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."

Interpol CCF Elections

America Must Lead Free World in Elections to Interpol Commission, Daily Signal, June 1, 2021. "Interpol, the international organization of police organizations, has an important election coming up. That election will determine the new membership of a body known as the Commission for the Control of Interpol’s Files. The commission’s job is to check that the processing of personal data by Interpol complies with the police organization’s own rules, and to decide on requests for access to data and for correction and/or deletion of data processed by Interpol."

The Prospects for a US-UK FTA

"Primary Spotlight on Political Risk - Interview with Ted Bromund Reviews Prospects for a US - UK Free Trade Deal," Primary Access & Research, May 19, 2021. Not available online. "There are four major obstacles on the U.S. side. First, over the past two decades, Britain has become, in the eyes of the U.S. political system, a conservative country. That doesn’t mean Britons would vote Republican if they had the chance. It means that conservatives tend to like Britain and want to improve Anglo-American ties, while liberals tend not to prioritize improving Anglo-American ties. This isn’t a black and white dichotomy, but it is a tendency. With a Democrat now in the White House, it would be surprising if the U.S. administration worked vigorously to complete the U.S.-U.K. FTA."

Interpol Abuse ABCs

What Americans Should Know About Interpol Abuse, Daily Signal, May 17, 2021. "I have a lot of experience researching Interpol, and, though my work as an expert witness, I’ve seen a lot of Interpol abuse cases. Broadly speaking, I’d say the State Department’s list is a good start—Russia is certainly a notorious abuser—but far from complete."

Guns and Silliness at the U.N. in 2021

At the 2021 U.N. Programme of Action on Small Arms Meeting, the U.S. Should Get Real, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #3613, May 4, 2021. "The last meeting of the U.N.’s Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat, and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects (PoA), held in 2018, violated the PoA’s principle of working by unanimous consent. The PoA has few, if any, achievements. U.S. participation in it merely lends it a credibility it does not deserve: The only reason for the U.S. to participate is to prevent the PoA from making bad decisions. Now that the PoA has abandoned the principle of unanimity that allowed the U.S. to prevent bad outcomes, the U.S should not participate in the 2021 meeting of the PoA unless the PoA is reoriented to focus on specific, realistic, and relevant goals."

My Fish Paper

The Central Arctic Ocean Fishing Agreement: A Challenge for U.S. Diplomacy, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #3606, April 16, 2021. "The Agreement to Prevent Unregulated Commercial Fishing on the High Seas of the Central Arctic Ocean, signed by the U.S. in October 2018 and ratified in August 2019, seeks to apply precautionary conservation and management measures to ensure the sustainable use of fish stocks in Arctic waters outside the jurisdictions of the signatory nations. The agreement has a laudable goal and is largely sensible, but it suffers from defects of both substance and process: It is vulnerable to free-riding and, by the rules of the State Department, should have been a treaty. The agreement is acceptable only as an interim measure. The U.S. should seek to replace it with a multilateral treaty that binds all major fishing nations."

Interpol's Revised RPD

Summarizing and Assessing the 2019 Changes in Interpol’s Rules on the Processing of Data, with Michelle Estlund, International Enforcement Law Reporter, volume 37, issue 4, April 2, 2021. "While Interpol has published the revised RPD, it has neither itemized the revisions nor provided a red-line version of the RPD. This article summarizes the 2019 revisions and assesses their significance, both for attorneys seeking the knowledge they need to effectively advocate for their clients when an Interpol issue arises and for practitioners concerned to ensure that Interpol is used only for purposes of legitimate law enforcement. Finally, it provides a practical illustration of the importance of Interpol’s rules on data protection for attorneys advocating before the Commission for the Control of Interpol’s Files (the “CCF”)."

Brexit and Self-Confidence

World Sees Brexit UK’s Union Jack as What it Means to be Great Again - An American Writes, Daily Express, January 21, 2021. "In the Victorian Age, Britain’s confidence was based on its belief that it had a gift for government. The French cooked better food; the Italians wrote finer music; the Americans invented the telegraph. But as the rise of the House of Commons proved, and as Joseph Chamberlain put it, the British were “a great governing race.” That confidence endured, fortified by victory in two wars, into the late 1950s. But after 1945, popular expectations of Western governments changed. Governments were now justified in the people’s eyes by the benefits they provided and the economic growth they oversaw."

What the U.S. Should Do in Europe in 2021

The Top Five U.S. Priorities for European Policy in 2021, with Daniel Kochis, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #6037, January 13, 2021. "2021 will be an inflection point for transatlantic relations. A new U.S. Administration and Congress should focus on reinforcing the transatlantic alliance and working with Europe to address threats from aggressive state actors, while meeting the monumental challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. While the policy differences between the U.S. and Europe on key issues will not disappear under a Biden presidency, the need to work together remains essential: U.S. security rests first and foremost on the strength of the transatlantic alliance."

