April's forecast revision showed merchandise trade contracting — and the gap between container rates and real volumes is where the policy story lives.
Valentina Sokolov · August 28, 2026Designations, blocked property, and secondary exposure — the instruments are legal mechanics, not rhetoric, and their enforcement record is mixed.
Gabriela Montoya · August 26, 2026
The definitive CBAM regime began on 1 January 2026, but the threshold, the deductions and the certificate calendar decide who actually pays.
Valentina Sokolov · August 22, 2026
Since 1981, every economically significant federal regulation has carried a price-benefit ledger — and the 2023 rewrite of the government's manual changed how every entry is counted.
Valentina Sokolov · February 9, 2026
Published every working day since 1936, the Federal Register is the single legal newspaper where every proposed and final federal rule must appear to exist.
Valentina Sokolov · February 4, 2026The Unfunded Mandates Reform Act was supposed to make Congress count the cost of the rules it imposes — and the counting is exactly what its reports now show.
Henrik Larsen · January 31, 2026The 1995 Lobbying Disclosure Act moved influence out of the shadows with quarterly reports — and its foreign-agent sibling reaches conduct the LDA does not touch.
Valentina Sokolov · January 26, 2026
The DXY tracks the dollar against six currencies with a 57.6 percent euro weight — a narrow gauge that still moves oil, debt, and emerging markets.
Valentina Sokolov · April 28, 2026
A statutory review-then-investigation timeline, not a blanket veto power, is what actually governs how Washington screens foreign investment — and CY2025 filings show where the scrutiny concentrates.
Christopher Lee · August 10, 2026
Real observation is a months-long methodology with checklists and statistics — not the photo-op delegations its critics mistake it for.
Christopher Lee · March 26, 2026
A Dutch city gave its name to the quiet machinery of cross-border legality — documents, children, evidence, and service of process.
Christopher Lee · March 22, 2026
The Vienna Convention gives a detained traveler notification and visits — not rescue, not legal fees, and not a get-out-of-jail card.
Christopher Lee · March 17, 2026
Six central banks have kept standing dollar swap lines open since October 31, 2013. The mechanism is two transactions, one exchange rate, and a credit risk that never crosses the border.
Gabriela Montoya · August 20, 2026
Minerals diplomacy is the new trade architecture: narrow deals over lithium and nickel quietly define who counts as an ally in industrial policy.
Gabriela Montoya · August 10, 2026CBAM is Europe's answer to carbon leakage: importers pay the carbon price domestic producers pay — and 2026 is the first year with real invoices.
Gabriela Montoya · August 6, 2026
The WEO is a 190-country forecasting machine on a strict calendar — and its own error tables are the best guide to how much to trust it.
Lena Fischer · May 11, 2026Three private firms grade the world's governments — with published criteria, committee votes, and a record that includes missing a global crisis.
Valentina Sokolov · May 7, 2026QT is the Fed letting its balance sheet run off — and the real question it answers is how small reserves can get before money markets strain.
Valentina Sokolov · May 2, 2026
A joint inquiry by two federal agencies decides whether a foreign subsidy justifies a new U.S. tariff — and the process runs on fixed deadlines, not politics.
Henrik Larsen · August 12, 2026The SEC retreated, California marched, Europe reached across the border — and U.S. companies now file climate data under someone's mandate anyway.
Henrik Larsen · June 26, 2026Trucking is the economy's rawest real-time gauge — no revisions, no surveys, just rates — and the freight recession told the goods slowdown first.
Henrik Larsen · June 21, 2026