![]() ![]() These initiatives differ both in structure from traditional free trade agreements (FTAs) and also in their substance, most notably in the emphasis they place on climate aims and worker empowerment over tariff reductions. Over the past two years, the Biden administration has pursued a number of innovative trade initiatives that in different ways aim to redefine the scope and purpose of U.S. These new policy directions are occurring against several major shifts in domestic economic policy and global economic governance: 1) a pivot toward industrial policy in the United States driven by three major pieces of legislation-the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) 2) a dramatic turnabout in global attitudes toward supply chain management and the balance between efficiency, resilience, and security in cross-border trade and 3) the obsolescence of the World Trade Organization (WTO) as a forum for resolving trade disputes. By contrast, market access, long considered the fulcrum of trade deals, is absent from the Biden administration’s signature trade initiatives in the Asia-Pacific and is being deployed selectively in a sectoral arrangement with the European Union involving steel and aluminum. ![]() trade has never been more open-ended.Ĭlimate, once largely absent from global trade rules and agreements, has vaulted to the forefront of U.S. But over the past five years, beginning with the passage of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada-Agreement (USMCA) and continuing with the Biden administration’s innovative trade initiatives currently being negotiated with partners in Europe, Asia, and the Americas, the future of U.S. trade policy-and with it the rules and institutions that constitute global economic architecture-has rarely been static.
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