[CTC] Tai: New, global approach to trade not a ‘flash in the pan’

[Arthur Stamoulis]

Tai: New, global approach to trade not a ‘flash in the pan’
Inside US Trade, 8/30/23
 
MINNEAPOLIS -- The Biden administration’s approach to trade – in particular, a move away from a “trickle-down assumption” and a focus on tariff liberalization to an emphasis on resilience and workers – reflects a global evolution that is “strongly rooted” and not going anywhere, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said here on Wednesday.
 
The administration has largely eschewed the approach to trade taken by previous administrations in aiming to broaden USTR’s focus from opening markets and lowering tariffs to one centered on being responsive to global concerns like climate change, supply chain resilience and labor abuses. The approach includes broad efforts to do so through fora like the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity, the World Trade Organization, the U.S.-European Union Trade and Technology Council and the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity.
 
Speaking to Inside U.S. Trade while in Minneapolis on Wednesday, Tai noted her most recent trip to India to meet bilaterally with counterparts there and to attend a G20 trade ministerial in reflecting on how much has changed since her first such meetings in India and with the G20, in 2021.
 
“We've been able to keep the focus on how trade policy needs to be more responsive to the challenges that we're facing and, in particular, the challenges that the people and the workers in our economies are facing,” she said. “The trip to Delhi in particular provided me a contrast to think about you know, here at the end of August in 2023 [while] my first trip to Delhi as trade rep was in November of 2021. And how much that particular relationship has grown in these two years.... At the G20, gauging that conversation against the first G20 I attended – in Sorrento the fall of 2021 – how much the international conversation on trade has evolved and adapted in these two years, you know, coming out of the pandemic.”
 
“I'm tremendously gratified by the degree to which we have not just ourselves but with our partners evolved the conversation,” she added.
 
That evolution is “strongly rooted,” she said, especially as countries face similar post-pandemic and other challenges.
 
“I'm very excited by where we are in terms of the international trade conversation here at home but also internationally, where we can continue to build on structures and institutions and practices that will allow us to reorient the way we've done globalization, to focus on win-win outcomes that allow all of us to have stronger middle classes and more vibrant economic opportunity at home,” Tai argued. “So, I'm not worried about this being a flash in the pan because of how sincerely and strongly rooted these conversations are in our engagements.”
 
At the “core” of USTR’s worker-centered trade policy is an effort to bring in more and diverse voices to inform policymaking, Tai said – or, as she also put it, to “put the U.S. back in USTR.”
 
Previously, trade policy “was really built on a kind of trickle-down assumption that you engage internationally, you engage your biggest, most powerful and well-resourced stakeholders, and then, you know, what's good for them is going to translate into being good for the American economy, good for their workers and the communities that they're located in,” she said. “And over time, I think that this, you know, very strong conversation we're having internationally and also domestically around inclusivity in terms of economic outcomes is in large part driven by all of us looking around the world, but also looking around at home and seeing widening gaps in terms of income and wealth.”
 
Accordingly, Tai said it is important for the USTR to “get out of Washington” and understand the interests of workers in different parts of the country – including, for instance, in Minnesota. Tai traveled to the state this week to visit with members of the Asian-American and Pacific Islander community in a roundtable discussion at the state capitol, meet with the local machinists union and attend the Minnesota State Fair with Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN).
 
Tai has said that she aims to take a domestic trip for every international one. On Wednesday, she noted that her approach to USTR travel is novel compared to her predecessors.
 
“In the past, you know, USTR has hit the road at home when they’ve got something to sell,” she told Inside U.S. Trade. “And what I've seen in my own experience … if that's the first time that it occurs to you that you need to engage with the American people, and, you know, your constituencies here in the United States, that is way too late.”
 
“It is at the core of our worker-centered trade policy, which is this middle-out, bottom-up approach, to make sure that throughout our time that we stay connected with the United States, and that we are carrying in our minds and our hearts all the challenges and aspirations that we encounter on these types of trips into international conversations,” Tai said.
 
On such domestic trips, including here this week, Tai said she hears “a lot of excitement” about U.S. investment in infrastructure, semiconductors and the green transition via some of the Biden administration’s signature legislative accomplishments, including the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act.
 
But, she added, she also hears “anxieties” related to the need for more opportunity and more good jobs. While that is largely outside of USTR’s lane, she noted, it is an important part of the broader economic conversation that shows the government must ensure it has “holistic policy coordination, not just across the administration, but also between the administration and Congress.”
 
It’s not always an easy sell, Tai acknowledged during the roundtable. “It is really hard to change,” she said. “Change causes a lot of anxiety.”
 
Tai added, with a chuckle, that “this is a much more exciting conversation to have with young people than it is with older people. I encounter obstacles and just giant walls and skepticism and a lot of prejudice when I try to have this conversation about a new approach to trade policy and how we’re trying to build out more sustainable, more durable trade and economic policies. So that’s my very selfish reason for wanting to engage with youth.” -- Hannah Monicken (hmonicken at iwpnews.com <mailto:hmonicken at iwpnews.com>)
 
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