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Opinion | One year on, Biden’s ‘worker-centred’ trade policy leaves a lot to be desired
- Despite pledges of support for open markets, the US president is pursuing the protectionist policies of his predecessor
- Meanwhile, his promise to improve public welfare and worker well-being has yet to materialise
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US President Joe Biden came to office promising to correct the mistakes of the Trump administration. He has now been in office for a year and it’s time to review some of his achievements.
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On trade, Biden proposed a “worker-centred policy” that has proved to be much less effective than planned.
The stated mission of the Office of the US Trade Representative is to work towards “opening markets throughout the world to create new opportunities and higher living standards for families, farmers, manufacturers, workers, consumers, and businesses”.
We should judge the effectiveness of its policies by how well it has achieved this aim, and by this measure, the Biden administration’s trade policy has fallen short in at least three areas. First, it has not fulfilled its commitment to opening markets worldwide.
An important way to promote market opening is to reduce bilateral tariffs, facilitate trade and investment procedures and promote regional free trade. However, many of the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on foreign steel and aluminium, and the high tariffs imposed on US$250 billion of Chinese imports, have yet to be removed.
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