Ikenomic Insights

 (Piece originally published at Forbes ) U.S. policymakers portray the United States as the most open, transparent, rules-based economy in the world. Such moral preening is meant to excuse Washington's protectionism as exceptional and virtuous – trade restrictions imposed reluctantly and merely to level a proverbial playing field made unlevel by the actions of rule-breaking foreign companies and governments. But there is nothing virtuous about the biased , often capricious , and increasingly lawless administration of America’s so-called “unfair trade” laws. Facially, U.S. antidumping (AD) and countervailing duty (CVD) laws allow U.S. industries to seek and obtain special tariffs on imports determined to be sold at prices that cause or threaten to cause them injury. The laws are presumed to guard against foreign companies selling products at artificially low prices in order to knock out their American competition and establish dominance in the U.S. market. In reality, these laws ar

  (Originally published on Forbes.com) No single country in the world attracts more foreign direct investment than the United States. And no country’s businesses have invested more in the United States than Japan’s. That should be cause for celebration and flute-clinking in Washington this week, where President Biden is hosting Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. But Biden’s opposition to Nippon Steel’s proposed acquisition of U.S. Steel has rendered discussion of cross-border investment a bit uncomfortable. Rather than reiterate why Biden’s position is bad for the economy, bad for bilateral relations, bad for U.S. soft power, and bad for the administration’s whole “friendshoring” thing, this piece will toast some of the good things about the bilateral investment relationship that probably won’t make it into the official record. Let’s start with some statistics . The value of the stock of foreign direct investment in the United States (on a historical cost basis as of the end of 202