, Columnist
Seven Easy Ways to Fix Trump’s Trade Blunders
Biden's choice for trade representative, Katherine Tai, should stress results over bombast.
Steel tariffs hurt far more than they helped.
Photographer: Scott Olson/Getty Images
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Governments around the world will be looking to Katherine Tai, President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee to be U.S. trade representative, to see just how sharp a break the coming administration plans to make with the current one.
President Donald Trump himself departed from eight decades of U.S. policy by not treating liberalized trade as a goal. He and his trade representative, Robert Lighthizer, were more willing to deploy tariffs and the threat of tariffs than their predecessors, and eager to undermine multilateral institutions such as the World Trade Organization.