For nearly a decade, US trade policy has been remade in the image of a single man: Robert Lighthizer. As president Donald Trump’s trade representative, he turned the United States away from six decades of support for a “rules-based”, multilateral trading system, and towards a robustly nationalist approach.
Lighthizer’s growing influence is a warning to US trading partners – including the country’s closest allies – that the aggressive nationalism of Trump’s trade policies is not a passing phase. Instead, the US has made a choice across both political parties to embrace an “America First” approach to international economic policy.
His book, written after Trump’s 2020 election defeat, is an “I told you so” to the US trade establishment. Reducing tariffs and binding Washington’s hands through global trade rules was, he writes, “a starker, more indisputable failure than even I could have predicted”, leading to the loss of US manufacturing, the stagnation of Americans’ wages, and a US strategic position that has deteriorated sharply against China.
Fast fashion giant Shein’s business model involves shipping Chinese-made clothing directly to American consumers duty-free because of the “de minimis” exemption.Details are scant, but Lighthizer appears to be envisioning a reprise of actions taken by US President Richard Nixon in 1971 and Ronald Reagan in 1987: imposing or threatening tariffs on trading partners unless they agree to take steps to revalue their currencies against the dollar.
the greatest threat the nation and its system of Western liberal democratic government has faced since the American Revolution.Lighthizer’s influence will remain, no matter who wins in November. Biden has tried to walk a line between promoting US manufacturing and seeking common ground with allies, who fear growing US protectionism – foreign concerns of which Lighthizer has long been dismissive. But in an election year, the Biden administration’s even-handedness is disappearing.
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Source: 7NewsSydney - 🏆 16. / 63 Read more »