22nd May 2017

Japan and other members of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreed on May 21 to pursue their trade deal - but were vague on the detail of what "pursue" meant.A planned meeting...

19th May 2017

US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer on May 17 formally notified Congress of the administration’s intention to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico. The notification allows negotiations...

27th April 2017

Donald Trump's promised tax reform plan turned out on April 26 to be a content-free, single-sided, list of aspirations. The list made no mention of border taxes. The page says:...

24th April 2017

Donald Trump revealed he plans to announce major tax cuts by the end of April - but most commentators believe his announcement must delay any talk of border taxes. In...

24th April 2017

Donald Trump’s team during April began announcing practical programmes for dealing with the trade issues they’d previously been merely vocal about: China On April 12, Trump publicly abandoned his campaign...

13th April 2017

Donald Trump admitted on April 12 that he had no plans to honour public commitments he had repeatedly made to deal with the "currency manipulation" he insisted China was practising....

7th April 2017

Brexit and the Trump Revolution are often linked. What really unites them is the extraordinarily uncommercial attitude many of their politicians are taking to what real businesses want. They differ...

3rd March 2017

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, in a March 3 interview, offered insights into general trade priorities and his priorities for the NAFTA renegotiation. Overall, he said his priorities were: "First emphasis...

1st March 2017

Late February Senate confirmations and ad-hoc appointments now give the US a reasonably clear, though possibly temporary, senior trade team. Wilbur Ross, former owner of International Textile Group, was confirmed...

1st March 2017

Although in January Donald Trump summarised his objectives as “Buy American, hire American", major policy priority summaries now almost ignore trade programmes. Trump’s Address to Congress Donald Trump’s February 28...

1st March 2017

It remains unclear which countries are attending the meeting called for March 14-15 in Viña del Mar, Chile, to discuss options for trade co-operation after US withdrawal from the TPP. The...

28th February 2017

Mexico's top trade negotiator said in an interview published on February 27 that he would walk away from the table if US negotiators threatened 20% duties on cars. “The moment that...