Trade agreements and regulations have often been a source of controversy in the United States, but seldom been as hotly debated as now. Since taking office, President Donald Trump withdrew from the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and announced his intention to renegotiate North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

This online briefing, from the American Society for International Law, features former senior US officials from both Republican and Democratic administrations who were responsible for representing the US government in its trade negotiations around the world and developing and implementing US trade policy. They discuss the role that international law plays in global trade agreements and disputes; the institutions that address those disputes; what authority the president has, acting on his own, to modify or withdraw from those agreements; proposed reforms of the current international trade system; and the possible paths forward for pursuing US economic interests abroad by the Trump administration.