john robb has an interesting idea: export legal hassle. while his post has a tongue in cheek tone, there is a sound underlying idea: greasing the wheels of commerce by expanding the rule of law. under the assumption that laws are fair and are not merely devices to delay the demise of obsolete industries (hello DMCA, hello RIAA), this levels the playing field and reduces uncertainty. always good things for trade. works best in conjunction with pacification by trade
the interesting question is of course whether this brings countries in closer compliance with the rules or is just another stage for an arms race.

US files a complaint against China for WTO violations. Now this is something that we can export: legal hassles. Unleash the lawyers! We should have 100s of WTO filings against China in the works. 1 way to make this happen: create a method by which private law firms can create a WTO case and share in the fines levied (or a lump sum payment based on a portion of the savings for US companies for successful efforts where no fines are extracted). There are probably lots of methods that can make legalism a top US export.

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