FACT: 69% of Americans want their next car to cost less than $50,000.

THE NUMBERS: Steel use per $1 billion of U.S. “real GDP,” 2017 and 2024* – 

*BEA for U.S. GDP adjusted for inflation in 2017 dollars (Table 1.1.6), and the U.S. Geological Survey’s Mineral Commodity Summaries (“apparent consumption”) for steel and aluminum use.

WHAT THEY MEAN:

The Trump administration’s explanations for its tariff binge shift and vary. (“Foreigners ripping us off,” “fentanyl,” “trade balance,” “reciprocity,” etc.) But they often converge on an assertion that higher trade barriers would make U.S. manufacturing grow, and that the harms of higher tariffs –lost wealth, foreign retaliations against American farm products and manufactures, depressed family living standards — are less than this future benefit. (lllustrative comments below from Cabinet Secretaries Bessent & Lutnick.) Outside the administration, Shawn Fain, president of the venerable United Auto Workers union, makes a similar claim, advocating trade collaboration with Mr. Trump in the Washington Post last January on the grounds that higher tariffs would mean fewer imported cars, more U.S. car production, and presumably, more auto-plant hires and dues-paying UAW members.

Autos are very pertinent this month. Despite the financial-market plunges and fading GDP outlook accompanying the Trump administration’s Canada and Mexico fiasco, it still appears to envision putting tariffs on cars — as well as medicines (both prescription and over-the-counter), semiconductors, building materials, and various other things — in April. So is Mr. Fain right about what might happen afterwards? We’ll start with the people who get the final say — Americans thinking about buying cars this year — and draw from recent heavy-industry tariff experience to inform an answer.

The day the Post published Mr. Fain’s article, Deloitte released a January 2025 poll of Americans on car ownership. Two points jump out: (i) 69% of Americans hope to pay less than $50,000 for their next car, and (ii) 44% of Americans aged 18 to 34 years are willing to give up auto ownership altogether in favor of “Mobility as a Service.” (“MaaS,” meaning using a mix of ride-sharing, bicycles, public transit, taxis, and rental cars instead of buying a personal car.)

Now to the recent heavy-industry experience:

In March 2018, the first Trump administration raised tariffs to 25% on most steel and 10% on most aluminum. Between September 2018 and the summer of 2019, it added tariffs of 25% and 7.5% to most Chinese-made products. Both mostly stayed in place during the Biden era. Since then U.S. manufacturing output and job growth have slowed. The average post-financial-crisis, Obama-administration-policy year saw $41 billion in real-dollar manufacturing output growth and a net gain of 125,000 manufacturing jobs. Post-2018, the averages are $31 billion in real output growth and 40,000 net new jobs. Meanwhile, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ count of specifically unionized manufacturing workers has dropped by 216,000, and the manufacturing share of U.S. GDP has shrunk by about a point:

One can argue — in a miniature version of the broader claim that lost wealth and diminished family purchasing power are prices worth paying for the industrial-sector growth the administration is predicting — that somewhat smaller U.S. total manufacturing output is worth it to get larger steel and aluminum industries. But that didn’t happen either. Instead, steel production in the U.S. has fallen from 87.8 million tons in 2018 to 81 million tons in 2024, and primary aluminum production from 740,000 tons to 670,000 tons.

Why?  The reason appears to be that industrial buyers now use less metal. The U.S. Geological Survey’s annual “Mineral Commodity Summaries” reports that from 2012 to 2017 the U.S. economy used 99 million tons of steel and 4.94 million tons of aluminum on average each year. From 2019 to 2024 — the six years since the tariffs, skipping 2018 since the tariffs came halfway through — the comparable averages were 94 million tons of steel and 4.37 million tons of aluminum. The 2024 totals were lower still, at 93 million tons of steel and 4.3 million tons of aluminum. So steel use dropped by about 5% and aluminum by 12%; both fell even faster relative to real GDP; and U.S. domestic production of these metals is down a bit rather than up.

Now back to cars. A 25% tariff on cars in April might raise the cost of a new $50,000 car to $60,000. Meanwhile, tariffs on the many “inputs” that go into a car — metals, semiconductors, Internet routers, wiring, radios, shatterproof and mirrored glass, leather and vinyl for seat covers, etc. — would make it more expensive for U.S.-based factories to make cars, and also raise repair and tune-up bills. Taking Deloitte’s insights on the auto-buying public into account, the likely result is that (a) some of the 69% of Americans hoping to pay less than $50,000 for a new ride wouldn’t buy one, (b) used cars would grow more attractive compared to new ones, and (c) more young Americans would choose not to buy them at all.

In sum, it’s hard to see how Mr. Fain’s hopes could materialize. And it’s easy to imagine the opposite: higher car prices, quieter dealerships, fewer sales, and eventually fewer hourly-wage auto production jobs. So here’s an alternative suggestion for the UAW’s policy shop: rather than work with Mr. Trump to raise tariffs and car prices, ask the members for ideas on how to give young Americans the low-cost cars they seem to want.

* Using the BEA and BLS annual averages, more or less equivalent to the mid-year total.

** BEA’s ‘GDP by Industry’ data. These are complete through Q3 2024; and the manufacturing share was 10.0% in the second and third quarters. The first estimate for Q4 is not yet available until March, so the final annual share may be slightly above or below the current 10.0% estimate.

