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Brave New “Tariff” World: Secondary Tariffs as a New Form of Secondary Sanctions*

August 26, 2025

International trade law has always been about tariffs. Tariffs were on Woodrow Wilson’s mind when he delivered his famous Fourteen Points in 1918, proposing the removal of all economic barriers as one of the ingredients for peace. Tariffs, or, should we say, the removal of tariffs was at the heart of Cordell Hull’s vision for a post-World War II economic order, of James Meade’s Proposal for a Commercial Union, and of the multilateral negotiations that ultimately led to the conclusion of the GATT – the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Tariffs are the “oldest and most familiar of all trade measures”. Today, however, we are witnessing a striking shift in how tariffs are being used. U.S. President Trump’s announcement of so-called ‘secondary tariffs’ on imports from India – imposed in response to India’s purchase of Russian oil and gas – marks a move away from the familiar use of tariffs as protectionist or revenue-raising tools. Nor do they resemble trade remedies. Rather, these measures seem to echo the way the United States has long…

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Trump’s “Tarifaço” Against Brazil: a Breach of the Non-Intervention Rule

July 18, 2025

On 9th of July 2025, the President of the United States, Donald Trump, sent a letter to the Brazilian President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva communicating that the US will impose a 50% tariff over Brazilian imports starting August 1st. The letter was released in Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social, and came as a relative surprise…

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Have WTO Members Successfully Circumvented the US’ Blockade of the Appellate Body? (and How Would We Know?)

February 13, 2024

On January 26th, in what has become a repeat performance of global governance kabuki, Guatemala put forth a proposal on behalf of 130 World Trade Organization members to relaunch the selection process for Appellate Body adjudicators. It was the 73rd time it was doing so, and for the 73rd time, the US exercised its right to block the…

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Fukushima Revisited: ALPS Water Release, China’s Import Ban and the SPS Agreement at the WTO

October 11, 2023

Since the March 2011 accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (FDNPS) in Japan, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has been continuously injecting water to cool the fuel debris. This water becomes contaminated with radionuclides. To address this issue, TEPCO has utilized the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) to remove…

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Politicization of the 5G rollout: Litigation way for Huawei?

February 10, 2023

The Chinese government’s ambition to become the global leader in new technologies, manifested in state-led industrial policies such as Made in China 2025, has prompted a strong response. For example, the United States significantly tightened its export control regulations and expanded grounds for foreign direct investment screening. In turn,…

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