This new Rethinking Trade podcast episode is not a break from election anxiety, but can help explain the current situation… Lori talks with Dan Kaufman about his recent New York Times Magazine story, "How NAFTA Broke American Politics." It examines the long-lasting impacts of the trade agreement on U.S. communities and politics nationwide. Lori and…

The imitable Zephyr Teachout wrote a fantastic piece that everyone seems to be reading about why tariffs and the trade issue play such an outsized role in elections and how Trump has set a tariff trap to try to ensnare the Democrats. In our latest episode of the Rethinking Trade podcast, Lori Wallach sits down with the renowned Fordham law professo…

In this episode of Rethinking Trade, Lori Wallach breaks down the facts about tariffs—how they work, who pays them, and their impact on consumer prices. With tariffs back in the news, Lori explains the difference between targeted tariffs and across the board tariffs. Tune in NOW to get the full picture.…

Rapacious European corporations were top users of Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) tribunals. For decades, they extracted billions from taxpayers worldwide, attacking local laws and suing governments before ISDS tribunals of three corporate attorneys. So, it was big news when the European Union recently exited one of the world’s largest ISD…

Did you know that states across the country are taking steps right now to regulate artificial intelligence (AI), protect kids' online safety, guarantee us the right to repair our phones, cars and other stuff, as well as safeguard data privacy? But this progress could soon be wiped out thanks to Big Tech’s stealthy "digital trade" agenda. In the lat…

It was a busy Friday on Capitol Hill, as the Ways and Means Committee held a hearing on digital trade. If you haven't heard about "digital trade", the name that Big Tech lobbyists have given to a backdoor to try and tie the hands of Congress and regulators to evade privacy requirements/anti-discrimination online rules and shut down AI oversight, th…

In this special breaking news episode of the Rethinking Trade podcast, Lori Wallach explains today's White House actions on the #deminimis loophole. Remember: please visit our previous episodes on the de minimis loophole to understand just how e-commerce platforms like #Shein and #Temu are exploiting the loophole, and what it means for you.…

How many times has your phone, car, or whatever broken and you or your local repair shop can’t get the part or the software update to fix it? You’re told the only options are to pay an obscene amount to a dealer or manufacturer, or prematurely replace the item. People in states across the country are fighting back by enacting “right to repair” laws…

Hello, friends! We’ve got a new podcast episode and it’s a bit different! A veritable OG trade crew got together for a kick-ass discussion on "A New Trade Policy to Break Up Corporate Power” at our recent Anti-Monopoly Summit. How OG? The discussion is led by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) the House Trade Working Groups chair (and House Approps Ranking M…

In this special breaking news episode of Rethinking Trade, Lori Wallach breaks down President Biden's new tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles and solar panels. Tune in to understand the implications of these tariffs, and the rationale behind them. Spoiler: these measures are crucial for combating unfair trade practices and ensuring supply chain re…

Our latest Rethinking Trade podcast episode is out now, and it's a special one. Lori Wallach sits down with Arthur Stamoulis, the Executive Director of Citizens Trade Campaign and Trade Justice Education Fund, to talk the past, present, and future of thetrade justice movement in the United States. Lori and Arthur take us on a speedy tour through th…

In our latest breaking news segment for Rethinking Trade, Lori Wallach discusses the latest developments on Capitol Hill. De minimis is a trade loophole that we've discussed often on the podcast, and why it's important to close it. But what happened in the House Ways and Means markup, and to Rep. Blumenauer's bipartisan de minimis bill? Lori gives …

BREAKING NEWS: China's WTO Complaint Against the U.S. on Electric-Vehicle Subsidies. Lori gives background, and tells you what it means.

In our latest episode of Rethinking Trade, we’re talking about the major trade event of the year -- the 13th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO). It’s a major global biennial meeting where cabinet-level officials, like U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, get together to set the agenda for the international trade and co…

Tariffs are in the news again! Why does that term generate such vitriol from some quarters and joy from others?! This week, we explore that question with Scott Paul, the President of the Alliance for American Manufacturing. Scott and host Lori Wallach discuss how increasingly Democrats and Republicans alike now view tariffs as just another policy t…

Our latest episode of the Rethinking Trade podcast offers an urgent update about the de minimis loophole that we first discussed in 2022. It has gotten much worse.E-commerce sites like Amazon, Shein and Temu use this loophole to skirt U.S. Customs and safety inspections and dodge all taxes and trade-cheating enforcement sanctions. Uyghur forced-lab…

In our latest episode, we have two very special guests - voices you will know - talking about a corporate trade power tool that definitely should be on the “out with the old” list! We’re talking about Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) and its implications for our economies and democracies. First, a quick refresher: What is ISDS? ISDS grants …

