The Network Law Review is pleased to present you with a special issue curated by the Dynamic Competition Initiative (“DCI”). Co-sponsored by UC Berkeley and the EUI, the DCI seeks to develop and advance innovation-based dynamic competition theories, tools, and policy processes adapted to the nature and pace of innovation in the 21st century. This special issue brings together contributions from speakers and panelists who participated in DCI’s second annual conference in October 2024. This article is authored by Diana L. Moss, Vice President and Director of Competition Policy, Progressive Policy Institute.
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1. Introduction
Competition policy has a difficult relationship with the digital sector. Rates of innovation and productivity are some of the highest across the U.S. economy and ongoing advancements in technology (e.g., artificial intelligence (AI)) threaten to displace incumbent business models.[2] On the other hand, the digital ecosystems grow rapidly through acquisition, and many exhibit economic characteristics that foster market concentration. Until recently, antitrust enforcement in the U.S. has been reluctant to address market power in the digital sector. But it is now working overtime, with several unsuccessful merger challenges and pending monopolization cases that, when all is said and done, will take years to resolve.[3]
This article asks how antitrust’s history informs the debate over which models of competition—static, dynamic, or a hybrid approach—are fit for purpose in the digital sector.[4] The static model’s focus on efficiency in narrowly-defined equilibrium markets appears increasingly out of sync with the pace of innovation, unique economics, and new product development, especially for the digital ecosystems. This article explores the notion that U.S. antitrust enforcers, knowingly or not, put more weight on dynamic competition principles during the rise of the digital ecosystems but reverted more recently to a static competition framework.
Colleges and universities continue to look for ways to cut spending because of the Trump Administration’s policies towards higher education.
One June 2nd, Johns Hopkins University announced a set of policies to prepare for a possible decline in revenue. They join a list of schools including Brown University, Duke University, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Washington, and the University of California system, that have temporarily paused hiring and vow to hold off on capital spending.
Hopkins has already seen $850 million in grant cuts resulting from the culling of USAID and other program terminations, plus the school has a large number of international students (many who pay full tuition) who may be dissuaded from studying in the U.S. due to the Administration’s more restrictive visa policies.
Let me be clear upfront — I’m pro-AI. The technology has enormous potential to lower costs, increase productivity, and raise real wages. And once combined with future advances in robotics, the gains will be especially important in physical industries such as manufacturing and construction, which have both seen negative productivity growth over the past decade.
I also acknowledge the need to stay alert for problems, and to regulate as necessary.
But one problem that doesn’t overly worry me is the prospect of a massive short-term “extinction event” of jobs. For example, Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, a leading AI company, recently told Axios that “AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs — and spike unemployment to 10-20% in the next one to five years.”
I find such a negative employment scenario for either college grads or non-college workers highly unlikely. First, previous forecasts of technology-driven job collapses have turned out to be premature, often signaling future job gains instead. It doesn’t make sense to just focus on job destruction from innovation without considering job creation as well.
For example, the big ecommerce innovation was supposed to lead to a “retail apocalypse,” or a “retail meltdown,” eliminating millions of retail sales jobs and replacing them with fully automated websites.
In fact, retail turned out to be fundamentally a logistics business, and having a good website was only the beginning of the e-commerce transformation. As I showed in a prophetic 2017 paper, getting fulfillment and delivery right was much more difficult and important, requiring more investment and more people. So while the number of poorly-paid retail sales positions declined by 15-20%, better-paid jobs doing ecommerce fulfillment increased even faster. Employment in the consumer distribution sector — including brick-and-mortar retail, fulfillment, and local delivery — actually rose by 1 million jobs from 2017 to 2024.
Second, Amodei’s timeframe is far too short. The adoption of AI in business operations is likely to be costly and slow: Applications of AI to the existing workflow of a business will cut some costs by speeding up one step, while exposing other bottlenecks. It typically takes years to adopt a new technology across an entire business, and AI won’t be different.
In a pharma company, for example, speeding up the creation of marketing presentations using AI will do nothing to cut the cost and time of clinical trials. AI can help there as well — but it’s a much slower and painstaking process. Indeed, even if AI helps move us towards new treatments for conditions such as cancer and Alzheimer’s, the necessary lab research and clinical trials to validate the insights will themselves become job producers.
