While the U.S. has tried to appear assertive in taking action against China’s trade practices, this strategy has yielded limited results. In a new commentary, fellow Simon Lester summarizes current U.S. policies addressing China’s trade conduct and advocates for the U.S.’ revitalized engagement with the World Trade Organization’s dispute settlement system.
The Office of the United States Trade Representative recently stepped back from ongoing negotiations on digital trade at the World Trade Organization, citing unsettled domestic policy, and suspended support for digital trade rules in the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework too. But if the U.S. wants to be a part of the conversation, it should reengage and help craft rules flexible enough to meet its future domestic policy needs, writes nonresident fellow Simon Lester.
“Nearly one billion travelers pass through U.S. airports each year,” writes Alicia L. Johnson, civic science postdoctoral associate. In a new commentary, she outlines how the CDC’s genomic surveillance program, which monitors airport wastewater for traces of infectious disease, must balance public health and privacy concerns.
The work of Katalin Karikó, 2023 Nobel Prize in Medicine recipient, laid a foundation for the development of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines that saved close to 20 million lives worldwide. But her discoveries almost did not happen, writes Alicia L. Johnson, a civic science postdoctoral associate at the Baker Institute Center for Health and Biosciences. Karikó’s story highlights the vital importance of supporting women in STEM.
Despite recent claims that “free trade is dead,” fellow Simon Lester explains that America was never close to anything resembling free trade in the first place. Instead, current U.S. trade policy, just like past policy, reflects a messy mix of free market and industrial policy views.
With the recent enactment of the CHIPS and Science Act, the conversation about industrial policy has started up again. Are state-directed economic policies back, and will such initiatives work?
The author reviews data on the growth of small businesses in Texas in the two years since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Read the post on the Baker Institute Blog here.
"Perhaps surprisingly, the latest national data published by the U.S. Department of Labor suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic has not given small businesses greater cause for concern over the cost of health care benefits," writes McNair scholar Alisha Small. Read her post on the Baker Institute Blog.