Over the summer of 2018, trade relations between the United States and many of its trading partners continued to be marked by tensions. The United States and China ratcheted up their use of tariffs against each other. The United States both received and initiated requests for consultation with various countries at the World Trade Organization (WTO) related to its earlier steel and aluminum tariffs and to tariffs imposed in response by other countries. President Trump has continued to pursue the possibility of further tariffs, including with respect to automobile and uranium imports. The United States also escalated trade tensions with Turkey through various measures, explicitly linking some of these measures to Turkey's detainment of an American pastor. Despite the broader theme of tensions, negotiations have proved productive between the United States and two of its major trading partners—the European Union and Mexico—paving a way for future settlements. With the European Union, the Trump administration has reached a tentative understanding and agreed not to impose new tariffs while the parties negotiate toward finalizing this understanding. As to Mexico, in late August 2018 the Trump administration announced that the two countries had reached agreement with respect to many issues underlying their ongoing North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) negotiations.

In the spring of 2016, U.S. prosecutors charged Mohammad Jabbateh with four counts of perjury and immigration fraud for making false statements during his pursuit of asylum and later permanent legal residency in the United States. At the time of the indictment, Jabbateh was a Liberian national living in East Lansdowne, Pennsylvania, and the owner of a shipping company. The indictment charged that Jabbateh lied to U.S. immigration officials to conceal the role he played in Liberia's first civil war as the warlord “Jungle Jabbah.” In October of 2017, a jury convicted Jabbateh on all four counts. Jabbateh is reportedly the first person prosecuted and found guilty in connection with atrocities carried out during Liberia's first civil war, which ran from 1989 to 1997.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently held unanimously that § 1610(g) of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) does not lift the immunity from attachment of certain artifacts belonging to Iran. The case, Rubin v. Islamic Republic of Iran, stemmed from the petitioners’ attempt to satisfy a prior judgment against Iran for injuries sustained in Hamas suicide bombings in Jerusalem in 1997.

On December 2, 2017, the Trump administration announced the end of its participation in the Global Compact on Migration, a proposed United Nations commitment that would address global flows of migrants. Citing American sovereign interests as the reason for withdrawal, U.S. officials stated that the Global Compact on Migration would undermine current U.S. immigration policy focused on border security.

On October 13, 2017, President Trump announced that he would not recertify Iran's compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). This paved the way for Congress to reimpose sanctions on Iran for its nuclear program through an expedited legislative process, but congressional leaders have declined to do so.

On November 30, 2017, the United States concluded negotiations on an agreement to limit fishing in the Arctic, titled the Agreement to Prevent Unregulated High Seas Fisheries in the Central Arctic Ocean. Delegations from the European Union and nine countries—Canada, China, Denmark with regard to Greenland and the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Japan, Norway, Russia, South Korea, and the United States—participated in the negotiations, which began in December of 2015. According to a statement made by the U.S. State Department:

On May 7, 2018, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit blocked the transfer to an unidentified third country of a dual U.S.-Saudi national detained in Iraq as an alleged enemy combatant. The decision, Doe v. Mattis, also upheld a district court order requiring the government to provide seventy-two hours’ notice before transferring him to another country. In an opinion authored by Judge Srinivasan and joined by Judge Wilkins, the court emphasized that while it was “respectful of—and with appreciation for—the considerable deference owed to the Executive's judgments in the prosecution of a war,” “things are different” for alleged enemy combatants who are U.S. citizens. Further proceedings in the district court could potentially address whether the U.S. military campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is lawful under U.S. domestic law.

Consistent with President Trump's America First trade agenda, his administration imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports in early March of 2018, triggering various responses and challenges. Countries have followed through on early objections to the tariffs through retaliatory tariffs and challenges in the World Trade Organization (WTO), and steel importers have challenged the legality of these tariffs under U.S. domestic law. At the same time, these tariffs have been revised multiple times, either to delay the implementation period for certain countries seeking exemptions or to permanently grant exemptions to countries who reached negotiated arrangements with the United States.

On March 8, 2018, President Trump signed Proclamation 9704 and Proclamation 9705 imposing tariffs on imported aluminum and steel articles, respectively. According to Trump, the tariffs are “necessary and appropriate to address the threat that imports” of steel and aluminum articles “pose to the national security.” The imposition of tariffs in the name of national defense is the latest and most high-profile move by the Trump administration to orient the United States toward an “America First” trade policy.

