Outlook 2021

When President-elect Joe Biden takes office in mid-January, a new dynamic inevitably will emerge in the U.S.-China relationship. The question is: Will it resemble the reset called for by some prominent Chinese officials, a more adversarial approach suggested by Biden during the campaign, or a mix of competitive and collaborative strategies? Biden campaigned on reviving multilateral alliances and has said his China strategy will be grounded in efforts to work with allies to pressure Beijing. But Chinese efforts to curry...

The trade to-do list for the Biden administration and the 117th Congress is a long one: President-elect Biden, who will be sworn in on Jan. 20, will have to nominate a full slate of trade advisers and hope they are approved, while lawmakers are expected to weigh the looming expiration of Trade Promotion Authority and the end of two trade preference programs at the close of 2020. Biden has announced his pick for U.S. Trade Representative -- House Ways and...

Many in Geneva are breathing a sigh of relief at the chance of working with a more multilateral-friendly U.S. under President-elect Joe Biden, but the Trump administration’s World Trade Organization dispute settlement approach – from the Appellate Body to the use of the national security exception – will continue to reverberate in 2021. The Appellate Body has now been defunct for a year, leaving an increasing number of appeals in limbo as members have added to the backlog over the...

The key word for the World Trade Organization in 2021 is leadership. Will there be a new director-general to wield it? Can the U.S. reassert it? And will it be enough to pull the WTO out of its deep, dysfunctional hole? The WTO had a rough year. It ends 2020 leaderless, without an Appellate Body, with no set plans for its next ministerial and, again, without any significant outcomes. The pandemic, of course, was one of the main reasons, as...

As President-elect Joe Biden prepares to take office in January, embarking on an unprecedented effort to battle climate change, trade analysts say they are waiting to see how the new administration plans to use trade policy to achieve his climate goals – and whether it’s possible to do so. Biden’s promise to re-engage with allies has piqued the interest of the European Union, which hopes to partner with the U.S. to push climate initiatives. Biden has promised to rejoin the...

President-elect Joe Biden will have a plethora of trade options to consider when he takes office next month, when he will inherit a slew of ongoing negotiations and other initiatives begun by the Trump administration that will demand his trade team’s attention regardless of his stated plan to concentrate resources on domestic economic revitalization before considering new deals. Biden has said he does not plan to complete any new trade agreements until major investments are made in U.S. workers and...

Editor's note: This story was updated after initial publication to correct when the term of Ex-Im Bank board member Spencer Bachus expires. The Export-Import Bank is increasingly instrumental to U.S. national security interests and its importance is expected to continue regardless of the looming change in administration, current and former bank officials told Inside U.S. Trade . The Ex-Im Bank was brought back to life by Congress in December 2019 after being rendered largely powerless due to a lack...