Third, and related, what Americans complain about the most is the cost of necessities, such as housing, food, transportation, child care, and elder care. High tariffs may also increase the emphasis on domestic manufacturing. AI has a powerful opportunity to modernize these sectors, boosting capacity and creating a new wave of AI-complementary jobs, including for workers without a college education.
Fourth, the educated employment market has been fed in recent years by a wave of Immigrants. Since 2019, fully one-third of the net new jobs for workers with a college degree or better went to foreign-born individuals. (That’s according to the published data from the BLS. However, adjusting for under-measurement of immigration in the post-pandemic period gives roughly the same percentage.) If that flow is choked off by Trump’s actions against foreign students and educated adult immigrants, we are more likely to end up with skilled labor shortages than surpluses.
There’s no denying that AI will have a big impact on the job market. But for most people, it could be good news rather than a job apocalypse.
The words “common sense” are central in today’s political lexicon. President Trump’s Inaugural Address called for a “revolution of common sense.” Michael Baharaeen, columnist and chief political analyst for the center-left Liberal Patriot,asked, “Is a common sense faction of Democrats rising?”
Rival claims of common sense reminded me that my parents’ go-to maxim was “Use your common sense.” They directed it at me (and my siblings) when I was old enough to raise questions with them about doing something on my own. On the other hand, “That person doesn’t have any common sense” was the worst thing they could say about another person.
These maxims weren’t particular to my family. Growing up, I heard them repeated by adults to their children throughout our Italian American neighborhood in Cleveland, Ohio. For my part, I found the simplicity of the advice appealing, though I was not always sure how to apply it.
As is often the case with simple truisms, it’s taken me years to understand the complexity and insight behind such timeless maxims. Only recently did I realize that my parents’ guidance was grounded in the virtue of prudence, which I’d learned about during my Catholic school education. This motivated me to re-educate myself on the meaning of this essential and overlooked virtue.
In today’s fast-paced, often chaotic environment, the need for prudence—a virtue that combines foresight, wisdom, and discretion—has never been more critical. Properly understood, “use your common sense” might be a rallying cry for our time.
Has affirmative action failed in America?? In this eye-opening conversation, Richard Kahlenberg—author of Class Matters and a longtime education and housing policy scholar—explains why race-based affirmative action has failed America’s working class and what can be done to fix it. A self-described “liberal maverick,” Kahlenberg dives into his controversial role in the Supreme Court case against Harvard, arguing that socioeconomic-based admissions would promote both racial equity and fairness without alienating the working-class voters Democrats are rapidly losing. From Harvard’s legacy advantages and billionaire endowments to MLK’s and RFK’s forgotten views on class over race, this episode challenges elite institutions, political orthodoxy, and the future of education in America.
The Court of International Trade is busy, but usually with pretty specialized stuff. Its 66 opinions this year mostly cover things like application of antidumping penalties to steel products and countervailing duties to catfish, customs broker licensing, and airline ticketing fees. It’s rare for one to address something basic enough to elicit quotes from the Constitution on tax authority, and from the Federalist Papers on “the ‘separate and distinct exercise of the different powers of government’ that is ‘essential to the preservation of liberty.’” V.O.S. Selections v. Trump — the one that struck down the Trump administration’s two “International Emergency Economic Powers Act” tariff Executive Orders last Wednesday — is one of that kind. Background on it, and then a thought on the responsibility of Congress:
The case’s core issue is one we raised this past January, in our “Four Principles for Response to Tariffs and Economic Isolationism” post anticipating the Trump administration’s tariff binge. This is Congress’ Constitutional authority over tariffs and other taxes, and the systemic risk unlimited Presidential power to create tariffs would pose:
“The Constitution’s Article I, Section 8, gives Congress unambiguous authority over “Taxes, Duties, Imposts, and Excises,” and for good reason. No single individual, president or not, should have the power to create his or her own tax system out of nothing. That, at minimum, risks impulsive and ill-considered decisions. Even more seriously, it creates a standing temptation for all future presidents to use tariffs to reward personal friends and supporters, and likewise to punish critics, business rivals, and disaffected states.”
