China Should Join Trade Deal the U.S. Abandoned
Chinese membership in the successor to the Trans-Pacific Partnership would help revive the post-pandemic global economy.
Supply chains are shifting.
Photographer: STR/AFP/Getty Images
The Covid-19 pandemic is intensifying the most destructive trends in global trade. Support for free trade has given way to talk of decoupling and de-globalization. Tensions between the U.S. and China are rising, as are calls for protectionism and re-shoring of far-flung supply chains. It is no longer seen as desirable, or even possible, to integrate countries that possess different economic systems or ideologies.
Reversing these trends will require dramatic action. One decision could make a real difference — for China to join the grand Pacific trade agreement the U.S. led and then abandoned.