FURTHER READING

Our four principles for response to Trump administration tariffs, whether last week’s on Canada/Mexico/China, or the car/medicine/semiconductor proposal:

*  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.

Cars:

Deloitte’s poll finds prospective buyers hoping for cheaper cars, and nearly half of young Americans wondering to get one at all.

… and UAW President Fain in the Washington Post on hopes for high-tariff cars.

Data: 

BEA’s ‘GDP by Industry’ series.

BLS’ gloomy look at trends in union membership in 2024. See Table 4 for manufacturing — down 216,000 members since the 2018 tariffs, probably for many reasons but not a hopeful sign for tariff-enthusiasts — and other industry-by-industry figures.

Metals:

The U.S. Geological Survey’s Mineral Commodity Summaries 2025.

USITC’s estimates for the effects of steel, aluminum, and China tariffs as of 2021, including the cost burden (“nearly full pass-through” to consumers), and effects on other industries in for the metal tariffs — a $2.2 billion expansion (again as of 2021) of aluminum and steel output, offset by a $3.5 billion contraction in auto parts, machinery, tool-making, and other metal-using manufacturing industries. No estimate for construction, and note that while the metals section estimates both benefits for protected metal-producing companies and cost for metal-using industries, the China section does only the “protected and benefiting” side and therefore isn’t useful as a picture of the effect on manufacturing.

And, as promised, some then-and-now with Cabinet Secretaries:

Then: Here’s the Republican party platform promising lower prices a few months back:

“The Republican Party will reverse the worst inflation crisis in four decades that has crushed the middle class, devastated family budgets, and pushed the dream of homeownership out of reach for millions. We will defeat inflation, tackle the cost-of-living crisis, improve fiscal sanity, restore price stability, and quickly bring down prices.”

Now: As Trump administration officials propose tariffs on groceries, lumber and other home-building materials, medicines, cars, T-shirts, etc, Treasury Secretary Bessent (via Politico) now says Americans shouldn’t care about prices — “access to cheap goods is not the essence of the American dream” — and then mumbles a bit:

“Can tariffs be a one-time price adjustment? Yes.”

Also now: Meanwhile, two blocks down 15th Street, Commerce Secretary Lutnick says the following (again via Politico) about Trump administration amplifying steel and aluminum tariffs:

“When you imposed the tariffs the first time, you added 120,000 jobs,” Lutnick told Trump. “And since that time, [the tariffs have] been picked away and nicked away and excluded away, and we’ve lost 107,000 jobs. And remember, these aren’t just general jobs. These are steel workers in America.”

Fact Check: Per the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ “Employment, Hours, and Earnings” survey (in “durable goods manufacturing”) 83,300 people worked in iron and steel mills as of February 2018. The count has varied in a narrow band since then — 88,400 high, 78,100 low, 83,500 in January 2025 — with the low point in January 2021 as the Biden administration took over and COVID re-opening got underway. Nothing remotely like “120,000 jobs gained” happened, and “107,000 jobs lost” is impossible since it’s a bigger number than the total number of steelworkers.

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.

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FACT: Isolationism and appeasement are dangerous.

THE NUMBERS: Ukraine economic indicators, 2022 and 2025* –

* International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook database October 2024

WHAT THEY MEAN:

As President Zelenskyy returns to Kyiv, some thoughts on Russia’s war, the Ukrainian cause, the White House’s revival of isolationism and appeasement, and the dangers it poses for America and America’s friends:

Three years ago this week, we noted that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was one of very few attempts since World War II — arguably only the second, together with Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 — by one UN member to attack another and attempt to wipe it off the map. From this point of departure, we made three points about the event and the appropriate American and Allied response to it. Here they are, shortened a bit for space:

(1) The post-World War II ban on wars of conquest is the foundation of international order, whether one’s point of reference is international law and the UN Charter, or the logic of peace and security.  Respect for it is essential to international achievement in any field, from peaceful settlement of disputes among countries, to scientific and medical progress, environmental protection, economic policy, and international security.

(2) Russia’s violation of this ban in the attack on Ukraine was then, and remains now, especially dangerous as the action not of the rogue dictator of an isolated minor power, but of a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Should it succeed, we can expect more such events and a much more dangerous world. Should it fail, conversely, the taboo on wars of conquest will be stronger and future imitators more effectively deterred.

(3) The Biden administration and allies from Australia, Korea, and Japan to Canada, the EU, and the UK were right to respond with economic and military aid for Ukraine, and extensive sanctions on Russia. Hindsight from 2025 can dispute some of their specific choices, especially on weapons provision. But whether from the moral or the national-interest perspective, their decision to stand with Ukraine was correct.

It remains so now. Ukraine has used its support well. Its army defeated Russia’s initial attack on Kyiv in 2022 and holds the line in the east. Its very modest navy — mainly a collection of small boats armed with ingenious home-built naval drones — defeated Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in 2023, sinking a third of its capital ships and forcing the rest to shelter in port ever since.  And on the home front, as the IMF data above show, Ukraine’s economy has grown by about 20% since the low of 2022, with unemployment and inflation both cut by half; its start-up tech community has created ex nihilo an internationally competitive high-tech defense industry; and its Black Sea victory has reconnected Ukraine’s agricultural heartland to customers in Europe and the United States. More basically, Ukraine’s public is not about to buckle, its government is stable, and its defense is a just cause.  Americans have no reason to reassess our commitment.