Our concern quickly became reality, as Mr. Trump attempted to use three elderly laws to bypass Congress and create a new tariff system by decree. V.O.S. Selections addresses one of these laws: the International Emergency Economic Powers Act — “IEEPA” for short — which dates to 1976. It doesn’t mention tariffs specifically, but gives presidents broad authority to act quickly in emergencies such as the outbreaks of wars or natural disasters. (The other two laws, not covered in this case, are “Section 232” from 1962, allowing presidents to “adjust” imports to meet national security needs, and “Section 301,” 1974, authorizing threats or imposition of tariffs as a negotiating tool for administrations trying to reduce overseas trade barriers.) These laws share two unusual features: first, presidents don’t need Congressional approval to use them; and second, the policies they choose (tariff or otherwise) can stay on indefinitely. The temptation to rule by decree is thus latent in each, though no earlier president had wanted to try it.
The tariffs at issue in V.O.S. Selections come from two “IEEPA” decrees. The first, spanning three Executive Orders on February 1, declared an emergency over fentanyl and migration and used it to impose tariffs of 25% on Canadian and Mexican products, and 10% on Chinese-made goods. The second, on April 2, claimed that the U.S. trade balance is a national emergency, and used it to create a “global” tariff of 10% and a battery of “reciprocal” tariffs ranging from 11% to 50% on 56 separate countries and the 27-member European Union.
In practical terms, the tariffs mean massive new costs for hundreds of millions of Americans and millions of businesses. The small New York wine seller whose name is on the case (V.O.S. Selections, on 8th Avenue), for example, buys wine from vintners in the United States and 13 other countries. The permanent “MFN” tariff system imposes a tariff of 6.3 cents per liter for its Argentine, Lebanese, French, Italian, Greek, Croatian, Hungarian, and Austrian wines, and no tariff on wine from FTA partners Morocco and Mexico. The IEEPA decrees hiked this to 10% for the Moroccan and Lebanese vintages, 25% for the Mexican, and threats of 20% and then 50% for the European varieties.
The question V.O.S. and the four other firms in the case — a women’s bicycle shop, a pipe-maker, a designer of educational electronics kits, and a fishing tackle store — pose (via advocates in the Liberty Justice Center) addresses the decrees’ foundation: can a president, by declaring an “emergency,” take Congress’ Constitutional power to set rates for “Taxes, Duties, Imposts, and Excises” for himself? The Court concluded that he can’t.
Its opinion in V.O.S. Selections v. Trump and the parallel State of Oregon v. Trump (filed by the Attorneys General for Oregon and 11 other states*), cites the Constitution for authority over tariffs, and Federalist Papers 48 and 51 for the breach in the ‘separation of powers’ an unlimited presidential tariff power would create. Their unanimous conclusion:
“The question in the two cases before the court is whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (“IEEPA”) delegates these powers to the President in the form of authority to impose unlimited tariffs on goods from nearly every country in the world. The court does not read IEEPA to confer such unbounded authority and sets aside the challenged tariffs imposed thereunder.”
The administration has appealed, and the Supreme Court will likely get the final word. But for now, the C.I.T. opinion tosses out all the IEEPA tariffs: the 10% global tariff, the threats of 50% tariffs on things from the European Union and Lesotho (and 46% on Vietnamese goods, 36% on Thai goods, 47% on Madagascar’s vanilla and clothing, 28% on Tunisian dates and jewelry, etc.), the 25% on Canadian and Mexican-made goods and the 10% on Chinese-made products. The real-world impact of this is quite large: if upheld it will save American families and businesses — small firms like those in the case, farms, building contractors, retail shops, restaurants, hospitals, and manufacturers — hundreds of billions of dollars. The effect on American governance is greater: if the opinion stands, it will reaffirm Constitutional limits on unchecked and arbitrary presidential power, and bar presidents from nullifying Congressional tax authority through a law designed for quite different purposes.
Looking ahead: Assuming the C.I.T.’s opinion does stand, the IEEPA route for presidents hoping to bypass Congress and the Constitution will be closed. It isn’t the only such route, though, and the opinion leaves work for Congress and others hoping to avert further attempts to rule by decree. It doesn’t affect, for example, the “Section 232” 25% tariff on cars and auto parts, nor the drastically oscillating “232” steel and aluminum tariffs (50%, at least this week), nor the “301” law used first to impose tariffs on Chinese goods in 2018 for negotiating purposes but more recently to convert them to long-term “industrial policy.” The 232 and 301 laws have more procedural checkpoints and requirements than IEEPA and take longer to use, but share a core weakness: since neither requires Congressional affirmation of any new tariffs, presidents can use them to create their own tariff systems.
