Sideline China with Free Trade

The U.S. should seek trade agreements for both economic and security reasons

The decline of the Soviet Union in the 1980s profoundly changed the environment for U.S. trade policy. Trade relationships that disproportionately benefited America’s partners lost a crucial geostrategic justification. Yet the U.S. did not adjust. Outdated trade policy eventually helped breed a sustained protectionist reaction.

But protectionists now risk mirroring the pro-trade side’s earlier mistake. The world has changed again — the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is not only a military threat, it’s also an economic-security threat through its coercive acquisition of intellectual property and explicit attempts to control key supply chains. This certainly does not mean the U.S. should accept harmful economic relationships for the sake of competing with China. But without an agenda for some sort of trade promotion, Washington will lose ground to Beijing’s initiatives, handicap the U.S. in the contest for global political influence, and see American security erode.