For months, we had heard officials refer to the investment pledges. Now published, in draft form at least, by Japan’s Cabinet Secretariat, the MOU is our first opportunity to understand the architecture for foreign investments in the US. I try to answer some questions @worldtradelaw.bsky.social

I'm hiring a predoc to work w/ me on empirical IO/applied micro projects starting in Fall '26! Details below and instructions here: shoshanavasserman.com/call_for_pre... International students (who need J1) are welcome & non-econ bgs are fine given interest + curiosity. Please apply :)

Forthcoming in the AER: "Labor Market Power, Self-Employment, and Development" by Francesco Amodio, Pamela Medina, and Monica Morlacco. www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...

Super interesting discussion in the comments about what exactly the Intel-U.S. partnership does (and does not).

Canada will drop retaliatory tariffs on many US products that comply with the existing North American trade deal

A quote from me on the Canada tariffs: “I think the Canadians are probably used to Trump’s negotiating approach by now and are just staying focused on the substance of the talks.”

Interesting article about Chinese exporters (not) paying for tariffs on shipments to the U.S.

This is very disappointing to see. I have some research funds to spare -- if any Canadian climate scientists lack travel funding for the IPCC, please contact me and I will try to help out. www.cbc.ca/news/science...

What real resources will firms waste to get these favors? Happy 50-year anniversaries: Anne O Krueger (1974) The Political Economy of the Rent-Seeking Society www.jstor.org/stable/1808883 Richard A. Posner (1975), The Social Costs of Monopoly and Regulation www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

Audi has temporarily stopped delivering cars to the US. VW stopped delivery via train from MX and via ports. For now, cars already in the US are supposed to be sold. www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/a...

Canada's WTO complaint on the US auto/auto parts tariffs is now available: docs.wto.org/dol2fe/Pages...

I'm seeing a huge spike in interest in tariffs from people who normally don't work in the economics of international trade. Here are a few useful things to know about them. (1/14)

An excellent point by @weisenthal.bsky.social: if the Trump tariff numbers are based on equilibrium outcomes whose determinants are difficult to agree upon, and "reciprocal" (spoiler: they are not really reciprocal), what can foreign leaders offer if Trump is looking for a "deal"?

"There is really no methodology there," Mary Lovely says. "It is like finding you have cancer and finding the medication is based on your weight divided by your age. The word 'reciprocal' is deeply misleading."

Meet non-preferential origin. I thought I’d do a quick explainer on non-preferential rules that will be used to determine where the goods subject to Trump’s tariffs come from. This will be crucial in weeks to come given the substantial differences in tariffs (from 10 to +50%) /1

This is what Trump's "economists" say about how they calculated the "reciprocal" tariffs. Don[t be fooled by the equation. They commit countless crimes against economics. ustr.gov/issue-areas/... +

So spectacularly dumb.

For those listening to this rant, those numbers are not tariffs. The European Union, e.g., has weighted average tariff rates of ~ 3% and arguably lower on US goods. So they are clearly including VATs and who knows what else? This false reciprocity is nonsense. For more: www.piie.com/blogs/realti...

This is a dark day for global development and general decency. Cambodia's PPP income per capita is less than 10% that of the US. Shame. Trade was a powerful tool for poverty alleviation in these countries and we are making them poorer. This is embarrassing and I pray for any degree of forgiveness.

The research group at the Workd Bank is doing an off-cycle hire for a trade economist worldbankgroup.csod.com/ux/ats/caree...

An amazing opportunity to work with one of the best. @econuoft.bsky.social

Are you a PhD student working on topics related to globalization? Come hang out with us at Dartmouth for a term as a Globalization Ph.D. Fellow! We're now accepting applications for the 2025-2026 academic year: globalization.dartmouth.edu/programs/glo...

"Effective today, the Ontario government has applied a 25 per cent surcharge on all electricity exports to the United States as part of the province’s initial suite of retaliatory measures to U.S. tariffs on Canada" news.ontario.ca/en/release/1... Backgrounder here: news.ontario.ca/en/backgroun...

Export controls were always going to hit the US harder than tariffs. Alberta following with oil really *would* be an escalation.

📢 Call for Papers! 📢 The 6th Women in International Economics Conference will be held at Yale University on Oct 16-17, 2025. Keynote speaker: Penny Goldberg. We invite submissions from junior women in international economics. 📅 Deadline: April 30, 2025 📩 Submit here: forms.gle/ucoE6ZcjqwQ1...

A nice description of certification paperwork with examples of what exactly a "certifier" and what is appropriate language when the importer or the exporter is a certifier www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/services/cus...

What a mess. CUSMA preference util. (rel. to MFN) might not be worth the cst of paperwork or content req. We're about to find out if companies are willing to do more paperwork or change inputs in the face of 25% tariffs. Hopefully earlier is easy, latter not obvious. www.wsj.com/economy/trad...

This is true but that's easily changed. It's an attestation, not a license. www.cbp.gov/trade/priori...

This was my earlier thread on why a lot of Canadian exports are currently not covered under USMCA. In many cases it's a matter of cumbersome administration, and there wasn't a big penalty for being outside USMCA anyway. bsky.app/profile/bria...

I spoke too quickly.

Pretty much. We're back to the CUSMA/USMCA/MUSCA/MCUSA status quo for a month with more uncertainty/distrust. Prediction: this ends up being a tool to move up renegotiation by 6-10 mo with the outcome being increased access to Canada's dairy sector. Not sure what the US can offer that is credible.

(3/3) If a candidate announced a tax increase on the poor and middle class to fund a tax cut for the rich, voters would soundly reject that proposal. But tariffs wrap this fiscal switch in a veneer of nationalism. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/21/o...

Urging Canadians not to "buy Canadian" so much as "buy not-US." We benefit from being integrated in a global trading order, and if the US is withdrawing from that, we have reason to strengthen trade with the rest of the world.

NAFTA 3.0 might become a customs union but nobody knows anything. www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/artic...

🚨 Another fantastic resource for anyone interested in international trade in emerging economies! Much has been studied, but there’s still so much to uncover. Check it out! 👇

🧵 (1/9) In a new brief, I suggest 8 common sense principles for the coming 2025 tax debate. These seek to inform the search for common ground in the time ahead, even if the present moment is far from bipartisan. Posts follow for each principle.

The Congressional Research Service continues to be an indispensable resource. This time for aluminum demand/production/trade in the US. crsreports.congress.gov/product/deta...

www.vatican.va/content/fran... "This does not impede the development of a policy that regulates orderly and legal migration....What is built on the basis of force, and not on the truth about the equal dignity of every human being, begins badly and will end badly."

I’ve created a dashboard that projects potential GDP losses for countries if ongoing tariff escalations trigger a global trade war. I’ll be updating it soon with the latest data. alashkar.pages.iu.edu/GlobalTariff...

This is really powerful! It's like FRED but built up in many cases from on-demand computation from micro-data. For instance, making this before today would require accessing the CPS microdata and coding up the summary yourself.

So did anything interesting happen to anyone else today?

www.nytimes.com/2025/02/03/u... It was probably not smart for Canadian politicians to throw Mexico under the bus either now nor under CUSMA renegotiations.

Leopard: I will eat your face Bank analysts: Our baseline assumes no face-eating Leopard: Chomp chomp chomp