Whatever one’s view of the merits of tariffs in trade policy or as taxation, this spring’s experience makes such a situation Constitutionally untenable. Congress should not simply rely on courts to defend its authority. It has the power to do so itself, and — as Trade Subcommittee Ranking Member Linda Sanchez along with House Ways and Means Democrats propose — should use it now.
* Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, and Vermont
FURTHER READING
PPI’s four principles for response to tariffs and economic isolationism:
Defend the Constitution and oppose rule by decree;
Connect tariff policy to growth, work, prices and family budgets, and living standards;
Stand by America’s neighbors and allies;
Offer a positive alternative.
Court:
Court of International Trade decisions in 2025 (V.O.S. Selections v. Trump is #25-66)
The National Archives’ official Constitution transcript; see Article I, Sec. 8 for authority over “Taxes, Duties, Imposts, and Excises”, and also for authority over “regulation of commerce with foreign Nations.”
And from the Library of Congress, Federalist Papers 51-60 cover tax authority and the separation of powers.
Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.) and all other Ways and Means Committee Democrats propose revision of IEEPA, Section 301, and Section 232 to require Congressional approval of any new tariffs, quotas, or other trade limits under these laws.
ABOUT ED
Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.
Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.
Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank ProgressiveEconomy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.
Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007). He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.
Richard Kahlenberg, director of the American Identity Project at the Progressive Policy Institute, said that if schools were to consider socioeconomic status instead of race, they could still increase diversity on campus. Kahlenberg testified on behalf of Students for Fair Admissions in support of the ruling ending affirmative action.
With data obtained through the legal process, he and an economist ran dozens of admissions simulations and found that considering socioeconomic status and ending preferential admissions for legacy students could increase diversity at Harvard and the University of North Carolina while maintaining academic caliber.
“If there were some universities that did not see declines in racial diversity, as we know there were some, then it’s incumbent upon those institutions that saw larger drops to learn what happened,” Kahlenberg said.
He added that universities and colleges have argued that this method would be far more expensive, as it would increase the amount of financial aid the schools have to provide.
“It’s not that race-neutral alternatives are ineffective, it’s that they cost more money,” he said.
WASHINGTON — Today, Diana Moss, Vice President and Director of Competition Policy at the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI), called on New York lawmakers to reject proposed legislation that would impose price caps on the resale of live event tickets, warning that the measures would stifle competition in resale ticket markets and entrench the monopoly power of Live Nation-Ticketmaster—harming consumers and artists.
In a letter submitted to State Senator James Skoufis and Assembly Member Ron Kim, chairs of the Senate and Assembly committees overseeing ticketing policy, Moss outlined how Senate Bill S8221 and Assembly Bill A8659 would undermine competition in the resale ticket market and distort pricing dynamics, to the detriment of fans. She sharply criticized the legislation, stating that it “would serve as a regulatory gift to monopolists like Live Nation-Ticketmaster, which is currently the subject of a DOJ antitrust monopolization case, while stripping consumers of crucial market alternatives.”
“These bills fail to address the root causes of dysfunction in ticketing, namely Live Nation-Ticketmaster’s control over the primary ticketing market through, among other tools, exclusive contracts with venues,” said Moss. “Instead, they target the far more competitive resale market, effectively knee-capping the only meaningful competition the monopoly faces. That’s bad policy that ignores fundamental economics.”
Moss also warned that state-level price controls could interfere with the U.S. Department of Justice’s ongoing monopolization case against Live Nation-Ticketmaster, a case to which New York is a party.
“Lawmakers should not pass legislation that undercuts federal antitrust enforcement,” said Moss. “Now is the time to pause and let the legal process play out.”
Rather than pursuing invasive price controls, PPI’s letter urges lawmakers to focus on reforms that enhance transparency, ensure ticket transferability, and support competitive ticketing ecosystems that work for consumers, artists, and independent venues alike.
Founded in 1989, PPI is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Find an expert and learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org. Follow us @PPI.
