Steph Honey

President Piggy This is what consequence-free misogyny looks like.

A very good piece. “The fact that many men believe they no longer even have to pretend to respect women in order to participate in public life makes it unlikely that anything will change anytime soon.”

Why Did Asian Countries Give Trump So Much on Trade? The new deals contain unusual concessions that could change the flow of goods in Asia.

The new US trade deals with Japan, Vietnam, Malaysia & Thailand make for a compelling read - for @foreignpolicy.com I outline how, with these accords, Trump could force partners to invest in the US, give Washington a say over domestic affairs and decouple from China

New IELP post from me: "Beware the 'Securitization' of Trade Policy"

tl;dr: Security issues have always been part of trade policy discussions, but things have ratcheted up recently. I'm concerned that people are getting security wrong, which has negative implications for making good trade policy.

The EU’s other recent digital provisions (eg with New Zealand and in the DTA with Singapore) similarly don’t refer to “content” - but nor do they include the definitional nod to services. Interesting!

In case it’s helpful: there’s a pretty broad security exception in the UK-India CETA (Art 28.2) (although with a proviso that this can’t constitute a disguised restriction on trade) which applies to the digital trade chapter - which in turn
Is pretty detailed, although it excludes data governance.

🎉 The @WTO #FisheriesSubsidies Agreement is now in force–a big step to curb subsidies threatening #SustDev.

But the work isn’t over yet. It’s crucial to implement the agreement & conclude additional rules to #StopFundingOverfishing.

🔗 www.iisd.org/articles/sta...

Ahead of the start of #BirdOfTheYear tomorrow, I've made a Bluesky feed which should gather all #boty content. Feel free to like/pin it! @forestandbird.bsky.social

bsky.app/profile/did:...

Singapore, UAE and other small nations to launch trade partnership WTO members seek to boost ‘trade openness’ in era of Donald Trump’s protectionism

Singapore, UAE and other small nations to launch trade partnership on.ft.com/3JBZgk3

Adam S. Posen on why Trump's tariffs won't achieve stated goals Adam S. Posen said on CNN International with Jim Sciutto that President Donald Trump’s tariffs will show up as a loss of real income for businesses and consumers. He also explained how the global econ...

Must See TV: PIIE’s Adam S. Posen on why Trump's tariffs won't achieve stated goals www.piie.com/newsroom/sho...

Trump's very bad trade deal with Europe President Donald Trump hailed the trade deal with the European Union announced in Scotland last Sunday as "the biggest deal of them all." But a closer look shows that it is actually not really a deal....

Trump's very bad trade deal with Europe www.piie.com/blogs/realti...

A Preliminary Mapping of Measures Affecting the Cross-Border Flow of Non-Personal Data The cross-border flow of non-personal data (NPD) is essential to the functioning of a globalised, increasingly interconnected, and automated economy. However, the past decade has witnessed a five-fold...

We need to talk about cross-border flows of non-personal data!

Because:
i) these are increasingly critical for digital trade; and
ii) the number of measures affecting their flow has increased five-fold in the last decade

See our latest and greatest on this topic
👇
www.oecd.org/en/publicati...

To spell it out:
precovid - no health differences between the group that subsequently caught covid and those that did not.
after covid - health differences between the group that known to have caught covid and the group not.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Insane

They say it can’t be done, but here we are, California is generated 106% of California’s entire state electricity demand from renewables.

California has a population bigger that 154 other countries around the world. It’s the 4th largest economy, in the world.

Let that sink in.
#energysky #greensky

Britain’s trade deal with Trump may not be good news for the world [FREE TO READ] Starmer’s choice undermines multilateralism and poses risks to the UK

My take on today’s UK-US trade deal. The UK is a small weak country. It does what small weak countries do, which is to escape the bully, to pay the Dane-geld.

Standing up for the multilateral rules-based trading system will have to be left for others.

China's Xi calls for stronger trade ties with Vietnam amid US tariff tensions President Xi Jinping kicked off a three-nation trip to Southeast Asia in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi.

China's President Xi Jinping called for stronger ties with Vietnam on trade and supply chains amid disruptions caused by US tariffs, as he kicked off a three-nation trip to Southeast Asia in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi reut.rs/3Gasvcg

This is the 7th WTO complaint this year. On pace for the most since 2018.

Even Americans don’t want Trump’s barmy tariffs, writes Douglas Irwin The trade historian predicts that the damage will be geopolitical as well as economic

www.economist.com/by-invitatio...

Exclusive: US suspends financial contributions to WTO, trade sources say The United States has paused contributions to the World Trade Organization, three trade sources told Reuters, as U.S. President Donald Trump's administration ramps up efforts to cut government spending.

Bad news (h/t @emmafarge.bsky.social): The US is suspending its WTO contributions. After the EU member states (together 31.1 %) it was the second largest contributor (11.4%). China contributes 11.2, U.K. 3.7%. www.reuters.com/world/us-sus...

Almost half of Republican men now believe that women should return to their traditional roles in society (up from 28 percent in 2022)
www.nytimes.com/2025/02/27/o...

What should we make of the new text on e-commerce in the WTO? It’ll be an important set of rules if it’s ever formalised — a big ‘if’. What kind of document is it? What does its release mean? What’s its future?

WTO nerds corner.

3 new papers:

1. For the first time, 72 WTO members want a General Council decision (Feb 18–19) to add their agreement on e-commerce to the package of WTO agreements (via Annex 4).

They’ll probably fail

Proposal ➡️ docs.wto.org/dol2fe/Pages...

Explanation ⬇️

The entire point of trade agreements is to mitigate this uncertainty. It's been wildly successful for 80 years at generating growth, wealth, & development around the world. Yes, trade/globalization have distributional costs exist. No, we don't want to dismantle load-bearing institutions like this.

Predictability is the victim of Trump’s tariff threats An inconsistent US is an unreliable partner — it’s that simple

key point from Martin Wolf: even if Trump's tariffs don't go in he has blown up the policy certainty that underpins all supply chains that include the US www.ft.com/content/f097...

How To Damage US Manufacturing Even the threat of tariffs will do a lot of harm

Trump treats trade agreements as mere suggestions, which he can ignore if he feels like it. That's bad for business paulkrugman.substack.com/p/how-to-dam...

Trump admin through 1 week:
- Pauses all federal grants & loans
- Purges Justice Department career staff, halts civil rights cases
- Purges at least 15 inspectors general
- Suspends USAID staff while halting foreign aid
- Threatens Colombia, Denmark, Mexico, Canada & many more w/ tariffs & sanctions

IELP blog post: Trump's Trade Policy, Day 1: Just a Memo http://dlvr.it/THTSXP

Putting America First In International Environmental Agreements – The White House By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows: Section 1.

If you're looking for the text of the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement (which takes a yr. to be in effect, but the U.S. is treating as immediate): it is here. Also cuts off US funding to the UNFCCC and US int'l climate finance. www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

Indeed, yes!

How the CPTPP can rewrite 21st century trade rules | Article | Hinrich Foundation Members of the CPTPP have now embarked on its first-ever General Review. It is in two critical spheres that the Review could really come up with a new gold standard.

Sorry, broken link - trying again

www.hinrichfoundation.com/research/art...

The Hinrich Foundation has published lots of articles on CPTPP, including a piece of mine on the current CPTPP General Review www.hinrichfoundation.com/research/art..., and this great recent commentary on accessions from Dr Deborah Elms www.hinrichfoundation.com/research/wp/...