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By Gavin Bade |
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Former U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer (center) watches as former President Donald Trump shakes the hand of Japan's U.S. Ambassador Shinsuke Sugiyama. | Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images |
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MISSILE MAN — Robert Lighthizer, former President Donald Trump’s former trade chief, has always had a flair for humor, even in the dull confines of international economic policy. Once as a trade negotiator in the 1980s, he reportedly sent a Japanese proposal flying back across the room as a paper airplane to signify his distaste, earning him the title “missile man” in Tokyo. For clues to Trump’s second-term trade policy agenda, there may be no better place to look. While it’s unclear if the 75-year-old would be reappointed to U.S. Trade Representative should Trump win again, Lighthizer has continued to advise Trump’s campaign on trade — including two hawkish videos aimed at China — and keeps in regular contact with trade leaders on Capitol Hill and in industry. His new book, No Trade is Free, can be viewed as an elaboration of what Trump’s “America-first” trade policy would look like over the next four years — and it’s a rhetorical projectile aimed at Washington. Lighthizer’s prescriptions are both radical — pushing U.S. policy to protectionism not seen in a half century — and surprisingly aligned with many of the policy agendas pursued by the Biden administration and congressional trade leaders. In fact ,Lighthizer frames them as the natural extension of protectionist policies pushed by both Trump and Biden, breaking with decades of free trade orthodoxy. “[T]he Biden administration—with a few important exceptions—has continued along the path President Trump and I laid out,” Lighthizer writes, noting that “Biden’s team has continued to buck [World Trade Organization] rulings against America, refused to draw down the Section 301 tariffs on China, and enacted the beginnings of an industrial policy.” But Lighthizer would go further. On China, he advocates what he calls a “strategic decoupling” — a bigger break with the Chinese economy than the “de-risking” platform pushed by Biden and European leaders. That would involve raising tariffs on Chinese goods until the U.S. achieves “balanced trade” with China — or the elimination of trade deficit — by repealing its normal trade status and raising tariffs. That would be a sea change for Washington’s orientation toward Beijing, putting the Chinese trade relationship on similar footing to that of Russia or Cuba. But Lighthizer would push beyond that, dramatically restricting American investments in China’s high-tech sectors and putting limits on Chinese nationals from owning U.S. farmland and companies in critical sectors. While that would undoubtedly mean higher costs for American consumers and businesses, Lighthizer brushes those consequences away. “The Chinese presumably would find a way to retaliate, but to the extent that they do, that would also contribute to the strategic decoupling,” he writes, arguing that “our relationship is so unbalanced that China’s options are limited.” Lighthizer’s trade targets are not limited to Beijing. In the book he also calls for tougher treatment of many American allies — a throwback to his time as trade czar – and some novel ideas for resetting the World Trade Organization. We’ve got more on that here, the latest edition of our occasional series on reshaping global trade. |
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