“Microschools aren’t so micro anymore,” writes Linda Jacobson in The 74. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the growth of these K-12 learning models. They became a refuge for families facing school closures and challenges with remote learning. Their expansion is another important development in America’s K-12 education choice landscape.
What Are Microschools?
Microschools are often described as today’s version of the one-room schoolhouse. They typically consist of small, mixed-age student groups. They operate in traditional school buildings, homes, churches, and commercial spaces. They emphasize customized curricula, experiential learning, and a focus on mastery of content over standardized testing.
They take different organizational forms, including learning centers that follow a state’s homeschooling rules, private schools that charge tuition, a single charter school or a member of a charter network, or a traditional public school. Their learning calendars vary from being open year-round to part-time to following a typical academic year.
From our Budget Breakdown series highlighting problems in fiscal policy to inform the 2025 tax and budget debate.
Among many problems with the “One Big Beautiful Bill” passed last week by House Republicans is that it would increase the cost and regressivity of the State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction. The bill would increase the SALT cap from the $10,000 it is today to $40,000 for households making under $500,000, with all thresholds continuing to grow for the next decade. Congressman Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), one of the House GOP’s biggest advocates for expanding SALT, triumphantly declared after the bill’s passage that “for the middle class, this is a real win.” But in reality, the main beneficiaries of the change will be the affluent — not the middle class.
To even benefit from the increased SALT deduction, one has to itemize deductions on their tax return rather than take the standard deduction. But only about 10% of taxpayers do so, typically higher-income households that have enough deductions (like SALT, mortgage interest, or charitable giving) to make itemizing worthwhile. The remaining 90% — including most middle-class and nearly all lower-income Americans — take the standard deduction, which is currently $15,000 for single filers and $30,000 for married couples.
As a result, it is primarily wealthy households that would benefit from a more generous SALT deduction. According to one analysis, a $40,000 SALT cap with a $500,000 income limit would most benefit households in the 95th to 99th income percentiles (the 95th percentile starts at approximately $316,000 in household income) who would see a 0.6% boost in after-tax income when compared to the current cap. Meanwhile, the bottom 80% of earners would see no meaningful benefit. Supporters may claim that the income cap reins in the regressivity of the deal, but in practice, it simply reorders which wealthy Americans are benefitting. While the ultra-wealthy are excluded under the income cap, extremely high-income professionals and upper-tier earners would still enjoy a sizable tax break that they hardly need.
Moreover, Republicans’ SALT deal is an expensive addition to a bill that already adds more than $3 trillion to the deficit. Relative to an extension of the $10,000 cap put in place by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the Republican plan would cost an additional $320 billion over ten years. Even relative to the previous SALT change in Republicans’ original legislative text — which would have raised the cap to $30,000 with a $400,000 income limit — the plan still costs an additional $150 billion.
Supporters of raising or repealing the SALT cap claim that regardless of these downsides, it would be fundamentally unfair for the federal government to levy income taxes on money that is being used to pay state taxes. But this argument completely ignores that such practice is commonplace in the tax code. The federal government does not exempt payroll taxes before calculating income tax burdens, nor do states allow homeowners to deduct property taxes before calculating their other state tax obligations. Multiple layers of taxation are hardly a unique or unfair burden no matter what SALT defenders claim.
The Senate should reject this expensive and regressive SALT expansion and replace it with something more fiscally responsible. Even better, they should add restrictions for business SALT deduction to the bill, which currently faces no limitations. The justification for why businesses should be able to deduct their state and local income taxes from federal income taxes is just as weak as the argument for individuals.
No matter what Republicans clinging to districts in places like New York, New Jersey, and California say, the reality is that raising the SALT cap isn’t middle-class tax relief — it’s a costly giveaway to affluent households in a bill that already blows up the budget deficit far more than can be afforded. Congress should kill this SALT deal and replace it with a fiscally responsible alternative.
A recent analysis by the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) finds that economic growth induced by the Republican tax plan would raise only $103 billion of additional revenue over 10 years — well short of the claimed $2.5 trillion. Notably, this estimate doesn’t factor in the damage the “One Big Beautiful Bill’s” massive deficits would do to economic growth, which the JCT warns will result in larger revenue losses over time.