Welcome back to the Rethinking Trade podcast. Today we bring you the second half of our conversation with Suresh Venkatasubramanian. Suresh co-authored the Biden administration’s Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights, and is a leading national expert on AI oversight. With the imminent Biden Executive Order on Artificial Intelligence setting binding U.…

Greetings from DC! OK, hope all you 2001: A Space Odyssey fans got a chuckle and no HAL9000 is not joining this edition of the podcast! We have a much better guest, Suresh Venkatasubramanian who co-authored the Biden administration’s Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights. We've all seen Artificial Intelligence or "AI" making headlines recently, and it…

Once you've finished listening to our new episode with Larry Cohen, check out this mini-episode as he discusses the UAW strike. ----- We're thrilled to present our latest episode of the Rethinking Trade podcast. Lori is joined by Larry Cohen, former President of the Communication Workers of America, for a guided tour of the United Auto Workers (UAW…

We're thrilled to present our latest episode of the Rethinking Trade podcast. Lori is joined by Larry Cohen, former President of the Communication Workers of America, for a guided tour of the United Auto Workers (UAW) strike. (Spoiler alert: There’s a lot more about this strike and how it could impact all of us than most of us know!) Larry brings h…

In the latest episode of Rethinking Trade, our guests unpack the specific policies safeguarding Europeans’ privacy, busting Big Tech monopolies, and banning the most risky uses if AI. Yup, all of the policies Big Tech has managed to evade here so far… We’re joined by: Calli Schroeder, Senior Counsel and Global Privacy Counsel at the Electronic Priv…

If you thought the air travel fiasco could not get worse, consider the scary news that airlines are offshoring the maintenance work needed to keep planes safe. It’s the same greedy cost-cutting behind the outdated computer systems and gutted airline staffing that is causing the epic air travel meltdowns upending millions of peoples’ lives. In the r…

Shock waves were sent through Washington, D.C.’s many trade wonks when the U.S.-China Economic and Security Commission gave a unanimous bipartisan recommendation that Congress consider ending China’s Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR). Opponents of China PNTR were trashed as idiots, protectionists and doom mongers during a brutal 2000 U.S. nat…

The U.S. finally is getting its act together on climate with big new tax credits for people who buy electric vehicles (EVS) and go solar and incentives for companies to do invest in green production. So why are European and Asian governments steaming mad at us and screaming “trade barrier!!” in numerous languages, instead of cheering our better-lat…

Every election is THE most important in our lifetimes, except the 2022 midterms and 2024 presidential actually are. How have we come to this crisis of democracy? A team of data scientists, opinion researchers, and strategists spent a year studying the two-time Obama voters who then elected Trump in 2020 and their shattered communities. The resultin…

Your doctor’s not at fault if you don’t know about IPEF. It’s not a new virus. But it could harm billions of people. Or not. IPEF = Indo-Pacific Economic Framework. Setting rules for 40% of the world’s economy is the goal of this recently-launched “trade” negotiation. With the public and Congress locked out so far, few people even know about these …

After two years of pandemic and 15 million dead, how did the first big global WTO summit end with WTO intellectual property barriers still blocking global access to COVID meds? This episode exposes how a sham text gavelled through in the middle of the night and produced a worse-than-nothing outcome only Big Pharma can love. How could this happen gi…

On this episode of Rethinking Trade with Lori Wallach we’ll expose Amazon’s big little secret — a loophole which allows Amazon and other online giants to import billions of dollars in uninspected, unsafe, tax-dodging goods from China into the United States every year. Only Uzbekistan has a bigger “de minimis” loophole, which is the technical name f…

In this episode, Lori talks with two trailblazing attorneys: Fatima Hassan at Cape Town’s Health Justice Initiative, South Africa and Sangeeta Shashikant with the global Third World Network. They discuss why after 18 months, there still is no deal to waive the WTO intellectual property rules blocking global access to COVID vaccines, treatments and …

In this episode, Lori talks with a leading public health expert about how we could END the pandemic and how World Trade Organization monopolies for Big Pharma are blocking that. Health GAP director Asia Russell, who helped bust Big Pharma monopolies to get HIV-AIDS meds to people worldwide, lays out the current COVID situation worldwide and what ac…

In Part 1 we discussed some of the big issues at stake at the World Trade Organization’s 12th Ministerial conference, which was scheduled to take place last week in Geneva. That meeting, however, was postponed after the introduction of travel restrictions related to the Omicron variant of COVID-19. Ironically, WTO countries enacting the waiver to g…

Will the WTO get out of the way of global production of COVID-19 vaccines and meds so we can end this pandemic? Whether Big Pharma or humankind will win is the biggest question as the WTO’s major biennial ministerial meeting starts the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. But Big Tech also has a play… More than 120 countries support waiving some of the WTO …

U.S. Trade Representative, Katherine Tai’s recent speech about the World Trade Organization was shocking. Why? Because she openly and frankly discussed the yawning gap between the WTO’s expansive rules and what is right and good for people and the planet. And she made clear that the rules of the global commerce agency need a major redo. That sort o…