Accept the Brexit Reality

Brexit Is A Reality; The U.S. Must Act Accordingly, Washington Times, January 6, 2021. "Britain has left the European Union. Now, the United States faces a simple choice. It can either stand idly by as other nations make trade deals with Britain, or it can negotiate a free trade agreement for its own benefit. Brexit Britain has been astonishingly successful in negotiating trade deals around the world. Of course there is its deal with the EU itself, struck at the eleventh hour before Christmas, and already passed into law in Britain. The EU itself has accepted that Britain has left."

Why the U.K. Is Ideally Placed to Negotiate an FTA with the U.S.

Why the U.K. Is an Ideal Free Trade Partner for the U.S., Heritage Foundation Issue Brief#6035, December 11, 2020. "The U.S. and U.K. are currently engaged in intensive negotiations for an ambitious free trade agreement. Such an agreement would build on the already vital trade and investment relationship, and security partnership, between the two nations. It would also offer wider advantages that would help the U.S. to build the positive free trade agenda it needs. The British public broadly supports pursuing free trade agreements outside the European Union, including an agreement with the U.S.; and the British government is moving vigorously to negotiate both continuity and new trade agreements as it exits the EU Customs Union. The U.S. should welcome the fact that the U.K. has entered the world economy as an independent trading nation, and take advantage of this reality by concluding an ambitious free trade agreement with the U.K. in 2021."

Interpol Elections Require U.S. Leadership

The U.S. Must Promote Democratic Leadership in Interpol, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #6025, November 10, 2020. "The next meeting of the Interpol General Assembly will likely be dominated by the election of a majority of Interpol’s Executive Committee, including a new president. The current public contenders for Interpol’s presidency hail from nations with a track record of abusing Interpol. The U.S. should work with other leading democracies to form a democratic caucus in Interpol to ensure that qualified candidates from law-abiding democracies fill these positions. While the agenda for Interpol reform is wide, the U.S.’s top priority must be ensuring that Interpol’s leadership is committed to opposing the autocratic abuse of Interpol."

Financial Sector Support for US-UK Regulatory Cooperation

How the U.S. and Britain Can Build on Private-Sector Support for an Ambitious U.S.–U.K. Free Trade Agreement, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #6017, October 26, 2020. "The establishment business organizations in Britain, which represent a small but visible minority of large firms, prefer the status quo, and have therefore for too long failed to realize the opportunities that Brexit offers. But an alliance of major British and American business organizations in the financial sector recently broke this pattern by announcing their support for deep and broad financial regulatory cooperation between the U.S. and the U.K. within the context of a U.S.–U.K. free trade agreement. The U.S. and Britain must take advantage of this constructive initiative and build on it as they negotiate an ambitious U.S.–U.K. free trade area."

UK Must Break Out of EU Rule-Making Orbit

The U.S. and Britain Should Conclude an Ambitious Free Trade Agreement as Soon as Possible, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #6012, September 24, 2020. "Both the U.S. and the U.K. have much to gain from negotiating and ratifying a free trade agreement, and both nations have shown strong political support for such an agreement. The fundamental goal of the European Union, on the other hand, continues to be to lock the U.K. into its regulatory orbit, thereby nullifying in practice many of Brexit’s achievements and making it effectively impossible for the U.K. to maintain an independent trade policy. The U.K. has made it clear that it will not become an EU client state and has demonstrated its commitment to developing its own trade policies. The U.S. and the U.K. must not allow narrow protectionist lobbies to defeat the broader objectives on which both nations are agreed, and should consider announcing an interim agreement as soon as possible."

The Interpol Presidency in 2020

The Top U.S. Priority at the 2020 Meeting of the Interpol General Assembly, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #6005, August 26, 2020. "The 2020 annual meeting of the Interpol General Assembly, to be held in December in Abu Dhabi, will likely be dominated by the election of a majority of Interpol’s executive committee, including a new president. The United States should work with other democratic nations to form a democratic caucus within Interpol to ensure that qualified candidates from law-abiding democracies fill these positions. While the agenda for Interpol reform is wide, the U.S. must anticipate that the autocracies will make a bid in particular to win Interpol’s presidency, and defeating that bid—not reforming Interpol—will have to be the top U.S. priority in 2020."

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."

Assessing U.K. Objectives For An FTA With The US

How the U.S. Should Respond to the U.K.’s Negotiating Objectives for a Free Trade Agreement, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #5069, May 6, 2020. "On March 2, the U.K. published its negotiating objectives for a free trade agreement with the U.S. These objectives make it clear that the U.K. is committed to free trade with like-minded democracies, including the U.S. The U.K. attaches particular importance to an ambitious and comprehensive free trade agreement with the U.S., viewing it as a strategic opportunity to strengthen the Special Relationship. The U.K. places particular emphasis on expanding trade in services with the U.S. and hopes the U.S. and U.K. can set a new gold standard for digital trade and the protection of intellectual property. The U.K.’s objectives demonstrate that, while negotiations for an agreement with the U.S. will not be free from challenges, there is a clear basis for the speedy conclusion of a free trade agreement between the U.S. and the U.K."