FACT: Denmark is a four-generation ally and a good neighbor.
THE NUMBERS:
Denmark NATO membership:
1949-present
Danish soldiers killed in action, Iraq and Afghanistan 2002-2020:
50
WHAT THEY MEAN:
When Americans asked for help, they came. Ten years ago, Marine Gen. Daniel Yoo expresses gratitude for the U.S. Armed Forces as Danish allies rotate out of Helmand:
“I want to thank you for your steadfast partnership. We are grateful for all of your support. Your soldiers should be proud of their multiple deployments here and accomplishments, and for distinguishing themselves with valor on the modern battlefields of Afghanistan. Your country should take pride in your professionalism and commitment.”
A founding North Atlantic Treaty signatory in 1949, Denmark has been a NATO member ever since. The 21,000 Danes who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, including in high-risk provinces Helmand and Anbar, served as allies responding to the Bush administration’s call for assistance under Article V of the North Atlantic Treaty. Fifty never returned, 43 of them killed in Afghanistan and 7 in Iraq.
If we were to call again, what might they say?
This year, the Danes have been the target of a bizarre pressure campaign by the Trump administration, which says it wants to “acquire” Greenland. (Which, see below, is a self-governing country within the Kingdom of Denmark, not a possession.) To justify this the administration has raised some questions of security and critical-mineral policy, which aren’t trivial but also (a) aren’t new and (b) are now, and always have been, addressed perfectly well through international law, alliance management, and standard diplomacy. We noted last January that the opening of this campaign, along with similar decisions to pick fights with Canada and Panama, was among the most disturbing events of the transition period. Four months later our view is the same: unwarranted, lacking public support (whether in the U.S., Denmark, or Greenland), and destructive to American and Atlantic security. Some background, and then our advice for the administration:
Greenland is a close American neighbor: Nuuk, the capital, is 1300 miles from Maine and a four-hour direct flight from New York. Its 56,000 people live on 2.16 million square miles of land — a gigantic space about three times the size of Texas, though 80% of it lies under a mile-high ice sheet. Politically under the Danish Crown since 1397, and a part of the Kingdom of Denmark since 1814, Greenland is a self-governing country whose local government runs fiscal matters, schools, economic policy, and domestic affairs including control over mining and natural resources. Since 2009 it has had a “right of self-determination” extending in theory to independence. (Puerto Rico may be the closest U.S. analogue, though an imperfect one.) Greenlanders — mostly Inuit by ethnicity; the official language is Greenlandic — have been pondering the options, without any great urgency, for several decades.
Greenland participates in NATO via the Danish Armed Forces, and has an important alliance role through the U.S. military space facility at Pituffik (which, to pin down some security detail, works under the direction of the Joint Force Command in Norfolk, Virginia.) Its place in the world economy is legally complex — though Denmark is an EU member Greenland is not, having opted out of the EU for fishery policy reasons in 1979. Its economy mostly rests on tourism and about $1 billion worth of annual halibut, cod, Arctic crab, and cold-water shrimp exports to European, Chinese, and other Asian buyers.*
The independence option, though not likely to materialize in the near term, does raise some questions — principally for Danes and Greenlanders, but also for Greenland’s near neighbors in Iceland, Canada, and the United States.
With respect to security policy: Arctic security does raise important questions, in particular given Russia’s attack on Ukraine and threats against its northern neighbors. These include naval passage, the future of the Pituffik base (not a facility Greenlanders are interested in scaling back; to the contrary, it’s widely supported and both Denmark and Greenland are spending more on security these days) and commercial shipping lanes as Arctic ice retreats. As in the past, they are perfectly manageable through normal alliance relationships, diplomacy, and defense and intelligence coordination.
With respect to mining and resources: Though Greenland’s largest resource is fresh water (the ice sheet holds about 2.9 million cubic meters of water, ten times as much water as the rest of the world’s surface lakes, rivers, glaciers, etc. combined), it also has lots of rocks and would be happy to sell some of them to Americans. The U.S. Geological Survey cautiously estimates 1.5 million tons of rare earth reserves (their rare-earth estimate for the U.S. itself is 1.9 million tons) along with gem mining, and more generally Greenland has at least some of 39 of the USGS’ 50 designated “critical minerals.”
