U.S. Trade Chief Sees Progress In Helping Workers With Deals

As the US Trade Representative (USTR), Katherine Tai is legally required to avoid discussing the presidential election.

US Trade Representative (USTR) Katherine Tai's ideas about fair trade are on the ballot in November. I Photo: Tom Witham, U.S. Department of Agriculture Flickr

But her ideas about fair trade are on the ballot in November, Josh Boak reported for the Associated Press (AP).

Voters are essentially being asked to decide whether it is best to work with the rest of the world or to threaten it. Do they favor pursuing worker protections in trade talks, as Tai has done on behalf of the Biden-Harris administration?

Or should the US raise taxes on almost everything it imports, as Donald Trump has pledged to do? After nearly four years in her job, Tai feels she is making progress on getting the US and its trade partners to focus more on workers’ rights.

Decades of trade deals often prioritized keeping costs low by finding cheap labor that could, in some cases, be exploited.

“You can’t do trade policy by yourself,” Tai told AP. “I am confident that the path that we are on is the right path to be on. I think the only question is how much progress we are able to make in these next years.”

It is an approach that has drawn criticism from business leaders, economists, and Republicans, who say that the US has not made enough progress on new trade partnerships and countering China’s rise.