FP Live: Explaining America’s Trade Policy

Explaining America’s Trade Policy

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The Biden administration has passed landmark legislations such as the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the CHIPS and Science Act, which provide subsidies in clean energy and semiconductors worth well over $400 billion. But the inducements encourage U.S. companies to invest only at home—not elsewhere. Opportunistic firms in Asia and Europe have already begun to relocate investments to the United States.

Cue the protests from other parts of the globe: A chorus of nations are accusing Washington of fostering unfair competition.

But it’s not just the United States. The world over, countries are embarking on ambitious projects of industrial policy. What does that mean for trade and globalization?

FP’s Ravi Agrawal sat down with U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, the Biden administration’s top official tasked with mapping out and implementing the White House’s trade policy. Watch the conversation on FP Live, the magazine’s forum for live journalism, or read a condensed transcript.

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai defends the Inflation Reduction Act and the United States’ focus on industry as responding to the challenge of a rising China.

Katherine Tai

U.S. trade representative

Katherine Tai is the principal trade advisor, negotiator, and spokesperson on U.S. trade policy. Prior to her position within the Biden administration, she previously served as chief trade counsel and trade subcommittee staff director for the House Ways and Means Committee in the U.S. Congress. Tai is an experienced World Trade Organization litigator.

Host

Ravi Agrawal

Editor in chief, Foreign Policy

Ravi Agrawal is the editor in chief of Foreign Policy, the host of FP Live, and a regular world affairs analyst on TV and radio. Before joining FP in 2018, Agrawal worked at CNN for more than a decade in full-time roles spanning three continents, including as the network’s New Delhi bureau chief and correspondent. He has shared a Peabody Award and three Emmy nominations for his work as a TV producer, and his writing for FP was part of a series nominated for a 2020 National Magazine Award for columns and commentary. Agrawal is the author of India Connected: How the Smartphone Is Transforming the World’s Largest Democracy. He is a graduate of Harvard University.

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