The resource endowment naturally draws interest from mining businesses worldwide, but as with the security issues, that doesn’t at all mean a crisis. To the contrary, Greenland’s government has been hoping for a while that American mining firms would show more interest than they’re now doing: this year, they count 23 British and 23 Canadian mining companies operating in Greenland, as against only one American. Here’s the relevant Minister, Naaja Nathanielsen, pitching Americans for more business last January:
“Greenland has high hopes of signing a new agreement with the United States as soon as possible. We are searching for ways to increase investments in our mining sector. … At the moment, companies in Canada and Britain own the most mining licenses in Greenland. They each hold 23 licenses. The United States holds just one. I am sure this picture can change.”
In sum, without any obvious rationale, the Trump administration has been berating Denmark in the press, insisting that the U.S. has some sort of need to acquire and administer Greenland, sending J.D. Vance to walk around in the snow looking for supporters of the idea that Greenland should join the United States (he couldn’t find one), and shifting U.S. intelligence community professionals from the useful work one hopes they’re now doing to an embarrassing, Inspector Clouseau-like mission of finding the acquisition-supporters Mr. Vance couldn’t. This has accomplished nothing useful and done much harm. PPI’s National Security Director Peter Juul sums up the consequences:
“Trump’s alienation of America’s oldest and closest allies leaves the United States less safe in the world — and raises the risk of conflict in Europe and the Pacific by sowing doubts about America’s commitments to its allies and their security.”
Now to the advice, which starts with three pretty obvious points:
There is no “Greenland problem.” The U.S., Denmark, the Greenland government, and NATO can handle any “issues” related to Greenland policy per se, or to Arctic security more generally, perfectly well and have done so for decades.
Both the Danish government and Greenland’s elected local government have said repeatedly (including during the first Trump term) that Greenland’s sovereignty isn’t up for discussion.
Helmand Province in 2014 wasn’t long ago. Mistreating a four-generation ally and good neighbor, which in the very recent past has made considerable sacrifices in a shared cause, reflects poorly on the United States and erodes America’s reputation as an honorable partner.
And then the bright spot: The world is full of unpleasant choices among lesser evils, complex long-running challenges with no simple solutions, etc., etc. This isn’t one of those things. To the extent any problem exists, it is quite new and the Trump administration can choose at any moment to stop causing it. The alternative — just be a trustworthy ally and good neighbor – shouldn’t be hard at all.
* The U.S. is a minor customer, spending about $30 million a year on 2000 tons of fish and 1000 tons of crab, and selling in return about $10 million in airplane parts, weather-monitoring and telecommunications gear, and navigation equipment. Greenland escaped the Trump administration’s April 2 “reciprocal” tariff decree (though this still imposes a 10% tax on the fish and crab) because in 2024 its government bought a plane and some aircraft parts for $40 million, leaving the U.S. with a bilateral trade surplus that year.
FURTHER READING
PPI’s four principles for response to tariffs and economic isolationism:
Defend the Constitution and oppose rule by decree;
Connect tariff policy to growth, work, prices and family budgets, and living standards;
Stand by America’s neighbors and allies;
Offer a positive alternative.
Big picture:
From Peter Juul, PPI’s Director of National Security, a look at an ugly first 100 days.
… the Daily Beast reflects on Sophia Bruun, a 23-year-old Danish Army private soldier killed in action in 2010, placing her field service against Mr. Vance’s posturing last March.
… and from the BBC, Afghanistan veteran Col. Soren Knudsen looks back and ponders Trump administration Greenland threats.
ABOUT ED
Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.
Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.
Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank ProgressiveEconomy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.
Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007). He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.
The U.S. has one of the most dynamic broadband networks in the world. Providers have poured more than $500 billion into building and upgrading broadband networks since 2019. The price of internet access has dropped 10% over the past 10 years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, even while the overall price level has soared. All together, the share of consumer spending going to telecom, broadband and related services fell from 3% in 2014 to 2.4% in 2024. Moreover, many providers offer robust, low-cost services for economically disadvantaged populations.
But a piece of legislation under consideration by the California State Assembly, AB 353 could derail this success story in the nation’s largest state. It would require California internet providers to offer “eligible households” internet at $15 or less per month (inclusive of any recurring taxes and fees) with at least 100 megabits per second downstream and 20 megabits per second upstream. “Eligible household” means at least one resident of the household participate in a long list of qualified public assistance programs.