The Trump administration, to our great dismay, has taken a different approach, vividly displayed in Friday’s White House meeting.  In the past month it has refused to condemn Russia’s invasion, opened direct talks with Russia without the presence of Ukrainians or European allies, and now has made an open attempt — including stopping military aid — to coerce Ukraine itself. This is full of risk — above all for Ukrainians, next for U.S. allies such as the Baltic states and Poland, and finally for Americans too.

The administration’s recycling of the term “America First” for its approach is evocative and instructive.  The first group to use this name, the “America First Committee,” was an organization created in September 1940 – that is, during the Battle of Britain — with a specific goal: to prevent Franklin Roosevelt from aiding the U.K. with ships, planes, industrial supplies, and food through the “Lend-Lease” program. Its roughly 800,000 members varied — some were sincere pacifists, others convinced isolationists and worried college students, and some admired dictators as “strong” and “decisive” personalities and considered fascism the energetic “wave of the future.” All of them were wrong, and some of them were bad. Their failure in 1940 was good for the world and America alike.

Eight decades later, Friday’s White House meeting – as well as the administration’s extraordinary decision to oppose the UN’s February resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of its neighbor – recall the ugliest part of this earlier America First movement.  The February meeting by the Secretary of State and National Security Advisor with Russian officials in Saudi Arabia — likely about Ukrainian land among other things and, we repeat, without Ukrainians present — echoes the naivete of the Committee’s pacifist/isolationist members: won’t a few concessions appease an aggressive power?  Could it hurt to try?  The obvious point of reference is the 1938 Munich Agreement, where the leaders of the two big European democracies — the U.K.’s Chamberlain and France’s Daladier — conceded Czech land to an aggressor in the hope of avoiding conflict. Here’s the classic in-the-moment verdict from an opposition MP:

“[Our people] should know that we have sustained a defeat without a war, the consequences of which will travel far with us along our road; they should know that we have passed an awful milestone in our history, when the whole equilibrium of Europe has been deranged, and that the terrible words have for the time being been pronounced against the Western democracies: ‘Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting.’

“And do not suppose that this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning. This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigour, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.”

Churchill was speaking of a fait accompli. By contrast, Mr. Trump’s venture has so far not succeeded.  Americans of both parties who have a greater sense of realism, who appreciate the danger of appeasement and isolationism, and who are more willing to be guided by right and wrong, may be able to prevent a second such outcome. They need to try.

FURTHER READING

PPI on Ukraine:

Tamar Jacoby leads PPI’s Kyiv-based New Ukraine Project.

… and recent pieces on Friday’s White House meeting and the February UN vote as an warning of the possible end of U.S. global leadership.

PPI President Will Marshall (July 2024) on Ukraine and NATO.

Ben Ritz on the modest budget impact of aid to Ukraine, and the very high cost failure might bring.

And Ed Gresser on economic trends and the impact of Ukraine’s Black Sea naval victory, with a point of departure in Ukraine’s large society of beekeepers and their 11-tons-of-honey-a-day American market.

Primary sources:

The UN Charter. Core sentence: “All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.”

President Zelenskyy’s Victory Plan, October 2024.

Ukrainian Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya at the UN Security Council, February 2022.

The Ukrainian Embassy has updates on home events and U.S.-Ukraine relations.

The State Department’s release on Rubio goals for Russia talks.

… Rubio/Waltz do their best to explain in Riyadh.

And a look back:

The Franklin D. Roosevelt Library remembers Lend-Lease.

Historian Susan Dunn on Roosevelt, Willkie, Lindbergh, the America First Committee, and the 1940 presidential election.

Churchill on the Munich Agreement, 1938.

And from an earlier generation, British historian A. L. Rowse recalls the 1930s in Appeasement: A Study in Political Decline. Two apposite quotes:

“The fundamental reason for the Second World War was the withdrawal of the United States out of the world-system: that, more than anything else, allowed the aggressors to get away with things.  Not all the mistakes this country [i.e. the UK] was responsible for in the 1920s and 1930s equaled the one enormous and irreparable error the United States made in contracting out of responsibility.”

“Whatever concessions were justifiable to Weimar Germany, no concessions should ever be made to Hitler.  That this was the right line to adhere to all the evidence now proves: hold the ring around Hitler’s Germany, and the break will come inside.”

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.

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FACT: The number of African American-owned exporters grew by 60% in 2022. (Most recent year available.)

THE NUMBERS: African American businesses exporting to Africa –

*   Census and BEA data collaboration

WHAT THEY MEAN:

A Black History Month look at U.S.-African trade and its role in the recent African American export boom:

As a point of departure, here’s then-President Bill Clinton peering into the future, as he signs the African Growth and Opportunity Act in the millennial spring of 2000:

“Sub-Saharan Africa is home to more than 700 million people [ed. note: now 1.25 billion], one of our biggest potential trade partners. I say potential because American exports now account for only 6 percent of the African market. This bill will surely change that as it expands Africa’s access to our markets and improves the ability of African nations to ease poverty, increase growth, and heal the problems of their people. It promotes the kinds of economic reform that will make sub-Saharan nations, on the long run, better allies, better trade partners, and stronger nations.”

