Mark Wu

President Donald Trump wants Americans to get lower prices for medicines — and the rest of the world may pay for it. His "America First" message on drugs at home, coupled with pro-pharmaceutical industry policies abroad, could lead to higher costs for patients around the world — without making drugs more affordable for those in the U.S. Trump on Friday plans to deliver his long-promised speech on how to lower drug costs, addressing an industry he has in the past accused of "getting away with murder." Global health officials worry he will also target practices that keep medicines affordable in other countries...“It’s certainly possible that pharmaceutical companies will pocket the profits from higher overseas pharmaceutical prices to the benefit of shareholders,” without lowering U.S prices, said Mark Wu, a trade expert at Harvard Law School. “On the other hand, it could provide the administration with some leverage to push pharmaceutical companies to lower their prices domestically in return for these overseas gains and benefits from the new tax plan.”

...Today's trading system may be bent, but it is not broken. Import tariffs are low. Quotas are relatively uncommon. In 2016, some $15.4trn of merchandise flowed between countries belonging to the World Trade Organization...Then there is China. After its entry into the WTO in 2001, its government cut tariffs and undertook domestic policy reform. But its economic model of state-infused capitalism, referred to by Harvard Law Professor Mark Wu as “China, Inc”, also evolved in ways that sat awkwardly alongside the world’s trade rules. The “Made in China 2025” industrial policy, its apparent tolerance of industrial espionage and intellectual-property theft from foreign companies, and its cheap loans from state-owned banks to Chinese manufacturers all rub up against the spirit, if not the letter, of the global trading system.

As President Donald Trump has gone on the offensive against China in an attempt to push it to abandon trade practices many companies and governments say are unfair, Beijing has sought to portray the US moves as an attack on the international trading system as a whole...Experts says it's a bizarre state of affairs, given China's own track record on trade..."China is seeking to cast itself as the defender of a rules-based system, but its own past behavior raises doubts about just how committed China is to following the spirit, if not letter, of the law," said Mark Wu, an international trade professor at Harvard Law School.

President Donald Trump’s unilateral imposition of new tariffs last week is a slap at the World Trade Organization, a frequent target of his attacks. Allies are urging Mr. Trump to fix the 164-country body, not marginalize it. The WTO’s future is particularly uncertain because the Trump administration’s approach simultaneously circumvents and relies on it...“WTO law is woefully inadequate to deal with some, but not necessarily all, of the problematic trade practices arising out of China,” said Harvard law professor Mark Wu, a trade expert. As a result, he said, the U.S. and its allies will still seek recourse on some issues through the WTO. But gaps in international law and insufficient remedies available mean Washington feels more pressure to take further steps, either with allies or on its own.

The White House is preparing to crack down on what it says are improper Chinese trade practices by making it significantly more difficult for Chinese firms to acquire advanced U.S. technology or invest in American companies, individuals involved in the planning said. The administration plans to release on Thursday a package of proposed punitive measures aimed at China that include tariffs on imports worth at least $30 billion...Whatever the political blowback, Harvard law professor Mark Wu, a trade expert, says that the White House has authority to impose tariffs under section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. “In situations where the U.S. Trade Representative deems unfair trade practices to fall outside the scope of a WTO-covered agreement, then the statute permits the executive branch to take action directly without first seeking recourse through WTO dispute settlement” procedures, he said.

President Donald Trump’s decree to tag steel and aluminum imports with hefty tariffs came with caveats aimed at providing assurances to U.S. allies, but opponents of the duties have been left with far more questions than answers in the wake of the policy’s tumultuous rollout. The core of Trump’s surprise announcement from last week remains intact — the U.S. will impose a 25 percent tariff on steel and a 10 percent levy on aluminum — but the fine print of the documents implementing those duties has sent the trade world into a frenzy as it tries to figure out how to navigate the orders...“How will that process work?” Harvard law professor Mark Wu said. “How that process works or plays out has implications for whether other countries choose to challenge this measure at the [World Trade Organization], what the timing of that would be and what the scope of such a challenge would be.”

...The WTO is the center of the global trading system. Made up of and governed by member nations, the WTO administers the network of international trade rules currently in place. It serves as a place to negotiate changes to existing agreements and, when issues come up, for member countries to mediate any disputes...There's also fear that other countries could choose to retaliate unilaterally against the United States, outside the aegis of the WTO. That could undermine faith in the entire global trading system. "It would weaken the institution's legitimacy if everyone seeks to end run the WTO rules," said Mark Wu, a professor of international trade law at Harvard Law School.

