CAN A NEW DEMOCRATIC ADMINISTRATION RECONSTRUCT DIGITAL TRADE POLICY WITH EUROPE FROM THE ASHES OF TTIP? As the global leader in digital trade, the United States has a big stake in ensuring that international rules facilitating its continued expansion are put in place. The Obama Administration’s bold agenda to establish these rules across Europe and…
Publications
WASHINGTON— Ed Gerwin, Senior Fellow for Trade and Global Opportunity at the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI), today released the following statement in response to the introduction of the bipartisan, bicameral Congressional Trade Authority Act: PPI welcomes the introduction of the Congressional Trade Authority Act by Representatives Ron Kind (D-WI) and Michael Gallagher (R-WI) and Senators…
Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution sets out Congress’s job description on international trade, empowering it “to lay and collect . . . duties” and “to regulate commerce with foreign nations.” For the past two years, Congress hasn’t been doing its job. Instead, it’s stood by while President Trump has hijacked its constitutional trade…
Press
As Congress begins to turn toward tax policies to help clean energy manufacturing, electric vehicle tax credits aimed directly at more affordable vehicles are gaining speed, just as a previous Forbes column and a Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) white paper urged several months ago. The question now is will EV advocates in Congress, the U.S.…
Dear Democratic Class of 2018, Congratulations on your election to the U.S. House of Representatives! In addition to winning your own race, you are part of something larger – the first wave of a progressive resurgence in U.S. politics. The midterm elections gave U.S. voters their first opportunity to react to the way Donald Trump…
‘We lost $817 billion a year, over the last number of years, in trade,” President Trump said at a summer rally. “In other words, if we didn’t trade, we’d save a hell of a lot of money." Mr. Trump's bombast has flipped the Republican pro-trade script. For Democrats, this change offers a significant political opening…
Blog
America now depends on overseas suppliers for more than half of its medical equipment and supplies, up sharply from a few years ago. That's based on a PPI analysis of government trade and industry data, What happened? As we go through this terrible pandemic, U.S. healthcare providers are suffering from a surprising shortage of medical…
Despite all his bluster, the "Trump Trade Deficit" widened to a new record in the third quarter of 2019. The non-oil merchandise trade deficit hit $1.047 trillion in the third quarter of 2019, in 2012 dollars (annual rate). That's according to PPI calculations based on new data released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis on…
President Trump is apparently a trade alchemist. He’s taken the core of NAFTA (the “worst trade deal ever”), liberally sprinkled in modern rules from the Trans Pacific Partnership (a “potential disaster”), and created a “brand new” trade deal — the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). Trump’s hyperbole aside, the USMCA, while not perfect, would do a creditable…
