The following is testimony submitted by Edward Gresser, on behalf of the Progressive Policy Institute, at a public hearing convened by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative on May 2, 2024. The hearing is meant to help inform USTR and other agencies with trade responsibilities working with the White House Council on Supply Chain Resilience, formed in November 2023, to oversee efforts to reduce risk in U.S. supply chains for semiconductors, critical minerals, medical goods, and other products.
Thank you very much for this opportunity to testify this morning, as the U.S. Trade Representative Office and other agencies consider supply chains, their implications for the U.S. economy, and associated policy. By way of introduction, I am Vice President of the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) in Washington, D.C., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit research institution established in 1989, which publishes a wide range of public policy topics. Before joining PPI, I served at USTR from 2015 to 2021 as Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics, with responsibility for overseeing USTR’s economic research and use of trade data, interagency policy coordination including chairing the interagency Trade Policy Staff Committee, and administration of the Generalized System of Preferences.
I applaud the agency for thinking systemically about the way trade and investment policy mesh with logistics and production choices, and the way both public and private-sector decisions might affect the security of U.S. industry in unexpected shocks. And I share the view implicit in the March 7 Federal Register Notice (FRN) which announced this hearing, that recent experience, including the COVID-19 pandemic, offers important perspective on the topic. My testimony will offer some general thoughts on these matters (from the point of view of a policy analyst and former government official rather than someone professionally involved in supply chain design or management), and share views on questions 8, 9, and 11 of the FRN on business sourcing choices, ‘rules of origin’ in free trade agreements, and data that might help inform policymaking.
