Trade Insights

Resources

Analysis from the people doing the work.

The ICPA content library. Long-form trade compliance analysis from ICPA staff and ICPA’s law firm partners, plus the full article and podcast library from The Braumiller Group in one searchable place. Open to everyone.

  • 91 articles
  • 76 podcasts
  • 24 authors
  • Newest August 2026

167 pieces

ICPA analysis, plus the full library from The Braumiller Group.

Subject
Author
Format

From ICPA and its law firm partners Selected, with a summary

Analysis August 2026 18 minute read

Section 301 and USMCA: Implications of Dual Country of Origin Tests

Lila Landis · ICPA Head of Community Engagement

A good can be marked Product of Mexico, clear duty free under USMCA, and still owe the 25 percent Section 301 duty as a product of China. This piece walks the two origin tests that produce that result, what CBP’s 2021 Part 102 rule actually changed, the rulings that show where the line falls, and what importers have to check before they assume the tests now agree.

USMCA Section 301 Rules of origin CBP rulings
Read the article  →
Slide deck July 2026 5 slides, PDF

CUSMA/USMCA Non-Renewal: What It Means for Canadian Manufacturers Selling into the U.S.

Robert Stein · VP, Braumiller Consulting Group

What the July 1 decision actually did and did not do. The agreement was not terminated: it runs to July 2036, but with annual reviews in place of the 16-year extension Canada and Mexico asked for, and six months’ notice still enough for any party to leave. The deck reads the near-term consequences for Canadian exporters, including Section 232 metals tariffs that the review does not suspend, rules of origin now in play every twelve months, and the KPMG finding that 42 percent of Canadian manufacturers have moved or are planning to move production to the U.S.

USMCA Joint review Canada Section 232
Download the deck  ↓
Commentary June 2026 On braumillerlaw.com

A US Departure From the USMCA. Is That Even Worthy of Discussion?

Bob Brewer · VP Marketing and New Business Development, The Braumiller Group

The case against treating withdrawal as a live option. Brewer puts the trilateral relationship at roughly $2 trillion a year, larger than U.S. trade with China or with the EU, and walks through what termination would actually set off: tariff snapback, supply chain disruption, manufacturing and agriculture job losses, and a hand-off of leverage to the EU and Asia.

USMCA Withdrawal Tariffs
Read on braumillerlaw.com  ↗
Commentary January 2026 On braumillerlaw.com

The Upcoming USMCA/CUSMA/T-MEC Review: The Options are a Renegotiation, a Few Revisions, or a Formal Exit

Bob Brewer · VP Marketing and New Business Development, The Braumiller Group

Written before the July 2026 review, this lays out the three doors and what each one costs. Brewer walks the conflicting priorities the three governments brought to the table, the tariff actions that had already soured the room, and five scenarios running from a light-touch revision to a full withdrawal.

USMCA Joint review Canada
Read on braumillerlaw.com  ↗

The Chris Scalisi collection 14 papers, in the order they were written

Pre- and Post-Election Trade Policy

White paper November 2024 3 minute read

Advancing Global Trade Equity through Targeted Corporate Tariffs and Free and Fair-Trade Principles

Chris Scalisi · Member Engagement Consultant

Written the week after the 2024 election, this is the opening argument of the collection. Rather than blanket tariffs on a nation and the retaliation that follows them, Scalisi proposes tariffs assessed on individual companies by their import-to-export ratio, inside a Free and Fair Trade environment with no punitive national barriers, and pairs it with a local, regional and global sourcing strategy for staying under the threshold.

Tariff policy Free and fair trade Trade deficits
Read the article  →
White paper February 2025 4 minute read

Navigating Trade Compliance Amid Tariff Changes: Mitigating Risks and Understanding Revenue Impacts

Chris Scalisi · Member Engagement Consultant

The first operational paper of the set. It reads the reciprocal tariff picture country by country, then splits the response in two: risk mitigation through HTS review, regulatory checks, valuation and FTA qualification, and revenue recovery through foreign trade zones, bonded warehouses, duty drawback, new market identification and tariff engineering. The closing note on valuation and freight is the one it asks importers to act on first.

