While the U.S. has tried to appear assertive in taking action against China’s trade practices, this strategy has yielded limited results. In a new commentary, fellow Simon Lester summarizes current U.S. policies addressing China’s trade conduct and advocates for the U.S.’ revitalized engagement with the World Trade Organization’s dispute settlement system.
The Office of the United States Trade Representative recently stepped back from ongoing negotiations on digital trade at the World Trade Organization, citing unsettled domestic policy, and suspended support for digital trade rules in the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework too. But if the U.S. wants to be a part of the conversation, it should reengage and help craft rules flexible enough to meet its future domestic policy needs, writes nonresident fellow Simon Lester.
Despite recent claims that “free trade is dead,” fellow Simon Lester explains that America was never close to anything resembling free trade in the first place. Instead, current U.S. trade policy, just like past policy, reflects a messy mix of free market and industrial policy views.
With the recent enactment of the CHIPS and Science Act, the conversation about industrial policy has started up again. Are state-directed economic policies back, and will such initiatives work?
Baker Institute Rice Faculty Scholar and University Professor Moshe Vardi analyzes three recent crises — the 2021 winter storm in Texas, the COVID-19 pandemic and the Boeing 737 Max software failure — that highlight the cost of valuing efficiency over resilience and provide lessons for bringing society into balance.
University Professor Moshe Vardi condemns the actions taken by the U.S. government to restrict the immigration of technical workers into the country but also questions why the U.S. has become so dependent on international students as the major workforce for its academic science and engineering research enterprise. Baker Institute Blog: https://bit.ly/3llmHg2