Scrolling ahead a quarter-century: A unique Census Bureau/Bureau of Economic Analysis data collaboration, “U.S. Exporting Firms by Demographics,” provides the most detailed statistical portrait of a trading community anywhere in the world, with insights on exporting companies by size, export market, ownership by race and ethnicity, gender, veteran status, and more. Its count two years ago revealed an exceptionally severe blow to African American exporters during the COVID-19 pandemic. As economies worldwide closed the overall count of American exporting businesses fell by 17,000, or 5%. Loss counts varied by ownership but, in most cases, not by a lot: the Census/BEA counts of white-owned and women-owned exporters, for example, fell by 1.5% and 2%, that of Hispanic businesses dropped by 7%, and the number of Asian-American and Native American exporters remained stable. The African American exporting community, by contrast, lost a third of its members, contracting from 1,514 in 2019 to 1,001 in 2020.

The next edition, as we noted last February, found a modest but hopeful rebound in 2021, to 1,139. And the most recent, out three weeks ago, reports a surge to 1,802.  Its count of businesses and their $1.2 billion in exports — substantially driven by a boom in exports to African customers — are both the highest numbers in the six-year-old series. A table:

Policy likely helped support this strong recovery: Gina Raimondo’s Commerce Department made a concerted effort to raise the exporter count through more engagement with this and other “underserved” — women, rural, veterans, ethnic — communities through the Global Diversity Export Initiative. So did the economic environment across the Atlantic – Africa’s GDP growth is a point above the world rate, and the continental market is becoming simpler, more efficient, and easier for small businesses to manage as the African Continental Free Trade Area “AfCFTA” enters into force. African American firms seem to be tapping this opportunity especially quickly — almost 500 of the 1,802 exporters have African customers, and the African share of the total sales has jumped from 6% before the pandemic to 16%. A 2022 table by market:

In sum, very much the situation President Clinton imagined in which African growth supports American businesses and production, with particular (though by no means exclusive) benefits for the diaspora.

The cautionary notes in this relate more to policy than data or economics. Like all U.S. exporters, African American exporters are at risk of retaliation and loss of markets as the Trump administration threatens tariffs against America’s major trading partners. Mexico, Canada, and the EU, all recent targets, provide 40% of African American export earnings – a bit below the 50% for all U.S. businesses and far below Native American exporters’ 78%, but still a lot.  On a lesser but still important scale, it isn’t clear that the newly confirmed Commerce Secretary, Mr. Lutnick, will have the same interest in export promotion generally, or this community specifically, that his predecessor did. And the African Growth and Opportunity Act itself, now approaching its 25th anniversary and still the “foundation” of U.S.-Africa economic relations today, ends this September — which would mean some fraying of business ties — unless Congress renews it.

So a lot to do and some risk to manage. But still, a happy piece of transatlantic community-building, African/African American business success, and modern black history to record this February.

FURTHER READING

Data: 

From Census and BEA, “Demographics of Exporting Companies” data for 2022, with links to reports for 2017 through 2021.

Community links:

The Pew Center reports on America’s black-owned businesses.

The Brookings Institution finds a post-COVID boom in African American business startups.

The Hilltop, Howard University’s student paper, looks at the challenges and achievements of D.C.-area African American small businesses.

And also from the Pew Center, background and data on African and Caribbean immigrant families in the United States.

AGOA:

President Clinton at the AGOA signing ceremony, May 2000.

… and the U.S. Trade Representative Office’s 2024 AGOA report.

An origin point: 

If AGOA is the foundation of U.S.-African economic relations today, here’s a deep-past predecessor:  President Lincoln’s Ambassador to the U.K., Charles Francis Adams (yes, son of President John Quincy & grandson of Founder John) spent most of the autumn of 1862 facing down London Confederate sympathizers and outwitting would-be gun-runners. But he also took a week to inaugurate U.S. commercial diplomacy with sub-Saharan Africa, to join Maryland-born Liberian President Stephen Benson as signatories of the 1862 U.S.-Liberia Treaty of Amity and Commerce. Ambassador Adams’ private diary for that rainy October day (via the Massachusetts Historical Society) shows some emotion:

“I had received this week powers to negotiate a Treaty of commerce with the Republic of Liberia. I notified President Benson of the fact, and he came this day to see me about it. I gave him the form of Treaty he had first sent through me to Washington, modified as it came back to me, both of us be put into shape and executed early next week. He did so. Thus it seems that my name is to be on the first national act recognizing the restoration of the status of the Americo-African to a condition of equality with the White. I think it is an era in our history. We received the mail bags from America and found the news generally quiet cheerful. A long letter from Charles [Charles Jr., then a Union Army Lieutenant] to his mother, giving an interesting narrative of the whole campaign in Maryland, including the two great actions at South mountain and Antietam, which he witnessed. I returned thanks to God for all his mercies, and especially for his preservation thus far safe and well.”

And some then-and-now from Ghana, Ethiopia, and Madagascar: 

Dr. King reflects in 1957 on Ghanaian independence, transatlantic parallels between civil rights and decolonization, and the potential African American role in African economic development.