Reciprocal tariffs Valuation Duty drawback FTZ
Read the article  →
White paper March 2025 2 minute read

The Economic Consequences of Trump Tariffs: Stagflation, Recession Risks, and Policy Implications

Chris Scalisi · Member Engagement Consultant

A short macro paper written in March 2025, tracing the causal path from tariffs to consumer prices to a downgraded growth forecast, and naming the trap that follows. With inflation revised up and GDP growth revised down in the same quarter, the usual monetary answers work against each other: rate rises suppress growth further, stimulus feeds prices.

Stagflation Recession risk Federal Reserve
Read the article  →
Commentary March 2025 2 minute read

Why Isn’t Trump Honoring America’s Free Trade Agreements (FTAs)?

Chris Scalisi · Member Engagement Consultant

The legal objection at the center of the early group. Scalisi sets out what an FTA actually commits the United States to, what applying tariffs to a partner country without due process would trigger in retaliation and dispute settlement, and where presidential tariff authority stops and Congressional approval under Trade Promotion Authority begins.

Free trade agreements Trade Promotion Authority Section 232 Section 301
Read the article  →

Tariff Escalation and Global Trade Wars

Commentary April 2025 2 minute read

Now Is the Time: Reevaluate Trade Exposure to Mitigate Risk and Capture Revenue Opportunities Amid New Tariff Regimes

Chris Scalisi · Member Engagement Consultant

The first paper of the escalation group, written the day after the April 2 announcement. It puts numbers on the exposure, walks the holistic risk assessment across classification, origin mapping and documentation, and argues the two levers still open: USMCA qualification, which the framework exempts, and foreign trade zones for everything that does not qualify.

Reciprocal tariffs USMCA FTZ Country of origin
Read the article  →
Commentary April 2025 3 minute read

Reshaping Global Trade: Navigating Risk, Unlocking Opportunity Amid Tariff Turbulence

Chris Scalisi · Member Engagement Consultant

A wider read of the same moment, six days on. Alongside the exposure picture it marks what is still stable, including an intact USMCA and active negotiations with Israel, Japan, Australia and the EU, then makes the case for duty drawback as an active profit recovery tool rather than a defensive one, citing CBP’s reciprocal tariff guidance on recovering up to 99 percent of duties paid.

Duty drawback FTZ USMCA Trade negotiations
Read the article  →
Commentary April 2025 2 minute read

Trump Fatigue: Reclaiming America’s Economic Voice Amid Global Disillusionment

Chris Scalisi · Member Engagement Consultant

The shortest and most direct piece in the collection. It names the symptoms, from tariff reversals to attacks on the Federal Reserve chair, then the readings that follow: a dollar at a three year low, spiking bond yields, and trade agreements being written elsewhere without U.S. participation. The ask is predictability, not agreement.

Policy volatility Reserve currency U.S. leadership
Read the article  →
Commentary May 2025 5 minute read

A Nation on the Brink: Will Protectionism Push the U.S. Off Life Support?

Chris Scalisi · Member Engagement Consultant

The turning point of the collection, and where the argument widens from tariff mechanics to the whole position. It gathers the warning signs, from a 36 percent fall in Long Beach container imports to the recession probabilities Goldman, J.P. Morgan, the IMF and S&P were publishing, then makes the case that unilateral escalation lands hardest on U.S. multinationals, which drive the exports it is meant to protect.

Recession risk Protectionism CPTPP Multinationals
Read the article  →

Trade Compliance as a Strategic Business Function

Commentary May 2025 3 minute read

The Evolution of the Trade Compliance Manager: From Tactical Executor to Strategic Ecosystem Leader

Chris Scalisi · Member Engagement Consultant

The pivot of the collection, from what policy is doing to what practitioners should do about it. Scalisi describes the role moving from cost center to strategic integrator, and the two things the strongest leaders build: internal pipelines through internships and cross-department mentoring, and external partnerships chosen on value rather than price.

Compliance leadership Team building Outsourcing
Read the article  →
White paper June 2025 6 minute read

Trade Compliance in a Volatile World: A Strategic Pillar for Resilience and Growth

Chris Scalisi · Member Engagement Consultant

The longest treatment of the practitioner argument, organized around the three places compliance teams create measurable value: duty deferral and recovery through FTZs, drawback, trade agreements and bonded warehouses; operational modernization through automation, analytics and centralized governance; and market diversification through strategic sourcing, logistics adaptability and trade intelligence.

Duty deferral GTM systems Supply chain agility
Read the article  →

Geopolitical Realignment and International Growth

White paper September 2025 6 minute read

Global Trade at a Crossroads: Implications of China’s SCO Summit and U.S. Protectionism

Chris Scalisi · Member Engagement Consultant

The opening of the realignment group. It reads the SCO summit as a working demonstration that major non-Western economies can cooperate on their own terms, sets it against U.S. tariff escalation and the retreat from development finance, and closes on the older argument for engagement: trade creates the mutual dependency that raises the cost of conflict.

SCO BRICS Multipolarity Protectionism
Read the article  →
White paper May 2026 18 minute read

International Trade Compliance: Integrating the Overlooked Keystone for Enterprise Risk Management

Chris Scalisi · Member Engagement Consultant

An enterprise risk management treatment of trade compliance, built around one diagnosis: most programs have policies and tools but no keystone joining them, so every team assumes another team is checking. It works through reasonable care and who actually owns it, enforcement cases from BIS and OFAC that turned on ordinary process gaps, the vendor landscape, and an eight point governance checklist drawn from the BIS Export Compliance Program elements.

Enterprise risk Reasonable care BIS Denied party screening
Read the article  →
White paper May 2026 10 minute read

A Global Framework for Companies Entering, Investing in, or Expanding Across Foreign Markets

Chris Scalisi · Member Engagement Consultant

The paper the Five Fingers framework grows out of. It argues against picking an entry mode and bolting diligence on afterwards, and instead runs market selection through a weighted scoring model, then matches entry mode to risk-adjusted economics, FDI structuring and screening exposure, partner governance, and the day one controls that have to work before revenue is pursued. Four case studies close it, including a private equity acquisition where trade diligence changed the underwriting.

Market entry FDI Partner governance M&A diligence
Read the article  →

The Five Fingers of International Trade

White paper June 2026 8 minute read

The 5 Fingers of International Trade — Finance

Chris Scalisi · Member Engagement Consultant

The first of the five pillars, and the newest paper in the collection. Finance is treated as a front-end growth capability rather than a treasury function, resting on working capital readiness, counterparty and country risk allocation, payment and documentation architecture, currency discipline, and governance. It works through the instrument portfolio corridor by corridor, cross-border payment design against the BIS-led G20 roadmap, and a private equity diligence case where the financial operating model was never examined.

Trade finance Cross-border payments EXIM FDI
Read the article  →

The Braumiller Group library 149 articles and podcasts, newest first

2026

ITAR and Brokering

Bruce Leeds Article July 2026 braumillerlaw.com Customs
Read  ↗

BRICS Pay

Victoria Holmes Article July 2026 braumillerlaw.com BRICS
Read  ↗

Mercosur Update

Victoria Holmes Article February 2026 braumillerlaw.com
Read  ↗

2025

Terrified by Tariffs

Bob Brewer and Jim Holbein Podcast May 2025 braumillerlaw.com Tariffs
Listen  ↗

Coping with Tariffs

Bob Brewer and Jim Holbein Podcast May 2025 braumillerlaw.com Tariffs
Listen  ↗

2024

2023

Hot Topics IMMEX

Bob Brewer and Brenda Cordova Podcast September 2023 braumillerlaw.com Mexico
Listen  ↗

Managed Services and FTZs

Bob Brewer and Robert Stein Podcast August 2023 braumillerlaw.com Foreign trade zones
Listen  ↗

2022

What belongs here. Trade Insights is a signed collection: analysis by ICPA staff and by ICPA’s law firm partners. Pieces at the top are hosted on icpainc.org in full, so the reading, the citations and the archive stay in one place. Below them is the partner library indexed in full, and those entries open on the firm’s own site, which every row says on its face before you click. Nothing in the library is a solicitation, and nothing in it is legal advice.

Members, your work has its own front door. A webinar, a seminar or a newsletter goes up through Post a Submission, and training material through Training Member Submissions. Both reach the membership directly.

The room is the reason to join.

Trade Insights is free to read. ICPA membership puts you in the room with 3,000+ trade compliance professionals who answer each other’s questions in public, plus the answer database and the full presentation library. The first year is free.

Join or renew  → Member login  › See what membership covers  ›