Trade

Join us at the GTIPA (Global Trade & Innovation Policy Alliance) Summit 2026.

The era of free trade globalization is over. To replace it, the United States should lead a new class of binding deals with allies, with a dual objective of strengthening allied national economic power industries and weakening China’s.

The USMCA’s digital trade rules set the global standard. Now, policymakers should modernize them for the age of AI, close loopholes that enable data localization and discriminatory taxes, and build a more secure, competitive North American digital economy.

Congress has an opportunity to strengthen consumer protection while preserving the benefits of digital commerce. No marketplace can eliminate every counterfeit product or fraudulent seller. But every marketplace serving American consumers should meet reasonable expectations for seller accountability, transparency, and effective action against harmful conduct.

German exports to China as a share of GDP have declined by more than 40 percent since 2021, while the German labor force has seen a decline of more than 400,000 jobs linked to exports to China.

China has utilized numerous illegitimate tools in pursuit of global leadership in biopharmaceutical manufacturing, including IP theft, forced labor, and stealing genetic information. This must be met with a swift and forceful response from U.S. policymakers.

Watch now for a panel discussion featuring experts from the Macdonald-Laurier Institute in Canada and Fundación IDEA in Mexico, who reviewed a new report on the importance of North America’s trade agreement for all three economies and discussed the priorities Canada and Mexico bring to the review process, opportunities to deepen production and technology cooperation, and how the agreement can be updated to support regional competitiveness in the decade ahead.

New U.S. foreign direct investment rose nearly 50 percent in 2025 after three years of decline. Policymakers should build on this momentum by prioritizing policies that attract more greenfield investment and strengthen American competitiveness.

Whether Washington sustains a policy response equal to the challenge China poses or takes a timeout while Xi runs up the score remains an open question.

The U.S. government does not need to create a Board to manage trade with China—it needs to use all its available tools to urge China to conduct economic relations in accordance with established trade rules, commitments which China has already clearly and unequivocally made to the United States and to other global trade partners.