think the blue text at the top is commentary, not a part of the question that was asked, actual text is in small print at the bottom of the slide).

I assume the respondents were read the stands of the two candidates and were then asked, "Given what you've just heard, would you be more likely to support Candidate A, who says we need to protect American workers in new trade deals, or Candidate B, who says we need create new jobs through development of new ideas and products?"

The results are from a poll of U.S. voters in early October on their attitudes towards globalization conducted by the Benenson Group and sponsored by the liberal New Democratic Network (NDN): Americans unhappy with economy, looking for strong leadership from Washington.  Edward Luce reported on this Friday for the Financial Times: For US voters, it’s still the economy.

Debate over how to implement the CFIUS reforms

Bill Gertz of the Washington Times reported this week on apparently intense debates within the Administration over how to implement the new legislation to reform the CFIUS process for national security vetting on foreign direct investment: Foreign business gets a Bush assist (Nov 6). 

The CFIUS process refers to the review process conducted by the inter-agency Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.

A second story discussed Capital Hill reaction to the first story: Security review changes panned (Bill Gertz, Nov 7).

Gertz reports that a draft executive order implementing the new Foreign Investment and National Security Act (FINSA) gives a great deal of authority to the Treasury, and that other key agencies - Defense, Homeland Security, and Justice - represented on the CFIUS have circulated a joint memorandum indicating that the draft doesn't give their agencies a sufficiently large role in the revised process. 

Gertz has evidently been leaked the draft executive order and the memorandum.  His story provides some, but not many, details from these.  The leakers chose a reporter and a paper that appear to have a strong economic nationalist bent (so the title of the story is "Foreign business gets a Bush assist" and the tenor of the story is strongly sympathetic to the security elements in the new legislation, and skeptical of Treasury's motives).

I don't know much about the reporting conventions for leaks.  The article cites an anonymous national security official involved in the debate as a source and notes that Justice and Homeland Security officials referred questions to the White House.  Does that suggest the leak is at Defense?

The WT didn't post copies of the draft executive order or the memorandum along with the story.

Editorial revisions Nov 10.

What do academics think about predicting exchange rates?

Menzie Chinn of the University of Wisconsin, and the Econbrowser blog, surveys academic thinking on the future of the U.S. dollar: Modeling Exchange Rates: What Does Current Academic Thinking Have to Say about the Dollar's Future? (November 8).

Dani Rodrik of Harvard and Dani Rodrik's weblog asks "Is a "science" of exchange rates possible?"

What Registered U.S. Voters Think About Trade

U.S. voters rank trade issues relatively low on the list of things they're worried about, but they don't think foreign trade has been good for the U.S., suggests an early November poll of registered voters conducted by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal: Poll Suggests Clinton Is Vulnerable (John Harwood, November 8).  Here is the detailed summary of poll results: Study #6077.

Dennis Kucinich on Trade

Simon Lester on Dennis Kucinich's Trade Vision (November 8).

John Edwards on Trade

Simon Lester reports on John Edwards' Trade Vision (Nov 8, 2007). 

What Does the House Vote on the FTA With Peru Mean?

Mark Drajem reports for Bloomberg: Peru Free-Trade Agreement Cleared by U.S. House (Nov 8).  The vote was 285 to 132.  House Democrats were about evenly split, voting slightly against by 109 to 116.  Senate approval is likely.  A theme in the story: passage of the Korea agreement is going to be more challenging.

Here are the roll call results: FINAL VOTE RESULTS FOR ROLL CALL 1060 (Hat tip Eyes on Trade).  Eyes on Trade reports that, only about one in four of the 2006 crop of House Democrats voted in favor of the agreement: Our Statement: Majority of House Democrats Stand up for Constituents (Nov 8).  Over a third of committee chairs voted yes.

Eoin Callan characterizes the Democratic vote as an unexpectedly large showing in favor of the FTA: Go-ahead for US-Peru free-trade deal (Nov 8):

Intellectual Property in the Peru FTA

The House is likely to pass the Peru-U.S. FTA tomorrow (Nov 8). 

Martin Vaughan reports on the intellectual property provisions - including those introduced into the deal to increase availability of generic drugs - after the May "bipartisan trade deal" between the Administration and Congress: US-Peru Restores Some Flexibility on Health (Intellectual Property Watch, Nov 5):

Did the South Have a Chance?

Contemporary bond markets thought they had a good chance until July 1863.  Gettysburg and Vicksburg changed everything (Victory or Repudiation? The Probability of the Southern Confederacy Winning the Civil War, Marc Weidenmier and Kim Oosterlinck, NBER, November 2007):

The New CFIUS: More Scrutiny of More Sectors and Transactions

This year's reforms to the CFIUS process (the process the U.S. uses to review foreign investments for their security implications) extend reviews to new industry sectors and new types of transactions, and increase both the level of scrutiny and the number of scrutinizing partners - conclude George Foote and Joshua Zive of Bracewell and Giuliani: United States: The Foreign Investment And National Security Act Of 2007: Improved Transparency And Slower Deal Making (October 30):