News and other interesting items:

• Sneaker Tariffs See the column by Matt Yglesias for links to the NPR story on Sawing Apart Gym Shoes at the Port of Long Beach (to enforce tariff laws). The comments to both Yglesias and the NPR story give an idea of how contentious trade issues are. Note also Yglesias' link to his post noting that the US tariff structure is highly regressive
  Note that the arguments cut across simple distinctions between "liberal" and "free-market" positions.

• Brazil, the US and cotton
  • United States -- Subsidies on Upland Cotton Dispute Settlement: Dispute 267 documents from the World Trade Organization.
  • Brazil announces countermeasures against US in cotton dispute TWN Info service on WTO and Trade Issues, 15 March 2010.
  • Why the U.S. Is Also Giving Brazilians Farm Subsidies by Michael Grunwald, Friday, April 9, 2010.

• Christmas tariffs Does Santa have Most-Favored-Nation status?
  You might also be interested in the Christmas Price Index

• The Box Tracking a shipping container around the globe to tell the story of global trade.

• Trade Negogiations, South Korean style Dec. 18, 2008. The South Korean Parliament is discussing the US-Korean Free Trade Agreement.

• Larry Summers, new chair of the National Economic Council, on trade:
  -- America Needs to Make a New Case for Trade by Lawrence Summers, Financial Times, 27 Apr.2008.
  -- A Strategy to Promote Healthy Globalisation by Lawrence Summers, Financial Times, 27 Apr.2008.
  -- The Global Consensus on Trade is Unravelling by Lawrence Summers, Financial Times, 24 Aug.2008.