Regulation of Trade in 3D Printed Goods and WTO Modernization: An Opportunity for New Preferential Rules of Origin

Rules of origin are key legal tools for international trade. While they can pose a puzzle for trade analysts and traders to comprehend, they are not just technical elements of trade. It is important to understand how they function as rules can be utilized by states as non-tariff barriers to trade. This dissertation focuses on preferential rules of origin, which determine if a good receives preferential tariff treatment under a regional or bilateral trade agreement. WTO Members must follow the Common Declaration with Regard to Preferential Rules of Origin, an annex to the Agreement on Rules of Origin. This instrument gives Members sovereignty in designing rules. Prior to and since the formation of the WTO, Members have designed rules that traders find restrictive, especially for trade in inputs. As goods are constructed with parts sourced in global value chains, traders must verify the origin of each part to obtain preferential tariff treatment under an agreement. While digital technology facilitates access to information on rules of origin, traders must still understand and comply with national and regional custom procedures. Digital technology also is the basis for advanced manufacturing, which replaces or complements human labor with digitally based manufacturing techniques, such as additive manufacturing (3D printing). Traders looking to 3D printing to shorten global value chains and reshore manufacturing may face challenges when determining the origin of a 3D printed product, as current rules in trade instruments are based on human-labor manufacturing. Trade analysts have begun to explore rules of origin in the context of 3D printing, including whether the 3D file should be an origin-conferring input. This dissertation takes up these initial assessments and examines the potential outcomes of applying current rules to advanced manufactured goods (which are produced in developed and developing countries) or designing new rules. This investigation requires an exploration of the connections between digital trade and customs duties, the role of state sovereignty in a digital trade environment, and the impact of “deep” policy provisions in agreements on trade of advanced products. Using doctrinal, qualitative, and interdisciplinary research, this dissertation presents the rules under WTO law, the main criteria for determining the origin of a good, legal and economic critiques of preferential rules of origin, rules in the context of services and digital trade, the challenges of applying the origin criteria to 3D printed goods, and recommendations for designing rules for advanced manufactured products and for making rules more trader-friendly. Looking at preferential rules of origin in the context of 3D printing allows us to experiment with modernizing rules to support trade in a digital environment. Identifying aspects of the design and administration of rules where there is a risk for protectionist intervention or a risk of generating more confusion for traders leads us to question how the trade law system should regulate such rules. These considerations also tie into some of the challenges international institutions, especially the WTO, face at this moment: what role should multilateralism play in forming a framework for trade and how can organizations modernize along with technological changes

International Procurement Developments in 2018: The United States in International Procurement -- Understanding a Pause in the Trump Administration\u27s Protectionism

As the Trump administration came of age in 2018, two distinct developments marked the United States’ involvement in international procurement. First, to the surprise of many, and despite a wave of other U.S. protectionist measures aimed at strategic sectors such as steel and aluminum, the Trump administration did not press forward aggressively on its promised “Buy American” initiatives in procurement. Second, the Trump administration remained largely silent on an arguably protectionist initiative in the European Union, the European Defense Fund, which gained ground in one of the United States’ most important defense markets abroad. To address these two aspects of U.S. policy, this piece proceeds in five parts. Part I reviews the Trump administration’s failure to move forward on the protectionist measures President Trump called for in the early days of his administration. In Part II, the piece discusses one of the possible causes for the Trump administration’s reluctance to press for protectionism: a significant setback in the NAFTA/USMCA negotiations, which may narrow the administration’s options going forward. Part III reviews other potential causes for the Trump administration’s shift away from protectionism in procurement, including competing strategic concerns, new U.S. data on the relatively small threat posed by procurement from abroad, and data from Europe which confirm that U.S. exporters have much to lose were the European Union to take a retaliatory stance in European procurement markets. Finally, Part IV reviews the European Defense Fund, an initiative which surged forward in 2018 and which threatens to exclude U.S. defense companies from important opportunities in Europe, despite reciprocal defense procurement agreements which guarantee open markets in defense and -- again surprisingly -- with no loud objections from the Trump administration. Part V offers concluding remarks and a potential way forward

El comercio digital y la transformación regional de la economía de América del Norte

North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was a cornerstone of the 1990s liberal hegemony established with the rise of multilateral trade agreements. On July 1st 2020, NAFTA was replaced by a new trade deal: USMCA (United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement). This article argues that through the inclusion of digital trade provisions, USMCA signifies a vision of a regional economic space that differs substantively from NAFTA’s. To make this case, the article examines the digital trade provisions in USMCA, contrasts them with the vision of trade advanced by NAFTA, and evaluates how they create conditions that can transform the North American space-economy.El Tratado del Libre Comercio de América del Norte (TLCAN, NAFTA en inglés) cimentó la hegemonía liberal que ascendió con los tratados multilaterales en los 1990s. El 1º de julio de 2020 el TLC fue remplazado por el nuevo Tratado entre México, Estados Unidos y Canadá (T-MEC, USMCA en inglés). Este artículo argumenta que, al incluir el comercio digital, el T-MEC significa una transformación en la visión del espacio económico regional. El artículo examina las provisiones de comercio digital en el T-MEC, contrastándolas con el TLCAN, y evalúa las condiciones de cambio en el espacio económico de América del Norte

Trade, Economy, and Work: A Shared Agenda for a Stronger Economic Future

The economies of the United States and Mexico have become inextricably linked. For both countries, the other is their top trading partner, with an annual value of $616.38 billion in 2019. Beyond cross-border trade, however, our global competitiveness is linked due to the depth of manufacturing integration. As a result, job creation and export growth are largely regional enterprises. Well over a billion dollars in commerce crosses the border each day, and the GDP of the six Mexican and four U.S. border states is larger than the GDP of all but the three largest countries in the world. The new USMCA is the essential instrument for bilateral cooperation on economic issues, but alone it is not a viable strategy for domestic economic growth. For both López Obrador and Biden, achieving job creation and growth requires an approach that embraces the complementarities of our economies and works toward building a 21st Century economy that works for everyone in each nation. The COVID-19 pandemic has led many companies to reevaluate their global production networks and prioritize supply chain security and resilience. Reshoring has tremendous potential to benefit both countries. Rather than relocating jobs from one country to the other, research shows that companies tend to create jobs on both sides of the border as they expand their investment in the regional economy. In the United States, some five million jobs depend on trade with Mexico, and a similarly large number of jobs in Mexico depend on trade with the United States. To expand the percentage of global GDP generated in our region and to further related job creation and capitalize on new opportunities, leaders must address issues surrounding coordination in essential industries, labor law reforms, and a lack of both high-level dialogue and clear mechanisms for local involvement in the binational economic relationship

Comparative study of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the United States – Mexico – Canada Agreement: the compromised deal of the free trade

The main objective is to analyze two treaties – the old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), to evidence the similarities and differences between two drafted agreements, and it aims to establish, what new issues shall be considered in drafting the Free Trade Agreements to establish mutually beneficial trade relationships with their trade nations. This thesis presents qualitative research, which to a major extent is based on the comparative historical analysis approach towards analyzing trade issues of NAFTA and the USMCA