JEAIL > Volume 17(1); 2024 > Digest
Research Paper
Published online: May 30, 2024
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14330/jeail.2024.17.1.11

Has the US Become a National Security and Protectionist Trading State?

Stuart S. Malawer
George Mason University
3351 Fairfax Dr., MS 3B1, Arlington, Virginia 22201 USA.
Corresponding Author: StuartMalawer@msn.com

ⓒ Copyright YIJUN Institute of International Law
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Abstract
Geopolitical risk is now among the most important factors in the formulation of multinational corporate strategy and the US trade policy. The US has aggressively enacted national-security-based trade sanctions, which recently include export controls on semiconductor chips and restrictions on outbound and inbound investment. The US has also adopted major legislation providing historical subsidies and tax breaks. Congress and the courts have upheld the president’s use of national security as a basis of trade actions and generally supported his protectionist policies. Trade should not be restricted or weaponized. Global and national rules need to be strengthened and, perhaps, a bit updated, but protectionism in the name of national security is a losing argument. The growing movement by the US to rely more on national security and protectionism in formulating trade policy is a very worrisome development. No one in Washington is proposing a return to pre-Trump policies. The real question is how far US trade policy will continue to change in the near future. Geopolitics will give us the answer.

Keywords : Protectionism, 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, Chips Act of 2022, WTO Security Exception, US and WTO Litigation, US-China Trade, US Trade Policy, State Law and Alien Ownership, Subsidies, Biden and Trump 2024

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