At the height of the Great Depression, Congress created a program to help American businesses ease the pain of crippling tariffs. That program, which allows the designation of special geographic areas known as "foreign trade zones," is still in place today. Cities, states and companies — which began looking more to the zones several years ago when Donald Trump launched his campaign for the White House — are now sure to step up their use of FTZs as a way to lessen the impact of the president's newly ordered tariffs, experts told NBC News...Mark Wu, an assistant professor at Harvard Law School who specializes in international trade law, agreed. "I would expect the use of them to increase as a result of the shift in government policy, trade and otherwise … whether that's by way of making better or greater use of existing FTZs or applying for new ones," Wu said.

In 2002, President George W. Bush slapped steep tariffs on steel imports, warning about the collapse of the U.S. steel industry, then lifted them 21 months later to avoid a trade war with the European Union and Japan. Sixteen years later, President Trump is imposing steel tariffs of his own — but this time, the most powerful potential trade war foe is China...China's domestic demand for steel is falling as its economy slows, and that excess steel is disrupting the world market, Mark Wu, a professor of international trade law at Harvard, tells Axios. "China has to do something [in response to Trump's tariffs] just to signal its own resolve," Wu says. But they likely won't retaliate with the full brunt of their capability, with China content to let the West fight it out among themselves, he says.

Trade associations opposed to President Donald Trump’s tariffs are exploring whether to try to block the tariffs order in court, using as a template the successful efforts to challenge the president’s travel ban...“One possible argument that an industry association might raise would be that the president has exceeded the bounds of what’s permissible under the congressional statute,” says Mark Wu, a trade expert at Harvard Law School. But given the careful way the president’s tariff proclamation was worded to refer to national security, he says, “it would be difficult for such an argument to prevail in court.”

Two decades ago, China's gross exports were on par with the Netherlands, and only North Korea relied on the world's most populous country as its primary source of imports. Now, China exports far more than any country on earth, and is the top supplier of countries in every corner of the world...Every single year before China was allowed into the World Trade Organization in 2001, Congress had the option to reassess the U.S.'s trade relationship with China and raise tariffs. Membership in the WTO entitled China to the stable tariff rate enjoyed by other members and reduced uncertainty for companies wanting to offshore production to China, Mark Wu, a professor of international trade law at Harvard, tells Axios.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India issued a strong call on Tuesday for nations to embrace globalization, combat climate change and strengthen international institutions like the World Trade Organization. “Forces of protectionism are raising their heads against globalization,” Mr. Modi said during a speech to the World Economic Forum here...Mark Wu, a former trade negotiator for the United States who is now an assistant professor of trade law at Harvard University and who attended Mr. Modi’s speech, said India faced a challenge in terms of imports: attracting foreign manufacturers without appearing to violate international trade norms. “While the prime minister articulated all the right messages on globalization at Davos, his government remains firmly committed to a strategy of leveraging its market size to drive industrial policies to spur greater high-tech manufacturing in India,” Mr. Wu said.

Everybody meets in Buenos Aires,” said Cecilia Malmstrom, the European Union’s trade commissioner, days before heading there for the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) biennial gathering of ministers, which opens on December 10th. Some non-governmental organisations have been blocked by the protest-averse Argentine authorities, but a meeting of people will indeed take place. One of minds is another matter...On the present course, by the end of 2019 too few judges will be left to rule on new cases (three are required). Mark Wu, a law professor at Harvard University, worries that gumming up the judicial arm may make countries doubt that the WTO is the best forum for settling disputes. “The risk is less of an immediate explosion,” he says, “than a slower death by a thousand cuts.”

Apple Inc. likes to say it supports two million U.S. jobs. Plans by the company’s main manufacturing partner for a $10 billion factory in Wisconsin will add at least 10,000 more, helping Apple fend off the threat of import tariffs on its most important product, the iPhone. President Donald Trump and Foxconn Technology Group Chairman Terry Gou said in a White House press conference on Wednesday that the factory will initially employ about 3,000 people, before expanding to as many as 13,000...“Foxconn is doing its best to try to head off a trade war and they’re obviously being quite strategic in terms of making their investment in house speaker Ryan’s home district and thereby trying to gain goodwill,” said Mark Wu, an assistant professor at Harvard Law School who serves on the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Trade and Foreign Direct Investment.

As President Donald Trump prepares to put his own stamp on the all-important U.S.-China trade alliance, experts are urging the White House to avoid being distracted by potential quick market access victories and instead prioritize a comprehensive approach to resolving the partners' deep-seated problems. Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping emerged from their bilateral summit in Florida last week with a 100-day plan to create a new framework for trade talks. The U.S. has been holding bilateral economic talks with China in some form or another for several years, but each new administration has been eager to reset that conversation on its own terms...Those are the kinds of things that can pay dividends for U.S. companies in the near term, which has been a key priority for the Trump administration, but Harvard law professor and former U.S. trade negotiator Mark Wu said that such steps are ultimately a bandage on the deeper issues facing the two trade behemoths.