Good for Bureaucrats, Good for Bugs

The European Union’s Biocidal Products Regulation Benefits Only Bureaucrats, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #6097, June 18, 2021. "The European Union controls the sale of biocides through its Biocidal Products Regulation (BPR). A biocidal product contains a substance that is designed to control or destroy a harmful organism, often a germ or virus. Unfortunately, the BPR is a one-size-fits-all model: It puts simple products containing everyday chemicals through a bureaucratic process more appropriate for complex products containing new substances. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the BPR restricted the supply of alcohol wipes inside the EU. The U.S. and the U.K. should press the EU to eliminate the non-tariff trade barriers the BPR creates. Both should oppose the broader EU model that prioritizes bureaucratic process over growth, jobs, consumer choice, and common sense."

A G-7 Agenda for 2021

The G-7 Must Act With Unity for Growth and Freedom, with Jim Roberts, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #6093, June 10, 2021. "This year’s Group of Seven (G-7) summit of world leaders faces a series of vital and interlinked challenges. As the world seeks to recover from the devastating personal and economic effects of COVID-19, the democracies are equally seeking to regain the initiative from the world’s autocracies. From Russia’s aggressions in the Caucuses and Ukraine—and its murderous attack by poison in Salisbury, close to the route from London to St. Ives—to the much broader economic, security, and political challenge of China, the democracies are back on their heels, which is where they were when the G-7 first came together in 1973."

Cooperative Pandemic Measures with Europe

The U.S.–European Economic Partnership Recovery Plan, with colleagues at the Heritage Foundation, Heritage Foundation Special Report #230, May 8, 2020. "Europe is being devastated by the coronavirus pandemic, and the economic situation in the United States is not much better. The U.S. and Europe need each other more than ever in order to pull each other out of the post-COVID-19 economic crisis. This Special Report has identified seven areas of potential transatlantic community cooperation between the U.S. and Europe: (1) economic freedom, (2) a U.S.–EU Free Trade Agreement, (3) a U.S.–U.K. Free Trade Agreement, (4) the Three Seas Initiative, (5) the Visa Waiver Program, (6) Europe’s energy security, and (7) Europe’s approach to China 5G technology. Cooperation on these seven areas offers a realistic and meaningful approach for Americans and Europeans to help each other."

Avoiding TTIP Redux

Ten Principles for U.S. Trade Negotiations with the European Union, with Gabriella Beaumont-Smith, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #3480, April 8, 2020. "Since the collapse of the negotiations for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) in 2016, trade tensions between the U.S. and the European Union have increased. In July 2018, the U.S. and the EU agreed to negotiate a trade agreement, and in October 2018, the U.S. released its negotiating objectives for trade talks with the EU. These objectives are generic and based on a vision of “balanced” and managed trade that is excessively pessimistic about the value of free trade. Negotiating with the EU will not be easy: The EU’s support for regulatory harmonization and its proclivity for accompanying its free trade agreements with broad political declarations are both unacceptable. The U.S. and the EU should learn the lesson of TTIP, and prefer a narrow, principled agreement that increases market-based competition and which can be negotiated rapidly, to an effort to negotiate a wider agreement that fails and thereby only gives rise to further animosity."