… and today’s Accra-based African Continental Free Trade Area Secretariat.

The Ethiopian Embassy recalls the launch of U.S.-Ethiopian trade and diplomacy in the 1903 Commercial Treaty signed by Ohio diplomat Robert Skinner and Emperor Menelik II – “King of Kings” by title, best remembered as war leader and preserver of Ethiopian independence, but also a capable commercial strategist when opportunity arose.

… and at its modern Addis Ababa HQ, the African Union on continental integration.

From 1867, the Treaty of Amity and Commerce with Queen Rasoherina’s Kingdom of Madagascar. Sample:

“Commerce between the people of America and Madagascar shall be perfectly free, with all the privileges under which the most favored nations are now or may hereafter be trading. Citizens of America shall, however, pay a duty, not exceeding ten per cent., on both exports and imports in Madagascar, to be regulated by a tariff mutually agreed upon, with the following exceptions: Munition of war, to be imported by the Queen of Madagascar into her dominions, or by her order. Prohibited from export by the laws of Madagascar are munition of war, timber, and cows. No other duties, such as tonnage, pilotage, quarantine, light-house dues, shall be imposed in ports of either country on the vessels of the other to which national vessels or vessels of the most favored nations shall not equally be liable.”

… and U.S. Amb. Claire Pierangelo (2023) applauds Madagascar’s success as an AGOA clothing exporter.

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.

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FACT: Foreign aid spending in 2023: 0.15% of GDP and 0.7% of the federal budget.

THE NUMBERS: In 2023 –

WHAT THEY MEAN:

Here’s Herbert Hoover arguing for food aid to Germany in 1920 as head of Woodrow Wilson’s post-WWI European famine relief program:

“No matter how deeply we may feel at the present moment, our vision must stretch over the next hundred years and we must write now into history such acts as will stand creditably in the minds of our grandchildren … Twenty million are starving. Whatever their politics, they will be fed.”

From this start, American foreign aid programs have lasted for the hundred years Hoover imagined. The large mile-markers — the Marshall Plan, John F. Kennedy’s creation of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in 1962 (the agency now under mysterious attack from the Trump administration), and the second Bush administration’s launch of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the Millennium Challenge Corporation — highlight a steady national commitment spanning lots of projects, long hardship-post and conflict assignments, some ideas that didn’t pan out, and many successes.

Last year, USAID oversaw a $35.4 billion budget supporting countries from Ukraine and Kenya to Jordan and Papua New Guinea, with the largest share going to HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention, and other lines supporting nutrition, humanitarian relief, primary education, economic growth, clean water, and more.  The administration’s attempt to dismantle the agency seems to rest on three arguments: claims of “fraud,” which appear to have no basis at all; the assertion that development and humanitarian relief are fiscally unaffordable (not correct, see below for some financials); and an argument that money doesn’t always go abroad but is at times spent in the United States.  Here’s a look, through the lens of USAID’s current work in one country:

Malawi, a landlocked African nation of 19 million people west of Mozambique and Tanzania, is one of the world’s seven most “rural” countries (82% of Malawians live on the land). It is also one of the world’s seven poorest countries, with an annual per capita income of $600. USAID’s program here, at $243 million in 2024, has two main focuses:

HIV/AIDS:  About half the Malawi budget, $143 million last year, goes to HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention via PEPFAR grants to support health education in high school, clinic support and medicine supply, and prevention of new infections in early childhood and children.  Over PEPFAR’s 20 years, Malawi’s HIV positivity rate is down by nearly half, from 13.1% to 7.1%. Sample from USAID grantees Ana Patsogolo Activity, whose work concentrates on education, awareness, and financial support for orphans, girls, and young women:

“Ana Patsogolo Activity (AP) seeks to bolster HIV prevention by decreasing young women’s reliance on transactional sex, strengthen their self-efficacy, independence, and decision-making, and serve as a bridge to wage employment or self-employment pathways for adolescent girls and young women. … APA’s enhanced package includes targeted content and strategies, namely: financial literacy for youth; voluntary savings and lending associations (VSLAs) [fpr youth] able to be employed and earn income; and locally based skills training in collaboration with rural community development agents and artisans. To support girls who are too young to engage in technical training or internships (i.e. the 10 – 14 age band), their caregivers are linked to VSLAs to improve household financial stability.”

Agricultural Development: Many Malawian smallholder farmers, formerly tobacco growers, are trying to diversify into healthier crops as worldwide smoking rates fall. “Feed the Future”, an agricultural development program run by USAID in partnership with the Department of Agriculture and other agencies, is helping them develop (or more accurately revive) a local Malawi peanut industry, with nuts destined in part for local sale and in part for export to other African markets.  Some USAID money for this project does indeed go to Americans at home – for example, to scientists at the University of Georgia – and for good reason.

