The Custom-House

Cordell Hull and the Space Aliens

Some stories are just too good not to pass on, even if you wonder whether or not they are true: Cordell Hull saw Aliens in Glass Containers .

Baucus on Trade

Max Baucus, Democratic Senator from Montana and Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, gave a speech on trade early this month: Senator Max Baucus Delivers Major Speech to NDN on U.S. Trade Policy (Oct 2). 

Unlike some of the Democratic Presidential candidates, and unlike the party's populist/economic nationalist wing, Baucus describes trade and globalization in very positive terms, characterizes anti-globalization politicians negatively, and reminds his audience about the Democratic party's great internationalist traditions.  There's an enormous difference between this, and Clinton's recent rhetoric: What Clinton Said About Trade on Monday (Ben Muse, October 11, 2007)  Granted, Baucus doesn't have to face Iowa caucuses this winter.

Policy recommendations include:

Trade and AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa

Tyler Cowen points to a new draft working paper by Emily Oster finding a causal link between exports from a sub-Saharan African country and new AIDS infections: Routes of Infection: Exports and HIV Incidence in Sub-Saharan. 

Oster finds that "a doubling of exports leads to as much as a quadrupling in new HIV infections." 

Why does this happen? 

This relationship is consistent with a model of the epidemic in which truckers and other migrants have higher rates of risky behavior, and their numbers increase in periods with greater exports. I present evidence suggesting that the relationship between exports and HIV is causal and works, at least in part, through increased transit.

There are important policy conclusions:

The result has important policy implications, suggesting (for example) that there is signi cant value in prevention focused on these transit-oriented groups. I apply this result to study the case of Uganda, and argue that a decline in exports in the early 1990s in that country appears to explain between 30% and 60% of the decline in HIV infections. This suggests that the success of the Ugandan education campaign against HIV -  the ABC campaign - has been overstated.

Export Administration Act

The Congressional Research Service has released a report on the U.S. Export Administration Act (EAA): The Export Administration Act: Evolution, Provisions, and Debate (Ian Fergusson, September 29, 2007).

The EAA gives the President authority to "control exports for national security, foreign policy, or short supply purposes."  This backgrounder looks at the history of the EAA, its provisions, and the types of products that raise concerns, and outlines some of the different perspectives people have on it.

Here's the executive summary:

CFIUS Reform Isn't Done Yet, We've Still Got the Rulemaking

George Grammas of Squire, Sanders & Dempsey reviews the recent legislation reforming the process by which the U.S. reviews foreign investments for their national security implications: United States: New Law Enhances Scrutiny of Foreign Acquisitions of US Critical Infrastructure (October 24, 2007).

In the beginning...

The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is the 1947 agreement that provided a framework for the gradual reduction of tariffs and the expansion of trade since the Second World War.  This document is one of the load-bearing walls of the modern world.

Douglas Irwin, Petros Mavroidis and Alan Sykes are working on a book on the origins of the GATT.  Here's the Sept 19, 2007 draft of the introduction and first chapter: The Genesis of the GATT.

Arctic Preparations

As the Arctic ice sheet shrinks, shipping will begin to move from the North Atlantic to the North Pacific across northern Norway and Russia, and across northern Canada and Alaska.  Both routes meet in the Chukchi Sea, merge, and transit the Bering Strait.  Oil development, commercial fishing, tourism, scientific research, and military patrols are also going to contribute traffic.

All of this will require infrastructure: ports, bases for sea-going tugs, air facilities, search and rescue bases, prepositioned oil spill response equipment, and aids to navigation. 

The U.S. Coast Guard will be setting up its first Arctic Ocean base - probably at Barrow - next Spring: New Coast Guard Task in Arctic’s Warming Seas .  It's also begun discussions with the Russians on comtrol of traffic through the Bering Strait (Matthew Wald and Andrew Revkin, New York Times, October 19):

Foreigners Want U.S. Services

The Progressive Policy Institute's "Trade Fact of the Week" from last week deals with the growth of international and U.S. trade in services, and the regional origins of U.S service exports: Rhode Island, Nevada, and the District of Columbia are U.S.' Most Service-Intensive Exporters (Oct 10):

A Trade Policy for Progressive Democrats

The Democratics harbor a wide range of trade policy communities: economic nationalist/populists, progressives, various special interest protectionists, and Hamiltonian project liberals. 

Here Dani Rodrik describes a trade policy for progressive Democrats: What would a progressive trade agenda look like? (Dani Rodrik's Weblog, October 12).  The comments are good too.

What Clinton Said About Trade on Monday

On Monday Clinton laid out her program for rebuilding the middle class in the U.S.: Rebuilding the Middle Class: Hillary Clinton's Economic Blueprint for the 21st Century.  Trade measures play a role in this.

The speech took place at the start of a campaign tour through Iowa.  About two thirds of the way through the speech she got to trade.  She said she'd do the following:

• include enforceable protections for labor and environmental standards (It's unclear whether this only refers to future agreements, or to renegotiation of existing agreements.  Does it go beyond the Spring agreement between the Administration and Congress?)
• Appoint a Trade Enforcement Officer in the USTR office, and double the budget for enforcement of trade agreements (here's the USTR website on Monitoring and enforcement)
• Review all trade agreements every five years and "make adjustments" (sounds unilateral, but maybe it could be interpreted as renegotiating, or negotiating supplemental agreements, clarifying letters, or memoranda of understanding) starting with NAFTA
• Increase budget, coverage and efficacy of trade adjustment assistance.  Her health plan would also relieve persons displaced by trade
• reduce the Federal budget deficit

Here it is in her words: