Washington, D.C. — The United States’ trade enforcement authorities are outdated and in need of an update to meet the needs of a modern, globally connected economy. A revitalized trade enforcement toolkit more closely aligned to the country’s industrial policy can ensure that the Biden administration’s unprecedented investments in American industry reach their full potential in rebuilding key industries and maximizing the competitiveness of the American worker.
The current trade enforcement authorities’ slowness, rigidity, and inability to coordinate with partners and allies have limited the effectiveness of trade actions to the detriment of workers and the country’s industrial base more broadly.
A new Center for American Progress report offers recommendations that would better enable the United States and its international partners to compete in an interconnected world defined by intense geo-economic competition, climate change, and supply chain integration. Some of the recommendations for modernizing the trade toolkit include:
- Collecting duties on finished goods that include component parts subject to trade remedies
- Developing a new authority to manage trade in critical sectors vis-a-vis nonmarket economies without the need to demonstrate injury
- Creating an option to provide alternative remedies that could better serve the national interest or when traditional tariff protection is insufficient
- Launching a new mechanism to tie tariff protection to commitments from industry to invest in long-term domestic competitiveness
“It is paramount to the success of the United States’ industrial policy that its trade enforcement toolkit is updated to the realities of the modern world,” said Ryan Mulholland, senior fellow for international economic policy at the Center for American Progress and author of the report. “This report offers new ideas to ensure the United States’ trade remedy tools meet the needs of American workers and American industry competing against nonmarket practices and predatory exporters.”
Read the report: “Revitalizing U.S. Trade Remedy Tools for an Era of Industrial Policy in an Interconnected World” by Ryan Muholland
For more information or to speak with an expert, please contact Sarah Nadeau at [email protected].