Georgia is a state especially renowned for peanut farming. A USAID grant supports work at the Peanut Innovation lab to help aspiring Malawi peanut growers solve two problems: productivity and safety.  Malawi grows peanuts on 363,000 hectares of land, about the same as the U.S.’ 421,000 hectares, but gets only 381,000 tons of peanuts out of it — barely a fifth of the U.S.’ 1.9 million tons. Meanwhile, Malawi soil is unusually rich in an unpleasant substance called “aflatoxin” (a fungal chemical that raises the risk of liver disease), making its peanuts’ safety less reliable. USAID’s grant to the university helps apply Georgian farming techniques and science to both:

“Researchers in Malawi and the U.S. are working together to study the effects of pre- and post-harvest interventions in increasing peanut productivity and reducing aflatoxin contamination. Interventions being evaluated include planting and harvest dates and better row/plant spacing, improved disease and pest management, and several drying and storage options.  Researchers are also examining the levels of aflatoxin and microbial contamination in locally produced peanut products, an area of high concern for both local and international markets. Trainings for local producers, often women, aim to lower contamination levels and support the production of peanut products at much higher quality and food safety standards.”

Over the past seven years, this work and a similar soybean program with research based at the University of Illinois, has reached 565,660 Malawians, doubling income for the farmers in the program. And since 2020, a separate program, Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation, has been training Malawian officials and logistics professionals in port and customs, both to move crops out of the country to markets more easily and to facilitate the imports — machinery, fertilizer, pest control — that can help them find markets and buy useful inputs more cheaply.

In sum: In Malawi, USAID money aims to keep girls safe and improve the livelihoods of very poor farmers.  More generally, PEPFAR operates similar programs in 55 countries, and Feed the Future in 20. To the criticism that this sort of work — aflatoxin research, peanut pest management, health education for rural girls — is “fraud”: obviously not.  On the claim that it’s unaffordable: U.S. GDP is $28 trillion, and grows by about $2 trillion a year in nominal terms, while the overall U.S. budget is now about $7 trillion and rises by $200 billion to $300 billion a year because of rising retirement, health, and interest spending.  The USAID budget is stable and appropriated, about $0.04 trillion a year. By way of analogy, at 0.15% of GDP it has an impact similar to that a $120 movie-and-ice-cream outing might have on a median-income $80,610 family: not nothing, but fully affordable and not the cause of family financial trouble.  And if some of the money supports research and employment in Georgia: why would that be bad?

As with anywhere in government, aid projects should be well-designed, expenses controlled, and results more important than hopes. But none of this can justify abandoning a century of American commitment to the sick, the poor, and people in distress.  Put another way, as Mr. Hoover hoped, the famine relief program in the 1920s did, in fact, embody both practical ‘acts that stand up creditably’ to later scrutiny and a larger “vision” that continues to inspire a century later. The work of USAID staff on the ground on PEPFAR health support, in Feed the Future Innovation Labs, on economic growth, democratization, humanitarian relief, and more, is in that tradition. It, too, will stand up creditably in years ahead. Those trying to tear it down won’t.

FURTHER READING

Hoover looks back on the beginning of American humanitarian aid, 1914-1920.

… the National Archives reviews his Belgium relief program.

… and a century later, foreignassistance.gov tracks modern USAID and other agency spending levels, agency responsibilities, and projects.

Malawi background:

The University of Georgia’s Peanut Innovation Lab explains the Malawi peanut program.

A USAID grantee through PEPFAR, the Ana Patsogolo project, works to prevent HIV/AIDS infections in orphans, children, and young women, operating in Botswana, Uganda, and Eswatini as well as Malawi.

And the Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation helps upgrade customs and improve port efficiency.

PPI Perspectives:

PPI’s New Ukraine Project lead Tamar Jacoby has an up-close look at USAID in Ukraine.

And Paul Weinstein on the right approach to government reform.

And more on USAID:

The Democratic Voice of Burma records a quiet tragedy at the Umpiem Mai refugee camp just west of Myanmar, after a USAID-supported clinic had to close two weeks ago. Having lost access to her oxygen supplies, 71-year-old Pe Kha Lau died three days later.

A state-by-state look at USAID links to American businesses, universities, charities, and volunteer groups.

The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler dismantles the White House’s shoddily cherry-picked justifications for cutting USAID.

And the Center for Global Development’s Charles Kenny has both backstory on these particular projects and the larger picture.

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.

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FACT: Extra tariff costs for Valentine’s Day in 2026: $2.5 billion?

THE NUMBERS: Valentine product tariffs, now and (maybe) in 2026 – 

WHAT THEY MEAN:

Having dropped his campaign-era “stabilize prices and quickly bring down costs,” Mr. Trump’s plan — short form, “there may be some pain” — appears to be threatening tariffs against all and sundry: Colombia, steel, Canada, medicine, small packages, China, etc. We did predict this, and will look at the industrial side in a week or two in light of recent experience. (In short, with steel and aluminum in the news, the main result of the 2018 steel and aluminum tariffs appears to be a ~10% drop in U.S. use of the two metals.) But this Valentine’s eve, here’s a seasonal forward look at what lovers might expect.