Right now, Apple and Google are lobbying the U.S. government to attack South Korean anti-monopoly policies. They claim that a recently passed Korean law requiring app stores to allow consumers to use diverse payment systems violates the US-Korea trade deal. Big Tech corporations want to hijack trade pacts to outlaw as a “barrier to trade” anti-trus…

Getting the world vaccinated and ending the pandemic is a political choice: World leaders have the medical, technical and financial capacity. To produce enough vaccines involves three clear steps: getting intellectual property monopoly barriers out of the way through a temporary WTO TRIPS waiver, technology transfer through sharing the recipes, and…

On August 19th, workers at the massive General Motors plant in Silao, Mexico participated in an historic vote that ousted the corrupt and undemocratic protection union that had long controlled labor relations there. The effort to win such a vote was made possible by the labor rules and Rapid Response enforcement mechanism of the USMCA trade deal. I…

In our very first episode, we looked at how corporate-led globalization has fueled shortages in our medical supply-chains and limited our ability to fight COVID-19 Today, we catch everyone up on the latest, discussing two Biden-Harris Administration initiatives aimed at addressing this mess -- a targeted supply chain-review and an executive order o…

The world celebrated when President Biden announced the U.S. would support a temporary waiver of World Trade Organization “TRIPS” intellectual property barriers to boost global production of COVID-19 vaccines. But months later, Big Pharma’s monopolies remain. The administration has failed to deliver on the waiver or to get vaccine makers to share t…

Within hours of taking office, President Biden revoked the permit for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. The project, which would worsen the climate crisis, also posed major health and safety risks to indigenous people whose land it crossed. Now the Canadian corporation that wanted to build the pipeline is using a NAFTA Investor-State Dispute …

On July 1, 2020, following a lengthy campaign by unions, civil society groups and congressional Democrats to win key improvements, the revised North American Free Trade Agreement, or United States Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA), went into effect. Unlike the original NAFTA, the USMCA requires its signatory countries to respect workers’ rights. And …

This May 27th webinar “The Fight for Workers’ Rights in North America: Major Recent Developments Under the Revised NAFTA,” featured Mexican labor leader Susana Prieto Terrazas (Sindicato Nacional Independiente de Trabajadores de Industrias y de Servicios), Ben Davis (United Steelworkers), Rachel Micah-Jones (Centro de los Derechos del Migrante) and…

On May 5th, the Biden administration announced its support for an emergency COVID-19 waiver of “TRIPS” intellectual property barriers at the World Trade Organization. As we’ve detailed in previous episodes, 100 mainly developing countries have pushed for a TRIPS waiver to facilitate more production of COVID-19 vaccines, tests and treatments around …

The National Trade Estimates report is an annual wish list of other countries’ laws, policies and practices that corporations want labeled as “trade barriers,” in hopes that the U.S. government will turn their elimination into policy goals. Like our trade agreements, however, this seek-and-destroy list of so-called trade-barriers is largely not abo…

Millions of people around the world may not get COVID-19 vaccines until as late as 2024 due to World Trade Organization rules that protect medicine monopolies for the Big Pharma giants. What do these WTO rules require? How do they implicate access to essential medicines? How do countries escape these WTO-imposed barriers that protect corporate prof…

Our tax dollars should support green jobs with fair wages, not a global race to the bottom that exploits workers and poisons the environment. But thanks to corporate-rigged trade policies, “Buy American” government purchasing requirements are waived to include purchases from 60 other countries. This means our tax dollars are exported instead of bei…

Audio from a live Public Citizen webinar featuring Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-ILL), South African Counsellor to the WTO Mustaqeem De Gama, and Senior Legal and Policy Advisor at Doctors Without Borders, Yuanqiong Hu. The event discusses how millions of people around the world may not get COVID-19 vaccines until as late as 2024 unless President Biden re…

The Biden administration inherited a political and trade policy landscape transformed since the end of the Obama presidency by both the Trump trade strategy and the COVID-19 pandemic. To deliver on its Build Back Better promises, the administration must create new approaches to trade that prioritize good jobs, promote the environmental and energy p…

Millions of people around the world may not get COVID-19 vaccines until as late as 2024—unless President Biden reverses the Trump administration’s deadly position at the World Trade Organization (WTO). SIGN THE PETITION: https://rethinktrade.org/actions/urge-biden-reverse-trumps-deadly-obstruction-of-global-covid-19-vaccine-access/ Learn more at re…

The Biden administration inherited a political and trade policy landscape transformed since the end of the Obama presidency by both the Trump trade strategy and the COVID-19 pandemic. To deliver on its Build Back Better promises, the administration must create new approaches to trade that prioritize good jobs, promote the environmental and energy p…