Trade tensions between the United States and China have escalated under the Trump administration. Some of this tension has resulted from the steel and aluminum tariffs imposed by the United States on most of its trading partners in the spring of 2018. Another major source of conflict relates to President Trump's concerns with China's perceived unfair practices in relation to intellectual property and technology rights. The Trump administration has addressed these concerns both by pursuing unilateral responses and seeking relief through the World Trade Organization (WTO).

North Korea's Chairman, Kim Jong Un, agreed to work toward the Korean peninsula's denuclearization at a Singapore summit meeting with President Trump on June 12, 2018. The encounter marked the first time in history that the president of the United States and the leader of North Korea have met in person. It came after an intense year and a half of interactions between the two countries, including the exchange of nuclear-laced military threats, the imposition of new sanctions by the United States and the UN Security Council, and, eventually, a touch of détente. Since the meeting occurred, North Korea has taken several steps consistent with commitments it made, including returning remains said to be those of American service members, refraining from missile launches, and beginning to dismantle its testing facilities. Also since the meeting occurred, the United States has suspended its usual joint military exercises with South Korea, consistent with a statement made by Trump at the summit, while leaving in place existing sanctions against North Korea.

Consistent with his approach on the campaign trail, President Trump has demonstrated a continued interest in revamping U.S. trade agreements. By the late spring of 2018, the Trump administration had negotiated modest changes to the United States-Republic of Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS) in favor of U.S. interests. It had yet to reach any final agreement with regard to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), despite the expiration of an initial deadline that was designed to ensure adequate time for a vote on the negotiated agreement by the present Congress. To ease the passage of future trade deals, Trump has triggered the three-year extension of a process that provides expedited congressional consideration of negotiated trade agreements.

On the surface, the two books under review seem to have little in common. The Bonnitcha/Poulsen/Waibel (BPW) book, written by two legal academics and a political scientist, provides a balanced, fact-grounded account of international investment agreements (IIAs) and investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). This is the “international treaty regime” in that book's title which the authors argue needs to be distinguished from the broader “international regime complex” that their book explicitly does not address, namely the number of other international instruments that at least incidentally also protect foreign investments (including, for example, political risk insurance, tax treaties, certain World Trade Organization agreements, and certain human rights treaties like the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)) (p. 7 and Figure 1.2). As one of the encomiums on its back cover page suggests, the BPW book seeks to answer the fraught competing contentions of defenders and critics of the regime that all too frequently generate “more heat than light.” Their book dispassionately synthesizes the available legal, economic, and political literature relevant to understanding the investment treaty regime's oft-proclaimed “legitimacy crisis.” It seeks to supply lawyers needing political context and political scientists needing legal knowledge with the unfiltered facts required to assess whether such a “crisis” exists and, if so, what the ways forward might be.

On November 22, 2017, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson released a statement addressing attacks on the Rohingya population in Burma:

As a candidate, Donald Trump made clear that, if elected, he would “dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran.” Nonetheless, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) remained in place throughout 2017, and all four International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reports that year verified Iran's compliance with its nuclear commitments under it. On January 12, 2018, President Trump warned that he would withdraw from the JCPOA by mid-May unless he “secure[d] our European allies’ agreement to fix [its] terrible flaws.” No such agreement materialized and, on May 8, Trump announced his decision to withdraw. He also ordered the reimposition of robust primary and secondary sanctions that had been previously waived pursuant to the JCPOA.

On January 30, 2018, President Trump signed Executive Order 13,823, directing officials to keep the Guantánamo Bay detention camp open and permitting additional detainees to be transported to the facility. In announcing his decision during the State of the Union address to Congress, Trump stated, “I am asking Congress to ensure that, in the fight against ISIS and Al Qaida, we continue to have all necessary power to detain terrorists … . And in many cases, for them, it will now be Guantánamo Bay.” Section 2 of the order provides:

1. (a) Section 3 of Executive Order 13492 of January 22, 2009 …, ordering the closure of detention facilities at U.S. Naval Station Guantánamo Bay, is hereby revoked.

2. (b) Detention operations at U.S. Naval Station Guantánamo Bay shall continue to be conducted consistent with all applicable United States and international law, including the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005.

3. (c) In addition, the United States may transport additional detainees to U.S. Naval Station Guantánamo Bay when lawful and necessary to protect the Nation.