US President Biden gave his first foreign policy address today -- suitably at the State Department. Here is the link for it: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/02/04/remarks-by-president-biden-on-americas-place-in-the-world/.
In general, the speech was well formulated and realigns the United States with its foreign policy of the post World War II era.
Trade was mentioned briefly and not in a particularly constructive way.
To me, the most disturbing line is "...if the rules of international trade aren’t stacked against us, if our workers and intellectual property are protected, then there’s no country on Earth — not China or any other country on Earth — that can match us." Leaving aside the ill-timed smug rhetoric, the implication of the sentence is that the rules of international trade ARE stacked against the United States.
Nothing could be further from the truth. No country in the world has more influenced the rules of international trade than the United States. China had very little role in writing the general law of the WTO because it had not been allowed to rejoin the GATT to take part in the Uruguay Round. China was an original contracting party to the GATT but its contribution to the GATT was minimal. When China joined the WTO, it did so under lopsided applicant plus WTO rules that imposed more burdens on China than any other WTO Member. If the Biden Administration stays married to the Trumpian policies which presumed that the rules of international trade are stacked against the United States, then the Administration will be missing an opportunity to improve US trade policy which has been a disaster for many years.
Another of Biden's troubling statements is: "And that’s why I immediately put forth the American Rescue Plan to pull us out of this economic crisis. That’s why I signed an executive order strengthening our Buy American policies last week" Yet the idea that buy-national policies are part of any rational competitiveness or rescue policy for the United States is pure fantasy. Engaging in more protectionism is not a path to prosperity for any country.