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."

No, It's Not A CFIUS

The Potential Risks of the EU’s Investment Screening for the United States, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #5055, April 6, 2020. "The EU has adopted a framework for screening foreign direct investment. While this framework has regularly been compared to the Committee for Foreign Investments in the United States (CFIUS), the reality is that the EU’s framework bears no similarities to CFIUS in form or likely effectiveness. In fact, the EU’s framework is riddled with weaknesses and perverse incentives. Moreover, because the EU’s framework covers EU programs that have been developed in order to create strategic distance between the EU and the U.S., it is likely that the framework will be used not only against the autocracies at which it is purportedly directed, but also against the United States. The U.S. should focus on improving investment screening at the national level, and vigorously protest any use of the EU’s framework against the U.S."

The 2021 NDAA - Land Mines, Cluster Munitions, and Defense Cooperation

How the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act and the Defense Appropriations Act Can Prepare the U.S. for Great Power Competition, with colleagues at the Heritage Foundation, Heritage Foundation Special Report #222, March 23, 2020. "The 2021 National Defense Authorization Act and the Department of Defense Appropriations Act are key tools for helping the Department of Defense (DOD) adapt to great power competition. The process of preparing for great power competition will not be a fast one, nor is it a matter of simply giving the DOD more resources. It will require prioritizing the long-term challenge posed by China and Russia, while divesting from previous efforts that do not contribute to meeting those challenges. Even if the United States dedicated all federal taxpayer dollars to the defense of the nation, the DOD would still have to make hard decisions about which capabilities are necessary now and in the future, as well as about the level of readiness of each unit. The 2021 authorization and appropriations acts are excellent opportunities for Congress to help the DOD make those decisions."

Making the Case for U.S. Land Mines

Landmines Should Be an Option for the U.S., Washington Times, February 26, 2020. "On March 6, 2014, America’s highest-ranking military officer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey, called anti-personnel landmines “an important tool in the arsenal of the armed forces of the United States.” Barely six months later, the Obama administration all but removed that tool from the U.S. arsenal by declaring the U.S. would not use landmines outside the Korean Peninsula. The Trump administration has now rightly overturned that policy."

Quit the PoA

The United States Should Withdraw from the U.N.’s Programme of Action on Small Arms, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #5040, February 20, 2020. "The last meeting of the U.N.’s Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat, and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects (PoA), held in 2018, broke a U.S. red line and violated the PoA’s own rule of working by unanimous consent. The PoA has few if any substantive achievements. The only reason for the U.S. to participate was to prevent the PoA from making bad decisions and seeking to bind the U.S. with progressive norms. Now that the PoA has abandoned the principle of unanimity that allowed the U.S. to prevent bad outcomes, there is no reason for the U.S. to continue to participate. The U.S. should therefore take no part in the June 2020 meeting of the PoA."

Rejecting Obama's Unilateral Disarmament

The Trump Administration Is Right to Correct U.S. Landmine Policy, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #5037, February 13, 2020. "On January 31, 2020, the Trump Administration canceled the Obama Administration’s policy that prohibited U.S. military forces from employing anti-personnel landmines outside the Korean Peninsula. The Obama Administration’s policy denied U.S. troops the use of weapons that could help to reduce U.S. casualties and help the U.S. military to prevail in future conflict. The Obama policy was adopted against the advice of the U.S. military, in order to please the progressive activists who have led the campaign against anti-personnel landmines, a campaign that has led only to the disarmament of democracies. The new U.S. policy issued by the Department of Defense responsibly authorizes Combatant Commanders, in exceptional circumstances, to employ advanced, non-persistent landmines specifically designed to reduce unintended harm to civilians and partner forces."

What Brexit Means for the U.S.

Brexit’s Three Key Implications for U.S. Policymakers, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #5031, January 31, 2020. "The U.K’s exit from the EU will have three major implications for U.S. policymakers. First, as the U.K. regains its full diplomatic independence and represents itself in functional international organizations, it will be essential for the U.S. to deepen its bilateral diplomatic engagement with Britain. Second, as the U.K. recovers its freedom to negotiate trade agreements, the U.S. must take advantage of this opportunity to negotiate a free trade area with Britain. Third, as the U.K. restores its democratic national sovereignty, the U.S. should recognize that the U.K. has vindicated the principle on which the U.S. itself is founded, even though the history of the Special Relationship shows that the U.S. and the U.K. will not always agree with each other."