This type of regulatory burden — actually writing a price ceiling into law — is likely to impede investment and expansion by both new and existing providers. If there’s anything that economics teaches us, it’s that price ceilings result in less service and fewer competitors rather than more.
California already has one of the most competitive broadband markets in the country, with multiple providers offering a wide range of products, services and price points. This includes many that already offer low-cost services for families in need. Heavy-handed regulation will only serve to scare away investment and competitors, as recently seen in New York State.
From this perspective, AB 353 is a bad idea. However, if it is the intent of the legislature to proceed with some form of this bill, several commonsense changes should be made. These include narrower qualification standards, greater flexibility in speed requirements, and tying the price of the low-income service to the CPI. Additionally, to ensure a level playing field, the requirements of the legislation should apply to all broadband providers, regardless of whether they are public or privately owned. All of these would reduce the financial risk to providers, and thus not shut off the flow of future investment.
Former Lithuanian foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis sums up his concerns about NATO with an image borrowed from quantum mechanics: Schrödinger’s cat.
“We’re in an ambiguous position,” Landsbergis explained in an interview last week. President Donald Trump makes inflammatory statements about the alliance, threatening to walk away unless Europe steps up to carry more of the cost. But then Secretary of State Marco Rubio appears in Brussels or some other forum and calms Europe down—Landsbergis calls it “normalizing the situation.” The upshot: confusion and uncertainty. “NATO is challenged and not challenged at the same time,” the former diplomat says. And in his view, this creates a perfect, bone-chilling opportunity for Russian strongman Vladimir Putin.
It isn’t hard to imagine how the scenario would play out. If Putin can convince the White House that the U.S. will benefit from a better relationship with Moscow—as he apparently has—Trump may hesitate to jeopardize the opportunity, even if a NATO ally is attacked.
WASHINGTON — A new report from the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) unpacks competition in U.S. parcel shipping. The report looks at growth in e-commerce, the role of the legacy UPS-FedEx duopoly in the parcel shipping market, and the importance of entry and expansion to keep prices down for consumers and businesses. The report, “Unpacking the Shake-Up in Parcel Shipping Competition,” authored by Diana Moss, Vice President and Director of Competition Policy, and Andrew Fung, Senior Economic & Technology Policy Analyst, details how smaller and innovative carriers are eroding the duopoly — but barriers remain.
“The UPS-FedEx duopoly still has an outsized influence in the parcel shipping market,” said Moss. “More competition is needed by disruptive business models to deliver the economic benefits that businesses and consumers have come to expect from e-commerce.”
The report documents a surge in parcel shipping volumes — up 95% over the past eight years, largely to support burgeoning e-commerce. But much higher unit costs for UPS and FedEx, and parallel price increases are shining a light on the importance of smaller and more innovative carriers that compete hard on lower prices, faster delivery, and more flexibility.
Key findings in the report include:
Retailing is a vitally important sector of the U.S. economy and the e-commerce channel is growing rapidly, more so than the brick-and-mortar channel. As a percentage of total retail, e-commerce could top 30% by the late 2020s. Parcel shipping is a critical infrastructure that supports this growth.
UPS and FedEx together command roughly 65% of total revenue in parcel shipping, despite handling less than 40% of total package volume. Their per-package costs are far higher than those of Amazon Logistics and smaller players such as OnTrac, which are a leading source of competition that challenges the UPS-FedEx duopoly.
Disruptive competitors are making incursions into parcel shipping, particularly in last-mile delivery. These firms are capitalizing on demand for alternatives to the legacy carriers and providing competition that will keep shipping prices down, spur quality improvements, and benefit businesses and consumers.
The report urges policymakers to recognize the central role parcel shipping plays in the retail e-commerce channel. “Parcel shipping isn’t just about logistics — it’s the critical infrastructure behind the e-commerce economy,” said Moss. “Fostering more competition is essential for keeping the cost of living, and the cost of doing business, down.”
Founded in 1989, PPI is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Find an expert and learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org. Follow us @PPI.
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Media Contact: Ian O’Keefe – iokeefe@ppionline.org
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