Trade Policy in a Biden Administration: Back to Normal, or into the Great Unknown?

The Trump administration made significant changes to U.S. trade policy. Trump’s trade policy team promoted protectionism and unilateralism, undermined the international rule of law, and shifted power from the legislative to the executive branch. The Biden administration will therefore inherit a messy legacy on trade and will have difficult decisions to make going forward. To what extent will it want to, and to what extent can it, return to the trade policy situation that existed prior to Trump? What will it do with the various tariffs the Trump administration enacted? How might it repair relations with allies? How will it interact with Congress on trade policy? It will take many months to get full answers to these questions, but this event will kick off the discussion of the direction of trade policy in a Biden administration.