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- PerspectivesTrade & Investment
Foreign delegations come to Washington to meet a counterparty that is not there
Twenty of the fifty-one jurisdictions in the federal collections file levy all five of the taxes it names, and two levy only two of them. The body that decides whether a foreign project works is usually a state, and it is not in the room.
- InsightsTrade & Investment
The trade gap narrowed in one year of six, and 2025 is now the widest reading of the six
The deficit in goods and services widened from 53 billion dollars a month in 2020 to 75 in 2022, narrowed to 62 in 2023, then widened again to 78 in 2025. The current account, which counts investment income and transfers as well, moved the other way in the final year, so the two measures of the same external gap do not agree on which year is the widest.
- PerspectivesEconomic Security
Tell a ministry where to look, not where to go
Advice that names a destination expires the day the evidence moves. The six files behind any recommendation about the American economy carry six different as-of dates, and a ministry that was handed the conclusion cannot tell which one broke.
- PerspectivesTariffs & Trade Agreements
A bilateral arrangement locks in a counterparty, which is the part of a trading position most likely to change
Goods imports from China fell from a monthly average of 45 billion dollars in 2022 to 26 in 2025, and exports to it from 13 to 9, while total imports and exports of goods and services each rose by 0.28 trillion dollars across the same three years. No series on this site describes an arrangement of either kind, so what each locks in is argued here and not measured.
- PerspectivesGovernance & Institutions
Reform of a multilateral institution changes behaviour only when it changes what the institution must count
Reform is argued as a question of votes and chairs, while behaviour is set by the balance sheet, the appropriation and the measure that decides eligibility. The statistics that would test any of it are national, and this site holds no comparable published series for the institutions themselves.
- PerspectivesIndustrial Policy
Each instrument of economic statecraft has its own published series and the doctrine meant to rank them has none
Construction spending on manufacturing plant ran at 75 billion dollars a year in 2020 and 215 in 2025, while manufacturing output on a 2017 base of 100 ended the window at 97.3. Every instrument of statecraft has a published series, and the ranking that says which instrument yields when two collide has none.
- InsightsTrade & Investment
Goods exports to mainland China are lower in 2025 than in 2020
The monthly average rose to 13 billion dollars in 2021, stayed between 12 and 13 for four years, then fell to 9 in 2025, the lowest of the six readings. Imports from China fell further in the same year, so the gap between the two series is at its narrowest while exports are at their weakest.
- PerspectivesTrade & Investment
A foreign ministry cannot spend attention on fifty states, and should not try
California holds 39,431,263 residents and Wyoming 587,618, and each sends the same two senators to Washington. A ministry with a finite diary has to decide which of those two facts it is optimising against, because the rankings they produce are not the same.
- ExplainerTrade & Investment
What a bilateral tax treaty changes for an investor
A tax treaty is not a tax cut. By the end of this you will know which government gives up what, why the permanent establishment article decides more than the rate articles do, and which taxes a treaty never reaches.
- ExplainerEconomic Security
What a government means when it says de-risking
De-risking is the attempt to remove one supplier's leverage over an economy without ending the trade. By the end you should know which instruments governments use, why dependence is so hard to measure, and why rising domestic output does not settle the question.
- InsightsTrade & Investment
Goods imports from China fell 11 billion dollars a month in 2025, taking the series below its 2020 level
The monthly average rose from 36 billion dollars in 2020 to 45 in 2022, then fell to 26 in 2025, the lowest of the six readings. Exports in the other direction also ended at their lowest reading, so the narrower bilateral difference comes from buying less rather than selling more.
- ExplainerGeoeconomics
What a central bank currency swap line does
A swap line is a reciprocal credit between two central banks with a reversal date built into it. By the end of this you will know how the chain of exposure runs, why the facility is priced to be unattractive, and why the announced size is rarely the number that matters.
- ExplainerDevelopment Finance
What a development finance institution does with public money
Development finance institutions lend, insure and buy stakes in private businesses abroad using capital they are expected to get back. By the end you should be able to tell which instrument an announcement is describing, and what the private market would have done without it.
- CommentaryMultilateral Institutions
Sovereign restructuring was built for a world where delay cost the creditor nothing
Reprofiling worked because a payment pushed out ten years cost the creditor nothing in real terms, and in 2020 the implied real ten-year yield was minus 0.60 percent. In 2025 it was plus 1.96 percent, so the same extension now costs a real 17.6 percent, and a process whose only enforcement is peer pressure has to arrange that loss.
- CommentaryEconomic Security
An economy that exports eleven percent of its output is hard to coerce
The Bureau of Economic Analysis puts exports at 11 percent of GDP. That number disappoints anyone who wants trade to be the growth engine and reassures anyone who thinks a trade fight is cheap. Both readings make the same mistake about what an average is.