Since entering office, President Biden has indicated his desire to pursue a “worker centric” trade policy that is dramatically different from the Trump Administration’s protectionist trade agenda. In a new insight, Data and Policy Analyst Tom Lee walks through the major components of the administration’s approach and raises the many still-unanswered questions of what this strategy entails.

Key points:

• U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai recently testified before Congress on the policy’s key planks, including the re-alignment of the U.S.-China relationship, engagement with key trading partners and multilateral institutions, and the promotion of confidence in trade through greater rules enforcement.
• The testimony raised as many questions as it answered, notably what role traditional market-opening trade agreements will have and what, exactly, the administration will do to compete with China.
• In the meantime, the Biden Administration has continued much of former President Trump’s costly and ineffective protectionist trade agenda, while China is increasing its global economic influence via the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, the largest trade agreement in history, at the expense of the United States.

Read the analysis