The National Retail Federation predicts $27.5 billion in Valentine’s Day spending this year: $14.8 billion on the long-stemmed reds, the dark chocolate, the bling, and the scraps of silk, plus $6.8 billion on cards and evenings out and $6.9 billion on other miscellaneous gifts and entertainment. Using NRF’s predictions and administration hints at a worldwide 20% tariff, the “some pain” program seems likely to raise next year’s V-Day costs by about $2.5 billion. Here’s an explanation, starting with some practical background on tariff payments and how they affect retail prices, and then a look at the four standards:

A tariff is a tax on purchases of goods from abroad, paid by the U.S. buyer — a business or an individual — to Customs and Border Protection. For industrial buyers like auto parts manufacturers or home-builders, the check is part of production cost. For retailers like florists and lingerie shops, it’s part of the “landed cost” from which they mark up to the store price. Taking the hypothetical sweater example in PPI’s Joint Economic Committee testimony last month, and converting appropriately for the season:

Consider a container of $100,000 worth of these sweaters corsets, hypothetically valued at $10 each, arriving at the Long Beach container port from Vietnam this week for a retailer’s Christmas Valentine selection.  As the cranes move the container from ship to truck, the buyer reports the arrival to Customs and Border Protection and writes the agency a $19,700 $23,500 check, reflecting the 19.7% 23.5% tariff assigned to the sweaters corsets under HTS line 61051000 62123000. The price increase works like this:

The buyer then marks up from this $128,500 “landed cost” to profit a bit on each article.  In this case, the 23.5% tariff raises the landed cost, and a few days later, the cash register price, by about 22.8%. Dumping another 20% tax on top of this — another $20,000 check — raises the landed cost to $148,500, meaning tariffs would hike store prices by 46%.  Assuming tariffs raise store prices by a similar 90% of the actual tariff rate (though in practice this would vary based on freight costs — likely a bit higher for land cargo, and a bit lower for air freight):

Roses: Valentine flower spending is $2.9 billion, roughly a tenth of NRF’s $27.5 billion total.  February being a winter month, America’s 11,600 florists buy abroad: about two-thirds of the roses come from Colombia, and most of the rest from Ecuador. Colombian blooms get no tariff — there’s a free trade agreement — while buyers of Ecuadoran roses pay 6.5%. The florists pay about $140 million for flowers in the January/February season, and write CBP tariff-payment checks totaling about $7 million. Had Mr. Trump followed through on his 50% tariff threats against Colombia three weeks ago, they would have taken a $70 million hit, and the store price of a dozen long-stemmed reds would likely have jumped from the roughly $90 current national average to around $125 or $130. Next February, a 20% overall tariff would raise flower prices by perhaps $500 million.

Chocolate: All commercial chocolate ultimately comes from abroad — mostly from West Africa. Patterns are complex, with U.S. chocolatiers buying lots of cocoa beans and paste to make candy and syrup, retailers bringing in boxes of high-end European confectionery, and the chocolate trade regime a maze of sugar and dairy quotas as well as tariffs. To simplify, chocolate confectionery has a 5.6% tariff and import value of $1.3 billion last year. A 20% new tariff might cost buyers $220 million for confectionery only, or $400 million if it hits early enough to raise U.S. manufacturers’ bean, butter, and paste costs.

Diamonds: Jewelry purchases come to $6.5 billion. As with chocolate, virtually all gems come from abroad — diamonds mainly from kimberlite pipes beneath Botswana and South Africa, and colored stones variously from Colombia (emeralds), Thailand and Sri Lanka (sapphires), and Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar (rubies). Uncut gems are duty-free, while jewelry usually has tariffs from 5.0% to 6.5%, depending on the metal involved. A 20% tariff might hike costs by a billion dollars, depending again on whether it hits early enough to hit New York diamond-cutters as well as jewelry retail.

Lingerie: Lingerie spending by NRF’s estimate will be about $1.6 billion. Asian seamstresses stitch most of the ladies’ underwear worn in the United States, with China providing half and Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia most of the rest.  Trade policy is puritanically tough here, with underwear tariffs averaging 13% — nearly six times the overall U.S. 2.4% average — and (as we’ve earlier noted with strong disapproval) quietly taxing women’s at 15.5% and men’s only 11.5%. With annual lingerie tariff charges already about $650 million, a new 20% tariff might raise prices by $1 billion.

In sum: In love gifts as in industrial metals, the likely outcome is higher prices, then less purchasing. Money isn’t everything, of course. If they’re priced out of higher-cost roses and jewelry next February, younger and lower-income couples can still exchange cards and remind each other that “it’s the thought that counts.” But they might also want to know who’s responsible.

FURTHER READING

The USITC on steel and aluminum.

… NRF’s 2025 V-Day forecast.

PPI background:

December testimony to the Joint Economic Committee on likely impacts of tariff hikes.

On tariffs and prices, from last August: “Trust Alice, not the Queen.”

And our four principles for response to tariffs and economic isolationism. TL/DR:

• Defend the Constitution and oppose attempts to rule by decree.

• Connect tariffs and trade policy to growth, work, prices and family budgets, and living standards.

• Stand by America’s neighbors and allies.

• Offer a positive alternative.

More on flowers:

Our Valentine’s look last year at rose trade.

And 2025 advice from the Society of American Florists.

More on gems: 

Still duty-free for now — the Bangkok Gem and Jewelry Fair opens next week.

You probably can’t afford this one even without a tariff — the Motswedi, a 2,492-carat Botswana diamond found last summer.

More on chocolate:

Top-end French chocolatier Valrhona.

Ghana’s Cocoa Board on chocolate history worldwide and in West Africa:

And an underwear reprise:

Washington Post writer Catherine Rampell on our 2023 V-Day blast against the unfair, gender-biased U.S. underwear tariff system.

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.

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FACT: Canada, Mexico, and China are the U.S.’ three largest trading partners

THE NUMBERS: Temperature tonight in Lewiston, Maine – -5°

* Accuweather forecast. Minus five degrees in Fahrenheit system; Celsius equivalent -20°.

WHAT THEY MEAN:

Following up on our statement on Mr. Trump’s attempt to raise tariffs on products from Canada, Mexico, and China last Saturday — a 10% tax on smartphones, laptops, and other Chinese-assembled products in place and 25% taxation of Canadian and Mexican-made stuff perhaps in a few weeks — here  are PPI’s four principles for response to tariffs and economic isolationism:

• Defend the Constitution and oppose attempts to 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.

Regrettably, we’ll likely have a lot to say about these this year. Others, too. Here for example is Iowa Senator Charles Grassley on Monday, connecting tariffs to the daily farm economics:

“I plead w/ President Trump to exempt potash from the tariff because family farmers get most of their potash from Canada.”

Similar notes from other Republican Senators: Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) worries about the loss of 80% of North Dakota’s export trade as, provoked beyond their normal good nature, Canadians publish retaliation lists; Susan Collins (R-Maine) thinks of Maine businesses and (noting this week’s Arctic-level Lewiston thermometer readings) fears a sudden spike in home heating bills:

“The Maine economy is integrated with Canada, our most important trading partner. Certain tariffs will impose a significant burden on many families, manufacturers, the forest products industry, small businesses, lobstermen, and agricultural producers. For example, 95 percent of the heating oil used by most Mainers to heat their homes comes from refineries in Canada.”

To put a number on this, Maine bought $2.73 billion worth of fuel oil, mostly for heating oil from Canada last year, so Mr. Trump’s midwinter 10% energy tariff would have hit the state’s 590,000 households with a new $270 million bill.

These tariff threats were only temporarily withdrawn Monday evening, though, and return in three weeks.  So before they do, some stats on their potential impact for energy, food, consumer goods, and industrial supply costs in the United States; then a thought on the options open to the Senators and Reps. making these sorts of complaints.

Crude oil: Canada supplies about 60% of America’s crude oil imports, and Mexico another 10%. Even setting aside refined products like New England’s home heating oil, the two countries together provide about 30% of the crude oil American refineries use for gasoline, jet fuel, and locally refined heating oil. The value of crude alone last year came to $107 billion, meaning a 25% tariff at face value raises the refineries’ bills by about $27 billion, with the bill coming due later on for families at gas stations and in heating bills.

Toys: China ships about 80% of U.S. toys — $12 billion in 2023 — and Mexico another 5%, suggesting higher costs for birthday parties this spring and Christmas presents further ahead.

Phones and TV sets: China likewise supplies about 80% of the smartphones sold in the U.S. (with Vietnam and India as the other two suppliers). For TV sets, the Chinese share is a more modest 50%, and the Mexican share is 10%.

Groceries: Mexico is the U.S.’ top source of winter vegetables and fruit, supplying grocery stores with about $2.5 billion worth of fresh produce each month in wintertime. Last month, we noted that in February of 2024, this came to 188,640 tons of tomatoes, 128,330 tons of peppers, 106,460 tons of avocadoes, and 44,440 tons of lemons and limes. Here are some more February 2024 purchases: 44,000 tons of fresh strawberries and 26,000 tons of raspberries, 110,000 tons of jalapenos and other chili peppers, and 97,450 tons of cucumbers. One could go on.

Auto parts: Of the $139 billion worth of auto parts American factories and repair shops bought last year from abroad, $65 billion worth came from Mexico, $16 billion from Canada, and $12 billion from China. So expect your U.S.-made car to cost more and your repair bills to rise along with the gas prices.

The toy/phone/TV tariffs may or may not stay on, and the threats to impose tariffs by decree on purchases from Canada and Mexico come back in three weeks.  What then are the Senators’ options? Their concern about rising costs for farmers and lobster boat captains, cold homes, threats to jobs, and stretched family budgets is actually linked very closely to the first principle of response — defend the Constitution and oppose attempts to rule by decree. The Constitution’s tariff clause is not at all blurry: “Congress shall have the Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts, and Excises.” So Republican Senators and Representatives have no need to plead for special carveouts and exemptions. They have all the power they need to keep potash and heating oil prices down, and to preserve Congress’ constitutional authority from Mr. Trump’s power grab, by voting. They just need to use it.

FURTHER READING

Trump administration “Fact Sheet” on tariffs:

… vs. Constitution, see Article 1, Section 8, assigning Congress power over “Taxes, Duties, Imposts, and Excises”.

… Canada retaliation list.

A Congressional perspective: 

A statement from the New Democrat Coalition.

And a preventive for this sort of stunt:

Reps. Suzanne DelBene (D-Wash.) and Don Beyer (D-Va.) have a bill to ban the use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (designed for response to the outbreaks of wars, pandemics, and so on) for creating tariff systems.

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.

Read the full email and sign up for the Trade Fact of the Week.

FACT: U.S. drug overdose deaths down 21.7% from 2023 to 2024. 

THE NUMBERS: CDC estimates of U.S. deaths by drug overdose –

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.

Read the full email and sign up for the Trade Fact of the Week.